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Tag: Democrats

‘Wolves in White Coats’: HHS’s Damning Report on ‘Gender Affirming’ Care. Mangione’s Plea. WaPo: It’s Now or Never, AOC. Dem’s ‘Redshift’. Hormuz. Leavitt. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

It reads more like tragedy than a government report. “Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of “Gender Medicine,” a 64-page report, was released yesterday by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The report documents “disturbing stories of children who  were allegedly preyed upon by greedy hospitals and doctors — and encouraged as minors to undergo gender-care treatment.” One was Clementine Breen:

Clementine was just 12 years old and anxious about her changing adolescent body, while simultaneously grappling with unprocessed trauma from sexual abuse years earlier.

Desperate for an escape, she discovered the idea of transitioning gender in an internet search, and thought it would be the perfect refuge for her puberty fears.

At her first medical appointment at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which was about an hour long, doctors told Clementine’s parents their daughter was “100% trans” and at a high risk of suicide without medical intervention.

The report argues that the financial incentives for doctors, hospitals, and even insurance providers to provide “gender affirming” care huge factors in the tragedies on young people such a Clementine. US News notes:

HHS said the providers billed for the therapies to treat minors aged 9 to 17, documenting an unspecified endocrine or hormone-related disorder diagnosis rather than gender dysphoria. The report alleged ​inaccurate diagnoses resulted in payments from both private and government-sponsored health plans. 

HHS said that ⁠as gender ⁠care for minors has ⁠grown, it has ​become a larger revenue source for hospitals, creating financial incentives for more frequent billing. Citing ​conservative medical advocacy organization ⁠Do No Harm, the agency said hospitals and clinics billed nearly $120 million for the services provided to minors since 2019. 

National Review also has a story on the report: “Lifelong Patients and Six-Figure Procedures: How Gender Transitions for Minors Became a Lucrative Business.”

The HHS report should have a bombshell effect similar to that of the Cass review in the U.K., which “found extremely weak evidence for intervening medically in children suffering “gender distress.”  IW contributed to the landmark HHS report. With the money and legal issues involved, we can expect strenuous pushback. 

Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of health executive and father Brian Thompson, is expected to plead guilty in federal court today. He has pleaded not guilty until now. Credit legal maneuvers, not a change of heart. In “What to Know About Luigi Mangione’s Court Cases and Potential Plea Deal,” the New York Times explains:

Mangione faces federal charges of stalking that resulted in the death of a health insurance executive. A guilty plea could close the federal case — and complicate a separate state murder trial.

By “complicate” the story means potential dismissal of the New York case against Mangione:

A federal plea could complicate whether Mr. Mangione still faces the state trial; his lawyers would be expected to argue that the state case should be dismissed because of double jeopardy, which bars someone from being tried twice for the same offense, with some exceptions….

“One plus one is two,” Mr. Mangione declared in February as he was led out of a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs. “Double jeopardy by any common-sense definition.”

Legal experts, though, say that double jeopardy protections are not always clear-cut.

Mangione’s apparent deal is a risky venture and could fall apart, according to a New York Post exclusive.  So beloved is the accused Ivy League killer that, should a New York trial take place, jurors will be anonymous to protect them from intimidation by the misfits who make up his fan base.

Not Funny. “AOC Tries to Make a Joke of Woke” is the headline on Wall Street Journal ace Kimberley Strassel’s column:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just exposed an entire movement’s disingenuousness with a laugh. …

Woke 1 was never funny. Check in with the Americans who lost jobs or friends, or who were otherwise canceled for refusing to fall in line with Covid orthodoxy, for landing on the wrong side of the #MeToo rush, or for failing to renounce their “whiteness” abjectly enough. …

The question every voter needs to ask is this: In the absence of an explanation for the radical left’s scurry from its past, should anyone trust that once in power, with passions running high, we wouldn’t be right back to Woke 1? Maybe we should give AOC credit for knowing exactly what she’s doing.

Steven Klavan writes at The American Mind that “Woke 2.0 Will Be Worse.” Woke or not, AOC, according to the Washington Post, is now at her peak. argues that AOC “may never get a better shot at being president than this:” it’s  now or never. Which do you prefer, Gentle Reader?

