Never go full Zimbabwe. You can order a $10 trillion Zimbabwe note online for under $25, which is still more than its actual value as currency, but rather reflects what it’s worth as a collector’s item, a memento of the kleptocratic regime of Robert Mugabe. New York City doesn’t issue its own currency, so we won’t be able to use that metric to judge the consequences of Zohran Mamdani being elected mayor, but a Zimbabwe-scale disaster probably can’t be avoided. Having won the Democratic primary, the socialist Mamdani is all but certain to become New York City’s next mayor. The bumbling incumbent Eric Adams is seeking re-election as an independent, Curtis Sliwa is the Republican candidate and the loser Andrew Cuomo may also run as an independent in the general election, but it’s difficult to see a scenario where any of them gets more votes than Mamdani in November. The writing is on the wall.
New York City is now doomed beyond hope of redemption.
Mamdani’s socialist agenda will inspire an irreversible exodus of investment from the city. It’s not just a matter of high-earning indviduals fleeing to avoid confiscatory taxation — although that will certainly happen, too — but the simple fact that Mandani’s anti-business policies will make it impossible for any company to operate profitably in the city.
Since Rudy Giuliani left office in 2001, every mayor of New York has been worse than his predecessor. Michael Bloomberg was awful, but Bill de Blasio was a catastrophe, and Eric Adams is a pathetic joke. The city is now prepared to elect a “charismatic” young radical who bids fair to make the David Dinkins era seem a mild annoyance by comparison.
There are some who say a Mamdani administration probably won’t be as bad as his campaign promises suggest. But my guess is that it will actually be much worse than most people now imagine. Which is to say, “this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions”:
Old Testament, real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes! volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
It’s for everyone. This week’s appetizer courtesy of kbdabear on X; SOTD (as if you didn’t know) from Blondie’s first album. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
Well, it could have been worse. We lost two out of three to the Cardinals in St. Louis and then came home to take two of three from the Tribe. Spaceman Lee picked up the lone win against the Cards, going the distance in a 5-0 shutout, and then gave up three runs in Game 2 against Cleveland but got the the win as our boys ripped Steve Busby for six runs and tacked on another three against George Culver for a 9-3 blowout. Game Three saw Joe Coleman put in six good innings, giving up just one run, but the Tribe tied it up in the sixth on a Hal Breeden sac fly. Blue Moon Odom, who had lost Game One in relief, came in and held Cleveland scoreless for three innings until Ed Brinkman hit a triple in the bottom of the ninth to score Vic Harris with the winning run. So that leaves us at 68-79, tied with Oakland for third in the division, thirteen games behind Pete’s Brewers, five in back of the Twins, and just four games ahead of the cellar-dwelling Red Sox. Unfortunately, this week we’re facing the A’s (2-7) and the Dodgers (0-3) so unless the Twins choke and we get really lucky, it’s going to be a miserable ending to June. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
Oh, sure, it was a bad Saturday for the Ayatollah, but try to imagine what it was like for the news media. Suppose you’re the lead national security reporter for the Washington Post or the New York Times. It’s a Saturday in June, so maybe you’re out at the beach for the weekend, having a nice seafood dinner with friends at some beachside bistro on the Maryland shore. You’re probably on your third glass of wine when, shortly before 8 p.m., your phone explodes with messages from your editors.
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT! THAT SON OF A BITCH!”
Which is how reporters talk, by the way, especially when they find out on a Saturday night that they’ve got barely an hour to write the lead for a front-page story in the Sunday paper, and the only information they’ve got is a Truth Social message from Donald Trump. Bwa-hahahahaha!
A lot of reporters had their weekends ruined this way. The front-page story in the Metro edition of the Washington Post carries three bylines (Dan Lamothe, Evan Hill and Warren Stroebel), and down at the end, it gives credit to two other writers, Natalie Allison and Alex Horton, as having “contributed to this report.” Meanwhile, of course, the news desk was scrambling to remake the layout of the front page, and clearing space for the “jump” on page A11, as everybody in the newsroom — skeleton staff on a Saturday night — was scrambling to deal with this story.
