Victor Davis Hanson: The Left’s ‘Assassination Chic’ and the Inevitability of Another Attack

Daily Signal 

"Number two, the invective on social media—and that’s where they live, on social media—is all anti-Trump, anti-Trump, anti-corporate. It’s Left. There’s a huge left-wing. And the invective they’re using: Fascist, fascist, fascist, fascist, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler."

. . . "Is there a pattern? Yes. They’re all four people of the Left. They’re all four, not just people of the Left, but activists incited by particular left-wing dogmas. In the case of Tyler Robinson, he was into the trans movement, this weird, furry movement, and felt that Charlie Kirk was probably an obstacle to that. In the case of Crooks, he had gone from either isolated, crazy, conservative to hard Left, and he had bought into the idea that Donald Trump was an existential threat, and he hated him.  

"If you look at Luigi Mangione, he was an overeducated nepo baby who believed that the health care [system] and the whole corporate world was unfair to poor people, and they weren’t getting health care. So, who’s going to take out one, the biggest, United Healthcare?

"So he thought. That’s what he claimed.  

"If you were Ryan Routh, he said so many crazy things, but he hated Trump because he thought he was going to cut off aid to Ukraine, everything.  

"So now we have the idea that they are all trying to kill conservatives. By the way, there’s more of them than the opposite. If you count the eight or nine trans cases. Somebody just sent me something that was on the Libs of TikTok—I can’t assess the veracity of it. People who commit shootings of over four people based on their race or sexual orientation? The largest group shooting people were people who identified as trans or were in the trans movement of some way. I don’t know how you adjudicate all of those, whether you count Thomas Crook or you count Tyler Robinson who were somewhere there. Whether pronouns or furry animals or whatever crazy, kooky thing they are. But my point is this: That seems to be more common. And you go back to Stephen Scalise and other stuff." . . .

. . . "So, the system sends a message to these four. You’re not going to really pay the ultimate price. And then it sends message number two that if you do do this, you’re going to be canonized as a political hero in some quarters. And number three, you’re going to be famous." . . .  More...

3 Taxpayers Will Have Fled California In The Time It Takes You To Read This

Issues & Insights

" . . .Why do those who don’t or can’t leave put up with it? Why do they keep electing the same cast of criminals who are stealing their money and ruining their state?. . .

"Over the weekend, we learned that the Golden State loses one taxpayer to another state every minute, and faces an $18 billion budget shortfall, which is $5 billion higher than was projected just a few months ago.

"We also learned that only now, 10 months after wildfires destroyed thousands of buildings in the Los Angeles area, has the first home been rebuilt.

"These stories are yet more evidence of a completely dysfunctional state captured by ideologues who couldn’t care less about the harm their policies cause. Will voters there ever learn?

"The National Taxpayers Union Foundation used IRS data to calculate how many taxpayers are moving into and out of states each year.

"What it found was stunning. California is losing taxpayers at a rate of one every 1 minute 44 seconds – the fastest of any state in the nation. That amounts to billions in lost tax revenue every year.

"Florida, in contrast, is gaining taxpayers at a rate of one every 2 minutes 9 seconds.

"Meanwhile, California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office just reported that the state faces an $18 billion shortfall next fiscal year, which is $5 billion higher than it projected a few months back and which will likely “grow to about $35 billion annually due to spending growth continuing to outstrip revenue growth.”

"The report also cautions that even this outlook is optimistic because the current AI stock bubble is masking the state’s dire fiscal situation. California is ridiculously dependent on capital gains taxes. “With so much enthusiasm surrounding AI, it now appears time to take seriously the notion that the stock market has become overheated,” it warns.

"The report calls the state’s budget position “weak,” which has to be the understatement of the year.

"Next, we come to the weekend story in the Los Angeles Times to find that “The first home has been rebuilt in the wake of the Palisades Fire.”

"Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass calls it “an important moment of hope.' ” . . .

When Should You Use Roman Numerals?

 Word Smarts

"English has a long history. It’s in the family of Indo-European languages and is specifically a West Germanic language originally spoken by people who left Roman rule. We use the Latin alphabet for our writing system, but we don’t use its numeral system, Roman numerals. The base-10 numbering system we do use (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and onward) is also called the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. This is what is used for math, science, finance, and most calculations in the English-speaking world and across much of the globe. However, there are still uses for Roman numerals. 

