I’m not one of those people tapping their foot saying, “When is the war going to end? It’s been dragging on and is a disaster!” No, those people are idiots actively hoping the United States is damaged because of who the President of the United States is. Nor do I think the Iranian regime didn’t deserve to be wiped out – those who used to be in charge (and alive) were evil and them no longer existing is a great thing for humanity. But what comes next isn’t up to us, it’s up to the people of Iran to act. And there is still an open question about what it is they want, so we have to consider the possibility that most of them simply don’t want to be “free.”
The theory of the Bush administration was that the people of Iraq would greet us as liberators when we took out Saddam Hussein, which they actually did. But after that, rather than embrace their newfound freedoms, they simply reverted back to centuries old tribal warfare with each other.
How could that happen? Because they didn’t have any concept of freedom, or they simply would’ve liked to be the ones forcing their will on others, rather than having the will of others forced on them. Kind of like Democrats here.
If you’ve never experienced liberty before, you don’t know what it is. It’s not the natural state of humanity. Most of human history is riddled with oppression. Not in the way a leftist would have you think, but in a raceless way of there being a leadership that tells everyone else what and how to be. The idea of voting existed in some places, but it was often ignored or tossed when it went against the wishes of the leaders, like Democrats here when they lose a referendum and sue.
We’ve had the concept of liberty in this country for almost 250 years, but another way to look at this is we’ve had the concept of liberty in this country for only almost 250 years. Human beings have been around a lot longer than that, and most of them never experienced anything like we have today.
In Afghanistan, as oppressive as the Taliban is, most Afghans are either down with because they share their oppressive religious beliefs, or they live in such remote, unconnected places that whatever government they have in Kabul doesn’t matter to them either way. We thought they were oppressed, they thought they were living how they’ve always lived. We were both right and they didn’t care to change.
All you can do is give people the opportunity to step up for themselves, you can’t make them take it.
Iran is slightly different in that before the radical Islamists took over, the country was very modern. There are a lot of people alive who remember what it was like to not have to cover women or fear their government murdering them because they’ve somehow offended religious sensibilities. They’ve likely told stories of what it was like before the fascists overthrew the Shah, so the concept isn’t foreign. But maybe it’s not wanted?
It’s clear there was a desire for ridding itself of the fascist Ayatollah, which brought hundreds of thousands of Iranians to the streets in protest. But maybe that was all they were willing to do – march in protest hoping their government would change?
Revolutions are rarely bloodless, but to conduct one you must be willing to fight to the point of death, either to you or your opponent. The regime has proven time and again, from its founding, that it has the appetite to kill for power. The people who oppose it have not shown that.
Every few years, the Iranian people would rise up in the streets, then their government would quash them. A bunch of people would get killed, the world would condemn it, lather, rinse, repeat. Nothing would come of it.
We thought it was because the people didn’t have arms and the government did. Maybe that was part of it, but maybe it was also that protesting was about as far as anyone was willing to go? The regime had no problem killing, but average people do. Without that last step, failure was the only option as regime collapse wasn’t going to happen with nothing there to cast it aside.
Iran just slaughtered anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 of its own people for protesting, the remaining people are probably a little hesitant to step out again, understandably so. There’s also the possibility that the people willing to do what is necessary to overthrow their government were those people killed. It only takes a few to spark something, but a fuse doesn’t light itself. If the people with the fire are gone…
Or maybe they’re just waiting for the US to tell them it’s go-time, I don’t know. Personally, I think what happens to Iran is up to the Iranian people, so if a military guy is allowed to seize power and dominate, if the religious monsters stay in, or the people take over and implement something better is not my concern. I don’t want them to have a nuclear program, to fund terrorism or have any influence over shipping. The rest is up to them.
The actions the Trump administration have taken are helping on those points, what comes after, or even if there is a change, is up to the Iranian people. There will come a point ever soon where they will have a chance, probably their only chance, to overthrow their despotic oppressors. That is, however, only if they want to. A fish doesn’t know it’s wet, some people don’t know they’re oppressed. All you can do is give them the opportunity to take care of themselves, you can’t make them take advantage of it. I hope they do, because they’ll never have a better one.
