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Pope Leo XIV was this year elected the 267th Roman pontiff, and thus has drawn close attention from even the most secular of sources. Last week, Vogue saw fit to include the pope among its list of the 55 best-dressed people of 2025, honoring as his “best outfit for 2025” the “red satin mozzetta cape and wine-red, gold-embroidered stole paired with a cross pendant on a gold silk cord” that the new pope wore for his first appearance as pope on the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. The newly elected Pope Leo appears on the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica following his election as the 267th Roman pontiff (NBC News/YouTube)The pope was, of course, merely wearing the exact outfit that had been prescribed for whichever man was elected pope. It had been left for him, prepared and hanging in the Room of Tears, and had been photographed earlier that week by the news media. But his decision to don the traditionally worn mozzetta and stole contrasted with Pope Francis’ radical decision to eschew them, and so drew the impression that he was not one for making dramatic stands and was subsuming himself to the office of the successor St. Peter with humility and respect for the Church’s tradition. The papal vestments prepared for Pope Leo in the Room of Tears (EWTN/YouTube) In selecting Pope Leo as a fashion icon, Vogue cited his decision to “[b]reak[] with the humble tastes of his predecessor, Pope Francis.” Perhaps, then, even the most secular of people appreciate the beauty of Catholic liturgical vestments, and see in the papal vestments worn by the Holy Father a testament to a beauty beyond this world. Pope Leo at his Dec. 10, 2025 general audience (Catholic News Service/YouTube) Pope Leo has indeed taken a more traditional course than the late 266th pontiff, as he has chosen to wear a white cassock made of Italian wool (contrasting to the cotton blend favored by Pope Francis), a white silk sash (only very rarely worn by Pope Francis), white pants (as opposed to Pope Francis’ black), a variety of beautiful papal stoles in shades of burgundy, white, and gold depicting religious imagery (Pope Francis opted for much simpler stoles), and several ornate pectoral crosses (Pope Francis only wore the simple silver cross he wore as archbishop of Buenos Aires). In fact, one of the pope’s tailors has reported that Pope Leo “is refined, with a good eye for fit and elegance. He appreciates a well-tailored cassock.” The pope’s beautifully crafted, presumably hand-embroidered stole thus reads as an act of veneration toward Mary. But Pope Leo’s decision to wear more traditional papal vestments has never felt like it comes from a place of egotism. And it has never even felt — as it sometimes seemed with Pope Benedict XIV — that tradition was the point, as when Benedict XIV wore red papal shoes or a saturno. It has seemed instead that Pope Leo’s clothing choices emerge from religious devotion and his respect for his role as the “visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful,” as is set forward in Lumen gentium. Pope Leo XIV and Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew take part in an ecumenical prayer service near the ancient Basilica of St. Neophytos (EWTN News/YouTube) For instance, when the Holy Father attended an ecumenical prayer service in Iznik, Turkey, last month alongside Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Greek Orthodox patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem or their representatives, and representatives of various Protestant traditions, he wore a scarlet red silk mozzetta and a red stole with ornate gold designs. As the pontiff was seeking to move toward reestablishment of “full visible communion” with the Orthodox Church, his vesture signaled to the Orthodox leaders, some of whom were themselves wearing elaborate liturgical garments, that the Catholic Church, too, is deeply and visibly rooted in the richness of Christian tradition (and that they should, then, reunify with Rome). Pope Leo said that the Nicene Creed he and the other religious leaders recited is “of fundamental importance in the journey that Christians are making toward full communion.” Pope Leo leads the Act of Veneration to the Immaculate (EWTN News/YouTube) And last week, Pope Leo wore a particularly beautiful traditional papal stole when paying homage to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Column of the Immaculate Conception at the Piazza di Spagna, where he blessed flowers in honor of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. For the blessing, the pope placed over his red mozzetta an ornate white stole with gold embroidery displaying his own papal coat of arms. On the r/CatholicClericalDress Reddit thread, users noted that the combination of a red mozzetta and white stole is unusual and has only emerged in recent decades as a tribute to the Blessed Mother worn on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. The pope’s beautifully crafted, presumably hand-embroidered stole thus reads as an act of veneration toward Mary, whom he said at the Sunday Angelus earlier that week had been granted “the extraordinary grace of a completely pure heart.” Pope Leo XIV leads Eucharistic Benediction (EWTN/YouTube) The pope’s ornate pectoral crosses likewise show his religious devotion. The gold pectoral cross he wore for his first appearance as pope on the central loggia holds the relics of five saints from the Augustinian tradition, St. Augustine, St. Monica, St. Thomas of Villanova, Blessed Anselmo Polanco, and Venerable Giuseppe Bartolomeo Menochio, and was a gift to him when he was created cardinal in 2023. After Pope Francis spent 12 years as pontiff wearing humbler garb, many thought it would perhaps be impossible in the modern era for any pope to wear more traditional liturgical dress, as it would come across as proud and egotistical following the standard Pope Francis set for the virtue of humility. Pope Leo’s more traditional wear, however, has never come across as being in disagreement with Pope Francis’s perspective or as having anything against him. It has simply come across as a different means of humility, one in which he accepts the symbols of his office not for personal adornment but rather to signify his role. Papal red, after all, is a color representing martyrdom, showing that he has given his life for Christ in his role as the successor of St. Peter and that he is ready and willing to die for Christ. The facts that Pope Leo has developed a reputation for having the personality of a “Midwestern uncle” and that he has a long history of serving the poor in Peru — with stories of him driving his own truck full of aid to villagers, helping the village of Íllimo after a flood by going out into the floodwaters himself, and aiding poor women caught up in prostitution — show even further that the intention of his traditional liturgical dress is not to bring attention to himself. Had another man been elected pope, someone without Pope Leo’s strong respect for Pope Francis or his long record of humble service to the poor, reviving the traditional dress of the Roman pontiffs might have risked appearing like a rejection of his predecessor or an act of vanity. But Pope Leo has coolly and confidently reintroduced more ornate garments, without inviting even a hit of suspicion. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: Kamala Harris’s Sad Book Tour Will Now Be Longer Than Her Campaign Cheaters Faking Disabilities Are Dragging Colleges Into Crisis Texas Might Be the Only State Strong Enough to Face Real Evil

