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Issue: Pop Culture

Hasan Piker’s New Rules for Radicals: Shoplifting Is Chic. Trump Hailed as ‘First Feminist President.’ Ayaan Hirsi Ali: SPLC Targeted Me. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

It’s high time we got to know Hasan Piker … and this week Piker was in the spotlight, celebrated by the New York Times, for heaven’s sake.   

Mr. Piker, emerging one of the biggest voices on the left for some time now, had a breakout moment this week. Piker joined a New York Times group chat.

A transcript of the chat appears in the Times under the fetching headline “The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?” Among other things, Piker proposed that assassinated United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was the real murderer in the case. Piker further argued in favor of stealing, as long as it’s from big companies. National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke on what happened next when the mainstream media professionals were confronted with Piker’s moral inversions:

To which Piker’s interlocutors, the Times’ Nadja Spiegelman and the New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino, responded, “Wow, that all seems utterly psychotic, have you considered getting professional help?”

Nah, I’m just kidding. In reality, Tolentino responded by explaining that she is opposed to “profoundly selfish, immoral, collectively destructive” actions such as “getting iced coffee in a plastic cup” or flying on airplanes for pleasure, but that she is supportive of selfless, moral, collectively constructive actions such as “blowing up a pipeline,” and Spiegelman responded by saying, “I can relate to what you were saying, Jia. It is so hard to live ethically in an unethical society.”

According to Vox, Dems are having a hard time getting Piker out of the limelight:  

For the last month, some moderate Democrats have called on their party to shun Piker in light of his “antisemitic” and “hateful” remarks — among them, that “America deserved 9/11,” that “Hamas is 1,000 times better than Israel,” and that ultra-Orthodox Jews are “inbred.”

This ostracism campaign has gained little traction. In recent weeks, the center-left columnist Ezra Klein defended Piker against charges of antisemitism, while the flagship podcast of Resistance liberalism — Pod Save America — had the streamer on its show. And even resolutely pro-Israel Democratic politicians, such as Rahm Emmanuel and Gavin Newsom, have suggested they would appear on Piker’s livestream.

Kudos to one liberal magazine for acknowledging that shoplifting is not to be held up as an example of virtue. In honor of the affluent New Yorker mag writer’s admission (make that boast) of pilfering lemons from Whole Foods The Atlantic uses a bin of lemons as the art for a story headlined “Theft Is Now Progressive Chic,” Townhall describes Piker as “a glamorous backer of theft and murder.” Unherd sees “the latest example of moral confusion” in “microlooting.” Douglas Murray writes about the New York Times Piker chat this morning, too. Murray notes another admission from the irksome New Yorker writer:

New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino chimed in that she frequently does things that are ethnically questionable. “Like getting iced coffee in a plastic cup. I find that to be a profoundly selfish, immoral, collectively destructive action.”

As apparently, is taking a commercial flight.

All of which makes something that the trio didn’t seem to find morally troubling all the more startling.

As long as we’re in a morally inverted world, there’s this: Trans-identifying male prison inmates in Massachusetts are getting away with threatening the safety of incarcerated females. City Journal is on the case:

Just west of Boston, the state’s MCI–Framingham facility houses at least 11 trans-identified men, including serial rapists, wife-murderers, and child molesters, whose presence imposes degrading and dangerous conditions on female inmates. (MCI–Framingham did not return a request for comment for this article.)

Charles Horton, a level-three sex offender, was sentenced in 2000 to one year of house arrest for raping a minor. In 2019, he was convicted of repeatedly kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old at gunpoint. He is now serving a 25- to 35-year sentence at MCI–Framingham as “Charlise.”

Meanwhile, “a biological male [i.e., male] killer housed in Oregon women’s prison wins high-dollar legal settlement in sex abuse suit.” Ms. Must would be against unkindness, including to Zera Lola Zombie, as the former Daniel Lee Smith, who beat his girlfriend to death, but the offense on the part of prison personnel seems to be this:

The claim said Zombie was discriminated against based on gender, that officials broke the law by housing a female in a male prison, said they failed to “follow both federal and Oregon rules and laws concerning the designation and protection of plaintiff as a Vulnerable Adult-In-Custody … at high risk for both physical and sexual assault,” housed an inmate with a known sexual predator, refused to provide legally-mandated counseling and failed to report the sexual assaults per Oregon and federal law.

We’d best get to the hard news segment of today’s programing. An Iranian ship tried to get past the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but one of our destroyers chased it down. The U.S. blockade is reaching peak leverage. Meanwhile, U.K. writer Joanna Williams makes the counterintuitive claim that that President Trump’s actions regarding Iran make him “America’s first ‘feminist’ president?” “In taking on the ayatollahs and the trans activists, The Donald has done far more for women than his woke opponents,” Williams argues.

The Wall Street Journal has a very sensible editorial on the recent DOJ indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center:

President Trump’s lawfare against his political opponents is destructive, but that doesn’t mean every case is unjustified. Consider Tuesday’s stunning grand jury indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on charges the group funneled donor money to hate groups it was publicly warning about.

According to the indictment, between 2014 and 2023 the Alabama-based nonprofit used donor contributions to infiltrate right-wing extremist groups and pay informants. The SPLC’s mission is to fight hate and extremism, but the SPLC allegedly helped the groups by paying more than $3 million to leaders at the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Movement….