How worried should the US be about Iran? We asked an expert.
WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman is trashing “ignorant” far-left New York City Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her “tone-deaf” approach to Israel — and predicted she won’t challenge Big Apple Dem Sen. Chuck Schumer in 2028.
“To accuse Israel [of] genocide, and you’re sitting in Germany, like, can you talk about tone deaf and just ignorant to the history?” Fetterman told podcast host Sean Hannity, referring to AOC’s disastrous gaffe-prone foreign-policy outing in Munich last month.
“I mean, more than 6 million Jews [were massacred] — you know the Holocaust — and now to accuse Israel during that just war for genocide,’’ he said in the interview, set to air Tuesday.
“That’s my issue, not because her answer wasn’t great,’’ Fetterman told Fox News Media’s “Hang Out with Sean Hannity” in a nod to the Democratic Socialist rep’s bungling of her appearance at the time.
Ocasio-Cortez’s participation in the panel at the Munich Security Conference was widely interpreted as a test of her foreign-policy bona fides amid speculation over her 2028 aspirations.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s discussion about foreign policy in Germany last month was widely panned by critics.ZUMAPRESS.com
Sen. John Fetterman rips AOC for accusing Israel of committing genocide.
Ultimately, her fumbles, such as erroneously claiming that Venezuela sits below the equator, fueled criticism from her detractors that she wasn’t ready for prime time.
The 36-year-old rep, who majored in international relations, has fired back at her critics by contending that she was demonstrating the importance of thinking before speaking.
Fetterman, who revealed that Senate Minority Leader Schumer leans on him, predicted that Ocasio-Cortez won’t challenge his buddy.
“She would never run,” Fetterman said when Hannity predicted that Ocasio-Cortez would crush Schumer in a 2028 primary.
“Either she’ll run for president, or she’ll just kind of continue to rise in” the House of Representatives, the Keystone State senator added.
During another portion of their conversation, Fetterman ripped into Democratic former Vice President Kamala Harris for calling President Trump a fascist.
Fetterman hasn’t been shy about punching the left flank of the Democratic Party.REUTERS
“That’s just not true, and … that forces people to [be] like, ‘Hey, you must be a fascist, too, because you want’” him to win,” Fetterman said of Trump supporters.
“That makes it more difficult to have a better way forward.”
“That’s why I always refuse” to go there, Fetterman said.
Neither reps Ocasio-Cortez nor Harris responded Monday to Post requests for comment.
Architect of the nuclear program and a former senior commander in the IRGC, was considered the most extreme and influential figure regarding the survival of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The IDF confirmed on Tuesday that the Israeli Air Force, acting on IDF intelligence, and through the integration of unique operational capabilities, conducted a precise strike on Monday that eliminated Ali Larijani, the Secretary of Iranian Supreme National Security Council, who operated as the de facto leader of the Iranian terror regime. The strike was conducted while he was located near Tehran.
Throughout the years, Larijani was considered one of the most veteran and senior figures within the Iranian regime leadership and was a close associate of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Following the elimination of Khamenei, Larijani consolidated his status as the de facto leader of the Iranian regime and led the combat efforts against the State of Israel and countries across the region.
As a part of his role, Larijani led the regime’s national-security coordination and directed its international activity, including engagement with members of the axis.
During the most recent wave of protests against the Iranian terror regime, Larijani advanced violent enforcement measures and repression operations, and personally oversaw the massacre that was carried out against Iranian protestors.
The IDF noted that Larijani’s elimination adds to the elimination of dozens of senior commanders and leaders of the Iranian terror regime, who were eliminated by the IDF during Operation Roaring Lion, and constitutes a further blow to the Iranian regime’s abilities to manage and coordinate hostile activity against the State of Israel.
In his role, he served as a key figure in shaping national security policy, including direct involvement in strategic issues such as the nuclear program.
Following reports of his elimination, Larijani’s official Telegram account said that he would be releasing a statement shortly. A short time later, the account published a handwritten note written for the funeral of the Iranian Navy casualties. The account did not refer to the reports of his assassination and provided no proof that he is alive.
