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Tag: New York

Who’s the Real Enemy? Joe Kent: Strange New Respect. Hochul: Just Cut Me the Checks, Dammit. Scourge of E-bikes. Rise of Chicken Thighs. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

As the U.S. warplanes and helicopters kicked open the battle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices subsided, and Iran’s rump regime recommended hanging protesters.

The butchers of Iran hanged three people, including a teenaged wrestling champion, after confessions obtained by torture. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“The Enemy in Iran in One Lesson”) addresses Iran’s latest public hangings:

We know it’s fashionable on the left and even in some parts of the right these days to think that President Trump is the enemy in the Iran war. So forgive us for pointing out the character of the actual enemy our troops are fighting. To wit, Iran’s regime has resumed executing its citizens for protesting against the government.

The hangings underscore the brutal way the regime has tried to stop the protests. By some counts, regime enforcers killed as many as 32,000 Iranians who took to the streets. Photographs leaked from the country show body bags lined up en masse. Many of the wounded were pursued and then killed in hospitals.

Meanwhile, save a thought for the members of the Iranian women’s soccer team who have returned home from their matches in Australia. Some of the team initially sought asylum after they declined to sing the national anthem during a match. But they changed their minds under what must have been enormous pressure. Their families at home would have suffered had they defected to the West. You can imagine how the players will be punished now that the government has them again.

Saudi Arabia, which has always had a “complicated” relationship with Iran, is threatening attacks against Iran, which just goes to show you that bombing your neighbors’ energy infrastructure is not such a neighborly thing to do. Meanwhile, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takyeh  argue that, while severely degraded, the regime in Iran will still pose a threat if not completely overthrown, in a Wall Street Journal piece headlined “Will Trump Finish the Job in Iran?” We’re always being told by critics that Trump hasn’t explained the war to the American people.  Not so, according to the Wall Street Journal story headlined “In Nearly 90 Truth Social Posts, Trump Narrates the War in Iran.”

Sayanora. U. S. strikes have killed Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps spokesperson Ali Mohammad Naini. Still no proof of life from Supreme Leader Khamenei Jr.,–in the closet?—but there are concerns that his two luxury residents—lots of tyrants dabble in real estate—located in London’s posh Kensington section are perfect for surveilling the Israeli embassy (it’s conveniently right next door). Eli Lake reports in The Free Press that Israel is helping Iran’s Opposition:”

Israelis are targeting the security forces that recently murdered protesters en masse. And they may provide air cover when the next uprising begins.

Politico’s Wishful Thinking. “The GOP Is Dismissing Joe Kent. They Might Come to Regret It,” is Politico’s headline on a story about the counterterrorism official who resigned in protest of the Iran war. What’s interesting is that Joe Kent—a Tucker Carlson ally (thanks, Suzy Weiss for this and RCP for this)—is not the sort of guy who usually gets such sympathetic treatment in liberal outlets. But the Kent resignation can be used against President Trump.

Describing President Trump as “a man who has been stabbed in the back more times than Julius Caesar — yet has still survived,” Douglas Murray writes that “a deranged Tucker Carlson” has backstabbed Trump. Enquiring Minds Want to Know: Did Trump utter, “Et tu, Tucker?” One more observation on Kent. “Joe Kent sums up everything that’s wrong with the MAGA Israelophobes,” Brendan O’Neill writes at Spiked.

Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel’s lead this morning is very funny:

In a bid to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, the White House on Thursday offered to make Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer head of the department. Mr. Schumer flatly rejected the offer, saying he could never trust anyone the Trump team appointed.

The column addresses the intransigence of the Dems on reopening DHS, even though the Trump administration and Senator Markwayne Mullin, whose confirmation hearings to lead DHS took place this week, are ready to embrace certain reform. Strassel says that behind closed doors, the Dems admit they have a problem. She writes:

Note that this week’s letter was authored by Mr. Homan, who is as serious as a heart attack about border security and who knows DHS inside out. If he feels these changes can be accommodated, they can. The letter lays out five alterations, all of which, in some form, address Democratic demands.

It promises an expansion of the use of body cameras, new limits on enforcement operations in sensitive places (hospitals, schools), additional DHS oversight in the form of mandatory inspector-general audits, a promise that officers will visibly wear ID and say their names if asked, and adherence to laws against the deportation or detention of U.S. citizens. …

In a sign they know they are losing ground, Democratic leaders this week scurried to send a (nonpublic) counteroffer to the White House—after weeks of completely ignoring administration outreach. And some Senate Democrats are in conversations with Republicans about a deal. The lesson for the GOP (as always): Good policy is good politics.