Using informants to warn about threats of violence may be defensible. But the charges, if true, reveal a problematic symbiosis between the SPLC and its informant sources. One informant was allegedly the member of a chat group that helped plan the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. The source, who was paid $270,000 between 2015 and 2023, “made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC,” the indictment says. The Charlottesville protests proved to be a great fund-raising event for the SPLC, with sizable donations from George Clooney, Apple Inc., and others….

To the extent the money encouraged or sustained the racist groups, tacitly or otherwise, SPLC benefited from perpetuating racial division. A court will decide if that’s illegal, but it’s certainly disreputable.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of Ms. Must’s heroines, writes “The SPLC Targeted Me. Now Its Reckoning Has Come” at The Free Press.

Gosh, I Wish He Wouldn’t Do Things Like This. “Trump Calls for 2020 Presidential Election to be ‘Permanently Wiped from the Books’ if Southern Poverty Law Center Convicted of Fraud” is a New York Post headline.

“Liberals Shocked! San Francisco Fixed Its Subway by Stopping Crime” is the headline on a Hill story by Robby Soave. Soave writes:  

Today, we have an exciting new report from Obvious Land: San Francisco’s public transportation system has raised revenue, dramatically improved customer safety, and is cleaner and more orderly than ever, and they accomplished it all with one neat trick. They actually cracked down on crime. And it worked. 

This news won’t surprise most normal people, but liberals might be in for a shock. It turns out that when you install new gates that it make impossible for fare-evaders — that’s the euphemism we use to describe criminals who refuse to pay to use the subway — to jump the gate, you magically improve everything about the subway. Seriously. 

Ms. Must avers there is absolutely no basis for the dastardly rumor that a New Yorker writer was detained trying to jump the fare gate in San Francisco.

“Pope Leo: Between Gospel Witness and Humanitarian Illusions,” by Daniel J. Mahoney, in City Journal contends that the Holy Father was right to warn against hatred and rash recourse to war—but his tendency toward a kind of functional pacifism marks a departure from older Christian wisdom.

Seizing Kharg Island? College Newspaper Apologizes for Correctly Calling Murder Suspect Illegal. Kimmel Sneers: Markwayne Mullins Is a … Plumber. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

President Trump “wants a speedy end” to the Iran War, but Iran maintains it has no plans for negotiations with the U.S. Hmm. Could it be that Iran—which just lost naval chief who was responsible for closing the Strait of Hormuz—is being a bit unrealistic?

The legacy media in the U.S. isn’t going to explore that notion. However, Allister Heath, the U.K. Telegraph columnist does, writing that Trump hatred is so pervasive among members of the “expert” class that they are underestimating U.S. achievements.

AEI’s Danielle Pletka talks to retired four-star General Jack Keane about President Trump’s endgame in Iran. “They would have to surrender to us in major concessions all the things that we are physically taking away from them to include keeping the Strait of Hormuz open,” General Keane tells Pletka. Meanwhile, Israeli General Yoav Gallant’s Free Press headline is “How to Finish the Job in Iran.” Gallant’s argument:

Iran must be compelled to accept conditions that end its nuclear threat and regional aggression. The way to do that is to seize its greatest choke point: Kharg Island.

Two overlooked angles in the Iran war. Sadanand Dhume writes that the overthrow of the mullah regime in Iran would have a beneficial ripple effect on Muslims worldwide, while Matthew Koenig argues with a U.S. win in Iran could spell the end of rogue states.

“Juries Take the Lead in the Push for Child Online Safety” is the New York Times headline on a story about two expensive verdicts that went against social media giants:  

In Los Angeles on Wednesday, a jury decided in favor of a plaintiff who had claimed that Meta and YouTube hooked her with addictive features — a verdict validating a novel legal strategy holding the companies accountable for personal injury. And a day earlier in New Mexico, a jury found Meta liable for violating state law by failing to safeguard users of its apps from child predators.

“Big Tech Invincibility Is Over,” says a New York Post headline, while a Wall Street Journal editorial (“The Social-Media Shakedown Begins”) harumphs:

A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday held Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube liable for a 20-year-old woman’s personal troubles. The schadenfreude will be overwhelming—nail the billionaires! But using a novel product liability theory to shake down companies won’t help young people and isn’t a good way to make law.

You really can’t beat Politico’s elegiac description of Congress not doing its job:

An overwhelming sense of frustration and despair has overtaken Congress as lawmakers try to clinch a deal to end a nearly six-week shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security as a previously scheduled holiday recess looms.

An overwhelming sense of frustration looms over Congress, the Congress that won’t end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (here and here)? The shutdown that leaves us all vulnerable and TSA agents unpaid? That Congress?  

There are some people who are trying to help out at our airports. They are called ICE agents. But ICE agents may be the only federal employees the top tier of the left despises (D.C.’s Washingtonian magazine even tells you how to contribute to nonprofits to aid fired federal bureaucrats, who are likeable to the genteel left!).

In a column headlined “The Dems Propaganda of Constant Lies Are Getting Americans Killed” Miranda Devine writes about the “false narratives” that are getting people killed, including attacks on ICE agents:

We see how it works this week as the mendacious trio of Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer claimed in unison that ICE agents helping ease TSA lines at airports this week will “brutalize and kill” you and kidnap your children.

