Politics Archives

White House Bids Fond Farewell to Karoline Leavitt. Hasan Piker Loses It: Round Up Boomers. What Do Kids Learn at Great Universities Today? Is New York Now ‘Habibi City’? AOC’s Frozen Eggs. And More

Posted on August 13, 2026August 13, 2026 by Charlotte Hays

There soon will be a new face at the lectern for White House press briefings. “White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to Leave Administration.” From the Washington Post:

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will leave the administration at the end of August, one of the most high-profile exits of Trump’s second term, with the midterms less than three months away.

Leavitt, 28, was the youngest press secretary in history and the first to give birth while serving in the role. She has been a loyal adviser to President Donald Trump who played a highly visible role in his efforts to remake the presidency and erode trust in traditional media reporting, in part through aggressive moves to control which news outlets have access to the White House.

For once the “spend more time with my family” reason for a resignation happens to be the truth. Ms. Leavitt, who gave birth to her second child in May, really has discovered that she’d like to be with her family more. She will remain an outside adviser. Ms. Leavitt was especially refreshing coming on the heels of former President Biden’s hostile fashion plate spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre . USA Today recalls President Trump’s White House Press Secretaries from Sean Spicer to Leavitt. Who will replace Leavitt? The New York Post suggests it could be Steven Cheung, who is already serving as the White House Communications Director, but there are quite a few contenders, and the succession has not been decided yet.

There is more on the President’s plane switch in Turkey to avoid an Iranian threat. According to a Wall Street Journal report, some U.S. officials thought the plot was impractical, but the president’s security team had no room for error. CBS reports that shortly before the President’s departure from Ankara, intelligence picked up a credible plot by Iran to fire a surface-to-air missile at Air Force One. We can expect Iran to become more aggressive as the midterms draw closer, according to General Jack Keane.

From Turkey the country to our favorite holiday bird: “Thanksgiving came early to Wisconsin this year, after Democratic primary voters on Tuesday decided to pass on radical socialism,” is how a Wall Street Journal editorial on the defeat of Francesca Hong, who was vying for the Democratic nomination for Governor. But what does it mean that the “wacky” Ms. Ms. Hong did rack up 40 percent of the vote:

Perhaps the progressive agenda of big government for everything isn’t as popular in competitive states as Democratic leaders think. On the other hand, more than 300,000 Midwestern voters cast ballots to enlist Wisconsin in the project of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a political development that would have been stunning until recently….

Ms. Hong’s narrow defeat was a setback for the socialists, but it won’t halt the Democratic Party’s leftward march. If she’d been a smoother candidate, without a public record of hating a beloved national holiday, she might today be the Democratic nominee.

Red With Rage. Oh dear, Hasan Piker has not taken Ms. Hong’s defeat well:

Mao-adoring Twitch streamer Hasan Piker erupted in fury after Wisconsin state rep. Francesca Hong’s shocking defeat in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, venting that boomers should be outlawed.

“I don’t want to read this because I will f—ing kill myself with a gun in a video game,” Piker griped after reading an article about a late-deciding voter who backed David Crowley but noted they liked Hong as well.

“I can’t. I’m in a good mood overall,” he went on. “I want to put boomers in the machine, in the contraption, and not just boomers, like anyone that says that.”

A Wall Street Journal report says that, though Piker has become “an undeniable force” in politics, he is “driving Democrats up the wall” with the stuff that comes out of his mouth. He has been a surrogate for Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed, who is quoted saying this:

“Hasan is reaching folks no one else is talking to,” El-Sayed wrote in an email before voting started. “Every event I do, I get seniors who ask how I got so many young people to come, and young people who say ‘I saw you on Hasan.’”

Golly, this makes Ms. Must wonder for about the millionth time just how well our expensive colleges and universities are serving young people. England’s Cambridge University is one of the most revered universities in the world. In “From Isaac Newton to Jason Arday,” Louise Perry looks at higher education’s deteriorating capacity for … thinking:

Modern elite universities are trying to do two things at the same time. Their primary, if unspoken, role is to act as a finishing school for the elites. The academic training may be rather lax, but it is offered alongside superb social training. An attentive student emerges from a university like Cambridge with the skills necessary to integrate into any elite profession. That includes a strong grasp of progressive ideology, and particularly an understanding of what one should not say in polite company.

It also includes exposure to more subtle signs of elite status. In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vice President JD Vance wrote memorably of attending a formal dinner while at Yale Law School, tasting sparkling water for the first time and spitting it out in horror. A preference for gross water was, he discovered, one of those things that separated the wheat from the chaff. You learn these things at Yale.

Not being able to think can affect grades—so why not get rid of those pesky grades? In “You Should Be Able to Fail,” John Miller takes note of the University if Michigan’s plan to end letter grades for the freshman class. Miller gives the plan an F.

New York mag’s recent cover “Habibi City” celebrates Muslims and Muslim culture in the Big Apple. The New York Post looks inside the issue, finding it more than just a look at a presumably emerging new demographic:

A tone-deaf New York Magazine “hit piece” that purportedly celebrated Arab and Muslim culture in the Big Apple – but actually fixated on a so-called Israeli “genocide” of Palestinians and referred to the Jewish state as a mere “land mass currently called Israel” – has sparked fierce backlash, prompting outraged subscribers to cancel while insiders reveal the publication’s dubious practices.

