Issue: Foreign Affairs

Well, the U.S. certainly bent over backwards to give peace a chance.

Iran. Not so much. Resumed strikes by both countries are the result (here, here, here, here, and here). I guess you could say that we’re giving war another chance.

A Wall Street Journal editorial headlined “Trump Tells the Truth About Iran” is the newspaper’s Editorial Board’s response to renewed military hostilities:

In June Mr. Trump called Iran’s new leaders “very rational people” who were “nice to deal with.” Vice President JD Vance, the lead U.S. negotiator, insisted that even the thugs atop the Revolutionary Guard Corps want to “turn over a new leaf” with the U.S.

This Age of Innocence lasted all of three weeks. Perhaps Mr. Vance will tell us why he believed that and whether he still does. Asked on Wednesday what changed his view of Iran’s leaders, Mr. Trump answered: “I got to know them.”

The question is what the President will do with that knowledge. He said talks could continue but added, “I’m not sure I want to make a deal. Let’s just finish the job.” That won’t get done with on-again, off-again talks and tit-for-tat bombing. Any U.S. action risks escalation, so it had better be with a strategic purpose.

The U.S. is striking targets near the all-important Strait of Hormuz:

This was the second day in a row that the U.S. had attacked Iranian targets in what U.S. officials say is an effort to stop Tehran from striking commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The funeral of the late Supreme Leader made Iran appear united and just as powerful as before the war. The Free Press suggests that it was a Potemkin funeral. In “The Iran the Funeral Cameras Don’t Show,” Masih Alinejab writes:

… Don’t take what you’re seeing at face value.

In the months since Khamenei’s death, I have received hundreds of messages from friends and contacts inside Iran. They are not messages of grief but of disbelief, relief and, when people feel safe enough, joy. A woman from Isfahan told me in March that she had been dancing in the street with strangers. A man in Tehran sent a voice note laughing so hard he could barely speak. Then he caught himself: “Don’t use my name.”

He was still afraid. They are always afraid.

The regime has always “used mass mobilization as a proof of legitimacy.” The Free Press shows how the spectacle was put on and takes us to places the cameras don’t go. Aaron MacLean in the same outlet argues: “The president has to choose between four options on the Strait of Hormuz. None of them are pain-free.” Meanwhile, the president says Iran has called and … they want to make a deal.

The Wall Street Journal has a tick-tock on Oval Office discussion that led to the breakdown of the deal. I wonder if your reaction will be the same as mine: Look out, JD. Rubio stock rising.

Beware Qataris Bearing Gifts? President Trump was forced to use the old Air Force One instead of the shiny new one gifted by the Qatari government to leave the NATO Ankara summit.

Maine’s Nazi tattoo guy officially dropped out of the race to unseat Maine’s moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins. The (satirical—but just barely) Babylon Bee reacts:

Democrats Quietly Add ‘Have You Raped Anyone?’ To Questionnaire for Aspiring Candidates

Politico, which helped torpedo Platner’s candidacy, chronicles what happened “inside the tense final hours of Graham Platner’s campaign.”

The New York Post’s Miranda Devine’s headline reads: “Slimy Dems — the party of Me Too — show their true colors in Graham Platner scandal.” Fun: The Washington Free Beacon highlights the 2028 Dems who disgraced themselves to defend erstwhile candidate Graham Platner. Big Three: Ro Khanna, Ruben Gallego, and Elizabeth Warren. Ms. Must also disgraced herself yesterday: I don’t know how I did it, but I mixed up New York Times Michelles—Cottle and Goldberg—in an item commenting on the Free Beacon’s story on Michelle Goldberg’s reluctant disillusion with Platner. Apologies to both Michelles.

Nice Try. You’ve got to hand it to ingenious Dems, who attempt to paint warnings about the socialist surge in their party as old-fashioned red-baiting (here and here). Political guru Karl Rove, however, writes that the socialists spell trouble for the Dems:

Socialists running in deep-blue districts can keep saying outrageous things and win. But it’s places like Colorado’s Eighth District, pitting the former Army helicopter pilot against the leftist Yale law graduate, that will decide which party runs the House. Game on!

Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley takes us beyond the immediate electoral aspects of the socialist surge with a column headlined “Socialism and the Decline of the Black Family.” Riley writes:

Conservatives are right to be concerned about the impact on our free-market capitalist system if enough people with such views are elected to positions of power. But socialism’s impact on the traditional family structure is no less concerning….

But socialists such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels dismissed the traditional family as a tool of oppression that advanced the patriarchy by exploiting the domestic labor of women. Similar thinking informs today’s politicians and policymakers who want to expand the welfare state to address economic inequality. For them, nuclear families in general, and fathers in particular, were an obstacle to central planning schemes.

“How the Smithsonian Lost America’s Plot” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial on the Trump administration’s controversial report on the Smithsonian:

The report isn’t a cheerleading document seeking to hide America’s warts. What it seeks is a history of the U.S. that doesn’t resemble the 1619 Project in its partisan bias.

The report’s examples show the degree to which progressives have captured the history museum. In one exhibit, the Pledge of Allegiance was described as a tool to “instill American nationalism through flag ceremonies.” Nationalism? That’s a needlessly pejorative edge. How about patriotism?

