Issue: Politics

Jersey Mikie can’t be happy.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill was quick to dismiss the “glitch” that registered more than six thousand “noncitizens” to vote in New Jersey. But maybe not so fast?   

“Software vendor says NJ knew 6,600 noncitizens registered to vote — and approved them anyway,” an inconvenient New York Post headline blares:  

The software company that New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill blamed for 6,600 noncitizens getting put onto the voter rolls insists that local officials were responsible for illegally registering the immigrants.

Sherrill (D) claimed Tuesday that a “serious software error” in the state’s Motor Vehicle System involving French tech company IDEMIA caused the mishap, which led to some 400 noncitizens voting.

But IDEMIA said that the state had access to data showing that those individuals were not citizens — but apparently registered them to vote anyway.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal doesn’t even insinuate that government officials, including Sherrill, who wasn’t even in office at the time, were complicit but instead uses glitch-gate to suggest that it’s time for blue states to clean up their voter rolls:

New Jersey’s screw-up is another reminder that illegal voting isn’t a myth, and vigilance is important. On the other hand, this also isn’t the conspiracy that Mr. Trump likes to conjure in the minds of his supporters.

The risk of vote fraud is highest in local races with small numbers of ballots, and getting away with even that isn’t easy. Last year three Pennsylvania men were sentenced to federal prison for trying to steal a mayoral election in Millbourne by falsely registering “nearly three dozen” out-of-towners to addresses in the borough.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is demanding answers on New Jersey’s voter rolls scandal.

“Mamdani’s Foiled Plot to Kidnap Netanyahu,” by Paul Mauro (the former NYC cop and Fox Contributor), writes that if New York Mayor Zohran had followed up on his campaign promise to arrest Israel’s Prime Minister, it might have been the Z-man who would have ended up in handcuffs. Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen makes the same point.

“Mamdani’s Netanyahu backtrack marks another broken promise as mayor prioritizes ideology over running NYC: critics” is the New York Post take:

“He should start focusing on the people of his city instead of meddling in matters he doesn’t understand.”

The socialist mayor, who repeatedly harped on the Israeli leader on the campaign trail and in his curated online profiles, was finally forced to admit he doesn’t have the juice to lock up Netanyahu when he visits the city — but continues to flash his disdain for the Jewish state.

Writing at The Free Press, Douglas Murray explains why Mamdani wants to make an enemy of one of the U.S.’s closest allies:

Sometimes you wonder why a person went into politics. Other times, you know exactly why they did. For Zohran Mamdani, yesterday was a case of the latter.

On Tuesday evening he released a two-minute video of himself, seated behind a desk, flanked by the flags of the United States and New York. He had arranged this posture—for posture it was—to announce a development in the case of Zohran Mamdani vs. Benjamin Netanyahu, otherwise known as Mamdani vs. the State of Israel. Attacks on Israel have been central to Mamdani’s political rise. He has spent his life marinating in postcolonial politics, Third Worldism, and anti-Zionism, and brings agitation, certainty, and ignorance to debates about the Middle East.

Mamdani and his comrades hurl the “genocide” accusation at Israel to justify their lethal animus against the world’s only Jewish state. “False accusations of genocide are nothing new,” a fascinating Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “Rwanda, Israel and the Inversion of ‘Genocide.’” Anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein argues that when Hamas defenders accuse the Jewish state, they “follow a trail the Hutus blazed in 1993.” Lodging the vile accusation apparently doesn’t promote human happiness, as Brendan O’Neill exposes the “staggering joylessness” of those he dubs Gazaholics.

The U.S. military has completed the 12th straight night of strikes on Iran. Powerline endorses what it sees as a new Trump policy of hitting Iran harder. Oil prices are rising this morning because of claimed Houthi attacks on the Red Sea. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal argues that reconciliation 3.0 is the best chance Republicans have to shore up defense. Yet another WSJ editorial calls President Trump’s nuclear deal with the Saudis “a mistake”:

Why does Saudi Arabia need to enrich uranium on its home soil? The answer isn’t complicated: It doesn’t unless it would like to establish the rudiments of a nuclear-weapons program as a contingency. The more difficult question to answer is why the Trump Administration is going along with it….

The stakes are high. The risk of nuclear-weapons catastrophe increases each time nuclear enrichment spreads. That’s why the bipartisan U.S. consensus has been to stop the spread of the most dangerous processes and capabilities to enemies and allies….