In fact, ICE agents are kindly giving stranded passengers bottles of water, helping with their luggage, and performing tasks that free up TSA workers who have just missed their third paycheck — thanks to the Democrats.

Unlike fired federal bureaucrats, who sat behind desks and had the power to dole out federal grants for, say, drag queen kabuki shows, ICE agents fall on the wrong side of the genteel left sympathy divide. And let’s face it—there’s a whiff of working class about ICE. Not like those sympathetic bureaucrats. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, meanwhile, “will not tolerate” ICE agents wearing masks in her state (they don’t wear masks in the safer airport environment).

Sheridan Gorman, a Chicago college student who allegedly was killed execution-style by an illegal alien, seems to have fallen on the wrong side of the sympathy divide, too. Regarding the murder, Sheridan’s college newspaper issued an apology—for correctly calling the alleged executioner an illegal immigrant. We’re all familiar with a Chicago pol’s “wrong place, wrong time” explanation for Sheridan’s death. Disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who spent time in prison with gangbangers, put forward the theory that the suspect was participating in a gang initiation.

Twofer. Unlike ICE agents and Sheridan Gorman, this person must have fallen on the correct side of somebody’s sympathy divide—he’s illegal and trans—or how else to explain a six-month sentence for the sexual assault of a 14-year-old boy in Manhattan? Well, it’s in Manhattan—that does help explain it.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin falls on the other side of late-night snoot Jimmy Kimmel’s snobbery divide. I mean, my gawd, the man is a plumber:

“Trump’s got a whole new generation of thinkers lined up, including his newly confirmed secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne ‘Chuck Mike Bruce Dave’ Melon — Mullin. Maybe melon’s better,” Kimmel said. “He’s the now former senator of Oklahoma. Before he was elected to the Senate, Markwayne Mullin was a low-level MMA fighter and a plumber. That’s right. We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now. It worked for Super Mario. Why not Markwayne?”

After his father’s death, when Mullin was 20, the future Cabinet member turned his family’s small plumbing business into a multimillion-dollar concern. Here’s wish Kimmel a broken pipe and leaky faucets.

Adapting a line from the Kamala Harris campaign, columnist Karol Markowicz says, “We’re not going back.” “New York’s Hochul Drove Me to Florida — Now She’s Begging Me to Return. Not Happening” is the headline on a Fox Digital piece by Markowicz:

Hochul said some “patriotic” rich people have stepped up to help fill the state’s budget gap, and that, sure, it’s OK to write her a check. But if you really want to help, Hochul implored her wealthy supporters, “visit Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home, because our tax base has been eroded.”

Hochul sounded annoyed as she delivered that last line, as if it is the fault of her supporters — who are writing her checks to sustain her struggling state — that their wealthy friends have left for sunnier pastures.

Her comments were surprising because, well, Hochul played a large role in forcing those Palm Beachers out in the first place. In 2022, Hochul said, “Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida, where you belong, OK? Get out of town because you don’t represent our values.”

Hochul apparently is also getting cold feet about climate change mandates.

Ya Think? “‘You Lose Your Credibility’: Democrats Warn against Turning a Blind Eye to a Colleague’s Misconduct” is a Politico headline. The colleague is three-term Florida Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who faces federal criminal charges for alleged multimillion dollar fraud.

Savannah Guthrie gave an anguished interview with her old colleague Hoda Kotb about her mother’s disappearance:

“And to think of what she went through. I wake up every night in the middle of the night, every night,” she told Kotb. “And in the darkness, I imagine her terror. And it is unthinkable, but those thoughts demand to be thought. And I will not hide my face. But she needs to come home now.”  

Oopsie. Ms. Must got carried away with a headline yesterday. I promoted the Democrat who flipped a state legislature seat in Florida to the U.S. Congress in my headline. She is President Trump’s representative in the state legislature, not the U.S. House of Representatives. Speaker Johnson, please forgive me.

Supreme Leader Cheated Death by Seconds. Hot Air: Al Jazeera More Positive to Iran War Than MSM! Trashy Elites. Jessie Buckley’s Paean to Motherhood. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Lucky bathroom break?

It now appears that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is alive, having cheated death by seconds:

Iran’s new supreme leader survived US and Israeli air strikes because he stepped outside for a walk in his garden minutes before his home was hit by missiles.

Leaked audio obtained by The Telegraph reveals that Mojtaba Khamenei was targeted in the same attack that killed his father and other members of the Islamic Republic’s leadership. But he had gone outside “to do something” moments before Israeli Blue Sparrow ballistic missiles hit his residence at 9.32am local time on Feb 28.

Two other of the rump regime’s senior leaders were not so fortunate. One was the Commander of the dreaded Basji militia responsible for crushing dissent.

We still don’t know the Supreme Leader’s condition or who’s calling the shots, so to speak, in Iran. The Wall Street Journal maintains in an editorial (“The Battle for the Strait of Hormuz”) that the terror state continues to give the U.S. and Israel ample reason to continue weakening it:

It’s no mystery what Iran intends to achieve by blocking the Strait of Hormuz. It seeks to pressure President Trump to end the war prematurely, establishing an Iranian veto on energy flows and winning impunity in the future. But what if Mr. Trump won’t play along? The result is the emerging Battle of Hormuz.

