Issue: Politics

Well, well—Doomsday is upon us. Yet again.  

Seemingly concerned with the future of humankind, AI executives are demanding to be regulated.  

There is a certain amount of skepticism about this projected AI Apocalypse, however. Matthew Hennessey of the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression writes (“Where’s My Pitchfork?“):

It pays to be cynical when a CEO in any industry begs to be regulated. When the three top CEOs in an industry all agree they need to be stopped from settling a frontier they charged into like wildcatters, check your wallet. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the oligopolist’s handbook.

In this case, there’s an urgent wrinkle. [Anthropic CEO Dario] Amodei and his peers want We the People to appreciate that if the AI industry isn’t regulated, a happy outcome can’t be guaranteed. Essentially, Washington must organize a global regulatory regime right now or prepare for the worst. Nice little democracy you have there….

Mr. Amodei writes that the monster he’s created could take over the entire internet and unleash swarms of military drones. The likely outcome, he says, is a world dominated by Chinese autocrats. That’s quite a position to put We the People in, wouldn’t you say?

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway also expressed cynicism during a conversation with Fox’s Shannon Bream:

It is an issue of our common Washington, D.C. People seek regulatory capture. You’ve made it to the top of the heap, and you want to keep everybody else out by regulating so the smaller companies cannot rise.

“Beware the AI bosses ‘please regulate us’ bait-and-switch,” an editorial at the New York Post urges:

Top AI companies are blatantly seeking special privileges under cover of warning against the AI-pocalypse.

That’s the best explanation for the sudden flurry of doom-mongering from CEOs like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker stakes out a different position. His column, headlined “AI Promises Boom, Doom and Both at Once,” suggests that the companies’ calls for regulation may be self-serving, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

Former President Barack Obama emerged as a proponent of regulation. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is seen by Politico as facing a dilemma on AI regulation. President Trump “declared on the AI safety panic,” according to Axios. Fox’s Liz Peek writes that President Trump must take the alarms seriously. Hugh Hewitt is less urgent. “Spare us the AI apocalypse rhetoric. Let Congress decide what comes next,” Hewitt advises, observing that “Americans are not in the habit of agreeing with corporate titans who cry that ‘Something must be done!’”

And a word of caution before we start doing things. In “The Dangerous Ideology Behind the AI Warnings” at The Free Press, an AI insider adds his own warning:

A philosophy called effective altruism has shaped today’s AI safety movement. Its proponents claim to be protecting humanity’s future. Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar says think twice before believing them.

It’s more than two years since the Butler, Pa., attempt on President Trump’s life, and we’re now getting new information on Thomas Crooks, the gunman. FBI documents describing the “emotionless” Crooks are featured in a New York Post story:

“When Thomas was born he did not scream and he was always quiet from that point on,” his father, Matthew, told feds in newly unearthed documents about the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

Another story in the New York Post notes that an “anonymous donor” paid for Crooks’ hasty cremation but does not name the donor:

Thomas’ cremation was first revealed by Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who was infuriated and disturbed that the gunman’s body was turned over to the family less than two weeks after the assassination attempt. 

The Supreme Court has blocked President Trump’s sweeping mail ballot restrictions for midterm elections:

The ruling, a major defeat for President Donald Trump, leaves intact election procedures and prohibits changes that could have had significant impacts for millions of voters set to vote by mail in contests that will determine which party controls the House and Senate.

About one-third of voters used mail ballots in 2024.

In a brief order Monday evening, the majority did not explain its reasoning for leaving in place a lower court order blocking the administration’s plans. The majority wrote that the Trump administration was “unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge” to the lower court order.

The lefty media can’t get enough of those Houthis. The Guardian, for example, reports that the Iran-backed Houthis have seized “strategic” Red Sea islands and that this means there is an “impending oil crunch.” Zineb Riboua takes a somewhat different tack in “Houthi Defeat Is Closer Than We Think” at The Free Press. He argues:

The terrorist group has renewed attacks on Saudi Arabia as the kingdom faces a broader regional war. But a weakened Iran could finally threaten their ability to keep fighting.

We’ve all been concerned about the anti-American indoctrination in our colleges and universities. Unlikely as it may seem, this problem may solve itself. Walter Russell Mead tells us how, in a column headlined “Higher Ed Will Soon Get Patriotic.” Renewed great-power rivalry will suppress employer demand for “citizens of the world,” Mead argues:

Smart corporate recruiters will be seeking graduates who don’t want to abolish capitalism, globalize the intifada or destroy the U.S. Given the rise of antibusiness sentiment among DSA Democrats and MAGA Republicans, firms will increasingly see the value of being perceived by the public as loyal, productive members of Team America.

Despite the sometimes robust evidence to the contrary, college students and universities aren’t unintelligent. When top tech companies, law firms and investment banks wanted global citizens, the elite educational complex churned them out. Now colleges are beginning to respond to changing signals from these employers….

Second, as more elite private colleges and universities like Harvard, Yale and Vanderbilt promote greater intellectual diversity and more high-profile public universities establish institutes to study and teach the values of the American founding, more moderate and conservative young people will enter the academy and play a larger role in campus life.

