I got tabs, they’re multiplying, and I’m losing control …
Just so we’re clear on Favreau’s position here — a 17 year-old tweet is disqualifying for public office, but a Nazi SS tattoo is not. https://t.co/I7DAZJElxf
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) May 13, 2026
Ed: I’m not crazy about the tweet, to be honest, but it’s not like Pratt tattooed it to his body and wore it for 17 years either. Giving Alex Jones a shout-out once for a guest spot on his show is not at all like permanently inking the symbol of Nazi death camp operators on your pec. The first is worthy of criticism in the moment; the second tells us exactly who the person is, permanently.
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Nick Gillespie and Sen. John Fetterman at Reason: Your pro-Israel position, you know, it’s, you know, certainly the Republican Party is very pro-Israel, most of the Democrats are as well, but the share of the American population that supports Israel seems to be declining, you know, with every passing year. What is the national security interest in a strong or unwavering defense of Israel?
Well, and I’m not sure if I agree with everything you said, the Democratic Party is becoming increasingly anti-Israel.
Oh no, they are, but still a majority of Democrats vote for continued aid, military and otherwise.
Nick, respectfully, that’s just not true. Polling, as about 8 percent of Democrats have Israel and as a negative or very negative views on Israel too. So what’s our interest? Well, I mean, that’s history and that’s our responsibility. That’s our special ally. History has demonstrated that if you don’t stand and defend the Jewish community and the world, terrible, terrible things can happen. And they do have that things. Not that long ago, 80 years is not that long ago. Israel is essentially a brand new nation as we are too. We’re 250 years this year. So that’s the kinds of entirely appropriate things to stand on that side.
Ed: Nick does great work at Reason and I agree with him on many things, but Fetterman’s right about this. Both parties have problems with anti-Semitism and the nutcase paranoia that accompanies it, but Democrats have mainstreamed it to the point where its leadership keeps pandering to it. Be sure to watch the whole interview; Fetterman distinguishes himself on capitalism too, which I know Nick appreciates.
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New: Sen. Rand Paul’s son drunkenly accosted and hurled anti-Semitic insults at Rep. Mike Lawler at a Capitol Hill bar on Tuesday night.
His son told Lawler that if Rep Thomas Massie loses, it’s going to be because of “your people.”
“My people?” Lawler asked Paul.
“Yeah, you…
— Reese Gorman (@reesejgorman) May 13, 2026
“Yeah, you Jews,” Paul responded.
“Do you think I’m Jewish?” Lawler asked. “I’m not.”
“Oh wow, I’m so sorry for calling you a Jew,” Paul said.
He then said that Jews were “anti-American” and how Lawler and his “Jewish supporters” served Israel more than America.
Ed: This is insane, not to mention idiotic. However, anyone familiar with his grandfather Ron’s newsletters cannot be surprised by this. Jamie Kirchick did extensive research on his record in 2008. I’m hoping it skipped a generation with Rand, who has been remarkably disciplined and has rarely made reference to his father’s fringe following. And you’d better believe we should call this out just as much as we call out Democrats, with the caveat that William Paul isn’t in office or running for one.
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Newsmax: Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., told Newsmax on Tuesday that rising antisemitism in American culture is being promoted in politics and supercharged by social media platforms that spread hate online to younger audiences. …
He told host Greta Van Susteren he is frustrated that elected Democrats continue to appear with Piker and help amplify his message.
“You have candidates campaigning with him,” Gottheimer said. “You have elected officials — members of Congress and the Senate — going on his show and giving him a platform for hate.”
He criticized Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for associating with Piker despite the streamer’s past attacks on Jews.
“Having somebody who’s Jewish — Sen. Sanders — embrace that, embrace him and give him a platform for his views is insane to me,” said Gottheimer, who is Jewish himself.
Ed: This is the difference between the two parties. Anti-Semitism and paranoid conspiracy hacks have existed on the fringes of both parties for decades, if not longer, and well before the establishment of the modern state of Israel. (Google “Charles Lindbergh Jews” or “Henry Ford Jews” if you need some examples.) The difference is that conservatives and Republicans usually keep those kooks on the fringe. Democrat leaders are embracing them on the dais, and making excuses for their Totenkopf tattoos.
