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Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Top O' the Briefing

Happy Monday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Alzzubumwya was convinced that there was no greater portent of mankind's doom than flavored Oreos.

Before we get into the main topic today, I just want to do an endzone dance over the news that backstabbing squish Thom Tillis will not be seeking reelection, which Matt wrote about. Regular readers of mine know that I've gone after Tillis on a few occasions. Matt's post quotes Tillis' lament of the "endangered species" status of bipartisanship. Here are some of my thoughts on that which I used to begin a column I wrote about Tillis in December of 2022:

One of the more frustrating aspects of being a conservative Republican is the constant need to look over one’s shoulder for stealth attacks by moderate squish members of the GOP on important issues like health care, gun control, and amnesty for illegal immigrants. Such ideological shivs in the back always arrive under the execrable guise of bipartisanship.

The Democratic Party has gone so far off the rails that there is no case to be made for seeking common ground with them. Props to President Trump for giving Tillis the hook. As my friend and HotAir colleague John Sexton wrote, Trump had a great week.

Now for today's feature presentation...

The Supreme Court of the United States made sure that last Friday was not the slow news day that Fridays typically are. The justices were once again pressed into duty because of the antics of the chronic sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome. They almost certainly have better things to do, but it was time for the Judicial Branch to police itself.

This is from Chris:

The Supreme Court has ruled in a case involving whether district court judges have jurisdiction to issue nationwide injunctions regarding President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Trump administration. The conservative justices ruled for the administration, while the liberals ruled against.
"The court says that universal injunctions 'likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,'" explained SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe on a liveblog on Friday.
As my friend and RedState colleague Susie Moore explains, Trump v. CASA is comprised of “three consolidated cases involving President Trump's executive order regarding birthright citizenship, with the issue being not the substance of the order itself (we're not there yet), but rather, whether the district court judges who issued injunctive relief in the cases had the jurisdiction to issued nationwide/universal injunctions prohibiting the administration from implementing the order anywhere in the country.”

SCOTUS decided that liberal lunatic lower court judges can't just throw their commie whims into the machinery of real justice because ORANGE MAN BAD, thwarting the Democrats' pathetic tantrum-based way of doing things, at least for the moment.

Because their championing of illegal alien criminals isn't popular with real Americans, Democrats have been relying on rogue judges to keep rapists, murderers, and human traffickers in the United States. They do love their criminals. As we have seen all too often in the last few years, the American judiciary has a lot of judges who are willing to pervert the law when battling President Trump.

The response from the Dems and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media is redefining "unhinged." And an absolute delight to watch unfold. David wrote a VIP column about the response from The Chicago Tribune:

The Tribune's coverage frames the ruling as an “invitation for executive abuse” and wrings its hands over what could happen to birthright citizenship, Trump’s latest target. They suggest that this ruling will create a patchwork of justice, resulting in different Americans experiencing varying legal realities.
Here’s what they really mean: “We can’t stop Trump anymore, and that terrifies us.”

Every iteration of this diaper-soiling that I've seen in the MSM involves fantastical musings about what President Trump might do. It is just more of the "monster under the bed" nonsense we have been subjected to since 2016. It's childish behavior, because only children are afraid of monsters under the bed.

The standard-bearer for the mentally unwell in this case is none other than Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote a dissenting opinion that will forever be a stain of shame on the highest court in the land. In Jackson's fever dream, reining in the lower court judges means that President Trump can now operate in a Wild West scenario, doing whatever he wants because the law no longer applies to him, or something. Her liberal colleagues on the court didn't even sign off on it.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett absolutely obliterated the dissent, writing for the majority that Jackson's dissent, "is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself (emphasis mine)." Matt has more about that here.

The Democrats fear an abuse of power by President Trump because abusing power is what they do. They can't fathom that everyone doesn't do it. The beauty of this is that, even though the president isn't going to become what they say he is, they'll still be getting ulcers worrying about it.

https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2025/06/30/the-morning-briefing-dem-reactions-to-scotus-kneecapping-activist-judges-are-delicious-n4941293?utm_source=rsmorningbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

A very consequential two weeks for Donald Trump’s presidency

A very consequential two weeks for Donald Trump’s presidency

BySalena Zito

00:00

01:22

When the active duty Air Force and Missouri Air National Guard bomber crews who attacked the Fordow uranium enrichment plant in Iran went to work last Friday, they kissed their loved ones goodbye, not knowing when or if they’d be home. That’s when their families became aware something was happening.

