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Issue: Pop Culture

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).

Oswald Spengler, Call Your Office: New Political Ad Signals Decline of Western Civ. Iran Still Up in Air. Dem “Secret Sauce.” Supreme Court Vacancy Rumors. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

“Has Contrived Coarseness Jumped the Shark?”

Well, something’s jumped the shark. Under the above headline, National Review’s Noah Rothman writes:

In her bid for the U.S. Senate, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton may have done the country a great service. Her debut campaign ad is so gratuitously obscene that it may push past its breaking point a trend in which politicians attempt to convey authenticity via the liberal use of four-letter words.

If you’re inclined to watch the spot, I’d recommend doing so with headphones.

Stratton’s campaign ad consists of a string of people saying “f… Trump.” The ad is embedded in the NR piece. Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth is one of the people facing the camera and saying, “F— Trump.” Illinois Governor and 2028 hopeful JB Pritzker appears in the ad, which he reposted on X, but doesn’t say the f-word. Stratton, who is running for retiring Senator Dick Durbin’s seat, did have a political message, overshadowed as it was by the repeated obscenity:

She added that she’s “not scared of a wannabe dictator. I’m running for Senate to stand up to Donald Trump.” Stratton said she will abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and “hold Trump accountable for the crimes he’s committed.”

I am scared of the civilizational rot that would lead to anybody’s thinking this is okay, much less a Governor and sitting Senator. Pritzker has given the Stratton campaign $5 million. Words fail me.

In other news, we are still on tenterhooks about Iran, and President Trump’s advisers are urging him to focus on the economy—but it’s difficult with the fate of Iran and other international concerns. Oh, and in response to former President Obama’s offhand remark about space aliens, President Trump is directing the Pentagon to release files related to UFOs and space aliens. Sorry, I meant to say undocumented critters from other galaxies.

President Trump may be distracted from talking about the economy, but the Wall Street Journal isn’t. An editorial headlined “The Embarrassing Truth About Tariffs” continues the Journal’s criticism of the President’s beloved tariffs:

The flap concerns the analysis we told you about last week by four economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They found that American households and businesses are bearing nearly 90% of the cost of the Trump tariffs, contrary to Mr. Trump’s claim that foreigners will pay.

Clearly the White House is worried that voters might conclude this research aligns with their own experience. Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, took to CNBC Wednesday to pan the New York Fed research as “the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve System” and suggested the people who wrote and published it should be “disciplined.” Disciplined how? Put in stocks? For a tariff paper?

The Fed analysis aligns with other research into the distribution of tariff costs from Harvard economists and Germany’s Kiel Institute—and with common sense. There isn’t widespread evidence that foreign producers are cutting their prices to offset the tariffs, the main mechanism by which foreigners would “pay” for the border taxes.

The Times of London compares the impact of arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to the abdication crisis that shook the monarchy in 1936. Andrew’s arrest is the “end of reverence for the royal family,” writes a saddened Tim Stanley in the Washington Post:

The arrest on Thursday of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the fool formerly known as a prince, marks the definite end of public reverence toward the British monarchy. I write that as an Englishman who is rather fond of it. …

When the Epstein scandal spread to Britain, it looked to many of us like the moral indictment of an establishment we have long suspected of being rotten.

Rather ironically, “Randy Andy” is in trouble not for his fabled sexual adventures but on suspicion having shared secret British trade information with foreign powers (also addressed in a WSJ editorial). Thank God the late Queen Elizabeth II isn’t here to witness this is the response of many. Mountbatten-Windsor’s facial expression as he was driven away from the police station was one of extreme shock and terrible fear.

Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel writes that the Democrats plan to deploy a “secret sauce” to win in the midterms:

When Democratic operatives look at Texas state Rep. James Talarico, they don’t see just another young progressive vying for a U.S. Senate seat. They see the political equivalent of In-N-Out Burger Spread—a new secret sauce to win over voters. The party is rolling out the recipe nationwide, and the midterms will provide initial sales figures.

Mr. Talarico is an early test. In 11 days he faces progressive steamroller U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Senate primary. If he’s got a shot, it’s because a growing number of Democratic money men and influencers see in the 36-year-old Presbyterian seminarian one answer to their cultural alienation from voters. 