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III decried the report as “not fair,” while old guard Washington Post architectural critic Philip Kennicott made angry harumphing noises. As long as we’re on the subject of aesthetics, I detect a certain unattractive glee in this: Trump’s D.C. makeover hits another snag at Meridian Hill. The fountain pipes are rusty, and so the water is brown—all President Trump’s fault. Is this Pulitzer Prize material or what?

When Gavin Newsom Helps Women. “How California Effectively Legalized an Open-Air Sex Market” in City Journal tells a more aesthetically unappealing story. Christopher Rufo and Kenneth Schrupp write:

It’s midafternoon outside KIPP Academy of Opportunity, a charter school serving children in fifth through eighth grade on South Figueroa Street in residential Los Angeles. As children inside prepare for their futures, a young female struts by in high heels, wearing nothing but a bikini and a jacket. 

“We’ll see some police officers roll by and some young women out here just prostituting. They’re walking right by, and the police drive right by them,” the school’s gun-toting security guard said. “It’s normal.”

This was all the predictable result of public policy. In 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law decriminalizing loitering with intent to commit prostitution. When he signed the bill, Newsom suggested it would help would reduce the harassment of women.

Far from it: prostitution activity began spiking up.

Three For the Road. We know that current Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent admires Hamilton! But former Senator Phil Gramm and Donald Boudreaux counter that “Hamilton Was No Protectionist.” … Richard Porter at RCP has an interesting take on President Trump’s $2 billion earnings last year:

… I think voters have long-since come to terms with Trump’s eagerness to continue doing business even while in office. That’s not my concern. I’m wondering whether Trump and his family will become the kind of “cheerful” givers that would make them happier, while bequeathing a prize that would benefit the world. 

Next Time Somebody Says Capitalism Doesn’t Work. Tell them about this Costco cashier.

It’s Official: “Trump: Iran Ceasefire Is Over” is the U.K. Telegraph headline on the latest development in the Middle East. 

Donald Trump has declared an end to the ceasefire with Iran.

The US president told reporters he didn’t “want to deal with them any more” after launching overnight strikes on Tehran.

In an angry address at the Nato summit in Ankara, Mr. Trump told reporters: “These are evil, sick people,” and described them as scum and a cancer that needs to be cut out.

On Tuesday night, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces had struck over 80 targets, including Iranian air defence systems, coastal radar sites and 60 IRGC small boats.

Shortly before, the US Treasury said it had banned Iran from selling oil, one of the key components of the MoU.

The U.S. strikes come in response to Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte calls the U.S. strikes “absolutely necessary.” Oil prices immediately skyrocketed while stock prices fell. Iran is just one of the issues for NATO.  “Trump looms large as NATO grapples with challenge of rearming Europe,” the BBC reports. Meanwhile, the president is on about Greenland again.

President Trump has had kind words for Turkey’s President Erdogan and is considering selling Turkey F-16s, which National Review is against. “Trump’s Ankara remarks reveal a grand strategy hiding in plain sight,” argues Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis (ret.) at Fox Digital. “Don’t Launder Erdogan’s Record at the NATO Summit,” counters the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Jonathan Schanzer.

Gee whiz, Ms. Must never thought she’d see a headline like this in a respectable outlet: “Ex-girlfriend of Graham Platner says he removed condoms without consent during sex.” Even though the MSM is optimistically exploring a succession (here and here), the Democratic nomination for the Maine senatorial race remained in limbo early this morning.

The public is left to wonder: How did this happen? Shouldn’t Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo have been a tipoff? The general consensus is that the Dems haven’t seen hide nor hair of a genuine while male member of the working class in so long that they mistook Platner for a representative of an endangered species. A Free Press story headlined “Beware the Honest Oysterman,” by Caitlin Flanagan, explains:

With Graham Platner, Democrats thought they had finally—finally!—made contact with the white working class. So they ignored all manner of red flags.

A Wall Street editorial headlined “Why Did They Cover for Graham Platner?” takes off in the same direction:

Democrats want to fall in love with their candidates, and none more so than the supposed common man plucked from obscurity. That was Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner—“my kind of man,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said. But long after the love died and the truth emerged, they defended him. Until now, when they can’t.

When we recall that Tim Walz, whose main qualification was that he supposedly knew which end of a hunting rifle the bullet came out of, was the Dems’ first attempt at locating a white male, it begins to make sense. The New York Times consistently promoted Platner. Ira Stoll discusses this in a Washington Free Beacon story that details the “Anatomy of a Hype Job: How the New York Times Boosted Graham Platner.”

You might enjoy NYT columnist Michelle Goldberg’s apologia:

“While I’m assigning blame, I shouldn’t leave out myself,” Times columnist Michelle Goldberg writes. “Last October, when stories about Platner’s tattoo and Reddit posts first broke, I went to Maine to write about him. I tried to convey what I saw: a campaign that was electrifying angry Maine voters. But I deeply regret that, impressed by Platner’s political charisma, I wrote that he was ‘nothing like the edgelord caricature I encountered online.’” In retrospect, Goldberg now acknowledges, “If anything, he seems to be significantly worse.”

Even the apology doesn’t quite do justice to how deeply in the tank Goldberg was for Platner. ….

