The New York City mayoral Democrat primary race results have shaken the political world.

Candidate Zohran Mamdani, described as a Marxist Muslim, was five months ago languishing in also-ran territory at one percent in the polls. A most recent poll then showed him, to pundits’ surprise, beating erstwhile-front-runner (a whole week ago) Andrew Cuomo after the eighth round of ranked-choice calculations. But it was wrong.

Mamdani won the first-round tally by more than seven points and will assuredly be the Democrat nominee.

How did this happen? There are many reasons, but the overriding one is something overlooked, something indispensable, something that is a gift: charisma.

This is where those who dislike Mamdani — and I’m one of them (I actually consider him immoral) — must be careful. People are generally loath to give those they dislike credit; they view them through tinted glasses. But studies have shown what the Throughline media-training blog stated years ago in no uncertain terms: “The Most Charismatic Candidate Always Wins.”

I suspect the hard-Left has discovered this truth, too. Why do you think suburban girl Sandy Cortez (a.k.a. AOC) was chosen to be the Justice Democrats’ candidate in 2017 via what essentially was an audition? Yes, she really was.

Style Over Substance

Now, again, multiple factors contributed to Mamdani’s victory. He went the Full Monty on socialism, promising everything from freezing rent to defunding the police to free mass transit to a $30 minimum wage to city-owned grocery stores (yeah, the Soviets had those, too). He captured fellow Asian-descent residents, left-wing whites and (mis)educated voters, and the latter two groups do just love the latest shiny “progressive” thing.

It’s also true that only about 20 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. This means that the ones who did were, inordinately, those passionate about politics — and few were passionate about traditionally corrupt Andrew Cuomo. Many, however, were passionate about ideologically corrupt Mamdani. (Yes, embracing evil ideology is a form of corruption).

Nonetheless, even all these factors taken together can’t explain his meteoric rise.

Charisma does, though.

In 2011, I wrote “That Presidential Look: The Bad, the Beautiful and Voting-booth Realities,” which explained the importance of candidates’ appearance in our T.V. age.

Charisma goes along with that. As Throughline pointed out (in 2012), the more charismatic candidate had prevailed in every presidential election since 1980.

Just consider:

• 1980 and ’84—Ronald Reagan defeated, respectively, Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.
• 1988—George H.W. Bush bested the even less charismatic Michael Dukakis.
• 1992 and ’96—Bill Clinton won over, respectively, G.H.W. Bush and Bob Dole, the latter of whom was, as pundit Pat Buchanan put it, “like Richard Nixon — without the charm.”
• 2000 and ’04: George W. Bush defeated, respectively, Al Gore and John Kerry.
• 2008 and ’12: Barack Obama bested, respectively, cranky John McCain and stately-looking but somewhat stiff Mitt Romney.
• 2016: In a historic upset, Donald Trump toppled Hillary Clinton, the antithesis of charisma.

This brings us to 2020 and ’24, where Trump and Joe Biden each captured one contest. Biden did have some charisma in his prime, but in 2020 was a mere shell of his former self. But I’m convinced that year’s election was stolen, so I don’t consider it an exception to the rule. (If you do, fine; call it an anomaly.)

Now, again, this is where I must caution partisans against reacting emotionally. The TDS types will recoil at associating Trump with charisma. And, yes, he does get testy sometimes. Watch one of his rallies, however, and you’ll see how he masterfully works a crowd. I’ve never seen anyone do it better.

On the other side, many may, as I do, find Obama and Bill Clinton (and any other left-wing demagogue) nauseating. But this is because such observers are looking beneath the surface and/or are conceiving of the person based on his policies. This is a mistake professional pundits often make, too. They’re politics wonks and project their own mindset, as humans will do, onto others.

Yet most voters aren’t conversant with politics; they make decisions on emotional bases. For example, if you knew little about Obama’s background or policies in 2008 and merely looked at and listened to him, you saw this: a decent-looking guy with a nice, resonant voice — and some charisma. Note when assessing this, too, that it’s as with what’s said about when you and a companion are fleeing from a vicious grizzly. You don’t have to outrun the bear.

You just have to outrun your companion.

(I.e., Obama’s competitors weren’t exactly charm school valedictorians.)

As for Mamdani, he not only could outrun Cuomo; he may leave the bear eating dust. Just consider, for instance, the first few minutes of the below interview with him. And imagine watching it as, let’s say, a kindly, apolitical grandmother who doesn’t know his positions or background.

Grandma’s first thought likely would be, “What a nice young man! He’d be perfect for my granddaughter!” Mamdani is photogenic enough, has an easy, contagious smile—and loads of charisma. As one commenter under the video put it, “I see how he beat Cuomo now. Wow[,] is he smooth!”

