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Tag: New York

Venezuelan Earthquakes. Mamdani Earthquake: Do Old Guard Dems Know What Hit Them? Testy Trump-GOP Meeting On Hill. Iran. Wacky Wiki. Contrarian Take on an Independent Woman. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

This is a morning to think about earthquakes.

Venezuela faces a difficult recovery from the two historically strong earthquakes that devastated the country after hitting in rapid succession. Up to a hundred are feared dead as President Trump vows to help.

Unlike the people of Venezuela, the Democratic Party doesn’t quite seem to understand what hit them. The Mamdani Earthquake, which hit full force in New York on Tuesday, is historic.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“The Socialist Democrats of America”) explores the meaning of the “Mamdani left” on the Democratic Party and the country at large:

It’s tempting to dismiss Tuesday’s primary sweep by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as an artifact of weird New York City. It is that, but also more. The victories by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s slate of leftists will change the Democratic Party—and perhaps the politics of the country…

This shows the DSA is highly organized and can get out the vote of the young progressives who have replaced the white centrist voters who have fled New York.

It’s hard to overstate how far to the left the Mamdani slate is. Aber Kawas, who won the primary for a state Senate seat, has said she found it “reprehensible” to apologize for 9/11 when America hasn’t apologized for its “system of capitalism, and racism and white supremacy.” We guess she won’t be going to the 25th anniversary ceremony at Ground Zero…

Another reason for the socialist rise is that mainstream liberals put up so little resistance. Like other Democrats, Mr. Espaillat shares the socialist left’s goals but wants to get there more gradually. This is a feeble answer when angry voters want immediate progress. The defeated Democrats in New York refused to make principled arguments against socialism or the antisemitism of the Mamdani left.

After Tuesday they may offer even less resistance. 

Only 7 per cent of registered voters turned out, mostly young and white. The New York Post calls them “The Young and the Clueless.”  The situation presents “a governing nightmare” for Democrats, according to an editorial in the Washington Post. City Journal notes that the Mamdani socialists are prepared to storm Congress. This should be a “jolt for complacent Democrats.” A Wall Street Journal Free Expression calls the Mamdani socialists “The Radicals Inside the Tent:”

Mainstream Democrats hope far-left insurgents will settle down after arriving in Washington. They’re in for an ugly surprise.

Columnist Hugh Hewitt writes that the current situation stems from the the Obama years:

This is the third act in a three-act tragedy.

First, former President Barack Obama’s achievement-free eight years atop the country and the Democratic Party saw a generation of federal, state and local Democratic youngsters get wiped out in the political earthquakes of 2010, 2014 and 2016. Obama always took care of himself, but left the party to the ossified care of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer to collectively run, and they ran it aground.

Trump Derangement Syndrome, which consumed Democrats, Hewitt asserts “left the party without a platform or a leader of any ability or charisma who wasn’t also eligible for Social Security.” Part three was the “passing of the baton” from Senator Bernie Sanders to the energetic AOC.

Mamdani socialists are hostile to the state of Israel and Jews in general. This leaves Commentary editor John Podhoretz to observe that “We’re in a Waking Nightmare.” Mark Halperin writes about “How Israel Became the Biggest Litmus Test in American Politics.” It has to do with bad ideas.

It wasn’t quite an earthquake, but President Trump stunned Republicans yesterday when at the last minute he cancelled the signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing bill. The President says he won’t sign the popular housing bill until Congress passes the Save America Act (which would require an ID to vote). If a bill passed by both the House and Senate is ignored and not signed within ten days, it automatically becomes law. It’s unclear what Trump plans to do. A Wall Street Journal editorial says Trump was right not to sign the Elizabeth Warren backed housing bill, even though he did so for what the editors believe is the wrong reason.

But the President still turned up for a scheduled meeting with Capitol Hill Republicans, which did not go smoothly:

President Trump’s meeting with Republican senators on Wednesday turned testy, and at one point, he sternly told Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy to sit down, after questions arose about the War Powers Resolution, according to sources directly familiar with the meeting. 

Cassidy had been trying to respond to the president, telling the president he should sit down — but Cassidy later relented, saying he would be seated, but not at Mr. Trump’s behest. …

The more-than-hourlong meeting with Mr. Trump focused mostly on the Iran war and the War Powers Resolution. On Tuesday, the Senate approved a Democrat-led resolution to keep the president from ordering further military action in Iran. Four Republicans voted in favor of the concurrent resolution, which is symbolic and does not carry the force of law.