The Trump Administration says it has devised a bilateral safeguards agreement of its own. But we doubt the Saudis rejected the standard protocol in favor of even stricter inspections. They are bound to be weaker, establishing the precedent that each U.S. ally can push for its own preferential monitoring….

The U.S. needs Arab allies, and it has much to offer oil-rich Saudi Arabia as it diversifies its economy. But the Saudis don’t need a path to a nuclear bomb to match Iran. Mr. Trump and the U.S. military have been making sure of that. Why undermine that success now?

Karl Rove asks what is the most important question in American politics (and indeed our civilization): “Will Democrats Disavow the DSA Platform?” Rove writes:

The Constitution is also on the chopping block. “Building a new society from the ground up”—France 1792 and Russia 1917, anyone?—entails making the District of Columbia a state, expanding the size of the House and instituting ranked-choice voting. Also abolishing the Senate and the Electoral College—though the latter wouldn’t give way to the popular vote. Instead, the platform calls to “replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”

On a more practical level, USA TODAY columnist Ingrid Jaques writes that Democrats have made another mistake in Maine by putting up a second unvetted Senate candidate. Meanwhile, Senator Elizabeth Warren, an ardent admirer of Maine’s Nazi tattoo candidate, has found her Nazi red line:

OK: Having a Totenkopf tattoo, cavorting with Holocaust revisionists. Not OK: Honoring your Nazi grandfather on Veterans Day.

Sophie Cunningham is causing quite a stir in the MSM by saying that she doesn’t favor men competing against women in women’s competitions:

WNBA star Sophie Cunningham sent shockwaves in the ongoing culture war over the WNBA and trans athletes in women’s sports on Tuesday after revealing her stance on the issue to ESPN.

Cunningham’s recent statements sparked debate on social media after she revealed she is in support of protecting women’s sports.

“I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,'” Cunningham said.

The Washington Free Beacon hails Cunningham as a Superstar and Scrappy Feminist Standing Up for Women’s Sports. Uh oh: The Beacon said something about Ms. Cunningham that you’re not supposed to say:

She found success in a league that has historically excluded attractive white women. Now she’s using her platform to ‘protect young girls’ from ‘biological men.’

New York Post’s aptly named columnist Miranda Devine makes a habit of saying what you’re not supposed to say. Her column this morning is headlined: “The Smithsonian reeks of communist ideologies that our Founding Fathers would be ashamed of.” She writes:

If you wondered how communism has grabbed a foothold in the United States of America of all places, look no further than the Smithsonian Institution.

The world’s largest and most influential museum has been hijacked by Marxist ideology to teach self-loathing anti-American woke propaganda to its 20 million annual visitors plus 20 million students a year.

The Smithsonian teaches that “politeness,” “punctuality,” “objectivity” and “hard work” is white supremacy, and that Mickey Mouse is a form of blackface, while devoting not one major exhibit to ­George Washington or any of the Founding Fathers.

Irresistible. Senator Ossoff of Georgia certainly ought to be, given this Free Beacon scoop:

Jon Ossoff Spends Thousands on ‘Makeup Services’ from Artist Who Worked on Hollywood Blockbusters Like ‘The Notebook’

Make-up maketh the man.

Who REALLY has “zero credibility” in the scandal of New Jersey’s having more than 6,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls?

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill attempted to minimize the disgrace by blaming a convenient target:

Approximately 400 non-citizens cast ballots illegally in New Jersey elections since 2023 after more than 6,000 immigrants were wrongly added to the Garden State’s voter rolls, Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill admitted Tuesday.

Despite the mortifying disclosure, Sherrill managed to use her press conference about the fumble to take a swipe at President Trump.

She added that Trump “has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity.”

Only 400 noncitizens voted? Sherrill also cast aspersions—by name—on her predecessor, Governor Phil Murphy, who was in office when the suspicious noncitizens were added to the voter rolls.

Sherrill could not have liked the New York Post Cover. “Jersey Devil,” it screamed, reiterating the damning numbers. Axios says that what it calls a “software glitch” “could fuel President Trump’s unsupported claims of mass voter fraud that critics say threaten to undermine trust in elections.”

You better bet the “glitch” fuels claims of voter fraud. The GOP would be seriously remiss if it didn’t pounce. Brianna Lyman of The Federalist writes:

New Jersey is one of more than 20 states the Department of Justice has sued for refusing to turn over voter rolls to be “cross-checked effectively for improper registrations.”