"The differences between Hindu-Arabic and Roman numerals go beyond just how they look. The former are counted one by one: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Roman numerals grow in stages: 

I → 1                     C → 100

V → 5                    D → 500

X → 10                  M → 1000

L → 50                      

"To represent the values in between these main figures, Roman numerals use an additive or subtractive model. To translate the Roman numerals into their Hindu-Arabic counterparts, we need to do some simple math. When two Roman numerals of equal or greater value are placed sequentially, the value is added together. So VI is 5+1, which becomes 6, and XX is 10+10, which becomes 20. If the smaller numeral comes before the larger, subtract the smaller from the larger. IV is 5-1, which is 4, and XIX is 10+(10-1), which is 19. Only three of the same numeral are allowed to stay together, so instead of XXXX, XL represents 40. 

"After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, Roman numerals stayed strong for a few centuries. The first major documentation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in a math text was the Italian mathematician Fibonacci’s book Liber abaci (Book of the Abacus) in 1202. The Hindu-Arabic system was influential in developing algebra, and it began to take over in Europe. However, Roman numerals remained popular for more ceremonial uses, such as numbering important figures, including the pope of the Catholic Church and royalty. For example, Shakespeare’s historical plays document the many Henrys of the Tudor line, from Henry IV to Henry VIII. " . . .

How sick is the American left? This sick.

Patricia McCarthy  

Their hatred of Trump has made them enemies of us all.  They are so thoroughly ungrateful for what this great nation has provided for them.  They are indeed sick.

"Leftists are so sick that when two National Guardsmen are shot by an Afghan welcomed into the U.S. by Biden, they blame President Trump for having deployed the Guard to D.C. for badly needed crime abatement.  Said deployment worked marvelously.  Murders, robberies, carjackings, etc. dropped massively.  But our left is doing everything in its well financed power to see Trump run out of office by any means necessary.

" 'Leftists are not bothered by the escalating crime.  Can we say “color revolution”?

"Exactly who is behind the Seditious Six’s traitorous video?  John Brennan?  Obama?  Who knows?  But something is very, very wrong with this entire scheme.  Those six tools are doing someone else’s bidding.  Oh, they surely love being part of whatever “it” is, but they are just the tip of someone else’s spear.

"One thing has become abundantly clear.  Trump-deranged leftists hate Trump so much they don’t mind destroying the republic, any semblance of the “democracy” they like to cite so often, and any remaining reverence for the Constitution they continuously pretend to respect.  They are a pernicious bunch of traitors.  They loathe Trump because he is not part of the establishment, the Deep State that fights so underhandedly against him day by day.  They can’t control him the way they have so obviously controlled just about all previous presidents except Reagan.

darkangelpolitics

"Leftists love, crave, and often create what they value most: leverage — leverage over anyone with a modicum of power, in the House, the Senate, the DOJ, the FBI, the IRS, etc.  Leverage is their weapon.  They don’t have any over Trump.  They thought they did, with the Epstein “files,” but it’s become clear that Epstein was a monster whose closest pals were Democrats.  Trump is the man who turned him in to the FBI decades ago and had no further relationship with him.  That is why Epstein hated him so much; he was both furious and jealous.  That the Dems even deigned to hope those files would bring Trump down was nothing but wishful thinking. 

"The American left, no longer remotely related to the party of JFK, is now fully Marxist.  In some parts of the country — Michigan and Minnesota, for example — it is Marxist jihadist.  NYC just elected one of those.

"The Democrat party no longer has any respect for the Constitution.  As Obama often commented, he hated it because it said what the government must not do.  Like a true Marxist, Obama believed that the government should control what people do, are allowed to say, where they can go, what they can own." . . . More...

Homegrown monsters and imported killers: America’s twin revolving doors

. . . "President Trump immediately labeled the attacker an “animal” who “will pay a very steep price,” while thanking the National Guard and law enforcement. Vice President JD Vance offered prayers for the wounded. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the deployment of 500 additional troops to Washington, declaring, “This cowardly act will only stiffen our resolve. We will never back down.”

