Tag: politics

Power Without Principle: The Rise of the Bully Presidency

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.”— Donald J. Trump on seizing women, Access Hollywood (2005)

“I think I can do anything I want with it. Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.”—Donald Trump on seizing Cuba (2026)

It’s been 20 years since Donald Trump bragged that, as a star, he could do anything—even assault women—and get away with it.

Two decades later, what once sounded like crude bravado has become a governing philosophy: might makes right, power excuses everything, and accountability is for other people—not this president.

Despite the Access Hollywood recording—and everything it revealed about his character—Trump was elected to the White House twice. And ever since, he has governed exactly as he promised: as a man who believes he is unaccountable, entitled, and free to act without limits.

The same mindset that once bragged about being able to “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters” has now been scaled up and weaponized through the presidency.

With a core MAGA following that seems unwilling to hold him accountable for any wrongdoing, Trump has justifiably earned his nickname as “Teflon Don.”

He can be accused of sexually assaulting young girls, and he won’t lose any voters. He can, as commander-in-chief, sanction the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran—killing young girls, their mothers and teachers—and he won’t lose any voters. He can torpedo a thriving economy, sending inflation and gas prices soaring, and he won’t lose any voters. He can dismantle a government structure that has been in place for over 200 years, and he won’t lose any voters. He can be a walking—talking—living contradiction of everything Christians claim to stand for, and he won’t lose any voters. He can send Americans servicemen and women to die in wars that the U.S. had no business starting, and he won’t lose any voters.

This is the mindset now shaping American policy.

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Senate Again Rejects Effort to Restrict Trump’s Iran War Powers

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday once again rejected a motion to discharge S.J. Res. 118, a joint resolution to withdraw American armed forces from military actions in Iran sans Congressional approval. The motion was shot down in a 47–53 vote.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), is an attempt to invoke the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to require explicit congressional approval for ongoing U.S. military involvement in the region.

The motion was rejected mostly along party lines, with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) providing the lone Republican supporter and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) voting with Republicans.

“If there’s anything that is plain in that Constitution, it is that a president does not have the power to unilaterally bring a nation and its treasure, to bring a nation and its men and women into conflict without a say of Congress,” Booker said on the Senate floor.

“This is not a partisan issue. This is not a left or right issue. It is a right or wrong, do you stand with the Constitution of the United States of America?”

The U.S.-led military campaign against Iran entered its third week on Wednesday as Iran engages in retaliatory strikes across the region, disrupting global energy flows and driving up oil prices. Iran launched missiles and drones late Wednesday night a toward Israel and several Persian Gulf countries, continuing a trend of targeting its neighbors.

The Israel Defense Forces, as well as defense measures in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, have responded to Iran’s attacks. Israel conducted strikes in Tehran Tuesday, killing Ali Larijani, a top Iranian security official, as well as Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Basij force.

Meanwhile, Brent crude prices have skyrocketed above $100 per barrel as Middle East oil exports have been halted. Strikes against Iranian gas fields have contributed to the increase in oil prices. Two Canadian cargo ships are stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to pass through the waterway.

U.S. intelligence says Iran’s regime remains in power, but it’s deteriorated.

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Newly-Elected Idaho Mayor Dies While Giving Town Hall Speech

A newly-elected mayor in Idaho died while giving a town hall speech on Wednesday.

Idaho News reported that Nampa Mayor Rick Hogaboam, 47, experienced a medical emergency on Wednesday evening while giving a speech during a regional town hall event.

The Treasure Valley Partnership reported that Hogaboam received CPR from Eagle Mayor Brad Pike, who is a former firefighter, but despite the rescue efforts, Hogaboam was later pronounced dead.

Details on what led to Hogaboam’s sudden medical emergency are currently under investigation.

er The New York Post:

A newly elected Idaho mayor died after he collapsed mid-speech during a town hall meeting — as another elected leader tried to save his life.

Nampa Mayor Rick Hogaboam suffered a “medical emergency” while speaking around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday in Eagle, Idaho, according to Idaho News.

Eagle Mayor Brad Pike, who was sitting next to the 47-year-old politician, was the first to administer CPR.

The Treasure Valley Partnership town hall meeting was adjourned as the politician was being treated by cops, fire crews and medics who rushed to the scene.

In his last Facebook post, Hogaboam posted a picture of himself attending a fire training event at a Nampa firefighter training facility.

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The World’s Worst Environmentalist Alarmist Just Died, and One Viral Clip Shows How Evil He Really Was

Paul Ehrlich died last week. I doubt he would have minded, considering he thought there should have been a lot fewer people on earth. Really, if he wanted to put his money where his rhetoric was, he should have checked out a bit earlier.

Ehrlich, who passed away at the age of 93 on Friday, was a Stanford University biologist best known for his 1968 book “The Population Bomb.” The thesis was effectively in the title — overpopulation would kill us all.