Do you ever balk at describing somebody as “a moderate,” when you know they will promote out and out progressive policies (See, “Biden, Joe”). Matthew Continetti addresses this in “Beware the Democrats’ ‘Redshift’”:

“Moderate,” “centrist,” “liberal,” “progressive,” “democratic socialist”—the labels applied to Democratic candidates in 2026 are as varied as they are slippery. And the longer you study Democratic infighting, the more you see Democrats adopting socialism under the banner of “progressivism.” …

Though Mr. El-Sayed has socialist views, attended socialist events for years, headlined a Democratic Socialists of America fundraiser, campaigned with socialists like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Mr. Sanders and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and pals around with commie livestreamer Hasan Piker, he denies the socialist label. “When it comes to the question of socialism, I’m not a socialist,” he said during the final primary debate with Rep. Haley Stevens. “I’m just a capitalist who understands how capitalism works.”

Isn’t it confusing, though, for the media to call a self-described “capitalist” with a platform indistinguishable from socialism a “progressive”? Who, exactly, is being fooled?

Meanwhile, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal argues that Washington is being fooled by Iran (“Washington’s Four Wrong Assumptions About the Iran War”). The author is Middle East expert Nazee Moinian. She writes:

Washington keeps making four false assumptions about Iran. First, U.S. officials assume that the regime is a rational actor weighing costs and benefits. Tehran has shown caution when facing existential threats, scaling back its ambitions and accepting soft compromises on its nuclear program. But it is also a revolutionary state, sustained since 1979 by ideological conviction as much as calculation.

Washington holds vastly superior firepower. It can’t outmuscle the regime’s self-image as leader of an “axis of resistance,” a role its own founding myths assign it, an identity that makes ordinary compromise feel like apostasy, not prudence.

Meanwhile, Fox Digital reports that tankers [are] attacked as Tehran, Trump battle over control of Strait of Hormuz.

White Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt resigned her prestigious post to spend more time with her family (a line that’s really true for Leavitt, who gave birth to her second child in May). USA TODAY columnist Nicole Russell writes about the double standard to left applies to conservative women:

By all accounts, Leavitt, 28, has had a run most people would envy…. And yet Leavitt has drawn intense smears, criticism and even open disdain from Democrats and legacy media outlets. The left claims to champion all women, then sneers at conservative ones. That double standard doesn’t just hurt Democrats’ credibility; it’s dehumanizing to women of every political stripe.

Two photos accompanied her farewell post. One, taken by Anna Moneymaker in 2025, shows her in a kelly green dress, roughly a year after giving birth to her first child.

The Daily Beast suggested the photo looked too good to be real and speculated Leavitt had altered it with artificial intelligence. The New Republic checked and found it real and untouched.

The left seems fixated on Leavitt’s appearance, which has been mocked before in subtle ways. In December, Vanity Fair ran a large photo spread alongside an interview with the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Nearly everyone in it looked unflattering, but Leavitt especially.

Amanda Marcotte, meanwhile, is up in arms that conservatives (and some non-conservatives) have not celebrated AOC’s freezing her eggs. Marotte says that this criticism exposes MAGA’s motherhood hypocrisy. Groan. Do I really need to explain, Amada, how you can be for motherhood and have reservations about the practice being pursued by AOC?

Ms. Must’s Consumer Guarantee: This is my last item on AOC’s eggs. I hope.

Here We Go Again: The Kennedy Center Board has voted to inscribe President Trump’s name on the building:

The decisions would place an inscription honoring Trump below the venue’s sign and would close it for renovations, setting up a challenge to a judge’s order.

With that a hearty TGIF is in order.

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

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flanagan’s win is considered good news for Tafoya.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Specter Haunting the Democratic Party. Does Bernie Think DSA Thanksgiving Abolisher Francesca Hong Is a Turkey? Shocking Tales of Birth Tourism. Cheesed Off Voters. And More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

What a week!

To update Karl Marx, a specter is haunting the Democratic Party. It showed itself in the surge of socialists who won primaries this week, most notably Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed.

“Can Democrats Resist Socialism?” Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel asks. The signs aren’t good, Strassel admits:

To be, or not to be a socialist: Is that really the only question for Democrats? That binary thinking is sinking the party even further into its sea of Abdul El-Sayed troubles.

