Greetings and welcome to this 41st and frazzled performance of the Carnival of Fools. There’s no reason to feign joviality this week, because it has been an utterly rotten one. (When the best news of the day is a corrupt politician finally being sent to prison, you know things are grim.) Without further prelude, let the curtain rise on this brand-new atrocity exhibition.

And Yet They Deny They’re Antisemites . . .

As you are no doubt aware, Israel is currently in the midst of a days-long airstrike campaign against Iran’s nuclear and military facilities. The ongoing series of attacks, carried out with the tacit support — albeit not direct participation — of the United States, is aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear program in its entirety. (In recent weeks, the country had come alarmingly close to the nuclear breakout point, where they would have amassed sufficient quantities of enriched uranium to create a bomb.)

And if you thought I was going to have something thoughtful to say about developments on the ground, long-term diplomatic implications, or geostrategic considerations — if you thought I had anything intelligent to offer at all, really — then buddy, you came to the wrong kind of carnival. This is a freak show, not a symposium; we’re here to gawk at geeks. (Leave the deep thoughts to Jim and Noah, anyway.)

And as soon as the first Israeli strikes were announced on Thursday, the weirdos scuttled out from behind the woodwork and poured forth over Twitter/X, chirruping angrily and helplessly about Israel, about Jews, and about worldwide conspiracy theories to yoke America to the Zionists. Yes, old-fashioned nuttery was once again out in the open, as all the most obvious suspects ran rampant.

There was Candace Owens — a woman who swears she is not an antisemite even as she “just asks questions” about the myth of Simon of Trent — reverting perfectly to form upon hearing the news: “Get ready, white American men! It’s time for you to go die for Israel again.” There was Tucker Carlson’s favorite “historian,” Darryl “MartyrMade” Cooper, offering prayerful words of consolation to his followers: “Don’t worry, friends: as arrogant and invincible as he may seem, in the end the devil and all his children are cast into the lake of fire.” (Remember, my friends: Cooper — who also believes that Churchill was the villain of World War II and that Europe would have been better off had Hitler won — insists that he is in no way an antisemite.)

As if to top them all, purported comedian Dave Smith — last seen sidekicking as a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist spouting accusations of Israeli genocide in Gaza on Joe Rogan’s hyper-popular podcast — went one step further. Referring to reports that Trump is fully supporting Israel’s action, he called Trump a traitor to his own movement:

If this is true, Trump is the most impotent b**** of a leader imaginable. He’s allowing one side of a war, who clearly wants to drag us in, to lie about our involvement while not correcting the record.

Either way, Trump has betrayed MAGA and every principle of America First. He is no longer worthy of any of our support. He probably never was.

I am as worried about the potential outcome in the Middle East as any sane man would be. (In particular, I would be very careful about breezily calling for immediate “regime change” without further consideration of what a post-mullah Iran, brought to heel by Israeli military action, would look like.) But it does my heart good to see all the worst people absolutely enraged, and in such repulsively sputtering ways, about Israel’s success to date.

Alex Padilla, Forgotten Man

In tales of the overtaken-by-events, last Thursday, California Senator Alex Padilla (D. — like you had to ask) was, for once, the subject of national news when he got the bum’s rush out of a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in downtown Los Angeles. And if your first thought was “Alex who?” then don’t worry, he clearly felt the need to identify himself as well: “Hands off! Hands off! I’m a senator! Alex Padilla! I have! Questions! For the secretary!” the shabbily dressed man huffed as he rushed forward without warning toward Noem. Noem’s security detail, with admirable professionalism, wordlessly pushed him back out of the room and into the hall, where they got him on the floor and cuffed him.

It was the big PR moment Padilla was hoping for. He was a martyr for the cause of the undocumented. The New York Times and other outlets wrote glowing profiles. Cable news talking heads were running with the “scandal” — violating the august dignity of a senator, and a Latino at that! — in lead segments at the top of the hour. For once, everything was comin’ up Alex.