“When those jets returned from Whiteman on Sunday, their families were waiting, flying American flags and shedding tears of pride and relief,” Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week.

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The jets rejoined into a formation of four, pitching out to land right over the base — a landing Caine said was greeted by incredible cheers and tears from the families who sacrifice and serve right alongside the pilots.

“One commander told me this is a moment in the lives of our families that they will never forget,” Caine said at a press conference Thursday at the Pentagon. “That, my friends, is what America’s joint force does. We think, we develop, we train, we rehearse, we test, we evaluate every single day. And when the call comes to deliver, we do so.”

It was a moment of consequence, excellence, leadership, and guts.

In the past 12 days, some of the most consequential decisions in American history, those that will affect generations and leave a substantial impact on our culture, economy, and political alignment, have been made either by President Donald Trump or because of him. But they have been largely either downplayed or not fully analyzed in terms of how they all connect.

The U.S. Steel deal between the iconic American company and Nippon Steel happened because of Trump’s ability to apply pressure through negotiations that sometimes bewildered everyone involved. But they led to the literal reversal of fortune of an industry, from the additional supply industries that include mechanics, construction workers, transportation systems such as railways, and energy.

The 50% tariffs Trump announced the day he visited the U.S. Steel plant in West Mifflin were also seen by American manufacturers as a signal that Trump was committed to revitalizing American steel mills. It also signaled an overall mandate to reshore manufacturing in the country.

While much of Wall Street warned that the tariffs would cause a widespread recession, a former critic of the tariffs, Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, did an about-face and wondered if Trump outsmarted everyone, laying out a scenario that keeps tariffs well below Trump’s most aggressive rates long enough to ease uncertainty.

That a steelworker or a welder working for a defense contractor would watch what happened to Iran’s nuclear program and feel a part of it is a nuance in American journalism that is often missed.

Sen. David McCormick (R-PA) told the Washington Examiner that it is an integrated story, both in terms of the consequences of those decisions, bolstering our economic capability, and our independence.

“But it’s a confidence in leadership story, too,” McCormick said.

McCormick, who took office in January after winning against an entrenched Democrat few thought he could defeat, said the nuance of how intertwined moments such as these are is often missed.

“These are reinforcing themes,” he said.

McCormick, who grew up in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, argues that often the best of the best in the military come from the heartland, from working on the shop floors to defending the country. They understand that the planes might have been made by a member of their community or even their family.

“That is where the grit of the country lies,” McCormick said. “Of course, they see what they do as part of something bigger than self because often people don’t understand the vitality of their profession.”

McCormick, who served in the Army and was part of the 82nd Airborne Division deploying to Iraq during the Gulf War, was joined by Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) in praising Trump’s airstrikes.

McCormick said he talked to Trump about the historic strikes on Sunday.

“I just called him and just said, ‘Man, so when I put boots on the ground myself personally 30 years ago, I never imagined we’d have this kind of terrorist threat, the risk of a nuclear weapon, and this kind of leadership and competence,’” McCormick said.

The president told McCormick something profound about the people who were part of the operation.

“The president said, ‘Those young people are magnificent.’ And I said, ‘You know what, Mr. President, the thing about them is my heart swells when I see that kind of leadership with those 40 kids shooting the Patriots in Qatar,’” McCormick said of the soldiers fighting to intercept Iranian missiles that targeted the U.S. base at Al Udeid.

McCormick recalled that Trump said, “These are the best America has to offer, and every time I’ve interacted with them, that’s what I said.”

It is hard to dispute that Trump is a man of consequence following the U.S. strikes in Iran, the ceasefire struck only 12 days after the war began between Israel and Iran, and his brokering of a deal to increase defense contributions across NATO dramatically.

And this all happened in under two weeks, beginning with Trump signing the U.S. Steel deal on June 13 and continuing Friday morning with the Supreme Court ruling that individual judges lack the authority to grant nationwide injunctions. The latter was a breathtaking victory for Trump, who has been hampered by activist judges throwing up everything but the kitchen sink to try to curtail his agenda.