Do read on to find out how in the tank for Platner Goldberg was. Her apology has triggered mirth, including a Hot Air piece delightfully headlined “Goldberg: Sorry I Promoted Maine Kampf (But The Bulwark Denies Responsibility).” What alerted Dems that there might be a problem with Platner? A sudden attack of virtue or the polls, as Dana Perino suggested on The Five? Platner’s downfall (if I am not being premature) further exposed the limits of the “believe all women” mantra, as noted by The Free Press. Meanwhile, the Babylon Bee comes through again:

Rape Allegations Mar Reputation of Local Nazi

Platner was popular despite it all because he represents the far left of his party. Another contest that pits the Dem hard left (à la Platner) and an “establishment favorite” is taking place in the battleground state of Michigan, where moderate Rep. Haley Stevens confronts Wayne County Health Department Director Abdul El-Sayed: 

“If you want your politics dictated by AIPAC or Chuck Schumer, then I’m not your guy,” El-Sayed said. …

When the New York Times wasn’t busy boosting Graham Platner, it was expressing its shock and horror that three conservative women were pregnant. I mean, ick, right? Bethany Mandel takes on the New York Times report on pregnant Republican women in a very nice Examiner piece headlined “The best pronatalist policy isn’t economic. It’s Usha Vance’s wardrobe“:

In the pages of the “Critic’s Notebook,” the Times writer, Vanessa Friedman, seemed genuinely unsettled by the mere fecundity of these women. The thrust of Friedman’s column is that women such as Vance, Leavitt, and Miller have abandoned what used to be the accepted political uniform for pregnant women, trading the loose tunics and oversized jackets favored by figures such as Cherie Blair for dresses that celebrate rather than conceal the pregnant form. 

To explain why this matters, Friedman quotes Helen Lewis, author of Difficult Women, who observes, “It’s really noticeable that the MAGA women are not hiding their pregnancy. There is pride in being pregnant and being fertile.”

A companion piece to Mandel is City Journal’s “Want More Babies? We Need More Friends,” by Rob Henderson. The subtitle explains:

If Americans are to revive our sagging national birthrate, we must rebuild the ordinary social structures that made children thinkable and natural.

Ms. Must climbs on her hobbyhorse to suggest that low fertility rates have an even deeper cause than social structures, which is manifestly clear in the best work on the crisis ever—a novel by mystery writer P.D. James—The Children of Men—about a society that stopped having babies.

At the other end of the lifespan, an op-ed in the Washington Post deals with elder fraud, which is surging.

The sage Victor Davis Hanson remains irked by “Mamdani’s Embittered Fourth of July Rant to America“:

Thus spoke the pampered rich kid from Uganda, who immigrated to America with his now-endowed professor father and elite filmmaker mother, the latter reportedly supported by millions of dollars in grants from the Qatari royal autocracy.

Upon arriving, the Mamdanis joined what is statistically America’s wealthiest and most highly credentialed ethnic group: the enormously privileged Indian American community. (But how was that possible in Mamdani’s version of a racist America that supposedly detests the wrong accents and skin colors?)

When this nepo baby includes himself among the supposedly “victimized” (“the rest of us”), should we laugh or cry?

Alas, Mayor Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, missed her husband’s Fourth of July remarks because she was instead co–hosting a pricey pro-Palestine retreat in Corsica.

Must Be Briefly Mentioned: Rich Lowry’s “Women’s basketball is out to destroy superstar Caitlin Clark — and itself, too.” … Powerline’s “The Sick Smithsonian,” about another great American institution that seems to have fallen to the Left. … And Michael Goodwin’s “America 250 showed the pride and joy this country has to offer,” an antidote to Mamdani’s remarks.

Confusing ceasefire.  

To the naked eye, the U.S. and Iran seemed to be engaging in a shooting war again. But now they are ready to stop shooting for a while:

The U.S. and Iran have agreed to “stand down for now” and allow ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz after renewed fighting in the past few days, a U.S. official told The Hill on Sunday.

“Technical talks are slated to continue on all areas of the MOU. Both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely,” the official said, referring to the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by both sides earlier this month.

The Wall Street Journal calls the recent resumption of “kinetic” activity a “dangerous period of violence.” Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell as Iran claimed control, but now we are told it is resuming as talks are scheduled to continue in Qatar. The stock market is pleased early this morning.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“Iran Is Winning the Battle of Hormuz”) is less pleased. The editors take note of the brief resumption of “kinetic” activities, including Iran’s firing of missiles and drones at civilian targets and U.S. targets in Bahrain and Kuwait:

“It is very possible that they will never learn,” Mr. Trump wrote of Iran’s regime on Saturday night. Or is it U.S. decision makers who never learn? Vice President JD Vance has been touting Iran’s “transformed” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders ready to “turn over a new leaf” with the U.S. He even reached “gentlemen’s agreements” with them outside the memorandum, Mr. Vance assured critics.

Well, these are no gentlemen. It’s the same terrorist regime, and this is the Battle of Hormuz that Mr. Trump thought he had ducked. In case there was any doubt, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Iran is solely responsible for managing the Strait under the memorandum. He said “no other country has any responsibility in that regard.” Mr. Araghchi is Iran’s chief negotiator with Mr. Vance.