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now,” he wrote in the book, predicting that four billion humans would die.

Well, this didn’t work out as planned. In his obituary, The New York Times did put an “austere religious scholar” twist on his legacy, noting in the subtitle that “he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature.”

I guess they figured that was defensible because there are over eight billion people on the planet now and they’ll all die eventually, if not writhing from hunger due to that pesky population bomb that never happened.

There are plenty of reasons to loathe both Ehrlich himself and the legacy he leaves behind, but this clip from 1970 making the rounds should neatly demonstrate why we oughtn’t lament the loss.

Ehrlich was being asked what the government should do to control the population. He said he was “against government interference in our lives” to start with, which turned out to be just as much of a lie as the rest of his life’s work.

“The very first thing the government should do is try and take the pressure off to reproduce,” Ehrlich said. “There’s a lot of pressure in our society now to reproduce.”

“If you’re single, people try and push you into getting married,” he added. “The idea is that nobody should escape. So there’s pressure to get married.”

“Young couples, if they don’t have children, people say, gee, they must be sterile,” he continued. “They never say, gee, maybe they like good wine and going to the theater and so on. They prefer that to scraping diapers. So there’s pressure to have children.”

At least in that respect, Ehrlich has succeeded, although not through government intervention: We’ve convinced an entire generation that they should care about fleeting pleasures more than the greatest joys in life, although we’ve made them feel guilty about that, too. (Wine has a carbon footprint, after all!)

However, Ehrlich wanted more — he wanted White House intervention.

“The president ought to say, from now, here on out, no intelligent, patriotic American family ought to have more than two children, preferably one, if you’re starting a family now,” Ehrlich said. “Not any law, but just say this is what responsible people do.”

And then he said there should be a law — of the most ridiculous sort.

“He ought to make the FCC see to it that large families are always treated in a negative light on television, wherever they appear,” Ehrlich continued. “There ought to be a tremendous amount of television time devoted to spot commercials, the sort we’ve had against smoking. But ones in the middle, say, in the middle of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies,’ you get a scene which shows Los Angeles in the smog and it just says, ‘This city has a fatal disease. It’s called overpopulation.’ So long.”

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Did Zohran Mamdani Lie About His Wife’s Connections to Antisemitic Author? It Sure Looks Like He Did.

Late last week, we learned that Rama Duwaji, wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, illustrated a book for Palestinian-American author and journalist Susan Abulhawa, who has a troubling history of antisemitism, including calling Jews “cockroaches,” “rootless parasites,” and “rabid demons.” 

That revelation came on the heels of the news that Duwaji liked dozens of social media posts celebrating the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. Mamdani once again ran interference for his wife, claiming she got the freelance illustrating gig through a third party and didn’t know it was for Abulhawa. He called Abulhawa’s remarks “rephrensible,” which tracks with Mamdani’s habit of throwing friends and allies under the bus, it seems.

And we say “friends and allies” because it turns out Mamdani’s family has ties to Abulhawa, and many of them.

The New York Post has details:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s family has crossed paths with the anti-Israel activist who called Jews “cockroaches” and “vampires,” despite his attempts to distance himself from her.

Susan Abulhawa, 55, is a member of the Advisory Policy Council of the Gaza Tribunal along with Mamdani’s Columbia University professor father, Mahmood Mamdani.

The group, which features just 29 members, was established in London in 2024 and describes itself as an independent “people’s tribunal” that collects evidence against Israel in Gaza. British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn is another prominent figure within it.

…

But Abulhawa was a featured speaker at Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies which Mamdani Sr. — a professor in the school’s Department of Anthropology — has long been associated with, appearing in a bio on their website.

Abulhawa was also among the prominent signatories to a 2018 open letter to members of the Saudi royal family to urge them to release professor and women’s rights activist Hatoon al-Fassi. Mamdani’s filmmaker mother, Mira Nair, as well as his father were also among the signatories.

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Mamdani Proposes Massive Estate Tax Exemption Cut From $7M To $750K, Among Other Tax Increases

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is urging Albany to consider a sweeping overhaul of New York’s estate tax, proposing to sharply lower the exemption threshold and dramatically increase the top rate on large inheritances. His plan would cut the exemption from more than $7 million to $750,000 while boosting the highest tax rate from 16 percent to 50 percent, Bloomberg reported. 

The idea was included in a policy memo his administration recently shared with state lawmakers as they negotiate the state budget, according to NY Focus.

The estate tax proposal is one of several revenue measures Mamdani’s office has floated as the city prepares for a significant budget gap. New York City is projecting a $5.4 billion deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1, and the mayor is asking state officials to help identify new sources of funding to help close the shortfall.

Among the other proposals is a narrower package of business tax increases aimed specifically at companies operating in the city. The administration estimates those changes could generate about $1.75 billion annually. Under the plan, the city’s corporate tax rate would rise to 10.8 percent for financial firms and to 10.62 percent for other corporations, while the tax on large unincorporated businesses would increase modestly for firms earning more than $5 million.

