WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A RELIABLE SOURCE:
Wikipedia is already trying to erase it pic.twitter.com/QK8OFpKn2b
— Ashley Rindsberg (@AshleyRindsberg) September 7, 2025
September 8, 2025
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: ‘Toxic Empathy’ and the End of the Progressive Project.
NOW OUT: From Doug Casey and Matt Smith, The Preparation: How To Become Competent, Confident, and Dangerous. #CommissionEarned This looks like a good companion guide for guys to my forthcoming book on men, dating and marriage.
DISPATCHES FROM AIRSTRIP ONE:
🇬🇧 New work by street artist Banksy has appeared on the wall of the Royal Courts of Justice in London – showing a judge attacking a protester, lying on the ground, with a gavel. pic.twitter.com/kJKFycVrZY
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 8, 2025
I’VE WAITED FOR THIS MOMENT SINCE I BOUGHT MY FIRST CONDO IN THE LAST CENTURY: A property tax revolt is spreading — with help from key conservatives.
For decades, property taxes have underwritten the basic functions of local government — schools, parks, roads, police and fire departments, trash collection. But as home values have surged, tax bills have ballooned in tandem, fueling what David Schleicher, a Yale professor of local government, described as a “property tax revolt” shaking cities and states alike.
“This is a really big trend that is below the radar because it doesn’t involve President Trump,” Schleicher said. “But it doesn’t need fireworks to announce itself. It’s already changing our relationship with government and how schools work and property markets.”
The frustration is cutting across partisan lines. Last year, voters in nine states approved referendums to cap or curb rising assessments, from tying bills to inflation in Georgia to New Mexico and Colorado expanding tax exemptions for veterans who own homes there. Meanwhile, lawmakers in Texas, Indiana, New Jersey, New York and elsewhere have approved tens of billions of dollars in property tax relief over the past 18 months.
To some, though, such measures fall short. Grassroots campaigns in Michigan and Ohio are now gathering signatures for ballot initiatives that would abolish property taxes altogether. In Texas, Republican state Rep. Brian Harrison has proposed a state constitutional amendment to end them there by 2031.
“Never-ending property taxes are unethical, immoral and incompatible with private property rights,” Harrison said, “and need to be thrown to the ash heap of history.”
Whose property is it, anyway?
THE ORCS ARE COMING FOR RFK JR: That tumultuous Senate Finance Committee hearing last week in which HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. was subjected to an unprecedented series of insults, misrepresentations, outright lies, and character assassination is just the opening of Sauron’s massive assault. The goal is to do whatever is necessary to either persuade President Donald Trump to fire Kennedy, or to render Kennedy so bloodied and distracted that he resigns.
THIS MIGHT BE GOOD, BUT MIGHT BE A LEFTY TROJAN HORSE: At 6 colleges, admissions now consider how students discuss divisive topics.
I don’t know which, but past experience tells me how to bet.
ATTENTION INSTAPUNDIT FANS!!!: On Monday, November 17, 2025, the one and only Glenn Reynolds will be at the University of San Diego School of Law to deliver a public lecture. The title of Glenn’s lecture will be “Our Ruling Class Monoculture, the Judiciary’s Class War, and the Great Realignment.” At 5:30 p.m., just prior to the lecture, there will be a reception for Glenn. The lecture starts at 6:15 p.m. The lecture and reception are free, but registration is required.
Glenn’s lecture is brought to you by a gift from the late Joan E. Bowes, a lovely lady whose generosity is much appreciated.
This will be fun.
I’M SO OLD I CAN REMEMBER WHEN “FREE SPEECH” WAS CODED AS RIGHT WING BECAUSE CAMPUS AUTHORITIES KNEW WHAT PEOPLE SHOULD BE SAYING: University of Pittsburgh must reinstate SJP chapter after federal judge rules free speech was violated.
TEMU ECONOMICS: Postal traffic to U.S. sank 80% after Trump administration ended exemption on low-value parcels.
Eighty-eight postal operators have told the UPU that they have suspended some or all postal services to the United States until a solution is implemented with regard to U.S.-bound parcels valued at $800 or less, which had been the cutoff for imported goods to escape customs charges.
“The global network saw postal traffic to the U.S. come to a near-halt after the implementation of the new rules on Aug. 29, 2025, which for the first time placed the burden of customs duty collection and remittance on transportation carriers or U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency-approved qualified parties,” the UPU said in a statement.
The UPU said information exchanged between postal operators through its electronic network showed traffic from its 192 member countries — nearly all the world countries — had fallen 81 percent on Aug. 29, compared to a week earlier.
The Bern, Switzerland-based agency said the “major operational disruptions” have occurred because airlines and other carriers indicated they weren’t willing or able to collect such duties, and foreign postal operators had not established a link to CBP-qualified companies.
Last week I bought a sub-$100 watch strap online, not realizing it would ship from the UK. About 48 hours later I got a followup email with a link to pay an import duty of just under $5.
It didn’t seem like a big deal, but maybe it is for companies like Temu and Shein that specialize in virtually zero-margin items.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Media Blackout Regarding Charlotte Murder Is Pure Evil. “There is a lot of darkness out there. I’ve been wrestling with what to say to kick this off; something deep and insightful. Really all I want to do is punch something. The nightmarish video from Charlotte, N.C. of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska being murdered by a psychopath who was roaming freely thanks to the Democrats’ violent felon fetish is sickening and infuriating.”
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY IS ON THE CHARLOTTE STABBING: From Rabble-Rousing to Rabble-Snoozing: Journalists do whatever the narrative requires at the moment, but does it still work?