May I go back to a very germane column that appeared last week? The refrain of the Left is that Iran is stronger than it was before the U.S. attacked. Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen asked a prominent nuclear scientist, David Albright, one of the leading experts on Iran’s nuclear program, about this claim:

“You’d have to be delirious to think that’s the case,” he told me in a podcast interview, adding later, “When we look at it strictly technically, this war was — whatever you feel about the war — was very successful in seriously setting back Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon.”

The New York Post lingo for the Mamdani socialists who swept to victory in New York primaries last week is “Candihates.” In an exclusive, the plucky tab reports:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist cronies who swept last week’s Democratic primaries boasted about an affordability message — but critics say it was an anti-Israel furor that is fueling the party’s swing to the left.

State Democratic Party Jay Jacobs admitted voters’ feelings on Israel helped propel Mamdani buddies to three House primary victories….

The pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel campaign was a “more important issue for those who came out and voted” in low-turnout primary elections that saw only about 17% of party voters citywide participate, Jacobs said.

[A statement from the Anti-Defamation League] noted that as Mamdani moved through the jubilant crowd at a DSA victory party on the night of the primaries, attendees chanted “From the River to the Sea,” the code viewed as a call to wipe out Israel.

“How the Left Abandoned the Jews” is the headline on a Free Press story by Commentary Editor John Podhoretz. The subtitle:

The victories of anti-Israel democratic socialists aren’t a break from Democratic politics. They’re the culmination of a 40-year ideological shift that party leaders tolerated—and often encouraged.

Noah Rothman writes in National Review about the “hostile takeover” of the Democratic Party by socialists that “everybody but the Democratic Party saw coming.”

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is not just winning at the polls. He succeeded in getting a two-year freeze on New York rent. Wow, is this ever going to cost the city. Arpit Gupta writes about this in “The High Cost of New York’s Rent Freeze“:

In 1971, the Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck offered a famous critique of rent control: “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.”…

The lesson is that freezing the price of a service indefinitely while its costs continue to rise does not produce cheap or abundant service. Instead, it produces deteriorating assets and, eventually, public bailouts and takeovers….

The protection offered by a stabilized lease is effectively a transferable property right, one that can be held for life and, in practice, is often passed down to other family members. A rent freeze increases the value of that right, turning the benefit into something closer to a lottery prize than targeted welfare assistance.

Any subsidy has to be paid for by someone. …

Socialism Spreads. Colorado Democrats brace for their own insurgent earthquake, as Senator Michael Bennet and Rep. Diana DeGette, a pair of longtime fixtures of state Democratic politics, face the possibility of being Mamdanied in tomorrow’s primaries.

In “Why Being ‘Progressive’ Is No Longer Enough on the Left,” Allysia Finley writes about leftist Democrats losing to Mamdani socialists who think they aren’t radical enough. Blinded by Trump Hatred: “Trump Opened the Window for the DSA.” Clifford Asness and Aaron Brown assert that “Democrats’ hatred for President Trump led them to tolerate radical, vicious ideas that are colonizing their party.”

What about 2028 hopeful Gavin Newsom? An editorial in the Wall Street Journal is headlined “The Socialist Wave, West Coast Version”:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom failed to persuade his union friends to drop their wealth tax from the November ballot, so now we’ll find out if he’ll spend political capital to defeat it or instead try to surf the socialist wave to the White House. Bet on the latter.

Meanwhile, New York Post columnist the aptly named Miranda Devine says Dems need a leader, but all they have is the “strangely detached” from a problem he helped create, Barack Obama. Only a handful of Dems are fighting against the red tide.

Europe is in the midst of a heat wave that has claimed many lives. Did you realize before the heatwave that most European buildings lack air conditioning?

Just 5% of British households and 24% of French ones have air conditioners at home. As intense, life-threatening heat waves become more common, that is starting to change. …

Europeans typically saw AC as an extravagance, a short-term fix that in fact would exacerbate the climate crisis it sought to remedy.

We’re expecting a dangerous heat wave in the U.S. For those who have air conditioning, it will be more tolerable than for our European counterparts. But It’s Good to Die for the Climate: The liberal Atlantic praises Europeans for sacrifice and suffering, while we churlish Americans turn on the AC.

Ms. Must has been searching for why many (most) feminists caved on the women’s sports issue. That’s only one issue where movement feminists haven’t supported women. Camila Long, a columnist with the Times of London, has written a piece on the feminist abandonment of women. I don’t have access to the Times, but fortunately Powerline reprints a goodly chunk of Long’s column.

Women’s sports isn’t the only target. Now, men who identify as “trans” women want to be Daughters:

About 200 members of the Daughters of the American Revolution gathered at a rally June 24 in Washington, D.C., ahead of a contentious Friday vote on the definition of “woman.” This vote comes after years of tension over whether or not trans-identified men should be allowed to become members of the woman-only society.

Since the controversy over trans involvement in DAR began, thousands of women have resigned from the organization, citing its transgender policy as a reason.

Because the bylaws did not explicitly define what “daughters” or “woman” meant, and due to a non-discrimination clause added to the bylaws in 2023, the DAR members advocating for women’s spaces faced an uphill battle.

We’ll celebrate our country’s 250^th birthday Saturday. To prepare, I suggest Tevi Troy’s informative “Four Presidents, One Bicentennial“; the current celebration, Troy writes, is more muted than previous birthdays.

