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Tag: Iran

Senate’s Last Minute Shutdown Deal. Hormuz Irony: Not Good for Greenies. “No Kings” Protest Seen as “Bad Therapy Session.” The Conversation Women Don’t Need. And More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Who blinked?

Well, of course. You don’t need a cheat sheet to get that right: “DHS Shutdown Breakthrough Comes at Cost for Republicans as Funding Fights Nears End” is the Fox Digital headline. Republicans “ceded ground” to advance a last-minute deal last night to end the partial government shutdown. Here’s the deal:

The Senate unanimously advanced a deal to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the wee hours of Friday morning, 42 days into the shutdown that was spurred by the Trump administration’s immigration operations in Minnesota.

It was an agreement that largely gave Schumer and Senate Democrats what they wanted — no funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and parts of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But it lacked the stringent reforms they desired, like requiring judicial warrants or requiring agents to unmask.

Even with their fragile majority, the GOP apparently is no match for Dem ruthlessness or unity (pick one). The Senate deal came shortly before President Trump vowed on Truth Social to sign an Executive Order to immediately pay TSA officers: “Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country,” Trump wrote. Not sure how the proposed EO affects or is affected by the Senate deal, which the House must pass before it goes to President Trump. The New York Post emphasizes that Dems didn’t get everything they wanted.

“Hamlet of the Hormuz.” That’s the clever headline on a London Spectator email. It alludes to President Trump’s announcement of a 10-day pause before striking at Iran’s vital energy infrastructure on Kharg Island. I love the email headline but President Trump as Hamlet? Nope. The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen further rejects the Hamlet notion:

Speculation is flying that President Donald Trump, buffeted by rising gas prices and domestic political concerns, is desperate for an off-ramp and looking for a deal with Iran to end the war. These leaks, whispers and rumors are wrong. While others may be panicking, I know from well-placed sources that Trump has never been more determined to see this military campaign through to completion.

Nearly four weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the president is on the cusp of achieving all of the military objectives he has set — but he understands that none of them are yet fully complete. We are at the enemy’s 20-yard line, but the final yards are always the hardest. All the easy targets have been hit. What’s left are the most hidden, hardened and complex challenges.

A Wall Street Journal editorial urges President Trump not to go wobbly, arguing that stopping now would be “an incomplete victory.” Greens are proposing that the energy crisis created by the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz make the case for renewable energy. Au contraire, counter two intriguing articles.

“‘Renewable’ Energy Gives Us a Crisis” is a Wall Street Journal op-ed headline. Brenda Shaffer argues that the West handed Iran leverage by deluding itself that it could wean itself of fossil fuel:

Europe’s reliance on expensive and unreliable renewable power has already begun to deindustrialize parts of the Continent. The U.K. and Germany are experiencing economic challenges as high electricity costs diminish industrial competitiveness.

To restore global energy security, the U.S. and its allies must see the problem as a national-security imperative. The Trump administration should require that the World Bank and the G-7 unleash energy production in the developing world through restoration of public finance. Washington and its allies need to uphold freedom of navigation of the world’s seas and not wait until a crisis to address a threat.

Europe needs to face reality. Adding large amounts of renewable energy produced higher prices, less reliable grids, and more dependence on China.

Writing at City Journal (“Energy Lessons of the Strait of Hormuz Standoff”), Mark P. Mills proposed that the Hormuz standoff could spell the doom of “quit oil” policies once and for all. History buffs will enjoy Mills’ opening with the seventeenth century Battle of Hormuz, and energy realists will enjoy his conclusions.

So, is the rump regime of Iran living on fumes? The Gatestone Institute writes about “Iran’s Fantasy of Strength: When Bazaar Tactics Collide with Reality.” You know a regime is not at full-strength when you have to remove your negotiators from the kill list.  Meanwhile, an Iranian General warns that U.S. tourists will no longer be safe broad, and the Pentagon is considering more troops to the Middle East.

Tomorrow is the big “No Kings” protest. Have at it. It’s a free country. And you’ll feel heard. And that’s really the point according to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by New York and DC psychotherapist Jonthan Alpert (“‘No Kings’: Politics as Bad Group Therapy”):

In my work as a psychotherapist, I’ve seen a parallel change in how people interpret their personal lives. Feelings are increasingly treated not as signals to examine but as conclusions to affirm. Discomfort is no longer something to work through but something to explain—often by projecting blame onto an external source. This mindset doesn’t stay in the therapy room. It has begun to shape political life, and the No Kings rallies offer a framework that favors affirmation over scrutiny: a clean moral narrative in which there are those who are wronged, and those responsible for the wrongdoing.

At their core, the rallies resemble bad group therapy—gatherings that offer validation, solidarity and emotional release. They feel good in the moment. Participants vent, find reinforcement among like-minded people, and leave feeling heard and aligned. The experience can seem productive, even clarifying. But like bad group therapy, it stops at validation. …

The composition of these rallies helps explain part of their dynamic. According to a survey conducted at a No Kings rally in the District of Columbia, attendees skew heavily toward highly educated, left-leaning white women in their 40s. This demographic stands at the forefront of the broader shift toward therapeutic language, in which emotional experience is elevated, validated and often treated as a kind of truth in itself.