America’s Catholic bishops may incessantly complain about President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, but American Catholics actually support such measures as mass deportations. EWTN News and RealClear Opinion Research published a poll late last week which found that a majority (54 percent) of American Catholics favor mass deportations, including 27.5 percent (the largest share recorded in the poll) who “strongly favor” the policy, while only 30 percent oppose it and less than 17 percent expressed indifference. Support for the “detention and deportation of unauthorized immigrants on a broad scale” increased to 60 percent among white Catholics and opposition fell to 26 percent. It just happens that over 300,000 children ended up in a living hell. In fact, mass deportations were more popular among American Catholics than Trump himself was. While 54 percent of Catholics endorsed mass deportations, Trump’s support among Catholics only stood at 52 percent, while 37 percent held an unfavorable view of the president — up almost 10 points compared to opposition to mass deportations. White House Assistant Press Secretary Taylor Rogers responded to the survey results noting that the president “won in a landslide victory with historic support from patriotic Catholics across the country because he promised to fight for people of faith, and he has delivered in record time.” “Patriotic” is the key word, as evinced by the poll results. Support for mass deportations increased (to 58 percent) among Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week but fell to only 50 percent among those who attend Mass less frequently. In other words, the more often a Catholic attends Mass, listens to Sacred Scripture, and receives the Sacraments, the more likely he is to support enforcing his nation’s laws and protecting his fellow Americans. There are two chief reasons for this. First, progressives distort Christian virtue to promote their agendas among Christian demographics. Charity, of course, would demand that a relatively prosperous nation such as the United States (at least temporarily) welcome and care for those in need, perhaps those fleeing war or religious persecution in their home countries, but this charity is not the only virtue that must be considered. Prudence would also dictate that the U.S. ensure that those being given refuge are not a threat to the nation’s people, that taking them in does not overburden the nation’s people, that the “refugees” are who they say that they are, and that the wars or persecutions they are fleeing are legitimate threats. Justice would further demand that those being offered refuge respect the nation’s laws and customs, make an effort to assimilate, and express gratitude for their adoptive homeland. By isolating “charity” from the other virtues, however, progressives argue that welcoming a never-ending stream of foreign hordes from Third World non-Christian countries is some kind of moral obligation for the Christian. Without prudence to temper that charity, rapists and murderers are allowed in, seeking asylum from threats like rival gangs or climate change. Without justice to balance the scales, foreign rapists and murderers are spared the death penalty or even treated as some kind of victim in need of rehabilitation, because to do otherwise would be uncharitable or racist. Without the regular faith formation that comes with regular Mass attendance, it is far easier for self-identifying Catholics to fall prey to this virtue-isolation tactic. This leads us to the second reason that Mass-going Catholics are more likely to support mass deportations: Not only do devout Catholics learn of the relationship between the virtues — rather than merely being bombarded with emotionally-predatory propaganda about charity, charity, charity, and only charity, or at leas the progressive perversion of it — but Mass-going Catholics also learn more about the virtues themselves. For example, the virtue of patriotism. No, patriotism is not one of the seven cardinal virtues, and it’s not likely to be featured in any vacation Bible school songs, but it is a virtue under the auspices of justice. In its simplest form, the virtue of justice demands giving to one what he is due. Piety is a sub-virtue under justice, which demands giving to God the honor that he is due, as well as honoring one’s parents and family in accord with their stations. Under piety is patriotism, honoring one’s country. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, noted that one’s homeland provides both existence and governance, as do both God and parents, and is therefore deserving of one’s devotion. In his 1890 encyclical Sapientiae Christianae, Pope Leo XIII classified patriotism as an obligation under natural law, while Pope St. Pius X even argued that the Catholic Church could not oppose patriotism without contradicting its own divine foundation. Others, such as Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Father John Hardon, and Father Louis Bouyer, have similarly emphasized that patriotism is not only compatible with but even ordered by Catholic virtue, in accord with both justice and charity. The fact that such a majority of Catholics support President Trump’s plans for mass deportations may come as a shock to the country’s bishops, who have castigated such policies as cruel and inhumane, never quite addressing the Catholic Church’s age-old teachings on subjects such as national sovereignty, national security, the magistrate’s obligation to his people, and the countless pronouncements on preserving one’s ethnic and cultural heritage. Rarely do the bishops speak of the horrific rapes and murders committed by illegal aliens, such as the slayings of Laken Riley or Rachel Morin, and not once (to my knowledge) have they addressed the hundreds of thousands of migrant