Schadenfreude Corner. New York Governor Kathy Hochul apparently believed taxpayers were captives, no matter how big a chunk government demanded of their earnings. But now Hochul is begging taxpayers who fled New York’s high taxes to come—she needs their money. National Review writes about what it calls Hochul’s “seller’s remorse:”

Back in 2022, Hochul built upon the work of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, in making the case that Republicans were unwelcome in the Empire State. “Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, okay,” Hochul said of her gubernatorial opponent, Lee Zeldin, among others. “Get out of town because you don’t represent our values. You’re not New Yorkers.” …

Hochul’s plea is notable for many reasons, but none so galling as that she appears sincerely to believe that America’s citizenry works for her. If anyone has a patriotic obligation to the State of New York, it is not those Americans who choose to live in other states. In Hochul’s mind, “generous social programs” are self-evidently virtuous. And yet, clearly, not everyone feels the same way. Ultimately, politics involves trade-offs, and for a considerable number of Americans, the judgments being made in Albany are less attractive than those that are being made in Tallahassee, Austin, and elsewhere. In a particularly embarrassing turn of phrase, Hochul demanded that rich families ought simply to “cut me the checks.”

The Scourge of E-bikes. Since e-bikes on recklessly driven on sidewalks by klutzes have evoked my anger more than once recently, my heart went out to New Yorkers when I read this headline: “Mayor Mamdani Is putting Countless New Yorkers at Risk with Change to E-bike Rules — I Know because I Was Critically Hurt by One.” Here’s what Hizzoner did:

Hell on wheels now has no limit.

At least no speed limit, after City Hall gave e-bikers license to run roughshod over New York City.

As of March 27, the NYPD will no longer issue criminal summonses to e-bikers and cyclists for traffic offenses, spiking an Adams-era policy to criminally charge reckless riders for blowing stop signs or illegally zipping along city sidewalks. 

The idea underlying the e-bank craze (and craziness) is that we can save the planet by running over people instead of polluting the environment with automobiles.  “Fossil fuels are the stuff oflife,” counters James James Woudhuysen of Spiked.

On Buffets and Menus Everywhere: once spurned chicken thighs, “What the Rise of Chicken Thighs Says about America,” in the Wall Street Journal proposes tat the trend is both economic and cultural.

Who’s Winning Iran War? Nepo Supreme Leader Keeping Low Profile. Guess Who Came to Dinner at Gracie Mansion? Can Homilies Liberate Iran? More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

A New York Times headline writer observes that President Trump is sending “mixed” messages on when the Iran war will end. Hardly surprising in a ten-day old intervention. Meanwhile, President Trump’s advisers are said to be urging him to find an “exit ramp.”

But how is the war going? An editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which has strongly supported the war in its opinion pages, argues that right now Iran is “not winning” but that could change:

Is it time for President Trump to call off the bombing and declare victory in Iran? You’d think so judging by the panic in Washington as the price of oil spikes. That certainly is the fondest wish of the ayatollahs, who know they’re losing.

The reality inside Iran and the region is that the U.S. and Israel continue to make progress. The regime loses more of its military each day, along with the ability to hurt its neighbors. The Israelis estimate 70% to 75% of Iran’s missile launchers have been destroyed, and the U.S. has destroyed at least 43 Iranian ships.

On Monday the United Arab Emirates received only 18 drones, down from 126 a day over the past week. We’ll soon see if that was a blip or a meaningful decline….

President Trump said that the war will be over “soon,” but Iran’s rump regime pushed back against this assertion, and the President then vowed to hit ‘em harder. U.K.

There’s something new and different in the choice of Khamenei Jr. as Supreme Leader. “Mojtaba Khamenei Brings Monarchy Back to Iran” is the headline on a piece by Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh. They write:

Khamenei’s son and successor, the Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, has neither his father’s experience nor Khomeini’s pedigree. His ascent marks the collapse of the last egalitarian pillar of the revolution, namely that the mullahs, unlike decadent Persian shahs, don’t do dynastic succession. With Mojtaba, the revolution has come full circle. Even without regime change, monarchy has returned to Iran….

In the turbulent politics of the Islamic Republic, violence and terror have always been a means of political control. But Mojtaba’s generation of militants has faced more popular insurrections as the revolution has lost much of its luster. Even in the context of Iran’s ruthless politics, this generation shows a particular attachment to terrorism. Violence is the mandatory response to those seeking to undermine the regime. The recent uprising demonstrated the lengths to which this generation will go to preserve God’s will manifested.

Mojtaba will continue his father’s search for foreign devils.

Mojtaba has been keeping a low profile. So much so that the Middle East Forum Observer speculated (flirting with a Babylon Bee parody!”) that “Elevating a Dead Man Would Be Far-Fetched, so Mojtaba Khamenei May Be Injured and in Hiding.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Global View columnist Walter Russell Mead explores three ways the war might end. The likeliest, he concludes, is that the U.S. largely clears the Gulf but that the current regime survives, solving nothing fundamental but preserving a fragile balance of power in a vital part of the world. This obviously is not the optimal scenario. Intriguing: Douglas Feith, a George W. Bush Defense Department official, says “Hold on tight. Trump is trying something new in Iran. Critics demanding a “day after” plan are confusing this presidency with that of George W. Bush.” Still, Mollie Hemingway indicates GOP voters will grow restive if this drags on too long. 

One More Thing. The Iranian Women’s Soccer team. Australia has granted asylum to the “lionesses who roared with silence,” (by not singing the regime national anthem), and could face death if returned to Iran. This Just In: Khamenei Sr. said Jr. was not fit to lead. Oh, and he’s impotent.

