MILTON FRIEDMAN SMILES: Welfare state is not sustainable, says German chancellor.

The German welfare state is no longer financially sustainable, Friedrich Merz said on Saturday.

The chancellor argued for a fundamental reassessment of the benefits system as spending continues to soar past last year’s record of €47bn (£40bn).

In a state-level party conference meeting on Saturday, Mr Merz said: “The welfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed with what we can economically afford.”

Once the export champion of Europe, Germany’s economy has slowed dramatically since 2017, with GDP growing by only 1.6 per cent since then versus 9.5 per cent for the rest of the eurozone.

Germany’s economy shrank by 0.2 per cent last year following a 0.3 per cent dip in 2023 – the first time since the early 2000s the economy has retreated two years in a row.

Industrial production fell under the Left-leaning “traffic light” coalition of Olaf Scholz and continues to slide under the new government, with GDP declining by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2025.

Meanwhile, spending on social welfare has exploded, and is set to increase further this year as Germany’s population ages and unemployment rises. Although the majority of benefit recipients are German, large numbers are non-German citizens.

In 2022, AP reported that “The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday it’s giving its highest award to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her efforts to welcome more than 1 million refugees — mostly from Syria — into Germany, despite some criticism both at home and abroad.” Ten years ago, Jim Geraghty quipped:

But as Milton Friedman said in 1997, “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.” But hey, Merkel was Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2015, so that’s got to count for something, right? (Her Time magazine encomium reads like it was piped in from Bizarro World in retrospect.)

UPDATE:

BREAKING:🚨 DRESDEN BLOODBATH 🚨

An American man was brutally stabbed on a tram — now fighting for his life.

Why?

Because he stepped in to defend a German woman being harassed.

🔴 The attacker? Believed to be a Syrian illegal migrant.
⚠️ How many more must pay the price for… pic.twitter.com/NFPFwSFdxO

— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) August 24, 2025

MORE:

QUESTION ASKED:

On what planet have Democrats gone "high" in politics at any point in the last 30 years? https://t.co/8OMITPwL5F

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) August 25, 2025

Related:

This phrase originated from Michelle Obama. This was after her husband's campaign accused Mitt Romney of murder and said he would re-enslave black people. https://t.co/datQRGgQoX

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) August 25, 2025

And yet last year, Romney tacitly endorsed Harris, in ongoing demonstration of his Stockholm Syndrome.

DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS: Abbott Expands Second Special Session Agenda After House Passes GOP Redistricting Map.

Quorum-Break Punishments Added to Texas Special Session Agenda

The most politically charged of Abbott’s three additions is legislation to establish penalties or punishments for lawmakers who willfully absent themselves during a session.

Abbott’s proclamation emphasized the need to ensure that “rogue lawmakers cannot hijack the important business of Texans during a legislative session by fleeing the state.” His call reflects frustration with the Democratic quorum break that derailed the first special session and delayed action on redistricting.

Republican leaders had already pursued civil arrest orders and other measures during the walkout, but this legislation seeks a permanent solution. Democrats argue that quorum breaks remain a constitutionally protected tool of the minority, but Abbott’s push attempts to ensure the issue will now receive direct legislative attention.

More like this, please.

DOMINIC GREEN: Oasis at Wembley Stadium: England’s Last Band Standing.

Oasis was the most successful and least innovative of the late-1990s Britpop bands. The superlative and its antonym are closely related, for rock music is a deeply conservative form: “We fear change,” said Garth in Wayne’s World, the 1992 comedy about rock’s adolescent ossification. Garth demonstrates this by taking up a hammer and smashing the prosthetic arm of a Frankenstein’s monster in the making. The digital enemy must be destroyed if rock is to survive. Oasis’s early hits included “Live Forever.” And they have. They were the last rock band in 1995. There are none more last.

The molten core of Oasis is the dysfunctional relationship between the Gallagher brothers, Liam and Noel. In Britain, they are usually referred to in that order, but it is not their birth order. Noel is five years older and writes the songs. Liam is the singer. Their priority in public perception is also their priority in public affection. Noel, whose early lyrics include, “I need to be myself, / I can’t be no one else,” is frequently mistaken for Liam, who expresses his need to be himself by doing his best to look and sound like John Lennon in 1966. For several years, their drummer was Zak Starkey, Ringo’s son. This would be taking the Beatles bit too far, were it not that the whole point of Oasis is that they take it too far, and always by staying too near to the Beatles.

Heh. Read the whole thing.

THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF HOLLYWOOD:

Like a bad movie, the Zohran Mamdani mania continues. Youth turnout in the New York mayoral primary was up big, and polling shows that 4 out of 5 of them voted for the “democratic socialist.” As did nearly half of women. None, it appears, have ever cracked a history book. A recent Cato Institute/YouGov poll shows almost two-thirds of Americans under 30 have a favorable view of socialism. As Ryan Reynolds’s character in the 2004 “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” asks, “But why?”

One answer is that socialism is glorified in movies. Look no further than this summer’s “Jurassic World Rebirth.” Pharmaceutical executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) risks his life and capital to develop a heart drug, Paleodioxin, that will extend human life by 20 years. And he’s the bad guy!

* * * * * * * * *

In many movies, markets are corrupt—see “Wall Street” (1987), “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013) and “Trading Places” (1983). And entrepreneurs are doofuses: “The Social Network” (2010).

The rare pro-business movie that comes to mind is about a group of private-sector entrepreneurs who flaunt their credentials—“Back off, man, I’m a scientist”—to hold off pushy government regulators and save the world. Yes, I’m calling “Ghostbusters” (1984). Add “The Founder” (2016) about Ray Kroc, “Joy” (2015) about a family business dynasty and “The Pursuit of Happyness” (2006) about a homeless entrepreneur. There aren’t many others.

I enjoyed “Joker” (2019) despite its obvious preaching about awful societal conditions created by capitalism. I’ll even admit to liking most of these films, but when I inevitably spot Hollywood’s “capitalism bad, socialism good” message, I impulsively laugh out loud. Try it.

Exit quote: “Karl Marx isn’t a superhero. We just want to be entertained, not lectured to. Stop the capitalism-is-kaput charade and convincing young voters that socialism is good for anything beyond ruining whatever it touches. Maybe it’s time for an ‘Escape From New York’ (1981) remake.”

Escape From New York came rather late in the “New York as dystopian hellhole” cycle of moviemaking. But if Mamdani wins, he could be the catalyst for a whole host of remakes of that genre of films, such as Death Wish, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, The Panic in Needle Park, Taxi Driver and The Warriors.

 Ironically, one of the few Hollywood films in which the capitalist zillionaire is the unalloyed good guy predicted his rise:

UPDATE: It’s worth flashing back to the Substack essay that “George MF Washington” wrote at the beginning of the month on “Hollywood’s Political Morality Police — How the entertainment press enforces Progressive orthodoxy in the movie business,” as the trade publications help to ensure that the company town’s product doesn’t stray from a orthodox leftist worldview.

VDH ASKS AN EVERGREEN QUESTION: What Made the Democratic Party Go Crazy?

The Democrats abandoned the middle class because they saw it as a global loser and themselves as worldwide winners. They now had the institutions and the big money, along with the leverage of millions of high-paid coastal professionals in law, the media, the university, and the administrative state to win elections by outspending, out-broadcasting, and out-regulating their clueless opponents.

Only the Neanderthals worried about how to buy a small house. The real winners worried about what the latest fad was in natural kitchen counters, cabinets, and flooring. Only the deplorables fretted about electricity costs and gas prices rather than their far more important carbon footprint. Only the blinkered thought about crime, because they lacked the intelligence or savvy to live safely and securely in the right zip code.

The elite university became the farm team for the new elite. Its position papers, grant-funded “research,” and the latest “studies” would supposedly provide the expertise, the “authorities,” and the “experts” to provide the necessarily “correct” analysis of climate change, race, crime, immigration, and foreign policy.

It’s VDH, so read the whole thing.

I TRIED TO BURN AN AMERICAN FLAG ONCE. I DIDN’T LIKE IT. IT GAVE OFF TOXIC FUMES, SO I DIDN’T INHALE: Trump Executive Order: Burn the American Flag, Go to Jail.

As “Cynical Publius” tweets, “if you want to go burn your own flag in your own backyard, have at it. But if you want to burn that flag amidst a violent “Death to America” rally paid for by George Soros, that’s something altogether different.” Erick Erickson adds that the EO “isn’t legal, but it will get the Democrats to all go out and burn American flags, yet again putting them on the 20% side of an 80-20 issue.” 

(Classical reference in headline.)

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Surgeon wore Palestinian badge while operating on Jewish patient.

A surgeon at a London NHS hospital wore a Palestinian badge while operating on a Jewish patient.