My point, again, is not to sing his praises, but to sound an alarm and send a message.

Mamdani is dangerous not just because his policies and attitudes are toxic, but because he’s a quintessential wolf in sheep’s clothing. It also occurs to me that just as sports competition is tougher than ever with today’s deep talent pools, so may competition in the political arena be because of high-tech media. The T.V. age made appearance and personality important; now the internet and social media age, with video exposure ad infinitum, have made those qualities imperative.

So the message is this: If Republicans want to win elections, ideological soundness is not enough (though it’s a prerequisite for governing). They also should choose candidates possessing that star quality, that special something, that charisma. If the person couldn’t conceivably carry a podcast, he perhaps can’t carry an election.

This said, I certainly wish the above weren’t so. I wish people would vote based on knowledge and wisdom and not fancies and fandom. But too many don’t. Consequently, nominating a candidate competent but as exciting as watching paint dry just won’t cut it.

Charisma is the one thing Trump, Mamdani and Cortez all have in common. Never underestimate such a person, either. Because in politics, charisma is king.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X (formerly Twitter), MeWe, Gettr, Tumblr, Instagram or Substack or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

In an address to Iranian citizens Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told them that “we have repelled the aggressors who treacherously tried to take our land from us. Though many of our heroic military leaders lost their lives in the conflict the nation as a whole has survived the bombings. I have successfully eluded assassination.”

“Our victory was achieved in only 12 days,” he added. “The Zionist little Satan hit us with everything they had, but was forced to retreat without accomplishing their goal of dislodging me from my post or causing our people to lose faith in the eventual triumph of Islam. The Great Satan was too frightened to do more than one tiny sortie to bomb three targets–all of which they failed to destroy. Our retaliatory strike on the US air base in Qatar was enough to convince Trump to request a ceasefire, which we mercifully granted.”

“As further punishment to our enemies, our Guardian Council has suspended all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency,” Khamenei boasted. “Now we will be completely free from impediments to our nuclear armament program. Within the next year we will have tens of thousands of bombs and the missiles needed to deliver them against all who would ever dare to attack us again. Meanwhile, the brave jihadis we have infiltrated into the homeland of the Great Satan will carry out their continuing mission to win elections and implement the policies and assassinations needed to convert city-by-city and state-by-state into Islamic caliphates until all the world is for Allah.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) cited Khamenei’s speech as “proof that President Trump’s claim to have obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program is false. His decision to bomb Iran without prior authorization from Congress will now lead to a disastrous catastrophe for America. He has made us the aggressors and Iranian terrorists will have just cause for taking revenge on innocent men, women, and children. Only if we atone for Trump’s murderous attack on Iran by impeaching him could we hope to mitigate the horrors to come.”

John Semmens

This is who the Democrats are..

To paraphrase the late Freedom Center founder David Horowitz: scratch a tolerant, inclusive, compassionate “liberal” and just underneath the surface you’ll find a raging, totalitarian racist and antisemite. Wisconsin Democrat Congressman Marc Pocan is the latest example of this ugly truth.

On Wednesday, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller tweeted in regard to New York City Democrats embracing Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani, a Ugandan immigrant, as the city’s mayoral candidate: “NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration.”

In response to Miller’s suggestion that America needs to quit importing people who are actively seeking to undermine our nation and civilization, Rep. Pocan, 60, tweeted this intemperate message: “Racist fuck. Go back to 1930’s Germany.”

…

This is how far our political discourse has degenerated in these politically polarized times. A sitting congressman now has no compunction about abandoning civil, rational debate in favor of hurling vile obscenities and wishing a Jewish political opponent to be thrown to the Nazi wolves.

Needless to say, condemnations of this grotesque outburst – which as of this writing an unrepentant Pocan has left online – flew fast and furious. One commentator wrote, “This is appalling. It blows my mind that you’d even consider speaking like this to someone. Doesn’t matter who it is or what they’ve said, you’d be immediately terminated within the private sector. You’re obviously mentally unfit for your role in congress.”

Another wrote, “Congressman tells Jewish American to go back to a place and time when Jews were sent to ovens and gas chambers. @SpeakerJohnson if this doesn’t merit censure, what does?”

Republican lawmakers were rightly outraged. “What an absolutely disgusting comment from a Congressman to a Jewish WH official,” Anna Kelly, White House Deputy Press Secretary, wrote on X. “@MarkPocan must apologize — not just to Stephen, but to his constituents — and then seek professional help.”

“Wisconsin Democrats must denounce Pocan’s vile rhetoric or be complicit,” the National Republican Congressional Committee posted on X.

