. . . because obviously they’ve been crazy for many years. Trump said that tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern is some kind of deadline for Iran, and this morning he turned the volume all the way to 11: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” Do you know what that means? Neither do I.
Maybe it’s thermonuclear Armageddon, or maybe not, but the Democrats are running around with their hair on fire, screaming like lunatics, even more than their usual hair-on-fire lunacy. Krystal Ball, the Democrat whose failed 2010 congressional campaign resulted in a 29-point GOP landslide, has become frighteningly unhinged over this.
Democrats call for a military coup after spending 6 years obsessing over “insurrectionists.” Totally on-brand. https://t.co/chj3kYtjFA
She’s basically repeating Iranian propaganda here, demanding a military coup d’etat against the President of the United States. To repeat what I previously said, nobody knows exactly what Trump’s rhetoric signifies, and while we could speculate about what Trump intends to do, my hunch is that it’s nothing that would justify the “military revolt” that Krystal Ball is calling for. Unlike her, I am completely sane, and not locked into an obsessive fear/rage cycle, so my plans for this evening are to attend my grandson’s Little League game. Maybe the world will blow up tonight, but let’s hope it doesn’t happen before the seventh inning.
I suppose I could have used the pic of Kamen America in her American/Japanese flag bikini, but this seemed more appropriate. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
“I know she looks sixteen, but she’s actually a 20,000 year old dragon goddess, officer!”
Before I get into This Week With The Senators, I’d like to direct your attention to The eponymous widget in the sidebar where we recognize fellow bloggers who link us on the regular. William Teach at The Pirate’s Cove throws us links every week, but because of the strictures of the FMJRA posts, you seldom see him mentioned in the links below or (before I gave it up) in the Top Linkers list. So thank you, Mr. Teach!
This was a very good week to be a Senators fan. Yes, we lost two out of three to the Royals in KC, winning only the opener after Mike Cuellar left early and was replaced by John Morlan, who we teed off on for six unearned runs on our way to a 10-1 blowout. Then it was off to Baltimore, where despite my expectations we swept the Birds in all three games: a 7-2 win for Carl Morton where Jim Kaat came in for four innings of relief to get the save; an agonizing 14-inning second game where we scored two in the top of the 14th and Charlie Hough held on for the win; and finally a rare start by Steve Hargan that earned him a win and Jim Shellenback a save. So here we are 69-72, 6.5 games behind the Twins and five games ahead of the Brewers, and with a real shot at reaching .500 even if we don’t make the playoffs. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
[Friday night] the niece and grand niece of deceased Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Qasem Soleimani were arrested by federal agents following Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s termination of their lawful permanent resident (LPR) status. Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are now in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As identified by both press reporting and her own social media commentary, Soleimani Afshar is an outspoken supporter of the totalitarian, terrorist regime in Iran.
While living in the United States, she promoted Iranian regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denounced America as the “Great Satan,” and voiced her unflinching support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated terror organization. Afshar Soleimani pushed this propaganda for Iran’s terrorist regime while enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles, as attested to by her frequent posting on her recently deleted Instagram account.
In addition to the termination of Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter’s LPR status, Afshar’s husband has also been barred from entering the United States.
Earlier this month, Secretary Rubio also terminated the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, daughter of former Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Larijani, and her husband Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Both Ardeshir-Larijani and Motamedi are no longer in the United States and are barred from future entry.
The U.S. Department of State extends its appreciation to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for their continued partnership and collaboration in keeping Americans safe.
The Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes.
So if you hate America, support our enemies and think of the United States as “the Great Satan,” where else would choose to live except in Gavin Newsom’s California, “enjoying a lavish lifestyle” among the liberal Hollywood snobs who hate America as much as you do? But why bring up Robert De Niro at a time like this? More details via the New York Post:
The glam grandniece of slain Iranian terror mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani frequented several US hotspots and lived a lavish life in LA before being scooped up by ICE Friday. Sarinasadat Hosseiny, 25, and her mother, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, were arrested after the State Department terminated their permanent resident status and had their green cards revoked due to her ties the terrorist Iranian regime, the agency announced Saturday.