children who have gone missing, many trafficked, prostituted, raped, and some likely killed. It may have escaped the attention of their excellencies that mass migration has severely depressed American wages, diluted the American job market, and spurred a nationwide housing crisis. While the bishops get teary-eyed over foreign lawbreakers who “live in fear” of the consequences of their actions, they may want to spare a thought or two for the hundreds of thousands of young American Catholics who will never be able to own a home in which to raise their American Catholic families, or the American Catholic women who actually do live in fear because their neighborhoods have been turned into ethnic enclaves flooded with drugs and the constant threat of rape, or the nearly half-a-million children who have been broken beyond repair by child-rapists because the American bishops and their “charitable” organizations did all that they could to bring as many foreigners into the country as possible (and pocket fat checks for doing so) with little regard for who these people were or where they ended up. It just happens that over 300,000 children ended up in a living hell. That fact alone should haunt their excellencies and dog what conscience they have left. READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: A Turning of the Tide for the Latin Mass The Anglican-to-Catholic Pipeline Top Catholics Respond to USCCB’s Immigration Message

As someone who was born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and a former Republican City Council candidate who ran to represent this proud community, I’ve witnessed firsthand the profound shifts that unchecked immigration policies can bring to communities throughout our country. As DHS Secretary Kristi Noem put it, America was forged on “blood, sweat, and freedom,” not for “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.” President Trump’s recent announcements to expand a travel ban to at least 30 countries, halt asylum processing, and scrutinize hundreds of thousands of green cards and visas, come at a critical moment. These measures, prompted by the horrific Thanksgiving Eve shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., are not just prudent — they’re essential to safeguarding our nation’s security and cultural fabric. The alleged perpetrator, Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, entered the U.S. legally under the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome in 2021, only to be granted asylum and later unleash deadly violence that claimed the life of one Guardsman and left another critically injured. This tragedy underscores a glaring truth: our immigration system has failed to vet those who harbor ill intent, allowing potential threats to embed themselves in our society. Bay Ridge serves as a microcosm of what has unfolded across America due to lax border policies and unvetted influxes. Once a bastion of Italian and Irish immigrants who embodied the patriotic spirit of our nation, this neighborhood was built on hard work, family values, and unwavering loyalty to the American flag. My grandparents, like so many others from Italy and Ireland, arrived here seeking opportunity, not entitlement. They assimilated eagerly — learning English, working hard, and serving in our military during times of war. Bay Ridge’s streets echoed with celebrations of Independence Day parades and memorials for our veterans, fostering a tight-knit community proud of its contributions to the greatest country on Earth. But over the past decades, demographic changes have transformed Bay Ridge in ways that alarm longtime residents. A significant influx of Palestinian immigrants and their descendants has shifted the area’s character, introducing elements that clash with our core American values. What was once a symbol of successful integration now hosts frequent displays of support for groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. For instance, in March 2025, during a “rally to defend Palestine,” protesters openly waved Hamas flags, chanting slogans that glorified the group while denouncing “Zionists.” This wasn’t an isolated incident; similar scenes unfolded in August 2024, when dozens gathered in Brooklyn to hold a vigil glorifying Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed by Israel. Participants mourned Haniyeh as a martyr, ignoring his role in orchestrating attacks that killed innocents. These aren’t mere expressions of free speech — they’re endorsements of terrorism on our streets. In October 2023, thousands marched through Bay Ridge and beyond, demanding the “eradication of Israel” while waving flags of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another terror group. Fast-forward to October 2025, marking the two-year anniversary of Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023, attack on Israel — which slaughtered 1,200 people, including Americans — demonstrators in the area again glorified the perpetrators, parading symbols of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad at the front of their processions. Such actions don’t just divide communities; they erode the patriotic ethos that defined Bay Ridge. The neighborhood’s heritage is being supplanted by ideologies hostile to America. This pattern in Bay Ridge mirrors what is happening throughout our nation. From Minneapolis, where Trump has highlighted fraud in Somali visa programs and launched deportation operations, to border towns overwhelmed by unvetted migrants, we’ve seen how failure to prioritize assimilation invites division and danger. The D.C. shooting is a stark reminder: Lakanwal, radicalized or not, exploited our generosity, turning it against us. Trump’s response — pausing naturalizations for nationals from high-risk countries like Venezuela, Iran, and Afghanistan, and terminating temporary protected status for certain groups — is a direct counter to this. He’s right to insist that immigration should favor those who come to build, not burden or betray. Contrast this with true success stories that exemplify the American Dream. Take New Yorker John Catsimatidis, a Greek immigrant who arrived in Harlem as an infant in 1948. Starting as a grocery clerk, he built a billion-dollar empire in supermarkets, real estate, and media through sheer grit and innovation. Catsimatidis didn’t demand handouts; he embraced American values, created jobs, and gave back philanthropically. His journey — from Nisyros island to New York mogul — shows what happens when immigrants assimilate and contribute. We need more like him, not those who wave flags of terror or celebrate attacks on our allies. President Trump’s policies aren’t about exclusion; they’re about character. As DHS Secretary Kristi Noem put it, America was forged on “blood, sweat, and freedom,” not for “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.” By expanding the ban and rigorously vetting entrants, we’re ensuring newcomers want to be productive members of our society, not antagonists who attack from within. Bay Ridge’s evolution warns us: ignore assimilation at our peril. Trump’s moves will restore order, protect communities, and preserve the America we love. It’s time to put America first — again. READ MORE from Bob Capano: Don’t Crown Stefanik Yet Trump’s Right: Nuke the Filibuster Linda McMahon Body-Slams Woke Classrooms Capano held senior-level positions with two New York Republican Members of Congress and has been an adjunct political science professor for over two decades. Follow on X: @bobcapano  