“This issue is splitting the Catholic Church” is a Washington Post headline. The issue is immigration, and the Post publishes a piece by Nathan Pinkoski:

Catholic leaders speak with one voice on the issue of immigration. In July, Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, marked his home country’s 250th anniversary by calling on the United States to welcome migrants with “compassion and generosity.”…

But when it comes to Catholics in the pews, the picture looks very different….Lay Catholic support for a border wall is sharply at odds with the official views of the hierarchy. Under the mantra of “building bridges and not walls,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) opposed border wall construction in 2017, in 2019 and again in 2023.

But the Catholic hierarchy’s pro-migrant sentiments aren’t the product of these material incentives (the USCCB loses money on migration). Instead, they’re embedded in the way churchmen think and write about the public role of the Catholic Church. Bishops remain captivated by a postwar vision of migration that political leaders across the ideological spectrum are moving away from.

Moralistic discussions of migration are ill-suited to a time when migration is largely about economic aspirations rather than escaping totalitarian regimes. The inadequacy of the present system has impelled anti-populist politicians such as Donald Tusk and Keir Starmer to tighten asylum and immigration law. Yet church officials have taken a position that is squarely to their left.

Former Democratic insider Lindy Li is spilling the beans on her former party:

Li, a former Democratic fundraiser who switched party affiliation over unheeded warning signs about President Joe Biden‘s decline in the 2024 election, believes Kamala Harris was setting herself up to poach Biden’s donors just days before he dropped out of the race — while still telling voters he could win.

“It was all charade….”

Here’s what I find so telling: A woman who cannot put together a coherent, diagrammable sentence is nevertheless able to connive herself into first place on the Democratic ticket. Guess it just depends on what’s important to you.

“Meet the Influencers Boosting Zohran Mamdani’s Administration“: “Some in the mayor’s coterie are relatively innocuous. But others celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk, claim America runs “mass concentration camps,” and make apologies for terrorist attacks targeting synagogues.

First, last night’s brilliant Land Recognition Statement: All hail to Texas Rep. Brandon Gill, who flipped the script on Dems at the GOP convention last night with a reverse land recognition statement. Awesome.

But you know who stole the show. President Trump “stunned” the nation with an unprecedented pledge last night in Dallas at the GOP’s first-ever midterm convention (aka the “Trumpapalooza”):

President Donald Trump delivered the keynote speech on day one of the GOP’s inaugural midterm convention, alternating between touting his successes in office and rallying thousands of supporters for Republican candidates ahead of November’s general election before making a promise to American voters.

In a stunning move, Trump made a promise unheard of in the history of American politics — offering a cash prize should Republicans keep control of Congress.

“I can make this promise to you, and here is my promise,” he said. “If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic — tremendous economic success like in history, we’ve never had anything like what’s happening. But because of our tremendous strength and success economically — I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000. Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.”

“It will be called the ‘Trump dividend,'” he added.

Damian Paletta of The Wall Street Journal calls the “dividend” promise President Trump’s “biggest election gambit yet.” Paletta discusses where the funds might come from (tariff revenue?) and the ultimate price tag. The Wall Street Journal offers five takeaways, including the optimism and the surprise video appearance by maverick Democrat Senator John Fetterman. Fetterman rejected what he described as the Democratic Party’s “extremes and socialism.”

Trump vowed an end to cashless bail and increased use of the death penalty and pushed a new bill that would make it illegal for any future President to open our borders, plus a “great” healthcare plan that would crack down on insurers. The question is: Has the Trump administration delivered? Patrice Onwuka writes in the Washington Post that “no Democrat supported what’s propelling the U.S. economy now.” Onwuka argues: “I know firsthand about the benefits of the Working Families Tax Cuts.” Charts show that America is on the rise.

Meanwhile, Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York wonders whether the midterm results are already baked into the cake. WSJ political columnist Karl Rove contemplates, “Who Will Be the Bigger Midterm Loser?” “‘Pretend I’m on the Ballot’ Is Trump’s Midterm Strategy” is a Free Press article by Audrey Fahlberg. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel suggests that the Trumpapalooza might be a pivot.

We all know what day tomorrow is. He’ll be there, despite requests that he stay home. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch blasts 9/11 revisionists blurring lines between heroes and terrorists:

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch pointedly called Wednesday for “moral clarity” ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks — decrying revisionists who blur the lines between heroes and terrorists.

Tisch made the remarks before a stone-faced Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other NYPD and city officials as they unveiled a new 9/11 Memorial Wall at One Police Plaza.

“No Place for 9/11 Truthers on the 25th Anniversary” is the headline on James B. Meigs’ Free Expression piece. “Conspiracy claims have found fresh expression today, but not one survives scrutiny,” Meigs argues.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg writes that Lower Manhattan must go on living, even as we honor those lost on 9/11 — otherwise, terror triumphs. Michael McConnell addresses the phenomenon of the “emergency presidency,” which was one result of 9/11. McConnell argues at City Journal that an era of executive power that has only expanded since 9/11:

Bush’s statement that the dangers were “continuing” as well as “immediate” proved more prescient than he could have known. We live in the shadow of the 9/11 emergency a quarter of a century later. Every president since Bush has extended the emergency declared that day. The extraordinary powers that the nation’s 43rd president invoked on September 14, 2001, have become ordinary.