The 25-year-old terror scion’s social media showed she’s enjoyed a luxurious, vacation-centric lifestyle while living in the country her mother referred to as the “Great Satan.”
Hosseiny shared photos of her jetsetting on private planes, sunbathing on yachts, and dancing at music festivals while showing no signs of gainful employment.
Instagram posts show that Hosseiny has recently traveled to Miami where she posed with drinks; to Alaska, where she still managed to take snaps in a bikini; and Las Vegas, where she attended an F-1 race.
Other posts show Hosseiny donning skin tight dresses, barely-there bikinis, and skirts well north of the knee. . . . Hosseiny was first admitted to the US on a student visa in 2015 and was given a green card by the Biden administration in 2023.
Terror-spawn socialite Sarinasadat Hosseiny
Some younger fellows might lament that we’ve deported an attractive young Persian woman, despite her terrorist ancestry, but why should American hotties have to deal with this foreign competition? The Obama administration shipped pallets of cash to the mullahs in Iran, and then Biden gave green cards to relatives of the Islamic regime, just so the aforesaid relatives could drive around in $200,000 Land Rovers and hobnob with the Hollywood snobs. Good riddance to all that.
Late Saturday afternoon, reports began circulating online that the U.S. had located the weapons systems officer (WSO) from the F-15E fighter that got shot down Friday in Iran. The pilot had been rescued almost immediately after the plane went down, but finding the WSO was more difficult, and the effort to rescue him was quite risky:
U.S. special operations forces rescued the second crew member from a downed F-15E fighter jet in Iran after a “heavy firefight,” successfully extracting both airmen and all rescue personnel from the country, according to multiple reports.
U.S. officials told Axios and Fox News the high-risk combat search-and-rescue mission recovered the weapons systems officer more than a day after the aircraft was shot down, concluding a complex operation that unfolded behind enemy lines.
Officials described the shootdown as a “worst-case scenario,” with U.S. forces racing to recover the crew before Iranian units could capture them.
The second crew member was located on Saturday, triggering a rescue effort as Iranian forces, including elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), also raced to the area to locate the downed airman.
U.S. air assets conducted strikes to prevent Iranian forces from closing in, while special operations units on the ground executed a layered extraction under fire.
The weapons systems officer had evaded capture after ejecting alongside the pilot, using Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training to move away from the wreckage and take cover on elevated terrain while activating an emergency beacon, according to reporting cited by Fox News.
There was fighting on the ground during the mission, though no U.S. personnel were killed, according to sources familiar with the operation.
It has been reported that two C-130 cargo planes, which carried rescue forces into Iran, had to be destroyed after their landing gear got stuck on the makeshift landing strip. One of my favorite moments of Saturday night was when Toby Harden confirmed the rescue:
The missing WSO from the shot-down USAF F-15E is now safe and back in American hands. An officer involved in monitoring the CSAR in southern Iran describing the aviator’s incredible tenacity: “He evaded up a 7k ridge. They’ve been schwackin’ dudes chasing him all day. Was nuts.”…
A personal anecdote: In January 2012, when I went to cover the Republican primary campaign in South Carolina, my then-13-year-old son Jefferson pleaded to come with me, so I took him along. On the night of the Myrtle Beach debate, I filed my story, then told Jefferson to pack up the laptop and go wait for me in the lobby, while I went to meet some friends in the lobby bar. Having spent 10 or 15 minutes schmoozing with campaign operatives, I went to find Jeff and — he was gone! I looked everywhere, even got in my car and drove across the street to our hotel to see if he’d just decided to walk back, then returned to the convention center to keep looking. It was there that I encountered Toby Harnden, who was covering the campaign for the Daily Mail. When I explained to him that my son was missing, Toby offered to help look for him, so we split up — “You go this way, I’ll go that way” — and kept looking until Toby found him, asleep on a bench near the entrance to the ballroom where the debate had been staged. (Apparently, Jeff had misunderstood which lobby I meant for him to wait in — I’d meant the adjoining hotel lobby.) Anyway, Toby’s assistance in my moment of need earned him my enduring gratitude, and once he had confirmed the crewman’s rescue Saturday night, I knew it was the real deal.
