Is There Still Such a Thing as a Career-Ending Scandal? Hot Times in Ice-Free Zone. Recipe for Assassinations? Oct. 7. And More
Have you no sense of decency, Sir? What a silly question.
An editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal examines the status of Jay Jones, candidate for the highest law enforcement official in the state of Virginia, and asks:
Does politics still recognize such a thing as a career-ending scandal? Jay Jones is the Democratic nominee for Virginia Attorney General. The question is whether he will remain that for long, after reports on a shocking series of text messages he sent in 2022, months after he resigned a state legislative seat.
Jones’ message concerned former Republican Speaker of the Virginia House, Todd Gibert, about whose assassination he fantasized. I would think the following sentiments might be cause for alarm in a state’s top lawyer:
The lawmaker who was sent these messages pushed back, writing that Mr. Jones had made a comment on the phone about hoping Mr. Gilbert’s children died. “Yes, I’ve told you this before,” Mr. Jones replied. “Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
Would you like for this man to decide which legal cases the state brings? “Associated Press: Republicans Are Seizing on Jay Jones’s Desire to Murder His Opponents” is a Hot Air headline.
Even in the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk and worries about an “assassination culture,” the Virginia Democratic establishment is tepid. A story at The Federalist convincingly argues that the mainstream media is downplaying Jones’ assassination fantasies “because they agree with him.” Jones’ texts “are a frightening peek into a bleak moral worldview,” according to National Review’s wonderful Jeffrey Blehar.
Meanwhile, Martin Gurri urges us to “resist the moral rot that has the left cheering for the death of its opponents“:
The age of Trump has crushed the extreme left’s utopian dreams — and the left has responded with pathological behavior….
But here’s the tricky part: If we fixate totally on those who hate us, we’ll end up as haters ourselves.
If we begin to treat American politics as a contest to the death, we’ll fulfill the fondest wishes of the progressive left — and even the most trivial disputes in our society will come to resemble the poisonous quarrel of two scorpions in a bottle.
Illinois Governor and 2028 hopeful JB Pritzker has lost his legal challenge to the Trump administration’s sending the National Guard to Chicago (for now). But not to worry. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has established an “ICE-free zone.” Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York has an excellent column on this. York asks the big question:
Why do these Democrat-controlled cities invest such energy and passion in defending illegal immigration? It started before Trump became president but has escalated enormously since then. Some of it is just blind opposition to the current president. Some of it is politics and the hope that their side will be strengthened politically by the presence of illegal immigrants. Some of it is an apparent belief that enforcing federal immigration law is a racist act. And some of it is probably pure emotion.
Mayor Johnson reportedly ordered Chicago police not to help ICE agents surrounded by a ravening mob. An alleged Chicago gangster is apparently taking advantage of the situation by offering generous bounties to kill federal border agents. On top of it all, Mayor Johnson is making odd remarks about a Civil War redo.
Meanwhile, the partial shutdown of the federal government continues. Fox columnist Liz Peek suggests that the Schumer shutdown is President Trump’s best hope to drain the swamp.
Today is October 7—two years after Hamas’ terror attack and atrocities against Israel. The peace talks are ongoing, as are hopes for Hamas to release the hostage. Here is the harrowing story of one hostage who was released. A woman whose husband remains a hostage says that President Trump has given her hope. Trump brought Hamas to the table; I must confess nervousness as to whether he can pull off the release of the remaining hostages.
The odd thing about October 7 is that the supposedly civilized world didn’t turn on Hamas—quite the opposite. Douglas Murray writes in the Free Press that Israel won the war, but the West is surrendering to her enemies. Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker writes about the explosion of antisemitism in the U.K.:
For their sake, I hope there aren’t many optimistic Jews left in Europe. Their thinning ranks will surely have been reduced further by last week’s murder of a man at a synagogue in Manchester, England, during services for Yom Kippur, and the death of another, shot by police as they tried to eliminate the suspect. Pessimists will have listened to the rote denunciations from political leaders and media figures, the minute’s silence for the victims at weekend soccer games, the official affirmations that Britain is a peaceful, tolerant, multicultural nation—and quickly intensified their research into visa and immigration requirements around the world. …
It is, as usual, the Jews who are the immediate casualties of this extremist ideological tide. As so often in history, their peril is a signal of the menace to civilization itself.
David Christopher Kaufman of the London Telegraph asserts that, horrifyingly, Hamas’ attack created “a political movement that in New York City is sweeping everything before it.” Kaufman daringly insists that Oct. 7 gave rise to New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, the overwhelming favorite. Kauffman writes:
For the anti-Zionists, this has manifested in feminists and LGBTs chanting in support of a jihadi death cult that would think very little of killing them in the name of its twisted morality. In Mamdani’s case, it has seen middle-class Gothamites cheering on a candidate who has campaigned against the very forces of law and order that make possible their own comparatively comfortable lives….
“It’s Not Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Party Anymore” is the headline on a highly recommended City Journal story. The authors explain how New York’s Democratic Party came to embrace anti-Zionism. Another worthy City Journal piece explains how Mamdani’s proposal to phase out the “Gifted and Talented” program in New York’s public schools will hurt students. But why would Mamdani destroy gifted programs? Miranda Devine asks the question and provides a chilling answer.
In “Brett Kavanaugh’s Would-be Assassin Gets Time Off for Trans Behavior,” National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar (congrats on two Must mentions today, Jeffrey) quotes the New York Times report on the Judge’s rationale for giving Nicholas Roske—who now wants to be called Sophie—an absurdly light sentence:
The judge also said that a lower sentence was warranted because of an executive order issued by President Trump mandating that transgender women be held at male-only federal facilities, which she said could interfere with her continuing to receive gender transition care.
Blehar comments:
I am so stunned by this logic that I nearly lack for words. In a way, I hope that the multifaceted, vile absurdity of these paragraphs speaks for itself. But at the risk of sacrificing my typical elegance for a blunt list of grievances, I will spell it out: This sentence is a recipe for judicial assassinations.
The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Hennessey reminds us (pace the judge and mainstream media) that Roske is a man. We don’t have to pretend otherwise. Hennessey concludes:
Perhaps experts in psychiatry and criminology will begin exploring the obvious but poorly understood connections among mental illness, radical trans ideology and the recent upsurge in political violence. In the meantime, the Trump administration has done a public service by refusing to bow before the liberal consensus that people can change their sex. That has released the rest of us from the obligation to play along
I didn’t get up this morning with a plan to write about assassination culture. The subject was simply unavoidable. But let’s try for something exciting in a good way: Bari Weiss’ ascent to editor-in-chief at CBS. As I said yesterday, this is revolutionary. “Does Bari Weiss Prove Woke Media Is Collapsing? “is the title of a Reason panel. Weiss explains the future of The Free Press (no paywall this week, by the way!).