Senator Cassidy lost his Senate primary for the GOP nomination to a Trump-backed opponent. Key Republican Senators switched their votes after the meeting, causing the war powers resolution to fail.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose miserable demeanor while President Trump outlined the Iran deal has been much remarked upon, is traveling among our Gulf allies. Amid deep Israeli dissatisfaction with the deal, Rubio this morning assured Gulf allies that a Hormuz toll or fees just won’t happen.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance is touting “our new relationship with Iran,” which Sohrab Ahmari in turn touts at Unherd. Larry Kudlow also touts the Iran agreement as “Neither Neocon or Obama–and It Is Working.” An op-ed in the WSJ warns the administration not to help Iran prop up its terror proxy Hezbollah. Karl Rove in the same outlet takes stock of the political peril for a deal with Iran.

Our friend Emily Jashinsky writes that Trump’s fraud crackdown is an easy win. To that point, Fox Digital reports on a Michigan childcare provider that collected $1.1M in taxpayer funds despite no visible signs of operating. There were no children anywhere to be found.

It’s so unfair when somebody gets a stiff prison sentence just for killing an innocent person. I mean, c’mon. Kirsten Fleming documents the “Free Karmelo” movement:

It’s been two weeks since Karmelo Anthony was found guilty of murder, and the lies keep rolling out….

I’ll give [Sunny] Hostin this: She and her “View” crew aren’t as bad as the ghouls posting AI images of themselves urinating on [teen-aged murder victim] Metcalf’s grave. Nor are they as depraved as the disgusting teens on TikTok doing the “Austin Bop,” where they dance around pretending to stab themselves in the heart.

Shorts …

You likely remember the horrific photo of a girl being napalmed in Vietnam. Who really took the photo? New doc explores alleged AP coverup of real photographer of Vietnam’s most horrifying image.

Wacky Wiki. It doesn’t help to promote balance and fairness at Wikipedia:

Left-leaning website Wikipedia has taken the drastic action of permanently blocking one of its founders from editing pages — after he had campaigned to make it more balanced and fair.

Last month, Larry Sanger launched WikiProject Intellectual Diversity (WID), a group designed to help reinforce the online encyclopedia’s “original, firm commitment to intellectual diversity,” by emphasizing neutrality and transparency.

Refreshingly Contrarian. “Great Americans: The Strange Dependence of an Independent Woman” is the headline on a Free Press entry into a series. The subject is Eliza Lucas Pinckney, who at 16 was thrust into running her family’s vast properties:

Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722–1793) is an ideal figure to help us think through the meanings of independence. She forged a far more independent life than what we might imagine was possible for an 18th-century woman. Yet her life also reveals that no one, at any time, lives a truly independent life, whether a founding father or a 21st-century American.

Socialists Paint New York Red. Big Winner Says: Forgot My Napkins So I’ll Wipe My Dirty Hands on American Flag. Scott Bessent: Hamilton! Freddy Hearts U.S. Sad Guthrie Update. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

New York, New York: It’s Mamdani’s town.

A “socialist earthquake” in New York has left “Democrats reeling” as Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s three chosen candidates swept to victories last night in New York’s Democratic primaries:

Progressive allies of Zohran Mamdani swept through New York’s primaries Tuesday, handing defeats to mainstream Democrats in deep-blue congressional districts and boosting the New York City mayor’s standing as a kingmaker in the party.

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander ousted incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in a race that centered on Israel and the war in Gaza. State Assemblywoman Claire Valdez and community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier, members of the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Democratic candidates endorsed by establishment leaders. …

All of the candidates endorsed by Mamdani have called for the dismantling of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and want additional housing and other measures to make life affordable for working families. They are also highly critical of the Israeli government and the war in Gaza.

One of the Mamdani Three, Darializa Avila Chevalier, whose defeat of Rep. Adriano Espaillat practically assures a win in November, has a history of virulently anti-America rhetoric, having called the United States “a f—–g disgrace”:

Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32, is a community organizer who studied at Columbia University where she was known for leftist agitation and her membership in a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest that would later post “Death to America” on its social media.

Avila Chevalier, who positioned herself further to the left than powerful progressives including former Vice President Kamala Harris, has faced scrutiny for her stance on private property, police, borders and calls to nationalize large swaths of the private sector in now-deleted posts from 2018 to 2022.