The fascinating part? Most of the Democratic world knows this socialist swerve is the dumbest political move ever, including some candidates themselves. Mr. El-Sayed’s agenda is in lockstep with that of Sen. Bernie Sanders: Government-run healthcare, an end to border enforcement, wealth confiscation, hatred for Israel, climate alarmism, structural changes aimed at influencing Supreme Court outcomes, free government everything.

The left-leaning media, sensing political hazard, earned double time this week dancing around the “socialist” label for Mr. El-Sayed, demoting him to a “progressive.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer helped direct millions to Mr. El-Sayed’s competitor in a bid to spare his party the socialist label in the Michigan race. That having failed, Schumer suggests the El-Sayed agenda is another flavor of liberal politics, proof of the Democratic Party’s “big tent-ism.”

National Review’s Daniel J. Flynn, the other hand, is more optimistic: “History suggests that at least some leftists will come around to conservatism, eventually.”

We have another opportunity to access socialist strength next week in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary. Francesca Hong, described by National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar as having the “Mao was too moderate” lane all to herself, has a good shot at winning. Hong probably made a mistake by admitting that she wanted to abolish Thanksgiving and then try to take it back.  This was dubbed the “1621 Project.” Hong is running without the endorsement of the grandaddy of socialism in America, Senator Bernie Sanders.

Meanwhile, the venerable George Will writes about the Democratic Socialists of America phenomenon as “Peter Pan politics for sandbox revolutionaries.” Leaders of Third Way, an old line moderate Dem organization, claim that “Democrats are calculating a left turn. The math doesn’t favor it.” The New Republic’s kamikaze editor Michael Tomasky says vote for El-Sayed, even if he won’t win. Matthew Continetti cautions Republicans not to be complacent about El-Sayed and predicts what would happen if the GOP lost the House and the Senate in the midterms in a columned headlined “Trump Should Worry About a ‘10-Year Itch’”.

If Abdul El-Sayed was the happiest man in America this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci had to be the most disgruntled. A Senate Committee chaired by Rand Paul voted to hold Dr. Fauci in contempt of Congress because of his refusal to answer question questions in a Senate hearing. It is unclear whether Fauci, who was given a sweeping pardon by former President Joe Biden, is in legal trouble. The Senate has also obtained a copy of the phone Fauci used during the pandemic. 

Why is Fauci so adamant about not discussing Covid 19? J. Peder Zane at Real Clear Politics has an idea:

There’s no mystery in why Dr. Anthony Fauci strove to silence discussion about the origins of COVID-19 – he was in full CYA mode because the agency he led had helped fund the Wuhan lab that apparently created the deadly virus.

Brendan O’Neill’s latest Spiked Online show will address “How Fauci fooled the world.”

And now: the issue that refuses to go quietly. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on birthright citizenship is not going to make the issue go away. President Trump yesterday issued two Executive Orders aimed at restricting  birthright citizenship. The Washington Post summarizes President Trump’s EOs: They “target children born to foreign lobbyists and tourists [and] are certain to face legal challenges.”

“Tourists” is a benign way of saying “birth tourists.” You might be surprised at how widespread and sophisticated birth tourism is. Writing at The American Mind, a publication of the prestigious Claremont Institute, Emma Waters gives us a look at the industry:

If you doubt that such a marketplace exists, meet the Simpson triplets.

Nearly 20 months ago, Kyla Simpson of St. Augustine, Florida, gave birth to triplet boys as a gestational surrogate for an intended parent she had never met: a single man in China. He never came. Not during the boys’ two months in the NICU, not through the year and a half the Simpsons raised them, and not even when one of the triplets died of RSV.

Until the man from China sent two strangers in a black SUV to collect the boys, which Simpson refused. Then she moved to terminate his parental rights, and he resurfaced with a lawyer and an emergency pick-up order, which a Florida judge granted. The surviving twins, 20-month-old American citizens, now sit in state care while his attorneys obtain travel documents.

Why would a Chinese man pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for children he has never crossed an ocean to meet? Because he wasn’t buying children. He was buying American citizens.

Waters calls this “commissioned citizenship” and highlights legal ways to curb it, including a plan by the Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino.