“No Learning Please, We’re Democrats!” is the headline on Ruy Texiera’s latest Substack piece.  Texiera argues that his party has learned little from their 2024 defeat. Here’s an example:

The culture problem. This is a big one. The yawning gap between the cultural views of the Democratic Party, dominated by liberal professionals, and those of the median working class voter is screamingly obvious. One approach to this problem would be to actually change some of the Democratic Party positions that are so alienating to those voters.

Nah! That would be way too simple plus would create fights within our coalition plus…we’re on the right side of history aren’t we so why the hell would we change our correct, righteous positions? 

One issue on which top tier lefties are intransigent is guys competing in women’s sports. But it’s a loser. Even the International Olympic Committee just decreed that males will no longer be allowed to beat the heck out of women (not the IOC’s exact wording). The lefty Guardian shed tear.

In “The Conversation About Women That We Don’t Need To Have” Carrie Lukas takes us to a Heritage Foundation panel. Conservative women were discussing women’s roles and how to encourage and support young mothers. It appears to have been a fruitful discussion until:

Yet this panel not only wanted to explore ways to nurture a more family-friendly society, but to get government involved in subsidizing traditional families – with a working father and stay-at-home mother caring for children – specifically. There was a desire not just to end government programs penalizing marriage or undermining one-income families, but to push the pendulum toward the opposite.

For example, the panel considered whether it was time to talk about a system where men (yes, specifically men) who were breadwinners for a wife and children should be paid more than other workers, in order to uplift and encourage the creation of that traditional family structure. … The United States should not consider policies that would discriminate in favor of men with wives and children, and entitle them to more support or higher pay because of that status.

Iran Diplomacy. Guess Who’s Donald Trump’s New Congressperson? Jaw-dropping Response to Sheridan Gorman’s Death. Advice to Delta: Cut Another Perk. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

“The Fog of Diplomacy in Iran” is a Wall Street Journal editorial headline that perfectly captures the current moment. The editors write:

Diplomacy has reared its head in the Iran war, and both sides have their reasons. As the U.S. weighs taking the time and risk to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, the Iranian regime must weigh whether it can risk losing that trump card—and bearing attacks for however long the Hormuz action extends the war.

Mr. Trump’s incentive is to calm markets with news of diplomatic progress. The regime’s incentive is to deny, deny, deny and keep markets roiled. In that sense Mr. Trump won this bout, driving a steep decline in the price of oil on Monday. This is what he does—offer relief as the trading week begins and bring the pain as it ends. The new deadline to ward off escalation is Friday, when some 2,200 Marines are due to arrive in the region. …

But we trust [President Trump] knows that giving in to the regime now would leave an Iranian gun to the world’s head, a proven veto on energy flows. The world—read: China and Russia—might conclude he couldn’t tolerate the political pressure at home from high oil prices.

Who’s left alive to negotiate for Iran? Seems to be Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi. Or is it parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, described as a “wannabe strongman”? Guess who’s “balking” at President Trump’s peace overtures to Iran? Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., proving that it’s never a good idea to bomb your neighbors at the precise moment you need friends. Both are said to be “edging” towards joining the war against Iran.

It’s not just diplomacy that’s foggy. There is talk of “boots on the ground” to seize Kharg Island, while Army paratroopers are ordered to the Middle East. Oil prices were down and the market up early this morning—that can always change—as Iran signaled that “non-hostile” ships can pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Writing at The Free Press, Niall Ferguson was bracing for a recession yesterday because of Iran’s choking global energy supplies. Writing at the D.C. Examiner, David Harsani addresses the off-ramp we’ve been hearing so much about:

A popular talking point among left-wing punditry maintains that Trump is seeking an off-ramp for his allegedly unpopular and failed war that looks exactly like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal Obama struck with the mullahs years ago, which the president ripped up in 2018. That’s clearly untrue. …

The Obama deal, however, was worse than nothing because it gave the regime protection from Israeli strikes. The clerics could act with impunity, benefitting from sanctions relief — not to mention, more ransom payments from Democratic presidents — all the while funding their destabilizing proxy armies, building a ballistic shield, and shrinking the breakout time for large-scale enrichment and nuke weaponization to months or weeks.

Meanwhile, Ms. Must wonders if New York Times columnist Bret Stephens is being shunned at the watercooler for a column headlined “The War Is Going Better Than You Think.”

 Politics are foggy, too. “Are Republicans Trying to Lose the Midterms?” Daniel McCarthy asked yesterday at the London Spectator, and today a big story is that Democrats have flipped a Republican House seat in a special election in Florida—and yep, the district includes Mar-a-Lago:

Democrat Emily Gregory won the special election to represent a Florida state House district that includes President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Tuesday, according to Associated Press projections, a stunning upset that signals Democratic momentum ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Gregory, a first-time candidate and fitness business owner, defeated Jon Maples, a Republican endorsed by Trump and aligned with his policies. Mike Caruso, the Republican who vacated the seat to become Palm Beach County clerk and comptroller, won the district by 19 percentage points in 2024.

Gregory’s campaign focused more on local issues, such as education and the cost of living in Florida, than on the national political climate, despite running to represent the president’s home district.

President Trump and the RNC are eyeing Dallas as the site of an unusual midterm convention. The President is a genius at this sort of thing, but it’s hard to think that the war and price of groceries won’t be much more crucial than branding. The administration’s DEI wins might be extremely significant.