But Pocan dismissed his critics on Thursday, declaring that “only people who support Miller’s ultra-extremist views are jumping on” his comment. He stated he was “confident normal people are as troubled by [Miller’s] views as I am.” Claiming that Miller’s commonsense view that a nation has the right to enforce its immigration laws is “ultra-extremist” is as amusing as declaring that Pocan’s fellow Democrats are “normal people.”

“They rounded up people in the ‘30s, just as they are today with zero due process,” Pocan blathered. This is boilerplate Democrat propaganda. The only people being “rounded up” are ones in the country illegally, starting with illegal alien felons, including international gang members, sex and human traffickers, murderers, rapists, and other reprobates whom Democrats are typically passionate about defending. The far-Left, Pocan included, may not like it, but “rounding up” criminals whom they depend on to win elections is part of “due process.” And the vast majority of Americans want immigration laws enforced, the borders secured, and felons deported, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey,.

Who is Marc Pocan, you ask? As noted at Discover the Networks, the Freedom Center’s online encyclopedia of the Left, Pocan is a gay, alphabet activist, co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, serving as the U.S. representative from Wisconsin’s very blue 2nd congressional district in Madison since 2013. He:

spoke several times at RadFest, an annual gathering of communists, socialists, and progressive activists in Madison, Wisconsin;

supports illegal immigration and a path to citizenship;

strongly opposes Voter ID laws;

supports affirmative action, the DREAM Act, Head Start, regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, ban on offshore oil drilling, destruction of all American nuclear weapons, reduction in the U.S. defense budget, closure of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center and tax hikes on high-income households;

is a strong supporter of “Palestine”;

introduced legislation to abolish ICE;

defends the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel;

voted for multimillionaire lifelong communist Bernie Sanders in 2020, and

walked out of President Trump’s address to Congress in March, 2025 while Trump was speaking.

While it’s regrettably common for people (myself included) today to let slip a public profanity here and there – an angry President Trump himself told a reporter the other day that neither side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “knows what the fuck they’re doing” – Democrats have turned degrading public discourse into an art form, and I’ve written about the reasons for that. In short,

Swearing sends a thrill up the left’s collective leg because Marxists and their inheritors, Progressives, consider decency to be a contemptable bourgeois value. Even though leftists control the culture, they still think of themselves as counterculture revolutionaries bucking the Establishment, like teenagers rebelling against their parents.

[…]

And that is the crux of the phenomenon: emotion. Leftists cannot win against the right on the playing field of reasoned debate, because they are animated not by logic and evidence but by feelings. They don’t let facts get in the way of their passionate conviction that they are right and the other side is not merely wrong but evil. And nothing displays passionate conviction quite like cursing. The right believes that public profanity is not just uncivil but unprofessional, and that it delegitimizes one’s argument, whereas Progressives feel that it legitimizes their passion.

A statement as despicable as Marc Pocan’s attack on Stephen Miller not only should be grounds for censure, but for dismissal from public office as well. There should be zero tolerance in Congress for the spewing of ugly, antisemitic obscenities. It’s long past time for America to demand that our political and cultural elites take the lead in establishing a public culture of decency, civility, and respectful dialogue.

Mark Tapson, Frontpage Mag

Supreme Court Blocks Slew of Nationwide Injunctions against Trump

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court is siding with President Donald Trump and significantly curbing the authority of federal districts to issue sweeping universal injunctions. On Friday, the justices issued their opinion in Trump v. CASA, a case nominally centered on the president’s actions to eliminate “birthright citizenship.” However, the Trump administration had asked the Supreme Court instead to address the unprecedented number of universal injunctions that district courts have used to halt his agenda. In what administration officials and legal scholars have hailed as a clear restoration of the separation of powers, the Supreme Court declared universal injunctions unconstitutional.

“Traditionally, courts issued injunctions prohibiting executive officials from enforcing a challenged law or policy only against the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The injunctions before us today reflect a more recent development: district courts asserting the power to prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone,” wrote Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the majority’s opinion. She added, “These injunctions — known as ‘universal injunctions’ — likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federaleme court

Joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, Barrett observed that the Supreme Court is not addressing the matter of whether the president’s executive order on “birthright citizenship” is lawful, but on whether universal injunctions are constitutional. “The issue before us is one of remedy: whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions,” Barrett wrote.

The Trump-appointed justice noted that universal injunctions and their increasing use by district courts have become a persistent legal problem in recent years. “By the end of the Biden administration, we had reached ‘a state of affairs where almost every major presidential act [was] immediately frozen by a federal district court,’” Barrett observed. She continued, “The trend has continued: During the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, district courts issued approximately 25 universal injunctions. … As the number of universal injunctions has increased, so too has the importance of the issue.”

