CAMBRIDGE, MA — The Department of Homeland Security announced that a massive terrorist sleeper cell was discovered hiding just outside of Boston, Massachusetts.
Authorities found the large group of infiltrated terrorists after a routine patrol around a well-known university’s infamous quad uncovered dozens of Iranian sleeper cell operatives.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” FBI spokesman Agent Dale Johnson said. “On the outside, they appeared to be dressed like college students and faculty, but every single one of them was a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. We have reason to believe that the entire campus is, in fact, a terrorist training site.”
Suspicions mounted after local law enforcement and Homeland Security agents began seeing concerning news stories coming out of one of the nation’s oldest and most respected universities.
“We started to receive calls that groups of so-called ‘students’ were chanting ‘Globalize the intifadah!’ right here on campus, out in the open,” Agent Johnson continued. “Then we started learning that individuals were harassing Jewish students and yelling at white people, and we put things together and discovered this massive cell of terrorist operatives living right here in the United States. It’s the largest sleeper cell bust in history.”
At publishing time, over 15,000 sleeper cell agents had been arrested at the site, with authorities saying they suspected many terrorists trained at the school had already infiltrated corporations and institutions throughout the country.
What radicalized me? Oh gee I don’t know, maybe stories like this one?
Per a report at Fox News, township officials in the unincorporated community of Cranbury, NJ are in the process of seizing a historic family farm that has been under the family’s ownership for 175 years—that means since 1850—because they want to use it for a welfare housing project.
Benji Farraro reports that in April, Andy and Christopher Henry, the two brothers who currently own the farm, received a letter that informed them that Cranbury would be seizing all 21 acres, but government officials have now decided that they’ll make do with just half of the farm, and benevolently leave the house for the Henry family—now the Henry family gets to be neighbors with the third world foreigners who will no doubt be taking up residence in the “affordable housing” units built on Henry land! (Kind of reminds of when Abraham Lincoln spitefully directed the federal government to seize land that belonged to Mary Custis Lee as retribution for her husband’s allegiance to country over the Union, citing a “tax” dispute.)
The only thing I found surprising was that one of the owners of the farm was “shocked” that the government would operate in such an evil way:
‘It makes me feel terrible,’ Henry said. ‘It was a shock. We are surrounded by warehouses, been turning down developers for years. We just wanted to be left alone and take care of our place like my ancestors did before us.’
I’m sorry sir, but where in the he** have you been?
The entire system is built on theft, murder, and all other evils.
Operation Northwoods? Operation Paperclip? MK-Ultra? Ruby Ridge? Waco? Tuskegee experiments? Poisoning in St. Louis? Testing Big Pharma drugs on foster children? Operation Mockingbird? Fauci and the beagles? Lockdowns for “non-essential” businesses? Mandated participation in experimental drug trials? Legalized abortion? State-sponsored kidnapping when parents don’t want their children to be trans-ed? The inability to actually prosecute the Epstein buyers? The mass importation of violent and anti-American third world forgners? Two-tiered justice systems? The ATF gunwalking scandal? Intelligence officials conspiring to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop to help cheat Joe Biden into office?
Don’t the Henry brothers pay income taxes? Property taxes?
I’m limited on my word count, so for brevity’s sake, I’ll stop there—but there’s literally no shortage of examples.
As Andrea Widburg commented, eminent domain was only ever intended for infrastructure projects like roads, dams, and railways. (I still think it’s criminal.) It was not a vehicle for social justice experimentation though.
But, thanks to a state mandate, New Jersey must build “146,00 affordable housing units by 2035.” Isn’t socialism just utterly horrendous?
Of course I get it that the Henry brothers just “want to be left alone”—we do too—but the side that wants to win will always beat the side that doesn’t realize they’re in a war.
It has been many years since a political party was cast as far into the wilderness as the Democrats of 2025. Fresh off their second defeat at the hands of their mortal enemy, Donald Trump, it was reasonable to assume that the party would realize the need to abandon the progressive policies that repelled the broad center of the electorate. Instead, it appears that the opposite has occurred, as proven in both the response to President Trump’s strike on Iran and Tuesday’s (June 24) Democratic mayoral primary in New York City.