“I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me,” she reportedly said.

Last night was a win or the radical, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party. The New York Post dubs it the “Hate Slate.” The Free Press’s Peter Savodnik and Olivia Reingold:

On Tuesday, radical House candidates won big in the city. ‘It doesn’t feel safe to be Jewish anymore.’

Townhall’s Matt Vespa has the tweets. Here’s one from David Marcus:

Decades of black and Hispanic political power in New York City were just seized by Muslim Marxists.

Dream Dies. In other New York election news, National Review’s Jeffrey Behar notes that “Alas, there will be no Kennedy resurgence in the Democratic Party,” as JFK grandson Jack Schlossberg lost his bid for Jerry Nadler’s old seat. Also looser: Anti-Trumper George Conway, in the same silk-stocking district. AOC’s win was never in doubt.

Alan Wilson, boosted by last-minute Trump endorsement (he also endorsed the other candidate), win the GOP primary for Governor of South Carolina.

Here’s something that’s not going to be popular with New York’s new Socialist leaders: A Federal appeals court yesterday ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s efforts to fast-track deportations for illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, alleged Antifa members received decades-long prison sentences from a federal Judge in Texas for violent anti-ICE protests.  Several received sentences as long as 100 years. Even with probation ….

I don’t believe this: Iran is trying to promote the incredible idea that ordinary women, without their headscarves, are taking to the streets on their own initiative to rally for the regime. But I do believe this: More of Iran’s brave women are taking the risk of ignoring the regimes hijab rules. The ink on the Iran deal wasn’t even dry on the deal before the regime ordered 74 lashes for this female singer.

Many Israeli leaders are hopping mad at President Trump for the way the Jewish state was treated in the Iran deal. There is also widespread consternation about Iran’s alleged scourge of “jellyfish” drones:

The unsettling swarm of drones that a downed US pilot in Iran said moved in a bizarre “jellyfish-like” formation indicates the Iranian regime has devoted significant resources to beefing up its drone program — so it can counter the conventional battlefield tech of its rivals.

“They are adapting faster than us,” Brett Velicovich, drone expert and founder of Powerus, told The Post.

“Iran has spent years developing capabilities designed to offset the overwhelmingly conventional advantages of the United States and its allies.”

President Trump “took bold actions other Presidents never dared,” write Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh in the Wall Street Journal, but Iran has plans to consolidate its power.

Forget the Song and Dance. Unlike the cast of Lin Manuel Miranda play about Alexander Hamilton, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doesn’t sing and dance about the Founding Father. But I’d be more inclined to take seriously Bessent’s WSJ piece headlined “Hamilton Inspires Trump’s Economic Statecraft:”

First, economic security begins with national capacity. We have rediscovered at great cost what Alexander Hamilton taught us: that every nation “ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply.” Our strength is derived from what we can build, for the nation that can’t produce what it needs isn’t truly secure. The nation that depends on its adversaries for critical inputs isn’t truly sovereign. And the nation that reduces its economics to consumption isn’t truly prosperous.

As Hamilton put it, we must enlarge “the sphere of our domestic commerce.” Economic security begins with the capacity to build, invent, finance and scale the industries that will define the next century, among them semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, shipbuilding, critical minerals and pharmaceuticals. More than economic sectors, these are sources of national power. The U.S. must lead in all of them.

Ms. Must mentioned yesterday the education miracle New Orleans pulled off by going all charter schools. We’ll have none of that success stuff, say teachers’ unions honchos Randi Weingarten and Becky Pringle. An editorial at the WSJ:

On Tuesday the heads of the nation’s two largest teachers unions delivered their marching orders to the country’s 24 Democratic Governors: Don’t opt into the new federal tax-credit scholarship program, or suffer their political wrath….

Money has been pouring into public schools for decades even as student learning falls. Schools hire more staff to pad union ranks, but students who graduate often can’t read or do middle-school math. Many states and cities also have “hold harmless” policies that keep schools funded as students leave. See New York City, which is spending $290 million to make sure schools don’t lose money next year even as they lose tens of thousands of students.

We’re Sorry We Killed Your Mom. Today co-host Savannah Guthrie spoke about her family’s “agony” over her mother’s disappearance and shared information about a “chilling ransom note. The apparent abductors said that Mrs. Guthrie died in their care but it was an accident and they are sorry.