Barrett observed that Supreme Court precedent stipulates that the equitable relief granted by federal courts must be rooted in or analogous to equitable relief as it was understood and afforded at the nation’s founding. “A universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power,” she said, citing again the Judiciary Act of 1789. Combing through English and early American history, Barrett found no measure resembling nationwide injunctions. “In fact, universal injunctions were not a feature of federal-court litigation until sometime in the 20th century,” she observed. The first universal injunction issued is credited to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1963. Barrett wrote, “Yet such injunctions remained rare until the turn of the 21st century, when their use gradually accelerated.” She emphasized, “Nothing like a universal injunction was available at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a century thereafter. Thus, under the Judiciary Act, federal courts lack authority to issue them.”

Turning to arguments advanced by the Trump administration, Barrett and the majority agreed that “universal injunctions incentivize forum shopping, since a successful challenge in one jurisdiction entails relief nationwide.” She added, “In a similar vein, the Government observes that universal injunctions operate asymmetrically: A plaintiff must win just one suit to secure sweeping relief. But to fend off such an injunction, the Government must win everywhere.”

Barrett also agreed with the Trump administration that “the practice of universal injunctions means that highly consequential cases are often decided in a ‘fast and furious’ process of ‘rushed, high-stakes, [and] low-information’ decision-making.” She explained, “When a district court issues a universal injunction, thereby halting the enforcement of federal policy, the Government says that it has little recourse but to proceed to the court of appeals for an emergency stay. The loser in the court of appeals will then seek a stay from this Court.” Barrett noted, “This process forces courts to resolve significant and difficult questions of law on a highly expedited basis and without full briefing.”

“Some say that the universal injunction ‘give[s] the Judiciary a powerful tool to check the Executive Branch,’” Barrett wrote in her conclusion. She continued, “But federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them. When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”

Thomas was joined by Gorsuch in a concurring opinion, warning lower courts that the Friday ruling means that they must “cabin their grants of injunctive relief in light of historical equitable limits. If they cannot do so, this Court will continue to be ‘dutybound’ to intervene.” Alito also wrote a concurring opinion, in which Thomas joined, to point out that the matters of third-party standing and broad class-certification, which were not addressed in the majority’s opinion, would likely become problematic in the wake of an end to universal injunctions. “Today’s decision only underscores the need for rigorous and evenhanded enforcement of third-party-standing limitations,” he wrote, adding, “Today’s decision will have very little value if district courts award relief to broadly defined classes without following” rules and procedures for class certification. Alito warned that “district courts should not view today’s decision as an invitation to certify nationwide classes without scrupulous adherence to the rigors of Rule 23. Otherwise, the universal injunction will return from the grave under the guise of ‘nationwide class relief,’ and today’s decision will be of little more than minor academic interest.”

Democrat-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson all dissented. “The rule of law is not a given in this Nation, nor any other. It is a precept of our democracy that will endure only if those brave enough in every branch fight for its survival,” Sotomayor wrote, concluding a lengthy dissent in which she was joined by Kagan and Jackson. She continued, “Today, the Court abdicates its vital role in that effort. With the stroke of a pen, the President has made a ‘solemn mockery’ of our Constitution. … Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way. Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent.”

Throughout the majority’s opinion, Barrett carefully refuted key arguments proffered in Sotomayor’s dissent. Jackson also penned her own dissent, which did not fare quite as well in the estimation of the majority. “We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” Barrett wrote. “No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law. But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation — in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so,” Barrett wrote, countering Jackson’s wordy dissent. She continued, “Observing the limits on judicial authority — including, as relevant here, the boundaries of the Judiciary Act of 1789 — is required by a judge’s oath to follow the law. Justice Jackson skips over that part.” Barrett summarized Jackson’s argument, “In other words, it is unnecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive. Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition: ‘[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law.’ … That goes for judges too.”

The Trump administration praised the Supreme Court’s decision as a “monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.” In a Friday morning press conference, Trump said, “Well, this was a big one, wasn’t it? Big decision, amazing decision, one that we’re very happy about.” He recounted, “I was elected on a historic mandate, but in recent months we’ve seen a handful of radical-left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president, to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for in record numbers.” Trump continued, “It was a great threat to democracy, frankly. And instead of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation.”

Referring to universal injunctions as “a colossal abuse of power,” the president shared, “I’m grateful to the Supreme Court for stepping in and solving this very, very big and complex problem. They made it very simple.” He thanked Barrett by name, saying that she “wrote the opinion brilliantly…” Trump continued, “Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis.”