When the U.S. started firing Tomahawk missiles at Iran late last month, many of President Donald Trump’s allies hoped it would be a quick, surgical operation, similar to last year’s strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities or the ouster of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January.
Though uneasy, they were reassured by the belief that Trump’s open-ended objectives gave him the flexibility to declare victory whenever he saw fit.
Now, more than two weeks into the campaign, some of those allies believe the president no longer controls how, or when, the war ends. They fear Iran’s attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, which have rattled global crude markets and threaten broader economic distress, are boxing Trump into a situation where escalating the conflict — potentially even putting American boots on the ground — becomes the only way to credibly claim victory.
“We clearly just kicked [Iran’s] ass in the field, but, to a large extent, they hold the cards now,” said one person close to the White House, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the war. “They decide how long we’re involved — and they decide if we put boots on the ground. And it doesn’t seem to me that there’s a way around that, if we want to save face.”
The concern among some Trump allies is that ensuring the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz could require securing parts of Iran’s shoreline, a step that would almost certainly mean putting American troops on Iranian soil.
“The terms have changed,” said a second person familiar with the U.S. operation in Iran. “The off-ramps don’t work anymore because Iran is driving the asymmetric action.”
The dynamic is fueling anxiety among the president’s “America First” allies, who worry he is drifting toward the kind of open-ended Middle East conflict he has long railed against. With Iran able to disrupt global oil supplies and drive up gas prices at the pump, some Republicans fear the conflict could soon become a political liability for a White House already grappling with voter frustration over affordability ahead of the midterm elections.
Oil prices have surged since the conflict began, increasing from less than $70 per barrel to roughly $100 per barrel, while the national average price for gasoline has climbed to $3.70, up about 25 percent from a month ago, according to AAA.
“For the White House, now the only easy day was yesterday,” the person familiar added. “They need to worry about an unraveling.”
White House aides continue to argue the war is not just going as planned but is a “tremendous success,” with Iranian ballistic missile attacks down 90 percent and drone attacks down 95 percent. The operation, they say, will continue until the president determines his goals have been achieved.
“Thanks to a detailed planning process, the entire administration is and was prepared for any potential action taken by the terrorist Iranian regime,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly. “President Trump knew full well that Iran would try to stop the freedom of navigation and free flow of energy, and he has already taken action to destroy over 30 minelaying vessels.”
The president has also been clear that any disruptions to energy are temporary and will result in a massive benefit to our country and the global economy in the long-term,” she added.
The allies’ concerns have only been heightened by the U.S. moving additional forces into the region, including the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, which is carrying the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. The deployment places roughly 2,000 Marines and their aircraft within striking distance of the war, capable of seizing ports, protecting shipping lanes and launching limited ground operations.
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In recent days, Trump has oscillated on the war’s trajectory, at times suggesting the fighting could end soon while also warning that the U.S. is prepared to escalate if Iran continues targeting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil prices fell below $95 per barrel on Monday as Trump said he would soon announce which countries have agreed to help secure the strait.
Some of Trump’s most vocal “America First” allies are urging the White House not to rush toward a ground war, arguing the U.S. still has multiple ways to pressure Iran without sending troops ashore. Still, they acknowledge that the president’s alternatives narrow with each additional escalatory step the U.S. takes.
The campaign has so far focused on air and missile strikes targeting Iranian military facilities and leaders, a strategy designed to weaken Tehran’s ability to retaliate without committing large numbers of American troops.
Trump ally Jack Posobiec, appearing on former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s show Monday morning, listed a series of ways in which the U.S. could still ratchet up pressure without ground troops — by stopping oil tankers, launching cyberattacks, targeting Iranian financial assets and leaning on allied navies, like Israel’s.
“This also increases the level of escalation, but doesn’t necessarily require boots on the ground,” Posobiec said. “There are people who are deeply and seriously agitating … for the president to put boots on the ground because they realize once he has done so that the mission creep will be so far in that this then could explode into a full-fledged war, and they deeply want that.”