In other words, our elections are insecure and vulnerable to foreign election interference. Noncitizens can (and do) register to vote, and they also can (and do) illegally vote in our elections. In fact, The Federalist previously reported that voter rolls from at least eight of the state’s 21 counties show several instances in which noncitizens were registered to vote, with several stating they did “not understand” how they became “registered through the Department of Motor Vehicles, allegedly.”

Meanwhile, primaries in Arizona gave President Trump good news as Rep. Andy Biggs “sailed” to the Republican nomination to run against Governor Katie Hobbs:

Now comes the more difficult task for the five-term conservative firebrand in his quest to defeat Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs: winning over needed independents without straying too far from the White House.

Arizona is one of the most hotly contested swing states in the country, but in several Republican primaries this year the experts have warned Trump-endorsed contenders will have a tougher time in the general election.

What’s it with high-powered representatives of the DC elite culture being afraid to say what’s different about men and women? Another one has joined the Ketanji Club:

Smithsonian National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig appeared stumped by a basic question on sex and gender from Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.

During a House hearing on alleged “extreme political activism” on display at the Smithsonian, Mace asked Hartig, “Do you believe that men can become women?”

Hartig hesitated before answering, “Ma’am, as the director of the museum, that’s not relevant in this case.”

Ms. Hartig was testifying before a House subcommittee that questioned her about a White House report that the museum under her direction has been “captured” by ideology and attempts to “erase” America’s heritage. So, maybe it is relevant whether Hartig believes men can become women? Just asking.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Louis XIV of Science, is likely to get a grilling when he testifies before Congress, considering new Slack messages that Rep. Rand Paul has released. According to the new material, the authors of key documents on the origin of Covid, harbored doubts about what they told the public. Fauci, who has been accused of manipulating scientific data to exonerate the Wuhan lab, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which Paul, who has relentlessly pursued the Covid origins story, is chairman.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth went before the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday to field questions about the Department of War’s $67 billion supplemental budget request, a large portion of which is intended to fund military operations in Iran. The Washington Post reports that the Secretary faced “bipartisan scrutiny.”

Latest combat deaths show risk has shifted to troops far from Iran’s borders. Iran’s ballistic missiles are proving a continuing threat. A fourth American soldier, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York, is believed to have been killed. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal says that the President has “acquired a new target”:

President Trump’s attention has turned to Pickaxe Mountain, the deep-underground potential nuclear enrichment site long familiar to readers of these columns. “We’ll be hitting that area pretty soon,” the President said Tuesday. “There’s not a thing they can do about it.”

Let’s hope he’s right on both counts. The U.S. passed over the facility during Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025 and this year’s Operation Epic Fury. … You don’t build a facility like the one at Pickaxe Mountain merely to store centrifuges. This is the enrichment site of the Iranian regime’s dreams, the perfect place for a nuclear breakout to weapons-grade uranium. It’s deeper even than the Fordow site that the U.S. struck with precisely targeted 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators.

Hence the need for U.S. action.

In related developments, President Trump approved a landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, David Ignatius of the Washington Post cheers President Trump’s attention to Lebanon, and Speaker Mike Johnson says it’s time to “wrap it up” in Iran as president rejects midterm influence on war.

What are traditional Democrats doing to save their party from the newly empowered socialists/communists? Nothin’ much, it appears. “Democrats are completely blind to the DSA’s brazen party coup — so the rest of us must step up,” New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz argues in her latest column:

Someone has to be first up against the wall when their revolution comes — and it’s going to be the same Democrats who are refusing now to fight back.

It’s way past the time for Democrats to say: These are bad ideas that have harmed millions of people, and we won’t stand for them in our party.

The rest of us can’t wait around and watch them try communism just one more time because the Democrats are scared to come off as uncool.

“What the Movement Taking Over the Democratic Party Wants” is a symposium at The Free Press that features thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson, Natan Sharansky, Bhaskar Sunkara, and more on whether the movement sweeping Democratic primaries is communism, socialism, or something else entirely.

Who are the people who want to take over the Democratic Party? “The DSA sweet spot: highly educated, downwardly mobile” is the headline on Nate Silver’s Substack column:

Based on this grid, what is the most Democratic voting group in America? It’s voters with postgraduate degrees but lower-to-middle household incomes of $30K to $60K per year.