Whatever the outcome, there’s a warning here for Republicans. Democrats aren’t letting working-class voters go without a fight. This shift will tempt some GOP leaders to try to match the left’s economic pandering, in a race to see who can better stoke class warfare, or promise more subsets of voters. That’s a recipe for loss (the left always wins bidding matches), not to mention an insult to working-class Americans who are voting for the GOP because they want good policy—not for handouts, or because they like tattoos.

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger doesn’t have tattoos (as far as I know), but she did run as a moderate. Now, she will give the Democratic affordability-themed response to next week’s State of the Union address. Larry Kudlow writes that the SOTU should be optimistic:

And that boom has already started. And it’s generating 4 percent-plus growth. I know you can’t eat GDP, but you can eat groceries, or buy essentials at the local Walmart.

Meanwhile, Liberal Patriot Ruy Teixeira says that his party has a “fraud problem:”

The specter of welfare fraud haunts the Democrats once again. Concerns about abuse of generous government programs helped power the rise of Reagan-era conservatism in the 1970s and ’80s. Could the criminal abuse of hundreds of millions of dollars in welfare costs in Minnesota, which has brought down the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, be leveraged to similar broad political effect today?

Another potential liability for the Dems, according to Leor Sapir, writing at City Journal, is the transgender issue. Sapir argues that “gender medicine” is shaking the general public’s faith in doctors, even ones who don’t perform gender surgeries.

News Flash. The MAGA base is not isolationist. That’s the conclusion of Mark Penn and Andrew Stein who write at the Wall Street Journal that the MAGA base backs Trumps foreign interventions. Real Clear Politics discusses whether Trump’s Board of Peace might replace the United Nations.

Rumor Mill. Will there be a Supreme Court vacancy this summer? Real Clear Politics cogitates on this matter:

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samel Alito are, by some order of magnitude, the two most principled conservative justices currently sitting on the high court. It stands to reason that they would like to be replaced by ideological fellow travelers — something that likely requires a likeminded president and a likeminded U.S. Senate majority.

Nancy Guthie’s family goes into the weekend with the case of their missing 84-year-old mother seemingly not much closer to resolution. It is being alleged that the Pima County Sheriff in charge has turned the case into an ego trip. The FBI can only take over if the family requests it.  

For a heart-stopping moment, I thought the item was going to be bad news. But it was a milestone, not the obituary I feared: Larry the cat marked 15 years as the official mouser of 10 Downing Street earlier this week. Here are pictures of Larry’s remarkable career and the Prime Ministers who have served under him.

More good news from the animal kingdom: An orphaned monkey has found a cuddly pal. Awww.

No date? No worries; why friends are the real Valentine’s lifesaver

Posted on by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for IW Features, The Federalist and the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Her articles have also appeared in National Review, Fox News Digital, The Daily Signal and Townhall. Originally appeared on Fox News.

My friend recently told me that her favorite Valentine’s Day was a few decades ago in second grade, when her playground crush called to say he loved her. 

“It’s been all downhill from there,” she joked.

Another friend said her most cherished memory was when her fifth-grade love interest bought her a bracelet. “And nothing positive since,” she told us, in jest, during the same conversation.

While Valentine’s Day can be a meaningful reminder to celebrate a cherished romantic relationship — even after elementary school — it can also be fraught with dread, obligation and the letdown of unrealistic expectations.

A male friend once told me he refuses to celebrate Valentine’s Day because he resents being told by a calendar when to be thoughtful. Instead, he programs his phone to remind him to buy his wife flowers every 45 days. He admits the irony without hesitation but insists it’s different because his wife doesn’t know about the alerts and is genuinely surprised every time.

He might be onto something. If his wife is genuinely surprised — and actually enjoys flowers — research suggests the unexpected treat triggers a stronger dopamine response. Husbands and boyfriends, however, are often stuck navigating the delicate balance between the joy of surprise and the risk of disappointment when flowers or gifts are expected and fail to appear.

On the other hand, people not in romantic relationships might dread the heart and candy day, when grocery store aisles are overrun with pink and red chaos because it’s a not-so-subtle reminder of their singleness — and, for some, a pang of loneliness.

But there’s hope. Celebrating Valentine’s Day — or any festive occasion — with good friends can boost your well-being and even increase your longevity. In an article last month, oncologist and former Obama White House Special Advisor for Health Policy Ezekiel Emanuel argued that the key to living longer is close friendships. Citing the Health and Retirement Study, he noted that people with the most close friends — an average of 7.8 — had a 17% lower risk of depression and a 24% lower risk of death than those with fewer close friends, who averaged just 1.6.

