So we found this browser, it was a tab I knew well, we made magic that night, oh, he clicked everything right ...

Ed: If Iranian dissidents have begun whacking Basij commanders, that's a big indication that the regime is nearing the end of its life. That will have a demotivating effect on Basij rank and file eventually, and that will erode the IRGC's ability to suppress revolts. This may just be one incident, but if people think that this is possible, those incidents will quickly coalesce into a trend. 

===

Daily Mail: An Iranian woman has been sentenced to death for blasphemy over a social media post that insulted the prophet. 

Accounting student Najmeh Amini, 23, was sentenced to death last month after being held in the notorious Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad for eight months. 

Recommended
Hormuz 'Largest Energy Shock on Record' Beege Welborn Nutcase Gets Four Years in Prison for Threatening Matt Walsh's Wife John Sexton

It was previously reported that Amini was being held on charges that included 'insulting the Supreme Leader' and 'clashing with security agents.'

However, Iranian human rights activists have now revealed that the student was sentenced to death on charges of 'sab ol-nabi' (insulting the prophet). 

Ed: The regime is doubling down at a time it should be looking for allies. This is lunacy, but what else should we expect from lunatics?

===

Ed: What else should we expect from lunatics on the American Left? 

===

Free Beacon: New York City first lady Rama Duwaji’s self-declared artistic "inspiration," whose portrait she’s painted in tribute, is a radical Hamas propagandist who praised the terror group’s leaders as "great heroes," openly celebrated the Oct. 7 attack against Israel, and has claimed that The Diary of Anne Frank is a Jewish forgery.

Sliman Mansour, a Palestinian artist, was also pleased when a warlike reinterpretation of one of his paintings was used as a backdrop for an angry press conference by future Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, where he thanked Iran for funding Hamas.

Mansour died in August after spending decades propping up violent "resistance" movements against the State of Israel. Before that, Duwaji had animated a portrait of the painter and indicated he "inspired the work that I do."

"Hi, I'm Rama, a Syrian illustrator and animator based in Brooklyn, and today I'm going to be animating a portrait of Sliman Mansour, who is a painter and sculptor that's inspired the work that I do. Sliman is an artist of the Intifada," said Houston-born Duwaji, the wife of Zohran Mamdani, in a video first posted online in April 2024.

Ed: Imma stop you right there. If you're cheering an intifada, you're cheering terrorism. New York made Duwaji's husband mayor, even though all of these connections and sympathies were already well-known. This is not new, nor is it particularly well-explained by Mamdani and Duwaji. 

===

Ed: This should not come as a surprise, except perhaps that it came from the Ninth Circuit. This is a straightforward application of the Supremacy Clause, which gives the federal government jurisdiction in enforcing federal law and setting the conditions for that enforcement. Gavin Newsom and Democrats think that state law takes precedence, but that was the argument made by Orval Faubus and George Wallace back in the day, too. How did that work out?

===

Jim Geraghty at NRO: The Guardian‘s Moira Donegan writes that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s search of the Washington home of Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar “was meant to cast an air of suspicion and criminality over the Democratic candidates who, like Omar, are facing the voters in a matter of weeks.”

Let me put Donegan’s mind at ease. Omar represents Minnesota’s fifth congressional district, covering Minneapolis, which scores a D+32 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Omar was reelected with more than 74 percent of the vote in the 2024 general election. Two years before that, she won with 74 percent of the vote. Two years before that, she won with 64 percent of the vote in a three-way race. Two years before that, she won with 78 percent of the vote.

I don’t know what percentage of the vote Omar will garner this November, but I feel exceedingly confident that it will be the highest.

Ed: I have no idea who Moira Donegan is, but I have a very good idea about how much she knows about American politics in general, and MN-05 in particular. This is the most lunatic CD in the nation, heavily influenced by the Somali immigrant community. The idea that a raid on Omar's residence would even dent her support is ludicrous on its face. The Guardian needs to vet its applicants better. This, by the way, is one reason the proximity of the raid to the election is essentially meaningless. Had the raid occurred three weeks before the primary, there may have been an argument for interference. 

===

Ed: Woke 1.0 is back, baby! Everyone's a victim all over again. This is pathetic. Since when is comedy not mean? I guess they must not watch SNL or Kimmel much, but then again, calling that 'comedy' may be a stretch. (More on Kimmel below, in fact.)

===

Michael Brendan Dougherty at NRO: One was about a post on X by Michael Che, the co-host of SNL‘s Weekend Update. Che is doing promotional interviews for his latest stand-up special and is getting asked about Gillis. He appeared to complain about this on X, “Thanks, Shane.” The New York Post said that Che was “calling him out.” But that’s not even true. Che is just joking about the controversy itself. In Gillis’s own telling about his SNL adventure, Che is a friend. They like and respect each other as stand-up comedians.