This is very much also the sweet spot for the DSA. In the group’s most recent member survey in 2021, 80 percent of members aged 25 or older had bachelor’s degrees, but 45 percent had household incomes below $60,000 per year.

This is unusual, because education and income are usually substantially positively correlated. In the composite CES data, only 19 percent of Americans with bachelor’s degrees or higher had household incomes of $60K or below. The DSA rate is around twice that.⁴ These voters aren’t necessarily “blue collar” in the sense of working with their hands. But that doesn’t mean they’re privileged. Common occupations among DSA members include teachers, non-profit workers, social workers, and public sector employees.

Meanwhile, the standard bearer for this contingent of voters, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has realized that New York can’t arrest Israeli PM, Bibi Netanyahu. All he can do is pout and call Netanyahu bad names. Meanwhile, Senator John Fetterman calls the Z-man “a total clown.”

One For the Road. Senator Darline Graham surprised everybody by deciding to run for the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat. Byron York writes about “The unknown Darline Graham.”

Here is how The Free Press characterizes the political legerdemain that is providing Maine Democrats with a senatorial candidate who is to all appearances bereft of Nazi tattoos:

The oysterman is out; a logger, Troy Jackson, is in. Platner built a powerful movement brimming with anger.

The Dems must feel their search for the elusive white working-class male has been rewarded: a logger! A supporter of Graham Platner, Jackson is the presumptive Dem nominee to challenge GOP moderate Senator Susan Collins. If anger was a criterion to succeed Graham Platner, Jackson seems to brim with it too:  

Troy Jackson, a powerful Maine legislator now running for Senate, once angrily threw a water bottle in a meeting after he couldn’t persuade a lawmaker to vote his way.

He yelled at another lawmaker, prompting her to post on social media that straight men were “too emotional” to be in politics. And he cursed and shouted in a meeting with the speaker of Maine’s state House, until she kicked him out of her office.

During the six years Jackson presided over Maine’s Senate, until he left office in 2024, his temper was a feature of his leadership, and one that Democratic lawmakers discussed among themselves as a problem and even raised with the governor.

Jackson is a progressive Democrat who advocates “Medicare for all” but—intriguingly—was formerly against abortion and same-sex marriage. He has since redeemed himself. Five things to know about Mr. Jackson. Graham Platner remains a factor. Peter Savrodnik of The Free Press writes that from immigration enforcement to the war in Gaza, the young leftists inspired by the Maine Senate candidate are still steering their party’s direction.

The Maine Senate seat is key to Dem hopes for taking the Senate. The Examiner’s Joe Concha, however, makes the case that the most important Senate race in decades is happening in Michigan. Abdul El Sayed is running against a prominent former Obama official in the Aug. 4 primary:

El Sayed has called for defunding the police in the past. He wants to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement now. He believes private health insurance should cease to exist and that the government should run the entire healthcare system. 

If this were el Sayed’s platform while running in New York City or Seattle or Denver or Washington, D.C., he’d have an excellent chance of winning. But this is Michigan, a state President Donald Trump won twice and narrowly lost in 2020. It’s the perfect test case for socialism succeeding statewide in a purple state.  

Polls currently have el Sayed trailing former Obama administration official Haley Stevens by four points in the RealClearPolitics average. But he is favored to win the nomination on the betting market Kalshi by a 66% to 34% margin. Polymarket also has el Sayed as the favorite.

El Sayed has a Jill Biden feature—he calls himself a doctor but, like Jill, doesn’t have a medical license. But that’s a side issue. El Sayed has campaigned with Hasan Piker, who said that America deserved 9/11. Either El Sayed, who won Senator Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement, or Stevens will oppose Republican Mike Rogers, who narrowly lost a Senate race to Senator Elissa Slotkin in 2024, in the general election. All in the Family: El Sayed is graced with a sis who spits at cops.

What we are seeing is the “The Brave New Age of Trust-Fund Socialism,” or wealthy anticapitalists are transforming the Democratic Party, profiled in this highly recommended Free Beacon exposé. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “working costume” seems to be fraying. What is distressing is that the rise of the socialists is being discussed primarily in terms of the midterms—not its long-range ramifications.