“New York Magazine’s evil ‘Habibi City’ cover sends a message: Jews aren’t welcome in Mamdani’s NYC,” is John Podhoretz’s take. “New York Is Not ‘Habibi City,’” is Liel Leivovitz’s headline at The Free Press. Here is Leivovitz’s description of the issue:

In her now-viral cover story for New York magazine, journalist Zaina Arafat—who was born and raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., but identifies as SWANA, an acronym that previously stood for the Solid Waste Association of North America but now apparently means Southwest Asian and North African, and represents anyone who is vaguely Middle Eastern and dislikes capitalism, America, and the Jews—kicks things into high gear by celebrating the fact that New York is now “Habibi City,” a full-on SWANA enclave.

“Nazi Sex Money Scandal” is the New York Post cover today. Featured in the art is former Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) former chief financial officer Heidi Beirich, who was arrested yesterday in Pasadena. The arrest was in connection with a federal probe of the SPLC and concerned payments to informants. Apparently, even Ku Kluxers can fall in love if the right girl comes along:

Beirich also allegedly had a romantic relationship with one informant who infiltrated a white supremacist group and stole documents for the SPLC, according to the indictment. The pair also shared a bank account, prosecutors say, which included $140,000 in funds from the SPLC’s payments.

Caitlin Flanagan of The Free Press asks: “Must Egg Freezing Be ‘Normalized’ by AOC?” Meanwhile, AOC and her squeeze have called it quits, leaving the Babylon Bee to “report:” “AOC Has Her Boyfriend Frozen in Case She Wants Him in The Future.”

Let’s End with Some Good News. “Despite What You’ve Heard, the World Isn’t on Fire,” by Bjorn Lomborg, who argues in a Wall Street op-ed: “That Canadian smoke wasn’t pretty, but it was an outlier. Less land is burning than ever before.”

Dems Send Mixed Messages. Senator Darline Graham Advances. More on President’s Plane Switch. Is Fashion Fascist? Mac Donald: Head Start Has Never Worked. More

Posted on August 12, 2026August 12, 2026 by Charlotte Hays

Socialists of the world didn’t exactly unite to sweep the board in last night’s primaries, but they claimed several important wins. So did more traditional Democrats.

In the most closely watched primary last night, Thanksgiving won (for now). Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, who spent the tail end of her campaign insisting that she no longer hates turkey day, lost to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley:

The left wing suffered a high-profile setback on Tuesday at the hands of the center-left establishment in their ongoing battle for the ideological future of the party.

Crowley was heavily backed by retiring Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, with both warning that a Hong primary victory could jeopardize Democratic control of the governor’s office.

The governor’s race in Wisconsin opened after Evers announced he would not seek a third term. With Evers stepping aside, the race offered Democrats their first opportunity in 16 years to choose a nominee without an incumbent governor on the ballot.

The primary was closely watched as an early test of whether Wisconsin Democrats favored the party’s progressive wing or its establishment, with the winner advancing to a high-stakes general election in one of the nation’s premier battleground states.

Hong, a former chef and single mother, was endorsed by Reps. Ilhan Omar and the hapless Ro Khanna of California, but Bernie and AOC steered clear. Politico described Hong’s loss as the “far left” “hitting a wall.” Crowley faces Trump-backed Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany in the general.

But Senate hopeful Peggy Flanagan “deliver[ed] another win for progressives” in Minnesota. Senate hopeful Flanagan, Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor, defeated Rep. Angie Craig, described as a moderate, to replace Sen. Tina Smith, who is retiring. The New York Times:

Ms. Flanagan, 46, campaigned as an anti-establishment fighter, calling for universal health care and a higher federal minimum wage. She prevailed over Representative Angie Craig, a moderate Democrat from a swing district, leading by nearly 20 percentage points with more than 95 percent of votes counted.

Ms. Flanagan has said she plans to tie Ms. Tafoya to Mr. Trump, saying her Republican rival would be a “‘Yes Sir, Mr. President’ Senator.” Even before Tuesday, Ms. Tafoya, who was not endorsed by Mr. Trump, had begun to focus on Ms. Flanagan, casting her as a career politician and attacking her over a major fraud scandal in the state government’s social safety net programs.

Flanagan’s win is considered good news for Tafoya.

Senator Amy Klobuchar easily smothered the gubernatorial bid of My Pillow guy Mike Lindell, who was endorsed by President Trump, and will face Republican state House Speaker Lisa Demuth in the general. Powerline, the go to source for Minnesota politics, calls Lindell a “crank candidate” and takes a swipe at Klobuchar (“Klobuchar wants more than anything else to preside over an era of good feelings — of good feelings about Amy Klobuchar”).

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer must be feeling more isolated as longtime Democratic Rep. John Larson was defeated by Luke Bronin, a former Mayor and Navy Intelligence officer, who capitalized on calls for generational change:

Mr. Bronin, 47, centered his campaign around a call for generational change, arguing that Mr. Larson, 78, was not prepared to confront the challenges posed by the Trump administration’s efforts to aggressively push a conservative agenda through Washington.

“Donald Trump won re-election for a second time, and then we saw a Democratic Party struggle to bring enough energy and clarity to that fight in this moment,” Mr. Bronin said at a debate in Hartford last month. “We would be a stronger Democratic Party if more of our leadership recognized that part of leadership is knowing when it’s time to pass the torch.”

South Carolina voters gave Senator Darline Graham, appointed to fill her late brother Senator Sindsey’s seat, a shot at winning the seat outright: Senator Graham and Rep. Ralph Norman will advance to a runoff later this month in the South Carolina special Republican primary for Senate. Graham won the most votes Tuesday but not enough to avoid a runoff.