Both the faith tradition based on the Bible and the philosophic tradition that started in ancient Greece teach the importance of balance and moderation. In all aspects of human life and behavior as well as in the natural world of which humanity is a part, we can observe this principle at work. Too much or too little of almost anything is less than ideal. We are already created in the divine image and every moment not acting in recognition of it is a failure. We explored last week how Moses Maimonides applied this principle as a practical mode of guidance. An extraordinary character, Maimonides had world-class competence in many fields. As a scholar of law, his reputation crossed all boundaries: his monumental code of law, the Mishnah Torah, is a landmark in legal history and influenced subsequent legal scholars such as the founder of modern international law, Hugo Grotius, and the supreme English Common Lawyer, John Sweden, among many others. His medical skill was testified to by his employment as court physician of the Mameluke sultan, Saladin, and by his nearly forty treatises on medical topics. His skill as a politician was manifest in his leadership of the Egyptian Jewish community and his ability to guide the embattled Yemenite Jewish community from afar in its successful fight to survive persecution and inner fracturing. Maimonides taught how to employ the principle of balance as a basic skill for the simple citizens of his community; he knew it was not merely an abstract observation. Both now and then, those who would be healthy and contributing members of the body politic need to use this skill to guide their own path, taking on the practical responsibility for their own character development. Self-guidance, certainly, but for the citizen sovereign, who expresses his conception of inner worth by assuming responsibility beyond a narrow selfishness. This was not for the citizen consumer, as the marketable products of self-help gurus pandering to our incipient inner narcissist. Maimonides understood as Aristotle that man is a political animal — we naturally associate in communities. In the Biblical narrative, though God starts by summoning an individual couple, Abraham and Sarah, He promises that they will grow into a nation, a people in the sense that word was used by the American Founders and Framers as well. And so Maimonides teaches that the application of this principle of balance naturally extends beyond the isolated individual into the nested webs of associations that make up our life together with others, leading even to the national association, and ultimately to the vision of a kingdom of God encompassing all creation. At each level, from the personal to the family, to the larger associations of communities and nations, the principle of balance applies. And among all the tasks awaiting its application, there is no more fundamental balance that needs to be struck than the balance between self and other. Our American Constitution is an astonishing example of such balance. It begins with “We the people,” telling us that the sovereignty of this nation resides in its people, not in its governmental structures or in any individual whom those structures may empower. In its enterprise of establishing “a more perfect union,” it starts instead from the divine power invested in each individual, on the common level of our shared humanity. We choose to include each other in our personal concerns by devolving our God-given sovereignty upon a national government, whose power we choose in advance to accept as long as it follows this Constitution, which forever reserves to us its ultimate sovereignty. The basis for focusing on this most important balance between self-interest and responsibility to others predated both the Constitution’s Framers and Maimonides. The Mishnah, complied around the year 180 of the Common Era in the Holy Land, records a teaching of a rabbi named Hillel who lived two hundred years earlier: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am for myself only, that what am I?” No one else can be ourselves. We are each a unique and irreplaceable expression of the divine image and so of infinite worth. But what kind of a person, let alone divinity, are we if we exclude everyone else from our essential concern? Blessed with such a gift, it is a betrayal of our own selves to show our concerns limited to an inadequate conception of self. Worse, it is blasphemous, showing that we think the One in whose image we are created is both myopic and sclerotic in His personality. Hillel added one more sentence to this line of thought: And if not now, when?  He was saying: effecting this balance is urgent. This is not a parlor game or an academic’s airy hypothesis. We are already created in the divine image and every moment not acting in recognition of it is a failure, a concealment of the divine light our lives were created to shine into the world. We cannot afford to give up any time to either selfishness or the vain imagining that someone or something else will provide us with the identity we already have waiting for us to know and to engage. This is the galvanizing idea of “sacred honor,” the words with which the American Declaration concludes. The soul of humanity has within it a charge: to live a life worthy of the divine gift that it is. It is our honor to bear the divine image, a sacred honor. We were created to live a life worthy of the gift. The American experiment is the attempt to realize that on a national level. But in a new way. Not a nation whose sovereignty is granted only by a king ’s condescension, or by the imperious structure of a faith unwilling to grant the divine image and national rights to none except its devotees. Rather, it is built on the simplest and most straightforward understanding of the biblical text — all humanity is created in God’s image and so endowed with His sovereignty and His spirit, which is both incomparably individual and incomparably universal. Therefore, the freedom to be ourselves and worship God as we hear His call goes together with the broadest union of similarly free people, hearing the call to express the divine freedom in our political life. We freely commit each moment, in the eternal now, to our great common cause, each unceasingly devoting all our unique gifts to achieve together that more perfect union. READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Socrates, Maimonides, Lincoln, Churchill — and Us Extremism and Its Virtue Friends May Betray Us, but Choose Agency  