We now live in an age of unending emergencies: 9/11, the financial meltdown of 2008, and the Covid-19 pandemic being the most prominent. Not surprisingly, each pitted emergency response against civil liberties, and each left the White House playing a more dominant role in the American republic.

An Anthropic researcher has made headlines saying that AI might kill us. We were told that there is a more than 10% chance AI “could kill all humans.” Frankly, Ms. Must was skeptical. C’mon, why? And how? I found the notion of AI “judgment day” silly. But people who know more than Ms. Must take it seriously. “Yes, AI Might Really Kill Us All” is the Free Press headline on Daniel Kokotajlo’s story:

I worked at OpenAI for two years before resigning in 2024. Fears that AI will cause human extinction are real. You should take them seriously.

“How Would AI Actually Kill Us All? What to Know About the AI Doomsday Debate” is a Wall Street Journal headline on a story that reveals how we could be wiped out “even if all the [nice?] bots want to do is make paper clips.” Famed investor Paul Tudor Jones weighs in with “AI May Become the Third Superpower.” The subhead:

The threat to mankind is real, and Trump and Xi need to develop a shared strategy to confront it.

Miranda Devine has an excellent column on the juror holdout in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial—she, too, zeroes in on the telltale quote that struck so many of us:

‘He couldn’t get over the fact that Clancy viciously killed her children.”

Those are the words of one of the insufferably condescending female jurors from the Lindsay Clancy mistrial who have gone public with their disdain for the lone male juror who refused to go along with their not guilty verdict.

Good for him.

Several of the jury members, Devine notices, were employed in the “helping professions”:

Jury forewoman Roni Carlson, a former elementary school teacher, Kellie Farina, a chef for a senior center, and Paula Devlin, who does work for a defense contractor, were interviewed on camera by NBC10 Boston, and it’s hard to imagine a more smug group lacking in self-awareness or any humility. They revealed that there were a number of nurses and teachers on the jury.

Loyal daughter of a certain state that, alas, sometimes doesn’t get the recognition it deserves, Ms. Must can’t resist this story: “Mississippi Fixed Its Schools. Here’s How Other States Can.” It’s the story about how the poorest state in the union reversed its illiteracy rate and what other states must do to emulate Mississippi. Ms. Must dares to suggest that with better schools, her state will lose its “poorest in the nation” tag.

September 10—today—is the first anniversary of the murder of Charlie Kirk. His death left a void in the conservative movement. There was a terrific story that I bet Charlie would love at The Federalist two days ago: “Charlie Kirk’s Biggest Legacy Will Be Inspiring Young People to Get Married.”

Just two more pieces to prepare for tomorrow. “What Mohamed Atta Was Trying to Tell Us,” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in The Tablet, makes the point that 25 years later, it’s time for us to face the true cause of 9/11. Atta steered one of the planes into the Twin Towers. Here’s a snippet of the piece:

Nothing in his circumstances compelled [Atta] to dwell on death. Yet he gave detailed instructions for the handling of his corpse. “I don’t want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral or on any occasion thereafter,” he wrote. He did not want a pregnant woman, or “a person who is not clean,” to come and say goodbye.

The man who washed his body should wear gloves so as not to touch his genitals. He was to be wrapped in three white pieces of unadorned cloth, laid on his right side facing Mecca, and buried “next to good Muslims.” His money was to be divided “according to the Muslim religion as almighty God has asked us to do.”

In “The Europeans’ Post-9/11 Advice,” Barton Swaim suggests that “The urge to blame America and stop it from responding began immediately.”

Well, we’re off and running. Finally.

The GOP is hoping to get a jolt from its inaugural midterm convention that kicks off today in Dallas. Meanwhile, the New Hampshire primaries yesterday resulted in what USA TODAY calls “safer bets” for both parties:

Within minutes of the polls closing, results were called for the Democratic and Republican nominations for Senate, which easily went to Rep. Chris Pappas and former Sen. John E. Sununu, respectively….

Recruiting Sununu was a big get for the GOP, which is promising to spend $17 million in the state this year to flip the seat. He comes from a popular family in the state and served in the Senate previously, having defeated Jeanne Shaheen in 2002 before losing their rematch six years later.

President Trump will deliver tonight’s keynote speech at the GOP convention (tentatively scheduled for 9 pm ET). The New York Times proposes that the president’s ability to channel voter concerns will be tested. Encouraging for the GOP, however, Byron York writes that Trump has been true to his base:

A new analysis in the Wall Street Journal offers striking evidence that, for all his problems, President Donald Trump has delivered economic benefits to the voters whose support was the foundation of his victory in 2024.

The Wall Street Journal’s headline and story synopsis read: “Americans Without College Degrees Are Having One of the Best Job Markets in Years; Unemployment among younger workers who didn’t go to college has rarely been lower in recent decades. It is the opposite story for college grads.”

In a similar vein, Heather Higgins writes at Real Clear Politics that “Republicans Should Make Clear Who Stands for Women“:

The WNBA’s stunning inability to explain why Enes Kanter Freedom shouldn’t be eligible for women’s professional basketball is an unexpected gift to Republicans facing a difficult midterm election.

Once again, voters see how the left is now so controlled by radical ideologues that they can no longer acknowledge the obvious realities that made them champion Title IX and the need for separate sports teams for biological women.

