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Tag: Trump

Supreme Court Makes Trump’s Day. ‘Killer Quotes’ from Justice Alito. Iran Droning On? New York Times on ‘Maga Pregnancies.’ Usha Vance Has Last Word. Royals Flee Buckingham Palace. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Good day for President Trump at the Supreme Court yesterday as two important immigration cases were decided. The left not unexpectedly erupted in fury. “White supremacy!” they shouted.

Considerably more measured is the Wall Street Journal’s editorial headlined “Trump, Refugees and the Supreme Court:”

The Supreme Court on Thursday expanded President Trump’s power over immigration—or so the press proclaims. The White House no doubt wishes that were true, but the six conservative Justices merely ruled that judges can’t usurp power that Congress delegated to the President.

At issue in Mullin v. Doe was Mr. Trump’s termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrian and Haitian refugees. A 1990 law lets the Secretary of Homeland Security provide quasi-legal status to migrants if they can’t safely return to their home countries because of armed conflicts, natural disasters, or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

The three liberal Justices claimed racism motivates the Trump administration. Most immediately affected are TPS immigrants from Haiti and Syria. The other immigration ruling, also 6-3, concerned asylum seekers:

The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to turn away asylum seekers at the southern border who haven’t yet crossed into U.S. territory.

Why it matters: The Court’s decision resolves a years-long legal fight over a Border Patrol practice when there’s limited bandwidth to process people at a port of entry.

National Review called the rulings “a clean sweep for Trump and written immigration laws.” The asylum case hinges on the meaning of the word “arrived” is. By way of elucidation, Justice Samuel Alito, author of both majority opinions, penned these immortal words:

This case presents a straightforward question: whether an alien who seeks to enter the United States from Mexico “arrives in the United States” when he or she is still in Mexico. . . . In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person “arrives in” a place — for example, a house, a city, or a country — before the person enters that place.

A person arrives in a geographic location only when he enters it. . . . Everyday examples confirm that understanding.

In another ruling, the high Court “drove a stake through Hawaii’s ‘Vampire rule’” and delivered a big win for the Second Amendment. WSJ columnist Kimberley Strassel writes that the “restoration of the Second Amendment” began with Justice Clarence Thomas’ “constitutional firepower.”

Don’t miss “Alito Gets Snippy with Sotomayor” and “Killer Quotes” from Alito’s take down of Hawaii’s illegal gun control law. The Court also handed down a 7-2 majority ruling to halt the mass tort attempt to evade federal law on regulating a Monsanto pesticide.

Iran attacked a ship moving through the Strait of Hormuz but traffic continues to flow and oil prices to decline. It was a drone attack on a Singapore flagged ship. Meanwhile, Iranian dissidents are warning the Trump administration against handing regime a ‘victory it could never win on the battlefield’ in peace talks.

Brace yourself for Acting AG Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing. The LA Times’ Jackie Calmes compares Blanche to the rather notorious Roy Cohn, a former Trump lawyer, whom Calmes describes as “no holds barred and reptilian.” Former AG William Barr, however, advocates the confirmation of Blanche:

He is well-qualified and will run the department as well as anyone could under President Trump.

It is well known that the MSM goes after conservative women. The New York Times narrows the attack to pregnant conservative women in a piece headlined “The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image.”  Julia Cassidy of Townhall writes:

Amidst their tireless pursuit of conspiring against conservative women, The New York Times published an entire piece titled “The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image,” which spent pages droning on about “the power of the pregnancy aesthetic” and how the “MAGA women” (Karoline Leavitt, Usha Vance, and Katie Miller) embody MAGA’s “idealized image of womanhood.”

With a focus on Usha Vance’s recent podcast, Storytime with the Second Lady, the article comments on her form-fitting dress, noting, “She is wearing a stretchy coral dress that hugs her stomach, making what she is talking about very clear.” The comment came after quoting Usha telling her husband, Vice President JD Vance, that he would soon have a new baby to read to. 

Ms. Vance was undaunted, tweeting:

Now that we know the political significance of my $8.75 coral maternity dress from Old Navy, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic-waistband pants and compression socks! In the meantime, enjoy my pregnancy fashion (or lack thereof) and a good story with your kids on Storytime with the Second Lady.

First, They Came for … Kathy Hochul. Yes, New York’s Mamdani endorsing governor. DSA takes aim at Hochul over taxing the rich after red sweep, report says: ‘We’re coming for her’. Meanwhile, Dem Rep. Elise Slotkin responds to the socialist sweep in New York, saying her party “needs new leadership” because the “old models are no longer working.”