I don’t know if Matt Walsh and Megyn Kelly wear the same brand of frilly panties. That’s not the point. What’s twisting their briefs out of all proportion is inane. Those two must be packing a lot more of that prickly Celtic DNA than I am. When a pitiful creature like Wajahat Ali can get your Irish up, you’ve gone back to the “am not, are too” playground. If you leave that chip on Euro-phobic shoulders alone, it might fall off by itself. When you come from a culture teeming with abundance and creativity it’s less than charitable to rub people’s noses in it. Ali’s “I’ll show those white people” hate video pits the man grappling tooth and nail with Joe Goebbels, Richard Spence, William Pierce, David Duke, and the gamut of crackpots who’d bother trifling about the historical accuracy of Yakub inventing whitey on Patmos some millennia ago. Some people are allowed to wear swastikas with impunity. They can be entertaining. Who didn’t get a laugh hearing Joy Reid say people of European descent didn’t invent anything while speaking on a podcast proving the opposite. Anyone bothered by having 100 percent of his ancestors from west of 60 degrees east longitude and north of the Mediterranean Sea is beneath pathetic. Anyone suggesting the tribes from there had no culture is functionally illiterate. Western culture permeates the globe. It would oppress readers compiling the number of customs, practices, devices, and even lifestyles — now common in the remotest spots on Earth — that people prone to sunburn came up with. Squabbling over it is as sensible as debating which way tomorrow’s sunrise is coming from. None of this puts anybody else down. Everyone — who means no harm — is welcome to the party. That people from elsewhere make magnificent contributions to human welfare is not in dispute. Still, Europe and North America together comprise less than 25 percent of habitable landmass. The burden of development in developing countries falls on the occupants of them. El Norte cannot be the perpetual solution. Constitutional republicanism appears to be the closest thing to a political panacea yet known. Wherever it has failed the denizens of the nation must simply try harder. How else did the U.S. thrive after its devastating Civil War? Everywhere has had its share of dictators, demagogues, misanthropes, mass murderers and villains. Superior technology has enabled the most destructive of them. But isn’t it the rust in the spear? It also enables convenience, comfort, reduced suffering, and longer life. Greta Thunberg is on the same course as Ted Kaczynski. Getting down into the slop with the Reids and the Alis leads straight back to where Hitler and the like would take us all. Competition is good for business, tribalism is good for violent combat. It is redundant to point any of this out. Without good doses of history we can’t learn from mistakes. Wallowing in the sins of forefathers around the clock however, is what kept Hatfields and McCoys slaughtering each other. Wajahat’s loathing for the land he has adopted runs so gut deep it plumbs into cuisine. Hence, I’ll state my preferences with no apologies to anyone. When starving after swimming the Atlantic all afternoon spaghetti Bolognese with mixed greens tops my list. Some dish that originated in the Pamirs never comes to mind. I’ll take Dover Sole, a mustard rubbed rack of lamb, chicken saltimbocca, schnitzel, Hungarian goulash, and a score of other menu items before thinking of leaving the continent. I can go Thai or sushi now and then, sure, but the idea that Euro-cuisine alone leaves a palate bereft is silly. Adding new things to the mix is no indication that its dietary predecessors were inferior. Looking over a Delmonico’s menu from the 19th century would leave very few salivating for kabobs. When it comes to literature can anyone imagine the picaresque genre out of Spain if the Moors remained in charge? Sun Tzu gives excellent tactical advice but his oeuvre is a bit sparse on the laughs and heartbreaks you’ll get from Fielding, Hugo, Dostoyevsky, or Cervantes. The world has an insatiable appetite for entertainment generated by the West. Going round with people enraged about movie actors with complexions like Thomas Edison’s makes as much sense making a stink about the rarity of ridge runners from Appalachia in Noh productions. Denigrating American chicken dishes is about as close as Ali gets to funny. If he thinks a bird on a skewer is never dry it can only be by avoiding that fare. Pakistan has a population over three and one-half times the size of the UK while producing about one-fortieth as many books. The U.S. publishes at least 80 times as many titles, if you include self-published screeds, the factor exceeds one thousand. That explains why a writer like Waj stoops to salvos in the kitchen rather than the publishing house. The very reason applying yardsticks to compare ethnic accomplishment is called “racist” is the sad reality of how far behind some people are. The fact that everyone knows is that Westerners hit the cultural lottery. That’s exactly what drives aimless dolts nuts. Watching them melt down in sour grapes is delicious fun. The cultural world marches on around them. When you come from a culture teeming with abundance and creativity it’s less than charitable to rub people’s noses in it. But humbly bowing before the ungrateful raving of lunatics is taking etiquette a bit too far. If Wajahat really wants to gather traction he should convert to Hinduism. Giving up beef would be a small price to pay for the right to say how bad whiteness was in a past life. READ MORE from Tim Hartnett: What They Get Wrong About ‘What We Get Wrong’ Trashing the Culture Remember the College Treachery  

