We have a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above… our own survival”

In every election cycle there is a speech that throws the stakes into painful clarity.

In the 2026 election cycle, at least for Jews, that speech came from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, the last Jewish Democrat holdout in the state, who had skipped the party’s convention because she didn’t feel safe, but unlike Mallory McMorrow, who had also faced threats because of her Jewish daughter, and Haley Stevens, hadn’t gotten on board with the Abdul El-Sayed campaign and the alliance of Marxists and Islamists taking over her party.

But addressing an event for Michigan Jewish Democrats, Nessel made her best case in a speech that will last long past this cycle because of the nakedness of its horrifying argument.

“We have a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival,” Nessel told Jewish Democrats. Those “needs of the world” required Jews to vote for Democrats, including presumably El-Sayed, who had made excuses for a Muslim terrorist attack against Jewish children in the preschool of a Michigan Temple.

Daniel Greenfield, Front Page Magazine

Longtime Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo is out at the network.

“We thank Maria for her work over the last 12 1/2 years and wish her all the best on her next chapter,” a spokesperson said in a brief statement.

Bartiromo joined the network in 2014 after becoming a star at CNBC. At Fox Business and the Fox News Channel, she hosted “Mornings with Maria” and other shows bearing her name. The network is rebranding those shows and will have a rotating cast of anchors host them.

Bartiromo, like many other Fox News hosts, has been a staunch supporter of President Trump. Following his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Bartiromo helped spread unfounded theories of conspiracy fraud.

Her on-air comments — and those of guests she invited on her show — featured prominently in a defamation case against Fox brought by the voting technology company Dominion Voting Systems. Fox settled the case for more than $787 million just as the trial was about to begin.

Bartiromo also features heavily in a second multibillion dollar defamation suit filed by a voting software company against Fox News over its statements in the 2020 vote. Until Thursday, Bartiromo was the only individual defendant still working at the network.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

David Folkenflik, National Public Radio

A few days ago I shared some cursory thoughts about Lindsay Clancy and her murder trial. What immediately shocked me was the sheer number of medications that she was on. As a former mental health professional, as someone with a mental health condition myself who has experienced issues with meds, I was absolutely floored by all the drugs that Clancy was taking. What I was thinking most was about the very significant probability of drug interactions that would have possibly clouded her senses, including her moral judgement.

Intrigued, I looked into the case further. One friend alluded that he couldn’t believe I had been unaware of this trial going on. What can I say? I’ve been very busy lately: everything from starting a new job to getting a new car, to the past few days when I’ve been working on a horror story (that will absolutely outrage some people if it ever gets published). And I’m not really all that much a fan of sensationalism, something the Lindsay Clancy murder trial seems rife with.

But I took a harder look at the case. And now, what do I think?

Lindsay Clancy needs to be found guilty and sent to prison for the rest of her life.

There are three possibilities that I see going on with her. There is the notion that she suffered from post-partum psychosis, on which her defense is hanging their chances on. There is the possibility of a condition like bipolar disorder. And then there is the possibility that she is a full-blown psychopath: something that there is no cure for and it could perhaps be said there is no hope either.

Folks, mental illness can distort thought. It certainly has to me, too many times since the onset of manic depression in the winter of 2000. It suppress inhibitions. I’ve written about it in my book, how being manic led to me doing some horrible things because of an outraged libido that could not be satisfied. I did other things too, that I am not proud of.

But there was always a choice. Unfortunately I chose wrong, more times than I can count.

There remained moral choice though. And that is where Lindsay Clancy went horribly wrong and deviated straight into pure evil.

Clancy, apparently, researched ways on how to kill her children. She planned this. Clancy spent an inordinate amount of time looking at methods of ending her children’s lives. That is something that mental illness can never bring about. Can mental illness lead to murder? Yes, when passions go out of control. But to premeditate the harming of others? That takes free will. She had every opportunity to pull away. If she was going through psychiatric issues she could have addressed those. But she didn’t. If she truly has a mental illness she spent far more time indulging her dark fantasies than she did in doing her damndest to stave off the dark thoughts bedeviling her.

I don’t believe that mental illness, including post-partum psychosis, can be used as a viable excuse of what Lindsay Clancy did. She maintained enough reason to spend time studying how to kill her own children. That alone invalidates her defense.

Which leaves us with psychopathy. Something almost entirely removed from the concept of transitional mental illness. A complete disregard for others. A detachment from moral restraint that makes anything justifiable in the eyes of the psychopath.

There is no real treatment for such a person. There is no “getting better” for a psychopath. Thankfully true psychopathy is a rare condition. And not all psychopaths are necessarily evil. It’s been suggested that psychopathy is a trait that can be found in many among the executive business community. It might make them exceedingly cutthroat in their dealings but there seems to be at least some realization that bad things will happen if they go too far.

That isn’t common among psychopaths however. But I’m digressing.

What Lindsay Clancy did in murdering her children involved either a chosen course of action in researching how to kill her offspring and she’s trying to hang that on a temporary mental condition. Or she is a psychopath who did what she did without feeling moral compunction.

However it is, she does not need to be given the opportunity to ever again be a free woman. She chose her actions. Or she has no restraining morality at all. One or the other.