Iran’s strategy has centered on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil shipments. With its conventional forces taking heavy hits, Tehran has leaned into a tactic military planners have long feared, threatening commercial shipping through one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints.
Some Trump allies say the scale of the U.S.’s opening strikes — which killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with dozens of senior commanders and members of his family — may make it harder for the regime to back down.
“You’ve killed one guy, the next guy up is even more radical. You killed his dad and his wife,” said a third person close to the White House, referring to Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late leader. “Do you think he’s gonna be more — or less — reasonable?”
The person added that putting boots on the ground isn’t Trump’s “instinct” — and suggested doing so would tank Trump’s approval ratings to those of former President Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal. Trump’s approval rating is hovering around 40 percent, down from above 50 percent at the start of his term; Nixon’s approval rating when he resigned was about 25 percent.
“He’s seen that story before,” the person said, “and I think he knows how that plays out politically.”
Collectivism and socialism lead to pain, shortages, deprivation and misery — for most people. But the rulers (always comfortable, and armed) get to feel warm and fuzzy because miserable people are much easier to control. And control is what sociopaths like Mamdani and really all of our career politicians are after. They are twisted, sick and evil tyrants who exploit the low self-esteem and ignorance of average people. The people voting for socialism are flashing a green light for their own destruction–and all of our destruction.
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Bill Maher suggests President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize for liberating Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, if it all works out. Leftists, of course, are shrieking. To Democrats and leftists, toppling dictatorships is not “peace”. To them, peace means the absence of dissension, and complete control over everything and everyone–control by THEM.
Leftists totally relate to and support dictatorship–because they ARE dictators.
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According to the NRA, Democrat representatives and officials in Virginia are exempting themselves from the draconian, brazenly unconstitutional gun ban in their state. “Gun control for thee, but not for me.”
It’s hard for me to fathom why the state of Virginia is not on fire over this. Even the 19th Century French had the spine to rise up (temporarily) against tyranny. And Virginia was once the intellectual center of liberty in America. Now it’s the center of the totalitarian sweep Democrats have planned for us when and if they carry the national elections of 2026 and 2028. If Virginians roll over and accept this without overt rebellion, then we can expect the same lawless measures in many other parts of the country. Totalitarianism with a sneer isn’t just for California and New York anymore. America’s fascists are coming for all of us, because they assume we will tolerate and take ANYTHING.
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“The truth does not require your participation in order to exist. Bullshit does.”
Two former campaign managers for former President Barack Obama warned that the Democratic Party is a mess ahead of the 2028 presidential election, due to not knowing what they stand for.
Jim Messina explained to Axios that while Democrats are planning to rely on voters’ frustrations with President Donald Trump and his administration to pick up additional seats in the upcoming midterm elections, that is not enough to win the presidency.
Meanwhile, David Plouffe warned that Democrats are not ready to win “in what are now red states in neutral and even challenging environments.”
“The midterms are going to be 85-90% driven by voter opposition to Trump and maybe 10-15% based on what Dems stand for,” Messina, who served as the campaign manager for Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, said.
Plouffe, who served as Obama’s campaign manager for his 2008 presidential campaign, stated: “Democrats for the next decade have to be able to win elections in what are now red states in neutral and even challenging environments. That is the test.”
“Anyone who thinks we are ready to do that is spending too much time inhabiting a political world that does not exist,” Plouffe added.
Per the outlet, the comments from Messina and Plouffe come as a recent poll from NBC found that 52 percent “of voters see the Democratic Party negatively,” compared to 30 percent who “view it positively”:
• 52% of voters see the Democratic Party negatively, while only 30% view it positively, according to a recent NBC survey — worse ratings than they give the GOP, which is also unpopular.
• The same poll found voters trust Republicans more than Democrats to deal with border security, crime and immigration. On the economy, Democrats didn’t have an advantage despite Americans’ anger over continuing high prices under Trump. Voters were split on which party would do a better job handling it.
