It’s the beginning of June and that means it’s the start of Gay Pride Month! Hooray! What this means is that every business suddenly has its mandatory Pride Flag out. In the old days, the Pride Flag was a rainbow and it symbolised tolerance and a live-and-let-live attitude. But that was before gays and lesbians had all the rights they had demanded and to which they were entitled.

Gay rights activists, both conservative and liberal, have achieved the highest levels of tolerance, acceptance, and legal rights for gays and lesbians in history. But the progressive movement progresses … it never stops and instead of declaring victory it has moved on to fight new battles, such as making sure biological men can compete against girls in sports.

The new war on girls and common sense needs a new flag, one that that encompasses every conceivable gender and sexual practice, including demisexuality and asexuality, and other confusing, possibly made-up states of being. And so, DC is covered in this hideous banner that is a visual representation of the old-fashioned, tolerant movement, represented by the rainbow, being penetrated by the new cult of wokeness. The flag no longer symbolises tolerance but stands for censoriousness and an intolerance of anything that doesn’t conform exactly to whatever peculiar idea on sex, gender, and anything else, that has been vomited out of some Ivy League LGBTQQIA2S+ (add in whatever letters you like) student group. Anyway, it’s all a bit much for me and so at the risk of being called a self-loathing gay for not wanting to dwell on Pride Month, let’s focus on some more important things.

California’s primaries drag on

This week more states held primary elections in the run up to the midterm elections in November. The most reported-on primary was held in our most populous state, California, which has a “jungle” primary, in which candidates from all parties run and the leading two face off in the general election. I wish I were able to give you the full results, but California, being our most dysfunctional state, has difficulty counting and it seems we won’t get the full results for many days, maybe weeks. But so far it seems that the candidate leading in the governor’s race with about 28% is the Republican, Steve Hilton, a British expat, media personality, and former advisor to former British Prime Minister David Cameron. Next up with 25% is Xavier Becerra, who had been the Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Obama Administration.

Hilton is a conservative with a wealth of ideas on how to reform California and make it a growing and dynamic state once more. I know I’m biased, but to me Becerra is a pedestrian run-of-the-mill Democrat who hasn’t had an interesting thought in decades. Should Becerra win in November, expect the steady decline of this once-great state to continue.

Should Hilton hold his lead and should he ultimately be elected as governor, it will signal a major rejection of Democratic Party policies. But a Governor Hilton could end up being a bit of a damp squib as the California legislature is dominated by Democrats. Hilton’s opposition would have veto proof majorities in the California State Assembly and Senate, meaning they could reject all meaningful reforms. Without the state’s legislature on side, a Governor Hilton might only be able to get the most picayune policy reforms through and will probably be blamed for any lack of progress.

In Los Angeles (LA) the incumbent mayor, Karen Bass, is leading in the primary, followed closely by Spencer Pratt, about whom I have written in previous posts. Bass could cling on in November, but Angelinos seem pretty fed up with the state of the city, which has become dirty and dangerous under her watch. And of course, Bass’s actions, or lack thereof, are largely responsible for the fires that devastated the city a year and a half ago. To make matters worse, her anti-growth Administration means that few, if any, permits have been issued to allow people to rebuild their burnt-out houses.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by the state of LA under Bass. When she was a youngster, she traveled to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade. She went to volunteer and support the communist government that has destroyed the infrastructure of that benighted island, to say little of the lives destroyed. I guess when the mayor lionises the repressive hell hole that is Cuba, it’s no wonder LA has become a garbage dump of a city.

Other primaries get … interesting …

The state of Maine doesn’t have its primary until the 9th of May, but things are getting a little spicy with regards to the lone Democrat still in the race, Graham Platner. I have written previously Platner, you remember … the communist with a large Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest. Well, the Democrats might be having some buyer’s remorse after new revelations about his sexting habits with ladies on a dating app. And TheNew York Times just published an exclusive story in which it interviews former girlfriends who testify that while he could be charming, he exhibited “unsettling” behaviour and had a dark side. Platner also has some intriguing ideas on how he would deal with any burglar who might break into his house. According to the story, Platner would like to “rape them … not in a sexual way, not in a gay way.” Platner would “rape them to show them that I’m dominant.”

That’s an interesting strategy. Perhaps those readers who use the services of ADT or some private security company should see if, instead of detaining burglars, their guards could offer a rape service … not in a gay way of course.

Far too many seem surprised by the revelations in The New York Times. Maybe I’m a hidebound old stick-in-the-mud, but I would have thought that the gigantic Nazi death head tattoo on Platner’s chest was a bit of a giveaway that the Senate hopeful was a little … unhinged.

Meanwhile the Democrats have selected another beaut who will be running in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, a very safe Democratic seat. Adam Hamawy, a plastic surgeon and army veteran, won the Democratic Party’s primary. What’s not to like a plastic surgeon and former soldier, you ask? Well, only the fact that he was a friend and associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the Blind Sheikh. The Blind Sheikh was convicted on terrorism charges and imprisoned for life in 1995 for his role in the bombing of New York’s World Trade Center. At his trial, Hamawy acted as Rahman’s character witness. If it’s true that you can tell a lot about someone by the company he keeps, you can probably tell more by the people for whom he chooses to act as a character witness. Let’s also not forget that Hamawy worked for the Benevolence International Foundation, which was linked to al Qaeda. Add to this the fact that Hasan Piker, a vile antisemite, was an active campaigner for Hamawy and a troubling picture of the Dem’s choice emerges.