“To Fix Higher Education, Fund Heterodox Research.” That is the headline on an intriguing City Journal piece. Andrew Hartz and Eric Kaufman argue: “Restoring the academy requires more than budget cuts—it needs grant funding for the research that the Left has ignored.”

George Weigel has a fascinating piece in the Wall Street Journal about the ties between Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is headlined “Putin’s War and Kirill’s Blasphemy.” Weigel argues that Kirill has betrayed the Church to support the state.

Who would have thought that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani could be “thin skinned and petty” behind the smile? The New York Post, that’s who. In an exclusive, the scrappy tab reveals that behind the scenes “Mayor Zoflake” badgers critics and harbors petty grudges.

And Mamdani has so much to make him happy. That would be the surge of socialism in the Democratic Party. Not so happy: Joen Kotkin writes in Unherd about “New York’s war on its Jews.” Kotkin says that Mamdani abets this and recounts alarming incidents.

Are you a cheesed off voter? “The GOP has wrapped itself in a silly burrito beef while ignoring cheesed-off voters,” declares a New York Post story. It started when Andrew Kolvet of Turning Point USA weighed in on the ongoing affordability crisis that’s dominated, noting that one student recently asserted that the tortilla-wrapped treat shouldn’t cost $20 a pop. Kolvet said it felt like the Biden years. The conservative blogosphere erupted, blaming young extravagant young people and liberal spin.

Jack Butler of the Wall Street Journal’s “Free Expression” segment writes in “Burrito for Your Thoughts” about what this conservative food discourse gets right and what it gets wrong. He concludes:

It can be great fun to lambaste the young for their spendthrift ways. And many of the burrito arguments amount to a vague complaint to which more government or more indulgence of the young is somehow the proper response. But “let them eat burritos” can’t be the extent of the right’s answer to problems that confront people right in their pocketbooks—and in their stomachs.

Vintage Pink Hats on Vintage Heads. What Does the Left Mean by ‘Democracy’? Byron York on The Succession: Now There Are Two. Angel Father at Sanctuary City Hearing. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

The “No Kings” protests drew record crowds Saturday across the U.S. and Europe (where there is still a smattering of kings). PBS continued:

Minnesota took center stage, with thousands of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder to celebrate resistance to Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement.

Minnesota’s flagship event on the Capitol lawn in St. Paul drew Bruce Springsteen as its headliner. He and other speakers praised the state’s people for taking to the streets over the winter in opposition to a surge of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents.

Springsteen performed ” Streets of Minneapolis,” the song he wrote in response to the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents. Springsteen lamented Good and Pretti’s deaths but said the state’s pushback against ICE has given the rest of the country hope.

The protests turned violent in Portland, Dallas, and Los Angeles and took a bizarre turn near Mar-a-Lago:

A large mob of demonstrators waving Palestinian and other flags hurled cement blocks towards Department of Homeland Security agents in Los Angeles….

Outside Mar-A-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla., female protesters lifted up their shirts Saturday as counterdemonstrators peppered them with insults including “w–re mongers” and “butch d–es.”

Trump haters like actor Robert De Niro and state Attorney General Letitia James were in attendance at the demonstrations.

A group of demonstrators waving red hammer and sickle flags chanted “there is only one solution communist revolution” outside Times Square.

USA TODAY’s Susan Page found the protests a “show of political force” and a “red flare” for President Trump. But Page didn’t hide the zany white lady aspect I observed in D.C:

“A divine entanglement of democracy,” Sarah Elizabeth Greer, 56, called it as she marched in Manhattan, pushing her two tiny dogs in a cart festooned with a pair of handwritten signs: “NO barKING” and “BITE the Power!”

Accessory of the day, as observed by Ms. Must at her nearby subway stop: a dingy, vintage pussy hat clamped on the steel grey head of a vintage female. The Federalist discerned in the “No Kings” gatherings “the sound of a tired old thing trying not to die.”

An editorial in the New York Post rightly labels the “kings” idea a conceit. The editors go on to contend that the left loves kings with a “D” after their names. “What Do Democrats Mean by ‘Democracy’?” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Bruce Gilley. Good question. Gilley writes:

Talk of a “transition to democracy” further belies the claim of democratic backsliding. Such a transition would require a reform faction within the Trump tyranny to emerge to bring it down. Yet nobody on the Democratic side is engaged in negotiations even with disaffected Republicans like Liz Cheney or a Bush scion. That they continue to work within the confines of traditional partisan politics suggests they don’t really believe their premise.