“The N.Y. Terrorist Attack and DHS Funding” is the headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial. Because of the Iran war, this is a time of heightened concern over national security and public safety. Yet, according to the editorial, Democrats refuse to restore funding to the Department of Homeland Security:

Inflicting pain on the public is a bad negotiating tactic, and the DHS shutdown is being felt acutely at the nation’s airports, as the Transportation Security Administration deals with employees calling out of work. … The bigger worry, though, is that there might be a security lapse that makes this failure to fund DHS look in retrospect like the height of partisan recklessness. In addition to airport security screeners, DHS includes the Coast Guard (which has personnel who support the U.S. Navy in Bahrain), the Secret Service, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Democrats insist they won’t restore DHS funding without an overhaul of ICE, but they are running a big risk if there is a successful terror attack. After the attempt in Manhattan, the wisest move for Mr. Schumer would be to quit posturing and pass the bill.

Meet the Gracie Mansion ISIS-loving wannabe bombing suspects (via the New York Post):

Emir Balat, 18, and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi, drove to Manhattan from their upscale Pennsylvania homes with the intent to cause mayhem and kill – all in the name of the Islamic State, according to the federal complaint against them….

When he arrived at an NYPD precinct, Balat allegedly asked cops for pen and paper – and scribbled a disturbing manifesto proclaiming his extremist beliefs.

“All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds,” he allegedly wrote. “I pledge my allegiance [sic] to the Islamic State. Die in your rage yu [sic] kuffar.”

New York Mayor Mamdani has taken heat, as you know, for his response to the dueling protests (one anti-Muslim and the other pro-Isis) at Gracie Mansion. FYI: It was the Isis guys (who made today’s New York Post cover) who had the bomb.

Speaking of Gracie Mansion, guess who scored a coveted invitation to break the Ramadan fast there with New York’s first family? The Mayor hosted anti-Israel activist and accused Hamas sympathizer Mahmoud Khalil, and his familyfor dinner at Gracie Mansion for the holy month of Ramadan. The chitchat had to be interesting.

Highly Recommended. “The Moment Mass Immigration Started,” by Alicia Nieves, for Compact Magazine. Mass illegal immigration started before most of us were aware of the implications and with canny activists who knew how to exploit loopholes:

Violence, poverty, and political instability can explain why individuals want to leave their countries. But they do not explain why migration toward the United States accelerates suddenly at specific moments in time. …

What emerged beginning in 2014 was a massive surge of a new class of migrants—unaccompanied minors and families with children—who were taking advantage of an emergent process created by the gradual accumulative effect of various discretionary policies and legal precedents interacting with one another.

Illegal immigration is a safety issue of our time. The D.C. Examiner has a recommended piece about how Virginia’s Fairfax County’s sanctuary policies led to an illegal immigrant murdering an innocent woman. Mackerel Snapper News. Ms. Must was disheartened—but hardly surprised when Pope Leo XIV addressed the crowd in St. Peter’s Square Sunday after the Angelus and implicitly came out against U.S. policy in Iran. Bill McGurn gently takes the Holy Father to task in “Homilies Won’t Liberate Iran.” McGurn writes:

At the moment the Vatican is almost guaranteeing its wisdom will be ignored by those who need it most. “The net result of the churches’ concessions to the political left has been to take religious leaders out of serious conversation with policymakers on matters of war and peace, leaving them to lob minatory rhetorical grenades from the bleachers,” Catholic theologian George Weigel wrote in 2024. Nearly 40 years ago Mr. Weigel wrote his book “Tranquillitas Ordinis,” arguing that the real goal of war is an order rooted in justice and freedom.

This may sound harsh, but it’s necessary to say. The Catholic Church and its last few popes have understood only the destructive force of war. They appear to have given little thought to the terrible consequences for innocent people when soft words are offered as a substitute for tough but necessary action. …

New Supreme Leader. Mamdani Criticized for Response to Dueling Protests. Inevitable Happens: David French Falls for Talarico. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

From Tehran to New York’s iconic Gracie Mansion, where there were dueling protests this weekend—one anti-Muslim and one pro-ISIS (!), it’s been an unquiet world.

Whether Iran’s despotic regime will fall soon is the question on everybody’s mind. The Free Press early this morning was leading with a possible energy crisis triggered by Iran.

Not surprisingly, Iran “projected defiance” by picking Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, son of the late Ayatollah, as Supreme Leader. President Trump finds the new Khamanei just bad as the other one.

Meanwhile, a U.K. Telegraph opinion column headline proclaims that Iran’s malevolent new Ayatollah shows the regime has learnt nothing. Tehran is fighting with jets dating back to the Vietnam era. War Secretary Pete Hegseth tells CBS that the U.S. will do whatever it takes to topple Iran’s regime:

“We’re willing to go as far as we need in order to be successful,” Hegseth told CBS News’s Major Garrett during a “60 Minutes” sit-down interview that aired Sunday night.

“We reserve the right. We would be completely unwise if we did not reserve the right to take any particular option, whether it included boots on the ground or not boots on the ground.”

There is a media divide over whether to support President Trump’s Iran intervention. The American Conservative [TAC] opposes the intervention and warns against arming the Kurds to fight in Iran (it is “madness” and will achieve nothing but instability and carnage”). The Wall Street Journal, whose opinion pages have supported the intervention, states the “risks” of arming the Kurds in an editorial:.

