Good Riddance to Harry & Meghan. Is Iran Losing the Strait? Why the Radical Left Hates Cops and Jews. Employer Insurance and Gender Surgery for Dependent Kids. Aide-gate. More
We did it, America!
It only took us 250 years, but we finally chased the last remnant of Brit royal hangers-on from our shores: Harry and Meghan are going back to the U.K.
People magazine had the scoop: “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to Make Shocking Move Back to the U.K. with Kids Archie and Lilibet”:
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are relocating with Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, to the U.K. for an extended period beginning this month, PEOPLE understands, with the children set to begin school there in September.
King Charles was made aware of the couple’s plans on Sunday, August 16, PEOPLE understands, and welcomes the opportunity to see more of the Sussex family in a private and personal capacity.
Charles is said to have been clear there will be no change to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s status as private individuals and non-working members of the royal family, in keeping with the wishes they expressed and the agreement reached when they stepped back from royal duties.
Those close to Harry believe his recent visit to Britain reflects his conviction that the more the public interacts with Meghan, the more they appreciate her….
Hmm. Ms. Must thinks Harry has the wrong end of the stick here. Increased exposure to Meghan tends to have the opposite effect. Meanwhile, “The Return will be Duchess’s biggest challenge yet,” suggests the headline on royal expert Camilla Tominey’s Telegraph piece. Initially, the latest Sussex update was difficult to absorb:
Talk about a marmalade dropper. If you were breakfasting in Montecito when the news broke, you could have been forgiven for spitting out your As Ever jam (t’interweb still drowning in $12 jars).
Yet when you get over the shock of it, when you come to terms with the pure cheek of it, is it actually all that surprising?
I appreciate that the couple left the UK because of its evil media and racist Royal family. The “truth”, according to the Sussexes, was that Meghan was almost driven to suicide by living in this green and pleasant land, with its unconscious bias towards white people like William and Kate.
Prince William has not been on speaking terms with his brother for years. So, King Charles is probably not the only member of the royal family to have had his Sunday ruined. You might also enjoy “Get the Barf Bag Ready: Harry and Meghan Are Moving Back to UK — and Wait, Trump’s to Blame?“
Is it time for President Trump to launch his own Biden-style Basement Campaign? I fear that Wall Street Journal political columnist Karl Rove is suggesting just that (“Midterm Lessons from Bush to Trump“). Rove writes:
You can imagine how Mr. Trump wants this campaign season to roll out. He wants to fly from rally to rally, inserting himself in the middle of every important contest—he’s headed to South Carolina Friday presumably to do just that. In battleground states and districts, the president will walk on stage to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.,” then launch into an hour-plus of pontificating, warning of the dangers of the “Dumocrats,” and predicting “nothing but death, squalor, poverty” if these “communists” get elected. The crowds will go wild.
A far better course would be to minimize the president’s political profile after Labor Day. Mr. Trump is unpopular. His approval in the RealClearPolitics average is 39%. A season of political rallies won’t improve that. Less campaigning might.
Florida’s primaries remain topic A. “Byron Donalds and Florida’s Future” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial. Rep. David Jolly, the Democratic candidate for Governor, who will go against Donalds, is a more an establishment Democrat than socialist Angie Nixon who won the Democratic Senate nomination:
As November approaches, the contrast between Mr. Jolly and Ms. Nixon could make for a fascinating campaign. The Democratic Party has been veering left, with nobody manning the brake. Will Mr. Jolly try? It’s hard to imagine Florida’s electorate is eager to go along for the ride. Enough of the state’s voters, including Cuban-Americans, already have enough experience with socialism.
The Wall Street’s Kimberley Strassel looks at the Florida primary results across the board today with special focus on—populist—right contender James Fishback, who made a surprisingly abysmal showing in his race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. “For elected Republicans flirting with progressive populism,” the Fishback lost is a warning sign, according to Strassel.
