How Does She Know?

Via the AP,

The social media feud between former Fox News colleagues Megyn Kelly and Mark Levin hit a new level Sunday with Kelly hitting her rival below the belt — literally.

Sunday’s back-and-forth began when Levin called Kelly an “emotionally unhinged, lewd, and petulant wreck.”

“She’s completely revealed and destroyed herself,” Levin continued. “She’s everything people say she is, but much worse. Never an intelligent, thoughtful, or substantive comment. Utterly toxic.”

Kelly hit back by writing, “Micropenis Mark @marklevinshow thinks he has the monopoly on lewd.”

“He tweets about me obsessively in the crudest, nastiest terms possible. Literally more than some stalkers I’ve had arrested. He doesn’t like it when women like me fight back. Bc of his micropenis,” Kelly added.

I asked my AI oracle, "How does she know?" It replied,

Kelly's comments appear to be a rhetorical insult rather than a claim based on firsthand physical knowledge. She framed the remark as a response to what she described as his "obsessive" and "crude" posting about her, which she claimed exceeded the behavior of stalkers she had previously had arrested.

On March 16, 2026, she further taunted him, calling him a "SMALL MAN" after President Donald Trump posted a message on Truth Social defending Levin.

This is just one episode in the food fight that's broken out on the right since even before the attacks on Iran. From Nicole Russell not long ago in USA Today:

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's horrifying assassination on Sept. 10, I hoped that at least something good might come from it. I did see a renewed energy among conservatives, revival among young people and a message of forgiveness, the heart of Christianity, on the national stage for all to see.

But in the months since he died, something else has risen up, too: Candace Owens, a former colleague of Charlie Kirk, and her ever-spiraling grift. At first, I was saddened by the grip she seemed to have on everyday conservatives, caught up in her bombastic storytelling and bizarre tendency toward conspiracy theories.

. . . But I actually think it's far worse than this. I don't think Owens actually questions Kirk's grief, marriage or life story: I think she knows there is a conservative influencer spot to fill so she can earn followers, clicks, likes and money. She's good at one thing – manipulating people − and she's doing this very well right now, to people who presumably call themselves conservatives.

From The New York Times,

As the joint U.S.-Israeli military action against Iran rolls into its third week, leading figures of the MAGA movement have attacked each other with increasing vehemence over the wisdom of the war, and more broadly, what the American relationship to the Jewish state should be.

The debate reflects a widening rift within the American conservative movement. For decades, conservatives were stalwart supporters of the Jewish state, but over the last few years, some have grown disenchanted with Israel and its role in American politics. The disagreements have only intensified since the attacks began on Feb. 28.

. . . Tucker Carlson, the well-known podcaster, has been selling ball caps, T-shirts and coffee mugs emblazoned with messages like, “Neocons are Gay For Israel” and “AIPAC An Offer You Can’t Refuse,” crude and unsubtle and attacks on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group, and other defenders of Israel.

Mr. Carlson has called the strikes “absolutely disgusting and evil” and said they occurred because “Israel wanted it to happen.”

Similar anti-Israel sentiments have been expressed by other far-right figures, including the podcaster Alex Jones and former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as by more moderate voices like the podcaster Joe Rogan and the influential conservative intellectual and Trump critic Andrew Sullivan.

One of the most recent developments in this feud is a lengthy X post by "insurrection barbie" that was endorsed by Sen Ted Cruz. It's an indication of how ignorant the attacks have become:

For most of Christian history, the dominant theological position regarding the Jewish people was supersessionism — Replacement Theology: the belief that the Christian Church has superseded the Jewish people as inheritor of God’s covenant promises. Under this view, the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now fulfilled in the Church, and the Jewish people have no ongoing special covenantal status.

I believe that under near-universal Christian theology, there are actually several different covenants that cover the Old Testament period. The Mosaic Covenent, instituted under Moses, is just one of them, based on the law but fulfilled by Jesus Christ, and it is no longer binding on Christians. However, the Abrahamic Covenant, established by the visit of the three figures to Abraham, is eternal. It promises a homeland for the Jews, and the word "eternal" is used several times in Genesis to describe it. It is separate from the Mosaic Covenent and is not replaced by the New Covenant, but it applies only to the Jews. This position is standard in Catholic and Main Line Protestant theology.

"Insurrection barbie" is incorrect if she attributes either to Catholics of any tradition or Evangelicals generally the view that the Abrahamic Covenant is superseded by the New Covenant. On one hand, though, there are Catholics who openly question either the validity of the Second Vatican Council or the authority of recent popes, who may also find reason to question basic Catholic catechesis as a result. There are figures like Edwwrd Feser who seem to tend towsard this sort of error -- if, as he says, recent popea are wrong, for instance, about the death penalty, where else might they also be wrong?

And of course, there are radical Evangelicals like the YouTuber Mark Dice who claim that you don't need to be baptized to be a Christian. The only thing to say there is that not everyone who wears a big cross on their chest is a Christian, and it's important to be careful. The view that all the Old Testament covenants are superseded by the New Covenant is not mainstream and by no means universal among Christians.

These are some of the mistaken positions that are finding their way into the current debate over Israel. On the other hand, there seems to be a reluctance to recognize that many traditional US allies have become incapable of actually supporting the US in a major conflict, even if they had the political will to do this. This includes the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, while Israel has both the capability and the political will. This is a major recalibration that the US hasn't necessarily seen the need to undertake, and it's probably at the root of some of the current anti-Israel talk.

I think the takeaway here is that making a big deal of publicly opposing the Iran attacks, whatever else it may be, is clickbait, and many people, like Megyn Kelly or Tucker Carlson, who do this have either lost their legacy media platforms or want to increase their reach, and their motives aren't idealistic. And hey, even Edward Feser has acknowledged that he's spending a lot more time on X lately, which I suspect may be taking away from time even he might devote to peer-revied scholarship.

Crepituum sacra fames!