The patient, who had an operation at the Royal Free Hospital in Belsize Park, north London, last month, was left “extremely distressed” after spotting the badge on the member of staff’s lanyard.

She said she “found it extremely stressful to be treated by this doctor, given her blatant political views” and that “she felt the doctor could do her some harm”.

Earlier this year, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, said he would ban NHS staff from displaying pro-Palestinian badges as part of a crackdown on anti-Semitism in the health service.

In a letter to the Board of Deputies of British Jews in May, Mr Streeting vowed to snuff out “the appalling experiences of anti-Semitism affecting Jewish staff and patients” in the NHS.

UK Lawyers for Israel, which the patient contacted after the operation, accused the Royal Free London NHS Trust of breaching equality legislation.

In a letter to trust bosses, the group said staff wearing the Palestinian flag badge could constitute harassment by the hospital, breaching Section 29 (3) of the Equality Act 2010, since it may create “an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment” for Jewish patients.

As Melanie Phillips tweets:

A surgeon at a London NHS hospital wore a "Palestine" flag badge while operating on a Jewish patient who was frightened when she spotted it.

For many Jews, the "Palestine" symbol is akin to the Nazi swastika because it symbolises the eradication of Israel and the genocide of…

— Melanie Phillips (@MelanieLatest) August 25, 2025

Her tweet continues, “For many Jews, the ‘Palestine’ symbol is akin to the Nazi swastika because it symbolises the eradication of Israel and the genocide of the Jews. But what of those doctors and nurses who aren’t wearing it but who nevertheless hold those IslamoNazi views? Isn’t that even more frightening?”

QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: “Is aircon right wing? How cooling systems got caught in a culture war, “ the London Independent claims.

Even though the UK has nowhere near the 90 per cent of homes in the US with air conditioning, demand for some kind of relief from the heat is reportedly soaring, with a 64 per cent increase in AC unit sales between 2023 and 2024. The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) estimates that up to a third of British homes will have aircon by 2050.

This is a fundamental change in the way we live. For decades, anything over 25 in the UK has been proclaimed “a scorcher” by the newspapers. Puzzled American tourists complaining about the lack of AC in Britain would be told wryly that the country is naturally air-conditioned most of the year round.

However, across ever-hotter Europe, when it comes to turning your house into a fridge, there is a large, sweaty elephant in the room.

Attacking the climate crisis head-on using technology, with the accompanying summer surge in electricity usage – an extra 7 gigawatts of it, according to the UKERC – is becoming deeply political.

People broadly on the right are prepared to put comfort ahead of environmental concerns. People broadly on the left tend to say that aircon is distinctly uncool, almost as if sweating through the summer is our moral comeuppance for humanity’s longstanding profligacy.

You know what else is distinctly uncool? Making insane doomsday predictions:

Also, I’d like to know if the Independent believes that greater access to air conditioning would benefit this beleaguered class:

In any case, in America, it’s best to not take chances. As Glenn wrote in 2016: Ban A/C for DC! “We won two world wars without air conditioning our federal employees. Nothing in their performance over the last 50 or 60 years suggests that A/C has improved things. Besides, The Washington Post informs us that A/C is sexist, and that Europeans think it’s stupid.”

VDH: Joy Reid and the Rise of Open Racism From the Left (Video).

METAPHOR ALERT:

This is perfect. The rich socialist has a working class guy actually lift the weight to advance his career. Poetry. https://t.co/8kwX1bNpSx

— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) August 24, 2025

Current Mayor Eric Adams dubs Mamdani “Mamscrawny:”

64 vs. 33. A lifetime of hard work vs. a silver spoon. The results speak for themselves.

The weight of the job is too heavy for “Mamscrawny.” The only thing he can lift is your taxes. pic.twitter.com/HR6fDPKn0B

— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) August 24, 2025

It’s an amusing pun, but Adams might to want to focus more on protecting his citizens rather than crafting mean tweets:

You'll notice how it's only after the white guy defends himself from a knife-wielding attacker that the police step in, and it is the innocent victim of crime who is arrested for defending himself

This is what anarcho-tyranny looks like

“Your punishment for having a knife when… https://t.co/l0zUEMw2BX

— Will Tanner (@Will_Tanner_1) August 24, 2025

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

John Bolton Eludes FBI By Blending Into A Herd Of Walruses https://t.co/lIgEOkVSJt pic.twitter.com/cxjDQDIc6z

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) August 22, 2025

BRITAIN’S FLAG WARS FLY IN THE FACE OF NATIONAL SELF-LOATHING:

To the annoyance of Tower Hamlets, Birmingham, and many other local councils, the British and English flags tend to go back up almost as quickly as they can take them down. They are being hung on lampposts, displayed out the windows of private homes, draped over motorway bridges, and even painted onto roundabouts. Over the last few weeks, a genuinely grassroots movement has sprung up, led by Brits who are tired of being told they should hate their country and their culture.

