Dear Weekend Jolter,

The Talented Mr. Berger headlined the previous iteration of this newsletter “We Can Do Better.” It would have been easy, this week, to rinse and repeat.

After all, that’s what the Count of Mar-a-Lago is doing. In a long speech on Tuesday, he enumerated the accomplishments of presidential term. Admittedly, there are considerable accomplishments to brag on. Some of which — the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and the relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel to its capital of Jerusalem come to mind — might not have been achieved under another GOP president.

Of course, Trump left out the uniquely deleterious aspects of his tenure in office. Here, the disgrace at Helsinki, setup of the Afghanistan withdrawal executed under his successor, and his post-2020 election lies come to mind.

But enough about the elephant in our room: Let us remember what we’re fighting for, and why the stakes are so high.

We’re standing athwart an angry, unforgiving radical movement seeking to redefine our conception of human biology.

We’re standing athwart the steady stream of lies the Democratic Party tells to run down this country.

We’re standing athwart that same party’s inevitable leftward lurch.

And we’re standing athwart a self-flagellating media that punishes itself for telling the truth.

Remember, even as we argue against figures and forces marching under the banner of the conservative movement, it is, ultimately, our goal to safeguard Americans against those flying the opposite banner. We hope you’ll join us in that mission . . .

But now, links!

NAME. RANK. LINK.

EDITORIALS

And just like that, she’s gone: Nancy Pelosi Exits

We could have just left it at this, but we didn’t: No.

His caucus didn’t, and you shouldn’t either: Don’t Blame McConnell

Vladimir Putin’s pronouncements now have the same force of effect as Michael Scott’s declaring bankruptcy: Retaking Kherson

ARTICLES

Andrew C. McCarthy: Trump Makes His Indictment a Certainty

Andrew C. McCarthy: Federal Appeals Court: States Have Standing to Challenge Biden Student-Loan Boondoggle

Charles C.W. Cooke: Pelosi Failed

Dan McLaughlin: The Tragedy of Kari Lake

Madeleine Kearns: Transgender Ideology: A Tale of Two Newspapers

Rich Lowry: The Trump Excuses That Don’t Work

Rich Lowry: Once More without Feeling

Rich Lowry: Kevin McCarthy’s Task

Tim Busch and Alexandra DeSanctis: The Midterms Showed How the Pro-Life Movement Can Win

Jimmy Quinn: Biden Congratulates Xi during Bali Meeting

Jim Geraghty: Does the Moment Call for NATO’s Article Four or Article Five?

Jim Geraghty: What You Need to Know about the Colossal Mess of FTX

Jim Geraghty: Different Year, Same Guy, Same Stuff

Michael Brendan Dougherty: Seven Years Later, Still Surreal

CAPITAL MATTERS

Andrew Stuttaford wonders: Is Elon’s not-so-golden goose cooked?: Twitter: Feathers Fly

Dominic Pino deplores the effects of the Jones Act from the deck of a National Review cruise ship, such a ghastly sight from such a beautiful vantage point!: A View of the Jones Act from the Top of a Cruise Ship

LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.

Armond White says that “a soft-touch Spielberg is not Spielberg in full artistic mode.” No one can accuse him of applying a soft-touch or leaving full artistic mode for us: Spielberg Goes Easy on Himself in The Fablemans

Brian T. Allen explores the Guggenheim’s pleasing, if not exhilarating new exhibit on Alex Katz: Guggenheim’s Alex Katz Show Looks Good but Offers Nothing New

THESE LINKS, UNLIKE SOME THINGS, ARE FRESH

Charlie Cooke has no time for the hagiographies of Nancy Pelosi being passed around:

Did she do a good job? Not really, no. During half of the time that Pelosi was in charge of the House (from 2007 to 2009, and then from 2019 to 2021), Pelosi had a GOP president to deal with, and was thus prevented from effecting major change. For two of her years at the top (2021–2023), she had such a small majority that she couldn’t do much — and what she did do was highly questionable. And then there were the two years, between 2009 and 2011, when she got a lot done. But, really, how could she have avoided doing so? After 2008, the Democrats had massive landslide majorities, and, while they certainly used them to achieve big legislative goals, they also guaranteed a backlash that severely damaged the party at all levels of government, that took the gavel out of Pelosi’s hands at the next possible opportunity, and that kept her in the minority for nearly a decade thereafter.
Pelosi’s last act of note was to throw her own branch of government under the bus. Having insisted in no uncertain terms that the president could not unilaterally cancel student-loan debt — “people think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness,” she said last year, “he does not, the president can’t do it, so that’s not even a discussion” — Pelosi took to pretending that, actually, he could.
That’s not a great record, is it?