The greatest risk is that a Kurdish military front inside Iran could let the regime play to latent Iranian nationalism. So far the Iranian public hasn’t rallied to defend the regime even under relentless U.S. and Israeli bombing.

Allyssia Finley, also of the Wall Street Journal, writes that the United States’ oil and gas dominance has weakened Iran. The piece most supportive of the Trump administration’s Iran intervention this morning comes from Joshua  Muravchik, also writing for the WSJ:

For years since the U.S. stumbled in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have been on our back foot, and the forces of anti-Americanism have been gaining strength and confidence. Iran and Cuba present Mr. Trump a chance to reverse that trend. It would be a valuable prize for the country and for him, an honor far nobler than the Nobel

Also an optimistic view, Israeli historian Benny Morris proposes that “the war with Iran is reshaping the entire Middle East from the Gulf States to Lebanon with surprising speed.”  The Wall Street Journal’s Elliott Kaufman had a weekend interview with historian Ali M. Ansari who says that the Iranian regime is facing a crisis like never before in the current situation. What if the reactionary Iranian regime was being consumed by its own pathologies even before the Trump intervention? An intriguing notion, explored by Tim Black at Spiked On-line. Jonathan Rosen explores the fatwa—the Iranian weapon stronger than bombs—that might remain with us even if the regime falls.

Iran isn’t the only place having an issue with bombing this weekend. “Devil’s Work” scream the New York Post front-page headline.

Seem that demonstrators hurled an explosive known as the “Mother of Satan” in front of Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

It was a confusing double protest in front of Gracie Mansion: a protest against Muslim influence in New York followed by a pro-Muslim protest. Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal attributed the explosive hurling to the wrong protest group:

Hoylman-Sigal issued a statement on X Saturday claiming, in part, “White Christian Nationalists led a roaming trail of Islamophobia and antisemitism today on Manhattan’s Upper East Side at Gracie Mansion where they targeted our mayor with an incendiary device.”

The borough president took down the statement before it was publicly revealed Sunday that two pro-Muslim demonstrators, identified as Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, were arrested in the incident. Federal authorities are working with the NYPD on the case.

The “Mother of Satan” hurlers are described as self-radicalized ISIS protesters. The original, anti-Muslim protest was lead by a right-wing agitator Jake Lang, reportedly a pardoned January 6 protestor.  Miranda Devine argues in an impassioned column arguing that the New York Mayor’s response was telling:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani showed his true colors over the weekend when he responded to the attempted ISIS-inspired bombing of an anti-Muslim protest by first condemning “white supremacy” before getting around to saying “violence at a protest is never acceptable.”

That’s one way of putting it.

It took NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to issue her own statement for the full gravity of the attack to be officially acknowledged.

Indeed, the Mayor seems to have plumb forgotten the ISIS guys in his response. Adding to the heady mix—or maybe not adding to the mix because of social media shielding, the Mayor’s wife, Rama Duwaji’s apparent enthusiasm for the October 7 massacre of Israelis has come to light.

The mind-boggling, multi-billion-dollar welfare fraud in Minnesota appears to be just the beginning. A Wall Street Journal editorial on the “Medicaid Autism Racket” lays out just how easy it is to defraud government programs with vague behavioral therapy diagnoses:

Behavioral therapy is an especially ripe target for people looking to game Medicaid. Diagnostic standards can be elastic, and states provide little oversight of providers and pay claims without requiring verification of treatment or benefits. While insurers that administer Medicaid benefits have an incentive to police fraud, autism treatment has become a fee-for-service free-for-all.

Minnesota is a case study. According to a federal complaint, 27-year-old Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf set up a fly-by-night autism center claiming to provide one-on-one therapy for autistic children. He allegedly worked with medical professionals to have children diagnosed with autism and paid kickbacks to parents to enroll them in his center. … Prosecutors last fall brought charges against a 28-year-old Minnesotan woman in a similar scheme that included bilking the government for meals and transportation….

The welfare-state fraud story is turning out to be enormous. As the evidence emerges, keep in mind that the root problem isn’t fraudsters, who are always with us. It’s the programs that make it so easy for criminals to scam.

More on the American taxpayer spigot. Fox Digital has a report that non-U.S. citizens will no longer be able to access SBA loans. Ms. Must’s first reaction—you mean to tell me that non-citizens were receiving SBA loans?

New York Times “conservative” columnist David French has lost his heart to Texas senatorial aspirant James Talarico, the Democratic nominee and the Presbyterian seminarian who says that God is “non-binary” and there are six genders. More like Mr. French has lost his mind, writes The Federalist’s Chris Bray:

In a moment we should have seen coming, New York Times columnist David French has just gushed out a shameless celebration of Talarico’s insane nonsense, every word of which should qualify the worst op-ed prostitute in America for urgent psychiatric intervention. Here’s a whole paragraph: “Or, to put it another way, Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.”

Speaking of Mr. Talarico… you remember his clever high jinks with Stephen Colbert, when the two claimed that incorrectly Talarico was being censored. Talarico was originally being denied airtime because of the intricacies of the “Equal Time” rule. An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal addresses the Talarico ruse and goes on to explain that the “Equal Time” rule is obsolete and should be ditched.