An Iranian tanker blockade has always been the main contingency anticipated by war planners, and the U.S. has followed a phased plan of degrading air defenses, missiles and navy. These are prerequisites to reopening Hormuz to commercial traffic.

Niall Ferguson at The Free Press marvels that the debilitated Iranian regime can still muster the wherewithal to attack shippers in the strait, but his headline is a chiller: “This Is How the Iran War Goes Global.”  

European allies, if term is not a misnomer, are not tripping over themselves to help secure the Strait. “On Iran, Is Only Bad News Fit to Print?” argue Mark Penn and Andew Stein, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that explains why the MSM headlines give you a pit in your stomach.  Indeed, Hot Air’s David Strom put up a post last night headlined “Al Jazeera Is Now More Positive on US-Israeli Strategy Than US Media.”

Do you believe you just need President Trump to talk more about why the U.S. struck Iran? Well, the Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York’s “Why Is There Still Uncertainty about Iran War Aims?” might be enriching.

The Silence of the Houthis. In “Why We Haven’t Heard from the Houthis” (not that we were eager to) Asher Orkaby suggests, The Yemeni rebels now likely see Iran as a weak horse.” Meanwhile, Walter Russell Mead writes that “Iran Will Define Trump’s Legacy.” “He has a strong case to make, but if he backs down, the costs will be profound,” argues Mead.

Trashy Elites? This is what it looked like after the glitzy/woke  Oscars. “Rich people leaving their dirt, as always, for poor people,” somebody commented.  But there was one moment during the Oscars that is getting rave reviews in conservative circles: Best Actress and new mother Jessie Buckley’s paean to motherhood. “‘Beautiful Chaos Of a Mother’s Heart’: Jessie Buckley Uses Oscar Speech to Honor Husband, Daughter,” is The Federalist headline:

It’s a known fact to viewers that the Oscars and other indulgent cinema award ceremonies have long prioritized political, feminist messaging over the art and family values normal people hold dear.

But that is exactly why actresses like Jessie Buckley make headlines when they use their platforms to break this trend by honoring their husbands and children ahead of themselves.

Making headlines by saying good things about motherhood. Think about that. National Review has a piece about the man who did a lot to make motherhood unpopular—the recently deceased Paul Ehrlich, author of the disastrous book The Population Bomb. Noah Rothman’s NR piece on Ehrlich’s legacy is well worth reading. Meanwhile, Jack Butler writes in the Wall Street Journal that Ehrlich’s alarmism had tragic consequences. Like convincing us that having children was bad for the world’s resources! 

“Will Republicans Fight for the SAVE Act—or Fold Again?” is the headline on a RCP commentary by Heather Higgins. Higgins writes:

Republicans didn’t win the Senate so their leaders could manage expectations. They won it to deliver results. Will Republicans leaders actually deliver? We are about to find out with the SAVE America Act.

The legislation requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. That’s not some fringe idea. It’s the law of the land in nearly every nation in the world – and is one of the most widely supported election reforms in the United States.

A February Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found 85% of voters say only U.S. citizens should vote in American elections. The same survey found 71% support the SAVE America Act itself, 81% support voter ID, and 75% support proof of citizenship requirements. Perhaps most striking: Roughly 70% of Democratic voters support voter ID.

That’s not partisan territory, that’s consensus. When an issue commands that level of support, failure usually isn’t about policy. It’s about will.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has shown no shortage of will in keeping the Department of Homeland Security shut down, but Daniel McCarthy writes that the gambit is becoming riskier and riskier.  The New York Post calls on the Dems to “stop the charade before it is too late.” Meanwhile, Susan Rice, whom you remember from the Biden administration, appears to have no qualms about trying to keep companies in line:

A former top official in the Biden and Obama administrations recently caused a stir after she appeared to vow political retribution against companies once Democrats regain control in Congress and the White House.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., last week condemned plans for political retribution he believes Democrats, such as Susan Rice, hope to enact when they regain power and argued that both parties should refrain from using government power to pressure their political opposition.

“What Ms. Rice is talking about is payback,” Kennedy said, referring to comments Rice, who served as Biden’s domestic policy council director, had made on a podcast last month.

Did the Governor fear payback … from the powerful teacher unions? Here’s the latest on Andy Beshear:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is supposed to be the great moderate hope for Democrats in 2028, but on Friday he revealed himself as a captive of the left’s most destructive interest group. He vetoed a bill to opt his state into the federal tax-credit scholarship program, taking dictation from the teachers union….

The good news is that Republicans who run the Legislature are promising to override the Governor’s veto, which they can do with a simple majority. Mr. Beshear knows this, but he’s figuring his veto will win points with the union even as parents can still benefit from the scholarships. No doubt he’s right, but the rest of the country has learned something important about Mr. Beshear’s values and priorities—and none of it’s good.

And here’s something potentially important about the American Psychological Association. According to City Journal, the association plays both sides of the gender debate:

Unlike some peer organizations, the American Psychological Association (APA) appears to be attempting a “split the difference” communications strategy. It presented one face in response to Singal, and another to the trans activist community—all while denying the contradictions between the two. It thus embodies many of the institutional failures Singal laments.

