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I just don't think quoting Will Smith's deranged outburst at the Oscars is a savvy thing to do. https://t.co/t7lxUMSYfh
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) August 31, 2026
Ed: Hmmm. It could work, but it needs more ... slap, I think. Vance would be better off to ignore this, although I know in this age, all such affronts simply must be addressed lest one be dismissed as too weak to fight. Rather than address it in these terms, though, Vance would be better advised to use mockery and humiliation, or better yet, start asking El-Sayed why his wife won't take Medicare for her psychology practice. And ask about her dad's connections to Hamas, too. There are better ways to fight.
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Noah Rothman at NRO: The provocative bravado that El-Sayed displayed in the primary is long gone. In its place, we see only his mild perturbation over having to bow and scrape before those who were insulted by the candidate’s apparent sympathy for an attempted mass murderer.
“My comments might have been misconstrued to be justifying something I did not intend to justify,” he said. “To anybody who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”
“We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright,” he added with growing exasperation. “What I was trying to do is offer context for why it happened, but it wasn’t the time for context, and you don’t ever want to trample anyone’s pain.”
In short, he’s sorry if you misinterpreted remarks for which he should not have to apologize at all. In fact, anyone who was discomfited by the statement in the first place is allergic to “context” and therefore beyond appeals to reason.
Ed: Revolutionaries do not apologize. Neither do Islamists. As for "context," it's BS anyway. There is no context for deliberately targeting and massacring 3,000 civilians. If El-Sayed wants to argue for "context," Mike Rogers can certainly ask Michigan voters what context would explain or mitigate those atrocities.
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DSA leader Gustavo Gordillo entered this interview believing he was a new Socialist Star and Political Kingmaker, even having a say in the next US President.
— Lee Kuan Yimby (@LeeKuanYimby) August 30, 2026
Instead, he embarrassed The DSA, and sent journalists digging into his life story that turned out to be an entirely…
... an entirely fabricated story.
Here is each lie from the interview.
He told Martha his family fled Peru because of American imperialism and the imposition of capitalism. They left during the Shining Path years. Maoist communist guerrillas.
His grandfather Manuel Gordillo was already a doctor in the US in and became a Citizen in 1964. Gustavo was born a US citizen. They did not flee American imperialism. They fled communist violence and came to the America, because his grandpa had already made it very comfortably here.
Ed: Beege already wrote about Gordillo's fabulism in pursuit of Marxist reinvention, but I'll just keep it simple ... scratch a Commie, find a mommy.
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Politico: Allies of Texas GOP Senate hopeful Ken Paxton are planning a $15 million ad campaign starting Tuesday, the first major ad buy on behalf of Paxton in his battleground matchup with Democrat James Talarico.
Two new ads from Lone Star Liberty PAC, the pro-Paxton super PAC, will air across 18 markets across Texas over the ensuing two weeks. They mark Paxton’s first significant foray on to the airwaves, jolting a campaign that has been clouded by concerns over Talarico’s massive cash advantage and Paxton’s electability. ,,,
The other new advertisement accuses Talarico of aiding China’s growth at the expense of Texas residents, pointing to the Democrat’s vote against restrictions on Chinese investments, and argues that a Chinese billionaire’s ownership of land near Laughlin Air Force Base presents national security concerns.
“China’s got Talarico. Texas needs Ken Paxton,” the ad says.
“[James Talarico] voted to sell Texas land to China, pushed a Texas Green New Deal that would gut our oil and gas jobs, and stood with criminals over cops as the most pro-criminal member of the Texas House,” Lone Star Liberty spokesperson Sam Cooper said. “That record is too extreme for Texas. Between now and Election Day, voters are going to hear it.”
Ed: Talarico had a massive cash advantage over Paxton, but he's been burning through it and still hasn't connected with black voters. The $15 million is just the opening salvo. Expect follow-up ad campaigns that will hit Talarico on his weird Unitarian version of Presbyterianism. Those may come from outside groups, but they will be coming. Paxton may hit Talarico over his inane comments on the Karmelo Anthony case more directly.
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Socialism + Atheism = State Incentives For Murder.