What better setting than Versailles—”one place where all that glitters is gold indeed“—for a historic moment? President Trump thought Versailles the ideal backdrop for affixing his signature to the  Iran deal:

Trump—who in an unexpected move signed the deal Wednesday in Versailles—said he was influenced by the stock market’s rise as he worked toward a resolution of the conflict. He said he didn’t want to be compared with former President Herbert Hoover, who was president during the 1929 market crash that led to the Great Depression.

“He was always the one I didn’t want to be,” Trump told reporters at the Hôtel Royal where he and other world leaders gathered for the Group of Seven meeting. “I didn’t want to see an economic catastrophe.”

Pain at the pump appears to be easing. The price of crude oil is the lowest it has been since March, and market futures early today are positive. Definitely not looking Hooverian.

Criticism of President Trump’s Iran deal is not easing. “Is Iran Really a ‘Normal Country’?” asks the headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial:

Vice President Vance is using that term, “normal country,” on network after network as he tries to sell the agreement. But the regime in Iran has never shown over 47 years that it wants to build a normal country or “join the international community.” At every turn it has banked U.S. relief and concessions and used them to promote terrorism and spread its Shiite revolution.

“What the President is trying to do is actually extend the hand of peace,” Mr. Vance said on Fox. … Mr. Vance and the President seem to believe that the lure of gleaming hotels and $300 billion in investment is enough for the regime to abandon its revolutionary cause. It could have had those hotels and prosperity for decades but always chose revolution and terror. If Iran really is committed to a new direction, it shouldn’t take 60 days to find out. If the regime won’t abandon its nuclear program, it prefers revolution.

Another Wall Street editorial (“Around the Strait of Hormuz in 60 Days“) observes that Iran has not even committed to not charging tolls. The real winner in the Iran agreement is Pakistan, according to columnist Sadanand Dhume. The Editors of National Review conclude an excellent analysis of the deal this way:

Trump has said in the past that Iran has never won a war, yet never lost a negotiation. As the president and his administration now make the case for a memorandum of understanding that doesn’t meet any U.S. strategic objective, it’s impossible to say he was wrong.

Former UN Ambassador Niki Haley, who calls the MOU “a mistake,” is among the conservative critics (as is Mark Levine). Even Senator Lindsey Graham is adding caveats. Douglas Murray writes “How Trump Fell into the Iranian Trap” in The Free Press. Niall Ferguson of The Free Press, however, has a dissident take: “It’s Too Soon to Call This a U.S. Surrender.” Ferguson’s argument:

An agreement offering Iran sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, and billions in promised investment has prompted outrage. But the outcomes of wars depend on more than pieces of paper.

The sage Victor Davis Hanson is also willing to give the peace deal a chance. Miranda Devine says, “Trump is showing the world, G7 leaders who’s the ‘boss’ and deserves respect for his deal-making.”

President Trump was able to partake of Louis XIV’s splendor last night. But former President Obama’s aesthetic seems to be more ancient Egypt than ancient regime. “The Obama Presidential Center: A Pharaonic Temple in Chicago” is how architectural writer Michael J. Lewis describes the new Obama Presidential Center. Lewis writes:

Yet there is a lingering uneasiness engendered by that upright slab. It is, after all, the most ancient of monumental forms—whether stele, totem, obelisk or pylon—the universal form for commemorating a man or god. For some types of rulers it is fitting and proper, even part of the job description—say, for an Egyptian pharaoh, Roman emperor, or one of the world’s many “presidents for life.” But is it something that an American citizen-president, even one out of office, should build to himself?

… This is a vanity project, and although it slipped in under the radar in the guise of that most innocuous of architectural objects, the “Presidential (yawn) Library,” it turned into something that would be recognized by Cheops, Trajan and even Ozymandias himself.

A-listers expected for the grand opening.

Socialist Janeese Lewis George continues to hold a double-digit lead in the race to be DC’s next Mayor. If she wins, it could put the District on a collision course with President Trump, who warned that he could federalize the District. Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America, to which Ms. Lewis George belongs, have just adopted a radical new agenda, according to Stu Smith in City Journal:

The group wants to abolish the Senate, destroy constitutional checks and balances, and eliminate the “carceral forces of the capitalist state.”

How Dumb Do You Have to Be? An Asian American college kid burned a cross in Chicago’s Grant Park to protest President Trump. But he had no idea that burning crosses was associated with the KKK and claimed to have scant knowledge of the Klan.

Even dumber, the authorities are outraged about racism even though the kid was too brain-dead to know that cross-burning is racist. The cherry on top:

“I put a red hat to signify the MAGA hat, the Make America Great Again hat,” he said. “So that was, yeah, that’s what I tied on top.”

Can This State Be Saved? The Republican candidate for Governor of California writes an op-ed headlined “California Needs a Pro-Business Governor.” Steve Hilton writes:

“Why does a state with so much money, talent and promise make life for ordinary people so hard?” Mr. Zakaria asked. The answer is that for the past 16 years, California has effectively operated as a one-party state. …

The results have been dismal. California today suffers the highest poverty rate, the highest unemployment rate and the highest cost of living in America. California families and businesses pay the highest gasoline and electricity prices in the continental U.S., nearly double the national average. Last year U.S. News & World Report ranked California 50th out of 50 states for opportunity. …

California still has everything you would want to start and grow a business: networks of talent, capital and universities; land, ports and a diverse supply chain; and above all a culture that celebrates risk-taking and innovation more than anywhere in the world.