"Hegseth’s response was more than rhetoric — it was a call for fortified, layered law enforcement: local police buying critical seconds, state National Guard bridging gaps, and federal agencies turning intelligence into decisive action. Without this coordinated bulwark, predators exploit the seams.

"Yet no enforcement system can fully compensate for open borders and lenient judges. The attacker slipped through Biden’s disastrous 2021 Afghan airlift with little (no) vetting. The ongoing terrorism probe suggests possible ties to radical or narco-terror networks — violence imported wholesale because political haste overruled security." . . . More...

Appeals Court Shuts Down Judge’s Order Holding Trump Officials in Criminal Contempt

TFPP Wire 

"A federal appeals court has halted a lower court judge’s attempt to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt, ruling that the move posed serious legal concerns. The decision stops a months-long push by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to punish officials over deportation flights to El Salvador.

Key Facts:

• On Friday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to void Judge Boasberg’s probable cause finding for contempt.
• Judges Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, both Trump appointees, formed the majority.
• The contempt case stemmed from flights deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
• Boasberg, an Obama appointee, claimed the administration disobeyed his order to turn planes around.
• The Supreme Court had already overturned Boasberg’s original order earlier this year.

The Rest of The Story:"The clash began in March, when the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport Venezuelan nationals accused of gang activity. These flights were bound for a heavily guarded Salvadoran prison known for holding violent offenders.

"At an emergency Saturday hearing, Judge Boasberg ordered all planes already in the air to turn back. His order was issued under unusual urgency and based on a rarely invoked statute.

"Despite the Supreme Court later striking down his directive, Boasberg pursued contempt charges against administration officials, alleging they had deliberately ignored his ruling. He argued that the government’s actions warranted criminal accountability.

"The administration challenged the contempt finding, saying it forced the executive branch into an impossible position — obeying what they saw as an unlawful order or facing prosecution. The appeals court issued an “administrative stay” in April to pause the proceedings while reviewing the case.

Commentary: "This ruling is another example of appellate courts stepping in to curb judicial overreach. The majority opinion recognized that forcing an executive branch to comply with a legally questionable order undermines constitutional separation of powers.

"Judge Boasberg’s approach in this case was less about law and more about forcing a political showdown. By pushing contempt charges even after the Supreme Court invalidated his order, he appeared intent on punishing rather than seeking a lawful resolution.

"Such tactics erode public trust in the judiciary. The role of a judge is to interpret the law, not to maneuver politically when a ruling has been overturned at the highest level.

"The appeals court correctly protected executive authority here. The Constitution envisions coequal branches of government, not one branch holding another hostage through dubious legal maneuvers.

"Boasberg’s pattern in cases involving the Trump administration reflects a predisposition toward obstruction rather than fair adjudication. His rulings often invite higher court reversals, suggesting that they are crafted with political outcomes in mind rather than legal soundness." ... More...

Soon there’ll be a shortage of sand.

 

NYC sneaks in 16% pay raises to put on Zohran Mamdani’s desk as welcome gift   . . . "The lawmakers wouldn’t be the only ones to benefit from the pay bumps — the potential new legislation would pad the paychecks of the mayor, public advocate and borough presidents.

"Mamdani’s salary, as mayor, would get a bump from the current $258,750 to $300,500.

"The city comptroller currently makes $210,000, the public advocate is paid $184,000 and borough presidents $180,000 — and each would get 16% bumps in pay under the plan.

"Here comes the oligarchy the voters put in; get rid of the police, give themselves huge pay raises, etc., etc. NYC is going to swirl down the bowl and the only ones left will be the ruling class and their gov't dependent serfs." Comment.

What’s So New About Mamdani’s Socialism?   . . . "One cause of the real estate problem in cities like New York is rent control. Rent control is the socialist solution to the city’s housing problem. The government steps in, says there’s an emergency, and imposes rent control. Where there’s rent control, landlords and potential landlords have no incentive to build new housing. No new housing and an increased population lead to more and more severe scarcity. That appears to be too difficult to understand for Mamdani and Kristof—and the entire Democrat party and probably much of the Republican party too.

"Remember the old Cold War joke? “What happens when the Soviet Union takes over the Sahara Desert? Answer: Soon there’ll be a shortage of sand. And soon after imposing rent control, there’s always a shortage of housing." . . .