Speaking of DEI … UCLA was forced to cancel a debate among California’s gubernatorial candidates only 24 hours before it was set to start. Thank Heavens they had a good reason! Matt Vespa of Townhall reports:

You read the headline and expect a series of shocking news. I mean, a gubernatorial debate in California at the University of Southern California was canceled less than 24 hours before it was scheduled. Was it a bomb threat? We are under increased threat of terror attacks because of Operation Epic Fury. Were there any electrical problems? Nope. It was shut down for the most California reason ever: there were too many white people (via NYT).

James Freeman refers to the debate cancelation as “California’s Democratic Crack-Up.”

In protest of the partial government shutdown that is leaving TSA agents without paychecks, Delta Air Lines has suspended special perks for members of Congress. Reading the story, however, I don’t think Delta rescinded the main perk—that of avoiding getting in line with us plebs. Advice to Delta: that’s the one to halt.

But there’s an even more radical proposal than congresspersons standing in line that is being put forward in an editorial at the New York Post.  “How to Stop Politicians from Hijacking Americans’ Air Travel” is the very pleasing headline on a very pleasing suggestion:

America doesn’t have to suffer whenever Democrats — or Republicans — decide to hold airline passengers hostage with a government shutdown that inevitably leads to hours-long TSA lines.

One easy fix is to privatize airport security, as it  already is at multiple hubs.

If agents aren’t federal employees, they’ll still get paid during a government shutdown, so won’t skip shifts and produce those monster lines as much as five hours long.

“In Sanctuary Cities, American Lives Don’t Matter” is the headline on a piece by Brian Longergan in Chronicles. The article featured a picture of Sheridan Gorman, a Chicago student who was allegedly murdered by an illegal alien, and whose death was dismissed by a Chicago politician as Sheridan’s having been “in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

The New York Post’s Kirsten Fleming comments on “the left’s jaw-dropping” response to Sheridan’s death:

If ever there was someone in the wrong place, it was the alleged murderer, Jose Medina-Medina. According to DHS, he is an illegal alien from Venezuela who (shocker) came in under President Joe Biden’s open borders in May 2023. That same year, he was picked up for shoplifting at Macy’s but never showed up for his court date.

Watergate was the noontide for American journalism. What might be dubbed Watergate II, however, has been scarcely reported by the lethargic legacy media. So, it was good to read The Federalist’s Margo Cleveland’s congressional testimony on former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s “lawfare team” that took a very special interest in President Trump.

“Welcome Back, Christopher Columbus,” writes Rich Lowry in response to the return of a battered statue of the explorer (“What Columbus pulled off was the equivalent, in today’s terms, of traveling to Mars in a jerry-rigged spacecraft”) to a place of honor in front of the Old Executive Office Building.

Ms. Must has been very snobbish about the new FX opus, “Love Story,” about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. But “The Prince of New York,” at City Journal makes a good case for story, reminding us of a glam time in New York, which now seems like a lost age, and arguing that JFK Jr. left a legacy.

Inspiring Story of the Day: “Corgi Leads Canine ‘Great Escape from Chinese Butcher’s Van.’” Don’t miss video of the 10-mile journey home led by the short-legged hero Corgi.

Somebody in Iran Leadership Still Alive to Negotiate. Never Startle a Gun-toting Illegal Alien. Code Pink Visits Cuba. Homeless Myths. And More   

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Is Operation Epic Fury winding down?

President Trump announced that the U.S. is in secret talks with whoever currently represents Iran:

It took almost a month. [!!] But on the tarmac of Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport, Donald Trump abruptly announced that peace talks to end the conflict with Iran had begun.

“We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have points, major points of agreement – I would say almost all points of agreement,” the US president told reporters beside the steps of Air Force One.

The New York Times calls this turn of events an off ramp for President Trump (off ramps—good—except for when President Trump takes one).  The Times also noted that “Iranian officials” deny such talks. The Wall Street Journal refers to the latest development as President Trump’s “U turn” and takes the reader into the world of the secret negotiations. First hurdle: finding Iranians with whom to talk:

Egyptian intelligence officials managed to open a channel with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—the paramilitary group that protects the Iranian regime and is the country’s most powerful security and political entity—and put forward a proposal to halt hostilities for five days to build confidence for a cease-fire, some of the officials said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry (wherever did we find them?) denied talks are happening, leaving The Five’s Greg Gutfeld to summarize, “He said. Shia said.” The denial that talks are in progress led to a spike in oil prices.

Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York explains why President Trump needs a short war. What would constitute a win? The Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker writes that the U.S. and Iran see this differently. “‘Not Losing’ Has Different Meanings for Iran and the U.S” is Baker’s headline this morning.

But was this war necessary? International affairs columnist Walter Russell Mead says “yes” in a column headlined “Hawks and Doves Got Iran Wrong:”

As the latest Gulf war intensifies and its economic consequences grow, two things seem clear. First, many Iran doves seriously underestimated the risks and costs of attempting to coexist with the regime. Second, many Iran hawks seriously underestimated the risks and costs of opposing Tehran’s drive for regional hegemony through military action. The result is a war that is more necessary than doves thought and harder to wage than hawks supposed….