It didn’t end there, however. After rushing to get a story in the early Metro edition (the one delivered to the suburbs), then they immediately turned around to do an update for the late city edition. Shortly after Trump’s Truth Social message, the White House put out the word that there would be a 10 p.m. press conference.
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT! THAT SON OF A BITCH!”
Which is how reporters talk, when they find out they’re going to have to write up a second version of their front-page story — including quotes from the press conference — with just minutes to spare before the presses roll for the late edition. Great weekend at the beach, eh?
OK, so after filing your first version of the story, you might have 30 or 45 minutes before Trump’s press conference, time enough to write up a quote or two from your “intelligence community” sources. And then — as the final weekend-wrecking insult from the president you loathe with ever fiber of your being — at the end of his White House press conference, Trump announces that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Dan Caine will hold a Pentagon press conference at 8 a.m. Sunday.
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT! THAT SON OF A BITCH!”
Which is how reporters talk, when they realize that after a night spent scrambling to write a front-page story, they’re going to have to get up early Sunday and head down to the Pentagon for a press conference by that smug Fox News bastard Pete Hegseth. It’s absolutely . . . perfect.
Sometimes you encounter a story that makes you so angry that words cannot express the intensity of your rage, and such is the case with Florida’s new “super speeder” law. Here’s the short version:
Gov. Ron DeSantis just signed a new measure creating extra criminal penalties for extreme speeding, marking the state’s latest move to improve road safety and deter reckless driving.
The legislation (HB 351) targets so-called “super speeders,” establishing criminal consequences for motorists who exceed the posted speed limit by 50 miles per hour or more, or who drive at 100 mph or more in a manner that threatens others or interferes with vehicle operation.
First-time violators may face up to 30 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both. Repeat offenders could receive up to 90 days in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both. If a second violation occurs within five years, the offender’s driver’s license could be revoked for up to a year.
Any driver caught exceeding the speed limit by more than 50 mph must appear before a Judge under a mandatory court appearance provision.
The measure, carried by independent Hollywood Sen. Jason Pizzo and Republican Reps. Danny Alvarez of Hillsborough County and Susan Plasencia of Orlando, passed unanimously in the Senate. . . .
While Pizzo had initially proposed a stricter version of the bill (SB 1782) that would have imposed longer jail terms, he accepted the House’s comparatively lighter version. Passing the measure on the Senate floor April 24, he jokingly referred to HB 351 as the “less good House bill.”
The legislation, he said, was partly inspired by the 2022 death of 11-year-old Anthony Reznick in Sunny Isles Beach. Reznick was struck and killed in a crosswalk by Samentha Toussaint, a driver with more than two dozen prior traffic citations and a suspended license. She was traveling roughly 85 mph in a residential zone without headlights and had no insurance.
Despite the circumstances, Toussaint was not criminally charged. A Judge suspended her license for eight years and ordered community service and fines.
[ insert shouted obscenities here ]
Before getting into the legal discussion, permit me first to share some anecdotes. When I was 17, a police officer told me, “You could’ve got yourself killed” and, smart-ass that I was (and still am, honestly), my reply was, “Yeah, but I didn’t.” No need to go into the details of that vehicular offense, but there was a serious point behind my arrogant sarcasm: There is a difference between a hypothetical danger and an actual event, which ought to be considered in traffic enforcement.
When I reflect on my driving history, I have to admit that those guardian angels — sent to protect me, by the prayers of my late Grandma Kirby, and subsequently by my dear wife — deserve tremendous credit for my survival, especially during my years on the campaign trail.
Remember that? The day after Christmas 2011, I flew into Iowa for the 2012 Republican caucus campaign, with reservations for an economy rental car, but the lady at the counter explained that the Rick Perry campaign staff had arrived earlier and taken every car on their lot, except one — a black Mustang convertible which, under the terms of the agreement, they were obliged to give me at the same rate as the economy car I’d reserved. The best eight days of my life ensued, and not just because Rick Santorum won the caucuses. One morning, I found myself “aggregating headlines while naked” from the Radisson Quad City Plaza in Davenport, on the east side of the state. There was a 3:30 Rick Perry event scheduled in Pella that day, and I calculated a 1 p.m. departure for a drive of approximately 150 miles. Knowing that I couldn’t drive more than 10 mph over the speed limit on the interstate, the key to my calculations was to max it out on the final 25-mile stretch from Exit 173 — down Highway T22 South through Killduff, hang a right on Highway F62 toward Galesburg, then a left onto Highway T14. Let me tell you folks, I took some of those curves at tire-squealing speed, and don’t even ask how fast I drove the straightaways on those country roads.
