President Trump’s new effort to economically isolate Iran

In today’s newsletter, we examine President Trump’s new effort to economically isolate Iran, including his threats of sweeping consequences for countries that continue providing Tehran with financial or commercial lifelines. Across America, we look at a major Republican redistricting victory in Missouri, Derek Chauvin’s effort to overturn his conviction, and a potentially landmark Supreme Court battle over displaying the Ten Commandments in Texas schools. We examine new research suggesting political polls have consistently overstated Democratic support and the unusual legal standoff between Texas and Minnesota. Finally, we turn to Britain, where the conviction of a retired police officer is fueling a new debate over free speech.

Reading time: 10 minutes

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. James 3:17

President Trump and the GOP scored a big court victory on redistricting Wednesday when a Missouri judge ruled that the state’s referendum process can’t be used to challenge the new Republican-friendly Congressional map, allowing those districts to stay in place for the November election. Democrats had gathered thousands of signatures on a petition for a referendum vote on the new House map, but the judge said the state Constitution doesn’t allow redistricting to be put to a referendum.

You’d think that having their power-grab redistricting effort in Virginia struck down for violating multiple aspects of the state Constitution would have taught Democrats to actually read the Constitution in question before taking action. Alas, you can never underestimate the eagerness of Democrats to ignore Constitutions.

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Six years on from the riots over the death of George Floyd, could police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of Floyd’s murder, finally get that verdict overturned?

You don’t have to be a Chauvin supporter, just a fair-minded person, to admit that his trial was appalling. You can even believe that he was responsible for Floyd’s death and still acknowledge that his trial was a politically-motivated show trial to appease the angry mob. If nothing else, there should have at least been a change of venue to get away from the biased jurors and the intimidating mobs outside the courthouse, demanding “justice” that was more like revenge.

Despite the failure of two previous attempts, Chauvin’s lawyers think they might finally have a judge with an open mind and a strong enough case to spring Chauvin out of prison, where he’s already been stabbed 22 times by a fellow inmate. Their filing lists numerous ways in which Chauvin’s civil rights were violated and the trial rigged to deliver Chauvin as a sacrifice to mob rule. They claim there were so many examples that his trial amounted to a “one-year-long due process violation.”

Victoria Taft at PJ Media has more details on how Minnesota officials tilted the table to slide Chavin into prison. Maybe at this late date, it will be easier to get judges to believe that Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison might not have been acting entirely in the interests of the people.

As expected, on Monday, the ACLU appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholding a Texas law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in schools. The appeals court agreed that the Commandments have enormous cultural and historic significance and that nothing about the law qualifies it as an establishment of a state religion.

If the SCOTUS agrees to take the case and upholds the Texas law, this would be a landmark decision and help reverse decades of hostility to even acknowledging the existence of religious faith in public spaces such as schools. Ironically, the Supreme Court building itself includes an artwork that depicts the Ten Commandments, which are seen as foundational to the very concept of law.

Besides, if children were exposed to the concept of “Thou shalt not steal,” maybe they wouldn’t grow up to be “Democratic” Socialists.

Yet another reason why we always urge Republicans not to let polls discourage them from voting: the co-founder of Echelon Insights released a study of 3,000 Senate polls over the last four election cycles. It found that 73% of them overestimated support for Democrats, with the average result being 3.7 points higher than the actual election results. The trend is “most pronounced” during the summer before the election, when polls overestimate Dem support by an average of six points.

This also jibes with what we’ve always said: Polls are unreliable, and the further out from the election they are, the more unreliable they are. At this point, most polls aren’t designed to predict who’s going to win, they’re designed to brainwash Republicans into thinking it’s hopeless so they might as well not even bother to donate, volunteer or show up to vote. It’s best to take polls with the same amount of trust you give to anything else the mainstream media tells you about politics, which is about as much as you’d extend when buying a used car from a Congressman.

The reason the strongest – and practically only – support for socialism comes from white, college-educated nepo babies is summed up in the famous quip, “Only the very rich can afford socialism.” Rich leftists like socialism because they always see themselves as being part of the ruling elite who will divvy up the money confiscated from other people while the system destroys capitalism, competition, freedom and everything else that might allow an upstart with a better idea to put them out of business.

We’ve already seen this trend in the socialist mayors of New York City and Seattle, both of whom are unaccomplished children of wealthy parents who lived off those parents’ money until they somehow got into office. Now, add another one to the list. The New York Post revealed that Gustavo Gordillo, the 38-year-old co-chair of the New York City chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, lives in a $1.5 million Brooklyn mansion paid for by his rich parents.

It gives the Yale grad a nice place to rest up from his frequent unhinged rants against capitalism, rich people, landlords, private property rights and double-digit returns on investments. But it gets even better: to save on taxes, the nearly-2000-square-foot home was purchased in the name of his parents’ LLC (Limited Liability Corporation.)

Oddly enough, his parents would be good examples of the American Dream and the greatness of capitalism. They came to the US as immigrants from Peru, built a successful business, and now own two homes in Florida worth at least $3 million each. It sounds as the only downside they found to capitalism is that they worked so hard that they had to leave the raising of their kid to a communist nanny.