Domestically, Democrats are mostly locked into opposing a war that many doves think the president could and should have avoided. A conviction among many grassroots Democrats that Donald Trump poses a greater threat to America than the surviving members of the Iranian mullahcracy strengthens that opposition. It also raises the costs for Democratic politicians seeking to rally around the flag against Iran. Internationally, allied recognition that American forces are defending a vital waterway on which their economies depend struggles with public distaste for the American president and doubts about his will and ability to win.

Mr. Trump has weathered many crises. The Iran war is the greatest—and gravest—challenge he has faced. 

New York Post cover: “I Messed Up.” Those three words are the “anguished cry” of the LaGuardia air traffic controller before the collision between a Canadian regional jet and a Port Authority fire truck that left two pilots dead and dozens injured. The Wall Street Journal has a minute breakdown of the events on the ground leading to the fatal crash. The pilots, who have been praised for their actions, have been identified.

I can’t find the clip of Dems calling ICE, now deployed to help unpaid TSA agents at airports, calling ICE agents every name in the book. But an unashamed Senator Edward Markey gives a fair example of it in his official statement on the confirmation of Senator Markwayne Mullin to serve as Secretary of DHS:

“The Trump administration has sent ICE thugs into our communities to terrorize innocent immigrants, raid homes without judicial warrants, separate families, and target protestors,” said Senator Markey. …

And with Trump unleashing ICE agents at our airports, we cannot risk another leader at DHS who will simply rubberstamp the illegal, brutal Trump agenda.

Given this kind of talk from elected officials, it should come as no surprise that unmasked ICE agents are being hounded at airports:

“Go back to your master, Donald Trump, go back to your master!” one woman shouted at agents across a baggage claim terminal at Newark International Airport, footage taken at the airport showed.

Other travelers were happy to have the ICE agents helping with long lines. Meanwhile, Daniel McCarthy called President Trump’s the deployment of ICE agents to airports “ingenious.

There’s a new rule: Never startle an illegal alien with a gun.

You might get killed and then it would be your own fault.

That seems to be what progressive Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden believes to be the cause of the death of Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman, 18, who was allegedly executed by an illegal alien:

A progressive Chicago Dem is taking a ton of heat for suggesting that a Loyola University Chicago student who was allegedly executed by an illegal migrant caused her own murder — and that she was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Hadden said the deadly shooting appeared to be a case of Gorman being “in the wrong place at the wrong time, running into a person who had a gun,” in an interview with Fox 32 Chicago. …

“They might have unintentionally startled this person at the end of the pier,” she added. “We don’t believe there is cause for broader community concern.”

Powerline is also stunned by the “startled” illegal angle, nothing that there were reports that Sheridan Gorman’s alleged killer stalked her. The gunman, who had been caught and released at the border in the Biden administration, wore a mask.

Code Pink Visits Cuba. Glenn Reynolds observes:

The Code Pink crowd, stacked with upper-class white women, flew first class on a chartered jet, unselfconsciously issuing press statements from their extra-wide and cushy seats.

Ouch. The Free Press deliciously dubs them “Cuba’s Useless Idiots”  And then there are another group of the hopelessly deluded ….

“The Alternative Reality of Homelessness Policy,” by the great Heather Mac Donald in City Journal, catalogues the myths about homelessness that keep the homelessness game going. Mac Donald starts with New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg, who writes about how hard it is to spot the hopeless! Let’s dive in:

Fictions # 2 and 3 are closely related: Homelessness is an involuntary condition caused by a lack of housing, and “shelter resistance” is a myth invented by conservative critics of compassionate policy. 

The premise of nearly all homeless programs is that the homeless are helpless victims of economic circumstances. Invisible forces—capitalism, inequality, poverty, racism—have pushed them onto the streets; government’s failure to help them get off the streets keeps them there. When a journalist does report facts that cut against this narrative, he often fails to grasp their significance. 

So it is with Goldberg. The WARM team encounters its first “client” of the evening, a “fast talker,” as Goldberg calls her, named Kristina Uspenskai, standing on Second Avenue in Lower Manhattan. The workers leap from their van, “arms piled with blankets and jackets and food,” and race toward her, painfully eager to please. She quickly dispels the notion that WARM represents anything new: she has had frequent contact with other outreach teams, she says. True to form, she declines an appointment for free medical and psychiatric care: “I’m bad at keeping time. I’m bad at adulting.”

In closing, Bill McGurn reacts to President Trump’s remarks on former FBI head Robert Mueller’s death and the pervasive bile in public debate in “The Profane President Trump.” It remnds you of what your grandfather told you:

Vulgar language can be effective in a sharp response, but it dulls with overuse. And too often we disdain politeness as phony rather than respect it as the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Like schoolyard kids forced to shake hands after a nasty fight, Americans could use a healthy respect for good form, even at the risk of being hypocrites.

Nightmare at LaGuardia. Oil Price Drops as Trump Announces Bombing Delay. Good Hitler Analogy: Bunker Time for Iran Leaders? Late Mail-in Ballots. And More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Airport Nightmare is the lead story at the New York Post early this morning. A Canadian regional jet collided Sunday night with a Port Authority fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

The pilot and copilot were killed and dozens injured after the nose of the plane was sheered off. LaGuardia will be closed until at least 2 pm today. Air traffic control audio has been obtained:

Air traffic control audio obtained by the outlet showed that the rescue truck had been cleared to cross Runway 4 at taxiway D — though the tower controller can be heard repeatedly yelling at “Truck 1” to stop before dispatching more ARFF units to the scene. 