The APA attempted this ploy when Singal asked the association for a comment for his Times op-ed. The APA referred him to a letter by Katherine McGuire, the APA’s chief advocacy officer, written to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The letter walks back the APA’s unambiguous support for pediatric medical interventions, strongly suggesting that the organization supports only psychological interventions for minors experiencing gender dysphoria.

Personnel Problem. A longtime security employee for outgoing Rep. Jasmine Crockett was killed in a standoff with a SWAT team after being accused of impersonating a police officer. He also apparently used an alias. Truly weird.

Oscars: The Thrill Is Gone. Long Gone. The REAL History of Iran’s Quest for Nukes. Pletka: We’re Not Losing. Favorite Supreme Leader Rumor. Bowman on “Jeerleading.” & More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

The glitz, the glamor … the tedium.

“Super Long Oscars 2026 Had Plenty of Holier-Than-Thou Lectures, Few Memorable Moments” is the New York Post headline.  “One Battle after Another,” described by a Brit source as  a “Hollywood liberal fantasy in movie form” was Best Picture. The movie presented “a mix of serious themes like political struggle, oppression and resistance with comedy.” The Free Press found the movie “unredeemable,” which was pretty must your humble scribe’s impression.

Jessie Buckey, as was not unexpected, won Best Actress for her portrayal of Mrs. Shakespeare as a pagan, half witch in the interminable “Hamnet.” Unherd detected the “whiff of a gimmick” as nagging Mrs. Shakespeare (you’re always in London and not paying enough attention to my needs, blah blah blah) so completely upstaged Mr. S. Yes, in 2026 the Oscars have a lot of girl power.

 “Oscars? What Oscars?” asks Powerline’s John Hinderaker, who suggests (rightly, I think) that in a politically divided country conservatives don’t give a hoot about the left-shewing Oscars.  National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar writes that it’s the night when “Hollywood celebrates its collapse into cultural irrelevance.” The evening is a “celebration of coastal elite tastes and politics,” writes Blehar. “Can the Oscars leave the woke era behind?” asks Spiked On-line (the article does offer interesting comments about a new award this year, for casting). Best Supporting Actor Sean Penn skipped the evening to visit Ukraine, host country to the socially acceptable war.

You can bet your bottom dollar with absolute certitude that nobody at the Oscars was supporting the other war. President Trump says that the U.S. has wiped out Iran’s air defenses, but he is not ready to declare a win. In an editorial headlined “The Real Nuclear History of Iran” the Editorial Board of the Wall Street declares:

So much of today’s media framing of the Iran war relies on a mythology of what came before. The gist is that Iran was contained by Barack Obama until Donald Trump mucked it up, and now the regime will really pursue nuclear weapons.

Naive is too kind a word for this deceptive, partisan history. The real history is worth rehearsing because it shows that Iran’s regime has been relentless for decades in its quest for the bomb, which is why President Trump is weakening it by force….

Critics of Mr. Trump’s bombing campaign now say it will motivate Iran to pursue nuclear weapons in earnest. But that’s what it has been doing for years. Critics also say the IRGC will now steer the ship of state, but it’s been doing that since the days of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The IRGC’s humiliation of Iran’s President in recent days only lifts that veil.

Bill Clinton faced a similar moment of truth with North Korea in the 1990s before it had the bomb, and he chose to trust Pyongyang’s diplomatic promises. North Korea lied and cheated and built a bomb anyway. Now it is building missiles that could reach the U.S. Mr. Trump chose to act instead, after his predecessors didn’t, and that is a service to the world.

Rich Lowry also addresses former President Obama’s “disproven illusion” about a nuclear Iran. The American Spectator says the administration has not defined victory, while an X post from the Institute for the Study of War finds that the military trajectory in Iran is relatively positive for the U.S. (Thanks to RCP for noticing this.) U.S. allies have begun working to open Strait of Hormuz in response to pressure from President Trump. The New York Times emphasized that the allies were “cool” to the President’s demands. The U.S. has hit Kharg Island, which raises the stakes for Iran’s oil exports. President Trump is warning of “very bad future” if NATO allies don’t help open the Strait of Hormuz. AEI’s Danielle Pletka: “No, We’re Not Losing in Iran.” Just for fun: Rumors that Supreme Leader Jr. is gay.

Formerly, we worried primarily about terrorists coming into the United States. “Terrorists Are Now Often Made in the USA” is the headline over a sobering op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Kevin Cohen, an Israeli security expert, points out that in recent terrorist attack on U.S. soil, the perpetrators were naturalized U.S. citizens or offspring of naturalized immigrants:

The violence that unsettled Western societies throughout 2025 looked nothing like the earlier era of clandestine crossings and centrally directed terrorist cells. Increasingly the danger emerges inside societies that still treat admission as the end of a security process rather than the beginning of one. The shift isn’t simply about the number of attacks. It is about where the failure occurs.

Federal agencies now warn that lone-actor violence may be among the hardest threats to detect, precisely because people who are radicalized domestically often remain invisible to investigators until they act.