There is an old wisdom in political science that real presidential power, whether domestic or international, is the power of persuasion. In less than two weeks, Trump has shown that his impact on American history has centered on his persuasive powers and using them to execute leadership.

TIM KAINE’S STARTLING NAIVETY ON IRAN

While elites struggle to understand the appeal of Trump and conservative populism, what they miss, what they have always missed, is the nuance of what “Make America Great Again” meant to voters. The media saw it as a vulgar attempt at nationalism, often brazenly calling it so. But it never was. For most Trump supporters, it meant the connective tissue not with him, but with each other, that they were all part of something bigger than self.

To date, President Franklin Roosevelt has had the longest impact on American politics in our short history. Trump will exceed that, especially if he continues to have two-week stretches such as these.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/3456633/consequential-two-weeks-donald-trump-presidency-us-steel-iran-maga/

Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News 7/01/2025

News you might have missed

As we head off for another summer in our “cabin on wheels,” for a “gypsy” lifestyle, today’s column, written weeks ago, offers news items overlooked earlier. Internet hotspot willing, I may continue to be astounded by California-related, logic-defying stories; as the Dale Gribble character would say on “King of the Hill,” “That makes a lot of sense—a lot of non-sense.”

In no particular order: Back in May, some California politicians were seriously considering an anti-Stand-Your-Ground law. Only leftist, anti-gun, despot-favoring Democrats would actually think that the oldest principle of self-defense—the “castle doctrine” of defending your home—could be canceled.

When citizens are reduced to living in fear of lawless intruders—as has happened in the United Kingdom or anywhere you must “retreat” before defending yourself—they cry out for the government to protect them. That may or may not actually happen but the goal is achieved: Previously free citizens are deprived of a right to self-defense.

You probably, rightly suspect a hidden racial angle. It seems most homeowners are white and most home invaders are...not. Anti-gunners assumed that the Commission on Civil Rights would find in favor of an anti-Black effect of Stand-Your-Ground laws. It turns out that the Florida law didn’t produce the desired narrative, so the research was thrown out. Typically, they push a narrative until the facts contradict it, then just throw out the facts.

***

Gavin Newsom’s 10-year plan to end San Francisco homelessness passed the 20-year anniversary without, unsurprisingly, any success. Instead, the former SF Mayor’s delusional goals unleashed state-wide homeless encampments—and billions of dollars of wasted efforts. He only recently used a court decision to demand cities and towns (like Red Bluff) clear out the same encampments he basically encouraged in the first place.

***

Another decades-in-the-making policy debacle, California’s housing (affordability) crisis, will apparently be solved by SB 750, the California Residential Mortgage Insurance Act, authored by Democratic State Senator Dave Cortese. It would create a state-backed loan insurance program for multifamily housing.

The stated goal is to remove risk and uncertainty for lenders and builders of high-density housing. Most folks prefer a detached, single-family home on a lot they own. However, they can neither find nor afford such housing in a state where—due to restrictions on land use, lengthy permitting processes, and an environmentalist lock on government—home prices are double what they are in other states.

So, the state will take on the financial risk of guaranteeing loans, and thus incentivizing building of housing that people may not prefer—leaving taxpayers to bail out said builders when projects go under. It does nothing to reduce the cost of the type of housing people want; it just forces them into the “stacked and packed” housing preferred by big-government types seeking to control the masses.

***

It may have escaped readers attention, and hopefully it was not a priority for local libraries, but Kelly Jensen posted “How To Prepare For Pride Month in Libraries in 2025.” “For libraries, ‘Pride’ has traditionally been a month for joyful displays of queer books, with periodic and predictable complaints.” The thinly-veiled agenda: normalize the indoctrination of children to choose alternate (i.e. perverted, “gender fluid”) sexual orientations, aka “grooming” them to reject traditional, especially Christian, beliefs on sexuality.

Related: Jeff Younger wrote that a “California judge allowed my ex-wife to chemically castrate my son...[Younger] vowed to shut down the LA Children’s Hospital gender clinic; the judge laughed.” June 12 ABC headline: “CHLA closing center for transgender youth.” Jeff Younger: “Who’s laughing now?”