"The op basically cost $300 million because they had to abandon the two AFSOC C-130s and the four MH-6 Little Birds. Then the U.S. Air Force had to use multiple bombs to blow up all the aircraft they abandoned at that airstrip. And the Iranians shot down 2 MQ-9s Reaper drones.… pic.twitter.com/xw5h2DkwwC
One of the difficulties of arguing with liberals is that so many of them seem unable to grasp basic concepts like per capita and correlation. Any attempt to discuss crime and law enforcement will inevitably devolve into a shouting match because liberals are so prejudiced in favor of leniency — the “turn-’em-loose” school of social justice — that they become outraged if you call attention to the facts and logic in favor of the public safety benefits of a “lock-’em-up” approach. Having convinced themselves that criminals are actually victims of society, liberals respond to data about recidivism rates like a vampire confronted with a crucifix.
Any fact that contradicts the liberal narrative is disregarded and, after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, the narrative was that this had unleashed a wave of violence against “transgender women of color.” As I explained in January 2019, the national media began reporting the annual number of transgender murders as political propaganda:
This is a crucial aspect of the Transgender Victimhood Narrative, i.e., the suggestion that Trump’s election signified the onset of a “climate of hate” which is to blame for violence against “transgender women of color” and other “marginalized communities” . . .
The national media eventually lost interest in that narrative, but not so the tax-exempt 501(c)3 Human Rights Campaign, which kept pretending that the “climate of hate” continued to reap its deadly toll even after Joe Biden became president. Thus the headline from February 2021:
HRC Mourns Fifty Bandz, Black
Trans Woman Killed in Louisiana
HRC is deeply saddened to learn of the death of Fifty Bandz, a 21-year-old Black transgender woman who was shot to death in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on January 28. Her death is at least the fifth violent death of a transgender person in 2021. We say “at least” because too often these deaths go unreported — or misreported. So far this year, four of the five known deaths have been Black transgender women.
Friends and advocates said Fifty Bandz’s name and released balloons to remember her life on February 1, and will also hold a memorial on Thursday evening. Many on Facebook have shared the sentiment “rest in peace,” with another saying “long live Fifty Bandz.” One friend shared, “When are we as a community going to do something?!”
According to local media reports, Fifty was killed by a man with whom she had been in a relationship for more than a year. Tragically, interpersonal violence accounts for a significant number of fatalities against transgender and gender non-conforming people. . . .
HRC recorded 44 deaths of transgender and gender non-conforming people in 2020, more than in any year since we began tracking this violence in 2013. More than 10,000 hate crimes in the U.S. involve a firearm each year, which equates to more than 28 each day . . . According to the 2017-2019 Transgender Homicide Tracker, three-fourths of confirmed homicides against transgender people have involved a gun, and nearly eight in 10 homicides of Black trans women involve a gun. Further, advocates saw a 43% increase in the formation of anti-LGBTQ hate groups in 2019.
Did you notice the sleight-of-hand there? After admitting that this was “interpersonal violence” between the victim and “a man with whom she had been in a relationship,” they began talking about “10,000 hate crimes” and an alleged increase in “anti-LGBTQ hate groups,” as if it were relevant to this case, which it obviously isn’t.