But why stop with sports?

A Race to Watch: Sportscaster Michele Tafoya is giving Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan a tougher race than was expected in Minnesota’s Senate race. USA TODAY’s Nicole Russell writes that the Texas Senate race is tightening as Democrat James Talarico’s mask is slipping:

Despite his moderate everyman pitch, Talarico’s true progressive beliefs keep surfacing, slowly shifting voter sentiment and leaving Texans wondering what he actually believes.

Meanwhile, Audrey Fahlberg of The Free Press writes about “The Civil War Inside the DSA“:

The movement is split between pragmatists, who prioritize winning elections, and purists who don’t want to compromise their Marxist principles.

Jenny Holland of Spiked Online writes about “the sickness and silliness of modern ‘socialism’.” Please, please do not miss the artwork—masked socialists bewailing the non-existent “genocide” of fat people.   

The DSA split is not The Free Press’s only Must Read today. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s “Who Will Rule the Middle East?” explores the future for this region that has “confounded diplomats for generations.”

“Iran Signals Readiness to Escalate Fight in Face of Rising U.S. Pressure” is a New York Times headline. Yes, Iran is escalating its threats, but how able is the weakened regime to do much more than threaten? The U.S. has struck Iranian tankers in response to Iran’s possible attacks on Navy ships. Looks like Iran’s claimed hits might be mullah fantasy. Not Good: Oil Hits $100 for First Time Since July.

“From O.J. Simpson to Lindsay Clancy” is the headline on Emma Camp’s feature at the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression:

To Ms. Clancy’s defenders, she is representative of the ways in which mothers are continually failed in modern America. On the other side, both the crimes and the public response to the crimes are taken as evidence that feminism was a mistake. If the Simpson case was a trial of American race relations, the Clancy case is a trial of the American gender wars. 

Just as support for Simpson was split along racial lines, support for Ms. Clancy is split along gender lines. On TikTok, mothers have been sharing video of themselves holding their own young children with the caption “same, Lindsay.” Crowds of pink-clad women gather outside the courthouse in a show of solidarity. These women speak of the suffering and loneliness that mothers of young children too often experience, and they aren’t wrong about that. 

But the emergence of a Lindsay Clancy fandom is disturbing, to put it mildly….

Lindsay Clancy’s jurors are beginning to let us know what happened behind closed doors. The jurors found the sole holdout—a male juror—who would not go for an innocent by reason of insanity “arrogant”:

“He would not interact with us and try to understand,” [the juror] continued. “We read to him, on numerous occasions, the definition of reasonable doubt from Judge [William] Sullivan’s instruction.”

“But he had the hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children,” she explained.

Powerline’s John Hinderaker was also struck by the “he had the hardest time” line. It should also be mentioned that the jurors found the prosecution “didn’t show enough compassion toward Clancy,” who was suffering from “gripping insomnia” etc., etc. (I should just mention again that the respected psychiatrist Sally Satel does make a strong case that psychosis drove Clancy to kill her children.)

Despite families of those who died September 11 begging him to stay away, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani insists on attending New York’s solemn commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of that terrible day. New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin refers to “Mamdani’s toxic Ground Zero blame game,” which “latches on to still-open wounds” in order to “boost himself.”

“What We Have Forgotten About 9/11“: Tal Fortgang writes at City Journal that we have forgotten “the fundamental truth that a real difference exists between us and our enemies”:

George W. Bush, much maligned, was actually right: you are either with us or against us. Our terrorism laws are designed to force institutions around the world to choose between affiliating with the United States—its markets, citizens, and institutions—or aligning with groups we have designated as a uniquely dangerous class of adversary. 

What did you learn in grad school today? An editorial in the Wall Street Journal explores the subject of “What They Teach Teachers in Grad School“:

Children learn a great deal about race and gender in schools these days, but not nearly enough about reading and math. A big reason is the colleges that teach the teachers, and a new report forthcoming Wednesday brings more insight into how they promote politics instead of the basics of instruction.

The evidence comes from Daniel Buck of the American Enterprise Institute, who examined syllabi for programs at eight public graduate schools of education across five states. For each school he analyzed one master’s or certification program that “aligned most closely with an elementary teaching degree,” he writes, not programs that are “overtly political.”

One More What If: “What if California Becomes a ‘Failed State’?” by Richard Shinder, suggests that not only California is at risk:

The DSA and other progressives are pushing the public-policy Overton window into uncharted territory—a policy mix that could saddle U.S. states with what international investors call “political risk.” In economic terms, political risk is the additional required return on an investment due to the possibility a sovereign jurisdiction may seize an asset or otherwise diminish its value. In extreme cases—war-torn regions, full-blown kleptocracies—Western companies might decline to invest or do business….

A slate of progressive policies and proposals could make the risks of doing business or even residing in certain American states and cities too unpredictable to calculate—or a compensating gain too difficult to obtain. These include wealth taxes (such as California’s “billionaire tax” initiative on the ballot this fall), exit taxes, novel property levies (such as the pied-à-terre tax in New York City), and slavery reparation task forces (including in California, always a free state).

As for slavery reparations, Nigel Biggar, author of THE book on colonialism, says nope: Britain’s role in the slave trade was minuscule compared with Arab and African nations.