The jury needs to find her guilty. Send her to prison for the rest of her life. Not just to hold her accountable for her temporal sins, but as a service to society as a whole. She is too dangerous to treat with overbearing kindness that does not adequately address the severity of her crimes.

If there is no justice in this case, then there will not be true justice in a lot of other situations that will come about.

I originally expressed the belief that Clancy might not have possessed enough sense to keep from murdering her children. I see now that I was wrong in that assessment. She did what she did of her own volition.

And I hope that the jury in her trial will do the right thing and make damned sure that she never sees an iota of freedom again. Ever.

Christopher Knight, The Knight Shift

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President Donald Trump is privately discussing with senior aides whether to declare the U.S. war with Iran over, even as the Pentagon extends troop deployments into 2027 and the conflict continues to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The apparent contradiction underscores the uncertainty surrounding the administration’s strategy.

Trump has told advisers he favors declaring an end to the war and believes the combination of economic pressure and U.S. military dominance has put Washington in a winning position.

The Journal reported that Trump has argued Iran’s economy is collapsing and that U.S. forces have achieved “almost total control” of the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet the Pentagon is preparing for the possibility that the fighting and military standoff will continue well into next year.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who initially promised a quick and decisive campaign, is quietly extending deployments, the Journal reported.

About 50,000 U.S. troops remain in the region, while the military deployment includes 19 warships, air defense units, fighter squadrons, and paratroopers. The prolonged deployment is already creating strain on service members, their families, and military maintenance schedules.

The debate over whether the United States has truly “won” is particularly visible in the Strait of Hormuz.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that oil flows are approaching prewar levels. In an interview published Wednesday, Bessent said at least 10 million barrels a day were moving through the strait and suggested that one recent day may have reached 15 million to 17 million barrels.

He compared that with roughly 20 million barrels a day before the war.

But shipping data paint a more complicated picture. Reuters reported that only six commodity vessels passed through Hormuz on Wednesday, while preliminary data earlier in the week showed just five vessels on Monday. Those figures remain far below normal commercial traffic.

Other maritime data show traffic has increased from the extreme lows reached during the conflict but remains well below prewar levels.

The distinction matters because some vessels are believed to be using a U.S.-backed southern route through waters near Oman, while others are avoiding the strait altogether.

Iran has continued threatening and, in some cases, attacking commercial shipping. The attacks could become more dangerous if Tehran receives improved intelligence, targeting assistance, or other military support from Russia or China, although the extent of any such assistance remains uncertain.

Oil markets also reflect that uncertainty. Brent crude fell sharply after the June U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding raised hopes that the conflict could wind down, reaching about $69 a barrel in early July. But after the arrangement broke down and attacks resumed, prices climbed, with Brent reaching about $105 on July 23.

By Thursday, Brent remained around $95 a barrel despite a modest daily decline.

For Trump, that leaves a difficult political and military calculation: Washington can argue that it controls the waterway and has devastated Iran’s economy, while the continuing troop deployment, limited commercial traffic, and elevated oil prices suggest the war is far from behaving like a conflict that has simply ended.

© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Gunpoint’
Mediaite ^ | 09/03/2026 | Michael Luciano

Posted on 9/3/2026, 10:48:52 AM by Jan_Sobieski

Tucker Carlson praised Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, calling the candidate’s agenda “literally Trumpian.”

El-Sayed prevailed in last month’s Democratic primary over Rep. Haley Stevens, despite being outspent nine-to-one, thanks in large part to more than $30 million in ad buys from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He has pledged to oppose continued U.S. aid to Israel.

El-Sayed’s Republican opponent is former Rep. Mike Rogers, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee and has been a fervent supporter of Israel. Given Americans’ increasingly negative views of Israel, Rogers’ campaign is reportedly concerned about AIPAC spending money on its behalf.

On Wednesday’s Tucker Carlson Show, the host spoke with Saagar Enjeti, co-host of Breaking Points, where the two discussed, among other topics, the race in Michigan.

“I wouldn’t vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint,” Carlson stated.

Enjeti responded by noting that Rogers lost a Senate race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin in 2024, despite Donald Trump carrying Michigan that year.

“And so that’s the candidate,” Enjeti said. “A literal loser who lost when Donald Trump won the state, just to show you how much of a headwind he had at his back.”

“He’s basically a tool of Israel and the intelligence agencies, Carlson replied. “How would you run someone like that? I don’t– it doesn’t even make sense…”

Venerable Fulton Sheen to be beatified in St. Louis on 24 September

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2026-03/fulton-sheen-to-be-beatified-in-st-louis-on-24-september.html

In the 20th century, VENERABLE ARCHBISHOP FULTON SHEEN BECAME A PROPHETIC VOICE FOR OUR TIMES. He spoke often about persecution, the trials the Church would face, and the coming of an antichrist spirit. But among his most striking warnings was this, that persecution alone is not the greatest threat to the Church. The far greater danger is lukewarmness and compromise.