Democrats Doubling Down Democratic Party leaders must understand by now that they need to offer the public more than virulent opposition to Trump and every move he makes. They must realize that being branded a socialist party is a formula for electoral disaster. That’s why they put their thumbs on the scale to ensure that Bernie Sanders would not be their presidential standard bearer in 2016 and 2020 and why they ruled out a Kamala Harris candidacy until Joe Biden’s late withdrawal from the race left them no other choice. But how must their brand look to ordinary Americans now that avowed anti-Israel socialist Muslim Zohran Mamdani has been nominated to represent the party in the city with the larget Jewish population in the world outside of Tel Aviv?
As a New York state assemblyman, Mamdani introduced legislation to crack down on non-profits sending money to Israel. According to Fox News and the antisemitic watchdog group Canary Mission, he became prominent in anti-Israeli protests in the city shortly after the Oct. 7 massacre. A native of Uganda, Mamdani is the son of parents who have long been outspoken anti-Israel activists. His father is a “Marxist” professor at Columbia University, ground zero for post-Oct. 7 protests in the United States, and is “known for his anti-Israel views and obsession with ‘colonialism.’” The election of Mamdani would undoubtedly empower pro-Palestinian activists and throw gasoline on the fire of rancorous disputes raging between New York’s pro- and anti-Israel advocates. His vow to offer universal health care, free childcare, free public transit, rent controls, and a $30-per-hour minimum wage, all paid for by increasing taxes on the usual suspects – corporations and the rich – would certainly drive many people out of such a high-tax environment. His pledge to create a Department of Community Safety that would replace the police in responding to many 911 calls seems sure to negatively impact public safety.
In short, a Mayor Mamdani would mean New York would never be the same.
They Can’t Help Themselves Meanwhile, though a few Democrats have applauded Trump’s strike on Iranian nuclear sites, the party as a whole has done everything it can to demean the president. Instead of at least praising those who carried out the audacious and successful mission or remaining silent, the response has mostly been to claim either that Trump is lying when he says he has obliterated Iran’s nuclear program, that his attack was unconstitutional, and/or that he should be impeached. Democrats may be acting in response to polls showing a majority of the American people were opposed to Trump’s action, but that will surely change if peace breaks out in the Middle East or, at a minimum, hostilities between Israel and Iran cease and no further US involvement is forthcoming.
There are times, such as after 9/11, when the country should be expected to come together regardless of everyone’s political differences. Doing everything in the president’s power to eliminate the ongoing and increasing nuclear threat posed by the world’s leading purveyor of terrorism would seem to be one of those times. And yet, the left simply cannot get over its obsession with attacking all things Trump. Progressives continue to dominate the discussion about the evil orange man as if the November election never took place. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), and now Zohran Mamdani have been dominating the headlines about the Democratic party. What this says to everyday Americans is that the party, far from tacking to the center, has actually become even more progressive than it was in 2024.
Is the current dilapidated state of this ever more radical party ultimately a threat to the stability of the country? Is it healthy for one party to be so unpopular that it cannot mount a credible opposition to those in power? And above all, how can Democrats expect the 2026 and 2028 elections to end differently than 2024 if they double down on the very ideology that cost them control of the White House and Congress?
Just because the judiciary chooses to violate the Constitution does not mean the other branches are required to follow suit.
Since returning to office, President Trump has faced what can only be described as a judicial coup. Through the use of overreaching nationwide injunctions, predominantly Democrat-appointed judges have gleefully granted requests from left-wing activists to block enforcement of the agenda 77 million Americans voted for last year.
Yet, despite this egregious affront to America’s constitutional framework, Trump and his administration are neglecting to stop it.
The latest example of the administration’s refusal to uphold separation of powers is its ongoing battle with a Massachusetts-based federal judge over the president’s deportation of illegal aliens to so-called “third countries.” After District Judge Brian Murphy placed a sweeping injunction blocking the policy’s enforcement, the administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which temporarily stayed the Biden appointee’s order on Monday.
In a stunning act of rebellion against the justices, Murphy — seemingly believing his power usurps that of SCOTUS — issued a separate edict hours after the high court’s ruling in which he declared his initial order “remains in full force and effect.” The judge further claimed, “The District Court’s remedial orders [were] not properly before the [Supreme] Court because the Government has not appealed them, or sought a stay pending a forthcoming appeal.”
So, what did Trump and his administration do?