Legacy Considered. Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Mao’s death. Wonder if Hasan Piker will wear his fetching Mao jacket today (he really does sport one)?

Friday, we will solemnly remember the terrorist attacks on America. It’s been 25 years since that terrible day.

There will be a full schedule of events in New York. But should New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani attend? No, says Rudy Giuliani. “America’s Mayor Tells Mamdani to Skip 9/11 Memorial Ceremonies,” blares the New York Post. “Zo Away!”

Former Mayor Giuliani, who rose spectacularly to the occasion that dreadful day, isn’t the only objector. A petition urging Mamdani’s exclusion from the ceremonies has garnered 1000,000 signatures—including that of former New York Governor George Pataki.

Mayor Mamdani has announced that he plans to attend. Matthew Hennessey of the Wall Street Journal is disgusted with the way Mayor Mamdani addressed the issue:

The current mayor of New York has done and said many things in his short tenure that have annoyed me. What he did on Friday made me want to punch a wall. After signing a pair of executive orders recognizing the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Mayor Zohran Mamdani handed the ceremonial pen to his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, and instructed her to hand it to the man to her left. 

That man was Ramzi Kassem, the mayor’s chief counsel. Attentive readers of Free Expression will remember the name. Mr. Kassem is the terror lawyer who represented Ahmed al-Darbi.

Hennessey gives a sketch of the New York Chief Counsel’s famous client:

Mr. Kassem was Mr. al-Darbi’s lawyer when Mr. al-Darbi pleaded guilty in 2014 to participating in al Qaeda’s bombing of a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. One person was killed and a dozen injured in the attack, which spilled 90,000 barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Aden.

Fun fact: Mr. al-Darbi’s brother-in-law, Khalid al-Mihdhar, was one of the hijackers who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001….

Everyone deserves a lawyer. But by deliberately handing his ceremonial pen to this man, Mr. Mamdani mocked the loss his city suffered on 9/11. And he forced Ms. Tisch to participate in that mockery. He might as well have turned to the cameras and winked.

How has it come to this?

Mayor Mamdani says he will use the ceremony to “honor the families, the survivors, the first responders forever impacted by that horrific terror attack.” What about recalling the terror campaign against the United States? “A 9/11 Story Some Want Us to Forget” is the headline on John J. Miller’s story, also in Free Expression. Martin Gurri writes in City Journal about “September 11’s Long and Bloody Geopolitical Road.” The surprising subhead:

The attacks inaugurated a struggle to the death that dragged on for decades and only now might be reaching its conclusion—in Iran.

The political season traditionally starts the day after Labor Day, though it feels like it’s been going on forever. The GOP’s first-ever midterm convention gets underway on Wednesday in Dallas. As President Trump takes center stage in Dallas, the “GOP faces brutal midterm headwinds as Republicans paint election as ‘competition with communism’.”

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal addresses “Trump and the Senate Stakes.” The editors conclude:

The midterm election in a second presidential term is often bad for the party in the White House, with Bill Clinton a notable exception. The campaign still has two months to run, and Republicans might be able to avoid a Senate wipeout. But if they do lose their majority, Mr. Trump will find his Presidency in a two-year state of siege, and he’ll be the main reason.

“Everything Is Bigger in Texas — Including the Senate Stakes” is Josh Hammer’s take on Talarico vs. Paxton in the Lone Star state. The most fascinating phenomenon is the emergence of the Social Democrats of America. The kids seem to love socialism.

In “The Boom They Never Saw Coming,” Larry Kudlow writes about a surge in investment, manufacturing, productivity, and jobs. But will voters see it in November? This isn’t good news: “Oil Nears $100, Dow Futures Dip.”

Mark Penn and Andrew Stein write about this in “Socialism and the Dumbest Generation“:

Say socialism and college-educated young people start to dance and cheer. But when you ask them about the specifics of what it would mean, they quickly sour on it as shown in a recent Harvard Caps/Harris poll….

Sixty-eight percent of young voters say they want to own their own home. Meanwhile Cea Weaver, Zohran Mamdani’s director of the New York City Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, has declared that “private property and . . . especially home ownership is a weapon of white supremacy” and that housing should be regarded as a collective good….

The share of 18- to 24-year-olds who attend college has increased by roughly half since 1969. It seems our institutions of higher learning are busy producing the dumbest generation—one that succumbs easily to the social-media sirens championing socialism while in reality they yearn for the same old elements of the American Dream their parents wanted—owning a home, getting paid well for good work and maybe starting a business.

So maybe the dumbest generation needs better schools? Eve Mosknwitz of the aptly named Success Academy explains in the Washington Post why New York’s Education Department doesn’t want parents to see students’ AP scores. Could school choice ease the fertility crisis? William Mattox thinks it might:

Kevin and Alissa Kashani had a third child after moving to Florida, where a good education doesn’t require paying tuition or taking on a prohibitive mortgage.

More on Education. “Is It Right to Hold Your Kids Back in Kindergarten?” asks a Free Press headline: “‘People will do anything to get an edge,’ said one Florida mom. ‘At what point does it become too ridiculous? When does it stop?’”