Vice President J.D. Vance wrote in a social media post, “A huge ruling by the Supreme Court, smacking down the ridiculous process of nationwide injunctions. Under our system, everyone has to follow the law — including judges!” Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “Today, the Supreme Court instructed district courts to STOP the endless barrage of nationwide injunctions against President Trump.” She added, “This Department of Justice will continue to zealously defend [Trump’s] policies and his authority to implement them.”

Samuel Bray, a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School specializing in remedies and equities, said in comments shared with The Washington Stand that the Supreme Court’s decision “has fundamentally reset the relationship between the federal courts and the executive branch.” Bray observed that the administrations of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Trump have all faced being “frozen” by universal injunctions. “After today, the universal injunction will no longer be the default remedy in challenges to executive action,” he said.

Bray predicted that states involved in cases against the Trump administration — particularly those targeting his executive order terminating “birthright citizenship” — will seek broad relief from courts, and that Trump policies will likely, as Alito warned, be besieged by a host of broad class-action lawsuits. Regardless, Bray concluded, “Today’s decision is a vindication and reassertion of the proper role of the federal courts in our constitutional system.”

Resident Fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies Andrew Arthur told TWS, “Nationwide injunctions, particularly in immigration cases, aren’t supported by law and are no more.” But like Alito and Bray, he anticipated that “lower courts might try to sneak around the court’s opinion in CASA by expanding third-party standing or bypassing limits on class-action relief.”

Article III Project senior counsel Josh Hammer told The Washington Stand, “CASA is a tremendous, much-overdue rebuke of the lower-court judicial insurrection that has hamstrung President Trump since January.” He added, “Even better, it is a salutary recalibration of our separation of powers back toward what the Founders intended.”

In a statement shared with The Washington Stand, Hans Von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow in judicial studies at the Heritage Foundation, said, “The Supreme Court’s rebuke of nationwide or universal injunctions is an important step toward restoring the judiciary to its proper constitutional role.” He explained, “Judges have the power to guard the rights of the people who come before them, but they don’t have the power to set or derail nationwide policy. They’re judges, not presidents or legislators, and today’s decision reminds them of that.”

S. A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

Democratic members of Congress sharply criticized the Supreme Court’s Friday ruling that limited district courts’ use of nationwide injunctions in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.

The court did not rule on whether the Trump administration has legal standing to revoke birthright citizenship for the children of some immigrants. Yet Democrats warned the decision paves the way for “a vile betrayal of our Constitution,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in a social media post.

“The Supreme Court’s decision today will result in the infringement of Americans’ rights for years to come. Limiting nationwide injunctions will have long-lasting effects on our courts, ceding even more power to the executive branch and providing justice only to those with the means or luck to have a lawyer,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said in a statement. “The Fourteenth Amendment is clear: if you’re born in the United States, you’re an American citizen.”

The criticisms of the ruling echo Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion, in which she argued the court “abdicates its vital role” in upholding the rule of law with its ruling.

“In limiting nationwide injunctions, SCOTUS has — once again — prioritized loyalty to Trump over defense of the Constitution. Deplorable,” Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said on X.

Aaron Pellish, Politico

When Donald Trump vowed to tackle excessive federal spending, few expected Elon Musk, the world’s most prominent entrepreneur, to lead the charge. Yet, in a move that reflected Trump’s unconventional style, Musk was appointed head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with dismantling the bloated federal bureaucracy.

DOGE launched ambitiously, aiming to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, eliminate inefficiencies, and overhaul vast parts of the public sector. However, just months into the experiment, the initiative has faltered. DOGE now finds itself politically isolated, legally tangled, and far from fulfilling its promises.

Musk has since become a sharp critic, calling Trump’s budget—the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—a “disgusting abomination” that deepens the deficit. The collapse of DOGE and the backlash to the bill highlight a deeper truth: America’s budget crisis can’t be addressed without tackling deeper structural issues.

DOGE Downfall: Why the Hype Didn’t Match the Reality

DOGE’s biggest failure was its inability to deliver its promised sweeping transformation. From the start, its $2 trillion savings target was unrealistic. Cutting nearly 30% from a $7 trillion budget was never feasible, especially with politically untouchable programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense off the table.

Musk’s claim that eliminating waste alone could close the gap didn’t hold up. While most budget experts support cutting inefficiencies, they agree that waste isn’t the main driver of the fiscal crisis. Even slashing all discretionary spending would save only $1.7 trillion. The real pressure comes from mandatory programs, which account for nearly two-thirds of the budget, leaving only a quarter of spending truly up for debate.

