Deadlocked in Boston

Boston Globe: "If Lindsay Clancy jurors are hung, this is what happens."

Nine angry women and three angry men.

I don’t think these women understand how the Lindsay Clancy case is impacting the way men see women… pic.twitter.com/fXQIVjVbFj

— Nick Freitas (@NickJFreitas) September 1, 2026

Avoid that lawsuit, Wolf

Fox News: "CNN admits error after suggesting US troops abroad would be impacted by Trump's mail-in ballot crackdown - Wolf Blitzer issued a 'quick note of clarification' following an exchange he had with Dem Virginia Gov Abigail Spanberger." 

Packing the Supreme Court

The Corner: "The Democratic Center Is Now as Radical as Its Left"

As Charlie Cooke has written persuasively again and again, a partisan effort to pack the court would be functionally indistinguishable from rendering Article III of the Constitution moot. “Post-packing, nothing that the Court said going forward would matter in the slightest, and, by extension, any attempts to enforce its prior rulings would be rendered impotent, too,” Cooke most recently observed. “In an instant, the entire history of American jurisprudence would be wiped out, and, with it, the Constitution as a going concern.”

Clyburn hasn’t gone as far as the DSA activists in that regard. They’re admirably frank about their contempt for the Constitution, what with its separation of powers and all those odious obstacles to government by capricious diktat. Clyburn isn’t there yet, but he probably will be eventually. After all, radical revolutionary fervor is all the rage these days.

Is there a single Democrat who will have a "Sister Souljah moment" and stand up to the mob?

That pesky Constitution and the Mob

Jonathan Turley: "The Counter-Constitutional Movement: “Institutionalist” Becomes the New “Oligarch” Label for the Far Left." - "The problem with leading the mob is that you have to stay in front of it or be devoured by it. Packing the court is unlikely to be enough. After they come for the institutionalists, they will come for the incrementalists." 

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last." - Winston Churchill.

I blame the voters of New York

Hot Air: "Mamdani's Universal Child Care Extension Turns Into 'an Absolute Disaster'."

At the heart of this matter is the fact that the people of New York City basically voted for the kid in middle school promising "no homework!" and free soda from the lunchroom vending machine.  Mamdani has made impossible promises (what happened to free buses?) and Big Apple voters deluded themselves into believing they could vote themselves into a socialist paradise.

I'm exhausted repeating that there's no such thing as a free lunch.  But there's always people who delude themselves into believing there is.

What media bias?

WSJ: "The Media’s Lawfare Enabling - Legal journalists who know better cheer on meritless lawsuits against Trump." - "The state of legal reporting has reached peak national embarrassment, a master class in fiction that rivals the reporting about Russia “collusion” and Joe Biden’s undiminished capacity. The media’s contribution to lawfare began in the earliest days of the first Trump term and has become only more brazen. The swings and misses are there for all to see, every day. Yet the formula is now so routine that nobody pushes back." 

The ratchet effect

Washington Stand: "Financial Experts Worry National Debt Will Hit $50 Trillion in Less than 3 Years."

The explanation for the rapid acceleration is the national debt comes down to two factors: First, presidents and congressional majorities of both major political parties have increased federal spending exponentially since day one of the 21st century, but especially so since the COVID-19 pandemic that killed more than one million Americans beginning in January 2020. Second, revenues have increased following major tax cuts in 2017 and again in 2025, but spending has still outpaced the added income to the government. The current fiscal year deficit is $1.7 trillion.

The problem is that spending only ever goes in one direction and every time there's an effort to return to baseline spending levels everybody screams bloody murder.  Elon Musk's DOGE effort barely cut $150 billion from a $7 trillion budget and he was accused of starving kids.

When budget sequestration cut a merciless 2.6% from the federal budget back in 2013, Obama closed the White House to visitors in one of his typical performative displays of pique.  There was still plenty of money for his vacations, though.

Covid is just the latest example of "never let a crisis go to waste."  The government expanded like a balloon over both the first Trump and Biden administrations.  That balloon never deflates.

Gorillas in the mist

Twitchy: "'Hillary for Prison': Jon Stewart Discovers the World Outside NYC and Is Bewildered by What He Sees."

This story doesn't surprise me at all, even for somebody as "sophisticated" as Jon Stewart.  These people live in an ironclad echo chamber which is why "The View" invites on one Republican a year.  After Trump won in 2016, the media swore they would touch grass in flyover country - but they lied.

Other people's money

LA Times: "The wealth tax debate exposes the economic ignorance of politicians" - "There’s an old saying: Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. A similar idea underscores the debate over wealth taxes in California and elsewhere: Those who can, build companies. Those who can’t, devise ways for the government to take shares in what others have built." 

Dolly Parton

Was there ever an American more universally beloved than Dolly Parton?  She'll be missed for so many reasons beyond her musical career.

This was always kind of a favorite of mine:

Oh that's not free speech

Ace: "Democrat Presidential Hopeful Gavin Newsom Signs "Stop Nick Shirley Act" Into Law to Strip Conservatives of Free Speech and Cover Up Democrat Fraud." 

This is by a wide margin the most unconstitutional piece of legislation I've ever seen.

Trump's mugshot

Twitchy: "Byron York Reminds Us It's the Third Anniversary of the Biggest Backfire in Political History."

I would argue this is a close second after Trump's guilty verdict which unleashed a tsunami of donations to Trump and the RNC by Americans repulsed by the partisan lawfare.

They ran out of money

LA Times: "California nearly achieved universal healthcare. Now, millions are losing coverage."

That's the story: California ran out of money for Medi-Cal. 

It's the spending

Wall Street Journal: "How the U.S. Went $40 Trillion in Debt - The problem isn’t tax cuts. Spending is way above historical norms."

Gross national debt has increased $17 trillion since 2019. That’s about as much debt as the U.S. added during the entire first 225 years of its history. While the liberal press blames the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts, and their extension in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill, revenue has increased 68% since 2018. That’s twice the rate of inflation.

Since 2018, revenue has averaged about 17% of GDP, roughly the historical norm. Yet spending has averaged slightly over 24% of GDP, versus a pre-pandemic historical average of 20%.

The revenue-to-GDP statistic is a hard ceiling that does not change that much whether tax rates are high or low.  You simply can't get much above that historical level.  Spending, on the other hand, can fluctuate wildly based on war or pandemics or other crises.  The trick is pulling back spending when the crisis passes.