Hold on to Your Bonnets. “Trump’s Iran Strategy May Actually Be Working” is the headline on a National Review story by Noah Rothman. Rothman writes:
CNN could not independently verify Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s claim that “combined oil transits through the strait and rerouted around the waterway totaled around 15 million barrels per day,” which approaches the pre-war average of 20-million barrels. But it couldn’t gainsay the experts. As one industry analyst conceded, “It increasingly looks like Iran has at least partially lost control of the strait.”
The Iranian regime is feeling the pain.
Meanwhile, a CNN contribution, by David Goldman, has this encouraging headline: “Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz.”
Progressives may be thwarted (but not enough, alas) in their attempt to raise and impose new taxes on absolutely everything. “It’s Hard to Tax Things That Move,” is the headline on an op-ed by University of California at Irvine economist Richard B. McKenzie:
They miss an important economic reality. Their policy dreams will be checked by a force as unrelenting as it is unheralded: the growing mobility of capital, over which they will have shrinking influence. They risk becoming like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom Florida’s Chamber of Commerce crowned “Florida’s Economic Developer of the Year” for inducing New York City wealth to move south.
Another disappointment for the radical left: “‘Late Capitalism’ Is Nonsense,” according to James B. Meigs. “Using the phrase is a dead giveaway that you’re smug and overeducated,” argues Meigs.
“How the Anticop Left Embraced Antisemitism,” by Edward Conlon, a former cop. He writes:
Police departments represent one thing to their critics: state power. If you hate the state, you hate the people hired to enforce its laws. “The Jews” serve as symbolic villains for a bewilderingly contradictory collection of theological, social and political views. They are somehow behind both international finance and international communism. In the antisemitic imagination, Jews can stand for anything.
Zohran Mamdani made the connection in a 2023 statement at a Democratic Socialists of America convention, which resurfaced during his campaign for New York mayor last year: “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.”
This isn’t the language of policy debate. It’s an ideology that frames its opponents as agents of irredeemably sinister forces, for whom reform is neither desirable nor feasible.
Hence the acronym “ACAB,” meaning “All Cops Are Bastards,” that proliferated across social media and on signs at protest marches in the summer of 2020…
The obligatory phrase in reporting from the era [the summer of 2020], “mostly peaceful protesters”—technically accurate but analogous to describing Luigi Mangione as “mostly nonmurderous”—reluctantly admits that more than a few in the crowds weren’t motivated by their better angels.
“Gender Surgery for Minors Faces a Legal Reckoning,” by David H. Napier in City Journal has encouraging news: “A new Justice Department brief gives employers good reason to reconsider coverage of gender-transition procedures for minor dependents.”
Newest Chapter in War on Conservative Women. I wrote about Natalie Harp, the aide to President Trump, who was catapulted to national notoriety after Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff unaccountably and out of nowhere attacked her. Now we are treated to another privacy shattering USA TODAY story featuring Ms. Harp’s brother speculating that his sister “has an obsession” with the president. Obviously, neither the brother nor the Senator is a gentleman.
I’m going way over budget this morning to quote from a London Spectator story that is positive about both the President and the aide:
She is the perfect secretary to the CEO of America. Trump doesn’t trust men and enjoys the platonic company of women. “The girls,” as he called them back in his Apprentice years, have always had a special role to play in his career. Trump’s critics often sexualize these relationships. Yet they seem emotional more than physical.
Susie Wiles, for example, exercises a bizarre hold over Trump and has earned her the title of Trump whisperer. Ivanka, during the first term, played a similar role: listening, soothing and deftly exercising the President’s will. So too, in her own unique way, did Kellyanne Conway. Matriarchal authority mixed with filial devotion is an essential component of the Trump machine.
For all the rumor and innuendo, Trump is a man who respects feminine power. And it helps that Natalie Harp isn’t married to Jared Kushner. She doesn’t take days off to go to family weddings in the Bahamas. She doesn’t leave his side.
Three cheers for women who like men and men who like women!