All we need is a governor who acts decisively to reduce the taxes and bloat that are crushing the spirit of enterprise and a business community that actually supports business.

Governor Gavin Newsom, the man Hilton hopes to succeed, is suffering from what Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York calls “Trump Prosecution Envy”:

Gavin Newsom is outraged. “In recent days, federal agents have knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees,” the California governor said in a recently released video accusing President Donald Trump of directing the Justice Department to investigate him. “They’re demanding records. They’re abusing the grand jury process, digging through years and years of random documents.”

“Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets,” Newsom continued. “He’s coming after me because I’m considering running for president, because he hates that I’ve consistently called him out over and over again for his lies and deceit.”

All of this raises the question: Is Trump weaponizing the Justice Department to pursue a popular Democratic politician and possible 2028 presidential candidate? Or are there legitimate reasons that people around Newsom might attract the attention of prosecutors?

Bet on the latter.

Independent Women is closed tomorrow for Juneteenth, so this is my last opportunity to say happy Father’s Day. Instead of socks or a tie, I want to give Brad Wilcox’s Free Press piece on “America’s Great Dad Divide.” Children need fathers, but it’s not a one-way street:

This growing tendency to sidestep family life is celebrated by many on the left—and some on the right (think Andrew Tate)—as a form of freedom. But for many men, that freedom is a lie. Whatever journalists or influencers say, men without children are disproportionately lonelier, less purposeful, and less happy than their peers who have found their way to the altar and the delivery room.

The Trump-friendly New York Post cover is beyond brutal. “Trump Devastated Iran,” it fumes, “now he hits them with a LOVEBOMB. … Prez Says Islamic regime ‘not radical’ [as] his deal showers mullahs with cash—and no sanctions.”

Yikes. We’re still in a fog regarding the memorandum of understanding to end the Iran war, which had not been released early this morning, but rumors and apparent details are circulating. Axios has a story that purports to break down “the billions Iran could receive” under the still undisclosed deal. From Axios:

The White House says the discourse is being poisoned by Iranian “misinformation,” and that its “pay for performance” structure is the best way to achieve the strongest-possible deal.

But U.S. officials acknowledge that at least some benefits will flow to Iran upfront.

What Axios describes as “one of the most politically explosive provisions” of the deal is a $300 billion fund for rebuilding Iran if the regime lives up to the goal of ending its nuclear ambitions:

Vice President Vance told Fox News the money would not come from U.S. taxpayers and would come into play only if Iran permanently ends its nuclear program, gives up its enriched uranium and allows nuclear inspections.

More positive reviews of the deal will follow, but these shrieks are what I find early this morning. This AEI analysis was two days ago: “Trump Made Neville Chamberlain Look Like Winston Churchill.” It is suggested that Iran no longer fears America. Relying on a leaked document, U.K. Telegraph Diplomatic Editor Joe Barnes says the deal “favors Iran.”  Here’s one aspect of the deal that will be popular: Oil prices plunge more than 5%; optimism grows over US-Iran deal.

Vice President J. D. Vance—who was everywhere yesterday (read Powerline’s account of Vance and the Den of the Harridans)—is portrayed as the “architect” of the deal. AEI’s Danielle Pletka writes:

It’s a cliché to call a moment the first of the next presidential campaign. But if you’re curious how J.D. Vance is going to set himself up as a loyal vice president on the question of Iran, yet opposed to what increasingly looks like a debacle for the Trump/Vance team, here’s one element of the plan: It was Israel’s fault. More specifically, it was Bibi Netanyahu’s fault. Helping him cement that narrative will be United States Special Envoy to the Middle East and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Jim Geraghty proposes in his Washington Post column that Vance is being set up for failure. Interesting idea. But this is the snippet that struck me:

Note that the Iranian regime has a long and sordid history of breaking its promises and violating its treaty agreements. It is more than a little bizarre to see a U.S. president, and his No. 2, convinced that diplomacy can work with a regime whose inaugural act was to take American diplomats hostage. There’s a reason our negotiators aren’t meeting in Tehran.

Swimming against the stream, the iconoclastic The American Conservative (TAC) says the deal could “help transform America’s Middle East strategy.” “Washington doesn’t need to be the region’s micromanager,” writes TAC.

Ms. Must was not surprised this morning to wake up and discover that her hometown is on the verge of going full-Mamdani: Democratic Socialist Janeese Lewis George has a serious lead in the DC mayoral primary:

Lewis George was leading in every ward except Ward 3, the city’s wealthiest ward, with about two-thirds of the vote counted.

More traditional Democrat Kenyon McDuffie trails in second place. A business owner expressed a practical concern at one of the parties after the polls closed:

John Guggenmos, chairman of the D.C. Nightlife Council and co-owner of the gay bars Trade and Number 9, said he voted for McDuffie because he doesn’t have any doubts that the candidate wants to support local businesses, including the city’s nightlife industry.

“It is one of the biggest tax producers, beyond the government, that we have,” he said. “If that industry suffers, then the whole city is going to.”