You think I’m joking and, from a strictly legal standpoint, I’m prepared to plead that this is just satire, rather than a confession of crime, because they’ve got no other evidence and the statute of limitation has probably expired, but I’ll leave that to Bert the Samoan Lawyer.
My point is that nobody was killed or injured as a result of my record-setting pace on those Iowa backroads. The basis of traffic laws is the hypothetical risk of an accident, but between my skill as a driver, the excellent handling of that Mustang, and the overtime labor of those guardian angels, there was no actual risk and therefore, no accident. Sure, there are nerds who can point to statistics about the correlation between excessive speed and vehicular accidents, but (a) correlation is not causation and (b) who gets to define “excessive”? Yes, I saw the sign cautioning me that 25 mph was the, uh, recommended speed for that tight curve, but if in fact I made it through safely at 50 mph, who’s wrong — me or the sign? But I’ve digressed long enough . . .
The funniest guy I ever knew, Scott Swanson, was killed in a traffic accident while a student at West Georgia College (now West Georgia University). It was a profoundly stupid accident, caused by his friend’s drunk driving, and the friend was sentenced to what’s called “five do 10” (a 10-year sentence, with five years suspended, if the convict has no further offenses after being released from the penitentiary). Trust me, the judge didn’t want to sentence an otherwise harmless college kid to five years in prison, but he felt that anything less would be an injustice. I forget what the exact charge was — negligent manslaughter or whatever — but most states have some similar law, like vehicular homicide:
Vehicular homicide, also known as vehicular manslaughter . . . is a criminal offense that occurs when a person’s negligent or illegal operation of a vehicle results in the death of another person. It’s generally considered a form of involuntary manslaughter, where the intent to kill is not required.
Hence my question: What the heck is wrong with Florida?
Don’t they have a vehicular homicide statute in the Sunshine State, and if not, why not? Instead of increasing the penalties on mere speeding — which, as I have pointed out at some length, is just a hypothetical risk — why doesn’t Florida law punish actually causing death as a felony?
After researching the origin of Florida’s new “super speeder” law — I.e., Samentha Toussaint and the death of Anthony Reznik — I’ve got some questions. 1/5 ?https://t.co/L09bw84SUN@senpizzo@JesseScheckner
Despite the fact that an innocent child died as a result of Samentha Toussaint’s reckless driving, the court treated this as a mere traffic violation! She suffered only a suspension of her driver’s license. 3/5
The fact that Samentha Toussaint escaped without ANY prison sentence for the death of Anthony Reznik is shocking to me, and ought to spur the Florida legislature to act. 5/5
This situation is insane. Toussaint was 32 years old at the time she ran over Anthony Reznik in February 2021:
Records show Toussaint has past citations for speeding through a school zone in Pembroke Pines, and for “following too closely behind a vehicle.” There are several infractions in South Florida courts ranging from careless driving to not having proof of insurance.
In Miami-Dade County alone, Toussaint has a laundry list of moving violations through the years, including seven separate citations for driving on a suspended license — infractions that date back to at least 2007.
Records show Toussaint still owes big fines for some of those past driving citations.
She had been a known public menace for 15 years, basically, and by the time she finally killed someone — running a red light on a residential street at 85 mph — you might think the courts would consider this something more than a mere traffic violation. The appropriate legislative response to this egregious situation would be to fix whatever loophole exists in Florida law that fails to punish vehicular homicide as a felony, particularly in cases with aggravating circumstances such as a prior record of driving on a suspended license, etc. Ramping up penalties on “super speeders” isn’t the right answer because there are plenty of “no harm, no foul” speeding cases that don’t deserve harsh punishment. Not saying that I’ve ever topped 115 mph on any country backroads, because I haven’t waived my right to remain silent, but if nobody was actually harmed by me driving fast, why should it be treated as a crime?
