I will never understand how large numbers of seemingly intelligent people got the idea that they were going to save the world by forcing the closure of all the functional parts of the energy system of the U.S. Nor will I ever understand how enough of those people got themselves into positions of sufficient political power to put their wacko energy ideas into effect. And yet, by the time President Joe Biden and his minions had left office in early 2025, such people, operating deep in the administrative state (and with the apparent blessing of a demented President), had managed to impose regulations that, by some time in the 2030s would have, among other things, forced the end of the manufacture and sale of all vehicles except electric vehicles, and forced the closure of all power plants using fossil fuels.

Since taking office in January 2025, President Trump and his people have been actively working to rescind and eliminate this insanity. I have previously reported on many of these actions, for example here and here. Today the EPA took another big step in removing these destructive regulations by finalizing a Rule titled “Partial Repeal of the Carbon Pollution Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units.” The final Rule was published today in the Federal Register at 91 F.R. 58,954; it takes effect 60 days from today, that is, November 16, 2026.

Today’s action is ludicrously complex in its efforts to clear away some of the convoluted regulatory thicket erected by the previous administration. (It was 195 pages long in the standard double-spaced typed format issued a few days ago, in advance of the official Federal Register publication.). The complexity of the rescission is a function of the complexity of the prior actions that it seeks to unwind. Today I’ll try to provide a comprehensible summary of the background, and how the latest action fits into the mix.

It was way back in December 2009, during Barack Obama’s first year as President, that EPA adopted what is known as the Endangerment Finding, purporting to determine that carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” constitute a “danger” to human health and welfare. In the same December 2009 regulatory action, EPA also claimed to find that emissions of these gases from “from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution that threatens public health and welfare.” That finding then formed the basis for the subsequent regulations that initially imposed fuel economy standards on vehicles, and then further imposed emissions mandates that would ratchet down over time until only fully-electric vehicles could be manufactured and sold.

After the December 2009 action, it remained for further regulations to extend the Endangerment Finding to other emissions sources like industry, aircraft, and power plants. As to power plants, the major initiative of the Obama administration was a regulation informally known as the Clean Power Plan, finally imposed in October 2015, during the second half of Obama’s second term. (The official name of the CPP was “Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units.”). The basic structure of the CPP was to set limits on the amounts of CO2 and other GHGs that a power plant could emit, with those limits ratcheting down over the years until, by some point in the late 2030s, it would be impossible for any power plant using fossil fuels to comply. At that point, all fossil fuel power plants would be forced to close.

During President Trump’s first term, EPA attempted to do away with the CPP and replace it with another regulation called the Affordable Clean Energy rule; but that effort got struck down by the D.C. Circuit, thereby seemingly re-instating the CPP pending Supreme Court review. The litigation reached the Supreme Court in 2022, during the Biden presidency, in a case called West Virginia v. EPA. The Supreme Court struck down the CPP as being beyond the authority conferred on EPA by Congress in the Clean Air Act.

But the zealots in the Biden EPA were not going to be deterred by the Supreme Court’s striking down of the CPP, and they looked for another avenue to force the end of electricity generation by fossil fuels. In May 2024 the Biden EPA went final with a Rule with a ridiculously long title but generally referred to as the “Carbon Pollution Standards” for power plants. To avoid the Supreme Court’s West Virginia decision, this regulation took a new approach, which was to declare that the “best system of emissions reduction” (BSER) for a power plant would be to adopt a system of carbon capture and sequestration or storage (CCS), supposedly to capture 90% of the emissions of the power plant.

The problem with CCS is that it is enormously costly and uses up a large fraction of the energy produced by the plant in the effort to capture the emitted CO2. In the limiting case, you can use up all the energy produced by the plant, and still not capture the last bits of the emitted CO2. (I have previously referred to CCS as “a war against the second law of thermodynamics.”)

When the Biden EPA proposed the Carbon Pollution Standards, numerous commenters — including major states like Ohio and West Virginia — pointed out why the standards were technically infeasible. I summarized those comments in this post from August 2023. But EPA went ahead anyway.