While U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer correctly characterized Murphy’s power grab as a “lawless act of defiance,” the administration continued to grant the rogue judge’s order legitimacy it doesn’t have. Instead of implementing the president’s policy and telling Murphy to pound sand, team Trump went running back to SCOTUS to ask the justices to “clarify” their Monday stay on the judge’s initial injunction.
But there’s nothing to “clarify.” The high court already spoke on the matter, and there’s no logical or legal reason the administration shouldn’t be executing Trump’s directives — irrespective of what Murphy claims.
Trump and his team’s “strategy,” as it seems, is to continue following the same playbook previously disclosed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. When asked by Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway last month about how the administration plans to confront the judicial coup undermining the president’s executive authority, Leavitt said that the game plan is to “comply with the courts’ orders” and “win on the merits of these cases.”
In other words, the administration is going to continue granting the premise that what these rogue judges are doing is lawful and the notion that the judiciary has the final say on matters of law and public policy in America — otherwise known as judicial supremacy.
Except, that’s not the system of government the Founding Fathers had in mind when drafting the Constitution. If anything, framers like Alexander Hamilton viewed the judiciary as the weakest of the three branches, as it lacks the “sword” of the executive and the “purse” of the legislature and relies “upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.”
Contrary to claims made by Chief Justice John Roberts, the courts are not supreme to the other two branches. And just because its members choose to violate the Constitution does not mean the executive and legislative are required to follow suit.
As president, Trump has an obligation to abide by the nation’s founding document. It is he who is granted Article II authority to execute the nation’s laws — not rogue judges seeking to usurp such powers.
As Justice Samuel Alito recently observed, federal matters involving nationwide injunctions “may take two or three years before it could come up” to the Supreme Court to be fully adjudicated. That would mean that by the time cases involving the Trump administration reach the high court for final rulings, Trump’s second term would effectively be over.
The longer Trump continues to play along with leftists’ judicial coup, the longer the votes of those who supported him last year will be rendered meaningless, thus ending a presidency before it could even begin.
Citing new intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, said that Iranian nuclear facilities have been destroyed by U.S. airstrikes and that if the Iranians attempted to rebuild those facilities it would likely take them years.
The new Gabbard statement comes as a separate early intelligence assessment found that the United States failed to destroy core component of the Iranian nuclear capacity. According to details of that assessment which were leaked to CNN Tuesday, the strikes only set back Iran by a matter of months.
That report was a product of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the intelligence arm of the Pentagon. The White House has sought to downplay it as “incomplete intelligence,” noting that the assessment was of “low confidence.”
The kerfuffle comes after American B2 bombers dropped 14 30,000-pound GBU-57, or Massive Ordnance Penetrators, on two nuclear facilities buried deep underground in Iran and decades after the U.S. War on Terror, which sowed public doubts about intelligence failures. For his part, President Trump has said unequivocally that the facilities were “obliterated.”
The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement that the American strike on the reinforced Iranian nuclear site at Fordow “destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.”
Asked about the origin of the intelligence that Gabbard cited, an intelligence official told RealClearPolitics that “this is new U.S. intelligence.”
Gabbard slammed what she described as “the propaganda media” for trying to undermine what was otherwise heralded as a historic bombing campaign and “President Trump’s decisive leadership.”
On this front, the administration was momentarily on the backfoot ahead of the strikes. Testifying before Congress in March, Gabbard said that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Asked about the testimony aboard Air Force One, Trump replied, “I don’t care what she said.”
Less noticed in the press, however, was testimony from Gabbard that Iranian “enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.” The White House told RCP that Trump ordered the strikes under Article II authority to defend the United States against anticipated attacks.
“President Trump and the administration have always been right to say that if Iran chose to make a nuclear bomb, they could do so within weeks,” Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, told reporters last week, “which obviously poses an imminent threat to the U.S. and the world.”
Now that ability has been destroyed. On this point, and at least publicly, all parties seem to agree, even the Iranians. “Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told Al Jazeera.
Three facilities were struck by the United States last Saturday – two centers where enrichment was performed, the Natanz and Fordow facilities, and a third center, Isfahan, where enriched uranium is converted into weapons grade material. Overseas at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands, Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized the latter.
“You can’t do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility,” said Rubio, who also serves as national security advisor. “We can’t even find where it is, where it used to be on the map,” he continued, speaking of the conversion facility. “The whole thing is blackened out. It’s gone. It’s wiped out.”