The truck had been responding to a separate incident when the collision occurred, police said.

Air traffic controllers frantically ordered the truck to stop just moments before the smash.

Photos captured the ARFF truck completely mangled and toppled onto its side, as well as the obliterated front of the aircraft.

Our attention was already focused on turmoil at the nation’s airports as the Trump administration scrambled to deploy ICE agents at airports as lines mounted. The reason airport passenger lines are almost unbearable is the Department of Homeland Security shutdown that leaves TSA agents  unpaid.

An editorial in the Washington Post says that sending ICE agents to help at airports is not as good an idea as resolving the shutdown, while an editorial in the New York Post praises President Trump for “foiling Dems ICE insanity” with ICE agents at airports. DHS employees have worked unpaid for more than half the current fiscal year. “It’s Not Safe for Anyone’: A TSA Officer on Working Without Pay” at The Free Press states the obvious; it further argues that “Congress needs to fund frontline workers like me before there is a tragic security failure.” Here are some people who—weirdly—continue to receive paychecks.

President Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. will postpone strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure and power plants pending talks with Tehran. Oil prices skidded and Dow futures jumped as a result.  Iran fired long range missiles at Diego Garcia (largest island in Chagos archipelago) 2,500 miles away, alarming Europe because of the range. 

We hear a lot about the U.S. lacking an off ramp in the Iran conflict. But maybe this is backwards? “Forget Trump’s Flailing — Iran’s the One without an Endgame” is a headline at Asia Times. (Thanks to RCP for spotting this.) The Asia Times:

Ayatollah Khamenei talked tough at the start of this war, threatening the US with a “strong punch.” A message, purportedly by his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since his elevation, rejected any talk of de-escalation and avowed to bring the US and Israel to “their knees.” …

This sounds like bluster. Neither Israel nor the US nor even other countries in the region have suffered casualties and damage anywhere near that suffered by Iran, and unlike Iran, their leadership remains intact.

Meanwhile, Matthew Continetti is on about how President Trump hasn’t roused the pubic by communicating that American ideals and American interests are one. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the Iranian leadership already has reached the “Hitler’s bunker” stage, and Seth Cropsey writes at the WSJ that U.S. credibility is on the line in Iran and leaving the job incomplete would be catastrophic.

Just for the record, this isn’t the first time the Strait of Hormuz has bollixed international commerce. Empires have battled over it for centuries. Another narrow passage: A feature story in the Wall Street Journal describes Iranians fleeing the bombing through a narrow mountain pass to Turkey that has become “one of their few lifelines to the outside world.”

It Depends on What the Meaning of “Election” Is. The Supreme Court today is scheduled to consider the matter of late-arriving mail in ballots:

In a case with potentially major ramifications for the 2026 midterm elections and all federal elections going forward, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will consider a Republican Party bid to prevent states from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day even if they were postmarked on or before.

Thirty states plus D.C. and several U.S. territories have laws allowing tabulation of some late-arriving ballots provided that they were timely cast and received within a specified post-election timeframe, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The case before the justices centers on Mississippi’s acceptance of absentee ballots up to five days after Election Day so long as they were received by the Postal Service on or before.

The Republican National Committee, which brought the lawsuit, alleges the policy violates federal law establishing the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the day for election of members of the House, Senate, and presidential electors, in specified years.

Republicans argue that the term “election” means both “ballot submission and receipt” and that Congress intended that it be completed on a single day.

Election day is set by federal law, a Wall Street Journal editorial observed a few days ago, asking if that doesn’t apply to absentee ballots too:

Absentee voting is occasionally a necessity, and in modest numbers it isn’t a difficulty, but widespread mail ballots and lax deadlines have introduced slack into the election system. Calling races in California can take nearly a month, and at some point control of Congress could depend on its dreadfully slow tallying.

Opposing that transformation of American elections doesn’t require buying into President Trump’s wildest fraud claims, and it needn’t be partisan, since Monday’s case pits the Republican Party against GOP-leaning Mississippi. If the Justices rule that federal law means the ballot box is shut on Election Day, it won’t fix all of this. But it would be a start.

More Election News. “California’s Trump Derangement May Elect Eric Swalwell [as Governor]” is the headline on Allysia Finley’s column this morning:

Gov. Gavin Newsom blames every problem under California’s sun, from wildfires to high energy prices, on President Trump—and he may be right in one respect. The neurologic antipathy that liberals feel toward Mr. Trump may supercede all other issues when they cast their ballots. Hatred is blinding.

If you think Mr. Trump is a mortal threat to the republic, vagrants shooting up at a neighborhood park seem less menacing. …

Trump derangement syndrome helps explain why Bay Area Rep. Eric Swalwell has become the favorite in the race to succeed Mr. Newsom this November. In California’s June 2 jungle primary, all candidates compete on the same ballot, and the top two finishers face off in November.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who led the Trump-Russia investigation, which made him a hero among Trump-haters, has died.  A piece in the Wall Street Journal praises many aspects of Mueller’s distinguished career, but has an elegiac ending:

The Russian collusion fiasco was one of the great political frauds in U.S. history. It’s a shame Mueller’s long record of service was marred by ill-judged decisions made in this era of acrimony and confusion.