We’re still reeling from news of President Trump’s being spirited away from his plane in a catering cart. Because of a serious threat. In “Iran’s Trump Strategy—Dead or Alive,” an editorial in the Wall Street Journal sheds light on this escapade:

Mr. Trump flew out of Turkey secretly on a military jet and then was returned to the original Air Force One after landing. The reporters aboard never knew he was gone.

The press corps, which had been left on the decoy Presidential plane, understandably is up in arms. But the real story is the seriousness of Iran’s efforts to kill the President. These attempts are longstanding and help explain why the U.S. is fighting.

The regime doesn’t hide its intentions. It puts up billboards and murals around Tehran of Mr. Trump lying in a coffin or drowning in a sea of blood. The regime’s clerics brand Mr. Trump with labels that demand violence under Shiite Islamic jurisprudence: “one who wars against God,” “one whose blood must be spilled,” “corruptor of the earth” and “warring infidel.” At times Iran’s regime has put a bounty on his head. …

For all the talk of how this war has “helped” Iran’s regime, it’s no accident that its state media and approved experts stress the need to use the Strait of Hormuz to hurt Mr. Trump in the November elections. The regime is desperate to run out the clock on the Trump Presidency—or speed up that clock with deadly violence.

President Trump isn’t the only one faced with changes in traveling plans. Rama Duwaji, wife of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is yet another inconvenienced traveler:

A seemingly red-faced Mayor Zohran Mamdani blamed a “miscommunication” Tuesday after an awkward public clash between City Hall and NYPD officials over whether the department would provide security for his wife Rama Duwaji’s upcoming Middle East trip.

The high-profile back-and-forth appeared to end when Hizzoner asserted that Duwaji would not receive a taxpayer-funded police escort on her jaunt to Syria and Lebanon next month — despite his own senior spokesperson claiming she would the day prior.

A source familiar with the security detail said the first lady, whom the mayor has described as a “private person,” requested the escort, and Mamdani’s office had confirmed she would be accompanied by city cops.

Wonder if the Hizzoner needs a vacay, too? A a report in the Wall Street Journal is headlined “Mamdani’s Honeymoon With New York Is Over.” The report cites the “messy rollout of pied-à-terre tax and fraying relations with local politicians.”

Mamdani can’t like the latest poll for New York’s gubernatorial race either: Republican Bruce Blakeman appears in the poll to be close to unseating Gov. Kathy Hochul and turning the Empire State red than Lee Zeldin was in the home stretch of last election.

There was great gnashing of teeth when the Trump administration announced some changes to the way the Head Start program is administered. Head Start was described as the “gold standard” of public assistance programs. Nothing could be further from the truth. “Head Start Has Never Worked” is the headline of a bang-up piece by Heather Mac Donald at City Journal.

Mac Donald, who believes that the administration should have stuck with earlier plans to zero out the program, writes:

The Times’s reporting on the Trump deregulation effort ignores the most significant research ever done on Head Start. A randomized controlled trial found that any early gains in school readiness among enrollees had faded by the end of first grade and were absent by third grade. The results were published by HHS in 2010 and 2012. Academic attempts to discredit this “fadeout” effect have failed.

So advocates have taken to touting Head Start’s alleged non-cognitive benefits, such as alleged small improvements in high school and college completion rates, workforce participation, and wages. Later studies dispute even those findings. Some research shows that Head Start produces worse outcomes in certain areas.

My Compliments to the Headline Writer: “Margaret Brennan Exists to Speak Power to Truth,” at The Federalist. Ms. Brennan is a CBS moderator. … The Free Beacon has uncovered Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s alleged loyalty to Sharia law. … And Unherd ponders whether the fashion industry is fascist.

Mamdani Ordered to Remove His Enemies List. Columnist: WNBA Asks What’s the ‘W’ For? Fauci’s Text Messages. Immigration: Global Powder Keg. Crazy Woke Leftists: We Didn’t Mean It. More

Posted on August 11, 2026August 11, 2026 by Charlotte Hays

The Judge Game is one that can be played by both sides.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani learned that the hard way yesterday. The New York Post reports:

The reign of pied-à-terror is on pause.

Big Apple homeowners fighting the controversial pied-à-terre tax notched an early victory Monday, when a judge stunningly blocked Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s tortured rollout of the new levy.

Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Wayne Ozzi issued the temporary restraining order, effectively putting the luxury second-home tax on ice until at least an Aug. 31 court hearing about the peeved property owners’ lawsuit.

The judge barred the city from taking any further action on the 17,000 notices sent by the Department of Finance to homeowners, which declared they could face a five-figure tax bill unless they requested an exemption.

Mamdani quickly vowed to fight the Judge’s ruling. Mamdani, as you may recall, published the names and addresses of the 17,000 property owners, proving potential malefactors with a searchable list of targets.

Mamdani, who has been ordered to remove his “shame the rich” list, made the feisty New York Post’s cover this morning: “Hold It Right Terre.” Alas, Hizzoner will have to do without wifely consolation next month:

Rama Duwaji [who is married to the Mayir] will be jetting to the Middle East for a trip beginning Sept. 20 to the countries on the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” list for Americans because of dangerous conditions, a source said.

But don’t worry. Ms. Duwaji will be taking along the cops assigned to the first couple’s taxpayer-funded NYPD detail. Harry Sussex, call your office. Meanwhile, the Mayor is being uninvited to the New York ceremony commemorating 9/11. Republican Senators and 82,000 petition signers tell the Mayor to stay away. “It might be appropriate if he goes while wearing a paper bag over his head,” said Republican Sen. John Kennedy.