Is it right to let your child go for a walk alone? A Virginia mother did that. “And Now She’s a Convicted Criminal,” The Free Press reports. Jonathan Adler reports:

Nothing happened to Sam (the child), at least not physically. But for her choice, Parkinson was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a first-degree misdemeanor in Virginia. In August, she was convicted by a local judge after a bench trial in the Williamsburg Juvenile & Domestic Relations District Court and given a six-month suspended jail sentence.

Knowing Karyann Parkinson (the mother)—a then-neighbor and former student—and having attended the trial, it seems she was punished less for making a debatable parenting choice and more for refusing to come to heel when questioned about her decision. It’s not so much that she let Sam collect goose feathers so much as that she did not genuflect to the proper authorities. That makes the case no less of an outrage. Parkinson has found herself in every parents’ nightmare—hence why it made national news. So how, exactly, can a mother be given a suspended jail sentence for simply letting her son go for a walk?

We began this morning with 9/11. It’s not the only terrorist attack the left would like to forget. Don’t miss this Free Beacon exclusive: “UN Sought to ‘Cover-Up’ UNRWA Staff’s Role in Oct 7 Attack and Ties to Hamas by Undermining Internal Probe, US Watchdog Finds.”

Dumbest Couple. Instead of killing a fatted calf to welcome home the prodigals, King Charles has ruled out a royal role for Meghan and Harry:

[A letter from the King] specifies that the Duke and Duchess do not represent the sovereign, and are not working members of the Royal family.

The couple’s use of His and Her Royal Highness remains in abeyance, it states, and any charity work “is a personal matter for them both and undertaken in their private capacity”.

The letter adds: “In short, their position is akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests.”

As Karl Marx might put it, a specter is haunting the Democratic Party. In the oft-quoted opening sentence of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, the busy specter is communism, aka socialism.

“Handful of House Democrats Vote to Denounce Murderous Marxism” is the arresting headline on James Freeman’s Best of the Web column. Freeman begins:

On Tuesday this column noted the four House Democrats who didn’t want to endorse the voter ID legislation known as the SAVE Act but were willing to offer an amendment condemning the socialists staging a takeover of their party.

Their outstanding amendment detailed the bloody history of Marxist cruelty. Though it did not receive a floor vote, it’s nice to see signs of life for the spirit of liberty within a party that often seems to have resigned itself to serving as a vehicle for Sandernista revolution.

Now the number of House Democrats willing to go on record against this horror has risen to at least 12, counting the eight Democrats who voted yesterday for a resolution from Rep. Jeff Crank (R., Colo.) that both called for voter ID requirements and also stated that “socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide.”

Yes, the fact that just 12 out of 213 House Democrats were willing to stand up and condemn history’s most murderous ideology is still pathetic. 

Here is the CBS report on the vote. A procedural vote was required to allow the Jeff Crank resolution to be voted on. Two Democrats defected and voted to get the resolution on the floor. They are Jared Goldman of Maine, who cited the needs of fishermen in his district, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, who was hailed as a model for winning back blue-collar workers. But now the consensus in their party seems to be: Off with their heads (not literally yet)!

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries slammed the Blue Dog duo, and Dems demand to know what he intends to do. In “House Democrats Erupt into Infighting Over Leadership Power Play,” Axios has an interesting angle:

Why it matters: The blowup offers a preview of the chaos that party leaders could face in January if they take back the House majority.

In other words, they’ll have to contend with obstreperous DSA members, who want to remake the United States, substituting their ideas for those of the Founding Fathers. For example, they would abolish the Senate. This has been tried before, writes historian Thomas Madden, author of the acclaimed “The Fall of Republics“:

The idea is radical—but not new. The proposal resembles the earliest forms of simple democracy as practiced in ancient Greece. Unlike modern Americans, the framers of the Constitution were deeply familiar with the governments of the ancient world and conversant in how they had collapsed. John Adams, who served as ambassador to England during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, was writing a book surveying history’s republics. The deliberations of the Philadelphia Convention echoed with the lessons of history, all of which warned against simple democracy….

The framers knew how the Roman Republic had been undone by democracy. Riding a populist wave to redistribute wealth, Tiberius Gracchus appealed to the democratic concilium plebis, cutting out the deliberative Senate. He wasn’t the last Roman politician to sideline the Senate in a bid to obtain extraordinary powers. It ended with Julius Caesar, who was proclaimed dictator for life to the cheers of the people. In that democratic way, the Roman Republic died.

Even before Caesar, it was known that unrestrained democracy leads to tyranny. Hungry for more, the people are drawn to a charismatic ruler promising to deliver. It doesn’t matter how enlightened the people are. As James Madison put it, “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”

Also blocked by Dems yesterday was a constitutional amendment to keep the number of Supreme Court Justices to nine:

“Democrats are very clear. They want to pack the court,” Rep. Brad Knott said. “We want to maintain the normalcy and stick with the process that we’ve done for a long time.” 

Comrades. “Mamdani’s influencer army includes teachers, TikTokkers, a self-proclaimed ‘dandy’ — and some don’t even live here,” is a New York Post headline. Ms. Must was pleasantly surprised that a liberal outfit broke the original story:

A bombshell Columbia Journalism Review study found that Mamdani’s administration maintains a secret Signal chat with roughly 200 influencers, where the terminally online creators get the inside scoop — or marching orders — from City Hall.