It’s not difficult to see what led us to this point. Our flags have become demonised and denigrated. The Union Jack has been turned into a symbol of impotent British twee at best and colonialism and empire at worst. St. George’s Cross has suffered a much worse fate, being written off as outright racist. Today, there is only one socially acceptable use for the English flag. As Keir Starmer’s official spokesman, when asked what he thought about the ongoing flag wars, said, “We put up English flags all around Downing Street every time the English football team, women’s and men’s, are out, trying to win games for us.” Outside of these permitted contexts, UK flags are considered by the great and the good to be a kind of right-wing dog whistle. Black studies professor Kehinde Andrews appeared on national television this week to explain that the St. George’s Cross apparently “represents racism” and is intrinsically linked to colonialism and oppression.

No wonder Brits are fed up with having this nonsense rammed down their throats. For the best part of a decade, British people—like practically all other Western Europeans—have been taught to hate themselves. They have been lectured about their nation’s historic evils and the supposed worthlessness, even nonexistence, of their culture. It is impressed upon us, without any regard for historical accuracy, that practically everything Britain is today was actually built by foreigners.

Celebrating diversity, we are told, doesn’t apply to the many regional and national identities native to the British Isles. Just last month, a young girl was sent home from her school’s Culture Celebration Day because she was wearing a dress with the Union Jack on it. Pupils were encouraged to come dressed in cultural costumes, with the aim of “recognising and celebrating the rich cultural diversity within our school community.” Except, the native British apparently weren’t included in that. The girl wasn’t allowed to give a prepared speech on British values and was told that her outfit was “unacceptable.” Other pupils were also sent away for wearing clothes representing various British cultures, including a boy with a St. George’s flag, a boy with a Welsh flag, and a boy sporting a traditional flat cap. Some cultures, it seemed, were more multicultural than others.

Why, it’s as if:

JONATHAN TURLEY: The judicial Calvinball of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson went ballistic after her colleagues reversed another district court judge who issued a sweeping injunction barring the Trump Administration from canceling roughly $783 million in grants in the National Institutes of Health.

Again writing alone, Jackson unleashed a tongue-lashing on her colleagues, who she suggested were unethical, unthinking cutouts for Trump. She denounced her fellow justices, stating, “This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always wins.”

For some of us who have followed Jackson’s interestingly controversial tenure on the court, it was crushingly ironic. Although Jackson accused her colleagues of following a new rule that they must always rule with Trump, she herself is widely viewed as the very embodiment of the actual rule of the made-up game based on the comic strip of Calvin and Hobbes. In Jacksonian jurisprudence, it often seems like there are no fixed rules, only fixed outcomes. She then attacks her colleagues for a lack of integrity or empathy.

To quote Calvin, Jackson proves that “there’s no problem so awful that you can’t add some guilt to it and make it even worse.”

Jackson has attacked her colleagues in opinions, shattering traditions of civility and restraint. Her colleagues have clearly had enough. She now regularly writes diatribes that neither of her fellow liberals — Justices Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan — are willing to sign on to. Indeed, she has raged against opinions that her liberal colleagues have joined.

Read the whole thing.

HOW IT STARTED:

How it’s going:

As John Podhoretz tweeted immediately after Trump won his first term:

OLD AND BUSTED: Hipsters eschew CDs for vinyl to relieve the good old days.

The New Hotness? I started buying DVDs and CDs again in 2025 and it changed my mind about streaming.

You probably know the feeling — you’re in the mood to watch a movie, so you open up Netflix. The next thing you know, two hours have passed, and you still haven’t decided what to watch. Even when I go on a streaming platform, knowing what I’m looking for, it’s easy to get distracted by a homepage flooded with endless recommendations. Eventually, it starts to feel overwhelming and all that content just blurs together into one giant, forgettable backlog.

That’s why I’ve started buying CDs and DVDs again. I recently revived some old PC setups, so I thought it was time to try taking a similar trip back in time with my music and movies. What started as a passing interest in physical media ended up highlighting everything I’m missing out on with streaming.

I don’t have any great desire to buy DVDs, unless absolutely necessary, but 4k Blu-rays are about as close as possible to a film-like experience in the home.