Any debate over the nuclear capacity of Iran is beyond the pale, according to Vice President JD Vance. “President Trump has obliterated the Iranian nuclear program,” he wrote on social media. “The American media seems destined to obliterate their own credibility on this fake story.”
Philip Wegmann is White House correspondent for RealClearPolitics.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Newsmax on Wednesday that Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic primary victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a “nightmare,” calling it proof of communist influence overtaking the city.
In a fiery reaction on “Finnerty,” Giuliani denounced Mamdani’s shocking defeat of Cuomo. Mamdani, 33, would become New York City’s first Muslim mayor if elected in the general election.
“This is a nightmare,” Giuliani said. “I moved out of New York City about a year ago. I still love it more than any city in the world. I’m in mourning for my city.”
Giuliani, who gained national recognition as New York mayor for his handling of the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, explicitly linked Mamdani’s progressive platform to communist theory and criticized voters for their decision.
“This is about the most insane thing the residents of the city could do,” Giuliani continued. “This man [Mamdani] wants to do everything he can do to ruin our government and our civilization. He is exactly what Karl Marx wrote about 150 years ago. He’s the culmination of years and years of communist influence on our city, on our schools, and on our government.”
Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist representing Astoria, Queens, in the New York State Assembly, campaigned on progressive initiatives, including reduced funding for law enforcement and opening publicly funded grocery stores.
These policies drew Giuliani’s sharpest criticism.
“All of the communists that planned this, his policies would destroy us,” Giuliani warned. “It would destroy New York City. Any one of them defunding the police alone would, to the extent they did it for just a little while, [and] we had a terrible crime wave.”
Giuliani credited current Mayor Eric Adams for restoring some order after the crime wave that gripped the city after earlier cuts to police budgets. He asserted that Adams had made improvements “by applying our old strategies,” referencing Giuliani’s tenure as mayor when he pursued tough-on-crime policies.
“Adams has straightened some of it out. We’re still feeling it,” Giuliani acknowledged. “But this would be free… free grocery stores?”amdani’s victory, seen by his supporters as a transformative step forward for the city, has sparked controversy due to his outspoken positions on economic equality and policing. Considering broader conservative concerns, Giuliani framed Mamdani’s ascent as symbolic of a long-running communist effort to influence the city.
“They must be turning over in their graves, extremely happy,” Giuliani said of communist ideologues, suggesting Mamdani’s win fulfilled long-standing Marxist goals.
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
Los Angeles and California never cease to amaze. I can say that with absolute certainty.
Just when you think things are simmering down, those folks out there come up some off-the-wall freakin’ crap that just so mind glowingly unreal, you have to check twice to make sure you read it right.
And then it’s still unbelievable.
That daffy, worthless, Communista LA mayor is still doing her posing and not much else regarding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity that hasn’t paused while LA’s coddled illegals go through the motions, acting out during their tantrums in the streets.
STOP THIS LAW STUFF RIGHT NOW
“Mayors across the L.A. region and the country have spoken out unequivocally against these reckless raids and the Trump administration’s chaotic escalation here in Los Angeles,” said Mayor Karen Bass. “When you raid Home Depots and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you deploy troops to our streets, you’re not trying to keep anyone safe – you’re trying to cause fear and panic. These raids must stop.”
Okay, whatever.
It seems the problem in Los Angeles is that they’ve left these people to do their own thing for so long, unimpeded, and lately, completely protected and indulged with state benefits and freebies, that they must not have realized the percentage of the population that actually was never citizens.
That’s the Pollyanna version.
The cynical take is that these businesses were all hiring illegals under the table the entire time because it was cheap and they knew the state would never do a thing to stop them.
I choose Door Number Two.
Well, welcome to a world where your fellow Americans expect everyone in the country – not just certain red states – to follow what’s known as ‘federal immigration law.’ And now that it’s come to California all these slack butt employers who’ve been making out all these years are finding out they have a labor shortage – everyone is scared to come to work in case the place gets raided.
You’re only scared if you’re illegal, right?
Anyway, all these businesses and the unions who make big money off of the illegals who work in union shops and pay those schweet, schweet union dues in places like hotels, etc., are now bent out of shape that these folks are hiding out at home.
If they’re at home, there are two problems. They’re not at work earning any money, they’re not out spending the money they earned, and the employer has no workers earning that money to keep his business running.
This has caused a massive ‘waah’ to rise up.