But Eddie Scarry of The Federalist argues that Dems aren’t afraid of the commies they are electing but hate losing their jobs.  No doubt ubiquitous Rep. Ro Khanna qualifies as a new model. Good piece on “The Meaning of Ro Khanna” at City Journal:

The California congressman embodies the uneasy place of Indian Americans in progressive racial politics.

Socialism on March. New York City’s Board has approved Mayor Mamdani’s rent freeze for two years. Quite a scene.

Not everything can be new. “The ‘Four I’s’ That Can Wreck Presidencies” is the headline on Matthew Continetti’s column at the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression section. “Inflation, Iran, Israel and ineptitude sank Carter, doomed Biden and now threaten Trump,” Continetti argues. He writes further:

Mr. Trump’s fate now depends on Iranian caprice. And not only his fate. As part of the deal, Mr. Trump agreed to constrain Israel’s defense against Hezbollah in Lebanon. He’s gone from treating the Islamic Republic as an enemy, which it is, to dealing with it as a partner. He’s gone from treating Israel as an ironclad ally, which it ought to be, to disciplining it like a nuisance. Just as the economy went from asset to hindrance, Iran and Israel have swapped places.

Summertime. “At this point, the Reflecting Pool deserves an Emmy” a Washington Post s “Style” piece proposes. The author makes a good case for this:

The best show on television or any other screen right now is Reflecting Pool.

If you turn on Fox News, you can watch White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announce that six arrests have been made of individuals who allegedly vandalized Reflecting Pool. If you go to CBS’s social media, you can watch reporter Ed O’Keefe tell President Donald Trump that, actually, there is no evidence of vandals causing a 250-foot gash in Reflecting Pool. The next day, on YouTube, you can watch Trump stand under an umbrella and explain to reporters that, in fact, it’s a 350-foot slit — 100 feet longer than he’d originally claimed — “in the form of lots of little slits” and also, “it’s a shame.”

We Anglophiles are disappointed with this latest desecration. Seems the British royal family will no longer inhabit Buckingham Palace:

The King and Queen will never live at Buckingham Palace, it has been announced, confirming the first change to the monarch’s official residence in almost 200 years.

Clarence House will serve as the King and Queen’s official London residence, while the Palace, currently undergoing a £369m refurbishment, will remain the administrative headquarters of the British Royal family.

Snopes might enjoy His Majesty’s tax returns.

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.

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

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Who blinked?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Tillman kindly answers his own question:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And we sure have gotten it.

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

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

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

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

Iran Is Not Winning Friends in Region. What If Trump Were a Democrat? Eyes on Texas Primary. Nurse Ratched Now a Committed Lefty. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

As the Middle Eastern conflict enters its fourth day, Iran is lashing out with “indiscriminate” strikes across the Gulf of Oman—so indiscriminate that Iran took out one of its own oil-transporting “ghost” ships.

Iran is operating with—shall we say—a slimmed down roster of top leaders. The New York Post cover features a scowling President Trump with the headline “Wait for the Big One.”  The U.S. appears to have sunk the entire Iranian navy. Satellite images analyzed by the New York Times show an Iranian naval base and four ships on fire:

 No notable salvaging efforts are visible.

“No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran” National Review responds to the latest canard from the President’s critics:

Trump isn’t exactly shy about pressuring people into doing what he wants….People are free to agree or disagree with Trump’s decision, but it’s patently clear that Rubio was not trying to argue that Israel dragged the U.S. into this war. 

“An Emboldened Israel Is Seizing Opportunities to Remake Region” is the headline on a New York Times analysis. Is there some other country in the Middle East you’d prefer to remake the region?

“Iran Is Collapsing, but Islamism Is Spreading,” Ayan Hirsi Ali writes in The Free Press. “The fall of the Islamic Republic would be a defeat for political Islam. But an election in Britain and an attack in Texas suggest that Islamism poses an increasing threat to the West,” she argues.

Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker makes the case for “cautious optimism” about President Trump’s strikes on Iran:

So if regime change doesn’t come now, what kind of regime survives? Leaderless, impoverished, isolated, besieged, mostly disarmed, is Iran likely to be stronger after being on the receiving end of a campaign from the most technologically sophisticated and best-equipped militaries in the world? There are risks, and news of the first U.S. casualties reminds us that the costs are dear. But for an opportunistic president, there may never be a better opportunity.

“Trump Tries to Avoid the Iraq Trap” is the headline on international affairs guru Walter Russell Mead’s column. Mead writes that Trump “practices 21st-century gunboat diplomacy” in Venezuela and Iran:

The attack is the biggest gamble of Mr. Trump’s political career. A success that ends nearly half a century of brutal, bigoted and utterly unscrupulous rule by a clique of fanatical clerics would serve both the American national interest and the welfare of humanity. Failure could irreparably dent Mr. Trump’s prestige abroad, shatter his political coalition, and destroy his authority at home.