The U.S. seizure of a Cuba-bound Venezuelan oil tanker this week indicates that the Trump administration is moving ahead with operations against the regime of Nicolas Maduro. Sorties from the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier strike group have been flying ever closer to Venezuela’s coasts and thousands more Marines are disembarking at bases in Puerto Rico to reinforce the 22nd MEU readily deployed on the USS Iwo Jima and other amphibious warfare ships stationed in the Caribbean. There is a high probability of at least some American casualties, even in the limited standoff warfare contemplated. The day before Navy Seals roped onto the sanctioned tanker Adisa that previously shipped Iranian oil under a Hezbollah-linked company, F-18 Hornets flew into the Gulf of Venezuela. skirting the port of Maracaibo in the closest open approach yet to Venezuelan territory staged by the U.S. naval task force. Hours earlier Trump was threatening to hit “land targets” as he realized that the only way to remove Maduro and his drug Cartel de los Soles will be by force. “Maduro’s days are numbered” Trump said. But the Venezuelan dictator gave no sign of budging in one or more telephone exchanges with the U.S. president last week. He insisted on keeping his narco billions, on guaranteed protection against arrest or extradition and on virtual control over a successor government. “His conditions for stepping down don’t seem to have changed much since negotiations for a transfer of power began during Trump’s first term more than five years ago,” says a former U.S. diplomat involved in the previous discussions. In an apparent show of force, Venezuelan F-16s displayed aggressive maneuvers within six miles of the Gerald Ford , even challenging an F-18 CAP flying out to intercept them. “It was clearly provocative, exceeding anything we experienced during the cold war with the Soviet Union,” says ex-Navy combat pilot and former NSC official Luis Quinones. Tuesday’s U.S. air incursion into the Gulf of Venezuela could have been a response to the attempt to buzz the Ford. Military analysts also say that the Navy fighters were “probing” Venezuelan air defenses to check for responses such as radio traffic and encrypted signals in ongoing efforts to map out regime air defenses. The sortie may have also been for purposes of deflecting Venezuelan attention away from the sea extraction of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, which was underway around the time that the F-18s supported by a Growler electronic warfare aircraft circled the coastal region. Machado says that the U.S. government was kept closely informed of her exit by boat to Aruba, where she caught a private jet to Norway to collect the Nobel peace prize. Delays in her arrival were due to difficulties encountered in what has been revealed as an elaborate escape plan involving the use of disguises and diversionary operations, supported by U.S. intelligence agencies. “Maria Corina’s problem now is returning to Venezuela,” one of her U.S. based supporters told The American Spectator. Maduro’s attorney general Tarek William Saab has declared her a “fugitive,” threatening instant arrest if she returns. The Nobel prize enhances her heroic standing as leader of Venezuela’s persecuted opposition, but remaining in exile could mean that hopes for an internal uprising to depose Maduro and replace him with the legitimate winners of last year’s elections, are dashed — in what is now a familiar pattern. While her running mate and official presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzales fled Venezuela to Spain last year, Machado remained in hiding, using at times the shut-down U.S. embassy building in Caracas which has been under Swiss diplomatic protection since the State Department pulled out in 2019. Her calls for the army to mutiny recorded in videos released on social media became less regular as regime repression grew and the apparent Plan A for her to emerge before adoring crowds as Maduro was arrested by soldiers heeding her call, melted away. “We are approaching a phase in which Trump may try to do limited land strikes,” says Dr. Evan Ellis, senior research professor of Latin American studies at U.S. Army War College who served on the State Department policy planning staff in the previous Trump administration. By remaining in Venezuela Machado could complicate the types of initial standoff operations being planned by the Pentagon. Protecting her from falling hostage to Maduro would require a direct U.S. airborne landing around Caracas with the strong likelihood of significant American casualties which the Trump administration wouldn’t risk in an election year. Maduro’s ruling circle, closely advised by the Cubans, believes that the administration can be dissuaded from invading Venezuela by raising the specter of another “Vietnam.” While current-day Venezuela bears no resemblance to the Republic of South Vietnam of the 1960s, it’s not an idle threat. Cuban special forces and intelligence agents embedded throughout Venezuela’s armed forces provide Maduro’s inner security ring and have refined the communist military doctrine of “Peoples’War” over decades. Maduro claims to be organizing 280 “points of resistance” throughout the country with highly trained urban guerrilla cells in Caracas that is also defended by heavily armed regular troops. Even assuming that Venezuela’s armed forces largely collapse following waves of U.S. precision air strikes and electronic jamming of their radar and communications, die-hard regime supporters currently organized as “Collectivos” recruited from Tren de Aragua and other prison gangs could emerge as a guerrilla force coordinating with Colombian terrorist groups and Hezbollah, whose strength in Venezuela is similarly estimated to be in the thousands. They have plenty of arms: over 100,000 AK-103 assault rifles and Dragunov sniper rifles acquired from Russia which has set up factories producing compatible 7.62 ammunition in Venezuela. Maduro boasts having 5,000 Russian shoulder-fired Igla SAMs distributed among his armed forces and Collectivo militias which could be lethal against helicopters. Easy to conceal Pantsir mobile SAM batteries delivered by Russia are also highly effective against low-flying aircraft. The CIA is presumably working on penetrating what would in essence be a manufactured guerrilla movement. But experience shows that clandestine military structures tend to remain “known unknowns” until intelligence gaps get discovered the hard way, particularly in Venezuela’s treacherous environment teeming with double agents. Dismantling the vast criminal organization running Venezuela and its external support system may require months of surgical raids and bombings to destroy its supply chains, scatter its resources, and kill its main heads. Marines and airborne units may at some point be sent in to occupy certain key locations. The presidential compound and main army headquarters at Fort Tiuna in Caracas may be off limits to U.S. ground troops initially, due to the high losses which urban warfare in Venezuela’s sprawling capital would entail. But limited landings to take oil ports around the Gulf of Venezuela and the main airport of Maiquetia on the coast might be less costly. Controlling Venezuela’s oil flow while diminishing its narco traffic would be the surest way to strangle the regime and starve out its armed supporters. It’s then that surviving factions of the army disconnected from the regular chain of command might turn on Maduro — unless a Tomahawk missile, Reaper drone, or Seal Team Six gets him first. There is a high probability of at least some American casualties, even in the limited standoff warfare contemplated. Even a few bodybags could damage Trump and the Republicans in the upcoming midterms . Maduro and his allies know that’s their main Trump card, as does the American Left. READ MORE from Martin Arostegui: Putin’s Caribbean Gambit Unmasking Iran’s Hidden Footprint in the Americas The Soros Footprint in Latin America  