For He Knows His Time Is Short. Controversial Acting DNI chief Bill Pulte already has indulged in a firing spree. It’s always good to keep busy, even if you’re a temp, no?  

Somebody Forgot to Tell Him We’re Fascists. Nicole Russell, whose work usually appears in USA TODAY, takes to Human Events to write about the German soccer fan who is showing us what loving America is all about:

EzoicJust a few weeks shy of America’s 250th birthday, I’d hoped to see a surge of patriotism among Americans nationwide and in Texas where I live, I have. But I’ve also been delighted to see it from another surprising source: Europeans tourists.

There’s a German soccer fan who’s caught the country’s attention and whose patriotism and excitement for all things Americana has warmed my heart. His wide-eyed fervor for America provides a lesson for all of us, a we inch closer to July 4.

“Freddy,” posting as @FreddyLA7 on X, came to the U.S. to follow Germany’s World Cup progress, but his account quickly went viral for the enthusiasm he’s shown for America’s sights, sounds, scenes and food. And he’s not the only one. Frenchmen, Englishmen, and others have been sharing their love of this country after finding themselves in various World Cup locations.

Minimum Wage Fail. John Stossel notices:

Lots of people like gig work. It’s flexible. You work when you want to work.

But “workers’ rights” activists and governing socialists don’t like that. Gig workers rarely join unions. They don’t get a minimum wage.

“Uber and Lyft exploit their workers” is a headline at MS NOW. “We can’t ignore it.”

The Democratic Socialists said they had a solution. Seattle’s city council imposed a $26 delivery driver minimum wage.

What could go wrong?

Mullah Moolah. Bad Feelings. Primary Races: Will Mamdani Proteges Paint the Town Red? New Orleans School Miracle. Something Was WEIRD in WaPo Report on Kavanagh’s Would-Be Assassin.

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Seems the Trump administration’s Iran deal has ushered in an Era of Bad Feelings.

Take the usually Trump-friendly New York Post, which this morning runs its second brutal Iran deal cover. “Easy Mullah,” shrieks the headline, as a grinning Mullah counts his moolah. That’s because the U.S. is dropping sanctions for two months, which will give Iran a payday of up to $10 billion, no pallets needed.  

“Bad Feelings All Around After Iran Deal” is the headline on Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York’s column:

The United States and Israel are mad at each other. At home, supporters of President Donald Trump‘s decision to go to war are mad at him over the peace deal. Trump’s critics are happy the war might be coming to an end but mad at Trump for starting it. As far as the general public is concerned, a new CBS News poll found that 78% of those surveyed want the war to end now, while just 22% said it should continue “until Iran gives up more.”

On the U.S. side, no amount of talking can get around the fact that what began as a military attack that top American officials said had four goals — prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, destroy its ballistic missiles, sink its navy, and end its ability to arm proxies — ended, despite making great progress toward those goals, as a desperate effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and limit damage to the global economy. In the end, the only really concrete parts of the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran were about the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. blockade. …

When things go wrong and frustration mounts, people start pointing fingers at each other, even if they are ostensibly on the same side. Bad feelings spread. That’s where things are now.

A Wall Street Journal report “parsed President Trump’s shifting rhetoric on Iran War,” while an editorial in the same paper notes that moolah is indeed already flowing to the mullahs even at this early stage.  Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Iran says it won’t allow inspections of its damaged nuclear sites.

In “Anatomy of a Gamble,” Jonathan Spyer argues in Middle East Forum that Iran has emerged from the deal strengthened on a strategic level:

It is difficult from all this not to draw the conclusion that the US Administration entered the war on February 28 without a proper analysis of what the Iranian regime was, and of its strengths and weaknesses. The president was correct, as he often noted, that Iran has little left by way of a navy. “Their navy is totally gone – 100 per cent” he told Fox News recently. “The air force is totally gone – 100 per cent.”

The problem with this is that the particular strengths possessed by the Iranian regime are not located in the field of conventional air or sea power. The regime in Tehran is an Islamist, ideological gathering, engaged in a ‘forever war’ of its own, of society against society, rather than army against army. Its practical successes both in retaining power in Iran and in building influence and strength from the Gulf of Aden to the Mediterranean derive from its ability to mobilise (mainly but not only) Shia Muslim loyalties and commitments, and to use these as the engine for political and paramilitary mobilization.