It’s easy to understand why President Trump could loath Robert Mueller. But …. “Stay Classy, Don” is National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar’s take on the President’s (in my opinion) unfortunate remark on Mueller’s death:

I am less concerned with Donald Trump’s manifest incapacity for grace than with those who reflexively adopt it as their new moral philosophy as well. MAGA once defended Trump’s intemperate bleats by saying, “Well, he may be crass and vicious and degrade the overall discourse, but I support what he’s doing.” That was actually a reasonably defensible logic. But over time — inevitably with extended exposure, perhaps — that logic has been replaced by imitative affect: Trump is vulgar and petty, his top lieutenants are vulgar and petty: Let’s all be vulgar and petty now.

Former intelligence official Joe Kent, who very publicly resigned, is very much alive. So, no problem, as the kids say,  with Rich Lowry’s “Joe Kent Is a Loon.”

MAGA Strongly Behind Trump. Supreme Leader’s Support Not Quite So Strong. Rand Paul: Call Me a Snake to My Face! Somebody Should Have Called Cesar Chavez Monster … To His Face

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Supreme Leader Junior Watch: Iran’s Mojtaba Khamenei is apparently “misfunctioning” and “not in control” of Iran’s rump regime. If you find out who is in control, drop me a line.

President Trump & MAGA Watch: The MSM seems to be invested in pushing the notion that President Trump is likewise “misfunctioning” and not in control of his MAGA base, but Karl Rove pours cold water on this (“Trump Hasn’t Lost His Voters Over Iran”) today in the Wall Street Journal.

Rove highlights the resignation of counterterrorism official Joe Kent, which the left cheers as a sign of the fracturing of Trump’s MAGA armor. Not so, argues Rove:

These podcasters, YouTubers and independent journalists have decided President Trump’s actions are a betrayal of MAGA. To them, he’s an unwitting tool of the Israelis or, as some on the neoisolationist right say, the Jews.

Tuesday’s resignation of Joe Kent as National Counterterrorism Center director will enthuse the blame-it-on-the-Jews chorus. Mr. Kent blamed the “pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby” and a “misinformation campaign” driven by the media and “Israeli officials” for President Trump’s decision to demolish the Iranian threat. He also said the Israelis used the same tactic to “draw us into the disastrous Iraq war.” (In reality, Israel was reluctant to see the U.S. go to war against Saddam Hussein’s regime.)

Much of the criticism of Operation Epic Fury comes from the likes of the Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, the Israel-obsessed podcasters Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, and the conspiracist Candace Owens. Do voters who identify themselves as MAGA Republicans share their opinions? Do they feel betrayed by the president?

Democratic pollster Mark Penn is definitely not MAGA, but he had an interesting X post (thanks RCP for tipping me off to it) headlined “Making the Impossible Possible.” Penn writes:

After reading so-many analyses that regime change in Iran was impossible, it seems as though the impossible is looking more and more possible. Some of the coverage is even turning as the WSJ story on the elimination of Ali Larijari documented how the leadership of Iran is being reduced to on all fronts and the security apparatus is beginning to wear thin and is systematically being frightened.

And it’s pretty clear the US is preparing to take Kharg island once all the forces needed are in place to apply next level of pressure against Iran, which is alienating all of the other Arab countries with attacks on their hotels and airports.

Writing at The Free Press, Middle East analyst Michael Doran goes out on a limb with “Trump Can Deliver a Lasting Victory in Iran. Here’s How.”

This doesn’t mean that everything is peachy keen. With the price of oil spiraling towards $120 and the Fed holding steady on interest rates yesterday, the market plummeted and it’s not certain that today will be better. Also alarming are reports that Russia is sending oil the Cuba and intelligence assistance to Iran. But the Senate did thwart Dem attempt to—well—thwart Trump’s actions in Iran.

There were several—uh—lively hearings yesterday on Capitol Hill. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate committee that the Iranian regime appeared to be “intact but largely degraded” by ongoing U.S. and Israeli strikes. But a Wall Street Journal editorial (“Tulsi Gabbard’s Resistance Shop”) highlighted what it sees as another facet of Ms. Gabbard’s work-product:

Call it the revolving door. As one top aide who despises President Trump’s foreign policy leaves Tulsi Gabbard’s office, another joins.

On Monday Joe Kent tendered his resignation as counterterrorism chief under Ms. Gabbard. The same day, news broke that Ms. Gabbard hired Dan Caldwell as an adviser to senior intelligence officials….

Mr. Caldwell did his exit interview with Mr. Carlson in April, after he was pushed out of the Pentagon in a leak investigation. He has spent the months since opposing Mr. Trump’s Iran policy, including a second time on Mr. Carlson’s show amid the 12-day war in June.

The confirmation hearing of Senator Markwayne Mullin, nominated to run the Department of Homeland Security, featured a confrontation between Senator Rand Paul and Mullin. Senator Still smarting for allegedly having been called “a snake” by Mullin Paul demanded “tell me to my face.” Nevertheless, Mullin’s nomination is expected to snake its way—I mean advance—to the full Senate.