Dick Cheney, RIP. Election 2025 Is Here! New York Mayor’s Race: Trump Makes a Choice. Tariffs Tomorrow. More Young Americans Okay with Violence. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

This Just In: Former Vice President Dick Cheney, has died at the age of 84. The New York Times obituary is here. The Washington Post remembers the former Vice President here, and the New York Post has wire stories.

Back to Regularly Scheduled Programing. Election Day 2025—exciting, nerve-racking and defining.

President Trump looms large over key races despite not being on the ballot:

 Grabbing top billing are New Jersey and Virginia, the only two states to hold contests for governor in the year after a presidential election. Their gubernatorial races typically receive outsized national attention and are seen as a key barometer ahead of next year’s midterms, when the GOP will be defending its slim House and Senate majorities.

We will probably go to bed tonight knowing whether New York, the (for now) throbbing heart of capitalism, will elect a socialist mayor. A new bombshell poll has socialist Zohran Mamdani and former Governor Andrew Cuomo neck and neck.  

President Trump made his choice clear:

President Trump made his most overt endorsement yet of Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral race — saying that New Yorkers “must vote for” the disgraced former governor to defeat “Communist” Zohran Mamdani.

“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home, because of the fact that, as a Communist, this once great City has ZERO chance of success, or even survival!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“He [Cuomo] is capable of it, Mamdani is not!” Trump added. AEI’s Danielle Pletka writes that the election of Mamdani, who recently stood in solidarity with a terrorist-friendly Imam, means New York has forgotten its history. If Kansas City’s erstwhile free buses are an indication, Mamdani’s free buses would also lead to a degradation of the experience of riders. Also predicted, because of Mamdani’s push to decriminalize prostitution, AOC’s “red light district” crisis could engulf New York. But is the argument stacked against capitalism?

Meanwhile, in New Jersey GOP candidate for Governor Jack Ciattarelli got an endorsement from former Governor Thomas Kean, who has largely avoided politics:

“I haven’t been involved in partisan politics for a number of years, but this year is different,” Kean said in a video shared by Ciattarelli on X. “New Jersey needs a change and needs a change badly. Jack Ciattarelli is that change.”

Former President Barack Obama’s last-minute efforts on behalf of Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Democratic candidate for New Jersey Governor, left one black leader unimpressed. Former President Obama also dabbled in the New York Mayor’s race, offering to be a sounding board for Mamdani, but not quite endorsing him. James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal refers to “Obama’s Self-Serving Straddle with Mamdani.” Good News for Political Junkies: The New York Post and 2Way team up to provide coverage for this excruciating evening. There is hope on Capitol Hill that the elections will help end the shutdown.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments tomorrow over whether President Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs are legal. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which has been consistently opposed to the tariffs, is headlined “The Tariff King and the Supreme Court.” For the editors, the question is whether the Justices stop Trump from usurping Congress’s power over taxes and tariffs:

The Trump Administration tries to leapfrog all of these statutory obstacles by citing the President’s Article II foreign-policy authority. Few conservatives are more deferential to presidential overseas authority than we are. But the power of the purse still belongs to Congress and can’t simply be wished away with the words “foreign policy.” Tariffs are taxes on Americans.

If the Court blesses this unlimited presidential tariff power, future Presidents will be able to cite emergencies to justify tariffs to pursue all kinds of policy goals. An all-too-likely example is a climate emergency to tax imports of countries with high CO2 emissions.

President Trump calls the tariffs case “[t]he most important case ever.” A ruling against tariffs could trigger a chaotic economic situation. “It really feels like this is a coin flip in terms of the outcome,” Heritage Foundation Chief Economist E.J. Antoni told The Federalist. 

Who You Callin’ Isolationist. Wall Street Journal international affairs columnist Walter Russell Mead says it’s wrong to regard President Trump as an isolationist—he’s out to reshape the globe:

Venezuela’s proven oil reserves are larger than Saudi Arabia’s. Flipping Venezuela from the Axis of Revisionists to Team America would have lasting consequences on the global balance of power—and would reduce the ability of countries like Russia and Iran to use energy as a weapon against the U.S.

Those who still think of Mr. Trump as a restrainer or isolationist should watch his “60 Minutes” interview. This president isn’t retreating from the world. He aims to reshape it.

What other American President would threaten to go in “arms blazing” because of persecution and murder of Nigeria’s Christians? An editorial in the Wall Street Journal takes note:

The plight of Africa’s Christians seems like a world away from America First policy. But U.S. moral interests include humanitarian concerns, and in this case they coincide with the fight against radical Islam. Credit to Mr. Trump for showing he understands and may be willing to act on those interests.

Have you heard that some administration people have been moved to military housing for protection? It’s true. Adviser Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are in military housing. The Atlantic and the New York Times had stories saying it was their own fault. The Federalist responds:

It’s just so baffling, they continue, because Obama Defense Secretaries Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel “felt secure in their homes” when they were in office. What could possibly be different for Trump officials? If Panetta wasn’t scared of Tea Party grandmas, surely the Millers can shrug off the threat of antifa mobs and leftists like Virginia Democrat Jay Jones calling for the murder of Republicans?