Guy Benson suggests it might be better to walk away from the deal, while Victor Davis Hanson, historian of warfare ancient and modern, argues that the memorandum of understanding is not a surrender or the beginning of a new era but rather the next stage of a strategy built on pressure, deterrence, and avoiding another costly Middle East war.

Paint the Town Red. Will three socialists candidates backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani prevail in three closely watched primaries today in New York? The most watched of the three races race is New York’s 13th District. National Review explains (“Zohranism Looks to Expand Its Reach”):

But of course, few Mamdani-endorsed candidates can compare to the magnificently named Darializa Avila Chevalier, running in New York’s 13th district (Harlem and parts of the Bronx) and challenging not merely any random incumbent, but Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Adriano Espaillat. Chevalier, a Democratic Socialist, recently made the news for being so gung-ho pro-Hamas in her sympathies that she refused to even condemn the violence of the October 7 massacre. But that’s probably less troubling than her completely sincere — to the point of madness — belief in prison abolition. Needless to say, she’s at even odds to knock off Espaillat tonight.

In a Wall Street Journal editorial headlined “The Rise of the Democratic Socialists” editors take note of socialist control of big cities and gains in Congress. Amazing but Israel is a big issue tonight. The Zo has outdone himself by branding the pro-Israel AIPAC “monsters.” A New York Post editorial observes that “Mamdani takes the Jew-hate all the way to 11.”

Tonight we’ll also learn the electoral fate of Jack Schlossberg—John Bouvier Kennedy Schosberg, to give the lad his due—who is running for retiring New York Congressman Jerry Nadler’s capacious old seat.

So far, the only tears shed over the fall of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer seem to be the ones he choked back during his resignation remarks. “Mr. Sensible Keir Starmer bowed to the left and made the UK an unholy mess — a stern warning to Democrats,” suggests Brandon O’Neill in the New York Post.

Philly’s ultra progressive DA Larry Krasner “found out” something, according to GW law professor and Fox Contributor Jonathan Turley—what Krasner found out was that he was going too far for even liberal judges in granting new trials to people who had committed serious crimes—murder, for example—without sufficient reason that another trial is justified.

Ms. Must, daughter of the south, has been heartened by the recent spate of stories about southern states turning around failing public schools. The latest is Paul Vallas’ City Journal piece about the nearly all-charter public school system instituted in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina:

The latest Education Scorecard, produced by researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth, places Louisiana near the top nationally for growth between 2022 and 2025: second in reading improvement, third in math, and the only state to exceed its pre-pandemic performance in both subjects. New Orleans was the state’s most important reform laboratory.

This is all the more remarkable because Louisiana sits in the bottom third of states in per-pupil funding—about $17,300 per student, some $2,600 below the national average. The city thus rebukes the familiar claim that bad results mainly reflect inadequate funding. Institutions and incentives matter more than money spent.

Before the hurricane, New Orleans ran some of the worst schools in America. …

This plays to one of my pet peeves—that spending more on failing schools is not the way to ix them. Don’t get me wrong. Teachers deserve good salaries. The teachers in my family were dedicated and prepared to teach. But a lot of the lavish spending turns out to be for administrators.

I couldn’t get over the feeling that something was … wrong, as I read this Washington Post story on the would-be assassin of Justice Brett Kavanaugh:

From her home in California, 26-year-old Sophie Roske figured out Kavanaugh’s address in suburban Maryland. She bought a gun, practiced shooting and acquired lock-picking tools, black face paint and a laser sight. After packing her gear into a suitcase she checked at the airport, Roske flew cross-country and took a cab to the justice’s home, arriving just after 1 a.m.

Wasn’t the attempted assassin a man? It is not until after twenty—twenty—or so paragraphs that we find this:

Roske was named Nicholas Roske at birth and raised as a boy in a Southern California family active in a large Evangelical church. (Roske was identified by her name at birth in earlier coverage of the case.) Roske reached the rank of Eagle Scout, earned a philosophy degree Cal State Northridge and began to transition to a woman. “Sophie’s depression remained unresolved at least in part due to her gender dysphoria, which was not being addressed by her treatment,” Boardman said from the bench.

Roske wasn’t just “raised as a boy.” Roske was a boy and is a man today. Shame on the Washington Post! Similarly, as I noted yesterday, Father’s Day [was] one more opportunity to promote transgender ideology at the New York Times, which James Freeman covers today.

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.