“Fifty Bandz” was just a social-media pseudonym for Marquell Lamar Wyatt, and he was killed by Michael Brooks, who had secretly “dated” Wyatt. After Brooks was sentenced to prison, he appealed his sentence, and you can read the ruling in which the court rejected his appeal:
At trial, Leonda Guerin (“Leonda”), Wyatt’s friend, testified that Wyatt and the defendant were in a romantic relationship at the time of his death. Leonda said Wyatt openly identified as a gay man, but the defendant was closeted and did not want people to know he was gay. Leonda testified, on the day of the incident, she drove Wyatt to a house in Brookstown to deliver a phone for the defendant so he could better communicate with Wyatt. According to Leonda, the defendant, the defendant’s girlfriend, and the defendant’s brother were outside when she and Wyatt arrived. Leonda said the defendant pulled out a gun “to show off in front of his girl” and acted like he did not know Leonda when she handed him the phone. A few minutes after delivering the phone, the defendant called Leonda while she and Wyatt were driving back to Wyatt’s mother’s house. Leonda testified the defendant was upset and cursing at her, which angered Wyatt. Leonda said the defendant and Wyatt argued on the phone for a while, and then Wyatt asked Leonda to drive him back to Brookstown to pickup the phone from the defendant. When Leonda refused, Wyatt borrowed a vehicle from his mother and left. . . .
You can read the whole thing, but the point is that Brooks felt that Wyatt was trying to “out” him, got Wyatt to agree to meet up to return the phone, and then shot Wyatt 19 times, including 11 shots fired “in the immediate vicinity” of where police found Wyatt’s body, which a detective said indicated that, after Wyatt fell down from the initial shots, Brooks stood over him and kept firing until the pistol’s ammunition ran out.
So, secretly bisexual black man murders his openly gay black boyfriend (who apparently sometimes dressed in drag), and the Human Rights Campaign treats this as evidence of “anti-LGBTQ hate”?
For more than a decade, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has pushed this narrative, publishing annual “Epidemic of Violence” reports documenting transgender homicide victims in the United States. Relying on the HRC’s analysis, activists, presidents, members of Congress, the American Medical Association, celebrities, journalists, and scholars have repeated the HRC’s claims so often that for many they feel like established facts.
The problem is that many of these claims just don’t add up. Transgender people are less likely to be murdered than the rest of the population, most transgender people are murdered by members of their own race, and intimate partner violence — not hate — is the leading identified motive for most such murders.
We reached this conclusion using the HRC’s own victim lists as the starting point. We independently verified every case from 2015 through 2024 (304 victims) using court records, police statements, local news reports, and other public documentation. . . .
The HRC’s own data further debunk the claim that “white supremacy” is a cause of violence against transgender-identifying Americans. Among identified suspects, black suspects account for 65.1 percent of perpetrators, while white suspects account for 18 percent. . . .
This finding is not the result of one bad year or a handful of outlier cases. And in 2020, the year the Human Rights Campaign published a statement attributing the deaths of “our Black trans siblings” to “an epidemic of violence” fueled by “systems of white supremacy,” not a single white suspect was identified in the cases we verified. . . .
To see how the mismatch between narrative and reality is manufactured, consider the deaths of “four Black transgender women” that the HRC cited in a 2021 report titled “Black LGBTQ People and Compounding Discrimination” as proof that “white supremacy” was driving an “epidemic of violence.” One case, the drive-by shooting of Tyianna Alexander, remains unsolved, with no public evidence of anti-trans bias, a hate crime, or anything tied to white supremacy.
In the other three cases, every identified suspect was a black man. Bianca Bankz was killed by a black man named Moses Allen, who shot Bankz and then killed himself. Dominique Jackson’s killing led to the arrest of a black man named Branden McLaurin; police said there was “no evidence supporting a hate-crime” in this case. Fifty Bandz was killed by boyfriend Michael Joshua Brooks, a black man, in what looks like a straightforward case of intimate partner violence. . . .
You can read the whole thing. For the sake of brevity, I omitted a lot of Lundgren and Wright’s statistical analysis here, but it’s excellent. No liberal narrative can survive arithmetic, because math is RAAAAACIST!
