What Can We Say about a Society that Cheers Murderers? Bartiromo Out at Fox. Hapless Hakeem: He’s No Nancy Pelosi. Success Academy Sues New York. VDH on MAGA after DJT. More
Will today be the day we have a verdict—or a hung jury in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, who killed her three children?
With the jury still deadlocked yesterday, the trial took yet another dramatic turn:
A judge has again told the deadlocked jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial to keep trying to reach a verdict after a dramatic sixth day of deliberations in a case that has gripped America.
Tensions flared in court after the jury forewoman sent the judge a note saying one juror would not follow the judge’s instructions on reasonable doubt.
There was audible shock in the room when the defense team asked for the juror to be removed, a request that was denied by the judge.
It is alleged that the rogue juror “refuses” to follow the judge’s instructions. You can watch Clancy’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, “going off” in court. Clancy has admitted killing her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, but the defense argues that her mental state precluded knowing right from wrong. There has been a cultic temptation to depict Clancy as “Everywoman,” reflecting the travails of everyday mothers, but Bethany Mandel argues that there is only one verdict. A mistrial, however, is a distinct possibility. FYI: Nancy Grace notices that nobody is wearing T-shirts for the Clancy children.
As the fan clubs for Lindsay Clancy and Luigi Mangeoni show, we’re seeing bewildering reactions to murder these days. Some people are cheering for the murders. A Wall Street Journal editorial addresses this distressing phenomenon in “A Murder in Times Square and a Sick Culture“:
The murder of Erin Piacenti, the junior Bank of America executive and new mother stabbed Monday in Times Square, should be inspiring tough questions. For one, why are the mentally disturbed left to wander the streets until a tragedy results? Instead an Oscar-nominated movie director has taken the occasion to celebrate the murder as some kind of anti-Israel assassination.
Lexi Alexander, a Palestinian-American director, shared news of the murder alongside a meme of Batman staring up at a bat signal with the face of Luigi Mangione, who murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Ms. Alexander explained that she advocates a boycott of Bank of America. Apparently the bank had issued a “buy” recommendation for banks in Israel, whose economic performance has surpassed expectations.
How dare BofA offer professional investment advice. “Israel doesn’t care about the woman who got killed, they care about the positive rating BofA gave them in the middle of a genocide. There is huge money at stake,” Ms. Alexander averred on X. Which shows there is no conversation into which some people won’t shoehorn their anti-Israel derangement, and no low to which they won’t stoop.
The attacker seems to have had no political message.
The House Democrats might not have wanted their message to be clear at all when they struggled this week over the daunting question of murderous Marxism: for it or against it? In the face of this debate, Wall Street Journal and Free Expression columnist Matthew Continetti finds House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries “hapless”:
Rather than address the root of the problem—the Democrats’ turn to socialism—Mr. Jeffries lashed out at the very congressmen who offer an alternative to radicalism. This is typical. Mr. Jeffries is chasing after the far-out progressives, the Pramila Jayapals of the world, rather than setting a course for a party that can appeal to every American….
Mr. Jeffries’s job won’t get any easier if he becomes speaker. Anti-Trump forces will demand action, and the socialist Squad is set to double in size. Nancy Pelosi also believed impeachment would be a mistake, yet she gave in to the resistance’s demands within one year of returning to power. The pull of the radical left was simply too strong.
Ms. Pelosi ruled House Democrats for 20 years. Her authority was unquestioned. She was a fundraising juggernaut willing to make short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. Republicans hated her precisely because she was so effective. One thing we know about Hakeem Jeffries: He’s no Nancy Pelosi.
Nobody has ever called Maria Bartiromo hapless. Nevertheless, Bartiromo is out at Fox after 12 years at the network. Nicknamed “the Money Honey” back when she worked at CNN, Bartiromo was sympathetic to Trump’s economic policy. USA TODAY offers possible reasons for the ouster. Her firing is a cause for unmitigated joy in MSM land. And here. President Trump called Bartiromo “a warrior.”
USA TODAY columnist Ingrid Jaques says there is something Democrats could do to show their support for children, but it would require ticking off the powerful teacher unions. What are the odds? The Trump administration, meanwhile, proposes stripping tax-exempt status from schools using race-based programs.
The aptly named Success Academy is suing the state of New York for allegedly suppressing AP test scores. The lawsuit alleges that “a government-created information blockade” works to the detriment of minority students. Alert: Kids can still get suspended for using the wrong pronoun.
“Does progress in Iran help Trump?” asks Byon York. It’s complicated. Two Views on the GOP mini convention: “The Trumpapalooza You Never Knew You Wanted,” by Jeffrey Blehar in National Review. A Gen-Z Republican is going to the convention: “I’m going because Republicans are about to get two nights of primetime television, the first midterm political convention in American history, and if we waste that stage just talking to ourselves, we will deserve a Blue Wave on Election Day, November 3.”
I tried to convince a liberal relative just yesterday that President Trump will leave office at the appointed time. To no avail. But realistic sage of the West Victor Davis Hanson asks at The Free Press: “What Happens to MAGA When Trump Is Gone?” Hanson’s answer in the subhead:
Donald Trump has remade the Republican Party in his own image. But history suggests that political movements rarely survive intact once their founders leave the stage.
Texas Trotsky Toast. Well, Trotsky isn’t as toasted in Texas as you might think. Invoking the late Leon T.’s name, Jonathan Turley writes about the Talarico campaign:
Senate Democrat nominee James Talarico appears ready to bring a touch of Trotsky to Texas. In a video from a climate forum, Talarico is shown declaring capitalism an “oppressive system” linked with white supremacy and that it must be “dismantled” to achieve a better world. It is reminiscent of Leon Trotsky, who denounced the “fundamental evil of the capitalist system” and called on citizens to free themselves from its oppression. The Democratic Socialists of America and radical sites have long called “to dismantle the capitalist state.”
Talarico added criticism of Texas’s oil and gas industry, which he mocked as a dying industry “like being the leader in cassette tapes in the 1980s.” He predicted with obvious satisfaction, “That industry is not gonna last.”…
Indeed, the Talarico campaign responded by simply declaring that Talarico is a “proud Capitalist,” though one staffer admitted that the comments were a bit “cringey.” Being a “proud capitalist” who wants to “dismantle” capitalism is a bit like being an avid meat-eater who denounces meat consumption as killing the world and banning meat from his campaign.
Accordingly, when asked about past radical positions, these figures immediately deny or dismiss them. If you want to dismantle the constitutional or economic systems of the United States, a few white lies hardly seem of much consequence. After all, as Trotsky explained, “The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.” For these radicals, there is no greater justification than their own election.
Today must be Old Commie Day at the Daily Musts because I would be remiss not to highly recommend to you veteran political guru Michael Barone’s “What a Stalin Biography Tells Us About Our Time.” Fun Fact: Vladimir Putin’s gramps was Stalin’s cook. But it’s a serious piece with facts that aren’t any fun at all.
Want Ad: “El-Sayed Campaign Seeks ‘Jewish Liaison’ for Damage Control. Here Are 10 Promising Candidates.”
Two for the Road. “The West Faces Two Islams” by Zineb Riboua in City Journal, and in the same esteemed publication, “Kathy Hochul’s Empty Pledge on Energy Affordability.” The author argues: “Until New York puts a halt to virtue-signaling climate policies, the state’s costs will keep going up.”