— Brad Todd (@BradOnMessage) August 31, 2026
It is an unbreakable connection. https://t.co/QehCiwOqUx
Ed: Expect Paxton to hammer Talarico on abortion too. Talarico's letter to Biden urging the president to convert federal buildings into abortion clinics should get a lot of attention, especially given how Talarico sold out his own legislature to federal authority in doing so.
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KXAN: “Paxton’s a poor campaigner,” Cornyn said. “He’s lazy and doesn’t raise money. And he basically is not offering a very compelling case for his election. He’s making this harder than it needs to be. But so be it — we are where we are.”
But Paxton said Sunday he is averaging roughly 18 hours of campaigning per day in the general election sprint and stopped in “four or five different cities” on Saturday alone. ...
“John Cornyn doesn’t know my schedule. He doesn’t know how many hours I’m putting in every day, 18 hours a day,” said Paxton to Jacqui Heinrich, the host of Fox News’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
Paxton, who beat Cornyn by more than 27 points in May’s Senate GOP runoff, added he has been “driving all over the state,” raising money and trying his “best to connect to as many voters as possible.”
The Republican nominee continued, “They don’t know my schedule. It’s completely fabricated.”
Ed: This criticism makes no sense at all, especially coming from Cornyn. Paxton has won three statewide elections. Cornyn lost to Paxton by 27 points. Does Cornyn want to admit that he got his ass kicked by someone who doesn't know how to campaign?
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Wonder if Beto would advise me to start walking across Texas from El Paso without a map.
— Steve Schale (@steveschale) August 31, 2026
Because that’s the non-political equivalent. https://t.co/VYl5OlVWy1
Ed: Does anyone believe this for a moment? And why is Beto even popping his head up in this cycle? Talarico doesn't need to connect to Betoheads; he needs to get around Jasmine Crockett to connect to black voters.
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Caitlin Flanagan at The Free Press: There is a very large and ever-growing contingent of people, mostly women, who have taken up the cause of Lindsay Clancy. She has already admitted to strangling all of her children to death using exercise bands. But she could be found not guilty by reason of insanity if the jury, now in its third day of deliberation, decides that she suffered from postpartum psychosis, a diagnosis not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but one widely understood on the level of things not spoken; that of taboos and curses. Here, it refers to women who become prey to delusions, hallucinations, and hearing voices, and possibly to committing terrible acts. It’s as extreme a psychological condition as can possibly exist. And yet the millions of women who support Clancy don’t think it’s rare. What has moved them so powerfully is a shared and strongly held belief: It could have been us.
What began as admirable compassion for a woman who says she was driven by mental illness to commit the world’s greatest form of evil has turned into something strange: an almost exultant, fan-like celebration of Lindsay Clancy. The cause has taken a frequent premise of true crime shows—“women in jeopardy”—and turned it on its head: “killer in jeopardy.” Its adherents are having a “Shout My Abortion” moment over the murder of three children, whom they rarely mention. If the children are often referred to at all, it is as “the tragedy,” as though their murders were a bit of offstage business that occurred before the play began.
In a sense, this logic mirrors a standard pro-choice argument, in which the needs of the woman greatly override any concern for the growing fetus. But this is very different; these were three actual children, whose reality cannot be discounted in any cavalier way. There is no way that their fate can be held as secondary to their mother’s.
Ed: This is a difficult case, because it has been clear that Clancy was failed by medical and psychological providers. She sought help and got bounced from provider to provider rather than being given a methodical and rational care plan. However, the jury has to apply the law, and it seems clear that Clancy knew what she was doing well enough to distract her husband long enough to carry out the planned murders. That precludes an insanity defense, if the jury applies the law properly. But it's a difficult case and my sympathies are with the jury, and I will accept whatever they conclude from the evidence. That can't be said for the lunatics who want to glom onto this case, however...
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🚨 OMG. Lindsay Clancy m*rder supporters beg Clancy's lawyer for a hug, break down in tears, and ask to buy him a steak
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 31, 2026
Every second of this is torment.
"You're the voice of so many moms."
"I know what she went through. I feel it."