Move over, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. As you no doubt remember, Justice Jackson was stumped when Senator Marsha Blackburn asked her if she would define what a woman is during her confirmation hearing. Now the NBA is grappling with the question.

“WNBA Asks: What Is a W?” is the headline of Bill McGurn’s Wall Street Journal column. The issue revolves around men who say they identify as “trans” women. McGurn writes:

The key to understanding this fight is recognizing that as much as progressives want men who say they are women to be allowed in women’s sports, they don’t have to get that to win. The activists will be happy enough if they can simply ruin the game for those fighting to keep women’s sports for women.

For what this movement really opposes is truth and the norms based on truth. If all they achieve is to advance the idea that norms are arbitrary expressions of personal preference, they win big.

McGurn rightly identifies Sophie Cunningham, the Indiana Fever star who has taken a commonsense approach to men in women’s competitions, as the target in the WNBA’s latest public spectacle. Kristen Fleming has the latest on this fracas, in which Chicago Sky’s DiJonai Carrington bandied about the words “white privilege.”

Male athletes are finally “speaking up for women,” writes Jo Bartosch of Spiked OnLine, referring to Enes Kanter Freedom, who is calling the “trans” movement’s bluff by saying he is a woman and wants to play for the WNBA. Shame Corner: Ms. Must owes Mr. Freedom an apology. I somehow called him Freeman instead of Freeman yesterday.

It increasingly appears that Dr. Fauci owes an apology to the world. GOP Senators released Fauci’s texts and there are discrepancies between what Fauci told the public and what he said in private. Fauci was an avid (some might say authoritarian) advocate for the safety of the vaccine:

In one message, according to screenshots the senators released, Fauci wrote: “Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2^nd dose. this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1^st trimester.”

But as epidemiologist Vinay Prasad reported at The Free Press (“Anthony Fauci’s Vaccine Deceptions”):

A few days later, Fauci noted that pregnant women had to evaluate “the potential risks versus the benefits” of taking the vaccine. But then, in a public discussion with Howard Bauchner, the editor in chief of The Journal of the American Medical Association, Fauci said flatly that the CDC had found “no red flags” in a Covid vaccine study that included 10,000 pregnant women. His public confidence, of course, was at odds with the private hypotheses he had discussed with Murthy and Walensky.

Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who obtained the text messages, says that Fauci’s apparent deception about vaccines is “the tip of the iceberg.” Not mincing words, Matt Margolis of PJ Media writes that the newly available texts show “what a monster” Fauci was.

Vaccines are back in the news. President Trump yesterday signed an Executive Order laying out new recommendations for childhood vaccinations. The order called for spacing out vaccines and has drawn criticism from the American Academy of Pediatrics and Senator Bill Cassidy, who is a physician.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is racing to buy more missiles, and the President is putting a renewed emphasis on Iran’s wretched economy. “Trump’s Blockade Keeps the Economic Pressure on Iran” is the headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial. The editors argue that this may be the best answer to the regime’s rising demands.

We’re just learning that Iranian threats caused President Trump to sneak out of Turkey in catering cart after the NATO summit:

The president was secretly transferred to a military aircraft to leave last month’s Nato summit in Ankara, with Air Force One used as a high-profile decoy, according to US intelligence sources.

“Immigration Becomes a Global Powder Keg” is the headline on Walter Russell Mead’s Wall Street Journal provocative column this morning. Mead puts for the novel idea that the modern era of mass immigration is ebbing and that countries must act or risk a backlash. Mead writes:

History suggests that opposition to immigration rises as migration becomes more common. The U.S., where immigration had largely been permitted since the Revolution, began to shift to more-restrictive immigration policies in the late 19th century as the share of foreign-born Americans passed 14%….

For Americans, the question is how to achieve a rational and humane immigration policy that is also politically sustainable. Our current legal framework likely will need to change. Total numbers (including refugees and anyone already illegally present who is legalized) would be capped, and the ceiling would drop when unemployment rates among Americans are high. …

… Reasonable action to restrict and control migration today will, one hopes, avoid the excessive crackdowns, to say nothing of mob violence, that the world has seen. But time is short.

To attract normal voters, our friends on the left are trying to pretend they never said the goofy things they said. Defund the police? Did I say that? “The tactic of AOC and her allies to giggle away the ‘craziness’ of Woke-era abuses should not be tolerated” is the headline on the invaluable Glenn Greenwald’s latest Substack piece.

“The so-called ‘Woke 1’ period is not something to laugh off. It was a repressive and destructive mob rule which unjustly destroyed careers and requires a reckoning,” Greenwald argues. He writes:

Many Democratic Party candidates emerging on what one might call the populist left are finding success in primaries across the country. But most of them have a shared liability: they were fully on board with the worst excesses and abuses of the “peak wokeness” that emerged in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 killing, enduring and contaminating most of our institutions for several years after.

AOC, on Sunday, went on ABC’s morning news program with Jonathan Karl, where she was asked about some of Hong’s statements, including her call for “abolishing prisons” and “[defunding] the police,” policies and phrases that have proven to be deeply unpopular. AOC, who herself aggressively advocated those policies, sought to laughingly dismiss this all as just some momentary, harmless frenzy of “craziness” that never really meant much and that everyone has all just agreed to move beyond.

Byron York responds with “You Can’t Erase Woke:”

[W]oke was indeed crazy. So now, it’s entirely reasonable for voters to ask why those candidates believed it so fervently.

One for the Road. “Why the Left Won’t Leave Nuns Alone” in the WSJ’s wonderful Free Expression section. The latest progressive is the Hawthorn Dominicans, founded by Nathanial Hawthorn’s daughter.