Fulton Sheen declared, “THOSE WHO WILL NOT STAND FOR ANYTHING WILL FALL FOR EVERYTHING. The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. Persecution tests the faithful. It strengthens those who cling to Christ. But lukewarmness, the slow, the quiet erosion of zeal deadens the soul from within.” Fulton Sheen warned, “The danger today is not persecution from without, but corruption from within. When the faith no longer inspires sacrifice, it dies.”

(Note: When pasting this document into Free Republic, it seems that most of the special formatting is lost, such as bold, italics, underlined words and embedded links. To read the document with the formatting and embedded links go to the link of the document.)

The Archbishop foresaw a time when Christians would face a FALSE SENSE OF PEACE, when compromise would masquerade as tolerance, and when many would choose comfort over the cross. Fulton Sheen said, “The Antichrist will promise a Christianity without the cross, but it will be an empty shell, a counterfeit of the true faith.”

Yet he never left us in fear. HE CALLED US TO COURAGE, TO CLARITY, TO LOVE WITHOUT COMPROMISE. He proclaimed, “The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. May we have the courage to stand with Christ even if the world stands against us. Persecution may wound the body, but lukewarmness kills the soul.

Blessed ignorance does not lead us to the God who is the Truth (Jn 14:6). Blessed ignorance does not lead to eternal life!

“So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 10:32-33). Since God is the Truth, we could rewrite this verse in this way: “So everyone who acknowledges the Truth before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies the Truth before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven”.

POPE JOHN PAUL II, WHEN ASKED, ABOUT A YEAR BEFORE HIS DEATH, FOR ONE VERSE IN THE BIBLE TO LEAVE THE PEOPLE OF GOD, HE RESPONDED WITHOUT HESITATION: “THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE” (JN 8:32). The Pope knew well that most people today, who are totally immersed in the atmosphere of relativism, do not want to take the risk of having to change their lives and suffer. “I decide”, the truth, good and evil, as our first parents of humanity decided (Gen 3,4-5). The modern philosophers, such as Decart and Kant, helped us to no longer seek the truth outside of our heads in creation and in divine revelation. “I think, therefore I am” (Decart)! “I am” is the name of God that God said to Moses (Ex 3:6)! As Pope Benedict tells us, a great number of people have willingly embraced relativism; each person becomes a god. The problem is that in the heaven that was created by the Creator of the entire universe, there is room for only one God, not two! The One true God is the Truth (Jn 14:6)! The Truth of God will set us free, whereas the truth of us creatures will make us slaves!

Fulton Sheen reminds us the greater danger is not suffering for Christ, but forgetting him. Today, the choice is set before us to live boldly in the Truth or to fade silently into compromise. MAY WE RISE WITH HEARTS ON FIRE, REFUSING TO BE LUKEWARM, so that when the world looks for light in the darkness, it finds Christ alive in us.

– – – – – – –

Blessed Cardinal Newman said he felt fortunate to be living in the time when the enemies of the Church were on the outside looking in. The day would come when there would be enemies of the Church on the inside looking out. Today we talk about theological descent in the Church. Descent is a nice word for heresy, lies, all sorts of lies!

– – – – – – –

The Church has always survived emperors, revolutions, and wars. WHAT WOUNDS MOST DEEPLY IS SUFFERING FROM WITHIN. Confusion, compromise, silence, betrayal. Decades ago, Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen warned in 1947 that this would happen. In his book “Communism and the Conscience of the West”, Sheen wrote, “The mystical body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot.” He was not speaking dramatically. He was speaking biblically. Just as Christ was betrayed by one of his own, so too would his Church experience betrayal from within her visible ranks. Not every crisis would come from enemies outside. Some would come from those who were supposed to guard the Truth.

A year later in 1948, during a radio address later published in the same work, Sheen gave a warning that now sounds almost prophetic. He said, “THERE WILL BE A COUNTERFEIT CHURCH, a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.” He described a religion without a cross, a Christianity emptied of sacrifice, a faith that keeps its language but loses its substance. It would look compassionate but avoid repentance. It would speak of peace but remain silent about sin. It would promise unity while quietly eroding truth.

SHEEN UNDERSTOOD THAT THE GREATEST DECEPTION WOULD NOT LOOK EVIL. In that same 1947 work, he wrote that the antichrist will not be so called, otherwise he would have no followers. He will come disguised as a great humanitarian. He will talk peace, prosperity, and plenty. He will tempt Christians with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ. The danger would not be obvious rebellion. It would be subtle compromise, a softening of doctrine, a reshaping of morality, a church tempted to be accepted by the world instead of faithful to Christ. And yet, he never spoke with despair.

In 1974, during an appearance on the Mike Douglas show, Sheen said something that would shake every Catholic awake. “WHO IS GOING TO SAVE OUR CHURCH? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and your religious act like religious”. He was not attacking the hierarchy. He was reminding the faithful that in times of crisis, God raises up saints among the laity, with true virtue and humility. The renewal of the Church has always begun with ordinary believers who refuse to grow cold.