The government may not silence conscience or conversation. The American experiment depends on this simple, yet increasingly threatened principle. And that is what’s at stake in Chiles v. Salazar, the Supreme Court case brought by Kaley Chiles, a Colorado counselor who contends that a 2019 Colorado law forbids her from offering counseling to minors who, for deeply held religious reasons, seek help addressing same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Narrowly tailored safety rules are legitimate; viewpoint-based censorship is not. Those who care about the First Amendment need not endorse every viewpoint voiced in a counselor’s office to understand what’s at risk. A free society must tolerate — and protect — the right of adults and children under adult care to seek counsel consistent with their convictions, and the right of counselors to speak and advise in good conscience. As Kristen Waggoner of the Alliance Defending Freedom put it: “The government has no business censoring private conversations between clients and counselors.” That is precisely the constitutional question the Court now faces. Defenders of Colorado’s law say that the state is regulating professional practice to protect minors from harmful, discredited treatments. That is a weighty interest. But, when does state regulation of a private practice cross the line of censorship, particularly when the counseling session consists of conversational, faith-informed talk rather than a clearly defined medical intervention? The answer matters far beyond this single law: it will shape whether states can silence therapists, pastors, and parents who speak from religious conviction about human identity and moral formation. From the oral argument before the Court, it was clear that several justices were wrestling with whether Colorado’s statute crosses a constitutional line by regulating viewpoints rather than conduct. Religious and civic conservatives have long warned that legislative zeal to enforce cultural orthodoxy can slide into penalizing ordinary pastoral counsel. Albert Mohler warned that bans of this kind could “criminalize normal orthodox biblical counsel” and imperil the ability of families and churches to live out their convictions. That is not hyperbole to believers; it describes a legal regime in which conscience is subordinated to state preferences. This is not merely a dispute about therapeutic technique; it’s a dispute about who decides which ideas may be expressed in private counseling sessions. A culture that narrows the space of permissible speech to a single set of orthodoxies forfeits the pluralism that makes democratic life possible. Alan Sears, a longtime leader devoted to defending religious liberty, has repeatedly emphasized that living according to one’s deepest convictions must be protected in both the public square and one’s private life. When the state starts dictating which religiously informed counseling methods are lawful, it tilts the scale against pluralism and toward centralized coercion. Nor is this some abstract legalism. Counselors and families already report a chilling effect: therapists decline to provide faith-informed counsel out of fear of state sanction; parents and adolescents are deterred from seeking approaches consistent with their beliefs. The resulting flight from help or movement underground to unregulated providers is hardly the picture of thoughtful public-health policy. If the state’s interest is truly the welfare of minors, the government should pursue narrowly tailored measures that protect health while preserving robust First Amendment protections for clients and counselors alike. This case demands humility from both sides. Those who view conversion efforts as harmful are right to press concerns about safety and empirical evidence. Those who view the law as an overbroad censorship are right to defend the free exchange of ideas and conscience. The Constitution resolves such disputes not by choosing which views are right, but by guarding the marketplace of ideas and ensuring that the state cannot single out disfavored perspectives for suppression. If the Supreme Court protects Kaley Chiles’ right to speak and to counsel consistent with her convictions, it will not be endorsing any one theology or therapeutic method. It will simply be reaffirming an older, truer principle: the government may not silence private, faith-informed conversation. As former Vice President Mike Pence has repeatedly said in defending religious liberty and free speech, our founders entrusted to citizens and communities, not the state, the responsibility for shaping conscience and belief. That constitutional trust deserves protection. The Court should guard that trust. Narrowly tailored safety rules are legitimate; viewpoint-based censorship is not. In a free republic, the remedy for speech we dislike is more speech: honest conversation, reasoned persuasion, and pastoral care, not the blunt instrument of criminal law. The stakes of Chiles v. Salazar are larger than one statute or one counselor: they reach to the soul of our constitutional order. The Supreme Court should protect the rights of counselors and their clients to pursue truth and moral formation according to conscience, not permit the state to dictate an approved orthodoxy and silence those who don’t fall in line. READ MORE from Greg Schaller: The Supreme Court Puts IQ on Trial Again Republic or Democracy: Democrats’ Crusade to ‘Save Our Democracy’ Is a Ploy to Undermine Our Constitution Shutdown Shows We Must Scale Back Bureaucratic Infringement of Gun Rights Greg Schaller serves as the director of the Centennial Institute, the conservative think tank of Colorado Christian University. He has taught politics at CCU, Villanova University, and St. Joseph’s University. He holds a BA in political science and history from Eastern University and an MA in political science from Villanova University.

