Progressives have suddenly found themselves lost in the political wilderness, caught in a self-inflicted trap of anger and fear. From the sound of their fury, they could be there for a long while. (Thoughts and prayers.) With Democrats now irrelevant, the second Trump administration has four years to take a wrecking ball to the Washington establishment, including deep cuts to federal spending and an overhaul of the bloated bureaucracy. To understand why the wrecking ball is needed, look at the annual budget deficit ' $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024. In a time of relative peace and prosperity, the deficit grew 8% in one year, even though federal revenue increased by 11%. In other words, the Biden-Harris administration collected significantly more money from taxpayers in the last fiscal year but still managed to blow up the deficit by an additional $138 billion. That's simply unsustainable.
Before the Nov. 5 election, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court ruled that provisional ballots must be signed in two required places and that mail-in votes must be dated. Yet elected Democratic officials in Philadelphia and three other counties " Bucks, Centre and Montgomery " voted this week to defy these and other court decisions at the request of lawyers for Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who trails GOP challenger Dave McCormick by about 24,000 votes, with almost all of the roughly 7 million ballots cast having been counted. These Democrats' decisions will almost certainly be overturned on appeal, but the mere attempt to defy judicial rulings is corrosive to democracy and invites similar behavior in future elections. read more
Orcas have killed blue whales.