While Democrats search for ways to end U.S. attacks on Iran, Hugh Hewitt argues, “America is winning its battle with Iran. It’s only a matter of time.” But do the Iranians have more tolerance for pain than we do? The U.S. is taking casualties, including 100 wounded, which makes the war harder for the public to stomach, but some are daring to ask what a post-Islamic Republic would look like. President Trump will attend the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base of the bodies of two American soldiers killed in an Iranian attack in Jordan over the weekend, 1st Lt. Tyler Feehan and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales.

Saying she wants to be “more than a caretaker,” Senator Darline Graham Nordone, appointed to fill the remainder of her brother the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s term, threw her hat into the race to succeed Graham on the Hannity show. The field already is crowded.

More Politics. “Vance vs. Rubio: The Shadow Primary” is the headline on a WSJ “Free Expression” piece by Matthew Hennessey. Hennessey writes that both men have begun putting down markers on issues like the economy, capitalism, and communism. Hennessey critiques Vice President Vance’s appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast and says that to run at all, Secretary of State Rubio would have to give up his current jobs in the administration.

Hilarity Ensued. Former CNN host Don Lemon says that people have been asking him to run for President, and he just might take them up on it. Lemon claims MAGA people are “Nazis, but Without the Holocaust Stuff.” As Townhall quips, that’s like saying someone is Catholic without the transubstantiation stuff.

“The Constitution, Birthright Citizenship, and a Self-Governing Republic,” by Linda Denno, in Civitas Outlook, summarizes Trump v. Barbara. The birthright citizenship case that made it to the Supreme Court this way: “The decision in Trump v. Barbara represents a missed opportunity for the Court to reaffirm that citizenship is a fundamental aspect of national sovereignty.”

The U. S. Treasury stopped nearly $100M in taxpayer money from going to dead people after a new gov’t measure was implemented, according to a New York Post exclusive:

The department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service discovered the money set to go to ghosts after a review of an eye-popping 885 million payments worth a total of nearly $2.7 trillion.

Since March 2025, the screening has identified more than 4,900 disbursements, worth approximately $99 million, associated with deceased payees, according to the Treasury. 

The payments going to the dead – often indicative of fraud – were returned to the originating federal agencies for review before any funds were disbursed, the department said. 

The $99 million figure is a tiny fraction (0.0036%) of the $2.7 trillion the department reviewed as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on waste, fraud and abuse — but more than triple what Treasury discovered going to the deceased in the days before President Trump took office last year.   

“Treasury has delivered on a key promise of President Trump’s mandate to stop improper payments and fraud before money leaves the Treasury, and strengthen the integrity of the federal payment system,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. 

You’ve got to love “often indicative of fraud.”

Everybody is talking about The Odyssey, including Megan Cox Gurdon, who has a fine piece on the movie and the World Cup which have united Americans. Don’t miss Ms. Gurdon’s “Return of the Monoculture.” I don’t know if normal, everyday people are talking about Vogue magazine, but I recommend Julie Burchill’s delightfully sulphuric takedown of the “magazine’s woke makeover [that] has proven its downfall.”

I almost forgot: the U.K. has another new Prime Minister. A Telegraph podcast hails PM Andy Burnham’s “mandate.” Ouch.

“Andy Burnham Is Mad for It” is the headline on Dominic Green’s WSJ “Free Expression” welcome for Mr. Burnham. I gather Mr. Burnham is mad for Manchester, where he was until recently the Mayor:

The conquering hero of Labour politics is bringing Manchesterism to London. Nobody knows for sure what that means.

Gareth Roberts, meanwhile, says that Burnham is “stuck in the 1990s.” Raising the question: How long will he be stuck at 10 Downing?

We started on socialism this morning. So why not end on it (before it ends us)? Don’t miss City Journal’s “Why Socialists Want to Shut Down Prisons.” “Far-left, extremist ideology prevents an honest interpretation of crime and incarceration data,” explains the subhead. Also, Ms. Must suggests that they might have a hard time telling good people from bad people.  

With apologies to the BBC, this was the week that was.

We started the week with the sudden and shocking loss of Senator Lindsey Graham and are ending with “a new normal of increased strikes against Iran ‘to break the impasse’ over Strait of Hormuz.”

And President Trump went there. President Trump delivered a much-anticipated White House address last night. USA TODAY puckishly remarked on the president’s timing:

With 110 days to go before crucial midterm contests, President Donald Trump was naturally focused on the election in his primetime address to the nation.