Maybe this is a good place to cite a Daily Caller story on the growing number of young Americans who believe violence to be justified:

The poll found that 24% of Americans say there are circumstances in which political violence can be justified, compared to 64% who say it is never acceptable, according to Politico’s report on the survey. Among younger adults, that number rises sharply, with more than one in three under the age of 45 agreeing there are circumstances where political violence is warranted. There was “little partisan divide” on the issue, according to Politico, though neither the precise breakdown on the numbers nor the phrasing of the questions were included in the report. The findings come amid a surge of politically motivated attacks and threats in recent months.

Fascinating Ideas. “Taking Hostages Turned Out to Be Hamas’s Undoing.”  Microchips are so yesterday—the future is wafers, according to the visionary George Gilder. Wall Street Journalist columnist Gerard Baker says that Mamdani is a gift, but President Trump should be careful how he opens it. And the great Joel Kotkin boils down message of lefty Mayors to the cities they supposedly govern: Drop dead. Kotkin writes:

“The progressives are not focused on governance,” he suggested over sushi in Little Tokyo, a stone’s throw from City Hall. “They prefer virtue-signaling to running a city.” Cole’s is not the complaint of a conservative but someone who identifies as “a pragmatic progressive,” even a “sewer socialist.” The problem, he says, is that today’s progressives lack a “results-oriented approach” that actually helps residents.

Perhaps never in recent history have American cities so badly needed strong, pragmatic mayors—and gotten so few. ….

Cities cannot afford such choices. 

We’ll know soon whether New York has made such a choice.

Linda Sarsour: I’ll Be Mamdani’s Nanny. Bad Things Dems Might Do without the Filibuster. Antisemitism Debate on Right. KJP Destroys Faith in DEI. And More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Remember Women’s March co-founder Linda Sarsour?

Well, if socialist Zohran Mamdani becomes Mayor of New York tomorrow, we’ll see a lot more of Ms. Sarsour.

Asra Nomani explains:

Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour issued a thinly veiled warning Saturday night to New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani, saying she will “hold Zohran accountable” to fulfill campaign promises, including dismantling an NYPD unit that polices terrorism threats, protests and riots.

In a livestream on Instagram, obtained by Fox News Digital, Sarsour told her followers that electing Mamdani doesn’t mean that the network that supports him will “let him do whatever the hell he wants when he gets to City Hall.”…

A member of the Democratic Socialists of America along with Mamdani, Sarsour has been like a political mentor to Mamdani. In 2017, they canvassed together for a city council candidate, Khader El-Yateem, endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, in a race he lost. Not long after, Mamdani joined the board of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, which Sarsour co-founded. She endorsed Mamdani’s winning race for the New York General Assembly and was an early supporter when he announced his race for the mayor’s job.

Ms. Sarsour is an interesting character.

The New York Post has pulled out the stops. A New York Post editorial is headlined “20 reasons to vote against NYC mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani.” The first two reasons: He Hates the Police. He Really Hates the Police. An antisemitism watchdog has posted a video about the intention of Mamdani allies to take over the Democratic Party from within—rather than refute it, the Mamdani camp loves it. Let’s call it the Trojan Horse Theory. Early voting in the mayor’s race ends with a record 735,000 ballots cast and a surge of young voters.

Former President Barack Obama called Mamdani to offer to be his sounding board, but when it came to an official endorsement from the former President it was “No, Thank You, Mam.” New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin argues that a Mamdani win would be a “long, sour decline” for New York,

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears is polling behind Democrat Abigail Spanberger but has a good piece on Fox Digital outlining the reasons she wants to be Governor. The New Jersey Governor’s race between Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Dem Rep. Mikie Sherrill is this close. Utterly Predictable: Mollie Jong-Fast visits the Sherrill campaign and finds a double standard for female candidates. Whatever happens, Liberal Patriot Ruy Teixeira says the forecast for Dems is “rainy at best.”

Republicans have pushed back on President Trump’s call to end the government shutdown by killing the filibuster. Powerline’s John Hinderaker lists several bad things Dems would do if the filibuster were killed. The sticking point for Dems is extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. The Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley explains how blue-city politicians use ObamaCare to bail out their cities at the taxpayer’s expense:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago was scrambling to close a $369 million deficit in 2013. The inception of ObamaCare offered an enticing target for cost shaving: retiree health coverage. …

So Mr. Emanuel dumped his city’s retirees onto the nascent ObamaCare exchanges, where federal subsidies can reduce premium payments. Voilà, Chicago’s $2.1 billion unfunded retiree healthcare liability vanished. Now U.S. taxpayers pick up the tab for Chicago’s retirees in their 50s and early 60s.

Chicago isn’t alone in trying this neat fiscal trick. Detroit, Stockton, Calif., and San Bernardino, Calif., also saved billions by shifting pre-Medicare retirees to ObamaCare when they filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in the 2010s. That minimized cuts to workers’ compensation and pensions. Detroit’s $170 million annual retiree healthcare bill made up nearly 20% of its general fund budget, one of the city’s biggest costs.