Sheen also said in 1972 that we are living in the “DAYS OF THE APOCALYPSE”, not meaning the end of the world, but a time of unveiling, a time when what is hidden in hearts is being revealed. The Church, he explained in retreat talks near the end of his life, is going through her passion. She will follow her head just as Christ was mocked, betrayed, and crucified before the resurrection. So too, the Church must pass through suffering before renewal (CCC 675-677; Catechism of Catholic Church for adults (CCC; ed. 1992, promulgated by Pope John Paul II; http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1V.HTM)

THIS IS WHERE LUKEWARM CATHOLICS MUST WAKE UP. The crisis inside the Church is not proof that Christ has abandoned her. It is proof that she is being purified. And purification is painful. It exposes weakness. It reveals corruption. It forces a choice. Will we conform to the spirit of the age or will we cling to the cross? Sheen’s message was never to panic. It was never to leave the Church. It was never to rebel. It was to become holy. Because the Church does not ultimately belong to the bishops or theologians or movements. She belongs to Christ and Christ has already conquered death.

SHEEN BELIEVED DEEPLY THAT AFTER THE PASSION COMES THE RESURRECTION. The Church may endure a good Friday but Easter is not cancelled. Christ remains in the Eucharist. The sacraments still give grace. Truth does not expire because culture shifts. The real question is not whether the Church will survive. She will. Christ promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against her. The real question is whether we will be faithful during suffering? When Sheen said, “It’s up to you the people,” he was handing the responsibility to us to pray, to fast, to defend the faith, to demand holiness first from ourselves. Renewal does not begin in Rome. It begins in hearts.

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen is seen by many Catholics as someone who SHOULD BE RAISED TO THE ALTARS because of three main things. His heroic virtue, his extraordinary evangelization, and the lasting spiritual fruit of his life. Because he didn’t just speak about Christ, he led millions to Him. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared him Venerable, officially recognizing that he lived a life of heroic virtue. For over 60 years, he made a daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament. Drawing the strength for his preaching from prayer, NOT FROM POPULARITY. Through his television program, “Life is Worth Living”, he brought the Catholic faith into millions of homes. Boldly preaching truth, repentance, and the reality of Christ in a world growing secular and confused. He warned of crisis within the Church, but he never preached despair, only purification and hope. For many Catholics, Fulton Sheen represents clarity without compromise, courage without bitterness, and holiness in the modern world. And that is why his voice still matters today.

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, pray for us.

Rev. Joseph Dwight

The public exposure, resignation, and subsequent death of the British fabulist Jason Arday have reignited the longstanding (if not eternal) debate about the purpose of higher education in our society and whether it is fulfilling that purpose. On the one side, conservatives are frustrated because, to them, the Arday case is emblematic: universities today are overwhelmingly leftist; leftists dominate the humanities and liberal arts faculties, and leftists are rewarded for poor or even fraudulent scholarship simply because it reinforces the preexisting beliefs of their contemporaries and superiors.

On the other side, progressives and other leftists insist that the pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment is definitionally a left-leaning enterprise, at least in contemporary society. Of course, leftists are overrepresented in academia; leftists seek awareness and understanding, while conservatives are simply less inquisitive and less interested in attaining knowledge, both temperamentally and practically, the latter for fear of learning that what they perceive as fairness and equality is, in reality, prejudice and discrimination.

Ironically, the progressives’ explanation is itself bigoted, in addition to being trite and largely self-serving. At the same time, however, the conservative account is inadequate. It describes the problem within academia today reasonably well but fails to explain why that problem exists. Indeed, it fails even to acknowledge that the problem has an underlying cause and isn’t merely the result of choice or happenstance.

As I have argued previously in these pages, as well as in my book, The Dictatorship of Woke Capital, higher education today, especially in the humanities and liberal arts, really is a project that appeals to men and women of the left far more than their right-leaning contemporaries. This isn’t because progressives are more inquisitive and temperamentally thirsty for knowledge, however. It’s because the higher education system, as we have built it, is less about the acquisition and transmission of knowledge and more about the “discovery” of “new” things. That credo works well in the hard sciences and mathematics, where true discovery is not merely possible but indispensable, but in the humanities and social sciences, it’s worse than useless. It encourages both frivolous and fraudulent “research,” which neither produces substantive gains in understanding nor transmits knowledge to students. This isn’t universally the case, of course, but it is frequently so, as the enduring debates over the Jason Ardays of the world demonstrate.

The case of Syracuse University is, I think, instructive here, offering both an explanation of how the preoccupation with knowledge “discovery” is ultimately destructive and a warning to American academia about the price it will likely pay for its frivolity and fraudulence.

As you may or may not have heard, Syracuse University is struggling. The debt and enrollment issues that previously had plagued only smaller and less prestigious institutions are starting to creep into larger, more mainstream, and more esteemed universities:

Syracuse University is facing its first budget deficit in years after falling short of its undergraduate enrollment target for Fall 2026, Chancellor J. Michael Haynie warned faculty and staff in a Jun. 11 email.

The enrollment shortfall directly threatens the university’s financial footing because undergraduate tuition represents the primary source of operating revenue….

Haynie told faculty and staff that the university “will not bring in enough revenue to cover its spending” and described the moment as one “for urgency and purpose, not panic.”