There was a time when links to terrorist groups … or sporting Nazi death squad tattoos … would have been frowned upon. In today’s Democratic party, they are a boost, not a drag, to one political career.

The political momentum is with the Democrats in the run up to the midterms, but if the party keeps selecting these less than stellar candidates, maybe the Republicans won’t do as badly as predicted.

Trump faces some Congressional roadblocks

In the past week the House of Representatives voted to restrict President Donald Trump’s ability to continue his war against the Islamic Republic of Iran without specific congressional authorisation. The vote passed 215 to 208, with four Republicans voting with the Democrats. Among those Republicans was Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, who recently lost his primary to a Trump-backed opponent. Massie has long been an outspoken Trump adversary and is an isolationist, but the fact that three others joined him is interesting.

The vote is not likely to have much of an impact because it would have to pass the Senate too and then President Trump could always veto it. But it does send a worrying signal to the Islamic Republic that Trump’s negotiating position isn’t as strong as he’d like.

This week Congress also roundly rejected Mr. Trump’s efforts to create a victims of lawfare fund in the amount of $1.776 billion. As I wrote previously, this idea was always legally dubious, unpopular, and likely to lead to grotesque self-dealing and corruption. Congress did its job and asserted its power to reject the President’s wishes. Good … let’s hope it continues to assert its authority over the purse.

Trump has targeted Republican incumbents, like John Cornyn from Texas, even though they have voted for his agenda loyally. Perhaps more and more Republicans are realising that being loyal to Trump means little and that the President will happily throw you under the bus, as he has with so many. Most Congressmen will be around long after President Trump has left the White House, and they have their own reputations to protect. I think we can expect Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, Todd Blanche, who must be confirmed by the Senate, to face opposition.

Trump has an amazing knack for sensing political winds and trends and has ridden them very successfully. But he might not have learned the lesson that presidents need allies in Congress, and attacking and alienating them might not serve his agenda well.

Reigning in the bureaucracy

David Bernhardt was the Secretary of the Interior during the first Trump Administration and after he left, he published a fascinating and revealing book, You Report to Me, about his time in office and his efforts to get reforms enacted. Bernhardt describes how the bureaucracy, also known as the Administrative State, would simply delay, block, slow walk, or frustrate any and every reform, no matter how anodyne or sensible.

The vast Administrative State stays on from one presidency to the next and the career bureaucrats hold enormous power over how the government works, or more accurately doesn’t work. And they are also almost completely unaccountable. It is practically impossible to fire an American federal bureaucrat and so, knowing this, they will often simply refuse to do work they don’t want to do, even if they are instructed to do so by their bosses. Imagine trying that in the private sector?

President Trump was elected on a platform. The people of America spoke and chose him over the alternative. That means that he should be able to enact his agenda. But the bureaucracy, decided otherwise and severely limited the good work that might have been done in his first term. Well, that’s a lesson that has been well learned.

This week President Trump signed an executive order that reclassifies about 8 000 senior bureaucrats who have authority over policy making and who have the power to block reforms. The new order means that these staff can now be removed for “poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles that often prevent accountability.”

Amen, I say. For years we have had to sit through lectures from our progressive friends about “democracy,” and yet when a new president is democratically elected and seeks to implement his agenda, these same people have no problem blocking it, making a mockery of their vaunted “democracy.” This executive order couldn’t have come soon enough. Well done President Trump and well done to James Sherk, who did the hard work.

The Big Apple Calls

Finally, this past weekend I was in New York City to see some friends, catch a show (the brilliant Becky Shaw), and participate in the annual Israel Day parade. New York City remains one of the most exciting, energising, and dynamic cities on earth, notwithstanding the efforts of its new socialist/Islamist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, to ruin it. It’s early days so maybe he will completely trash the city, but for the time being it’s still fun.

Since 1964 supporters of Israel have held the annual Israel Day parade down 5th Avenue. This year, for the first time ever, a sitting mayor, announced that he would not be attending. Mamdani doesn’t have a problem going on parades; he attended the Pakistan Day parade in New York City. Mamdani’s problem is with this particular parade, and that hardly surprising given that his entire political career is grounded in anti-Israel activism, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism. In fact, had Mamdani attended it probably would have cast a pall over what was a joyful occasion.

I marched with Sar El, the organisation that places civilian volunteers, including yours truly, on Israel Defense Force bases to provide whatever assistance the soldiers need. As our group of around 200 marchers were preparing to head towards the start of the parade, sporting our “Zionism in Action” t-shirts and with our U.S. and Israeli flags, a young woman started berating us with “F**k you and F**k Israel” and other such pleasantries. We were all rather bemused by this lone protester and politely ignored her ranting.

It occurred to me, as this lone angry female berated us, that were the tables turned things would likely be completely different. This woman felt completely comfortable screaming insults at more than 200 people, because she knew that nothing bad would happen to her. Had she been a pro-Israel activist, would she have dared to confront a pro-Palestine march? I very much doubt it, given how Jews and anyone vaguely pro-Israel has been attacked verbally and physically, and have even been murdered on the streets of major cities.

After the parade, Sar El held an evening reception that included a fascinating presentation by former Mosad agent, Avner Avraham, who could easily have led a double life as a standup comedian. We also heard from two former Sayeret Matkal soldiers Gadi Ilan and Rami Sherman who, fifty years ago, bravely fought terrorists during the Raid on Entebbe to free hostages from the hijacked Air France flight. Being in the same room as these heroes was a humbling experience and an amazing way to end a delightful weekend in the Big Apple.

That’s all for now, until next time.