A previously released poll from the Trafalgar Group, which surveyed 1,084 likely general election voters between February 24-25, showed that 47.1 percent of respondents “strongly approve” of the job Trump is doing, while 39.1 percent of respondents “strongly disapprove.”
Another 3.7 percent of respondents said they approve of the job Trump is doing, while 8.5 percent said they disapprove.
CHAPPAQUA, NY — With TSA suffering severe staffing shortages amid a halt in pay, former President Bill Clinton has volunteered to lend a hand patting down passengers.
A smiling Clinton arrived early for his shift at JFK International, telling TSA agents to focus on checking bags and leaving the pat-downs to him.
“It’s the least I can do,” said Clinton. “When I heard there were thousands of bodies that needed to be felt, I simply answered the call. Does that make me a hero? Well, step into my line here, and I’ll let you be the judge.”
According to airport officials, no one has ever seen a happier, more willing TSA agent than Clinton. “He was born for this,” said local man Roger McCabe. “It’s like Clinton has been doing this his whole life. No one even had to train him. He just stepped right in and got to patting.”
At publishing time, Clinton had asked if there were any TSA agents who might be willing to handle patting down “the uggos.”
The United States is allowing Iranian oil tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday.
“The Iranian ships have been getting out already, and we’ve let that happen to supply the rest of the world,” Bessent said in an interview CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Paris. The Treasury secretary is in France to hold trade talks with China. *** “We think that there will be a natural opening that the Iranians are letting out, and for now we’re fine with that. We want the world to be well supplied,” Bessent said. President Donald Trump is pressuring nations that rely on the Strait for oil to help the U.S. protect tankers from attacks by Iran.
The Strait, which connects the Gulf to the global market, is the most important trade route for oil in the world. About 20% of global oil supplies passed through the narrow waterway before the war.
Oil prices have surged about 40% since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran two weeks ago. The war has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history as exports through the Strait have collapsed, according to the International Energy Agency.
***
Brent oil prices the international benchmark, were hovering around $102 per barrel Monday. U.S. oil prices were trading around $95 per barrel.
In February 2025, a newly installed Trump Department of Education (ED) issued a so-called Dear Colleague Letter. The letter put educational institutions on notice that ED intended to enforce the nation’s anti-discrimination laws, particularly those in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and in the Constitution. It further specified that “discriminatory practices” would not be tolerated merely because they had been repackaged “under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (‘DEI’).”
Left-wing media pundits went berserk. They said the policy announcement was a “threat to equal opportunity,” called it an “extreme and implausible interpretation of the law governing diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and claimed it had “no obvious parallels in modern American history.”
The letter put institutions on notice that the Department of Education intended to enforce the nation’s anti-discrimination laws.Lawsuits ensued, including one by the National Education Association in March 2025 and another by the American Federation of Teachers the same month. New Hampshire District Court judge Landya McCafferty wasted no time in granting NEA’s preliminary injunction in April. Maryland District Court judge Stephanie Gallagher followed suit in August, vacating the letter in its entirety. On October 13 of last year, ED filed a notice of appeal in the Fourth Circuit. Then, in late January, ED unexpectedly dismissed its appeal. Why? Before we get to that, we must consider some background on the explosion of DEI on university campuses.
In late January, the Trump administration unexpectedly dismissed its appeal. Why?Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard
Until about five years ago, universities referred to their lawless racial discrimination as “affirmative action.” Federal courts played along in cases such as Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and Grutter v. Bollinger. These decisions glossed over the racism of our nation’s universities by making the constitutional rights of white students contingent on the purpose of the discrimination against them (“attainment of a diverse student body … is a constitutionally permissible goal”) or the passage of time (“25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further [the racial discrimination] approved today”).
But these opinions were not serious legal reasoning, and, by June 2023, even the Supreme Court had had enough. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice Roberts summarized what normal people had known since the Civil Rights era: “A student … must be treated … as an individual—not on the basis of race.” As such, racially discriminatory “admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of” the Constitution. Roberts’s conclusion was also a logical extension of his pithy remark, penned 17 years earlier in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle, that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Justice Thomas, as expected, stated the truth most plainly: “All forms of discrimination based on race—including so-called affirmative action—are prohibited under the Constitution.” This, ED knew, included DEI.