Part of this is, of course, structural. Many schools rely on foreign students to keep their enrollment numbers up, and the Trump administration’s immigration policies have reduced the number of foreign applicants as well as the length of time foreign students are able to stay in the country. Additionally, natural demographic trends are at play here. Fewer 18-year-olds means fewer college freshmen, which, in turn, means fewer applicants and lower enrollment.

Another part of this is Syracuse-specific. As The Wall Street Journal noted over the weekend, Syracuse is “a private school in one of the snowiest cities in the country at a moment when students are gravitating toward public institutions in the Sunbelt.” Additionally, when applications and acceptance decisions fell this past spring, Syracuse administrators panicked and started offering massive financial aid packages to students who had already decided not to attend the school or who were less qualified for aid than others who had accepted earlier offers.

The entire process became a joke among students and competitor schools and a disaster for Syracuse itself. Add in ever-increasing tuition, expensive new dorms, and general administrative bloat, and it becomes clear that not all of the school’s problems were beyond its control. Many of them were self-inflicted.

Perhaps the biggest part of all of this, however, is ideological (for lack of a better term), which has largely gone undiscussed but is especially ironic for Syracuse. In its weekend story, The Wall Street Journal briefly mentions that “Fewer young people are enrolling in college, as the country reconsiders the value of a university education.” It doesn’t go any further, though, and doesn’t explain why the perceived value of a university education is declining.

The distinction between hard-science discovery and social-science discovery is, as I said, endemic to the structure of the contemporary university, but the manifestation of that difference as social-science fatuousness/indoctrination wasn’t necessarily inevitable and, in any case, didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow, steady process of infiltration and degradation that featured many players, some of whom believed that their efforts were genuinely directed at educational improvement, and others who manipulated the structure of academia in pursuit of personal and ideological power.

The members of the Frankfurt School, especially its most enduring American representative, Herbert Marcuse, fall into this latter category, while educational “reformers” like John Dewey comprise the former. Dwight Waldo, a public administration theorist and the godfather of the “New Public Administration” movement, also falls into the former category, although one can hardly imagine that his legacy could possibly have been more destructive than it is had he been a power-mad ideologue. Unlike the Cultural Marxists, Waldo didn’t see his mission as one in which he was preparing the ground for the eventual revolution. Rather, like Dewey, he believed he was helping to foster a better, more productive interpretation of his field of expertise but in so doing undermined any pretensions his adherents might have to objectivity or adherence to neutral evidence.

In 1948, Waldo wrote a book called The Administrative State, which challenged the standard interpretation of public administration, attacking the longstanding expectation that administrators should be “value neutral.” In essence, he argued that administrators should be advocates of policies that aligned with their personal beliefs. He more or less told them to let their freak flags fly. Or, as I put it in the book, detailing Waldo’s much-hyped arrival at Syracuse University:

In 1968, Waldo hosted a very famous public administration confer­ence that came to be known as “Minnowbrook” because it was held at the Minnowbrook Conference Center on the campus of Waldo’s then-new employer, the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. The conference was not only an enormous hit among educators, but it also took on legendary status among administrators—that is to say, public bureaucrats. In 2018, on the conference’s fiftieth anniversary, the Maxwell School remembered the man and his contri­butions, noting that “Waldo’s 1948 book challenged the idea that public administration is value-neutral, performed in a dispassionate, almost mechanical manner. He argued that public servants should become active, informed, politically savvy agents of change” [emphasis added]. George Frederickson, a public administration professor at the University of Kansas and the organizer of “Minnowbrook II” in 1988, told the Maxwell School magazine that Waldo’s contributions included “three lasting themes in PA: social equity; democratic administration; and proactive, advocating, non-neutral public administration.”

Waldo, the Maxwell School, and Minnowbrook changed everything in the administration of public-facing institutions—not the least of which are universities. Waldo, you see, didn’t introduce a new methodology or a new lens through which to view old data. He encouraged administrators to believe that neutrality (or neutral competence, more accurately) is a myth, that execution and outcomes don’t matter nearly as much as process and intent. In short, Waldo, Maxwell, and Minnowbrook taught an entire profession that its transmission function doesn’t matter; only its values and sentiments do. By the nature of the overlap between public and university administration, as well as the intertwined nature of the educational aspect of the Waldo/Maxwell/Minnowbrook enterprise, this dismissal of the transmission function bled over into the broader academic complex, helping to create the Weltanschauung that dominates higher education today.

The most profound irony of all is that this Weltanschauung itself is still nearly universally respected by social science academics, even as its effects on the public at large are destructive. While Syracuse struggles to attract students and to pay its bills, the Maxwell School remains the No. 1-ranked school of public affairs. Even as its ideological offspring destroy the world around it, the Waldo-Minnowbrook legacy is unspoiled among those offspring.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a column here noting that Elon Musk’s abandonment of the Democratic Party he formerly embraced was inevitable. While he focuses on outcomes, they focus on process. They are incompatible. Likewise, academia, as it is currently constituted, is incompatible with the societal need for civics and humanities “education.” In part because of Waldo and Minnowbrook, academia is about process, whereas society demands outcomes. As I noted in that column, “while process values have their place, they can be self-defeating, particularly when they are allowed to serve as a substitute for experience and reality.”