The election six years ago, that is.

Joking aside, the president made the serious charge that U.S. elections are “riddled with vulnerabilities that hostile foreign actors and unauthorized immigrants are exploiting.” Axios, which is not sympathetic to the president, reports:

President Trump alleged Thursday that U.S. intelligence agencies covered up information about alleged Chinese efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. election.

The document release is likely to renew scrutiny of Trump’s claims about foreign interference in the U.S. election and the government’s past intelligence assessments.

The documents release allege that foreign adversaries — including Russia, China and Iran — were viewed as real threats to U.S. elections. Multiple released documents say large-scale manipulation of U.S. voting systems would be difficult to accomplish without detection.

The New York Times says that the documents the president presented “fall short” of proving his case. An Unherd story frames this in a different way: “As is typical of Trump’s favorite targets, the evidence of some wrongdoing is not entirely ludicrous. The scope of it, however, is what will matter to voters.”

Your response to the president’s address will likely hinge on how you feel about Trump. The New York Times sees it as “a Trump obsession that carries a cost for democracy.” For Townhall, the president last night “revealed what we all suspected about the 2020 election.” You may read the entire address here.

The speech was part of the president’s push to pass the Save America Act. A report in The Federalist that “More Than 250,000 Noncitizens Are Registered to Vote in Four States” is germane.

I think we have to say that Vice President JD, Father of the MOU, has been going through a rocky patch. “ JD Vance is wrong to blame Israel for his Iran peace deal’s failure thus far,” according to an editorial in the New York Post. Et tu: Then the Veep’s  (former?) good buddy Rod Dreher writes in The Free Press of “JD Vance’s Time for Choosing.” The subtitle: “Stab-in-the-back theories about Israel will only accelerate America’s Weimar spiral.”

As if that is not enough, Kimberley Strassel writes that “President Vance Has Gone AWOL“—Vance is President of the Senate, from which he’s absent to push his new book—and Matthew Continetti writes that “Vance has a steep climb to the White House.”

By contrast, Vance’s chief rival for the White House, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is walking on water just now (though as you know, reversals of fortune are dizzying in our nation’s capital). Fresh from advocating the dismantling of the noxious International Criminal Court, Rubio is winning plaudits for his warning on the rise of left-wing terrorism:

For far too long our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot — a blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left.

Even today, the very idea that far-left terrorism could be a serious threat is treated as a right-wing fever dream, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy. It’s treated this way by many in the press, by many in academia and our universities, and by many of our legacy institutions. You will no doubt see the dogma rear its head in the coverage of this very conference.

In spite of the clear and the undeniable reality, in spite of the objective numbers and statistics, in spite of the fact that in this room today there are representatives from across the political spectrum, we will hear this organized — that this kind of organized violence and terror will be dismissed. It will be dismissed as a partisan fiction.

“What DSA Wants” is the alluring headline on Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York’s column:

They want to destroy the government of the United States as it was created in the Constitution. They want to destroy the U.S. capitalist economy, the most powerful in the world. And they want to destroy the way millions of Americans live their lives. The DSA’s astonishingly destructive goals are laid out clearly in the organization’s just-released 2026 national platform.

The document starts by describing a DSA “future without capitalism.” What would life be like for a person of working age in DSA world? “You enjoy your work; it’s interesting to you, and you’re well trained for it,” the platform says. “You work as much as you are able and no more than needed, and you would control your own labor and see it going to good use. It’s not just a job to pay the bills.”

But the DSA is fun. It’s the party that parties. From its hootenannies to book clubs, it attracts young people. Kendall White has been to quite a few DSA soirees:

At the new-member social, I sipped a seltzer while conversing with fellow travelers in a spacious apartment. A copy of Mao’s “Little Red Book” and a Russian fur hat with a Soviet red star sat together on a bookshelf. The communist paraphernalia was mirrored by a collection of Mamdani campaign signs on the opposite side of the room. Comrades cracked open a Riesling that retails for nearly $100 a half-bottle.

It’s not just the Riesling that’s expensive. It’s the DSA agenda that’s costly. Do they know what their fantasy programs would cost? Think of retirement in France, where pensions consume 14.1% of GDP, and are not getting any less burdensome.