Conservatives must learn the right lessons from the failure of the Kari Lake experiment, writes Dan McLaughlin:

Lake would have won, in other words, if she had run about as well as a generic Republican in Arizona, and the decisive margin of her defeat came at the nexus of educated, conservative-leaning, and in some cases Republican white people, especially women, who disliked Trump, didn’t believe the 2020 election was stolen, and don’t think Arizona elections are rigged. And yet, Lake introduced herself to that electorate as a “stop the steal” candidate and never escaped its baggage. Mark Finchem, the “stop the steal” candidate for Arizona secretary of state, lost by nearly five points; so did Trump sycophant Blake Masters in the Senate race.
In retrospect, Lake’s defeat may well have been baked in the cake from the start by going all in on the “stop the steal” stuff. As we have now seen, that is poison in a general election in any competitive state in the union. But it got worse. Lake then went out of her way in the last week of the campaign to insult John McCain voters and tell them she didn’t want their votes. This was an act of staggering stupidity. You don’t have to like McCain’s politics to recognize that the man never once lost an election in Arizona. In 2000, he beat George W. Bush in the Arizona primary by 25. In 2008, he beat Barack Obama there by 8.5 points. He beat primary challenger J. D. Hayworth by 23 in 2010, and primary challenger Kelli Ward by 13 in 2016. He won his last general election six years ago with 53.7 percent of the vote, running five points ahead of Donald Trump in Arizona. The number of potential Republican voters over 30 in Arizona who have never cast a ballot for John McCain is practically nil. You couldn’t dream of constructing a majority of the general electorate out of people who never once voted for McCain. But Lake, who was a Democrat during McCain’s political career, just didn’t understand that, or got too high on her own supply to care.
In the end, the tragedy of Kari Lake is not that some missteps robbed us of a generational political talent, but that a person possessed of obvious political talent never had the sense or judgment to deserve public office in the first place.

Maddy Kearns compares the performance of America’s Times with Britain’s on the transgender issue, and makes a troubling conclusion about Uncle Sam’s:

Years from now, when historians are attempting to explain how the abusive gender experiments of the early 21st century happened, they will doubtless focus on the role of media. They may conclude that — as far as print media are concerned — it was the best of Times, it was the worst of Times. The best being the Times of London. And the worst being the New York Times.
In the past four years, the Times of London has doggedly reported the goings-on at Britain’s main transgender youth clinic. Janice Turner, a Times of London columnist, wrote that, for her, “it began with a graph.” In 2017, after realizing that female referrals to the transgender youth clinic had increased by 4,000 percent in a decade, her “journalistic curiosity was sparked.” And even “more so” when she could “find no mention of this in the mainstream press.” She began asking the obvious questions. Why the surge? What treatment does the clinic offer? What evidence is there in support of body-altering drugs and surgeries? What are the risks? What follow-ups have been done? Turner and her colleagues uncovered an ants’ nest. More questions followed: Why the censorship? Why the secrecy?
In answering these questions, the Times of London’s reporters shared testimony from clinician whistle-blowers. They revealed how the clinic was rushing vulnerable patients through experimental treatment, and they investigated the role of pressure groups in directing government policy. They also shed light on independent reports warning that female prisoners were being put at risk by policies favoring men identifying as women, and they interviewed de-transitioners (those who identified as trans but changed their mind) about how they were failed by clinicians.
One editorial, the official viewpoint of the newspaper, read: “The immutability of biology and genetics must be recognized, so that those born with male chromosomes cannot compete in women’s sports where male strength, size and body shape give an unfair advantage.”
Another, about the Tavistock gender clinic for youths, read: “Worries about the Tavistock’s obtuse ideology have long been highlighted by writers for The Times. At last the health service has listened.”
They were fearless, meticulous, and persistent in their coverage. And what they printed really did make all the difference. Four years ago, someone who read both the Times of London and the New York Times would be forgiven for thinking that the transgender ideology was an exclusively British problem, when really what was (and is) happening in the United States is far worse and on a far bigger scale. The trouble is that most journalists are either incurious or credulous on the subject.

Once again, an American president requires a DO NOT CONGRATULATE reminder. If only Jimmy Quinn sat on the National Security Council:

President Biden congratulated Xi Jinping, seemingly on his recent consolidation of power during last month’s Chinese Communist Party National Congress, during their first in-person meeting as leaders. The exchange took place today on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Bali.
“You and I have had a number of candid and useful conversations over the years and since I became president as well,” Biden said at the start of their meeting, addressing the Chinese leader as “President Xi” and recounting their previous interactions while Biden was vice president. “You were kind enough to call me to congratulate me, and I congratulate you as well.” Although many Westerners refer to Xi as “president,” that’s a false title that grants the Party leader a semblance of democratic legitimacy. He’s more accurately referred to as general secretary, among his other official party and government titles.
Although it wasn’t immediately clear what Biden was congratulating Xi on, just a few weeks ago the Chinese leader secured a degree of political control unlike anything his immediate predecessors enjoyed.
While there was never any doubt that Xi would consolidate his grip on power, the recent Party Congress served as an attention-catching display of the Chinese leader’s uncontested power. The meeting concluded with the removal of former general secretary Hu Jintao from the meeting hall after he attempted to peer inside a folder that contained the names of the new leadership team.

CODA

I know your typical host reflects on some older music (no, that’s not a crack about his age) and so does his substitute, but let me recommend something a little more modern. I had the pleasure of seeing The 1975 live last week. My (short) review: No matter how much you appreciate their music through headphones, you come away from a concert appreciating it by orders of magnitude more. Check them out.