Video of the Day! New York Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, a Democratic Socialist, went viral with her insane defense of shoplifting, claiming that nobody should be arrested for fulfilling a biological need by stealing things like toothpaste or soap. We assume she would extend that “logic” to also cover food, medicine, clothing and even cars (“I have a biological need to move my body from place to place in comfort!”) She declared, “Incarceration separates people from their jobs, support services, & loved ones. It perpetuates cycles of poverty & crime. That’s a fact, no matter how much fear mongering the right wing media does.”

Forgive us for stating the obvious, but it sounds as if SHE is the person perpetuating the cycle of crime. We suspect she would change her tune PDQ if people decided to fulfill their biological needs by stealing her property and selling it to fulfill their “biological needs,” like drugs.

Gallagher was roundly bashed on social media by people pointing out that theft causes everyone else to pay higher prices and wait forever for a store clerk to unlock the cabinet just to buy a tube of toothpaste. Also, shoplifters in blue cities run organized theft rings that don’t just steal a tube of toothpaste, then loot the entire inventory.

Perhaps the best reply came from an X poster named Lisa, who wrote, “You know what else separates people from their jobs? Rampant shoplifting. Our nearest pharmacy closed due to unchecked shoplifting. All of those employees lost their jobs. Now all the elderly people in my neighborhood have lost their closest pharmacy. Last year I witnessed a guy clear out every toothbrush and every tube of toothpaste at my local CVS. He wasn’t doing that for his oral health. He was doing it to resell.”

There go those right-wingers again, ruining a perfectly good defense of the indefensible by using white supremacist tactics like logic, reason and facts!

There’s an unusual legal standoff brewing between Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Ellison is suing Texas, demanding that Abbott extradite an ICE agent back to Minnesota to face charges for allegedly shooting a man in the leg. Abbott responded, “I don’t trust (Minnesota Governor) Tim Walz on anything, let alone something like this,” adding, “I will not respond to them at all until they step up and do what’s right, and they acknowledge their fault in the fraud that took place, and they fully repay the United States of America” for all the government benefit fraud committed in Minnesota.

We’re not sure what part of this is the most surprising news: That Minnesota is suing Texas, that Texas refuses to extradite an ICE agent to Minnesota to face a star chamber trial, or that Keith Ellison has finally found a defendant whom he’s actually willing to prosecute.

With the ceasefire agreement with Iran now expired, President Trump on Wednesday announced on Truth Social “the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale.” What’s he going to do, put Joe Biden in charge of their economy?

Trump said, “This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat. These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide.”

He added, “I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences...Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies — It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are.

One important economic lifeline for Iran has already been cut, and it wasn’t due to Trump’s threat but Iran’s own belligerence. The United Arab Emirates suspended all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran after accusing Tehran of firing ballistic missiles toward UAE maritime traffic.

The UAE supplied 31% of Iran’s imports and took in 13% of its exports. Trump had struggled to affect that trade with sanctions, and even the US Navy couldn’t stop it. But now it’s been severed just because the leaders of Iran think that the way to deal with the US and Israel is to fire missiles at their neighbors. Firing missiles at innocent parties is their go-to move. They actually seem surprised that it hasn’t worked to win friends among the countries they’re firing at.

Some foreign policy experts are warning that Trump’s economic pressure is forcing Iran’s regime to strengthen its ties with Russia and China as its best hope of survival. That’s the last thing the US wants; but on the other hand, why would China and Russia want to antagonize the US and all the other nations in the Middle East just to help keep the Mullahs in power? Granted, they love to make trouble, but is it worth making that much trouble for themselves?

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs Kazem Gharibabadi dismissed Trump’s economic threats, saying they come after the US military operation “didn’t yield results.” Check back in 24 hours and we’ll let you know if Kazem Gharibabadi still holds that position or he’s been replaced by his next of kin.

In the UK, retired police officer Stephen Gray was recently found guilty of posting a “grossly offensive” joke meme on social media about Islam. It didn’t seem all that offensive to us, certainly not enough to justify the 1,000-pound ($1364 US) fine. His case has drawn the support of a free speech watchdog group and sparked furious backlash that the UK government is bringing back blasphemy laws, but only for those who offend Muslims, not followers of any other religion.

But these aren’t the only British authorities who are bending over backwards for their new Muslim migrant overlords. The UK government tried to deal with migrant “rape gangs” by creating a handy guidebook for newcomers, gently informing them that under British laws and culture, rape and pedophilia are frowned up. This sparked a well-deserved backlash, as did a poster distributed in Germany to discourage migrants from molesting children.

To illustrate the problem, the poster carries a cartoon of a white woman molesting a one-legged migrant boy in a swimming pool. Yes, that’s the problem in a nutshell.

Ed Driscoll at Instapundit has a good roundup of stories and commentary on this subject, plus a photo of the (surprise!) woke white liberal woman who created that poster. In this case, one picture really is worth a thousand words.

Driscoll also includes this quote from Instapundit blog master and law professor Glenn Reynolds, which is blunt but would no doubt be more effective than that poster:

“If you want migrants to get the idea about rape, publicly hang a few rapists. Or burn them in the public square, or draw and quarter them, or subject them to other traditional public English penalties. They’ll figure it out PDQ. The posters, by comparison, are a joke and, in the absence of strict and public penalties, convey weakness.”

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