EPA’s action today rescinds the Carbon Pollution Standards for existing power plants. In support of its action, EPA basically adopts the infeasibility arguments made in the cited comments of Ohio and West Virginia. Here are some excerpts from the Executive Summary:

The EPA is finalizing the repeal of the emission guidelines for existing fossil fuel-fired steam generating units in their entirety. Specifically, the EPA is finalizing the determination that 90 percent CCS is not the BSER for existing long-term coal-fired steam generating units because 90 percent CCS has not been adequately demonstrated, the costs of 90 percent CCS are not reasonable, and the associated degree of emission limitation is not achievable. In a change from the 2024 CPS, the EPA concludes that previous projects that failed to achieve 90 percent CCS were not a sufficient basis to conclude the technology has been adequately demonstrated. Additionally, the carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, pipeline, and sequestration infrastructure necessary to implement 90 percent CCS for the fleet of existing coal-fired steam generating units does not currently exist and would need to be broadly deployed. Because it is significantly unlikely that the necessary infrastructure for CCS can be deployed by the January 1, 2032 compliance date, the EPA is finalizing the determination that the degree of emission limitation in the 2024 CPS for long-term coal-fired steam generating units is not achievable.

Note that, as with the previous rescission in February 2026 of the Endangerment Finding as to motor vehicle emissions, EPA did not attempt in this rule-making to take on the scientific basis for the claim that human GHG emissions are leading us to some kind of global warming apocalypse. I regard that omission as a lost opportunity. EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding rested on a very shaky foundation, most notably claiming to find ongoing warming in a surface temperature record that lacked almost all data for 40% of the earth’s surface (the Southern Hemisphere oceans). It would be great to point out how comically weak were the bases on which this power-hungry agency purported to imposed trillions of dollars in cost on the American people.

Like the February rescission of the EF, this action will undoubtedly quickly proceed to litigation in the D.C. Circuit. Although I would have liked EPA to base its actions on additional arguments besides the ones it has used, I still think its position is strong. Indeed, I can’t even think of what the environmental groups are going to say to the arguments about infeasibility of CCS. There really is no functional economic demonstration of this technology at scale, even today, and there likely never will be. So have at it!

Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

Michael P. Desronvil has at last repsonded to the ideologues trying to subject him to contempt and ridicule. 

J.R. Dunn | September 19, 2026

he lone juror has come in from the cold to shine a much-needed light on the circumstances of the Lindsay Clancy trial, as well as certain media accusations that were tossed his way.

Michael Desronvil went public only days after he was doxxed by Boston-area legacy media and nationwide social media.

Desronvil was blunt in his response to the three jurors who misrepresented his stance during the trial, along with tacitly encouraging individuals attempting to track him down and expose him to ridicule and harassment. From his point of view, the majority of the female jurors were activists who “wanted her [Lindsay Clancy] found not guilty on Day 1.”

None were interested in hearing his interpretation of the evidence presented in court, instead resorting to badgering and nagging. This is easy to accept after seeing their attitudes and rhetoric in the interviews released over the past week.

Desronvil spoke out on Fugitive TV, a notable black political podcast. Host Ray Marcel talked with him on the phone for an hour, and stated that he was “very well spoken, very nice, very kind.” It was also revealed that, along with being a Catholic, Desronvil is a registered Republican. No wonder the feminist jurors lost their minds. (Asmongold commented, “Christ spent forty days in the desert. He spent forty hours with hags.”)

The interview also straightened out a number of accusations thrown his way by media sources while he was incommunicado and unable to defend himself, in particular one insinuation that he was guilty of domestic violence. The truth is that after he was married, Desronvil learned that his wife had lied about her immigration status and was, in fact, an illegal. This put his own legal status in jeopardy, so Desronvil initiated divorce proceedings. It was only then that accusations of abuse began to fly, in a clear act of revenge. The case was later dismissed.

The final irony here: the left supports mass immigration as a strategy in their war against the United States as it exists. Yet here they are attempting to victimize an immigrant from one of the most miserable nations in the hemisphere.

This is only the latest left-wing scheme to publicly blow up in their faces. These people are what Napoleon called “picture painters” – they have a complete picture in their heads as to how things will work out, always perfect to the last detail, and always in their favor. And when it all goes wrong, there’s no Plan B, no workable alternative. It’s always a fiasco, and always somebody else’s fault. 

Do they learn from it? They do not. It’s always on to the next painting, to repeat the same imbecile process all over again.

Our congratulations to Michael P. Desronvil, a brave man and a model immigrant.

