Well, today is Friday 13th but the terrible luck came yesterday in two separate Islamic terrorist attacks on American soil.
The attack at Virginia’s Old Dominion University and came under the increasingly common rubric of crimes-committed-by-people-who-ought-to-have-been-behind-bars:
The FBI says it’s investigating a fatal Virginia university shooting as terrorism after a gunman, who served several years in prison for trying to support ISIS, killed one and injured two others on Thursday.
The suspect was identified as 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Virginia National Guardsman who had pleaded guilty in October 2016 to attempting to provide material support to the terror group ISIS, Dominique Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Norfolk Office, said during a news conference Thursday night. Jalloh was killed following the shooting at Old Dominion University, authorities said.
The shooter walked into a class at Constant Hall, which is part of the College of Business at Old Dominion, and asked if it was an ROTC class, a law enforcement source told CBS News. When someone responded that it was, the shooter opened fire, fatally injuring the class instructor, who was a retired Army officer.
Jalloh was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2017 but was released early—right before Christmas in 2024. It didn’t take Jalloh long to attack. Who is responsible for his release? Why? A naturalized citizen, Jalloh could have been denaturalized and deported. He wasn’t. It’s all infuriating. The ROTC instructor killed has been identified as Lt. Col. Brandon Shah. Kudos to the ROTC students who subdued and killed the attacker. How Nuts Can You Be?: A Soros-backed DA blames Republican gun manufacturers for the Old Dominion tragedy.
The second attack yesterday was on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, carried out by one Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, and like Mohamed Jolloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen. Temple Israel was holding classes for children, and mercifully, there were no casualties. Questions abound here, too, particularly concerning the promiscuous granting of U.S. citizenship. As for the attacks, Bill Glahn of Powerline makes a point too obvious for some of our chic left pals:
I do want to make one point about alleged motive. We all know what the motive was.
Missing Persons Bureau. Iran’s Supreme Leader Jr. has at last been heard from but President Trump says he believes Iran’s new leader has been wounded. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal urges President Trump not to end the war prematurely. Douglas Murray makes a similar plea in the New York Post:
Some people in Washington want hostilities to cease immediately. Others want them to stop before the operation is complete.
Of course nobody wants this war to go on a day longer than necessary. But this job can’t be left half-finished.
After all, a future US president might not have the resolve to stop the Mullah’s and their ambitions. Some day we’ll get another Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden.
Trump rightly started this historic mission. And he’s the only person who will also be able to finish it. But on America’s terms.
The Strait of Hormuz, where a significant portion of the world’s global energy supply is chocked up, has had the undivided attention of the entire world. But Kimberley Strassel suggests this morning in her Wall Street Journal column that the Trump administration prepared the world for just this crisis (“Trump’s Energy Triumph”):
Let’s talk about plans. That the U.S. was finally in a position to disarm Iran is largely thanks to a plan Mr. Trump initiated in his first term—to gain energy independence, which his team is now turning into energy dominance. Trump policies turbocharged a shale revolution that made the U.S. a net exporter of petroleum products and the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. Alongside was Mr. Trump’s plan to foster economic and security ties in the region against shared threats like Iran via deals like the Abraham Accords.
We are no longer hostage to Middle East fossil-fuel threats, which gives us room to weather temporary Hormuz disruptions. Domestic gasoline prices have spiked but are still notably below their highs during Joe Biden’s term. Thanks to growing U.S. exports, our allies are better positioned against fallout. And Gulf actors are working alongside the U.S. to mitigate Iran’s blockade. Some of us remember “OPEC embargo” days. No more.
Four members of the U.S. military were killed in a refueling accident involving a plane in Iraq. Prominent Democrat David Boies contributes an op-ed entitled “Partisanship on Iran Is Dangerous for America” to the Wall Street Journal:
If we believe that Iran presents a serious threat, we need to support the president on this issue. There’s plenty to disagree with him about, and we don’t need to like or admire him. But on Iran we should be on common ground. Not primarily because we want to reduce partisanship in foreign affairs—although that is conceivable.
Not because the voters will reward us for a more measured response—although I hope they will. But because it is the right thing to do for our country, our children and the Democrat who will succeed Mr. Trump as president.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he simply doesn’t have the numbers to pass the SAVE America Act. “If Congress doesn’t pass the SAVE America Act, vote them out,” urges USA TODAY’s Nicolle Russell:
It’s so simple, I can’t believe it’s not the law already. It would require “in person” documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Concerns that it would make voting difficult for married women or other groups of people, because documentation is hard to acquire, are overblown.
Voter ID standards aren’t even controversial in other countries.
Just Can’t Stop Mutilating Children: New York AG Letitia James has ordered New York hospitals to continue performing “gender-affirming” procedures on minors. An editorial in the New York Post challenges James’ stand as “just another ideological con job:”
In her latest bit of grandstanding, state Attorney General Letitia James ordered NYU Langone hospital to resume “gender-affirming care” for minors by March 11 — or else . . . what?
NYU Langone Health quite rightly called her bluff — right as a matter of law, and of basic decency….
James joined 19 other states in suing the Department of Health and Human Services, claiming that the feds overreached their authority — but the Social Security Act orders HHS to set standards of care for facilities participating in Medicare or Medicaid, which provide nearly half of all US hospital revenue.
The AG claims Langone must obey a New York state law that requires hospitals “to offer care without discrimination based on gender identity or expression.”
Call Vogue to do a spread. Did you know that the First Lady of New York is an artist?
The Washington Free Beacon has the scoop: “Zohran Mamdani’s Wife Provided Illustrations for Essay Whose Author Called Oct. 7 ‘Spectacular’ and Attacked ‘Jewish Supremacist Vampires’.” You’ll get to see some of First Lady Rama Duwaji’s drawings courtesy of the Free Beacon.
We Found a Christian! We Found a Christian! The Wall Street Journal’s excellent Barton Swaim examines Texas Senate hopeful “James Talarico’s Cost-Free Creed.” Swaim suggests, “Left-wing orthodoxy with a Christian gloss isn’t what religious voters are looking for.”
“British Culture Under Attack—by Its Curators” is the City Journal headline over a very discouraging story:
Bureaucrats and academics agree that rural areas must become effectively less English. DEFRA’s plans include outreach schemes to attract more Muslims to the countryside, recruiting more “diverse” staff, and producing marketing materials featuring ethnic minorities and written in “community languages.” British academics released a study on “rural racism,” suggesting that the countryside should offer more halal food and spaces for prayer (though presumably not in village churches).
Don’t count on that last bit about village churches.
I can’t pretend I’ve ever risen above gossip. So, the sec I finish this morning, I plan to read Politico’s story on how Washington hostess and consultant Juleanna Glover courted Jeffrey Epstein.
As a loyal daughter of a certain state, I am delighted to close with City Journal’s “The State that Says Yes,” the story of how a certain poor state—Mississippi—is becoming a model for American growth. I had to do it.