Syracuse University is learning that lesson right now.

American Greatness, Stephen Soukup

Matt Margolis 

House Democrats are having a rough week.

On Tuesday, 192 of them voted against condemning socialism, a gift-wrapped attack ad for Republicans just months before the midterms. But that wasn’t even the most embarrassing part of their day.

The real story is what happened behind the scenes, where two centrist Democrats blew up their own party’s carefully laid plans to stop the vote entirely and exposed just how little control House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) actually has over his caucus.

And if that weren’t bad enough, none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) showed up to twist the knife.

What happened was that the House passed a procedural “rule” Tuesday by a razor-thin 210-208 vote. Rules like this normally pass along party lines without drama. This one didn’t, because two Democrats, Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), broke ranks and helped Republicans push it through.

Golden isn’t exactly known for playing nice with leadership. “I think it’s well established that I don’t really do whip calls,” he said.

As previously reported, the rule condemned “socialism in all its forms,” a measure most House Democrats opposed because it also advanced the SAVE America Act. Golden said he’d “probably” support the anti-socialism language, but his real reason was the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act, which he co-leads and calls a “top priority.”

The real story is what happened behind the scenes, where two centrist Democrats blew up their own party’s carefully laid plans to stop the vote entirely and exposed just how little control House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) actually has over his caucus.

And if that weren’t bad enough, none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) showed up to twist the knife.

What happened was that the House passed a procedural “rule” Tuesday by a razor-thin 210-208 vote. Rules like this normally pass along party lines without drama. This one didn’t, because two Democrats, Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), broke ranks and helped Republicans push it through.

Golden isn’t exactly known for playing nice with leadership. “I think it’s well established that I don’t really do whip calls,” he said.

As previously reported, the rule condemned “socialism in all its forms,” a measure most House Democrats opposed because it also advanced the SAVE America Act. Golden said he’d “probably” support the anti-socialism language, but his real reason was the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act, which he co-leads and calls a “top priority.”

They couldn’t possibly think that I would vote against my own bill, right?” Golden said, adding that he “had other ‘yes’ votes lined up” that ultimately weren’t needed. Gluesenkamp Perez likewise backed the rule because Golden’s lobsterman bill was included.

The thing is, House Minority Leader Jeffries didn’t see any of it coming, and that’s why Pelosi spoke out.

The former speaker, who, as we all know, ran her caucus with an iron grip, said she was stunned a rule was even allowed to fail. “Voting for the rule is something that I, as Speaker, we never — we didn’t even consider that anybody would do that,” she said. “We never had that problem. So I’m disappointed that they did that.”

Translation: this never would have happened on my watch.

And considering Pelosi personally handpicked Jeffries as her successor, that’s about as public a vote of no confidence she could deliver without ever saying his name.

If she was trying to be subtle, she failed.

In fairness, she’s not wrong, and the fallout is actually quite significant. The backlash inside the caucus has been fierce, with some members venting at leadership staff and leadership itself.

According to Axios, the vote created “tension between some of the leadership,” with most of the anger directed at Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said, “Everyone knows that you don’t vote against a procedural vote without notifying leadership. Everyone. We’re as strong as our weakest link.” One senior Democrat said members were especially angry at Gluesenkamp Perez because Golden at least had his own bill at stake.

Now, pressure is mounting on Jeffries to punish both lawmakers. The senior Democrat said, “People want it,” while Jeffries called the defections a “significant breach of trust” and said repercussions are “under discussion right now.”

Whether Jeffries actually follows through is another question entirely. Right now, he can’t control his own caucus, let alone discipline the two members who embarrassed him and undermined his leadership abilities.

And Nancy Pelosi made sure everyone noticed.

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Matt Margolis is a conservative commentator and columnist. His work has been cited on Fox News and national conservative talk radio, including The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Mark Levin Show, and The Dan Bongino Show. Matt is the author of several books and has appeared on Newsmax, OANN, Real America’s Voice News, Salem News Channel, and even CNN. You can also subscribe to his newsletter for free!

Indivisible Dallas hosted a virtual forum titled “Meet The Candidate with James Talarico” on January 15.

“In this electrifying Texas primary race, join Indivisible Dallas and Indivisible groups all across Texas in a virtual conversation with U.S. Senate candidate: TX STATE REP. JAMES TALARICO,” the event page stated.

“Folks will have the opportunity to submit questions in advance and during the call,” the page stated.

Since the March primary, the organization’s Mobilize feed has carried Powered by People volunteer listings promoting Talarico in Laredo and Pasadena. Both listings state that Powered by People hosted the events and that the efforts were not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Indivisible Dallas is helping organize the “Dallas March on the RNC Midterm Convention,” a September 10 protest scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Pike Park in Dallas.

The first Republican midterm convention will run September 9-10 at American Airlines Center, as The Dallas Express previously reported.

“The Republican National Midterm Convention is coming to Dallas and we will be in the streets to say NO to the Trump Agenda!” the event page states.

Protesters will reject what organizers call the “Trump regime’s agenda” and tell Republicans that “their days ruling the great state of Texas and our nation are numbered,” the page states.