The early stages of battle should leave Mr. Trump hopeful. 

There are several other good articles on Iran on the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion pages this morning. An editorial contends that Iran has expanded the “Trump coalition” by attacking its Arab neighbors. “Iran was counting on the West’s cravenness,” writes Scalia Law School Professor Eugene Kontorovich but instead was met by the “confluence of brave and aligned leaders in Washington and Jerusalem.” Bill McGurn asks what would happen if Trump were a Democrat. He’d talk a good game but not act.

Along these lines, you might enjoy “Why Trump and Hegseth’s Swagger Leaves Washington’s ‘Elite’ Seething,” by Glenn Reynolds in the New York Post.

The midterms begin today with the primaries for a Senate seat in Texas. “I hope Crockett wins Texas primary so she can lose in November” is USA TODAY’s conservative columnist Nicole Russell’s headline. The latest Emerson poll has Texas AG Ken Paxton, MAGA darling, ahead of Senator John Cornyn but Cornyn is by no means out of the game.  The shooting in Austin, by a man wearing a “Property of Allah” T-shirt, and a spewer of hatred, has become a campaign issue. The shooting also should put a spotlight on security for all of us during this tense time. “Memo to Dems: There’s a War On — Stop Blocking Funds for Homeland Security” is the headline over a New York Post editorial.

The Supreme Court has blocked California’s restrictions on telling parents that their children identify as transgender. You likely know who voted how:

The Supreme Court on Mondaybarred California from enforcing state rules that restrict when schools can notify parents about students who come out as transgender and requires teachers to use children’s preferred pronouns.

The court, on a 6-3 vote on ideological lines, allowed a federal judge’s ruling in favor of parents who oppose the policy on religious grounds to go into effect. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had put the judge’s decision on hold pending further litigation.

The Associated Press headline says that the Court blocked “outing transgender students to their parents in California.” Outing to their parents? “Who says Democrats have learned their lesson about ‘gender-affirming’ treatments for kids?” begins a City Journal article in an Oregon law that would hide data about gender procedures for children?”

The Supreme Court also sided with New York Republican Rep. Nicole Meliotakis, who challenged a Democratic redistricting plan:

Over the dissent of the court’s three liberal justices, the conservative majority halted a state court ruling that had ordered New York’s redistricting commission to redraw the district held by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., that covers Staten Island and a small piece of Brooklyn. A judge had ruled that the district was drawn in a way that dilutes the power of its Black and Hispanic voters and had instructed the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to complete a new map. 

We’re just now getting the full story (with video) of Hillary Clinton’s dramatic threatened walk out during her Epstein House Oversight Committee hearing after Rep. Lauren Boebert leaned a picture of the proceedings (against the rules). Also, here.

On the other hand, we might never have gotten the true figures from the Mamdani administration about the number of New Yorkers who froze to death in the snow without the relentless digging of the New York Post:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration admitted that an additional seven New Yorkers froze to death indoors — bringing the tally of fatalities from the recent stretch of frigid weather to 29.

The updated death toll was only released after The Post pressed the admin Monday on a list showing 31 possible fatalities that was circulated in City Hall and some agencies during the historic cold snap in mid-January to early February.

A City Hall representative said seven more indoor deaths that occurred between Jan. 23 and Feb. 10 were ruled as being caused by hypothermia, bringing the total number of New Yorkers who died from the cold at home to 14.

“Why Are So Many Nurses Left-Wing?” is the alarming headline on a City Journal article. It begins:

National Nurses United has a message for the White House: “ICE messed with the wrong profession.” After intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti was killed in Minneapolis last month, the union’s members called U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement a “fascist, terrorizing, and lawless paramilitary force violently enforcing a white supremacist agenda.” In another statement, the union called federal immigration enforcement agencies one of America’s “top public health threats,” adding to a string of similar declarations it made about racism, climate change, and Israeli “apartheid.”

The helping professions—occupations like therapy, social work, and nursing—have increasingly drifted from their traditional roles as carers and embraced social-justice advocacy. These fields have long leaned left and female, but the skew has recently intensified, following broader trends in academia. Progressives now vastly outnumber conservatives, creating an echo chamber that has radicalized a segment of the workforce.

In “J.D. Vance’s Iran Dilemma” The Free Press’s Eli Lake suggests, “The vice president is caught between Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson.” Vance went on Jesse Waters show last night to talk about Iran. Did he put to rest the notion that the strikes go against his long held beliefs?

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.