Attorney General Pam Bondi was summoned to address the Epstein files (so called—it’s more diffuse) by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee but not surprisingly, it was the Dems who walked out on the AG’s hearing.  Also in Congress, the SAVE America Act, which outrageously seeks to ensure that only citizens vote in American elections—the horror!—is up for debate. John Tillman asks at The Hill: So why can’t Republicans pass such an obvious bill?

Mr. Tillman kindly answers his own question:

The answer is what I call “the political vise.”

The reason Republicans keep getting stifled is because they’re being pressured from three different directions. On one side, they have the public, which strongly supports what the GOP is trying to do. But on the other two sides, the pressure is working against them. The media is almost completely hostile to everything Republicans want to accomplish. So are the elites who shape our cultural, economic and educational institutions.

The combination of these forces creates the vise that restricts Republicans. It doesn’t matter how much the public supports what they’re trying to do. The other two forces work even more powerfully in the other direction. At every turn, the media and the elites pressure squishy Republicans to cave. As for Democrats, they know the opinion shapers and cocktail party hand-shakers have their backs, no matter what. With such powerful friends, why bother doing what the public demands?

Remember when immigrants were grateful to come to America? Elia Kazan celebrated this long ago in his 1960s movie “America America,” about his own family’s arrival on these shores. Victor Davis Hanson says it’s just not that way anymore in a piece headlined “Our New Ungracious Immigrants:”

[R]ecently, something has gone terribly wrong with immigration–an open border, of course, but also a change in legal immigration as well as student visitors….

Why would a rich, privileged Eileen Gu feel no discomfort competing for a murderous regime whose agenda is to displace her country from its global preeminence in favor of a communist dictatorship?

Is it because in our relativist modern America, Gu’s “truth” is just as meaningful as any other? And who, after all, is qualified to judge anything or anyone?

We are the Dr. Frankensteins who asked nothing of immigrants, in a complete break from our nation’s past.

And we got our wish for a new, quite different class of immigrants, who treated the U.S. the very way they were taught to do by the Left: as an evil entity that deserved what it got.

And we sure have gotten it.

A Blast From the Past. Migrant leader of the 1960s and liberal icon  Cesar Chavez is being accused of having committed serious abuse of women. In“The Horrible Truth Comes Out About Cesar Chavez,” National Review’s Jim Geraghty writes:

Everything named after Chavez is going to have to be renamed, Californians had better make plans to start going back to work on March 31, and it’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen to the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument.

Because it turns out that Cesar Chavez was a serial rapist and sexually pursued and molested girls as young as twelve, and groomed them from the ages of eight or nine.

Chavez movement associate Dolores Huerta kept quiet so as not to hurt the movement but says “My silence ends here.” Thanks, Delores, but it doesn’t really help any alleged victims now, does it?

Bombs: Fertility Bombs & Iran Bombs. Kings Are Okay: Politico Declares Pritzker a Kingmaker. York Declares Shutdown ‘Insane’. SAVE Update & More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

We’ll get to the Iran war but let’s be daring and start today with the war on babies. You know, those critters who consume time and planetary resources.

Oscar Best Actress Jessie Buckley’s touching and unexpected tribute to the joy if motherhood served as the bookend to the death of a an influential intellectual whose powerful message was (I’m sort of boiling it down): Don’t have babies! You’ll mess up the planet!

It’s impossible to exaggerate the influence of Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb”(1968). I suggest that Ehrlich single-handedly started the trend of women agonizing over whether to bring babies into this world. Unherd’s farewell to Ehrlich, who has died at the age of 93,  is headlined “The Professor Who Hated Babies.”  Eliot Haspel writes:

Ehrlich was catastrophically wrong, of course: since the book’s publication, the global population has swelled by nearly 5 billion, and no worldwide famine ensued. Ehrlich simply misunderstood the forces at play….

Even so, his ideas inspired millions of forced sterilizations in India, Peru, and other countries. Americans and Europeans, meanwhile, live with a more diffuse fallout: it is exceedingly difficult to have a productive conversation about birth rates despite the US fertility decline reaching historic levels, and nations like Italy and Spain facing rates so low that each successive generational cohort will be around half the size of its predecessor. …

Without an intentional effort to clean up the damage wrought by The Population Bomb, it will be nearly impossible to have a needed national conversation about births, and how we can create the conditions for as many people as possible to form the families they want, which, for many Americans, are larger than they actually have.

Ehrlich, in short, found teeming human life itself repulsive, and the lives of the poor, especially, as unworthy to live.

The New York Times obit (linked above) called Ehrlich “prescient,” but his other sendoffs have been less flattering. A Washington Post editorial is headlined “Paul Ehrlich Has Died. His Shock Waves Remain.” “The dire predictions in ‘Population Bomb’ are thoroughly discredited but still causing damage,” the Editors argue. “Ehrlich Was Wrong” is the succinct headline of a Corner item by National Review Editors.  “Paul Ehrlich Was Wrong—but He Still Changed the World” is the Free Press headline over a piece by Matt Ridley. And in the same outlet, Larissa Philips recounts her harrowing narrow escape in “I Almost Didn’t Survive ‘The Population Bomb’” which describes how her hippie parents dashed their hippie dream by having her (but they never regretted it).

Thanks to Jessie Buckley for carrying her countercultural message into the very Valley of the Woke. She is prescient.