Should We Fret that Michigan Senate Hopeful Has a Thing About ‘Heads on Pikes’? World Wonders: Why Is It Difficult to Communicate with Supreme Leader? Truth about Sanctuary Cities. Typhus Rats of LA. More

Posted on August 6, 2026August 6, 2026 by Charlotte Hays

Whither the Democrats?

After Abdul El-Sayed’s nod for the Senate nomination by Michigan Democrats, the future of the Democratic Party is very much up for grabs. Ditto the nation.

The U.K. Telegraph calls El-Sayed’s victory “the night the Democrats lost control of their own party.” In the same outlet, El-Sayed is depicted as “an Oxford-educated doctor taking on [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer.”

“The March of the El-Sayed Democrats” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial. According to the editors, El-Sayed’s win “sets up the race of the year in November.” A few snippets:

Mr. El-Sayed is counting on anti-Donald Trump fury to unite Democrats despite his radical views. Look for the Democratic establishment, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to rally behind him despite their support for Ms. Stevens. Ben Rhodes, Dan Pfeiffer and the rest of the Barack Obama apparat are already lined up for him.

The stakes here are higher than a single Senate race. Nominating a leftist could cost the party a Senate majority that is very much in reach. If Mr. Rogers wins, one lesson will be that Mr. El-Sayed was too far left to win in a swing state even in what is likely to be an excellent Democratic year. Democrats might rethink this year’s headlong rush left as they consider the 2028 presidential race….

But if Mr. El-Sayed wins, he will immediately become a media favorite bent on colonizing the Democratic Party from the socialist left. He has said one of his first tasks will be trying to defeat John Fetterman, the pro-Israel Pennsylvania Democrat who is up for re-election in 2028. “Put one ogre on a pike and then everyone else gets the message,” he told a donor, according to leaked audio.

Heads on pikes? What, no guillotine? Michigan voters have to decide how polarizing and left-wing they want American politics to become.

“‘A Turning Point for Our Nation’: How Abdul El-Sayed Won” is a Free Press headline. Olivia Reingold’s take: “In Michigan this week, I saw the future of the Democratic Party. It is angry, energized, and on the march.” The “turning point” quote comes from Amir Makled, a Dearborn lawyer who has made a career out of anti-Israel advocacy. He means turning point in a good way. Why the sudden surge of socialist candidates such as El-Sayed and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani? Writing in the WSJ’s “Free Expression” section, psychotherapist and “Therapy Nation” author Jonathan Alpert has an answer: socialism feels good. Alpert writes:

Before people decide what government should do, they decide why their lives aren’t working. … They haven’t abandoned ambition or effort. What changes is where they expect meaningful change to come from. They place more faith in government, institutions and systemic reform than in personal agency, resilience and individual responsibility. As confidence shifts outward, political solutions become more attractive than personal ones….

Elections work the same way. Economic hardship doesn’t produce democratic socialists any more than unemployment produces conservatives or libertarians. Hardship produces frustration. Political movements compete to explain that frustration.

Democratic socialism offers a compelling explanation….

New York Post columnist Miranda Devine writes:

If El-Sayed can pull off a victory in November in the Midwest, in the swingiest of swing states, what will stop a Marxist heading for the White House?

This menacing hard-left takeover is disastrous for Democrats and frightening for America, but it is also a potential golden opportunity for the GOP — if they don’t screw it up, which is nowhere near certain.

Like his comrades, he has a vast trove of deleted social media posts expressing his true hard-left beliefs …. The level of deception skills involved in this metamorphosis has pundits praising him as a “political athlete” and likening him to Bill Clinton.

But his extremism is not hard to detect, no matter how flowery the language disguising it.

Money will be key in the midterms, writes Karl Rove, who gives a rundown of the strengths and weaknesses of both parties. Byron York of the Washington Examiner looks at the big picture:

You’re likely to hear many comments to the effect that el Sayed, who was expected to win by a big margin, instead got in by the skin of his teeth. It’s true, but it’s also not hugely important. The hugely important thing is that el Sayed won. And now, he has a chance in November.

Both the U.S. and Iran say a Hormuz deal is near, but are they on the same page? The deal reportedly does not include tolls. Nuclear experts urge President Trump not to let Iran steer talks away from the regime’s atomic threat.

Meanwhile, Iran just executed at least 56 people. This provoked the United Nations to declare such executions “deeply troubling” (ya think?) and insist that the barbaric practice of impromptu public murders “has no place in our world.” But it does have a place: Iran. Next thing you know, the UN will bravely proclaim the practice is “unacceptable.”

Iran’s President is finding it hard to communicate with the Supreme Leader, who may be dead or grievously injured. And Nicole Russell of USA TODAY is finding herself disillusioned with the Iran War: I don’t regret voting for Trump, but …

“The Hard Truth About the Sanctuary Movement” is The Federalist’s Sean Davis’s contribution to Hillsdale’s Imprimis series. Germane to this is an Axios report that Trump deportations cost taxpayers $2,358 each. Sorry, Axios, but this should be a conservative talking point. That figure is so much less than what it costs not to deport illegal aliens.

Vice President JD Vance’s op-ed in the Washington Post touts the Trump administration’s war on fraud. It’s a huge scandal that should be receiving more attention. But there is a problem: The fraud is found in the country’s massive and unaccountable web of federal assistance programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps—and the Dems and the press don’t want to go near it.