The Sixth Annual Idiot of the Year Awards An idiot is someone who’s convinced they aren’t one. That exempts me from the category. If you gather a bunch of idiots and put them in charge of the world’s major nations for a decade, you get roughly what we have now. Today is my favorite day of the year. My job for twelve months is to spot fools and prove that they are fools. My job today, one day a year, is to gather the biggest fools of all into a single ranking. The 2025 crop has easily surpassed all previous ones. Once again, I have the honor of presenting to my friends at The American Spectator the nominees for the 2025 Idiot of the Year Award — and I can’t wait to read your votes in the comments. I can’t think of a better ending for the biggest promoter of international wokeism than to end up putting up with Katy Perry 24 hours a day. Nicolás Maduro, a shapeless, hollow mass growing around a mustache. He’s the kind of person you’d never want to rob a bank with. The kind who drops a piece of paper with the address of where you’re hiding the money in the middle of the heist. The one who gets nervous, kills all the hostages, and leaves without the money. The one who can’t count bills without constantly licking his fingers. The problem in Venezuela is that it’s being robbed — and Maduro is the leader of the gang. Pedro Sánchez, the man who whispers to his handcuffs. After watching all his collaborators end up in jail for corruption, with dozens of judicial investigations open into his inner circle and even his family, he refuses to resign, claiming his government acts swiftly against corruption. Indeed, his party acts swiftly to steal before the judges arrive. Despite being the son-in-law of the owner of a large network of brothels, he’s spent years hammering on with the slogan “I’m a feminist because I’m a socialist,” and now a #MeToo movement has erupted within the party, including his chief advisor, who turned out to be a pervert. In short, the legal net is tightening around Moncloa Palace hour by hour, and millions of Spaniards are already chilling expensive champagne, waiting for the moment this man — who has done so much damage to Spain and the world — finally falls. Zohran Mamdani, the Democrats’ new icon. With economic ideas that would make a first-year economics student blush, Mamdani has become the new Democratic darling; everyone wants to be like him. My suggestion: they start by throwing themselves to the ground, butt up in the air, pointing away from Mecca. Pete Buttigieg, attempting to convert to the faith of common sense (still a long way to go). After spending his entire career relentlessly promoting identity politics and “wokeism,” now that he’s out of power, he’s suddenly realized that the left will never win another election if it doesn’t distance itself from these obsessions that divide society. It’s not that he’s had a change of heart; he just wants to win elections. Buttigieg’s conversion miracle was wrought by Saint Donald Trump. Bad Bunny, the typical rich guy who wants everyone else to be poor. He claims he makes songs, which makes you wonder what the Rolling Stones, Hombres G, or even Mozart are really doing. A guy whose lyrics could be the script for a low-budget porn film tries to lecture you on feminism and tolerance. Mahmud Abbas, the friendly face of car bombs. Every terrorist group needs a useful idiot who, precisely because he seems like an idiot, is allowed into presidential palaces and takes photos dressed in a suit and tie. Ted Sarandos, public enemy number one of Western culture. Conservatives have plenty of reasons to criticize Soros and denounce his entire network of influence to make the world a worse place. But the focus of the culture war today isn’t Soros — it’s Sarandos. Netflix is poison for the West. I’m amazed that so many conservatives are happily funding that poison. Ursula von der Leyen, Montagu’s harrier inhabiting the Brussels carpet. One day we should talk about how the CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany), teeming with far-left idiots in disguise, has ruined Europe. The best representative of this organized gang of traitors is von der Leyen. Ali Khamenei, the meddler-in-chief. Find any place in the world, any place you like, examine its main problems, zoom in, and you’ll find Iran working behind the scenes to make things worse. Richard Gere, “exiled” in Spain. I have written to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Foundation of Friends of Stranded Sperm Whales due to Obesity, because I consider it an unnecessary ideological genocide against Spaniards that, in addition to putting up with Pedro Sánchez, we now have to endure Richard Gere lecturing us on politics from his luxury mansion Española. Deportation now! Justin Trudeau, Katy Perry’s boyfriend. I can’t think of a better ending for the biggest promoter of international wokeism than to end up putting up with Katy Perry 24 hours a day. Good luck with that, Justin. READ MORE from Itxu Diaz: Give Me War and Give Me Castles Something to Hold Against Donald Trump Sánchez’s Spain Is a Caricature of Political Corruption