As reality set in, Musk’s savings claims shrank from $2 trillion to just $150 billion. While DOGE cites $170 billion saved, independent estimates suggest closer to $63 billion, less than 1% of federal spending, with many claims either inflated or unverifiable. Some savings were credited to long-canceled contracts. Though headline-grabbing layoffs and cuts were made, they were often botched, forcing agencies to rehire staff or reverse course. Meanwhile, federal spending rose by $166 billion, erasing any gains. Trump’s fiscal agenda worsens the outlook with the first-ever $1 trillion defense budget, sweeping tax cuts, and protected entitlements—all while annual deficits approach $2 trillion.

Yet DOGE’s failures ran deeper than mere fiscal naiveté. What began as Musk’s role as a “special government employee” quickly expanded into an unchecked exercise of executive power, raising constitutional alarms. His team reportedly accessed classified data, redirected funds, and sidelined entire agencies—actions taken without Senate confirmation, potentially in violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Legal pushback swiftly followed, with fourteen states suing Trump and Musk over the constitutionality of Musk’s White House-granted authority.

Meanwhile, glaring conflicts of interest became impossible to ignore. Musk’s companies—X, SpaceX, and Tesla—hold $38 billion in federal contracts, loans, tax breaks, and subsidies while facing over 30 federal investigations. His push to dismantle regulatory agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)—while X launches the “X Money Account,” a mobile payment service subject to CFPB oversight—only deepened concerns. Musk was legally obligated to separate his business dealings from government decisions. One major result has been the impact on Musk’s reputation. Once hailed as a visionary for his promotion of electric cars, he is now viewed unfavorably by many former fans.

Why Real Fiscal Reform Must Go Through Congress

America’s budget crisis isn’t just about waste—it’s about scale. While headlines fixate on symbolic cuts and political theater, the real drivers of the deficit lie deeper, buried in the structural commitments of federal spending. Musk’s DOGE initiative promised big savings but ran into a hard truth: real spending lies in mandatory programs, not discretionary ones. Cuts to USAID and DEI made headlines but barely moved the needle.

Some now doubt that DOGE was ever a serious reform effort. To many, it now looks less like governance and more like a chaotic, headline-driven power grab, by a youthful team of Musk staffers who were out of their depth. While its goals were admirable, real and lasting fiscal reform can only be achieved through lawful, institutional channels, not executive overreach.

DOGE did strike a chord with a public weary of government overspending and more inclined toward spending restraint than tax increases to address the deficit, but meaningful reform demands that Congress confront the politically difficult structural drivers of the deficit. It will take more than headlines—it needs bipartisan will and a serious commitment to fiscal reality.

Congress must reassert its constitutional role in the budget process and restore a measure of fiscal discipline. That means using tools like rescissions and budget reconciliation as originally intended—to reduce deficits, not widen them. Anything less amounts to complicity in a deepening fiscal crisis, one that threatens growth, fuels inflation, and drives up the national debt.

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• Mohamed MoutiiMohamed Moutii is a Research Associate at the Arab Center for Research, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Research in Economic and Fiscal Issues (IREF Europe), and a member of the Ibn Khaldun Initiative for Free Thought. He has translated numerous books from English to Arabic, helping to spread free-market literature in the Arabic-speaking world. His work includes articles, analyses, and policy briefs published by various Western and Arab think tanks.

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In the Soviet Union, the most common type of housing was the communal apartment, where multiple families shared common areas of a single, small apartment.

In America, even among the working or welfare poor, this seems unthinkable.

Yet as New York City, under its forthcoming Communist mayor, plans to freeze all rents, you can expect something similar. When government outlaws the cost of rental housing set by even a semi-free market, you artificially inflate demand relative to supply. Price controls create shortages: EVERY SINGLE TIME. And the inherent inefficiency of Communism, combined with outlawed profit, destroys the incentive of builders to build.

New York City will become a 21st Century version of Soviet Russia. Trump will get the blame. And after he’s gone, capitalism will get the blame. There will be no more capitalism on earth, unless red states and cities move decisively capitalist and libertarian. Then the new Cold War will be between the Free States of America–and the Woke States.

“We will eventually be 2 separate countries….how can it be otherwise?” from an astute observer on my Facebook thread.

I agree. Leftists have radicalized and will NEVER back down. If the same (about never backing down) can be said of the MAGA/pro-liberty/pro-Constitution side, then how can the United States remain a republic? Voters in New York City vs. rural Texas/Florida do not inhabit anything like the same universe, let alone the same country. The United States of America? It’s increasingly an abstraction; a fantasy.

Most of California overtly eschews the Constitution daily. Its governors and mayors deliberately let violent criminals run freely and wildfires burn down cities. And now New York City prepares for bread lines, Soviet-style rental rules (prepare for 20 in a small apartment), government genital mutilation of children, and Sharia Law.

It’s not sustainable. Civil war, national divorce or outright submission to rabid totalitarianism. It’s not a pretty choice. But on our present, unsustainable and I now believe irreversible course — it’s the choice you and your children and grandchildren have.