City Journal explores the human wreckage of misguided government welfare policies, including AI-driven job displacement. “The Permanent Underclass Is Already Here,” by Sanjana Friedman, concludes that more government assistance is not the solution. Also at City Journal, Chris Rufo and Ryan Thorpe write that a medieval disease is spreading in Los Angeles. As with the bubonic plague, it’s rats. The vermin-ridden county is seeing a staggering rise of typhus cases and horror stories:

Another told us that he’d seen a rat eating through the bandage of an injured man while he was asleep. “The rat chewed off the bandage he had, and literally the flesh off him, eating the dead flesh off his arm,” he said….

Individually, each of these incidents might be dismissed as an isolated failure. But taken together, they paint a different picture. A county struggles to keep its streets clean, to keep garbage from piling up, to bring homelessness under control, to contain its growing rat problem, and to prevent medieval diseases from infecting its citizens—all in a state more interested in “mountain lions and other wildlife” than the health of its own people. At a certain point, like the rats that torment Angelenos, the pattern becomes too overwhelming to ignore.

Ms. Must wrote about Jason Arday, the fabulist and DEI standard bearer, yesterday. Mr. Arday resigned his position at Cambridge. Rather than dwelling on plagiarism accusations, the New York headline just linked calls Arday a “star scholar.” Spiked Online’s rather more honest headline is “The Not-So Talented Mr. Arday.” Arday survived in one of the world’s great universities as long as he did because of identitarian politics:

The identitarian capture of elite institutions, supercharged by the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, has entailed the suspension of the values which once defined them – the displacement of truth, merit and excellence in pursuit of a mystical racial reckoning.

Swinging Michigan: Not As Big a Win as El-Sayed Expected. Apparent Trump Assassination Attempt Foiled. Susan Collins to Vote Against Blanche. Will Judge Jeanine Get as Many Last Chances as Iran? DEI at Cambridge U. More

Posted on August 5, 2026August 5, 2026 by Charlotte Hays

“There’s a reason it’s a swing state.”

That’s how the New York Post begins its report on what early this morning remained a nail-biter in Michigan. Even if there is a winner by the time you read this, the NYP analysis is relevant:

Michigan voters threw a wrench in expectations that Dr. Abdul El-Sayed would easily coast to victory over Rep. Haley Stevens in the closely watched Democratic Senate primary.

El-Sayed’s backers had seen the race as a battle for “the soul of the Democratic Party,” and the far-left’s attempt to prove that their candidates are just as electable, if not more, than centrist Dems.

But despite El-Sayed’s frequent double-digit leads in most polls, he wrapped up his watch party speech with a nearly two-percentage-point lead that was shrinking on Tuesday night.

Polling guru Nate Silver delivers this verdict: “Abdul El-Sayed’s apparent victory is a big win for the left — but a disaster for polling and a case study in poor expectations management.” Polls gave El-Sayed an overwhelming lead, but when Silver was writing at 4 am Eastern Time, he was only 1.4 points ahead. Jack Butler of The Wall Street Journal’s “Free Expression” section says El-Sayed’s apparent win only amounts to “Michigan’s Middling Momentum for the Left.”

Elsewhere in the Wolverine state, William Lawrence—a Bernie Sanders anti-ICE activist—cruised to victory, defeating two more moderate contenders to win the Democratic nomination for Michigan’s seventh congressional district. Primaries in other states provide mixed signals for the entrail readers:

Across the country, similar ideological battles were waged with mixed results. And in two red states, voters rejected GOP-led ballot measures that would have given state legislators more power to reshape law on key issues, including abortion.

Virginia’s 1^st district congressional race will be among the most competitive in November. Democrat Shannon Taylor, a moderate-leaning candidate and county prosecutor, goes up against GOP incumbent Rep. Rob Wittman. The district includes Richmond. More Virginia results. Missouri was one of the most interesting congressional races (back to the WaPo):

The Missouri race assessed the power of AIPAC as it did when the duo competed in 2024.AIPAC’s spending that year made the race one of the most expensive primaries in U.S. history and helped [Rep. Wesley] Bell unseat Cori Bush. The former congresswoman, an ex-member of “the Squad” of several progressive lawmakers, harshly criticized Israel over the war in Gaza before some Democrats even began to question their stance. On the night of her 2024 loss, Bush hinted at a comeback bid: “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.” On the night of her 2024 loss, Bush hinted at a comeback bid: “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”

But don’t heave a sigh of relief, AIPAC. Squad member Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state had a better night and will advance to the general election with 53% of the vote in the state’s jungle primary.

Not Again. In what appears to have been yet another Trump assassination attempt, a man carrying ammunition was arrested near the Trump National Golf Club in LA before the president’s Southern California trip. From CBS:

When deputies approached the man, who has been identified as 38-year-old Downey resident Jeanine John Taele, they determined he was already under investigation by the El Segundo Police Department for a separate incident.

Investigators said an illegally modified AR platform rifle, a 1911 .45 caliber pistol, an AR platform upper receiver, body armor, high-capacity magazines, bulk pistol and rifle ammunition, two radio signal devices and multiple notebooks containing “concerning statements” were recovered from the home during Monday’s search warrant.

Ms. Must is most eager to find out more about the strangely named suspect Jeanine John Taele and those “concerning statements.”

Maine Senator Susan Collins announced that she will not vote to confirm acting AG Todd Blanche. From Politico:

The Maine Republican, who is facing a difficult race for reelection, said in a statement she would oppose Blanche, citing “several actions that have further eroded the Department’s independence.” She specifically mentioned his role in a controversial IRS settlement with President Donald Trump and over having “promised an anti-abortion organization that he would seek to prohibit the mailing of abortion medication to women nationwide.”