American Thinker

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congress held a preemptive state funeral honoring Senator Mitch McConnell on Friday, as the Senate sergeant-at-arms had him lie in state, “just in case.”

The atmosphere in the nation’s capital was somber this week as speakers from both sides of the aisle spoke about McConnell’s undying commitment to Democracy, a commitment, they say, won’t let him die.

“Might as well get it out of the way now,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, “We all saw him ‘come back to work’ this week, but let’s be honest… he’s just running on fumes here. That’s why I was the first to recommend having him lie in state in the rotunda. At least he’ll get to enjoy it this way.”

McConnell seemed to be at peace with the decision, with witnesses saying he remained perfectly still while staring blankly at the ceiling. “He seemed happy about it,” one witness said. “He was smiling the whole time.”

When asked to comment on how it felt to be the first person to receive a state funeral prior to death, McConnell said, “…………………”

At publishing time, McConnell’s staff had announced that he had changed his mind about retirement and would instead be seeking re-election in November.

Babylon Bee

Trump says U.S. to build a ‘large Military presence’ in Greenland as part of a security deal with it and Denmark

President Donald Trump on Friday announced an agreement with Greenland and Denmark that gives the U.S. what he described as “permanent control over security, and all other needs” in the Danish island territory.

“We will immediately begin the process of developing a large Military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland, of which there are many,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Greenland already has a U.S. military presence under a decades-old defense agreement with Denmark.

The deal as described in Trump’s post appears to stop far short of his prior insistence that Greenland must be made a part of the United States.

Greenland has maintained it is not for sale, and the European Union earlier this year united to rebuke Trump over his push to acquire the island.

But Trump signaled Friday that he was satisfied by the new deal, claiming that it addresses “ALL of our many U.S. concerns.”

“There will be NO COST to the United States,” he wrote.

The Danish prime minister’s office in a press release later Friday said that the three governments expect to sign the agreement at the United Nations General Assembly next week.

Greenland Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in an included statement that the deal “strengthens our common security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic area and therefore is great for NATO and Europe as well.”

He added that it “recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination.”

Trump’s post included some vague claims about the agreement, including that it guarantees that the U.S. “will FOREVER have the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland.”

The official text of any deal was not immediately available. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for additional information on the deal.

Kevin Breuninger covers national politics for CNBC.com, with a focus on Donald Trump, legal news and breaking political news. He joined the newsroom as an intern in 2017 while enrolled at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

PLYMOUTH, MA — Reports indicated that a modern “Underground Railroad” had been established to help the lone black juror from the Lindsay Clancy case escape from angry, violent, white Democrats.

Though shrouded in secrecy, the new Underground Railroad would purportedly use checkpoints along the Atlantic coast to help shepherd the black man away from the thousands of white Northern liberals who have threatened him with violence.

“We’ve got to get him to the South,” said an operative, on condition of anonymity. “He’ll be safe if he can just get below that Mason-Dixon line. The Republicans won’t let anyone touch him. It’s not going to be easy, though. There are mobs of bloodthirsty white liberals all over the North, looking for a lynching. And the feminists. Dear Lord, the feminists. He’s secure right now, but we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

Volunteers had reportedly prepared to hide the juror in houses, church basements, and Chick-fil-A stockrooms along the escape route. “We’ve got our people looking out for any sign of danger, like a shirt saying ‘Love Is Love’ or ‘Believe All Women,'” explained a pastor working the trail. “It’s a little different direction from the old Railroad, but it’s still black people fleeing angry white Democrats who want to do them harm and force them to do their bidding. Some things never change, I guess.”

At publishing time, the juror had reportedly made it safely across the Pennsylvania border after narrowly escaping a mob carrying “BE KIND” signs.

Babylon Bee

Many Republicans predict that if Democrats regain Congress (and later the White House), everything they do will be about retribution. They won’t do anything constructive to help people such as cut taxes, cut regulations, address Social Security and Medicare bankruptcy, etc.

Correct. However, it’s also true that Republicans missed their final chance to arrest and bring to justice the traitors and willful, open lawbreakers — Fauci, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Biden, Comey, their henchpersons, among many others. Not one has seen justice. Not one. Consequently, we angered the rattlesnake and should the rattlesnake return to power, there will be widespread retribution everywhere.