***

“California College Disciplinary Officer Sued Over Censorship; Golden West College threatened student with discipline for statements calling illegal immigration a ‘cancer’ and Hamas ‘a terrorist organization’” (ifs.org, 5/27). Instead of defending free speech, G.W. College sought to silence the student (from Iran, wanting to enjoy free speech in America) with disciplinary retaliation. The student, with the Institute for Free Speech, is suing the college; let’s hope they succeed.

***

“Low Gas Prices Are Defying Expectations As They Continue to Come Down Under [T-word’s] Second Term” by Rebecca Downs (Townhall.com, June 11). Prices rise in Oregon and CA while GasBuddy shows an average of $3.18/gallon nationwide.

Meanwhile, USC expert Michael Mische projected that CA gas prices could climb to $8 per gallon; Gov. Newsom mocked the prediction on social media. And yet, Energy Commission Vice Chair Siva Gunda confirmed that Oil refinery closures—Philips 66 (LA) and Valero (Benicia)—will cut 20 percent of in-state gasoline production.

Blame mounting pressure from environmental regulations, aggressive public policies, and costly compliance mandates; Valero was fined $82 million for “air violations.” No new refineries have been built since 1969, in a state with large fossil fuel deposits. Your pump price reflects nearly $1.50 in taxes and Low Carbon Fuel Standard fees (and rising $0.65 today).

Mark Penn Describes NYC Dem Primary System 'Changes' and How the Results Have the Party Panicking

Mark Penn Describes NYC Dem Primary System 'Changes' and How the Results Have the Party Panicking

By Becky Noble |

Since last November's presidential election, it has been like Christmas and our birthdays all rolled into one, watching the Democrat party flailing about. Unless there is a major change, it doesn't seem like that flailing about is going to end any time soon. What is also fascinating to watch is their massive lurch to the far left. The evidence of that lurch was on full display Tuesday with the win in the Democrat primary for New York City mayor of avowed Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani. The left claims to be so concerned about election integrity, but was Mamdani's victory really a clean one?

Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn knows a thing or two about getting someone elected. On Thursday, he appeared on the Fox News Channel with Laura Ingraham and made some interesting observations about how Tuesday's results came about. He stated that the primary system was "manipulated" to benefit Mamdani. He said to Ingraham,

“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."

The first issue with the New York City election is the use of the ranked-choice voting system. As of around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday night, with 88 percent of the vote in, Mamdani was leading with 43.5 percent of first-choice votes. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was second with 36.3 percent. Cuomo ultimately conceded the race before a final call could be made.

Penn talked about the fact that the ranked-choice voting system is confusing to many voters. But the second, and maybe even bigger issue with the primary is timing. Penn explained:

“This (the primary) 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 made no bones about what he thinks needs to happen before November, saying,

“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."

Zohran Mamdani's win to become the Democrat nominee for mayor of America's largest city has not only alarmed Republicans, but even Democrats like Penn and former strategist James Carville know Mamdani's extreme views are not a good look for the floundering party. On a recent podcast, Carville stated:

"Depending on who comes in a general election, there's a lot of Democrats that are going to have a hard go at this. I think it's a potentially damaging event."

The Democrat base is dominated by the far-left, socialist movement.

Carville's fellow podcaster, Al Hunt, said it best that Mamdani could well be a "gift to Republicans." Carville and Hunt have wealthy white liberals to thank for Mamdani's win. Cuomo did well in predominantly black and Jewish areas of the city.

ALSO READ: Carville Sounds Alarm About ‘Gift To Republicans’ Of Socialist Mayoral Primary Victory

Mark Penn, Carville, Hunt, and the rest have reason to be scared of a Mamdani candidacy. His extreme views, like rent freezing, free city buses, free child care, and government-run grocery stores, are quickly becoming the face of the Democrat party. He has also made jarring anti-Israel anti-Jewish statements, such as refusing to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, defending the phrase "globalize the intifada," threatening to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and accusing Israel of genocide. If Mark Penn is right, and Democrats engineered a Mamdani victory, the results will be the next self-inflicted kill shot to the Democrat party.

Zohran Mamdani will face off in the general election in November against Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. Cuomo and current Mayor Eric Adams are both running as independents, and could hurt Mamdani, splitting the vote. That's good for Sliwa. The other bright spot for Sliwa, and quite possibly for the city itself, there is no ranked-choice voting in the general election.