Other municipalities may move retirees to ObamaCare to avoid layoffs and tax hikes. ObamaCare could soon became a safety valve for underwater cities.

Maverick Democratic Senator John Fetterman, meanwhile, is slamming his party over the continuing government shutdown, particularly noting that food stamp benefits have run out for 42 million recipients. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that the food benefits could be restarted by Wednesday. But 42 million on food stamps? Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says her agency has found massive fraud in the program, which must be investigated.

Time to talk about something deeply unpleasant. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal is headlined “The New Right’s Antisemites,” which charges that Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation “floundered” in addressing questions about Tucker Carlson and someone called Nick Fuentes:

On Thursday Mr. Roberts released a startling video to oppose the alleged “cancellation” of Tucker Carlson and even of Hitler fanboy Nick Fuentes, whom Mr. Carlson had hosted for a chummy podcast interview.

“I want to be clear about one thing: Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic,” Mr. Roberts began, sounding like what William F. Buckley Jr. used to call “a pyromaniac in a field of straw men.” This is what Hamas supporters on the left say: What do you mean? We were only criticizing Israel. Not exactly.

On Monday’s Carlson show, Mr. Fuentes assailed “organized Jewry” as the obstacle to American unity and “these Zionist Jews” as the impediment to the right’s success, while calling himself a fan of Joseph Stalin. Even while toning it down for the largest audience he’ll ever have, Mr. Fuentes still came off as an internet mashup of the worst of the 20th century.

Scott Johnson of Powerline has two powerful takes (here and here) on this painful matter. The Free Press devoted no fewer than four stories to the issue, including an interview with Senator Ted Cruz by ace reporter Peter Savrodnik. Erick Erickson writes about “The Moral Rot Eating the American Right.” But it’s not just the Right that’s yummy. Maine senatorial hopeful Graham Platner says the controversy over his Nazi tattoos has made him a better candidate.

I didn’t watch President Trump’s “60 Minutes” interview—something tells me I’ll have a chance catch him on TV sometime this week—but here is the Real Clear Politics summary.

A mass stabbing on a train to London left eleven injured with two victims sustaining life-threatening injuries. The sub headline says, “Police make two arrests, say they have seen no sign of terrorist motive.” Regarding that, I agree with Powerline:

As for motive, they are positive that they know what it isn’t but have no clue as to what it is.

I was interested that a London Telegraph story that noted that “a British-born suspect” had been questioned. “A British-born subject” is a curious description. Another Powerline post highlights that the authorities haven’t yet told us who the suspects are, despite having had plenty of time to collect their identities. Hot Air’s Beege Welborn explores the recent spate of stabbing in the U.K. in “Two* Fellows Went All Stabby on a British Train Yesterday.”

Catesby Leigh is a co-founder of the National Civic Art Society, which waged a worthy and valiant battle against having Frank Gehry create a memorial for President Eisenhower. It has a lot of conservatives in its ranks, and when Leigh writes about architecture, it’s always good. So I’m at least inclined to pay attention to Leigh’s “The Original Trump Ballroom Design Was Good. The Expansion? Less So,” in the Washington Post.

Ken Burns is so slouch when it comes to promoting his documentaries. His forthcoming magnum opus is “The American Revolution.” “Ken Burns on America’s Origin Story: “The Most Important Event Since the Birth of Christ” is the headline on a CBS interview with Burns.

The Karine Jean-Pierre trainwreck continues. Andrew Stiles, who reviewed her book for the Free Beacon, says that it’s so awful that it has shaken Democrats’ faith in DEI. Not that KJP was a DEI hire or anything.

Bombs Aweigh Friday: CNN Bombs & Misses! Mamdani Hits NYC’s Dem Establishment Hard. Biden’s Debate Bomb Anniversary Is Today & More   

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

What was wrong with the CNN “report” that U.S. air strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites had—so to speak—bombed? Aren’t intrepid journalists supposed to pursue the truth wherever it takes them, regardless of whether they offend people in high places?

Well, yeah. But the Free Beacon explains why CNN, which relied on a faulty document from an agency that is not held in high regard to discredit the Trump-ordered air strikes, likely was duped. By the Iranians. Talk about bombing! The Free Beacon reports:

The U.S. intelligence community deemed that initial assessment “low-confidence,” a fact CNN omitted from its original piece, and based it solely on satellite imagery and intercepted communications—known as signals intelligence, or SIGINT—from Iranian officials. Shortly after the assessment leaked, Axios reported that communications intercepted by Israel “suggest Iranian military officials have been giving false situation reports to the country’s political leadership—downplaying the extent of the damage.” Such communications likely made their way into the DIA report, according to three former U.S. intelligence operatives, a current U.S. official, and other veteran national security insiders who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon both on and off the record. Some of them referred to the DIA as the “discount intelligence agency.”

“It’s basically messaging by the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], messaging by Tehran,” said Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer with U.S. Central Command who operated in the Middle East for nearly 30 years. “DIA is taking a SIGINT report from the National Security Agency … and putting together an assessment to leak. I know it’s messaging, the Iranians know it’s messaging, and for some reason, NSA believes it’s actual f—ing intelligence.”