Unlike Republicans and MAGA, Democrats will not be concerned with rule of law, justice, or actually being guilty. Like all totalitarians, they are only after people who don’t agree with them. They will bring down all opposition with a decisive force and brutality seen throughout history whenever dictatorships come to power — but like nothing yet seen in American history.

So go ahead. Vote for the now fully radicalized Democrats, thinking you’ll get “affordability” guaranteed by politicians.  And enjoy.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Rights were never supposed to be politicized. The Constitution is in operation regardless of the Party in charge. Individual rights are not negotiable. You can debate who should be in charge of the government, but not the scope and limits of government — especially the preservation of rights.

Sadly, that seems to be all over. Democrats dislike the First Amendment, due process, Second Amendment, election integrity, private property, and borders — so they just ignore them. They don’t like voter identification, so they simply let in whomever they feel like to vote. This leaves the rest of us in a difficult position. Either we do like they do — ignore their rights, while upholding our own — or try to keep the Constitution going. Keeping it going is commendable and ultimately practical — assuming the Constitution was still in operation. Assuming elections were still honest. But in places run by Democrats, a sizable part of the country, there is no Constitution. They got away with suspending it during COVID fascism, and they learned their lesson well. Democrats tend to operate on the premise that Trump is not a “real” President, and use it to rationalize they can do their own thing. But not those who disagree with them!

MAGA and Republicans insist the Constitution still matters. It does. But it’s not in operation in Newsom’s California, or Mamdani’s NYC, in Minneapolis, and in none of the “sanctuary” cities and states where the President of the USA is denied authority over federal matters. The Supreme Court (except for two lone Republicans) mostly undermines President Trump, not because he’s unconstitutional, but because they don’t like him. So far as Democrats are concerned, the Constitution is over. That’s our core problem, and it’s why the USA is so dysfunctional despite Trump’s efforts to hold it all together.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Two days ago, the global media rushed to declare that the Iranians had outplayed Donald Trump and his blockade of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC’s proxies in Yemen seized strategic turf in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, damaging Saudi Arabia’s pipeline and sending oil prices higher. The Telegraph reported that the IRGC was “hitting [Trump] where it hurts,” while insisting that the Red Sea action effectively countered – or at least paralleled – the US Navy’s total blockade of Iranian sea traffic:

Iran’s leaders were never going to passively submit to slow strangulation. Facing Donald Trump’s blockade of their ports and the near-total loss of their oil exports, the regime is now striking back across the Middle East, aiming to inflict enough damage to force America to relent.

In the last seven days, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have broken out of their highland strongholds and advanced down the coastal plain, seizing key positions alongside the Bab el-Mandeb strait, where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. …

Iran is now doing everything possible to wreck this alternative, which is why the Houthis have strengthened their hold on the choke point, where they have positioned Iranian-supplied anti-ship missiles.

Much further into the story, though, the Telegraph conceded that this was still both asymmetrical and likely very temporary:

So this is how Iran is trying to break Trump’s stranglehold. And there is plenty more that the Islamic Republic’s leaders might do. They could, for example, resume firing ballistic missiles at the other Gulf states with the twin goals of forcing the oil price still higher and inducing more US allies to implore Trump to reach a new peace agreement.

That option would, of course, risk heavy American retaliation. But, in their own terms, Iran’s actions are logical and effective.

It does not follow, though, that they will necessarily succeed. Some Gulf states, instead of trying to restrain America, might do the opposite and urge Trump to strike even harder at their common enemy. Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, has already asked Trump to bomb the Houthis. The United Arab Emirates is officially co-operating with the US campaign to asphyxiate Iran’s economy, known as Operation Economic Outcast.

This is not a “stranglehold,” at least not by the Iranians or the Houthis. Significant amounts of oil are being shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Scott Bessent claims that the US Navy now has about 65% capacity restored through its safe-passage corridor through the Strait; other sources estimate it somewhat lower, but everyone now acknowledges that the US has restored a significant level of commerce.

The Saudi-UAE pipeline backstopped that until this week, bringing total exports to nearly pre-war levels. That interruption has spiked oil prices, but it’s temporary, and the Saudis now have more reason to go fully into offensive operations to put an end to the partial Houthi occupation of Yemen.