"We came from Houston to watch you. Thank… pic.twitter.com/1sk2y14UOC
"We came from Houston to watch you. Thank you. I wish someone would help my daughter...where should we go eat a steak?"
"We want to take you out for a steak dinner."
THEY ARE DOING THIS TO SUPPORT A WOMAN WHO KlLLED HER KIDS 🤯
Ed: The world is full of broken people. However, some people break themselves. This is one of the reductio ad absurdums of abortion advocacy, as Flanagan also suggests, in that these activists think that mothers can apply abortion rights retroactively.
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John Tierney at City Journal: When a leftist turns violent, Democratic politicians and their media allies offer a familiar response: yes, this is terrible, but right-wing violence is the greater threat. They have made that claim for decades, and it has always rested on a dubious premise.
The premise depends on statistics compiled by advocacy groups that exclude a vast catalog of left-wing violence—from the George Floyd riots to murders committed by pro-Palestinian activists and attacks on synagogues, Catholic churches, Tesla dealerships, and ICE facilities. Meanwhile, conservatives are routinely held responsible for the actions of violent loners, drug dealers, and conspiracy theorists with no coherent political program. Deranged anti-Semites, racists, incels, and antigovernment extremists get classified as right-wing, even when their targets span both parties.
These statistical games obscure a fundamental distinction. Mentally disturbed lone wolves appear on the fringes of both sides, but organized violence in pursuit of political goals is not a right-wing specialty; it is a left-wing one. Since the French Revolution, it has been a recurring strategy for movements seeking to gain and wield power. Yet the Left’s influence over legacy media and cultural institutions continues to sustain the myth that right-wing violence poses the greater public danger.
Ed: It's not difficult to understand why, and I'd balk at the word "myth." It's a flat-out lie, and it's not just a media lie either. Merrick Garland spent four years attempting to turn parents into "domestic terrorists" for dissenting on curricula at public school-board meetings, and Christopher Wray's FBI attempted the same manipulation about Catholics who advocate for the Latin Mass. Democrats are deeply invested in these lies.
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One of my favorite lines from the article:
— Jesse (@JesseO007) August 31, 2026
Roberts allowed a person walking past the White House to halt the construction of a military facility. This was a Justice who upheld the arrest of a D.C. tween who ate a single french fry on the metro, but extolled a D.C. busybody who…
Ed: I concur with both of these observations. See below for more from Josh Blackman.
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Josh Blackman at Reason: At this point, John Roberts is utterly unrecognizable. This was the person that George W. Bush nominated to the Supreme Court because of his robust understanding of presidential power in the national security context, yet Roberts dismissed the government's national security concerns in a perfunctory footnote. This was the same justice who bitterly dissented in Massachusetts v. EPA, finding that the broad theory of standing would inject the judiciary into political disputes, but Roberts allowed a person walking past the White House to halt the construction of a military facility. This was a Justice who upheld the arrest of a D.C. tween who ate a single french fry on the metro, but extolled a D.C. busybody who walked past the metro as "deeply committed" to preserving the nation's capital. ...
At this point, the Chief Justice is a shadow of his former self. This was a case where Roberts determined that Trump should not win, so he did not win. In the end, all the Chief could do is wax about Winston Churchill in his dissent. Well, I have a far more appropriate quotation for the Chief's tenure: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
I would hope to see many more Roberts dissents next term. As I wrote, "Friends don't let friends be the chief justice's fifth vote." Find a way to get to five without the Chief.
If Chief Justice Roberts is the loser here, then Justice Kavanaugh is the winner. I am fairly confident that Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion. He has become the Court's stickler for standing. I think he also wrote the jurisdictional analysis in Trump v. California.
Ed: I still suspect that the dissent went to someone else first and Roberts flipped to make it less embarrassing. That's the only good explanation for Roberts' whiny and petulant attempt to grant Alison Hoagland standing.
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This is the inverse of the Sally Field Oscars moment.
— Joel Engel (@joelengel) August 31, 2026
Brad, they don't like you. They really really don't like you, and they're never going to like you because you're Jewish. https://t.co/wxcSfXnthl
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Friday's lyric: "I Ran (So Far Away)" by A Flock of Seagulls.
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