This leads to a troubling conclusion: What Democrats and leftist activists mean by a “transition to democracy” is a transition to permanent Democratic Party rule.

Gilley does not let Republicans entirely off the hook.

The Iran war is making even hawks nervous. President Trump is said to be weighing a military operation to go in and remove Iran’s uranium. Despite its decimated leadership, Iran boldly calls the U.S. 15-point plan “unreasonable.” Tehran loosened its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, allowing 20 oil tankers to go through it. The jitters over the market are intense but James Mackintosh argues in the Wall Street Journal that the market can endure the war. President Trump says U.S. could seize Kharg Island and take Iran’s oil but remains optimistic that a deal with Iran can be made soon. Israel doesn’t believe you can negotiate with Iran. Mark Penn comments on energy prices on X:

Obviously the Iran war and the disruption of Iran’s global terror network seems to have come down to fear of energy prices. Perhaps FDR’s famous line would now be “we have nothing to fear but fear of oil prices.”

So, let’s do the math. …

Meanwhile, North Korean is supplying weapons to Iran, and Israeli police, citing security concerns, refused to permit the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa to enter the Holy Sepulcher on Palm Sunday. Prime Minister Netanyahu intervened and restored access. Whatever the security worries, it was not a good look.

As you probably know, the House Republicans rejected the Senate deal to end the shutdown. Miranda Devine lets the “cowardly” Senate Republicans have it:

The worst offender last week was Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who hightailed it out of DC on Friday morning, hours after stitching up a duplicitous 2 a.m. deal to end the shutdown by caving to Democrat demands to defund ICE and border enforcement, at least for the time being.

Elements of the Department of Homeland Security were funded in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, but Thune’s deal freezes out immigration enforcement and border security functions that are all-important as we go to war against the world’s largest sponsor of Islamic terrorism. He knew this would be unacceptable to the Republican base.

In one fell swoop, Thune ceded the moral high ground to Democrats who now can blame Republican intransigence for their shutdowns.

Similarly, The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman also proposed that Americans shouldn’t need the House to save mass deportations from weak Senate Republicans.

“More Right-Wingers Ban Trans Athletes ” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial—but the “right wingers” are actually the not-right-wing International Olympic Committee:

Are Democrats ever going to wake up to reality on women’s sports? The International Olympic Committee said Thursday it is implementing a one-time genetic screening for the 2028 games, because competition can’t be fair—or even safe—if biological women are forced to face off against athletes born male.

To most people this sounds like common sense. In the U.S., however, many Democratic politicians still act as if transgender participation in women’s and girl’s sports has become a matter of public debate only because of right-wing paranoia. Well, the IOC isn’t exactly a MAGA convention.

The Conservative Political Action Conference has just closed in Dallas. Thanks to Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York for telling us “What the CPAC straw poll says:”

Start off by saying the CPAC straw poll is wildly unscientific. There have been allegations of various types of skullduggery in the past. …  

That said, the notable aspect of what happened is that last year, there was only one heir apparent for President Donald Trump among the attendees. This year, there are two. 

The new poll is just one more indication that the rise of Marco Rubio has changed the face of the 2028 presidential race. As secretary of state, he has emerged as one of the stars of the new administration. He has defended American values abroad — as has Vance — but has not suffered from the widespread belief that he is uncomfortable with U.S. military interventions, as Vance has.

Meanwhile, “Democrats Have a Rahm Emanuel Problem,” according to Politico:

The 2028 Democratic presidential field — whether they realize it or not — has a Rahm Emanuel problem. His campaign is likely to be a rolling Sister Souljah moment for the Democratic Party’s left-leaning orthodoxy, particularly on social issues. His pugilism and his critique of the party’s leftward lurch will create a gauntlet his would-be rivals will have to navigate. And years in politics — plus countless hours on CNN — have helped him further hone his sharp-edged debate blade.

In “They Wouldn’t Even Say My Daughter’s Name,” Joe Abraham recounts his experience at a Senate hearing on sanctuary cities and the rule of law. Mr. Abraham is one of the tragically growing number of parents whose children were killed by illegal aliens. Her name was Katie.