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There’s a deep-seated cancer going on. I’m not surprised by the antisemitism on the left, particularly among those who embrace radical Islam. However, the rise of antisemitism on the political right is concerning. The sudden belief that Jews are solely responsible for their… https://t.co/AjWotp2f0w
— Lawrence Jones III (@LawrenceBJones3) May 13, 2026
The sudden belief that Jews are solely responsible for their problems is absurd. How did a movement that prides itself on personal responsibility and resilience end up adopting such a victimhood mentality?!
Ed: Again … apples, trees, distance. Well put by Lawrence, though.
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Last night, I had too much to drink and said some things that don’t represent who I really am. I’m sorry and today I am seeking help for my drinking problem. @jchristenson_ @lawler4ny @reesejgorman
— William H. Paul (@TastyBrew1776) May 13, 2026
Ed: I’d certainly hope this to be the case, but drunk words are often sober thoughts – or more classically, in vino veritas. Let’s see whether Paul follows this up with genuine contrition and atonement. Note, though, that Paul’s words required a public apology as a Republican. They’re mainstream among progressives.
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Politico: South Carolina GOP Gov. Henry McMaster is expected to announce a special session on redistricting, teeing up the state legislature to pass a Republican gerrymander that would almost certainly cost Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn his seat in this year’s midterms.
Clyburn is the sole Democrat in South Carolina’s House delegation; the new map would dismantle his district, leaving the state with 7 likely red seats and no Democratic-leaning ones.
McMaster’s plan — confirmed by four people familiar with the decision, who were granted anonymity to share private details — is a reversal of his position earlier this month and follows pressure from President Donald Trump and his allies to gerrymander the state.
Ed: Looks like someone has read the writing on the primary wall, eh? Two points. First, I suspect that Clyburn could win in a fairly drawn district even without a majority-minority district, as he is popular and high up in House Dem leadership. He’s 86, though, and if he’s looking for an excuse to get out, this would work. Second, Republicans in the state legislature likely are inclined to redraw, but they wanted McMaster to call the special session first to make it easier, since only simple majorities are required.
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I don’t think KY voters view this race as America first vs AIPAC, I think they view it as Massie’s refusal to play ball, which they generally like, vs the pressing need to pass Trump’s agenda. I think if he acknowledges and promises to temper this, he wins. https://t.co/mAJzWoafCL
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) May 13, 2026
Ed: I think it may be too late for that now. Also, I don’t see a reversal like this from Massie at the last minute as particularly credible, and it might erode whatever support he’s still managing to keep.
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Christopher Rufo, Haley Strack at City Journal: Under Governor Gavin Newsom, California has sought to transform its massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program. Newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions, transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state, dismantled San Quentin State Prison’s death row, and turned the notorious prison into a therapeutic center, with art, classrooms, a café, and podcast studios.
As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a $189 million contract to provide new digital tablets—generic, flat-screen devices in a plastic shell—to every inmate in the state prison system, at “no cost” to offenders. The administration heralded the effort to replace inmates’ old tablets—which were piloted in 2018 and given to nearly all prisoners by 2023—as a step toward “digital equity” for “justice impacted” individuals, who could, in theory, use the devices to contact their families, consume “educational” content, and “learn new technology.”
In reality, taxpayer-funded tablets have also been used for more lurid endeavors. In this exclusive City Journal investigation, we contacted dozens of death-row inmates, who told us that prisoners in the state system use such devices to watch pornography and have explicit sexual conversations. Some prisoners, according to a former high-ranking California corrections official, use their tablets to groom minors. Though the state has claimed to regulate explicit content, the inmates told us that users can easily evade detection.
Ed: Where is Sarah Hoyt’s shocked face when we need it? This is the reductio ad abdurdum of progressive penal policies, only actually true. This is only one of the uses Democrats make of taxpayer funds, and in the scheme of things, one of the less expensive flights of folly. Let’s not forget about Newsom’s $231 billion (so far!) high-speed train to nowhere, which has yet to lay a single mile of high-speed rail in nearly 20 years of development.
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Too Far? Christopher Nolan Casts Steve Buscemi As Helen Of Troy https://t.co/UrgMwbCLXS pic.twitter.com/sDiCjPb004
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) May 13, 2026
Ed: Well .. he WAS Mr. Pink. It could work. “How do you do, fellow sirens?”
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Axios: America’s inflation problem is getting worse, not better, as 2026 progresses. New wholesale price data — on the heels of Tuesday’s consumer price report — confirm it.