Radicalization is a strange concept. Would it be rude to ask if these terrorists came to our shores pre-radicalized and we overlooked it? James Gagliano elaborates on our willful blindness. Believe it or not, some have seen loss of a family member in the Iran war as a mitigating factor in the terrorist attack on a kid-filled synagogue in Michigan. The family was a brother who belonged to the terrorist organization Hezbollah—or as the no-nonsense New York Post puts it “hez my brother.” “Why was Mohamed Bailor Jalloh [who had previously been convicted on a terrorist charge before his attack that left one dead at Old Dominion University) not in federal prison?” asks former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. Jesse Arm says in City Journal that the Jewish community must take defensive measures.

While all this is happening, Democrats are refusing to fund the Homeland Security Department. “Put Chuck Schumer on TSA Duty” is the headline over a WSJ editorial. TSA comes under DHS. Since they are not being paid to work, many are calling in sick or outright quitting their jobs. In addition to national security risks, this is no way to treat people.

The SAVE America Act, which would require an ID to vote, will likely come up for a vote tomorrow. USA TODAY has a story explaining what the act would require:

So there are a number of different types of documents that could potentially be eligible for demonstrating a proof of citizenship, birth certificates, passports, all those types of things would help folks. But it’s important to acknowledge that there are lots of citizens that don’t necessarily have these types of documents readily available. 

Oh, c’mon. Readily available? I bet anyone can scrounge us these elusive documents to board a plane or get a benefit. The story goes onto quote the left stalwart Center for American Progress to the effect that 146 Americans do not have a valid passport. You don’t have to have a passport. Townhall has a story on a “Minnesota Elections Official Finally Admits What We All Knew About Illegals Voting.”

Ms. Must has avoided Tucker Carlson stories because they seem so insider baseball. And maybe because I long ago had a soft spot for the preppie populist. Apparently, the former Fox host is alleging that he is being framed as a spy. Eli Lake has a story at The Free Press.

Karol Markowicz writes that it does matter that New York’s First Lady Rama Duwaji is an enthusiastic fan of the abhorrent October 7 massacre.  Also only in New York, kids, New York’s ‘Environmental Justice Communities,’ Pumps Money Into Minority Neighborhoods in What Could Be Illegal Discrimination.

Don’t miss James Bowman’s “Melania: The Age of Jeerleading” at American Greatness. A culture that once celebrated heroes now prefers sneering at them—proof that Western self-forgetfulness has turned admiration into ridicule and criticism into a spectator sport, Jim argues.

Also at American Greatness, “Is James Talarico Really a Christian X-Ray?” Hey, David French likes him, but was that endorsement the kiss of death (or more likely a source of mirth).  

Has Anybody Actually Seen the Supreme Leader? Can’t Hide: John Thune Tees Up SAVE America Act—sans ‘Talking Filibuster.’ Edith Wilson Writes Memoir. Wait–It Was the OTHER One

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Oil prices are surging as two tankers are burning off the coast of Iraq, while “dire strait” referring to the Straight of Hormuz is today’s most popular pun. It is dire: seven ships have been attacked in the Persian Gulf. Israel is bombarding Beirut, and the terrorist organization Hezbollah is launching attacks on Israel.

Closer to home, we learn that, according to an FBI memo, Iran aspires to attack the coast of California with drones.  The New York Post quotes a former Army intelligence officer on this threat. Oh, and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of the new Supreme Leader. Amit Segal of The Free Press has a theory on this (“Where in the World Is Mojtaba Khamenei?”):

The Iranian regime is trying to hide their new Supreme Leader while the IRGC is running the war.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon estimates that the Iran War has cost the American taxpayer $11 billion. To put that in perspective, it’s $2 billion more than low-end estimates of what Minnesota’s Somali welfare fraud cost the American taxpayer.

Oil prices are an immediate concern of the American taxpayer. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“America’s Strategic Oil Exports”) says that argues that thanks to former Speaker Paul Ryan’s 2015 deal U.S. crude is now helping the world. New York Post “On the Money” columnist Charles Gasparino acknowledges the problem the war has created but also blames hedge funds.

President Trump is constantly being implored to give the end date for the war and to better explain it. For my money, the Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim does an excellent job of explaining for Trump in a column headlined “Trump’s Old-Fashioned War.” It’s a simple explanation:

What’s driving both camps batty is that the only plausible motivation for his order to strike Iran is a judicious and honorable one: that the regime in Tehran constantly menaces America and its allies, and that its rulers can be counted on to continue their pursuit of a nuclear weapon. No bizarre ulterior motive necessary….

Mr. Trump’s logorrhea, together with his habit of describing whatever his administration does in superlative terms, led him on Monday to say the war is “very complete, pretty much.” Yet it goes on. He can change his mind about anything at any time, but Mr. Trump is too old-fashioned to think he can call his presidency a success if the U.S. comes to terms with a belligerent Iran.