President Trump racked up another primary victory as Rep. Mike Collins won the Georgia battle to be the GOP Senate nominee. He defeated former college football coach Derek Dooley and will face Senator Jon Ossoff, whom Republicans see as vulnerable and are heavily targeting. But the president’s gubernatorial pick lost to Governor Brian Kemp’s choice.

The president’s choice for the GOP Senate nomination in Alabama, Barry Moore, also won. Trump-backed Henry Hern cruised to victory as Oklahoma’s Republican nominee for Senate:

Deep in Trump country, a Republican vying for a seat in the Senate is wondering why his possible future colleagues can’t pass a key voter ID and citizenship verification bill.

Speaking of the voter ID and citizenship bill:

President Trump said on Wednesday that he’s delaying Jay Clayton’s nomination to lead the U.S. intelligence community in a bid to force Congress to act on a voter ID bill that currently lacks enough support for passage.

Mr. Trump said in a lengthy post on his social media site that he will keep Bill Pulte, a top U.S. housing official, as acting director of national intelligence.

The Pulte nomination was unpopular with Senators from both parties. It is unclear how this maneuver advances the voter ID bill.

Mother Courage. It had to be difficult, but the mother of one of the alleged UFC attack plotters alerted the authorities about the activities of her son, 19-year-old Tycen Proper, and that led to the unravelling of their plans. Details here.

Now She Tells Us. “Hillary Clinton Savages Joe Biden: ‘He Made a Terrible Mistake… For the Country.’” Sorry, but saying this now doesn’t count. Hillary added that if the Dems had had a primary, anyone who emerged could have beaten Trump. Meow, Kamala.

As long as we’re sauntering down Memory Lane … What is former President Barack Obama’s legacy? The Trump presidency, answers Matthew Continetti. Continetti begins:

Close to a decade in the making, the $850 million Obama Presidential Center opens to the public on Friday. The 225-foot brutalist building—dubbed the Obamalisk—looms over a 19-acre campus on Chicago’s South Side. Even the most imposing facade can’t mask the failures of the 44th president.

Barack Obama has remained popular. As America’s first black president, he is guaranteed a place in history. But his grand ambitions now seem quaint. In 2008 Mr. Obama likened himself to Ronald Reagan, who he said had “changed the trajectory of the nation.” If Mr. Obama altered the nation’s direction, it was toward decline.

“He Didn’t Pay to Build That?” James Freeman asks:

Is there a community organizer somewhere in Chicago who can help local businesspeople collect money they’re owed on a giant construction project? People who thought conservationists got steamrolled by the Obama Presidential Center’s takeover of historic parkland should see what’s happening to the builders.

Elon Musk Did Build That. “Elon Musk’s trillionaire status is an American success story,” comments USA TODAY’s Nicole Russell:

On June 12, against all odds – even his own – Elon Musk became a trillionaire when SpaceX’s IPO debuted. The stock closed at $161, up 19% on its first day.

Musk’s wealth has made economists, politicians and Democrats mad. This is shortsighted: His extraordinary net worth isn’t a symbol of greed or inequality; it’s a byproduct of ingenuity, risk-taking and perseverance – traits that have always defined American success.

That doesn’t seem to matter though. The SpaceX IPO has reignited Democrats’ longstanding push for policies that penalize entrepreneurs and wealthy Americans. This would be a mistake.

“Another Major Transgender Suicide Study Crumbles,” by the invaluable Leor Sapir in City Journal, deals with another discredited but oft-cited “scientific” study. Claire Abernathy, a victim of gender medicine—her breasts were amputated when she was 15—writes an open letter to her surgeon, who, she says, gave her the double mastectomy after a 15-minute consultation.

Will he bring back more swag for the Oval Office? … Why do I still love George Will? Because in a column about two Senators introducing a bill to enhance the separation of powers, he writes sentences like this:

Texas Republican Ted Cruz is, figuratively speaking, to the right of the soup spoon. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden is to the left of the salad fork. Their bipartisan anxiety concerns First Amendment speech rights.

The U.S.-Iran interim agreement is the big news. But analysis is sidetracked because nobody knows what’s in the deal. The New York Post cover refers to “Trump’s Mystery Deal.”

Docusign. The deal was virtually signed by President Trump, who is now attending the G-7 summit in France, Vice President Vance, and Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The ceremony takes place Friday, but Vice President Vance indicated that the details could be released earlier.

Meanwhile, tentative interpretations are emerging. The opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal are a hub of analysis. “Trump, Cynicism and the Deal” is the headline on international affairs authority Walter Russell Mead’s column. Mead argues that the negotiations demonstrate both President Trump’s strengths and weaknesses:

The memorandum of understanding is, in other words, a thoroughly typical example of Mr. Trump’s second-term diplomacy. He is driving world events with an agreement that hasn’t been formally signed, whose specifics are unknown and whose prospects are at best murky.

Viewed from that angle, this deal exemplifies both the strengths and the weaknesses of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy. He is a master of political theater, producing, directing and starring in the greatest and most compelling spectacle of our time. Yet faced with opposition from serious and determined opponents, he often fails to achieve the kind of concrete results that mark the difference between a P.T. Barnum and an Otto von Bismarck.