Even though these conclusions were obvious to most Americans, I predicted 15 months ago that “admissions offices [didn’t] care about the Supreme Court’s ruling in SFFA” and wouldn’t comply. Why? Because, “to left-wing political operatives, [laws] are mere words—parchment barriers that can be obeyed or ignored as circumstances warrant.” Once again, university administrators would turn to semantic trickery to conceal their racism. This proved correct, as Orwellian terminology such as “affirmative action” became the even more Orwellian “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” or DEI.
Though DEI dates back to the 1960s or earlier, widespread use of the terminology dates to about 2023. It’s not a coincidence that DEI programs (described as such) exploded on university campuses following SFFA. They were a convenient new cover for an old practice.
This time, however, Trump’s new Department of Education under Linda McMahon was on top of the ball. ED issued the Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) shortly after Trump’s inauguration. That missive immediately exposed DEI for what it was: a new mask cloaking ancient left-wing racism.
Litigation
Judge McCafferty enjoined ED from enforcing the DCL in April 2025, dismissing ED’s reliance on the Supreme Court’s SFFA ruling as “boilerplate,” which she was “not bound” to follow. Her opinion is full of sloppy reasoning and startling naiveté. For example, she observes that, prior to the DCL, ED “had not indicated a belief that [DEI] constituted unlawful discrimination.” Furthermore, in the wake of SFFA, ED issued a “questions-and-answers document in which it stated” that schools could “continue to articulate missions and goals tied to student body diversity.” Thus, McCafferty said, ED’s about-face must support the plaintiff’s claim, since it “force[d] schools to choose between [ED’s] 2023 guidance … or trying to adapt their conduct to the 2025 [DCL] requirements.” In other words, ED couldn’t object to racist DEI practices in 2025 because it hadn’t done so in 2023 under President Biden. Using this backward reasoning, neither Dred Scott nor Plessy v. Ferguson would have been overturned.
According to Judge McCafferty, ED couldn’t object to racist DEI practices in 2025 because it hadn’t done so in 2023 under President Biden.Then, in a section of her order arguing that the term “DEI” was “vague,” McCafferty imagined that a teacher “could seek to establish [DEI] by asking her students [to] sign a collective pledge to follow the ‘Golden Rule’.” This would result in an ED crackdown, McCafferty feared, because “it is more than arguable that such a practice would come within the ocean-wide definition of DEI.” At the risk of stating the obvious, this isn’t serious legal reasoning. Nobody believes DEI is code for “do unto others as you would have done unto you.”
McCafferty’s sloppy reasoning was matched by Judge Gallagher’s technical nitpicking.McCafferty’s sloppy reasoning was matched by Judge Gallagher’s technical nitpicking concerning the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which has become a powerful end-run around the United States Constitution. It’s so powerful, in fact, that left-wing activists routinely cite the APA when the Constitution isn’t on their side. Here, the Equal Protection Clause, the Supreme Court, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act all prohibit discrimination on the basis of race. Yet Gallagher vacated the DCL because ED didn’t follow the notice-and-comment rulemaking process of the APA. The absurdity of subordinating constitutional rights to inane statutory requirements was highlighted by another of Gallagher’s findings: The DCL had to be vacated because ED failed “to comply with, or even consider, the Paperwork Reduction Act.” Got that? Your constitutional rights can’t be enforced because the government wasted paper.
That said, it must be acknowledged that ED’s litigation tactics made the courts’ decisions easier. For example, both McCafferty and Gallagher had to find that the DCL was binding in order to strike it down under the APA. This put ED in the awkward position of arguing that the DCL wasn’t binding. While technically true (the DCL merely reminded educators of the requirements of the United States Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which are binding), the rhetorical effect of ED’s position was the equivalent of wading in the Rubicon without crossing it. That’s not a smart move: akin to saying “we didn’t really mean it” after striking the first blow.