The only ‘stranglehold’ that exists is the one on the IRGC. Even the Telegraph pointed this out, noting that oil shipments from every other Gulf state are increasing through the Strait of Hormuz, but not a single drop has come from Iran:

One certainty is that none of the tankers now passing through the Strait of Hormuz is carrying Iranian oil. By ruthlessly blockading the country’s ports, America is suffocating the regime’s financial lifeline.

The IRGC has countered this by attempting to bolster its trade routes by highway and rail, and across the Caspian Sea with neighboring trade partners. The regime has insisted that Iranians could sustain themselves through these distribution channels, both for exports and imports. Attempts to move oil by rail got stymied by US attacks on rail lines during the July clashes, but the highways were mainly open, and the IRGC propaganda organs painted them as a negation of the American blockade.

How’s that going? The Wall Street Journal reports today that even the open roads have turned into a disaster. Even without any other considerations, the capacity on those channels falls far short of what Iran is losing in the Hormuz blockade. However, the IRGC regime’s corruption and incompetence have made the situation at the crossings much worse, and similar problems in Pakistan aren’t helping either:

Hundreds of Iranian truck drivers are currently stuck at Iran’s border with Pakistan, unable to send their goods into Tehran’s neighbor. They say they are facing worsening bureaucratic hurdles and costs, many caused by their own government. The same thing is happening at Iran’s land borders with Turkey, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, dealing Tehran a self-inflicted blow and throttling trade through its few remaining economic release valves.

Tons of stranded apricots have been spoiled because of the delays. Lucrative cargoes of iron ore, cement and bottled gas are stuck at entry points to the Pakistani and Afghan borders, truckers say.

“Neither Iran is taking responsibility for the situation, nor is Pakistan allowing us to unload our cargo,” one driver says in a video posted by the Union of Truckers and Drivers Organizations Across Iran over the weekend. 

Some of these problems predate the war, the WSJ notes. The customs stations had been understaffed before, but now that traffic has nearly tripled during the blockade, processing on both sides of these borders has all but collapsed. That’s true even with Turkey, where one might expect a little more competence; at the moment, 3,700 trucks are sitting on the side of the road, unable to cross over and deliver their cargoes. 

The backlog is lower on the Pakistan border – 700 trucks are sidelined – but the conditions are much worse:

Iranian truckers trying to get into Pakistan say they can be stuck for several days without access to water, food or sanitation as temperatures rise to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, according to footage, published by the Truckers’ Union on its social-media account. The union said some bottled-gas tankers are crossing into Pakistan. But the Pakistani authorities asked Iranian drivers for the equivalent of more than $10,000 each to cross, an unprecedented amount, it said. A spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said he wasn’t aware of any new charges or restrictions at Pakistan’s border with Iran.

Meanwhile, at the border with Turkmenistan, the gateway to China, transporters complain of constraints tied to a lack of warehouses and of a proper registration process to bring goods by rail to China. One businessman complained it was increasingly difficult to bring in automotive spare parts from the Asian powerhouse.

At some point, Iran will run out of truckers, and may run out of refined diesel and gasoline even before that happens. Iranians are reportedly sleeping in their cars at gas stations in order to avoid losing their place in line for heavily-rationed fuel. Having thousands of trucks sitting idle for days and weeks on end not only reduces capacity to get goods to consumers, it also strands the drivers. It adds more costs per unit delivered in the end, both in real costs and opportunity costs. The added costs, both official and graft, are also adding to Iran’s hyperinflation crisis, the issue that touched off the revolt in January. Iran’s officially acknowledged inflation rate in August was a staggering 128% on food, thanks to the added costs and delays of using overland routes. 

That is not sustainable for an authoritarian regime, theological or otherwise. The US and its allies have options for getting goods to market; the IRGC is rapidly running out of options. If Trump keeps the blockade in place rather than attempt to cut a deal for an “October surprise” to boost Republicans’ election efforts in the midterms, he has a real chance to break the regime and force real change in Iran. 

So much for convoys, eh? Maybe Ahmad Vahidi was too much a fan of C.W. McCall. Pig Pen, this here’s Trumpy Duck, and he’s about to put the hammer down … we hope. 10-4?

