He Went Where No President Dared to Go. New York’s Choice: Cuomo or Socialism. Courageous BBC Newsreader Says Pregnant WOMEN. And More
Well, a lot—meaning everything—has changed since we last met on Friday.
Donald Trump has done something that no previous president dared: gambled his presidency on turning Iran, otherwise stuck in the 7th century, into a non-nuclear country.
“Trump Meets the Moment on Iran” is the headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial that went up yesterday. The editors write:
President Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s three most significant nuclear sites on Saturday helped rid the world of a grave nuclear threat and was a large step toward restoring U.S. deterrence. It also creates an opportunity for a more peaceful Middle East, if the nations of the region will seize it. …
Much of the press has fixated on the idea that Mr. Trump has now joined or even started a conflict. But Iran has been waging regional and terrorist war for decades. It’s as likely that he has helped end it. Leaving Iran with a hardened nuclear enrichment facility after an Israeli military campaign would have been a recipe for maximum danger, all but asking Iran to sprint to a bomb. …
… The Obamaites of the left, and lately of the right, counseled that the world had to bow to Iranian intimidation. The best we could hope for was a flimsy deal that bribed Iran with billions of dollars and left open its path to a bomb. They were wrong, and the world is safer for it.
The New York Post’s Miranda Devine writes that the “spectacular” strikes “could carve [Trump’s] place in history as the most courageous leader since Ronald Reagan.” The editors of The Free Press weigh in, arguing that the world is a safer place because President Trump kept a promise to never allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.
In “Five Takes on Bombing Iran,” Glenn Reynolds celebrated U.S. military competence and a new kind of diplomacy. He also celebrated “the humiliation of the foreign policy establishment,” showing a picture of the George W. foreign policy team in the Situation Room with an X post by someone named Nioh Berg:
Imagine taking a time machine back to 2001 and telling these guys that the Apprentice host will be the one to bomb Iran.
Sohrab Ahmari and several others at Unherd express the fear that after the U.S. strikes, the Iran situation could spin out of control. Iran’s Parliament has voted to close the Strait of Hormuz, but an editorial in the Wall Street Journal argues that this could seriously backfire on Iran.
Critics of the strikes want to impeach Trump (bo-ring) over what they say is a violation of the War Powers Act (in itself controversial). Rep. Jasmine Crockett is furious that Trump didn’t give her a “holla” before launching one of the most secret endeavors in American history. But George Washington University law school professor and Fox Contributor Jonathan Turley notices that they didn’t mind when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did the same thing. Hot Air also takes note of this “breathtaking hypocrisy,” recalling Mrs. Clinton’s “We came, we saw, he [Muammar Qaddafi] died.”
Meanwhile, Dmitri Medvedev, former president of Russia and current Deputy Chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, says that other countries will share their nukes with Iran, casually acknowledging for the first time that, yep, nuclear enrichment is just for weapons. Jay Solomon of The Free Press reports that Iran may have spirited nuclear equipment to another location before the U.S. strike. Michael Brendan Dougherty sees a danger in escalation and “mission creep.” President Trump is now hinting at regime change (as in “Make Iran Great Again”), which Politico says “muddies” the administration’s message. Victor Davis Hanson poses 10 questions about Iran.
Somebody had to do it: Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to set Face the Nation’s poor Margaret Brennan straight on why the key issue is not whether the Supreme Leader had already ordered that the regime start on nuclear bombs. “You don’t know what you are talking about,” the Secretary said. For some unknown reason, people keep saying that to Margaret. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“Why Trump Bombed Iran”) might prove immensely helpful to Margaret.
The New York mayor’s race could be affected by the Iran strikes, with the two leading candidates, former Governor Andrew Cuomo and radical, pro-Palestine socialist Zohran “Globalize the Intifada” Mamdani, offering starkly different takes. The New York Times asked prominent New Yorkers—celebrities or near celebrities—to share their ranked ballots. Cuomo had better hope business leaders outnumber celebs in tomorrow’s primary. The Nation’s aristo-lefty Katrina vanden Heuvel crows in the Guardian that New York “might elect a truly progressive mayor—thanks to ranked voting.” AOC has endorsed Mamdani, too.
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal argues that the mayoral election is “between Cuomo and Socialism.” Neither, the editors suggest, is a great option. Cuomo left the governor’s job in disgrace:
So why are many Democrats now rallying around Mr. Cuomo to be New York City’s next mayor?
Well, one reason is his main competitor in Tuesday’s Democratic primary: Polling at No. 2 is a literal socialist, 33-year-old Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. He promises to freeze rent for two million residents. He wants to open city-run grocery stores. He pledges free buses and free childcare beginning at six weeks of life. He’d jack up taxes on businesses, while raising the top income tax in New York City, state plus local, to 16.78% from 14.78%.
The risk is New York could spiral into the kind of disorder from which Mayor Rudy Giuliani saved it starting in 1994. Manhattanites are warning that Mr. Mamdani’s ruinous utopianism could prompt a flight of talent and capital, since many won’t stick around to be punished.
Remember all those “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essays you had to write in elementary school? Well, the LA Times’ Jackie Calmes has written the adult lefty version of your elementary school essay. “How I Spent My Summer Vacation—Watching America Slide into Autocracy” is Calmes’ offering. Calmes has joined the ranks of those who “live in fear for their freedoms.” She recounted the story of Senator Alex Padilla, who was wrestled to the ground by Secret Service agents after he lunged at Secretary Kristi Noem (Calmes didn’t quite describe it that way), leading Padilla to say we live under a tyrant. Something even worse happened to the not publicity-shy Senator. Vice President J.D. Vance forgot his name. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Senator Padilla isn’t the only Dem who’s been handcuffed in recent weeks. USA TODAY’s Ingrid Jacques points out that Dem officials are going out of their way to get themselves arrested at ICE facilities. Jacques’ excellent column is headlined “Trump Is Winning on Immigration. And Democrats Are Falling Right into His Trap.”
Hooray for Good Guys with Guns—a Deacon with a Car: A church has been spared the tragedy of a mass shooting. I gotta say I loved this account of how the church was saved (via PJ Media):
An active church shooting was stopped by church staff when the suspect was shot and killed by two armed security guards after a deacon hit him with his car.
The attempted shooter opened fire at CrossPointe Church in Wayne, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, on June 22 at around 11:15 a.m. during a special vacation Bible School service, law enforcement told 7 News Detroit.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said that an FBI team was on the scene assisting local law enforcement.
Imagine what would have happened if there weren’t armed defenders of the church present. And kudos to the Deacon!
“The Eyeroll that Spoke for a Nation“: Kudos, too, to the BBC newsreader who rolled her eyes when substituting “pregnant women” for “pregnant people.” Also not to be missed at Spiked Online is Stella O’Malley’s “No More Experiments on Children,” which argues against the irreversible damage of puberty blockers.
