Wednesday Potpourri

First, in the matter of the rare earth minerals deal we are supposedly going to sign with Ukraine. The word from our Treasury Secretary suggests that the fault lies with Ukraine.

Ian Miles Cheong reports:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent informs Tucker Carlson that Zelensky lied to U.S. officials on three occasions regarding the signing of the minerals agreement. His reasoning? “You know who doesn’t sign that deal. Someone with their hand in the till.” Zelensky is skimming.

Second, trad wives are having a moment. Traditional wives are springing up across the country. Kim Iverson suggests that this represents a return to the big, bad 1950s when women were suffering from what Betty Friedan called a problem that did not have a name.

Iverson wrote this:

I don’t get this Trad wife trend. Why do men want to revert to the 1950’s when women were drugged out on Valium, psychiatric drugs, and diet pills while men ran off and cheated then came home and abused their kids. The result was the “free love” 60s and Boomers. Not exactly the picture perfect “Leave It To Beaver” family.

Wilfred Reilly replies:

She makes 1-2 points here, but - on a very basic data wonk level - the current rate of diagnosed mental illness and SSRI use for young white women today is 56%. That's 5x, maybe 10x, the house-wifey level in the 1950s. Today's girl-bosses may objectively be the most depressed women of all time.

Third, the American left is embracing what is now called assassination culture. Charlie Kirk calls it out:

Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump.

In California, activists are naming ballot measures after Luigi Mangione.

The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response.

This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.

Law professor Jonathan Turley calls them the new Jacobins:

They are part of a rising class of American Jacobins — bourgeois revolutionaries increasingly prepared to trash everything, from cars to the Constitution.

Fourth, remember Stephanie Turner. The world class fencer took a knee last week in a match against a male. She was immediately disqualified.

Happily, if it is a consolation, she has been recognized and rewarded for her stand. The Daily Mail reports:

The increasingly influential XX-XY Athletics, which calls itself 'the only athletic brand that stands up for women's sports,' awarded Turner with the Courage Wins Award and announced she would receive a $5,000 prize as well as admittance into a leadership program.

'By taking a knee, she became more powerful than any male. She stood her ground to fight for women's sports,' XX-XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey said in a press release. 'She's a hero.'

And now, to top it all off, the state of Texas is investigating USA Fencing to find out whether it is in violation of state law.

Go, Texas:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced an investigation into @USAfencing for violating state law after they EXPELLED a female fencer from a WOMEN'S tournament for refusing to compete against a MALE.

Fifth, a Navy admiral has been relieved of her duties, for failing to show proper respect for the commander-in-chief.

Jack Posobiec reports:

BREAKING: Per report, Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield refused to put up POTUS & SECDEF pictures in NATO HQ. Also held an “all hands” where she said “we will wait them out 4 years” She has been relieved of duty.

Sixth, let’s call her President Clueless. I am referring to Katrina Armstrong, formerly the president of Columbia University. Dare we say that she must have been a diversity hire, because she had no idea what was going on on campus.

The Washington Free Beacon reports on a deposition she gave last week:

Former Columbia University president Katrina Armstrong told the federal government on Tuesday that she could not recall students calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. Nor could she recall hearing of allegations that students spit on their Jewish counterparts. Or that a member of the faculty had, in class, described Jewish donors to Columbia as "wealthy white capitalists" who "laundered" "blood money."

In fact, Armstrong, who sat for a deposition at the Department of Health and Human Services in connection with the Trump administration’s civil rights investigation into the university, didn’t seem to remember much of anything about her seven-month tenure as interim president of the embattled Ivy League school. The Washington Free Beacon obtained a transcript of that deposition.

"Sitting here, I have, you know, no specific memory of hearing that," Armstrong said regarding her recollection of student activists agitating for Israel’s demise, "but I recognize the concern about that and understand that."

Seventh, from the hallowed halls of Princeton University, rampant anti-Semitism. The Free Press reports on the most recent manifestation:

At Princeton University on Monday night, “Jewish students were called ‘inbred swine,’ told to ‘go back to Europe,’ and taunted with gestures of the Hamas triangle by masked protesters,” reports Free Press fellow Danielle Shapiro, who is a senior at the school.

Shapiro was among some 200 students who turned out to see former (and possible future) Israel prime minister Naftali Bennett. The politician was set to speak at Princeton until his speech was derailed by numerous interruptions from protesters.

“Ever since October 7, we have endured so many antisemitic protests on campus, it’s almost become the background noise to our studies,” writes Danielle. “And it shows no signs of stopping, even though the Trump administration has paused $210 million in funding to Princeton for failing to clamp down on Jew hate.”

Finally, I have some open consulting hours in my life coaching practice. If you are interested, email me at StuartSchneiderman@gmail.com.