But this is a small criticism. Judges McCafferty and Gallagher, like all activist judges, had made up their minds before the cases began. The fact remains that DEI is a thin veneer concealing invidious racial discrimination by the nation’s universities and other schooling institutions—discrimination that the Left has fully embraced and will not relinquish. That’s essentially what the DCL said. On this primary issue, ED was on solid ground. Given the Supreme Court’s ruling in SFFA, ED had reason to be confident in its ultimate success.
So why didn’t it appeal?
Political Appointees Versus the Deep State
The DCL was issued only weeks after Trump’s inauguration. Ordinarily, the short turnaround would suggest that it was rushed. Its contents suggest otherwise. It is a well-reasoned and thorough attempt to erase decades of misguided ED directives in favor of a plain understanding of the law: American educational institutions shall not discriminate on the basis of race using DEI or other theoretical underpinnings. These facts show that the DCL was not the product of career ED lawyers, who rarely act quickly and never against prevailing left-wing orthodoxies. Career ED lawyers were kept out of the loop until the DCL was ready to be released.
It stands to reason, then, that the DCL was the product of thoughtful work by one or more political appointees with experience handling civil-rights issues. These yeomen performed their work in relative secrecy, perhaps beginning shortly after Trump’s election. Moreover, these political appointees knew that the DCL would result in immediate litigation against ED, just as it did.
Once sued, ED staffed the case with trial attorneys who supported the mission. Those trial attorneys would have anticipated an adverse district-court ruling from the outset, steeling themselves for the inevitable appeals process. In short, everything about the DCL—its contents, release, and the ensuing district-court litigation—would have been handled by political appointees or trial attorneys hand-selected based upon their support for the cause.
When Judge Gallagher vacated the letter, career appellate lawyers at the Department of Justice had their chance to gum up the works.But then, when Gallagher vacated the DCL, career appellate lawyers at the Department of Justice had their chance to gum up the works. How? Executive-branch agencies such as ED cannot pursue a “discretionary appeal” without the approval of the solicitor general, whose office is part of the DOJ. That office is staffed by career lawyers. ED couldn’t appeal Gallagher’s ruling without their approval. But, as career lawyers, they shared the leftist plaintiffs’ sentiments and opposed the DCL’s conservative agenda.
When it comes to lawfare, the Left is the undisputed champion of the world.Admittedly, this is a partial explanation. The fact remains that the ultimate decision must have been made, or at least approved, by the solicitor general himself. Here, that meant John Sauer, nominated by Trump to be solicitor general in January 2025 and confirmed by the Senate in April. Sauer could have overruled the Deep State career lawyers and authorized ED’s appeal, but he didn’t. Which brings me to the second part of my explanation.
The Trump administration is mired in lawsuits. According to one tracker, approximately 655 cases challenging Trump’s executive actions have been filed since the president’s inauguration. Of those, plaintiffs have amassed a 49-5 win-loss record, 72 cases have been dismissed, and most of the balance are ongoing. DOJ is involved in most or all of them. Sauer would have known these facts. Furthermore, his office has only two dozen attorneys or so. Even with the help of other appellate attorneys—those at various federal agencies such as ED and the United States Attorneys’ Offices—the fact remains that the administration is legally outgunned and drowning in lawsuits. This is by design. When it comes to lawfare, the Left is the undisputed champion of the world.
I suspect that the above explains why the DCL was deep-sixed. Career lawyers at DOJ, miffed at being kept out of the loop when their approval wasn’t required, seized the opportunity to tank the DCL when it was. They may have advanced their agenda to Sauer with practical arguments about limited staffing and legal arguments about the notice-and-comment rulemaking requirements of the APA. If so, the practical arguments were valid. The legal ones, not so much. One does not restore constitutional rights with labyrinthine bureaucratic processes and interminable delays.
In the end, the administration abandoned a major battle to restore the constitutional rights of the majority of Americans harmed by DEI. As a result, universities won’t stop discriminating.
T.J. Harker is the general counsel of a Knoxville, Tennessee, company. Prior to that, he was an assistant United States attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, where he investigated and tried national white-collar fraud and espionage matters. He writes atAmicus Republicae on Substack.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 