Senators Bill Cassidy and Lisa Murkowski are undecided. Blanche must win one of their votes to be confirmed.

Iran seems to have found something it likes even more than the prospect of nuclear annihilation. “Iran Is Staking Everything on Controlling the Strait of Hormuz,” the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the WSJ, “Tehran’s hard-line approach threatens to destroy its economy and relations with neighbors.”

A Foundation for the Defense of Democracies analyst sums up the regime’s ruse to win:

“This is a regime that knows it cannot win an outright battle of conventional capability,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies Iran Program Senior Director Behnam Ben Taleblu said on Fox News’ “America Reports.”

“They’re even fighting a battle of wills right now against the Trump administration, both on the battlefield and diplomatically,” he added.

Warnings that the U.S. is low on munitions are alarming, and such information should be classified, as Dana Perino astutely noted on The Five. It’s not unfair to note that former President Joe Biden’s $7 billion Taliban weapons tab, which is still coming due, is a factor.

Meanwhile, the (just barely) satirical Babylon Bee responds to the impasse in Iran with this:

Trump Warns Iran This Is Their Fourth-To-Last Chance at Peace

Is U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro getting a last-chance warning from President Trump? Judge Jeanine was called on the carpet by the president, who claimed that the reason she dropped charges in the Lincoln Reflecting Pool case was that she “choked.” Pirro dropped criminal charges in three Reflecting Pool vandalism cases involving the pool lining. The president disputes that faulty construction caused the problems.

A Washington Post editorial charges that Judge Jeanine, as the U.S. attorney is known, is fighting for her job because of what it terms the “absurdity of the Reflecting Pool prosecutions.” Riddle Me This: How many last warnings will Judge Jeanine get?

DEI is everywhere and nowhere more hilariously than at the U.K.’s revered Cambridge University, where academic superstar Jason Arday was “hired three years ago amid great fanfare as the youngest black professor in the history of that institution.”

Arday, as Kyle Smith tells us, was also a fabulist. He fabricated astonishing academic credentials and a tale of overcoming adversity (he claimed to have been diagnosed with autism at three). Arday’s story fell apart when seemingly irrefutable charges of plagiarism emerged. Smith recounts:

Shortly after being hired, Mr. Arday claimed he was sent vicious racist emails; that the severed head of a pig was sent to his parents’ place in South London; and that an intruder came at him in his office, twice, the second time with a knife. After the first incident, the university installed extra surveillance equipment including CCTV but no images of anyone with a knife have been found. Mr. Arday helpfully gave the Guardian the name of a local butcher’s shop that police supposedly investigated because it had supposedly sold a whole pig on the morning of the incident, but the butchers denied this (“That’s the kind of thing we’d remember”) and so did the police (“categorically”).

When the Guardian, whose woke credentials are usually seen as unassailable, confronted Mr. Arday about his misadventures with truth, he said, “To be honest with you, I thought you’d just believe me.”

If you can’t get enough of Jason Arday—and, dear me, who can?—here, here, and here. Here’s my favorite and most relevant to college admissions: “Who Had to Lose for Jason Arday to Win?“

Married Ladies to Starve in Mamdani’s New York: “NYC Mayor Mamdani Demands ID for Groceries but Not Voting.”

Two from Compact Magazine. “Why Democrats Can’t Stop the DSA,” by Alex Hogan, and “The Racial Crossroads,” by Helen Andrews. It was published two days ago, but I can’t stop thinking about Dominic Green’s “The Ceuta Invasion Is Stranger Than Fiction,” about the Moroccan invasion of Spain.

Michigan Primary: The Democratic Party’s Future. El-Sayed & Hasan Piker: It Will Be Extra Sweetening if Carville Leaves Our Party. Judge Jeanine’s Umbrella. Hormuz. Liberal Writer Asks: Should I Get a Gun? More

Posted on August 4, 2026August 4, 2026 by Charlotte Hays

It’ll be a hot time in the political world tonight.

After the polls close tonight, we’ll know a lot more about the direction of the Democratic Party. Is it leaning socialist or towards the party’s old guard? A bellwether race: Michigan’s high-drama Senate nomination battle, which is “a fight for the Democratic Party’s future.” The New York Times’ thumbnail sketch:

The bitter, expensive race pits Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former public health official, against Representative Haley Stevens, a centrist supported by party leaders. The winner will defend the seat of Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat who is retiring, in a battleground state that could determine control of the Senate. Along with Michigan, four other states are holding primaries on Tuesday: Kansas, Virginia, Washington and Missouri.

El-Sayed says, implausibly, that he is not a socialist. He has campaigned, however, with radical streamer and lightning rod Hasan Piker, who’s exhilarated by what he sees as El-Sayed’s chances tonight:

On the eve of his Senate primary, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed stumped with controversial lefty streamer Hasan Piker, who once claimed that “America deserved 9/11” — and delivered a final speech reflecting on the country’s flaws.

“I’ve been seeing a lot of clips of like white dude bros that are so stoked to vote for you in the f–king Democratic primaries,” Piker marveled about El-Sayed. “Like, these are people that normally never vote at all, let alone in a primary, let alone for a Democrat.”

The two also gloated over veteran Democratic strategist James Carville floating the possibility of leaving the party if Piker takes over. The streamer argued that the threat was “sweetening the deal.”

El-Sayed also touts the endorsement of Horace Sheffield III, an influential Detroit pastor and radio host who once heaped praise on Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan. A video from 2018 that features El-Sayed advocating driver’s licenses for illegals has surfaced. Another race with big implications: Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong’s race for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Wisconsin is said to be DSA’s biggest test yet.