The fabulous New York Post cover this morning is a pretend classified ad: “Help Wanted: New Iran Leader.” You’ve probably already heard that actuarial charts for Iranian leaders have taken a turn for the worse with the dispatch to virgin land of two top leaders. But the Supreme leader survives (apparently). If I were the sort of person (sniff, sniff) who says LOL, that’s what I’d say for this Washington Free Beacon headline:

Supremely Progressive: Iran Becomes First Nation in World History Led by Gay Amputee

Unlike the Free Beacon headline, this New York Times headline is not funny: “Joe Kent, a Top U.S. Counterterrorism Official, Resigns Over the Iran War.” Your first reaction might be that—oh my gosh—the administration is turning on itself! I can’t help but believe the headline writer would not be averse to this. But read down to paragraph ten-ish:

“Joe is the bravest man I know, and he can’t be dismissed as a nut,” Mr. Carlson said in a brief interview. “He’s leaving a job that gave him access to highest-level relevant intelligence. The neocons will now try to destroy him for that. He understands that and did it anyway.”

In other words, it is hardly surprising that Kent takes a dim view of the conflict. He is also described as a conspiracy theorist. National Review, which has been supportive of the Iran conflict, responded to Kent’s resignation this way: “Good Riddance.” In his resignation letter (also printed in the New York Times), Kent recalled that he is both a veteran and a Gold Star husband, who “lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel.”

While taking pains to describe Kent as a “beloved figure” and honoring his and his wife Shannon’s military service, Laura Ingraham and Joe Bongino pushed back on his criticisms of the Iran war. 

In other Iran headlines, the New York Post suggests Iran currently is being run by hardliners who will beget other hardliners. Israel is escalating attacks in Lebanon as Iran strikes near Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu hopes strikes on Iran will inspire Iranians to overthrow their bloody regime. President Trump remains unhappy about the weak response from allies. Jamie McIntye writes at the DC Examiner that “jilted Trump will “lay the groundwork” to divorce NATO.

Giddy Politico headline: “King of Illinois: Pritzker swings Senate race as he targets Trump.” Governor JB Pritzker’s kingmaker status is awarded because he weighed in (no jokes) on Lt. Gov. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who won the Democratic Senate primary. Enquiring Minds Want to Know: Will Stratton curb the distinctive use of the all too frequent F-word in her ad campaign now that she’s hit the big time?

In a column headlined “There’s Only One Thing Voters Dislike More than Democrats,” USA TODAY columnist Ingrid Jaques argues that if the Dems hope to revamp their image before the midterms, they need to hit the brakes on its hard left turn. Jaques leads off with the Stratton F-Bomb ads. (I seem to have bombs on the brain this morning ….)

The Federalist does not seem overly optimistic about the immediate future of the SAVE America Act (which would impose on Americans the draconian burden of having IDs to vote). The Federalist predicts that as the act is debated in the Senate, we will witness “wall-to-wall Democrat lying and RINOs squirming in their seats at the thought of working more than two days a week.”

The Federalist, however, sees a glimmer of light in the fact that the act is finally being debated on the floor of the Senate—that’s a March Madness miracle in and of itself. Election law lawyer Joe Burns writes at The Hill that in the SAVE debate Democrats are being total hypocrites.

“The insane government shutdown” that has some DHS workers on the job without pay in a time of heightened danger is the subject of Examiner Chief Political correspondent Byron York today. He writes:

So far, nearly all TSA workers are staying on the job, but an estimated 300 have left TSA, and more will likely follow. Those staying on will be highly stressed. And on top of that, they will be required to deal with a threat situation that, because of world events, could be much more hazardous than usual.

This is crazy. In order to fund TSA and other agencies, Democrats demand that the Trump administration make “dramatic changes” in the way ICE operates. Among the Democrats’ demands are that ICE agents stop wearing masks, start wearing bodycams, and obtain judicial warrants for many of the cases they handle.

Cuba is experiencing all sorts of problems that open the doors for cooperation with the U.S.—and perhaps even the fall of a regime that has brought so much suffering to the Cuban people. But guess who else sees opportunity? The Democratic Socialists of America. “Why Is the DSA Making Friends with Communist Cuba?” is the headline on a story at City Journal by Stu Smith. The DSA is making something of a pet out of the designated sponsor of terror, according to Smith:

As the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Cuba, members of the Democratic Socialists of America are not standing on the sidelines. Through delegations to the island, aid campaigns, and high-profile partnerships with commentators like Hasan Piker, the DSA is working to provide both political and material support for the regime in Havana.

DSA’s sustained, national-level focus on Cuba is a relatively recent development. In 2019, after passing a resolution at its national convention, the organization formally joined the National Network on Cuba. The network is an umbrella coalition of left-wing groups committed to opposing U.S. military action, turning American public opinion against the longstanding American embargo, and pressing for a fundamental shift in U.S.-Cuban relations.

Looks like a hawk and dove. Curt Mills of the American Conservative (TAC) tells Christopher Rufo that the current Iran conflict is a mistake, while former CIA officer Martin Gurri writes at the New York Post that Trump’s global endeavors upend the world of impotent elites — and there’s no going back.

Don’t miss “The Amazing Adventures of Hannah the Plumber.” Julie Burchill profiles the Green Party’s newest MP who lives in her own pastel-colored bubble.