Remember when leftists at least claimed to be for the individual rights of women? Now leftists totally in charge of the U.K. unconditionally import Muslims, and Muslims do not believe in the rights of women. It’s an interesting clash that leftist media, politicians and scholars will never, ever acknowledge. But it’s still the reality. Coming in 2026: New York City’s new Muslim Marxist mayor will of course let his religion have an unfettered run over infidel citizens, particularly as he dismantles and defunds the NYPD. What happens when this religious totalitarianism clashes with the LGBTQ population of New York City?

It’s difficult to fathom and process the blinding, arrogant stupidity and insanity of our times.

Even Ayn Rand and George Orwell never predicted it would get this bad. But it has. There is still a lot great about America. But there is also a bottomless pit of ignorance and stupidity that’s beyond repair. New York and the rest of blue America are like a falling plane about to crash into the ground. It’s too late for blue cities.

Michael J. HURD, Daily Dose of Reason

President Donald Trump on Friday thanked the Supreme Court for ruling against nationwide injunctions of “radical left judges.”

Trump spoke shortly after the Supreme Court ruled that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions.

“This morning the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation or powers and the rule of law,” Trump told reporters in the White House briefing room while being flanked by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. “In striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions to interfere with the normal functioning of the executive branch, the Supreme Court has stopped the presidency itself.

“This last hour, there are people elated all over the country. I’ve seen such, such happiness and spirit. Sometimes you don’t see that. But this case is very important.

The court’s decision, though, left unclear the fate of Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship.

“Some of the cases we’re talking about would be ending birthright citizenship, which now comes to the fore,” he said. “That was meant for the babies of slaves. It wasn’t meant for people trying to scam the system and come into the country on a vacation.”

Adding that he expected the Supreme Court to rule on birthright citizenship in the next term beginning in October, Trump said the justices’ decision will allow him to pursue his agenda.

“I was elected on a historic mandate, but in recent months, we’ve seen a handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for in record numbers,” Trump said.

“It was a grave threat to democracy, frankly. And instead of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these judges have attempted to dictate the law for the entire nation.”

Trump said he was “grateful to the Supreme Court for stepping in and solving this very, very big and complex problem” of nationwide injunctions.

Thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis,” Trump said.

Before his news conference, Trump took to his social media platform to comment on the high court’s decision.

“GIANT WIN in the United States Supreme Court! Even the Birthright Citizenship Hoax has been, indirectly, hit hard,” he posted on Truth Social. “It had to do with the babies of slaves (same year!), not the SCAMMING of our Immigration process.”

Charlie McCarthy ✉  Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.

By John Horvat II

The Left always likes to portray itself as the angry party. It defines itself by its ability to champion causes that recall the French Revolution’s trilogy of liberty, equality, and fraternity and the mob storming the Bastille.

Wherever there are restrictions — even legitimate ones — the Left calls for liberation and license. Where differences appear — even natural ones of talent or effort — the Left denounces them as injustice and demands absolute equality. The angry party is always looking for a good revolution to incite or a crisis not to waste.

However, this angry party image is now in trouble in America. Since the last election, the Left has been rudderless, disoriented, and uninspired. It has gone from being the party of clamor to that of whining. There is no thunder on the Left, only incoherent rants.    

A Global Populist Movement

This lack of direction is a sign that something major has gone awry. It is not a matter of tweaking, framing, or remessaging. Some observers suggest that the world is transitioning from one historical epoch to another. The debate shifted, and the Left was left behind.

The New York Times editorial writer David Brooks, who himself shifts from Left to Right as the mood seizes him, describes the current phenomenon as “a world-shifting political movement” affecting both the Left and the Right. He compares it to the Communist Revolution, the New Deal, the Sixties, feminism, the LGBTQ+ revolution and other key movements that marked modernity.

He calls this massive shift the “global populist movement.” It is characterized by a general distrust of social structures, governmental programs, and institutions. People consider everything to be “rigged, corrupt and malevolent.” They question everything, harbor social resentment and demand signals of trust. 

A Failure to Adapt

Brooks thinks conservatives have taken note of this new movement and begun to adapt. However, most rank-and-file leftists did not get the memo and cling to old, exhausted models and rhetoric that no longer reflect how things have changed. 

Between lattes, the Left’s wealthy liberal elites are still looking for downtrodden masses to hail. They are stuck with outdated leftist scripts that are too worn to refresh. They claim to speak in the name of “the people,” with whom they rarely associate.

The Wrong Focus

Angry leftist narratives have always focused on attacking power structures based on the erroneous Marxist idea that everything can be reduced to power and money. They automatically divide society into haves and have-nots. Every problem can be resolved by taking money away from those who have too much and throwing it, as government funding, at those they deem have too little.   