The page names the Dallas Against the Trump Agenda Coalition as the organizer and says DATA Coalition and Indivisible Dallas events share a commitment to nonviolent action. Organizers ask participants to de-escalate confrontations, act lawfully and not bring weapons.

Promotional material for the protest features logos for Indivisible Dallas, Communist Party USA Dallas/Fort Worth, Freedom Road Socialist Organization Dallas and Young Active Labor Leaders Dallas-Fort Worth, among other groups.

Coalition partner seeks communist party

Freedom Road Socialist Organization describes itself in its own materials as a national organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism and building toward a new Communist Party based on Marxism-Leninism.

“We are advancing towards the goal of building a new communist party that can contend for power,” the organization stated after its 10th Congress in a June statement.

Indivisible Dallas has also appeared alongside communist and socialist organizations in Dallas event materials. A March 7 International Women’s Day action hosted by FRSO listed Indivisible Dallas, Communist Party USA DFW, Democratic Socialists of America North Texas, Workers World Party and other organizations as supporters.

Young Active Labor Leaders, meanwhile, is a Texas AFL-CIO constituency group that describes its members as “young workers, activists and progressive allies” working to build power within the labor movement.

CPUSA article backs police and prison abolition

A 2020 article published on the Communist Party USA’s official website advocated police and prison abolition.

“Policing has to be understood as a tool of social control in terms of protecting private property (i.e., capitalism) and white supremacy,” the article states.

The article endorsed eight abolitionist policies, including defunding police, removing police from schools and freeing people from jails and prisons.

“To be a Communist is to also be an abolitionist,” the article states.

The article further argues that abolitionist ideas “can lead to the dismantling of capitalism itself.”

Talarico faces continued scrutiny

As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Talarico said “prison is violence” while advocating criminal justice changes.

Nothing in Indivisible Dallas’ January forum, Mobilize feed or role in the protest coalition establishes that Talarico supports FRSO, CPUSA or their policy positions. The materials also do not establish any connection between the coalition and Talarico’s campaign.

The Dallas Express reached out to Talarico’s campaign for comment on Indivisible Dallas and asked whether he supports the CPUSA article’s call for police and prison abolition. The campaign did not respond by publication.

Indivisible Dallas, which hosted an event for state Rep. James Talarico (D-District 50), the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, is helping organize a march against the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention as part of a coalition whose promotional materials feature the logos of communist and socialist organizations.

Indivisible Dallas hosted a virtual forum titled “Meet The Candidate with James Talarico” on January 15.

“In this electrifying Texas primary race, join Indivisible Dallas and Indivisible groups all across Texas in a virtual conversation with U.S. Senate candidate: TX STATE REP. JAMES TALARICO,” the event page stated.

“Folks will have the opportunity to submit questions in advance and during the call,” the page stated.

Since the March primary, the organization’s Mobilize feed has carried Powered by People volunteer listings promoting Talarico in Laredo and Pasadena. Both listings state that Powered by People hosted the events and that the efforts were not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Indivisible Dallas is helping organize the “Dallas March on the RNC Midterm Convention,” a September 10 protest scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Pike Park in Dallas.

The first Republican midterm convention will run September 9-10 at American Airlines Center, as The Dallas Express previously reported.

“The Republican National Midterm Convention is coming to Dallas and we will be in the streets to say NO to the Trump Agenda!” the event page states.

Protesters will reject what organizers call the “Trump regime’s agenda” and tell Republicans that “their days ruling the great state of Texas and our nation are numbered,” the page states.

The page names the Dallas Against the Trump Agenda Coalition as the organizer and says DATA Coalition and Indivisible Dallas events share a commitment to nonviolent action. Organizers ask participants to de-escalate confrontations, act lawfully and not bring weapons.

Promotional material for the protest features logos for Indivisible Dallas, Communist Party USA Dallas/Fort Worth, Freedom Road Socialist Organization Dallas and Young Active Labor Leaders Dallas-Fort Worth, among other groups.

Coalition partner seeks communist party

Freedom Road Socialist Organization describes itself in its own materials as a national organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism and building toward a new Communist Party based on Marxism-Leninism.

“We are advancing towards the goal of building a new communist party that can contend for power,” the organization stated after its 10th Congress in a June statement.

Indivisible Dallas has also appeared alongside communist and socialist organizations in Dallas event materials. A March 7 International Women’s Day action hosted by FRSO listed Indivisible Dallas, Communist Party USA DFW, Democratic Socialists of America North Texas, Workers World Party and other organizations as supporters.

Young Active Labor Leaders, meanwhile, is a Texas AFL-CIO constituency group that describes its members as “young workers, activists and progressive allies” working to build power within the labor movement.

CPUSA article backs police and prison abolition

A 2020 article published on the Communist Party USA’s official website advocated police and prison abolition.

“Policing has to be understood as a tool of social control in terms of protecting private property (i.e., capitalism) and white supremacy,” the article states.

The article endorsed eight abolitionist policies, including defunding police, removing police from schools and freeing people from jails and prisons.

“To be a Communist is to also be an abolitionist,” the article states.

The article further argues that abolitionist ideas “can lead to the dismantling of capitalism itself.”