“New York’s Ban on the Future” in The Free Press deals with Governor Kathy Hochul’s ban on data centers, which “will hurt New Yorkers and help foreign adversaries—while stifling progress in AI.” Stu Smith, meanwhile, takes us “Inside the Rise of the Anti–Data Center Movement“:

Resistance to the facilities has become a left-wing rallying point,linking environmentalism, anti-Big Tech politics, immigration activism, Native American issues, and “anti-imperialism.”

Meanwhile, there’s resistance to scientific knowledge. In “Gender Medicine’s Regulatory Capture” in City Journal, we read about the Health Council of the Netherlands, which backed a controversial transition protocol against best evidence. The Health Council is a hotbed of conflicts of interest:

Six of the twelve members of its Advisory Committee were either directly or indirectly involved with providing endocrinological interventions to dysphoric minors. While two of these advisors lacked voting rights, they still possessed the ability to shape the nature of the conversation. The heavy representation of gender medicine practitioners on the committee, Dutch law professor Lodewijk Smeehuijzen argued, effectively amounts to asking the field’s practitioners to evaluate both their own work and that of their friends and colleagues.

Goodness! I don’t want to slight former President Joe Biden, whose memoir is imminent. It’s titled “Promise Me, America.” I can do no better than quote from Nellie Bowles’ review in her “TGIF” column:

I keep repeating the title out loud to sort of understand the tone. I guess it’s supposed to be like, promise me you’ll do good. Like a “keep your head up, kid, I’ll be watching from the sky.” But it reads more like, “America was promised to me on my Christmas list.”

Anyway, he released a video announcing the book, and it’s very sad to watch. Biden has declined further, as happens in life. The camera cuts every two seconds. His voice is slurred and hushed. Some of his longer words are barely intelligible. After 80, why even be on camera? Who is the one saying “we need him to be doing more on-camera stuff”? And why do I feel like Dr. Jill is gearing up to get him onto Dancing with the Stars?

I hope I won’t be accused of ageism because my next item is about hard-driving dude Paul Pelosi, 86. The ex-Speaker of the House’s hubby has had another mishap with his car.

“Should Paul Pelosi be on the road?” the London Spectator asks:

When President Trump refers to Nancy Pelosi as “Nervous Nancy,” you might assume he’s talking about her policies or leadership style. But maybe she’s just worried about her husband’s driving.

Washington and beyond are reeling from the news of Senator Lindsey Graham’s sudden death. The Republican stalwart, 71,  died unexpectedly Saturday night, hours after returning from a trip to Ukraine. The South Carolina Senator’s death is a loss for global freedom, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial, which celebrates Graham’s overall legacy:

In the second [Trump]term Graham has been a crucial counter voice to Vice President JD Vance and others in the Administration and Congress who said Ukraine was a sure loser against Russia. Kyiv doesn’t look like a sure loser now. And as Budget Committee Chairman, Graham pushed for more military spending to enhance U.S. deterrence around the world.

His legacy on domestic policy includes steering the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some readers may recall his stemwinding and much-needed rebuke of Democrats in 2018 for their assault on Brett Kavanaugh for uncorroborated accusations.

“Death of a Patriot” is the New York Post cover. National Review remembers “Lindsey Graham’s Finest Moment” (his magnificent outburst of righteous indignation during the smearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings—here), while in the same venue Dan McLaughlin laments the loss of “The Last Interesting Man in Washington.” Megan McCain writes personally of her late father Senator John McCain’s friendship with Graham. With Senator Joe Lieberman, they made up the “three amigos.”

In what was likely Senator Graham’s last telephone conversation, President Trump spoke with him hours before his death. The Washington Post obituary calls Graham a “foreign policy hawk and Trump’s critic turned ally.” Eli Lake of The Free Press writes about “What Lindsey Graham Understood“:

Those who hated the senator for not turning against Trump gave him too little credit for what he was able to achieve by forging a friendship with the president.

George Washington University law professor and Fox Contributor Jonathan Turley eulogizes Graham as a “skilled litigator with a sense of the practical,” but adds:

What I will miss most was his humor. Lindsey had a puckish side and looked at much of the insanity on the Hill with a sense of exasperated levity.  He was often frustrated by the lack of progress in the Senate and would joke about it being the “most deliberative body” with a certain irony. His jokes would often be self-deprecating, downplaying his considerable skills and gifts.

However, Lindsey’s aw-shucks style concealed one of the most penetrating minds in the Senate. He also had an iron core, unflinching in the face of withering criticism and attacks. A mob could surround Lindsey and not raise his pulse rate a tick. He was rock solid.