When I was in high school, my father told me I’d be lucky to have five real friends over the course of my lifetime. I thought he was completely out of his mind and assured him I had dozens. Now it turns out he wasn’t pessimistic. He was practically doing longevity math. Five may be fewer than 7.8, but it’s close enough to feel medically reassuring.

One of my favorite memories is celebrating Valentine’s Day with close college friends a few years before I married. We went to dinner, where we very publicly unwrapped unexpected — and absolutely humiliating — gifts from my friend, who would later become my maid of honor. Then we danced like fools until the club kicked us out. By the time we returned home, my sides hurt from laughing so hard I thought I might cry. I’d like to think we can bank that kind of happiness and draw on it during life’s duller phases.

I can’t imagine my husband, father or brother ditching their, ahem, better halves to grab dinner and go dancing with their buddies on Valentine’s Day. Still, the freezing, midwinter Hallmark holiday offers a perfect excuse to pick up the phone and tell friends how much they matter.

Maybe that’s the real gift Valentine’s Day has to offer — not roses on demand or perfectly timed romance, but a reminder to notice the people who show up again and again, the friends who make us laugh until our sides hurt, who know our embarrassing stories and who stick around long after the candy is gone. 

Romantic love can come with pressure and high expectations, but friendship — including the kind we share with our spouses — has a way of surprising us quietly, reliably and over a lifetime.

Read on Fox News

Bad Bunny Steals Super Bowl. Jimmy Lai’s Draconian Sentence. Radicalness of Anti-ICE Protests. Why College Grads Can’t Get Jobs. And More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny stole the show.

The Seattle Seahawks “smothered” the New England Patriots to win last night’s Super Bowl. But it’s Bad Bunny’s halftime show that’s getting all the attention.

National Review, admittedly not a bastion of sports writing, calls the both the game and the halftime show “forgettable.” NR’s Luther Ray Abel, however, did an excellent job of summing things up:

While the players filed off the field, America prepared itself for the greater gridiron battle: the anti-American Bad Bunny half-time show vs. TPUSA’s populist alternative that featured Kid Rock and a handful of generic country singers.

Bad Bunny’s performance had him wandering sugarcane fields in a padded shirt and bearing a football, touring Puerto Rican cultural storefronts, and presiding over a presentation of rotating rumps. Performing exclusively in Spanish, as is his wont, Bad Bunny sang lyrics that were as alien to me as they were to older relatives — a departure from last year’s half-time show starring Kendrick Lamar, which was indecipherable exclusively to those over age 40.

Lady Gaga showed up at some point, and some strings contributed the most musically interesting aside of the show. Ricky Martin popped out of the foliage with some bananas, and then Bad Bunny — bearing the Puerto Rican flag — led a revolution of sorts up a power pole. He then led a parade of flags, listing off the countries of Latin America and North America.

Suzy Weiss of The Free Press didn’t seem to care for either Bad Bunny’s or TPUSA’s halftime show. Happiness guru Arthur Brooks asked at the same publication, “Can We All Relax About Bad Bunny’s Spanish Halftime Show?” Needless to say, President Trump, who is not relaxed about Bad Bunny, weighed in. Luther Ray Abel writes about a brilliant Budweiser ad, but Ms. Must can’t quite tell if he’s being tongue-in-cheek. Townhall waxed ecstatic about TPUSA’s patriotic show.

And City Journal picks this weekend to ask, “Is Football Doomed?” How about dooming those ridiculous halftime shows?

As you probably have heard, Jimmy Lai—Chinese-born British citizen, Hong Kong newspaper mogul, democracy advocate, and critic of Beijing—was sentenced to 20 years in prison. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal observes:

The 20-year sentence might as well be a death sentence for the 78-year-old newspaper man. He is in ill health and has spent most of the last five years in solitary confinement, the lone window fixed to block sunlight. Along the way, the Hong Kong government denied him his choice of lawyer and stole his newspaper without a court order. Six former Apple Daily executives also received multi-year sentences on Monday.

This isn’t the way Hong Kong operated under Britain. It isn’t the way a world trade and financial center operates. But it is the way of Hong Kong under Chinese rule.

Whatever the Hong Kong government may say, the people who live there know Beijing is the real authority.