Talarico faces continued scrutiny

As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Talarico said “prison is violence” while advocating criminal justice changes.

Nothing in Indivisible Dallas’ January forum, Mobilize feed or role in the protest coalition establishes that Talarico supports FRSO, CPUSA or their policy positions. The materials also do not establish any connection between the coalition and Talarico’s campaign.

The Dallas Express reached out to Talarico’s campaign for comment on Indivisible Dallas and asked whether he supports the CPUSA article’s call for police and prison abolition. The campaign did not respond by publication.

Carlos Turcios, Dallas Express

Rising interest rates, record insolvencies, and permanent recession — the looming economic crisis in the EU is taking shape.

Thomas Kolbe | September 2, 2026

Rising interest rates, record insolvencies, and permanent recession — the looming economic crisis in the EU is taking shape. Brussels is responding by preparing the ground for capital controls. The regulators’ latest target: European citizens’ foreign bank accounts.

Starting January 11, 2027, trouble looms for EU citizens with foreign accounts. From that date, banks from third countries — Switzerland, the UK, the US, or Singapore — will be prohibited from offering so-called core banking services to European citizens. In essence, this covers three core functions: classic deposit-taking (checking, savings, or fixed-term accounts), lending, and the guarantee business. Banks wishing to continue offering these services to EU citizens will then be required to maintain a specifically licensed, fully supervised branch in exactly the member state where the customer resides.

Existing customers who held a foreign account as of July 11, 2026, may keep it, as long as the contractual basis is not fundamentally altered. Here lies a gray zone, an area of interpretive discretion for European authorities — one that will almost certainly be used in the future to pull these customers back inside the EU’s walls as well.

Officially, this new EU initiative is called Directive 2024/1619, better known as CRD VI — the sixth Capital Requirements Directive. It was adopted through the ordinary legislative procedure by the European Parliament and the Council, on a proposal from the European Commission. As is so often the case with new EU regulations, the process simmered quietly in the background for a long time, largely unnoticed by public awareness. It formally entered into force on July 9, 2024, though it only becomes binding for affected third-country banks from January 11, 2027. The Commission itself officially markets this regulation as mere “harmonization of market access” for third-country banks — a technocratic-sounding term that, in practice, amounts to a gatekeeping mechanism over the customer. The European Banking Authority (EBA), which published its final guidelines on the authorization of third-country branches on July 7, 2026, likewise speaks soberly of a “harmonized regulatory framework.”

A typical EU euphemism, one that points to something else entirely at its core: growing capital control.

The re-territorialization of bank accounts — and thus of customer deposits — intended by the European Commission fits into the larger picture of a new financial market architecture.

There has been much recent talk of a banking union, a common rulebook for institutions and credit markets, which in the end will likely serve above all to deepen the pools of capital available for sovereign financing.

The European Commission and the European Central Bank are working together with national legislators on measures to strengthen the liquidity position of the EU banking sector. This will also be necessary given continually rising interest rates — a trend that, in a worst case, will not only place heavy strain on public finances. The real economy, too, is facing rising borrowing costs, which many businesses may not survive after the long era of low rates.

We are witnessing the construction of an entire bundle of new rules to shore up financial institutions. Crypto regulation under MiCA falls into this same pattern. Full transparency, complete regulation — the era of hiding money from the euro and the European tax authorities is, in this domain, definitively over within the EU.

The digital euro is meant to serve as the overarching framework tying these individual measures together. It is a technologically ambitious — perhaps overly ambitious — project: together with the ECB, the EU is setting out to build a digital central bank currency, a CBDC, on the basis of blockchain technology.

That would mean total control over the transaction activity of every economic actor in the eurozone — a concentration of power in the hands of the ECB, an institution long since subordinated to the political machinery of Brussels.

Each of these measures, taken individually, could function as a capital control in a crisis scenario. Europeans’ capital would then be trapped within the EU, should a severe financial and sovereign debt crisis occur.

For bank customers, this effectively marks the end of international diversification options. Safeguarding savings outside an increasingly volatile and heavily indebted financial and monetary system will, for many, become impossible — a kind of Neo-Bretton Woods is emerging, a classic control framework of the sort that over-indebted states — including, by now, the EU bloc itself — have repeatedly applied throughout history in order to secure, ultimately, access to their citizens’ private wealth.

The so-called reverse solicitation loophole offers no relief here either. This refers to the theoretical exemption allowing foreign banks to continue serving EU customers if the initiative demonstrably came from the customer alone — meaning the customer approached the bank on their own, without any active solicitation on the bank’s part. The burden of proof rests entirely with the bank, and even a German-language website or a single instance of active outreach can be construed as improper market solicitation, voiding the exemption. The result: banks, out of sheer caution, would rather forgo EU customers altogether than rely on a barely provable claim of customer-initiated contact in a dispute.

Ultimately, the European Commission’s strategy points clearly toward one goal: looking without rose-tinted EU glasses at the fiscal trajectory of Paris, Madrid, Rome, or, by now, even Berlin, coercive measures for capital control and euro stabilization will, from the perspective of those in power, become unavoidable.

AMERICAN THINKER