For Gerard Baker of the same publication, the deal marks Trump’s foreign policy’s “return to realism”:

Not for the first time, we may be on the brink of a deal to end the war with Iran. If this one holds, President Trump is to be congratulated, not pilloried. He faces a choice between high-risk escalation with an uncertain outcome and cutting our losses with an imperfect deal….

The Hobbesian approach isn’t very idealistic. It doesn’t appeal to the American instinct for moral as well as material superiority. But the naked pursuit of our national interest is a surer route to the survival of our values than the fruitless chasing of unrealistic aspirations.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal sees the deal as President Trump staging a retreat. Daniel Pletka (whose punchy writing is always a pleasure) writes in a Substack column headlined “The Trump Problem“:

Perhaps it’s not as bad as it looks. And perhaps Donald Trump will be wise enough to do what’s necessary to eliminate the threat the regime poses. But it doesn’t look like that right now. What it looks like is that version of Donald Trump that had the courage to do what was necessary to stop Iran has lost out to the Donald Trump who got bored and gave up on a war that wasn’t going as quickly as he would have liked. That bodes ill for the future.

Well, maybe the reviews will be better when we know more. Oil prices have responded positively. President Trump warns Iran of “ultimate consequences” if the regime obtains nukes. Vice President Vance today faces a really hostile audience: the women of “The View”:

Vance is appearing on the program the same day his second memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, is released. The book focuses on his conversion to Catholicism and how his spiritual journey has shaped his public service.

Early Christians faced wild beasts in the Roman Coliseum. Vance faces the modern equivalent:

All six of The View’s co-hosts, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro, are expected to be present in the New York studio for the live interview.

Not a Movie. The FBI has revealed a shocking plot to target President Trump’s birthday party/ UFC fight with drones and explosives. Five people have been arrested in connection with the alleged attack:

The multi-phase terror attack allegedly involved using explosive-laden drone aircraft to strike buildings in the vicinity of the event, sparking mass panic and driving the fleeing crowd toward a sniper team poised to pick them off, officials told Fox News Digital.

A “second wave” of attackers then allegedly planned to storm the White House gate, officials said.

A suspect told investigators the goal of the attack was to target “capitalist elites,” “billionaires” and politicians who received money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), according to the outlet.

The first arrest was made in Cincinnati. Several suspects had gathered in Fredericksburg, Va., to plan the attack. It’s customary to compare what’s happening in the U.S. today to the French Revolution. This looks more like the Russian Revolution. So far, the legacy media doesn’t appear to have jumped on this story.

“Gruesome Newsom.” “The few months of relative silence from Gavin Newsom have, unfortunately, come to an end,” writes James Billot in “Undercurrents,” the newsletter of Unherd. (Sorry, no link.) Billot is referring to Governor Newsom’s claim that he is being investigated by the Justice Department. Axios has a story on the “apparent probe” into Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

There’s more electoral news today. Georgia voters decide who advances to several high-visibility runoffs. The primary for a U.S. Senate seat features Trump-backed state Rep. Mike Collins and Governor Brian Kemp-backed former football coach Derek Dooley. The winner of the DC Democratic primary for Mayor, which today uses ranked choice voting for the first time, is almost assured of a November win—if that is, the District manages to figure out ranked choice vote counting by then.

Mamdani Moment? Democratic Socialist Janeese Lewis George, who is polling well, vows to overturn the fine on her campaign for illegally coordinating with unions to fundraise. A win for Lewis George could inspire President Trump to attempt a DC takeover. Which means that the white-haired ladies in my ‘hood who bang on pots and pans to “Free DC” might be further energized.

American parents will be watching the social media ban for under-16-year-olds in the U.K. that will begin next year. Telegraph columnist Isabel Oakshott supports the ban because “parents need all the help they can get.” “Starmer’s social-media ban is driven by pure hysteria,” counters Joanna Williams of Spiked Online. Libertarian Reason suggests that, based on evidence, the ban probably won’t work:

Britain is following Australia into a policy that has already struggled to keep children off social media, while forcing adults through intrusive age checks.

American Dads. The Wall Street Journal’s Bill McGurn has a great column (“Girl Dads Take on Maine“) on the fathers behind a Maine ballot initiative to protect female spaces from boys and men.

American Brother. The London Spectator has an amusing “Cockburn” column on LA Mayor Karen Bass’ brother Kenneth, who has joined defeated mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt in suing Mayor Bass for “reckless negligence” during the horrific LA fires.

American Tragedy. Here is the beginning of Rich Lowry’s column on Karmelo Anthony:

The system failed Karmelo Anthony — he stabbed someone to death and is going to jail for it.

If this doesn’t strike you as an injustice, you haven’t been paying attention to the voices defending the 19-year-old who was just sentenced to 35 years in prison for murdering another teenager at a high school track meet in Texas two years ago.

New Day. This is new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s first Fed meeting as head. Former World Bank President Davis Malpass to pursue a slate of reforms to rebuild market confidence.

A Novel Idea Worth Considering—For Both Sides. “America’s Birthday Isn’t About Trump” is the headline on the lead story at The Free Press. The byline is the outlet’s editors, who boldly propose: 

Trump and his critics are making the president the focus of the country’s 250th anniversary. But Americans have so much more to celebrate.

Radical.