And then Israel began pounding Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a psychopath went on a politically motivated assassination spree in Minnesota, and everybody instantly moved on, sweeping Padilla back into the well-deserved obscurity whence he came. ’Tis to laugh, especially at a moment when laughs are hard to come by. Such a well-engineered publicity stunt, with such hard work put in — Padilla made sure to have his staffers accompany him to film the pre-planned “arrest” he was seeking — and all for naught.

He was putting the work in for a reason. Unless you live in California — and quite possibly even if you do — this guy simply doesn’t exist for you. “Generic (D.)” has to have a human embodiment, I guess, especially since Gary Peters retired — again, who? — and Padilla fills the role, in part because his name and affect are so unprepossessing. “Alex Padilla” is to California Latinos as “Gary Peters” is to white union-loving Michiganders. Alex Padilla currently sits at third on my own mental depth chart of Padillas, behind surprisingly durable journeyman pitcher Vicente and failed dirty-bomber Jose.

My general wish is for an end to all idiotic political publicity stunts — I apply this to catfighting congresswomen, overly online celebrity candidates, and the president alike. But my specific warning is that, in an era where everyone is on edge and political violence is swiftly becoming part of our landscape, this sort of staged confrontation needs to end. (We’re not at 1968 yet, but it’s easy enough to see where the path is heading.) And in a week where a madman posed as a police officer in order to murder a politician and her husband, simply announcing “I’m a senator” and barging forward just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Mike Madigan Hits the Hoosegow

We’re currently overrun with so much domestic and international news that sometimes the local stuff falls by the wayside, but if you’ll allow me a bit of gloating, I wish to inform you that Mike Madigan, the former speaker of the Illinois House, has just been sentenced to seven and a half years in federal prison. Granted, it’s likely that Madigan’s sentence will be reduced on appeal and (if the old coot survives) he’ll gain early release for “good behavior” — a phrase that could only ever apply to this man in the context of a carceral term.

But the real shame is that it took this long to put him away, long after it was too late to do Illinois any good. I wrote about Madigan once already, back when he was first convicted, and briefly explained his career:

Who is Michael Madigan, you out-of-staters may be asking? The easy line you’ll read in all the write-ups is that he was the “longest-serving state legislative leader in U.S. history” as speaker of the Illinois House from 1983 to 2021. (He actually entered the legislature in 1971, a year and a half before Joe Biden began his own career.) But of course that is merely a euphemism for “the most infamously corrupt state-level politician in modern American history”: His ridiculous longevity was the product of equally ridiculous entrepreneurial sleaze. Madigan is no less than the living embodiment of everything that has made Illinois politics famous for all the wrong reasons — and mind you, I write from a state that sent two consecutive governors from opposing parties to prison during the Aughts.

With Madigan’s sentencing, you can almost hear the groan and clank as the last big gears spinning the legendary Chicago and Illinois Democratic “machines” finally crack and break down. The Daleys are gone, the “Combine” is gone, and now Madigan is gone, to prison no less. (I know jumpsuits are typically orange, but if ever a man deserved to get old-time stripes, surely it’s Speaker Mike.)

The saddest thing of it all is that, after the wreckage of the old Democratic order, Illinois hasn’t been left with anything better. We are now governed by the improbably shaped JB Pritzker (who, with all the imagination that a multibillion-dollar inheritance can buy, fancies himself a 2028 presidential contender). Here in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson sports an approval rating persistently under 10 percent after running an already damaged and flagging city headlong into the ground. He’s become (even for the left) the emblem of everything wrong with progressive big-city governance, an object lesson in what not to do. As for this governor and mayor, there is zero reason to believe anyone more competent will follow in their wake.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. I’m not sure how much good there ever was in Mike Madigan to begin with, but his toxic legacy for the state of Illinois will live on far longer than the remainder of his life.

Until next week.

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Source: Israel Haters Attack Strikes on Iran | National Review