In addition to his public career, Senator Graham became legal guardian for his sister after their parents died. He was 22, and his sister Darline was 13. “Of all the things that have happened in my life, her turning out so well is the highlight of it by far,” the Senator said.

Graham’s death kicks off a breakneck race to succeed him and leaves Republicans with a reduced majority in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Senator Mitch McConnell has re-emerged in a checked shirt and jeans, smiling in his hospital room with wife Elaine Chao. McConnell released a statement saying he had pneumonia and had been “briefly unconscious.”

The U.S. and Iran have been exchanging strikes as the Hormuz standoff escalates. John Bolton (I know, I know) has a counterintuitive Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “Iran Is Too Weak to Make Peace“:

The strikes decimated Iran’s highest government levels. Civilian leadership is in tatters. … This disarray explains why some in Iran are again reportedly plotting to murder Mr. Trump, while others are still negotiating with his representatives. …

The civilian officials running Iran’s negotiations are among the weakest surviving actors. … The problem is evident: U.S. negotiators are talking to people who can’t deliver. …

In international affairs, Iran has no real government. This is a good thing…. The next move is Mr. Trump’s.

In the same publication, Allysia Finley writes that Iran is an important factor in what she calls “Vice President JD Vance’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week.”

Apparently, [Vance] didn’t understand the regime with which he was negotiating. “I think that they see there’s a real opportunity here to turn over a new leaf so long as they do the right thing,” he said. “We have the cards, and if they don’t honor the commitment, we’ll figure out what to do when we get there.”

Now we’re there. 

Whenever the perennially prescient Heather Mac Donald has a new article, Ms. Must pays attention. “The Scourge of Teen Takeovers” in City Journal is no exception. Mac Donald explores “why youths are rampaging in cities across America—and how to stop it.”

It’s become abundantly clear that “trans rights” is the hill on which a hefty segment of the Left is willing to die. The spunky The American Conservative’s “Democrats Can’t Kick the Trans Obsession” is highly recommended. It boils down to the quest for votes. Yet for most people the trans agenda is decidedly niche.

“One Secret to Zohran Mamdani’s Political Success” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial. Here’s the editorial in a nutshell: “While high-earning couples depart the city, young socialists arrive.” Another piece in this morning’s WSJ is an op-ed titled “Socialists Lead Democrats into the Tea-Party Trap.”

It’s by Barack Obama’s former Commerce Secretary William Daley. Daley’s overwhelming concern isn’t the danger of socialism but rather that “extremist candidates make it harder for a party to win and make a victory perilous for the country.”

Speaking of socialists, Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the Senate from Michigan, supports single-payer health insurance through Medicare for all. But his physician wife seems to have reservations about Medicare:

His wife, psychiatrist Sarah Jukaku, does not take Medicare or any other insurance plan, forcing her patients to pay out of pocket for the services they receive. She also appears to have scrubbed a portion of the “Frequently Asked Questions” page on her website making clear that she does not accept insurance.

Shades of Doctor Jill. Abdul El-Sayed incidentally also calls himself a doctor despite lacking a license.

We now know more about Minnesota Governor and former veep candidate Tim Walz’s pardoning of an illegal immigrant convicted of repeatedly raping a young girl:

Fox News Digital reviewed documents from the Minnesota Clemency Review Commission, which voted 4-2 to grant a pardon to Laotian national Tue Lue Vang following his conviction for criminal sexual conduct. Vang admitted to repeatedly raping a girl over a multi-year period beginning when she was 10 years old. While the two board members who voted against granting a pardon noted the serious nature of Vang’s offenses, the four members recommending a pardon each listed concern about him being deported.

One commissioner, Zach Linstrom, who voted in favor of granting the pardon, wrote in his recommendation, “Very tough case but the kids not having a father is not in the best interest of society,” referring to Vang’s six children. Artika Roller, another commissioner who voted in favor of the pardon, wrote, “The applicant stated the need for clemency related to immigration issues.”

It is very much in the best interests of the children and society that they not have a convicted rapist in their lives.

“The Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library Shows How Deeply the Left Captured Our Cultural Imagination”:

The library of a Republican president refers without an apparent second thought to the need to reconstruct society through government intervention in order to defeat “class interests.”

The U.S. has a retirement problem, but a quiet fix may be on the way.