Another nonstory comes from the X account of Philadelphia magazine, a publication in Gillis’s home state, offering to tell us what rules Gillis broke in his SNL appearance.

Gillis is treated as a stand-in for MAGA itself, despite being harshly critical of the president in candid moments, because he’s liked by more populist conservative audiences, and by Joe Rogan and the anti-woke comedy scene.

But I think what’s really at work is that Gillis is just popular, and publications that have to chase audiences are parasitic on anything that looks like a shared reference point in a culture that the internet and social media have broken up into roughly 335 million silos. In this way, Gillis might be the last popular comedian to exist. 

Ed: And that might actually be a story. There are other comedians, including more political comedians like Bill Maher, and totally apolitical, audience-engaging comedians like 'Lucy Darling' who should get more exposure. The fact that the Left climbed up on high horses over Gillis is a measure of their brittle insecurity, not necessarily an indication of siloing. 

===

... seen here, thinking." 

Addressing another photo of her with Trump, Kimmel adds, "Katie met a number of qualifications for the job. She has blonde hair. She can do a thumbs up, and end of list. Really, what else do you need? Where do they all get that same face? Is that makeup or do they have a machine that stamps it on?"

Ed: Does anyone see the difference between the two jokes? Gillis never directed the comment to any specific person. Kimmel, on the other hand, went personal right off the bat. Zacharia is a public figure and fair game, by the way, but the Left spewed venom all week about how Gillis supposedly called all women whores, while Kimmel will get a pass for suggesting that all blondes are idiots. 

===

Bridget Phetasy at The Spectator: The “joke” was about how women dress at the gym. I know it was about me, because everything is. So I did what any survivor would do. I went to my car and filmed myself crying. It took 11 takes, because the lighting in a Range Rover is unforgiving, and grief is no excuse for a bad shot. In the final cut, you can see a single tear land on my sports bra right over the logo, which clicks through to an affiliate link. My caption: “I’m literally shaking.” 

Then I put on the shortest shorts I own, went back inside, and filmed my ass from three angles with the caption, “Does this outfit work for you, Shane Gillis?” I wanted to send him a message that my body is not for men. To make sure Shane got the message, I tagged him. Then I tagged every man I follow. Some people say my response proved his point. These people are rapists. 

One creator said it best: “She’s not dressed like a whore. You think like a rapist.” I agreed so much that I shot a reel of myself repeating that phrase to camera as I did walking lunges. Healing isn’t linear, but my glutes better be. 

Women are not responsible for where men’s eyes go. That’s why I designed a garment that covers everything but the eyes, so men have nothing left to look at. It’s flowy. It’s modest. And it’s mine. It’s called the Unseen Set, it comes in oat, sage and bone, and it drops Friday for $189. Use code SHANE for 15 percent off. 

To be clear: this story is bigger than me. That’s why I’ve been so brave about making it about me. 

Ed: Brilliant. Five stars, no notes. Read it all. 

===

Ed: Talarico is a big fan of transitioning, eh? This is not a recent comment; it came in 2022, when the state legislature investigated the ice storm. Ironically, some of the reasons for that crisis is that Texas did not have enough scalable electricity production, having shut down some coal plants in the years prior to the storm, although that was not the only problem. "Transitioning" the remainder of the oil and gas production would leave Texas ripe for an even bigger disaster down the road, and therefore this is still an incredibly dangerous approach to energy security. 

===

Axios: By the numbers: 51% of U.S. adults have a great deal or fair amount of trust in Americans as a whole to make democratic judgments, per Gallup.

That's the lowest reading since Gallup began tracking the measure in 1974.

The distrust cuts across party lines: 53% of Democrats, 51% of Republicans and 49% of independents trust Americans' ability to make democratic decisions.

Flashback: Trust stood at 86% in 1976 and 78% in both 2002 and 2005.

Trust has stayed below 60% since 2018, according to Gallup.

Ed: I might revisit this poll tomorrow. On the other hand, maybe I should wait three weeks and see if I'm still in the majority. Only one party has been campaigning on the idea that the other party should be automatically disqualified, which started in 2018 with the Russia-collusion hoax. I'm pretty sure I know where the decline in confidence originates, but I'll look at the Gallup data itself at some point. 

===

Ed: I certainly hope not. If that's where Minnesota activists expect to mine votes for Talarico, it's no wonder they're still in Minnesota. Maybe they should focus more on Peggy Flanagan's Senate prospects. 

===

Ed: They did inspire a theme this week for the Final Word, though!

===

Last night's lyric: "Abracadabra" by the Steve Miller Band.