Don’t miss the mini profiles of the influencers.

Near and dear to the hearts of socialists is that guys must be able to play against girls and women in competitive sports. The latest wrinkle in that issue: A federal judge has dismissed a DOJ lawsuit challenging California policy allowing biological males in girls’ sports.

Meanwhile, Iran is retaliating for U.S. strikes by firing at U.S. ally Kuwait. President Trump is making a “cryptic” call for the Iranian people to rise up against the tyrannical regime. Not so cryptic to Barton Swaim, who examines the return of the calls for regime change:

…. despite all his boasts and threats and migraine-inducing equivocations, he hasn’t done what everybody thought he would do: let Iran keep its bogus sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and call the whole thing a win because its military and nuclear program lie in ruins. You can credit the regime’s incorrigibility for that outcome, too, but the fact remains: Mr. Trump might have settled for a de facto loss and hasn’t.

When the government didn’t collapse, the ever-undisciplined Mr. Trump indulged his appetite for showmanship and big-shot deal-making. That almost certainly discouraged any attempt to revolt. That almost certainly discouraged any attempt to revolt. Anyway all the flirtations and memoranda came to nothing, as foreseen in these pages and elsewhere. Now, with an angry population and a government deprived of money, a bit of Reaganesque rhetoric might have a powerful effect.

And shelve the objection that Iran aggressively censors what its citizens can view online. If Ronald Reagan’s anticommunist speeches found their way into the dark cells of Siberian gulags, Mr. Trump can speak to the Islamic Republic’s domestic foes and know he’ll be heard.

We’re all wondering if the Lindsay Clancy jury will break its deadlock. The Judge issued the “Tuey-Rodriguez” charge, a last-ditch attempt to get the jury to reach a verdict. If a mistrial is declared, there could be a second trial. Clancy admitted killing her three children, but the defense argues that her mental condition made it impossible for her to know right from wrong. The response to the trial has been alarming. Here are several worthy pieces on it: “TikTok feminists hijacked Lindsay Clancy’s trial — their circus act risks adding injustice to the suffering her kids endured,” by Miranda Devine; “From Iryna Zarutska to Lindsay Clancy, The Left Only Likes Women If They’re Politically Useful,” by Brianna Lyman, and Chris Bray’s Federalist piece on the deeper roots of the alleged victimhood of Lindsay Clancy.

Powerline’s John Hinderaker writes about another crime, the Times Square stabbing earlier this week by a woman with obvious mental problems. The headline is “Time to Lock Up the Psychotic.” He quotes a social media post from the great Heather Mac Donald:

How many more people have to die before liberal politicians give up their determination to keep patent psychotics loose on the streets? Every politician and activist who has fought the institutionalization of the seriously mentally ill is the but-for cause of Monday’s fatal  stabbing in Times Square.

That stabbing, like every other such enormity, was a statistical certainty, given the condition of New York’s public spaces. …

We learn this morning of the death of Gloria Steinem, at the age of 92. We absolutely disagreed with Ms. Steinem, the co-founder of Ms. Magazine, but we recognize her achievements:

Gloria Steinem, the journalist, activist and organizer who became the most recognizable face of the U.S. women’s movement, died Wednesday at 92.

The big picture: Steinem resisted being cast as feminism’s singular face, but for six decades she carried its ideas into mainstream America across its second and third waves.

The New York Post tribute hails Ms. Steinem as “pioneer of women’s liberation movement.” She launched her journalistic career in a very plucky fashion—she donned a bunny outfit to go undercover and investigate the Playboy Bunny Club. The NY Post profile is a good summary of the life of an icon.

Trendy New York magazine this week published a story that has Dems, who until recently gleefully dreamed of a big, rolling blue wave, feeling unsettled: “The Hasan Piker Michigan Mess Isn’t Going Away” is the New York mag headline.

Piker, you’ll remember, is the radical commentator who said the United States “deserved” September 11 and subsequently campaigned with Michigan’s Democratic senatorial hopeful Abdul El-Sayed, who has suddenly taken to referring to Mr. Piker as “some Twitch streamer in California.” El-Sayed devoted much of his week to dealing with Piker-related matters.

As is often the case, the (barely) satirical Babylon Bee had the audacity to provide the best summation of the Piker Problem:  

Democrats Distance Themselves from Hasan Piker After Realizing He’s Wearing a Suicide Vest

Meanwhile, Republicans are urged not to count their chickens before they hatch. “Can Anyone Beat Abdul El-Sayed?” is the headline on a Free Press story by Noah Bernstein. “The Democratic establishment tried and failed to stop him in Michigan’s Senate primary. Will Republicans fare any better?” asks Bernstein.

Bernstein suggests why El-Sayed’s opponents “struggle to slow him down”:

The public got another look at why when El-Sayed joined Fox News host Jesse Watters for a lengthy interview on Monday. He dodged a question about transgender surgeries for minors, instead asking Watters if he is circumcised. He deflected another about sharia law, pointing out that no one dreads the spread of Catholic canon law. And when asked about his support for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he answered that voters are more worried about the price of gas and groceries—a line he deployed deftly time and again.

Ms. Must would say that the struggle is to pin him down.