WHAT TO DO WHAT TO DO
In classic Los Angeles fashion, the answer that businesses, the always progressively-minded community leaders, and unions came up with is ‘Let’s get the city to not to make anybody pay rent.’
Several unions are calling on the Los Angeles City Council to vote for a rent moratorium on the basis that deportation operations have severely shut down business activity.
The community groups say that businesses have been crippled by the loss of workers as well as consumers who are fearing detainment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
On Tuesday, representatives of the Los Angeles Tenants Union held a press conference with the Coalition of Labor Union Employees and the SEIU to demand the rent moratorium.
“We know that many tenants will not be able to pay their rent come July 1,” said Kenia Alcocer of LATU, who said she is also an illegal alien.
HOLY SMOKING CHECKBOOK
It’s too scary out there right now for lawbreakers to keep breaking the law. They want to stay home and break the law for free.
Community groups say too many families are living in fear amid immigration raids across Southern California, and they are calling on the Los Angeles City Council to take action.
The L.A. Tenants Union, SEIU 721 and the Coalition of Labor Union Employees joined forces for a press conference and rally on Olvera Street Tuesday morning.
They want the City Council to pass emergency protections for people impacted by the raids, including an eviction moratorium. The unions say renters make up more than 60% of L.A. residents and many now face the fear of deportation, and many families may not be able to cover rent if a family member was taken into ICE custody or if they have family members choosing to stay home from work out of fear.
They add that the immigration raids are creating unnecessary fear, and there’s a deepening economic crisis fueled by COVID, fires and now ICE raids.
You know – until the bad ICE men go away.
As you might imagine, landlords have a different opinion.
…Landlords, however, worry that another moratorium could crush them.
“Over 85% of rental property owners in the city of Los Angeles are independent moms and pops who, for the most part, are already struggling to pay their bills,” said Daniel Yukelson, Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. “I understand that people are very scared and rental property owners are very sympathetic to that. But, as I said, you know, property owners are very dependent on receiving timely rent payments just to make ends meet.”
They prefer to have the rent paid, having already suffered through first the COVID-era rent and eviction moratoriums, and then the one imposed after the recent fires. Landlords are pretty much over providing free housing at the county’s say-so.
…The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a countywide eviction moratorium in response to the January wildfires, prohibiting evictions for qualifying tenants through July 31, 2025, while discussions on rental assistance funding for unpaid landlords continue.
Despite efforts to refine the measure, an amendment aimed at improving the ordinance failed in a 3-2 vote, with Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Holly Mitchell in support. Supervisors Janice Hahn, Lindsay Horvath and Hilda Solis voted against truly helping those in need and failing to protect property owners. The board has committed to further discussions on rental assistance and funding allocations in follow-up meetings.
Now these people are demanding the county deliver a rent freeze and eviction moratorium because they’re scared.
…L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has described the raids as a “body blow” to the L.A. economy. Some tenant advocates think the city should respond with a moratorium on evictions.
Tony Carfello, an organizer with the L.A. Tenants Union, said a pause on evictions is necessary because immigrant workers are facing “two crisis situations at once.” L.A. rent puts them at risk of eviction, while ICE raids put them at risk of deportation if they keep working for rent money.
The way Carfello sees it, many immigrant renters are in a double bind: “Am I going to be picked up and deported without due process,” he said, “or am I going to be sent out on the streets?”
All this angst comes down to a simple fact: the ‘due process’ part they love to squawk about was forfeited when they crossed the border illegally and then chose to stay.
With the nation watching, the host on Iranian state television asked the question that so many people in Iran — from the political elite to people on the street — were wondering.
“People are very worried about the supreme leader,” the host said to an official from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office on Tuesday. “Can you tell us how he is?”
He noted that viewers had sent a flood of messages asking the same thing. But the official, Mehdi Fazaeli, the head of Mr. Khamenei’s archives office, did not give a straight answer.
Instead, Mr. Fazaeli said that he, too, had received numerous inquiries from officials and others worried about the ayatollah after the furious bombing campaign by Israel and the United States.
“We should all be praying,” Mr. Fazaeli said.
“The people who are responsible for protecting the supreme leader are doing their job well,” he added. “God willing, our people can celebrate victory next to their leader, God willing.”
,..Sanam Vakil, the director for the Middle East and North Africa at Chatham House, a research group, said that Mr. Khamenei’s absence was notable and a sign that Iran’s leaders were being “extremely careful and security-minded.”