Since the sixties, the Left has concentrated on infiltrating and conquering the institutions of power: academia, media, industry, culture, and government. It has succeeded fabulously and used its new-found power to redistribute wealth and suppress the Right.

The problem with taking over institutions of power is that one becomes identified with them. Together with power, the Left also assumed complacent and bourgeois attitudes.

Thus, the Left neglected the “proletariat” of ordinary Americans and adopted a new, more learned and sophisticated one with an alphabet soup of LGBTQ-type causes associated with identity politics. From its positions of influence and control, the Left became woke and imposed a cancel culture on all who stood in their way.

Responding to Cancel Culture

In response, the Right complained bitterly of this oppression, took up the cause of working (not woking) class Americans, proposed credible alternatives and won elections. It spoke to voters in a language they could understand and reassured them that they mattered.

However, from the comfort of its ivory towers, movie studios, and corporate C-suites, the Left’s response to electoral defeat has been to return to its tired and spent rhetoric. The problem is that the Left cannot return to its angry politics against the establishment because it is that establishment.

This leftist establishment is disconnected from the American reality and mesmerized by an alternative woke reality. To put it bluntly, in 2024 electoral terms, the Left now represents they/them, not you.

Return to the Culture

Thus, conservatives have successfully shifted the debate from the economic field to the cultural one. Accordingly, before the Left can propose anything credible in the economic field again, it will need to reconnect with the culture first. David Brooks claims, “The Left can’t get a hearing until they get the big moral questions right: faith, family, flag, respect for people in all social classes.”

In other words, what Brooks is saying is that if the Left ever wants to win again, it must stop being yesterday’s angry Left. In this historical movement of resentment and distrust, the Left has become the easy target of an army of forgotten and aggrieved voters.

The only way to placate them is for the Left to change. It must speak to voters in soft, reassuring, and patriotic language to earn the trust of the man on the street. Its radicals need to tone down their message and pronoun usage. They must eat less organic avocado toast and more apple pie.

The Left must rein in its woke activists who, like trans athletes, are running unfairly and far ahead of a public that only wants normalcy. It must get its pseudo-champions to return their ill-gotten trophies.

Such a dramatic shift might mean throwing corrupt union cronies, border haters, tree huggers, and police defunders under the bus.

Brooks argues that mastering such contradictions is what it will take for the Left to navigate “the tectonic shift” that lies ahead.

That is why the Left is in big trouble. To survive, it must rewire its DNA. The party born of rage that feeds on unbridled passions must now go lite. It is an existential challenge. Brooks is asking the Left to come up with a new identity and grand narrative that will “take decades.”  

This new image that Brooks prescribes as a remedy will make many angry leftists angry. It is not only that they see no need to change, but they also don’t know how to make it happen. They will double down on their old turf of Marxist boilerplate. The Left cannot understand why David Brooks says that, at the height of power, having full mastery of the institutions and believing itself victorious, it must “think anew.”

What Brooks did not mention is that the anger of the radicals might turn to despair when they finally realize the Left has nothing new about which to think.

By John Horvat II, American Thinker

Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn appeared on Fox News Thursday to describe how the New York City primaries were manipulated to benefit Socialist Democratic New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.

With 88% of ballots counted, Mamdani was ahead with 43.5% of first-choice votes, while former Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo trailed with 36.3%. During an appearance on “The Ingraham Angle,” Penn said the timing and structural shifts in the election process have significantly benefited far-left candidates at the expense of moderate Democrats.

“This is a big problem, and there is a lot of panic, I think, in New York, generally, in terms of what can they do? How can they get someone in the general election? Remember, these primaries were played with,” Penn told host Laura Ingraham.

Penn said that only around 400,000 votes determined the outcome.

“This used to be in September. And there would have been a runoff between Zohran and Andrew Cuomo in the old system with much higher turnout. Right now, you have a city of 8 million people, 400,000 votes one way or the other here is determining an extreme move to the left, with a voting system nobody could figure out,” Penn said.

Penn said the revised voting system confused voters and further suppressed turnout.

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“This has been played with and moved to the dead of summer when turnout is going to be low, and activists can win the day. So, we need to get our election system back. And right now I think this is a really bad turn for the Democratic Party if something isn’t figured out here before Election Day,” Penn said.

The primary election system in New York City was moved from September to June, which Penn believes led to a significant decrease in voter turnout.

If Mamdani maintains his lead, he will face Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa in November as well as incumbent Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for reelection on independent ballots after skipping the Democratic primary. Unlike the primary, the general election for mayor will not utilize ranked-choice voting.

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