Conservative London Telegraph columnist Alister Heath, noting what he calls the “ludicrously defeatist” commentary on the war urges President Trump not to cede victory to “drone-wielding barbarians.” The American Conservative (TAC) on the other hand worries about “The Iran Escalation Doom Loop.” An irony of Khamenei Senior’s tenure, according to an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, is that he cemented the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. A Beirut journalist describes “the war Lebanon never wanted,” but I am going to quote a passage on the novelty of Lebanon—Beirut was once called “the Paris of the Middle East—in the region:

Lebanon is the only Arab country founded on a formal power-sharing system in which Christians serve not merely as a minority to be accommodated but as co-architects of the state. That delicate balance has been under pressure for decades. …

Lebanon’s Christian population was once central to the country’s political and economic life. But sustained waves of emigration—driven by insecurity, economic collapse and political marginalization—have shrunk that role. What was once a confident founding community has become increasingly cautious, reactive and demographically diminished.

Marvel at the viciousness and stupidity of this New York Times “analysis:” “How Hegseth Came to See Moral Purpose in War as Weakness.”

Senate Majority Leader, who unlike Khamenei Jr. is very much in evidence, has teed up the Trump-backed SAVE America Act, which would require an ID for voting, but will not allow the “talking filibuster” that many Republicans demand. The President’s endorsement of a GOP Senate candidate in Texas—Senator John Cornyn and Texas AG Ken Paxton are in a runoff—figures into his effort to pass the SAVE America Act. Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel isn’t so sold on the “talking filibuster.” Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter isn’t sold on Cornyn but he says the incumbent has a better chance to beat “fake Christian Alfred E. Swaggert” (James Talarico). Meanwhile, Karl Rove says “don’t bank on Texas’s turning blue” but adds that the outcome of the Cornyn-Paxton GOP primary is crucial. Speaking of Talarico, the Dems’ latest ‘moderate,” the lad has reportedly been busy deleting names of more radical supporters from his website.

“UT Austin Strikes a Blow to Critical Theory” is a highly recommended City Journal story by John Masko that heralds a promising development in public higher education:

Big things are happening in higher education. Take the recent decision by Jim Davis, president of the University of Texas at Austin, to consolidate four academic departments—African and African Diaspora Studies; American Studies; Mexican American and Latina/Latino Studies; and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies—into a single new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

Davis’s move is about more than efficiency. University administrators know that the “studies” disciplines are really just one discipline—critical theory. Davis is announcing that the game is up. Other universities should follow UT Austin’s lead. …

Texas’s consolidation reflects the fact that the “studies” disciplines are not primarily about women, African Americans, America, or whatever their prefix happens to be. Rather, they are about the application to those topics of critical theory—“a lens,” in the words of Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, “that detects power dynamics in every interaction, utterance, and cultural artifact—even when they aren’t obvious or real.”

Aside from disturbing reports that Russia was helping Iran target U.S. operations, the Brics Bloc (say that ten times fast) has been curiously quiet during the Iran war. According to Sadanand Dhumein the Wall Street Journal, that’s because the Brics Bloc is a house of cards. But don’t fall for the hype that China is going green, says Bjorn Lomborg.

“How You Know When Taxpayers Are Being Defrauded?” is the headline on James Freeman’s “Best of the Web” column. Freeman writes about CBS’ investigative report yesterday that shone a light on massive hospice fraud in California and picks up a memorable line from the CBS expose. There were concerns that …

High rates of terminally ill patients later discharged alive

Freeman explores other instances of taxpayers being cheated through large government programs, which should be a hotter topic than it is.

But I’m Betting There Won’t Be a No Kings Rally in Tehran. An LA Times contributor writes that it was a mistake for Iran’s rump government to shift to a hereditary dynasty in picking Khamenei Jr. to succeed his father. John Lott writes that the endgame for gun control is a completely disarmed population.

I have Iran on the brain this morning, but imagine how things might be different if dissident Iranians had access to guns.

Edith Wilson Memoir Discovered. Well, no, Former First Lady Jill Biden will publish a memoir in June. The New York Times says Mrs. Biden “will give her own account of her husband’s fraught re-election campaign and her views on his stunning decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.” It was stunning all right, but who thinks it was Joe’s decision?

I don’t want to put a damper on the former First Lady’s literary exertions. But there’s probably a better source of insider tales than you’ll find in Jill’s book. President Trump is declassifying a lot of stuff from the Biden administration. Julie Kelly explores this in her “Declassified with Julie Kelly” on Substack. The headline is “Denial of Executive Privilege is the Latest Karmic Episode for Democrats.” Jill, can you compete with this?

State of Union Hailed as Virtuoso Performance. Gavin Newsom’s Heartrending Life Struggles. Media Narratives on “Trans” Shootings. Prince William: Please Stop Sharing. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Well, the midterms are officially underway.

The State of the Union address immediately before the midterms is traditionally considered the opening gun for the political season. President Trump scored big last night with the New York Post.

“Trump Wins Gold” the Post declares—with a felicitous nod to the gilded USA Olympic men’s hockey team, guests of the President. The patriotic Olympians bolstered the President’s “winning” theme. Trump embellished the celebratory mood (but only on one side of the House!) by dispending several Medals of Honor, including one to a soldier wounded in the Maduro raid.

Pollster Doug Schoen judged the SOTU “one big winner, one giant loser and one big problem” in a GOP agenda for the midterms. Schoen writes:

President Donald Trump gave a virtuoso performance Tuesday night. He achieved a number of important goals in his State of the Union address, but it is unclear whether he fundamentally changed the political dynamic in America. Still, it was a great performance — with profound messages.

