Read all of the new column from Matt @continetti in the @WSJ. The link is in the replies. But here are the diamond-hard core truths of the column (and our times): “Hamas’s greater ambition was to challenge the very premises of Western civilization—our collective ability to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, truth from falsehood. Oct. 7 was a moral test. All too many have failed it…. Mr. Mamdani spawned a crop of anti-Israel Democratic House candidates who will almost certainly win in their deep-blue districts next month. His ideological cousin is Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, who refuses to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, gave a mealy-mouthed response after a Muslim man attempted to drive a car into a synagogue preschool and wouldn’t condemn the IRGC while speaking to a Persian-American student. The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter says Mr. El-Sayed’s race is a tossup. A tossup—what an apt yet bleak description of today’s moral stakes, of the present situation wherein so many Americans can’t distinguish between what is real and what is fake, what is good and what is bad, what is justified and what is lawless. Three years after Oct. 7, Israelis can spot the difference between friends and enemies and act appropriately. Many in the West can’t. That must change. Every day since Oct. 7 brings a fresh assessment of our ability to see plainly and to choose the right side. Be sharp. This exam isn’t over.” Matt is the equal of any center-right to conservative analyst working today. In today’s column he tackles the most important topic for every voter this fall: Do you know right from wrong? The “good” as opposed to “evil?” Because the DSAers and those adjacent to the DSA do not. Israel is the equal of any of America’s allies, a democracy that celebrates freedom, has free and fair elections, and which has massive military power and the will to deploy it when it must. If the Islamic Republic collapses not only would the Iranian people be free of the tyranny of the IRGC, the entire region could resume its walk towards normalization begun with the Abraham Accords. America’s allies in the Middle East want peace. The rump regime in Tehran does not. The Islamic Republic of Iran and its tentacles in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis and its cousins in Sunni Islamist movements around the globe are the embodiment of evil. The IRGC gunned down tens of thousands of its own people in January and opened battles with all of the countries in the Gulf in March. The Islamic Republic is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and our allies since it took over Iran in 1979. The DSA doesn’t believe this. It believes the opposite. As does its (growing) wing within the Democratic Party. Voters who don’t understand what El-Sayed, Talarico, Flanagan and Jackson stand for lack a moral framework for judging America’s collective character and should not be in the Senate.

From “News Items” from @EllisItems (substack.news-items.com): “8. The Economist: Iran is no stranger to economic crises—but this one looks uniquely bad. Even Mohsen Rezaei, the bombastic security chief, recently warned colleagues that Iran is facing one of the most difficult periods in its history, according to state media. America’s sanctions-and-blockade campaign is working, on its own terms. It is still unclear whether it will push Iran to end the Gulf war, now in its eighth month. The rial has crashed through one record low after another. It trades at around 2.7m to the dollar. It has lost half its value this year (and 99% over the past decade). Last month the central bank injected $2 billion of foreign currency into the market. That slowed the decline but failed to reverse it. Currency collapse has spurred galloping year-on-year inflation, which hit 90% in September. Food and transport prices increased by more than 115%, and clothing by 97%. Prices for staple goods such as cooking oil, eggs and rice are all up by more than 200%. Pensioners have staged protests over allowances eroded by inflation. The nurses’ association says some members would rather quit than work for salaries that are now worth just $100 a month. (Source: economist.com)”