“An Anti-ICE Movement Increasingly Run by Revolutionaries” is the headline of a sobering City Journal story. Stu Smith writes:

As public support wanes, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become the target of nationwide protests. While many of these protests are peaceful and popular, they have also created an opening for aggressive activist networks with long histories of revolutionary politics. Some of these groups are moving beyond lawful dissent, with organizers and online channels increasingly promoting confrontation, disruption, and other unlawful actions against federal authorities.

Leaders of Centro CSO are clear about the tactics they endorse. At a major conference in Chicago this past fall, one member described confronting ICE vehicles in Los Angeles.

“You should have seen how f*cking scared they were when a couple dozen Chicanos surrounded their unmarked black tinted truck,” Gabriel Quiroz Jr., a Centro CSO member, said. He mentioned that a number of WayMo cars caught fire “by accident,” prompting laughter from the audience.

Do celebrities who parrot anti-ICE slogans realize this? I doubt that they’d care. The Wall Street Journal’s Andy Kessler has a good piece on the profound ignorance displayed by celebrities at the anti-ICE Grammys (we’ll get a rerun at the Oscars):

What I don’t understand is the shallowness of activism we’ve been subjected to. Is there some secret group text that goes out to progressives saying, “This week, it’s ‘From the River to the Sea.’ ”? And then, “Beware of DOGE”? Or more recently, “Hands off Greenland, Europeans might be offended“? Everyone is a mini Greta Thunberg bouncing from climate to Gaza to who knows what. Dissent du jour.

“Why Unemployment is Rising Among Young College Grads” addresses a seemingly contradictory phenomenon. “Their skills, experience and ability to function are increasingly out of step with employers’ needs,” Allysia Finley argues. She explains:

The real problem is a mismatch between labor supply and demand. Government subsidies and public schools have funneled too many young people to credential mills, which churn out grads who lack the skills that employers demand. Many would be better off training in skilled trades, for which demand is enormous.

More than half of high-school grads matriculate to college, even though only 35% of 12th graders score proficient in reading and 22% in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. This suggests that many college students aren’t academically prepared or even inclined. But colleges ensure they graduate just the same by handing out A’s for no effort.

Speaking of jobs, Ms. Must was vastly amused by a quote in a New York Times story on the latest at the Washington Post—CEO Will Lewis stepped down “after a stormy tenure.” Here’s the yummy quote:

Katie Mettler, a former chair of the Washington Post Guild, said on Saturday: “I’m glad Will Lewis has been fired. I wish it had happened before he fired all my friends.”

The underlying theme is that WaPo owner Jeff Bezos should have underwritten, indefinitely, Ms. Mettler’s smug “friends.” This snobbish idea is more nakedly stated in a snarky piece in the London Spectator headlined “How the Washington Post became a liability for Bezos“:

What’s changed is something different. The people who do care about world affairs and literature are not the kind of people whose attention Bezos wants to attract. His new demographic is fans of Amazon’s new Melania documentary.

Just a note: “Melania” has been hugely lucrative (here is a terrific review by Charlotte Allen), whereas the Post lost $100 million last year. Fox Media Reporter Howie Kurtz says Bezos has ruined the Post and should sell it.

“No, Texas Isn’t a Blue State. But Democrats Win Is a Warning” is the headline on Nicole Russell’s USA TODAY column:

In sum, [Democratic winner Taylor] Rehmet described an old political slogan, “All politics is local.” I am concerned that conservative candidates at the local level may try to ride Trump’s national coattails, forgetting how true this statement really is.

More Texas: Parents in the Lone Star State are rushing to support school choice in record numbers.

It’s been noted in recent days that the transgender movements lock on public opinion is collapsing. But not everywhere:

Feminist Isadora Borges de Aquino Silva of Paraíba, Brazil, doesn’t believe that a male can become female. The 34-year-old veterinary student said so on social media in November 2020. She also posted video remarks by Sydney University emeritus professor Bronwyn Winter: “A person who identifies as transgender retains their birth DNA. No surgery, synthetic hormones, or change of clothes will alter this fact.” Ms. Winter cited Simone de Beauvoir to support her views.

For doing what U.S. feminists refused to do, Ms. Silva could go to prison.

Headline of the Day Isn’t Good Enough for This One: “Trump Hates Minnesotans Because We Love Each Other,” by Minnesota DA Keith Ellison. Do you ever get the feeling that words like “love” and “hate” are being thrown around promiscuously? I passed by a Baptist church with a big banner: “Stop Cruelty.” What a bold idea. … Treat Yourself: Kamala Harris attempts to explain why she’s against photo ID for voting.