The first and most important message was that the American people should associate the progress, future and success of the country with the Trump administration and the Republican Party. The president spoke of transformations, turnarounds and, most of all, “the golden age of America.” It was moving and uplifting — though not necessarily as persuasive as he may have hoped.

To be sure, Trump made his most compelling case yet that the affordability crisis, which Democrats used to win the 2025 off-year elections, was now finally under control.

Between Trump’s attacks and the Democrats’ behavior, it is hard to see how the country emerged more united after an extraordinary presentation that had to be moving to many Americans. Indeed, another strength of Trump’s speech was that he explicitly associated the country’s success with working people — especially heroes who have achieved extraordinary accomplishments for our nation, past and present. The explicit and implicit message was this: By standing with Trump and his policies, it was the only way America could achieve the success he spoke of in the context of the turnaround, the transformation, most of all, the “golden age” he said is underway.

The Wall Street Journal headline is that Trump “hailed an economic turnaround many voters don’t see.” The Trump averse New York Times calls the SOTU “a show, casting Democrats as the villains.” Ah, the loyal opposition. House Democrat leader Rep. Hakeen Jeffries certainly didn’t know his flock if he really thought Democrats in the House Chamber could give Trump the silent treatment!

Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota ad a meltdown, shouting during the SOTU that the President has “killed Americans.” So much for brotherly love. Also, at the top of her lungs, Rep. Rashida Tlaib shouted “F— ICE!” For the second year in a row, effervescent Rep. Al Green of Texas, carrying a sign that said “Black People Are Not Apes,” was escorted out of the House Chamber. Many simply skipped the SOTU for alternate programing.

Most Telling Moment. Sasha Stone got it on her Substack section:

“If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal immigrants.”

With great timing and a gift for performance and storytelling, Trump pauses and lets the applause grow. He luxuriated in the moment as the Democrats sat there, stone-faced, thinking it would play well at MS-Now. It probably will. Trump wanted all of America to see it and remember it. He set a trap. They walked right into it.

The New York Times complains that these “stand-up” moments are an unfair maneuver by the President.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi must have wished she was still in a position to physically rip up the President’s speech. Pelosi’s own perfidious party members rose to applaud (the only time they did so) when President Trump  called upon Congress to pass an insider trading bill. He mentioned genius stock picker Pelosi by name.

Instead of tearing into the Supreme Court for its bombshell ruling against the Trump tariffs, the President merely called the ruling “unfortunate.” Not all the Justices attended. Here are the ones who did not: Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor.

The President wisely avoided overdue attention to the tariffs last night but Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley addresses them in a column headlined “The GOP’s Last Chance to Shed the Tariff Albatross.” Riley writes:

The reality, whether or not the president accepts it, is that tariffs have been disruptive to the economy and are deeply unpopular. They haven’t reduced the trade deficit or boosted factory employment, as Mr. Trump claims they have. American consumers have grown accustomed to more options at lower prices for autos, clothing, electronics, food and countless other goods thanks to free trade across international borders. Higher levies on imports lead to higher costs and fewer choices.

In the latest development in the Nancy Guthrie case, Savannah Guthrie announced that the Guthrie family is offering a million dollars for information leading to the return of her mother. It was an extraordinary video in which the Today co-host acknowledged that her mother may no longer be living and appealed directly to the abductor to “do the right thing.” If the abductor had been struggling with conscience, Guthrie begged, “Let this be a sign.”

Snow Melts Warmth of Collectivism. Columnist Michael Goodwin writes:

For better and worse, the tenure of any new major public official is often defined by events in the first 100 days of the term. 

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is certainly no exception, with his awful beginning at City Hall confirmed again Tuesday. His latest big time blunder was his expression of icy indifference to police officers being attacked by snowballs in Manhattan. 

I Was Born a Poor Black Child. I always remember that line uttered by Steve Martin in “The Jerk” when I read about Gavin Newsom’s life struggles. After thinking that the way to bond with black people is by claiming he’s not very smart, Newsom now chronicles his life “from privilege to heartbreak.” As was once said of another great piece of literature, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

“The Mass Shootings the Media Wants You to Ignore” is a headline at American Greatness. Yes, you guessed what mass murders we are enjoined to overlook: ones committed by “trans”-identifying shooters:

You could be forgiven if you hadn’t heard much about these tragedies—the media virtually ignored them. By contrast, the country was subjected to around-the-clock hyperventilating on cable news after an ICE agent shot a woman in Minneapolis after she struck him with her vehicle.

That act of self-defense by an ICE agent triggered tearful pleas for national soul-searching and draconian restrictions on law enforcement. But the two mass shootings generated nary a peep.

This contrast highlights the iron law of the corporate media when it comes to gun violence: the facts always matter less than the narrative.

Within minutes after a shooting, the press begins assembling its preferred storyline like an IKEA bookshelf—only with more missing screws and more prone to sudden collapse.

Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson offers the royal family advice on winning back the loyalty of the people after the Andrew scandal. “No ‘spares’, no climate preaching: My plan to save the monarchy” is an excellent read. Ms. Must wishes to throw in her two shillings. The royals themselves seem to be signaling that they will try to “modernize.”  Don’t! Look instead to the past with more pageantry and less sharing (such as this kind of unnecessary treacle from William).