Ed Morrisey, Hotair

September 11 is not a day for vague emotional uplift. It is not a seminar on American foreign policy. It is not an occasion to distort a massacre into “differences with the United States.” It is the anniversary of a morning when Islamist terrorists murdered nearly three thousand people on American soil.

Calls to unite Americans and “do a good deed” to honor those murdered by these terrorists are fine if they come with a clear account of who attacked this country, why they did it, and a hard commitment that it must never happen again.

The al Qaeda terrorists did not hijack those planes because of political differences with the U.S. They did it because they despised the civilization those towers represented: democracy, mixed societies, individual liberty, women in public life, Jews and Christians, and secular people living without clerical veto. Al Qaeda’s leaders said so. Their documents said so. Their sermons said so. Pretending otherwise is not nuance. It is amnesia.

There is a persistent effort to minimize that record or invent “another side” to the story. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) reduced the attacks to “some people did something.” Hasan Piker, who campaigned with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, said in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11.” A New Jersey curriculum produced with CAIR-NJ and “Teaching While Muslim” has told students that the attacks were a response to U.S. support for Israel, the Persian Gulf War, and the American military presence in the Middle East.

Even worse, according to a September 5 New York Post article, two-thirds of American Middle East studies professors say college kids cannot identify who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 or why. The Post article attributes this to a lack of mandatory teaching standards about the terrorist attack, which has allowed woke ideology blaming the attacks on U.S. policy or “Islamophobia” to be taught instead. Some of these lesson plans reportedly have been funded by far-left billionaire George Soros.

This is not teaching history. It is a radical woke attempt to rewrite history and explain away murder.

Some school systems are fighting back. For example, the Texas Board of Education recently sparked controversy when it approved changes to the state’s high school social studies curriculum that say radical Islam motivated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This excuse-making matters because it is not unique to 9/11. The same instinct—to explain away Islamist violence as a response to policy differences rather than an expression of extremist ideology—shows up every time such terrorist attacks occur. London in 2005. Madrid in 2004. Paris in 2015. Brussels in 2016. Bali in 2002 and 2005. Mumbai in 2006 and 2008. The 2017 siege of Marawi in the Philippines. These attacks can’t be linked to differences with the U.S. or the American military presence in the Middle East. They were assaults on democracy, freedom, and modern society.

The October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre against Israel also belongs on that list. Hamas murdered about 1,200 people—including babies, children, and the elderly—burned homes, took hostages, and filmed their murderous work. Hamas did not raid Israeli communities over a zoning dispute. It attacked because its ideology cannot tolerate a free, neighboring society that it cannot defeat except by terror. Some details differ from 9/11. The civilizational contempt does not.

Remember this when radical leftists like Hasan Piker try to recycle their blame-the-victim arguments to explain the 9/11 massacre.

The morning of September 11, 2001, belongs first to the victims and family members of this massacre. It belongs to the heroic firefighters and police officers who ran toward the fire and climbed stairs while others fled. It belongs to the brave passengers on Flight 93 who understood they were already dead and chose to fight anyway. It belongs to office workers who carried strangers down darkened stairwells. These were acts of duty and patriotism under conditions designed to produce panic. Their sacrifice deserves a sober memory, not an effort to minimize this atrocity.

The killers were Muslim fanatics who rejected the modern world. That is not an indictment of every Muslim. The vast majority reject that fanaticism and have often been its victims.

We are seeing a version of this Islamist fanaticism now in Iran, where the IRGC and the ruling mullahs are executing protesters and people who talk to the Western media. A regime that hangs its own people for demanding a normal life is not resisting some vague threat from the U.S. or Israel. It is at war with modernity itself. When such a state talks about resistance, look at what it is resisting: dissent, pluralism, and the idea that sovereignty belongs to citizens rather than the regime’s armed thugs.

Good deeds are not enough. Name who did this. State why. And say, without embarrassment: never again.

Heroes. Sacrifice. A radical Islamist enemy that named itself. Reject euphemism and denial on this solemn day. Teach our children that kindness will not protect our freedom or our lives from those who want to destroy us. We must recognize the foreign threats to our nation, be willing to defend it, and be ready to fight.

* * *

Fred Fleitz previously served as chief of staff of the Trump National Security Council. He is a co-chair with the America First Policy Institute and is also the author of North Korea, Nuclear Brinkmanship, and the Oval Office, which was just released by Texas A&M Press.