Mamdani is also proposing to scale back the Pass-Through Entity Tax credit, which currently allows certain business owners to use company tax payments to fully offset what they owe in personal income taxes. Limiting that credit to 75 percent of its value would produce roughly $700 million a year, according to city estimates. The mayor continues to advocate for raising the local income tax rate on residents earning more than $1 million annually, a measure projected to bring in about $3 billion each year.

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Mamdani ‘Comforts’ NYC Muslims After Outbreak of ‘Islamophobia’

New York City’s far-left Gothamist has the sads, because when one member of the left’s conglomeration of haters, traitors, freaks, parasites and psychopaths suffers, the whole coalition of the weird suffers. This time, however, there is a silver lining: one of the bright stars of the contemporary left, New York Mayor Zohan Mamdani, is on the case. 

The Gothamist headline on Friday was: “’We are enough’: After Islamophobic attacks, Mamdani comforts NYC’s Muslim community.” That’s superb, but left unanswered was the question of who comforts the victims of the nationwide Muslim community when some members of that community decide it’s time to wage jihad. 

Gothamist stated that “just hours before he was set to speak at an event marking Ramadan, Mayor Zohran Mamdani realized he needed to overhaul his prepared remarks.” This was because “in the last few days, Mamdani and Muslims throughout the country had been subjected to a torrent of Islamophobia.”

In discussing this alleged “torrent of Islamophobia,” Gothamist did not see fit to remind its readers — or inform them for the first time, since these are leftists we’re talking about — that there have been four jihad attacks in the U.S. in the last two weeks. Ramadan, after all, has been called the “month of jihad,” and with good reason. This year, the festivities began on March 1, when a Muslim migrant opened fire in a bar in Austin, Texas, killing three people and injuring 13 others.

Then on March 7, two Muslims screaming “Allah akbar” threw a homemade shrapnel bomb at a crowd of pro-freedom protesters in New York City itself, the home of Gothamist and Zohran Mamdani. Then on March 12, a Muslim crashed his car into a Michigan synagogue and opened fire, while another Muslim started shooting at Old Dominion University, murdering one person and injuring two others.

Steadfastly ignoring all this and much more that might lead the potential victims of more such attacks to be suspicious of Islam or even dislike it outright, Gothamist quoted Mamdani addressing a crowd of Muslims who had gathered at City Hall for an iftar dinner: “When I hear such hatred and disdain unchecked in its rancor, I feel an isolation and a loneliness that I know that many of you have felt as well.”

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Election Fraud in Deep Blue California? Officials Investigate Alleged Scheme Paying People to Sign Ballot Petitions With Fake Names

California election officials are investigating a disturbing allegation that petition circulators in San Francisco were paying individuals to sign ballot petitions using fake names.

According to state officials, the investigation began after a video surfaced online earlier this week showing what appears to be a sidewalk operation offering cash in exchange for signatures on ballot petitions, News4Jax reported.

The footage, posted Monday on X, shows a sign reading “Sign petition for $5” with a line of people waiting along a San Francisco sidewalk.

At a nearby folding table, a woman appears to be instructing individuals on what name and address to use while filling out the petitions.

When the person recording the video asked what the petitions were for, the woman simply responded: “Just sign it.”

The video quickly went viral and caught the attention of California election authorities.

In a statement Friday, the California Secretary of State’s office confirmed it is actively investigating the matter.

“We are aware of, and investigating, the matter,” the office said.

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More Questions Have Surfaced About Eric Swalwell’s Eligibility to Run for California Governor

Back in January, a California filmmaker filed a lawsuit claiming that Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell, who is running to replace outgoing Governor Gavin Newsom, is ineligible to run for the seat. Why? The suit claims that Swalwell has no permanent California residence, and that he lives in a $1.2 million D.C. mansion he claimed as his primary residence for mortgage purposes.

Now one of Swalwell’s Democratic opponents, Tom Steyer, is also making the claim that Swalwell is ineligible to run.

Here’s more:

Tom Steyer’s campaign petitioned the California secretary of state to enforce a dormant residency requirement in the governor’s race, arguing rival Eric Swalwell “appears to live in California on paper only.”

The request, first reported here, elevates a charge that was previously limited to conservative critics into a full-blown campaign attack by one of Swalwell’s top-polling Democratic opponents.

The secretary of state’s office has for years considered a requirement that candidates reside in the state for five years immediately prior to the election to be unconstitutional and unenforceable. But Steyer’s campaign argued a hostile Trump administration — which has lobbed mortgage fraud allegations against Swalwell after the House member helped lead impeachment proceedings against the president — could exploit legal ambiguity to embroil California in a “constitutional crisis” if Swalwell wins.

This means Swalwell is lying about his residency or possibly committed mortgage fraud.

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