“If we don’t see Khamenei by Ashura,” an important religious procession for Shiite Muslims observed in Iran in early July this year, Ms. Vakil said, “that is a bad sign. He has to show his face.”
In baseball there is a rare but beautiful pitch known as the knuckleball. It is difficult to learn and takes a lifetime to perfect. It glides through the air without spin and zigzags from side to side before reaching the plate. Even the best knuckleball pitchers struggle to throw it effectively. Most catchers simply can’t react fast enough to the ball’s late movements to keep it in their mitts. Hall of Fame hitters look silly as they swing two feet away from a ball traveling slowly around their bats. When a knuckleball pitcher is on his game, batters never look more frustrated.
President Trump might just be the greatest knuckleballer of all time. In both domestic and foreign policy, he throws these pitches whose in-air movements seem to betray the laws of physics. His adversaries stand at the plate with big smiles and expect to launch Trump’s slow tosses over the fence. His putative allies trying to catch the ball behind home plate don’t like what they see and keep calling for a different pitch. But the president just grins and says, Now watch: I’m going to throw this thing very slowly, and that guy up there will fall over trying to hit it. It’ll be fabulous. And that’s exactly what happens.
As I write this, there is a tenuous ceasefire between Iran and Israel after two weeks of fighting. Trump is already trademarking it “The 12 Day War.” Will peace prevail? We will see. But did anybody expect the possibility? Not really.
The president’s announcement of an end to the war came only two days after he sent American pilots on a daring mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities. That operation, codenamed Midnight Hammer, included multiple head fakes. While President Trump indicated that he might take two weeks before hitting Iran, decoy B-2s headed West to Guam. With the eyes of the world looking in the wrong direction, stealth bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri for an 18-hour journey into hostile territory. The pitch came in slow and steady and struck Iran’s nuclear capabilities before anyone even knew the ball was in the catcher’s mitt.
The reaction to Trump’s nuclear strikeout was as frantic as a hitter slamming his bat on the ground after swinging at a ball bouncing several feet before the plate. Those who have argued against any new U.S.-led wars in the Middle East immediately feared a protracted conflict. Those who have argued for regime change in Iran hoped that U.S. boots on the ground would soon follow. Democrats who had been calling Trump a “chicken” for going easy on Iran flipped positions, condemned the attack, and started calling for his impeachment. All the while, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was working behind the scenes to find a peaceful solution.
The ball zigzags through the air, and nobody is sure where it will land. Three paragraphs after noting that there is a “tenuous ceasefire,” I must add that Iran and Israel are now exchanging fire, and President Trump is rhetorically spanking both countries. Because his administration is working desperately for Middle East peace, the same pundits who applauded his Iran attack yesterday are mad today. Similarly, those who excoriated the attack as “unconstitutional” yesterday are today having second thoughts. As witty catcher Bob Uecker once said, “the way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and pick it up.” Right now Trump’s knuckleball in the Middle East is still rolling.
One of the crazy things about a knuckleball pitcher is that the effectiveness of the pitch can ebb and flow. I loved watching Tim Wakefield throw for the Boston Red Sox. He could make the Bronx Bombers look like Little Leaguers still hitting from a tee. But sometimes he’d throw two or three awful innings and give up a bunch of runs. Most managers pull their pitchers when that happens; it takes a manager with nerves of steel to stick with a knuckleballer handing out home runs. Even when Ol’ Wake was struggling, though, he could often miraculously turn things around and pitch a lights-out complete game. When using a knuckleballer to strike out the side, patience is the key.
The reactions of Russia and China have been interesting to watch. In the past, Russia has positioned assets near Iran to dissuade Western attacks. This time around, it is preoccupied with war in Ukraine. Although former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had harsh words for President Trump after the U.S. destroyed Iran’s nuclear sites, President Putin has remained relatively quiet. Similarly, communist China has said and done little in response to the attack. When you consider that Putin is busy seeking Trump’s assistance in bringing the European war to an end and that China is heavily reliant upon Iranian oil, it becomes clear that this was an ideal time to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat. Sometimes a knuckleballer gets batters so mixed up that they just give up.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s adversaries here at home can’t stop whiffing on his pitches, either. Democrats said that food and fuel prices would continue to rise; instead, both have steadily declined. Democrats said that the president’s use of tariffs to recalibrate global trade would increase inflation; instead, inflation is lower than it has been since Trump’s first term. Democrats said that Americans would reject President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration; instead, the public overwhelmingly backs the president’s actions.