We first met Mr. Piker when he campaigned for and advised now-Mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani. With that in mind, a fascinating piece in City Journal entitled “Mamdani’s Moral Universe” is of special interest. As author Zineb Riboua points out, Mamdani’s intellectual foundation is built on Israel, Third Worldism, and the politics of grievance:

As formal decolonization advanced, however, the original target—imperialism—largely disappeared. The Third-Worldist ideology then migrated into Western universities and domestic political movements. There it was repurposed, functioning today less as a foreign policy doctrine than as a moral lens through which all political legitimacy is assigned. In this framework, Israel occupies the role of an imperial oppressor, while Palestinians—and, by extension, other perceived victims of Western power—serve as privileged victims. The result is a politics of grievance that is now the operating language of a rising generation of American progressives.

The Islamist dimension of this phenomenon warrants special attention. … The Islamist-friendly current within the American Left, embodied by activists like Linda Sarsour, has therefore found expression through anti-Israel polemics, which, in depicting Israel as a settler-colonial project requiring decolonization, translates religious commitments to the Ummah (wider Muslim community) into terms more readily accepted by a secular electorate.

Sympathy for the Devil. Taking note of Mamdani’s moral universe, the New York Post cover this morning features Mamdani’s condolences sent on the death at Rikers of a career criminal who previously hacked to death the father of two. Before the gruesome hacking of a victim, the late Clarence Woodward had a rap sheet with 30 arrests. The Mayor of New York was “deeply saddened” by this scumbag’s death. The family of the murdered father was not pleased. Talk about a topsy-turvy moral universe.

What Is It about those Jasmines? Don’t miss the screaming “Mean Girls” meltdown of Oklahoma Democratic Senate nominee N’Kiyla Jasmine Thomas, which reportedly led several critics to muse on candidate quality. Meanwhile, Florida’s socialist candidate for the U.S. Senate, Angie Nixon, says, “Let me be clear, we are in chains.” (Did she have speech input from Joe Biden?)

“Trump Follows the Data on Data Centers” is the headline on Matthew Continetti’s column. President Trump has been accused of going against his MAGA base on data centers. Continetti writes:

Rather than betraying MAGA, then, Mr. Trump’s support for data centers reflects his unique blend of markets and mercantilism. He may be on the unpopular side of a boiling issue. But he’s willing to take a political hit in exchange for strengthening Washington’s position against Beijing.

Data centers house the computing power that drives this technological marvel. Nor are tech companies the only winners. Skilled labor is required to build data centers. The pay is good, employment is steady and job sites are fixed in place. If you think building a data center is tough, try moving it. Union official Don Slaiman writes that data centers “are the best opportunity in generations for blue-collar workers to attain a portion of the American dream.” …

I don’t pretend that data centers are cost-free. Nothing is. But the costs that data centers might carry in land use, water use, electricity prices, noise pollution and unsightliness are either overstated or fixable. Creative policy is called for. Not moratoriums that would make America poor and weak.

In her Friday column headlined “The Media’s Lawfare Enabling,” Kimberley Strassel writes about how journalists who knew better cheered on meritless lawsuits against President Trump. “How long is the public meant to treat the press’s pearl-clutching as genuine, rather than part of a campaign to undermine the administration and the credibility of the high court?’ Strassel asks. In a similar vein, Ilya Shapiro argues at City Journal that “‘reform” has become the Left’s preferred remedy for losing cases at the nation’s highest court.

“Would Putin Really Tangle With NATO?” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial. Would Putin calculate that President Trump would not come to Europe’s aid? the editors ask. You wouldn’t be jumping to false conclusions if you suggested that CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s semi-cloak-and-dagger trip to Russia had something to do with this issue.

The jury is now deliberating in the Lindsay Clancy trial (they might reach a verdict today, but I doubt it). USA TODAY columnist Nicole Russell originally could understand why so many women felt bad for Clancy. But then Russell was surprised that Clancy was being turned into a martyr:

Reactions online, though, fed by an algorithm hungry for emotional outbursts and likes, have opened a dark window into what many women are actually feeling about motherhood and Clancy. It goes well beyond a dose of justice or a touch of compassion and has devolved into solidarity with, even veneration of, the mother of three.

From her wheelchair and without a single word of testimony, Clancy has whipped up a frenzied fandom of women who have made her a martyr. It’s dangerous and disgusting.

Yes, it’s a hill they’re willing to die on: Democratic Pollster Doug Schoen explores a question that is mystifying to some: “Why Democrats cannot break free from the far left’s transgender demands.” Schoen:

Simply put, the DSA’s strong opposition to legislation banning biological males from competing in women’s sports has come to define where the national Democratic Party stands, much to its detriment.

Huh? I’m confused. There’s still a sub rosa report/rumor going around that the WNBA already has had a “trans” identifying player on its roster. Meanwhile, the radical WARPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) appears to be trying to distance itself from its own claims. That would help WARPATH in court.

Short Takes. He’s not just a Ragin’ Cajun; he’s a Bluesky rage-oholic, according to Jonathan Turley. … National Review’s witty Jeffrey Blehar is not on board with Lake America. … But nobody should be on board with Canadian Broadcasts’ latest dictum: CBC has directed reporters not to call the September 11 attacks on the United States “terrorist attacks.” I don’t know what to say.