THEY’RE ONLY HERE DOING THE JOBS AMERICANS WOULD LOVE TO DO: 475 Illegal Aliens Busted At Hyundai Battery Plant. “Back in the dim mists of time, under one of the Bush Administrations, I remember reading a National Review or Weekly Standard piece on immigration enforcement that threw in the line ‘Obviously we’re not going to be raiding job sites anymore,’ and I remember doing a double-take. ‘Why not? They’re illegal aliens. Deport them and fine the company illegally hiring them, and then start arresting them if they do it again.’ This was my first inkling that there were Republicans who though that illegal aliens entering the country was no big deal as long as they could get consumer goods a few cents cheaper.”
HE’LL BE MISSED: Paul Caron: My Last TaxProf Blog Post. “I have been puzzling over when would be the right time to stop. Typepad, the platform on which TaxProf Blog is hosted, made the decision for me when it announced on August 27th that it will discontinue all blogs effective September 30th. At this stage in my life, I am not interested in starting anew on a different platform. I hope to find another home for the massive content of my 55,780 TaxProf Blog posts. If I do, I will post the link on this post before September 30th and notify the subscribers to my tax and legal education email lists.”
That stinks. But I imagine after 21 years — I’ve been doing this for over 24 — it’s something of a relief, too. Anyway, thanks, Paul, for the great contribution you’ve made for all these years. You’ve done a lot for a lot of people, and not just in the tax world.
“PROSECUTORS KEPT TURNING THIS GUY LOOSE.” The Unspeakable Evil Progressives Have Unleashed Strikes in Charlotte.
“Progressives are always with big compassion for the guy with the knife.”
More on that silence here.
Flashback:
We learned during the JournoList scandal that yes actually there are hundreds of journalists all in a group chat agreeing not to report on scandals that make their own side look bad, like the Reverend Wright Obama scandal https://t.co/ke1Lad9F3n pic.twitter.com/XwZKKLoA7Y
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) September 8, 2025
LIGHTNING DEAL: Tire Inflator Portable Air Compressor. #CommissionEarned
CDR SALAMANDER: So, we Now Have the ‘War’ in ‘Drug War.’
If this is not a one-off strike and we no kidding want to go kinetic against drug smugglers at sea, we can’t do it in an effective way with armed drones. We are not always going to have land bases nearby because we can’t cover all that sea with what few overworked and under-maintained ships we have.
Almost all our allies get itchy when we start making things go boom from their territory—so that leaves GTMO and Puerto Rico.
Problem is, we no longer have the proper set of tools to do the job. The Cult of Efficiency under-armed the P-8A, so it is not as effective as it should be. As such, a multi-platform kludge would have to be put together if this becomes an ongoing mission…a highly inefficient kludge that
makes the mission less efficient and more costly than it needs to be. Again. Over to you NAVAIR, again.
Speaking of costs going up, for the bad guys, the cost of doing drug business just went up too. How will the drug producers try to regain access to our markets?
Will they fight back? We’ve impacted the people smuggling business by closing our borders. That pissed off one set of cartels. Now we are blowing up product coming out of South America, pissing off another set of cartels.
Will they take this sitting down? We’ll see.
Exit Quote: “I am quite comfortable putting this in the same category as a truck carrying arms to Al-Qaeda west of the Khyber Pass, or a group of people planting an IED in Al-Anbar.”
Yes.
THIS WILL GO WELL: In New York City, It’s Class Warfare. If You Own Anything, Mamdani Wants to Take It.
Well, it’ll go well for some people!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Palm Beach realtor of the year… https://t.co/jJXavKoOqE
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) September 7, 2025
YEAH, PRETTY MUCH:
When somebody tells you they want to “address the root causes of crime”, they’re saying they want to give a bunch of taxpayer money to a tax exempt entity run by one of their friends that does nothing to actually reduce crime.
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) September 7, 2025
ATHENA THORNE: The Image That Killed the Democrats in 2026 and Beyond. “Right now, they’re trying to ignore it, the way they tried to pretend Hunter Biden’s laptop didn’t exist back in 2020. They were successful enough that time to push their vote machine over the finish line in Biden/Harris’s favor, but that won’t happen this time. This story, this image, is already out there.”
DAVID MASTIO: Dismal new job numbers might be a sign of Trump’s successes, not failures.
So far under Trump, federal government employment is down 97,000 jobs. It was down 15,000 jobs just in August and it is going to keep going down as those who have already been fired, but are still getting severances, still count as employed. State government employment in August was down 13,000 too, which may reflect cuts to state government grants. And those numbers come as parts of the federal government that Trump likes, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement are on unprecedented hiring sprees.
The Trump administration also has cut tens of billions of dollars (maybe hundreds of billions) in nonprofit grants, on which the government spends a fortune. The BLS doesn’t report monthly numbers in the nonprofit sector, but you can expect that these cuts are having a big impact in the government-adjacent parts of the economy. One clue in the data is that “Religious, grant-making, civic, professional and similar organizations” employment fell 3,000 in August. In recent months, the federal government has rounded up tens of thousands of often-employed undocumented immigrants all over the country in industries from construction and agriculture to transportation and manufacturing. That’s a net negative for job growth too. Employment among Hispanics was down 15,000 jobs in August according to the new BLS data. . . .
I am no fan of Trump’s mercantilist economic policies, but any analysis of these job numbers has to consider how much of this is a sign of MAGA success, not economic disaster.
Millei’s Argentina entered a short, sharp recession when his policies were enacted before roaring back.
Related: Joel Kotkin: Don’t judge Trump’s economic agenda on one jobs report.
