Conservative take: Iran Is on Notice

The Trump team’s recent certification that Iran is in compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal has supporters and others wondering about the White House approach to Tehran, Lee Smith notes at The Weekly Standard. Did President Trump “plan all along to leave the deal in place and take his chances that Iran wouldn’t go nuclear on his watch?” No, a Trump official tells Smith: The move is just a “placeholder” during a massive review of Iran policy — a debate “between those who want to cut them off at the knees and those who want to knock their block off.” Trump has put “a variety of Iran’s cronies” on notice — Syria, Russia, North Korea. And “Tehran has no doubt gotten the message.” But whether that matters to “a regime held together for nearly 40 years only by its anti-American animus is another question entirely.”

Foreign desk: Venezuela’s Socialist Hell

Venezuela is trapped in a “socialist nightmare” from which it just can’t awake, writes Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry at The Week. He calls it heart-breaking to watch this “beautiful, oil-rich country” sink into “economic devastation and chaotic, corrupt authoritarianism.” And the statistics that show the “real extent of the misery” make “one’s stomach truly churn”: Over the past year, 74 percent of Venezuelans lost an average of 20 pounds or more. The military controls the food. Hospitals are like those in bombed-out Aleppo, Syria. “Caracas is the murder capital of the world.” “Corruption has infected the country wholesale.” But perhaps saddest of all is that “this was wholly preventable.” He sums up the cause in a word: “socialism.”

From the right: The Earth Day Hijacking of Science

April 22 — Earth Day — has become a “tame secular festival of tree hugging” whose “long-established liberal tilt generates very little pushback,” notes Jonathan Tobin at National Review. But the centerpiece this year, the “March on Science,” will be different: It’ll be “the latest in a series of events following up on the ‘Women’s March,’ when liberals took to the streets . . . to vent their rage about the incoming Trump presidency.” But that risks more harm to “real science” than to President Trump’s prospects, Tobin says. In the end, the event marks the “hijacking of science by the radical Left” and “if it succeeds, both the academy and the cause of civil debate will be the worse for it.”

Culture watch: Thank God ‘Girls’ Is Finally Over

HBO’s Lena Dunham drama, “Girls,” drew “breathless media reports,” says Christian Toto at Acculturated, after the show’s recent finale. But for all that, he says, “the series never got off the ground.” The finale’s “measly 741,000 viewers” is “pathetic for a show the media constantly insisted was altering the pop culture landscape.” Why did this “vehicle” for Dunham’s “entitlement and vanity” get so much attention? He lists several factors, including that Dunham “is one of Hollywood’s most outspoken liberals,” having praised Barack Obama, slammed President Trump and (sometimes unjustifiably) claimed the title of feminist. But even the show’s defenders admit it “showcased some ugly characters,” Toto writes. Which is why it will “leave us with one useful legacy”: It’s “a blueprint for millennials on how not to behave.”

Critic: Richard Spencer’s Dirty Little Secret

Richard Spencer, a controversial figure in the national “alt-right” movement, has a secret, writes Michael Harriot at The Root. After Spencer’s appearance at Auburn University on Tuesday, headlines “documented the thousands of protesters, the brief skirmishes and the First Amendment legal battle that paved the way for his speech.” The one thing they failed to mention: “No one really cared.” Harriot calls Spencer a “scam” — who is “almost never invited” to colleges but who exploits “a loophole” at public universities that lets anyone rent space. Think of “a club promoter” who sends out fliers “with beautiful women and bottles of champagne” — but “when you get to the party, it’s usually just a few lame guys drinking Bud Light and women taking Snapchat selfies in the bathroom.”

— Compiled by Adam Brodsky