Some people are just born to drive, and I’ve got that hillbilly moonshiner chromosome somewhere in my DNA. which explains why I’m still alive. (Also, thank you, guardian angels.) On the other hand, some people are born to ride the bus, and should never be allowed to drive at all.
You can make your own judgments about Ms. Toussaint.
The Left will sometimes admit to tactical mistakes, e.g., “Maybe it was a bad idea to pretend Joe Biden was ‘sharp as a tack’ and fit for another four years.” On rare occasions, the Left will even acknowledge errors of strategy, e.g., when Bill Clinton went out of his way during the 1992 campaign to prove he was “tough on crime,” thus to avoid a repeat of the 1988 Mike Dukakis debacle. What is impossible for the Left is to admit the ugly truth — their ideas are wrong and their policies are bad.
So the case of U.S. v. Skrmetti made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where ACLU lawyer Kate “Chase” Strangio made history as the first transgender lawyer to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Then the verdict came down and guess what? It’s an utter disaster.
That’s the Ace of Spades headline and he gives it a thorough fisking, so that all I have to do is pile on the snark. Let’s pause just a minute, however, to explain why the case is called U.S. v. Skrmetti. This is quite relevant to the current state of Democratic Party politics. Jonathan Skrmetti is a Harvard-educated lawyer who in 2022 was appointed Attorney General for Tennessee. In 2023, Tennessee passed a law “prohibiting surgical procedures and hormone therapies for transgender minors with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria”:
Upon passage of the law, the Biden Department of Justice sought an injunction in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee to prevent the law from going into effect on July 1, 2023.
The District Court granted a preliminary injunction . . .
[A lawsuit] was brought by three transgender teens and their families as well as a Tennessee doctor who treats youth with gender dysphoria. The Biden administration joined the plaintiffs under a law which allows the federal government to join in private suits which allege violations of the Equal Protection Clause. . . .
The District Court’s ruling was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. . . .
By a 2–1 vote in September 2023, the Sixth Circuit panel reversed the district court’s preliminary injunction . . .
On November 6, 2023, the United States [i.e., the Biden administration] petitioned the Supreme Court to hear this case on appeal. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on June 24, 2024.
So while Joe was sleeping on the beach or eating ice cream, the people who were actually running the White House decided to push this case all the way to the Supreme Court. The “nut graf” of that NY Times story:
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court delivered a new, crushing blow, upholding Tennessee’s ban in a 6-to-3 decision. In allowing Tennessee to outlaw blockers and hormones, the court not only shielded similar laws on the books in some two dozen states. It effectively closed the door on extending new constitutional protections to trans people.
Despite their belief that they are on “the right side of history,” the Left lost this case so decisively that it will likely be decades before they could even hope to undo the self-inflicted damage to their cause.
It could have been so easily avoided. If it were just a group of plaintiffs (Jane Doe, et al.) suing the state, would they have appealed it all the way to the Supreme Court? Perhaps, but it was the Biden administration that made that call, which is why the case is U.S. v. Skrmetti.
And now that it’s blown up in their faces, the Left is trying to obscure the truth — their ideas are wrong and their policies are bad — by pointing to tactical errors and, also, blaming Trump:
For other trans activists and their allies, Skrmetti is the culmination of a powerful Trump-era backlash against the entire progressive project of expanded rights and consciousness around gender identity, artfully stoked by right-wing politicians and abetted by biased media coverage. “I didn’t pick this fight around trans rights,” Anthony Romero, the A.C.L.U.’s executive director, told me in an interview not long before the decision. “The right-wing conservatives of the MAGA G.O.P. have made this one of their cause célèbre issues as a way to kind of scapegoat individuals, as a way to score cheap political points.” . . .
Along the road to Skrmetti, some believe, the L.G.B.T.Q. movement drove itself toward a cliff — and took the Democratic Party with it, chaining the Biden administration to one of the most divisive issues in American politics at a moment of shifting medical consensus and fierce polarization. . . . Strangio and other advocates for trans rights have cast Skrmetti as the case they had to bring. It may also have set their movement back a generation.