Think of some of the crazy pitches that Trump has used to strike out the Democrat party. He has Democrats defending Hamas baby-killers, Iranian “Death to America” terrorists, violent illegal aliens, child castration, and men beating up women in competitive sports. The president keeps telling his catcher, Watch: I’ll get them to argue against sending foreign murderers and rapists back to their own countries. The umpire is listening and murmuring, What kind of moron would swing at that? And Trump just smiles and whispers behind his glove, The kind of morons who vote for Hillary, Kamala, and Dementia Joe, that’s who! Trump releases the ball, and while it moves in midair, the Democrats call him vulgar names. Dim-Dems hack at it from all directions but strike out as the ball travels slowly across the plate.
As funny as it is to see Democrats swinging ferociously and falling to the ground with every Trump pitch, it is also pretty amusing to see all the players supposedly on his team freaking out from the dugout. The neocons are screaming for endless war. The so-called “free traders” are busy disparaging tariffs. The multinational conglomerates hope that they’ll still get to use slave labor overseas. The Establishment Old Guard are tired of Trump’s “culture war” at home and want to get back to the business of making money from real war in Ukraine. Batboy Volodymyr Zelensky thinks it’s time to put in a new pitcher. Why can’t he just pitch like a normal Republican? the benchwarmers keep asking one another. Nobody’s seen a Republican knuckleballer on the mound before.
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One thing that separates Trump from most knuckleballers, though, is that he occasionally uses other pitches. By eliminating USAID and other government slush funds for Democrats, he hurls curveballs that keep the opposition off-balance. By eliminating federal grants for universities that coddle terrorists and discriminate against female athletes, he throws a nasty cutter that gets Democrats chasing pitches outside the strike zone. And sometimes, when his adversaries are least expecting it, he throws a blazing heater high and tight.
President Trump is a dangerous knuckleballer because he keeps everyone guessing. His unpredictability confounds adversaries. And every once in a while, he throws a Massive Ordnance Penetrator right down the middle for a strike.
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President Donald Trump criticized Democrat Socialist Zohran Mamdani after he took the lead in New York City’s Democrat Mayoral primary, calling him a “communist lunatic.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump criticized Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for “backing him” and “groveling over him.”
“It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line,” Trump wrote. “Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor. We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous.”
“He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart, he’s got AOC+3, Dummies ALL, backing him, and even our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him,” Trump added. “Yes, this is a big moment in the History of our Country!”
Trump’s post comes after Mamdani took a lead in the NYC Democrat primary race, over his opponents former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
Mamdani received 43.5 percent of the vote, or 432,305 votes, Cuomo received 36.4 percent of the vote, or 361,840 votes, and Lander received 11.3 percent, or 112,349 votes, according to the Associated Press.
While Mamdani has declared victory and expressed that he is “honored” to be the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, under New York City’s ranked-choice voting system “if a candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, that candidate wins.” If not, “counting will continue in rounds.”
Per the New York City Board of Elections website:
All first-choice votes are counted If a candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, that candidate wins.
All first-choice votes are counted If a candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, that candidate wins.
If no candidate earns more than 50% of first-choice votes, then counting will continue in rounds.
At the end of each round, the last-place candidate is eliminated and voters who chose that candidate now have their vote counted for their next choice.
Your vote is counted for your second choice only if your first choice is eliminated. If both your first and second choices are eliminated, your vote is counted for your next choice.
This process continues until there are two candidates left. The candidate with the most votes wins.
Trump’s criticism of Mamdani comes as Democrats such as New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) and Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) have warned that Mamdani is “too extreme to lead” the city, and have described him as being a “snake oil salesman.”
Breitbart News has previousreported that Mamdani, who boasts of having “far-left socialist views,” is the “son of acclaimed Indian-American director Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding)” and that he has grown up “around privilege.”
Most recently, Mamdani, who has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), floated the idea of city-run grocery stores.
“We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores whose mission is to lower prices, not price gouging,” Mamdani said in a video. ”
“These stores will operate without a profit motive, or having to pay property taxes or rent, and will pass on those savings to you,” Mamdani added.
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