A current U.S. official familiar with the ongoing damage assessment process said that the DIA’s findings—as well as “the partisan hit job published by CNN”—have been “completely debunked” over the past 24 hours, including by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“Trump Bombs the Leak Machine” is the headline on Kimberley Strassel’s Wall Street Journal this morning. There is a good reason for the Trump administration to act decisively:

The Trump team went all-in this week countering the DIA report, with updates and briefings laying out the damage from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, military officials, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and the White House press team. The president pressed his claims of success in 21 posts on Truth Social on Wednesday alone and piled on news outlets. The administration also opened an investigation into the leak and suggested it might limit some classified information-sharing with Congress.

This has put much of the media on the back foot, engaged in a lot of throat-clearing about the “fog” of intelligence and the precise definition of “obliteration.” CNN, hilariously, continues to refuse to take the loss, and instead ran a piece suggesting the administration’s “hyperemotional” response to “honest questioning” only makes it “look defensive.” Sure.

The White House has good reason to move quickly in correcting the record and sending a message. The leaks are designed to do political damage, and the administration knows from the first term how real that damage can be.

The CNN reporter who broke the Iran story was Natasha Bertrand, dubbed a “CIA stenographer” by Miranda Devine. Ms. Bertrand’s most illustrious scoop previously concerned the 51 former intelligence agents who claimed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. It was not. (Poignant Aside: Hunter is once again having trouble keeping current on his debts.)

Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with Fox’s Brett Baier that the Iran air strikes were “a hot in the arm” for American credibility. Rice, who served in the George W. administration, did mention any President or former President by name, but she did dwell on the Afghanistan withdrawal as catastrophic for American prestige. Amazing interview. Is Brett Baier inheriting the world’s greatest interviewer mantle of Oriana Fallaci?

Will the One Big Beautiful Bill be ready in time to land on President Trump’s desk on July 4? The Senate Parliamentarian has rejected key proposals regarding Medicaid.  A Yahoo story crows that “she’s unelected, unknown and has the power to veto Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.” In “About Those ‘Millions’ Losing Medicaid,” Wall Street Journal explains that they fall into two categories: able-bodied recipients who won’t work even part-time, and illegal aliens.

Who put socialist Zohran Mamdani over the top and made him New York’s likely next Mayor? Veteran political sage Michael Barone characterizes Mamdani’s support:

Mamdani won by huge margins from the same constituency that cast the critical votes for [Mayor Brandon] Johnson in Chicago. It’s the same constituency that in 2021 in New York was the base of Maya Wiley, who won slightly more first-choice votes than Kathryn Garcia, whose base was affluent Manhattan, but fewer than the winner, incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams, whose base was Blacks in Brooklyn and Queens.

I have called this constituency the “barista proletariat,” made up of people with temporary jobs in service industries, nonprofit organizations or media, perpetual grad students or adjunct lecturers who supplement their incomes often by gaming welfare systems and working off the books. You could see them as economic parasites on Manhattan’s rich finance and media wealth. They prefer to see themselves as cultural rebels against the larger society’s complacency and intolerance.

In a similar vein, Ms. Must’s favorite demographer Joel Kotkin explains at Spiked Online why Mamdani’s “progressive intifada” will be a disaster for New York:  

By roughly four to one, Americans favour much higher taxes on the rich, longer holidays and government-imposed cuts to pharmaceutical prices. Rising inequality and the fear of downward mobility drive support for expanded government and wealth redistribution.

Yet it would be a mistake to see Mamdani’s success in New York as a precursor to left-wing victories at the national level. The problem for such candidates is that most middle- and working-class Americans don’t protest, much less riot, when their cities and states go downhill – they just move somewhere less stressed and more promising, mostly to the suburbs. Those who remain in the cities are now totally unrepresentative of America as a whole.

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, despite having been walloped by Mamdani, so far plans to stay in the race. Current New York Mayor Eric Adams, whose term was hijacked by the illegal migrant crisis, is running as an Independent. Republican Curtis Sliwa is refusing pleas to drop out so the anti-Mamdani vote can coalesce. City Journal’s Jesse Arm has suggestions for NYC powerbrokers, including the tantalizing notion of persuading NYPD  Commissioner Jessica Tisch to run.

“Everything Conservatives Said about Joe Biden Got Exposed One Year Ago Today” is the headline on Matt Vesta’s reminiscence of then-sorta President Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate. The House Oversight Committee is valiantly trying to figure out who the real President was back then. Alas, the Committee had to subpoena Doctor Biden’s suddenly shy “work husband” Anthony Bernal to come and testify.

I can’t end without mentioning “Alligator Alcatraz,” a proposed detention center for illegal aliens with criminal histories in Florida’s scenic Everglades. The BBC notes:

The facility, in the middle of a Miami swamp, was proposed by state lawmakers to support US President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.

“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons,” explains the state’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Republican, in a video set to rock music and posted on social media.

It’s not a sure thing—environmentalist and tribal leaders are fighting it tooth and nail. But I do look forward to feigning innocence and saying to my liberal friends, “Goodness gracious, they’ll be perfectly unharmed unless they get naughty and try to escape.” Just kidding. Or not.