Why it matters: The evidence of continued price pressures stretches far beyond the energy price spike that occurred following the Iran war, and suggests ongoing pressures across a range of goods and services.
It is getting harder and harder to chalk up the inflationary impulse evident in a wide range of data solely to the one-time effects of tariffs and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
That makes the chance of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut at any point this year increasingly remote, barring a stark turnabout in the inflation trend or labor market conditions.
Ed: Why would it be hard to chalk it up to war and tariffs? Core inflation only ticked up to 2.8% in April; the overall CPI went up 3.8% almost entirely on energy costs. Structurally, this looks more “transitory” than the Biden-era inflationary wave created by supply-chain crises and overstimulation of demand. Apart from the war, we are more focused on supply-side stimulus and regulatory policies. When the war ends and the Hormuz crisis ends, this should mainly dissipate. Also, “getting worse” is a relative description. Hardly any media outlet took notice of the Biden-era wave until CPI hit 5%.
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Jonathan Horn at The Free Press: Concerned as he was for his countrymen, Jefferson believed that paying off the Barbary States would only encourage more terror at sea. “It would be best to effect a peace through the medium of war,” he wrote in 1786 to John Adams, who responded that the United States (still operating under the weak Articles of Confederation) had the funds neither to fight nor pay tribute. Not until 1797—nine years after the Constitution’s ratification—did Congress find the $1.25 million required to conclude treaties with all four Barbary states. In his chronicle of the Barbary Wars, historian Frank Lambert notes that the cost of these deals came out to more than a fifth of the fledgling republic’s budget, and even that sum proved inadequate. In 1801, Yusuf of Tripoli tore up his treaty upon realizing he had settled for much less than Algiers.
Unfortunately for Tripoli, the United States now had the means to fight back and a new president intent on doing so. Despite having vowed to scrap much of the naval buildup that had taken place during Adams’ presidency, Jefferson saw no hypocrisy in deploying a squadron to the Mediterranean with instructions to defend American commerce. Though initially acting without congressional approval, Jefferson eventually received it along with the additional authority to carry out offensive operations against Tripoli.
The story of the ensuing fight, including Lieutenant Stephen Decatur’s daring mission to burn a captured frigate in Tripoli’s harbor, is majestically told by historian Ian Toll in Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy. Though the fighting would make Decatur famous and give Marines license to sing of going “to the shores of Tripoli,” the First Barbary War would end inconclusively in 1805 with America paying some ransom but no tribute, and ultimately require Decatur to return to the Mediterranean under President Madison in 1815. It would take this Second Barbary War to finish the job and teach a lesson that Americans often forget: Freedom of the seas is an empty phrase without the will to fight.
Ed: Many Americans are forgetting that now in real time. They’re mostly Democrats, but not exclusively.
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Rep. Jamie Raskin spent over 2 minutes trying grill 16-year-old Texas high school student Marco Hunter-Lopez at today’s hearing on political Islam and Sharia Law.
What a clown.
Marco, who EXPOSED his school allowing “Why Islam” to hand out Qurans, hijabs, and Sharia pamphlets… pic.twitter.com/ZYP0q7zqJL
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) May 13, 2026
Marco, who EXPOSED his school allowing “Why Islam” to hand out Qurans, hijabs, and Sharia pamphlets during lunch while censoring conservative clubs, simply pointed out America’s Christian heritage and the faith of the Declaration’s signers.
Raskin interrupted him repeatedly, demanded to know if he believes America is a theocracy, and lectured him on Jefferson’s “wall of separation.”
This is what happens when a 16-year-old patriot stands up for truth in Congress.
Marco stood his ground quite well against a man 47 years his senior. Good work, Marco.
Ed: Dean Cain called Raskin a “douchebag” after watching this. I find it difficult to oppose Dean’s wisdom.
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🚨 A Chattanooga cop rescues a mother and two children from a burning apartment and the Ring doorbell footage is incredible.
Officer Eli Rogers arrived to find flames blocking the front door and a family trapped inside. He didn’t wait.
He went in, got them out, and made sure… pic.twitter.com/ryE2oPAPOv— Brandon Tatum (@TheOfficerTatum) May 13, 2026
He went in, got them out, and made sure everyone survived.
“I tried to thank him… That’s my whole world. That’s my daughter.” — Rachel Blaylock
Ed: Smart people run from danger. Heroes run toward it to protect the innocent. Kudos to Officer Eli Rogers of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thank you for your service to your community.
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