Embattled Democratic Committee Chair Ken Martin is having a hard time raising money. We’re learning more (via a New York Times scoop) about the DNC’s botched autopsy of the 2024 presidential debacle—the autopsy left out the most important chapter. You know what we need now to cheer us up? Kamala Harris! “This is your moment, Kamala Harris. America needs you,” suggests the Washington Post’s Kate Andrews:

Her political resurrection cannot come soon enough.

Some uplifting cheeriness is needed immediately.

“We each have light inside of us,” the former vice president told Don Lemon on YouTube in June. “And when we feel that and not allow an election or an individual to dampen that light, and instead let that light kind of carry us, in particular through moments of darkness, that we not only act on that hope, but we inspire that hope in each other.”

This is Harris’s gift to America’s political discourse. She is the antidote, the welcome comic relief amid today’s heaviness.

Ms. Must is betting that Judge Jeanine (Pirro) might be in need of some comic relief after President Trump accused the judge of “folding like an umbrella” after she concluded damage at the Lincoln Reflecting Pool was not caused by vandals. Her job is said to be safe—for now.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, meanwhile, moves closer to confirmation as AG after GOP Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn dropped their objections after Blanche issued a formal statement that President Trump’s beloved $1.8 billion “anti-weaponisation” fund is dead. A Wall Street Journal editorial concludes:

The two Senators say they’re ready to confirm Mr. Blanche. Democrats will complain they should block him anyway, but since Mr. Trump can keep his man as acting AG, the question is realistic alternatives. And as Mr. Trump put it in his threat on Saturday: “Todd Blanche was a voice of reason!”

Not implausible. Messrs. Cornyn and Tillis got the Justice Department to bend, and it’s good to see Senators use their advise-and-consent power productively.

President Trump is giving Iran “one last chance” to sign a deal before “decapitation.” It feels as if we’ve been here before. Details are emerging about a cargo ship stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran claims it is close to a deal with Oman for control of Hormuz—the deal would include fees. A U.S. official denied the report. There are conflicting signals about the Strait.

In “President Trump’s Triple Bogey,” Hugh Hewitt uses the way Trump golfs as giving hope that the U.S. will prevail in Iran. Walter Russell Mead, WSJ’s foreign affairs guru, uses the game of bridge to make the point that “Trump’s Unpredictability Has Costs, Too.” Gerard Baker, in the same outlet, predicts that Iran will be handed off to Trump’s successor (ugh) and also dings the president’s unpredictability:

Some see this endless back and forth as the enigmatic work of a pure genius…. Others see it as the derangements of a trapped and helpless man….

Ms. Must can’t stop thinking about Dr. Anthony Fauci’s pleading the Fifth 111 times in testimony aimed at ascertaining the origin of Covid 19. In “Covid’s Moral Injuries,” Meghan Cox Gurdon argues, “Strict lockdowns forced us to deny obvious truths.” Ms. Gurdon writes:

If you, like me, suffered profound moral injury five and six years ago you may have felt the old wounds throbbing this past week. It was hard to see Anthony Fauci demonstrate his contempt for Americans by pleading the Fifth Amendment and refusing to answer questions from members of Congress—even though he was pre-emptively pardoned for any potential alleged lies and crimes by President Biden. The sight of the smug little doctor, silent for once, was all the more galling alongside the release of diary entries he kept on his work computer that reveal what a preening, dissembling popinjay he was all along.

Like Dr. Fauci, former President Joe Biden got by (sort of) with denying obvious truths. Jonathan Turley writes in the Hill that the tapes Biden fought hard to conceal reveal that he confessed everything about his handling of classified material.

Special Counsel Robert Hur let President Biden off because he found him a “sympathetic” elderly man with a bad memory:

It is hard to see how any of that would present “a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” It sounds more like a cynical, shrewd politician with poor ethics. It also sounds like it would have been a strong foundation for a prosecution.

Vice President JD Vance is seen as the potential frontrunner for the GOP 2028 nomination. That makes Bill McGurn’s Wall Street Journal column—”JD Vance ‘Fixes’ Capitalism”—this morning quite timely. McGurn writes:

Vice President JD Vance would seem to have little in common with J.D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), once the wealthiest man in the world. But the two Republicans have in common a belief that capitalism doesn’t work for the American people. Mr. Vance has little faith in market competition, which Rockefeller called “a sin.” …

Today Mr. Vance says that while [free market economist Milton] Friedman’s ideas might have worked “in a world where there are Christian guardrails on everything,” they are ill-suited for our more secular age.

If you’re interested in this, Peter Berkowitz had a fascinating article over the weekend about Patrick Deneen, the Notre Dame professor and Vance influencer, who also has reservations about classical liberalism.

Good news from our friend Dr. Sally Satel. “Med Schools Are Over Their Politics Fever,” Sally writes in the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression section. “Students aren’t swearing to uproot ‘structural violence’ anymore. They’re taking the Hippocratic Oath,’ she reveals.

“Should I Get a Gun?” asks Larissa Phillips of The Free Press. “I’ve opposed them for most of my life. But right now, I’m considering getting a handgun,” Phillips admits.

“Will Republicans Renounce Max Miller?” asks a headline in the same publication. “The GOP congressman’s ex-wife has accused him of assault amid a custody battle. He has denied the claims and said he’ll stay in his race.” Miller’s ex-wife is the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno.

“Is ‘Communist’ No Longer a Slur?” asks Victor Davis Hanson’s headline at American Greatness. We’ll know more about the answer after tonight.