MORONIC CHICAGO MAYOR THREATENS TO RIOT IF … Trump Stops Violent Crime and Wow, That Was Dumb (Watch):

🚨 BREAKING: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is now implying his people will rise up against “tyranny” via riots and unrest against President Trump’s administration if he sends troops to Chicago to lower the crime rate.

pic.twitter.com/uO8Wj57eUg

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 24, 2025

Mayor Daley’s best-known malapropism during the blue-on-blue riots of 1968 was of course, “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.” That disorder has gotten far worse in the decades since, and not surprisingly, the Second City’s current mayor wants to do everything in his power to preserve his city’s dysfunction as well.

HEY, WHAT HAPPENED TO DEMOCRACY DYING IN DARKNESS?

WE APOLOGIZE AGAIN FOR THE FAULT IN THE SUBTITLES. THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR SACKING THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE JUST BEEN SACKED, HAVE BEEN SACKED: John Nolte: No More ‘Birthing Person, LGBTQIA+’ — Fractured Dems Instructed to Talk Like Normal People.

Second, ever since the arrival of Obama, Democrats have made the grave error of radicalizing their base with the poison of identity politics. Today, that tail wags the dog. Democrats are stuck with these radicals, with these unforgiving fascists who demand loyalty tests and 100 percent fealty. And the language you use is the most important part of that test. If you don’t use the “approved” language, you’re a Nazi. Period.

Democrats have painted themselves into a corner where any attempt to moderate will result in a brutal backlash from the wealthiest and most intolerant part of their base.

For example…

You’ll notice that the Third Way blacklist does not include “undocumented migrant.”

Why?

Because the Third Way is not moderate.

And.

If the Third Way were to call for an end to that stupid-ass term, they would face outrage, protests, and a blacklisting of their own.

You’ll also notice that the Third Way does not have the moral courage to list alternative words.

Why?

Same reasons.

Watching this play out will be more entertaining than anything on TV.

It’s quite a post-election circular firing squad. Democrats are not going to change their worldview, but they know that openly talking about it is absolutely suicidal, except in the bluest of blue alcoves. So having spent decades telling the rest of us to shut up, the left are now telling themselves to shut up.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Hello Mr. Eisen,

I have to say, your statement in support of John Bolton is one of the most audacious things I've ever read, and I read your playbook on color revolutions.

You yourself filed a DOJ complaint urging a criminal investigation into Bolton's Super PAC. You argued… pic.twitter.com/fVwdZjLeXO

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) August 23, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM THE PRO-CRIME AWFLS:

This is what should happen EVERY TIME

Sergeant Miles with Trenton New Jersey Police Department is protecting ICE agents doing their jobs. Liberal activists show up, start screaming, impeding ICE’s operation and causing problems. They are arrested pic.twitter.com/hyfgdleV9m

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) August 22, 2025

In 2020, Philadelphia’s NBC affiliate reported: Homicides Reach Record High in Trenton, New Jersey.

Curiously, young white women want to impede the police’s job there.

As well as the Chicago PD:

Wait, forget the Chicago PD. How backed up are the hospitals in Chicago, if her arm hasn’t healed yet?!

Exit question: So, It’s Not MAGA Country? Chicago Carjack Victim Defies Trump, Says There Are ‘No Red Hats’ There.

MARK JUDGE: ‘The Lives of Others’ and the Anti-Communist Film Festival.

BODYCAM CAPTURES HUMILIATING MELTDOWN OF ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL DURING ARREST (Video):

GREAT MOMENTS IN CHUTZPAH: NPR Platforms Nikole Hannah-Jones: Reviewing Museums for Wokeness Is ‘Fascism.’

Martin then asked Hannah-Jones about Trump’s claim that the museums don’t have any “brightness” about America, and she made the argument that in 2017, Trump praised the African-American history museum. But hasn’t it changed since 2020, after the George Floyd riots?

Hannah-Jones then cried Fascism: “The museum hasn’t changed, so what has changed? And what has changed is, I would argue, that Donald Trump is engaging in what Jason Stanley, in his book How Fascism Works, calls trying to create this mythic past. And this mythic past is a past that was racially pure, and one that is being used to really distract us as our democratic norms are being eroded.”

Flashback: 1619 Project Founder Admits It’s ‘Not a History,’ But a Fight to ‘Control the National Narrative.’

Woman who created mythic past projects wildly that Trump is creating a a mythic past.

And speaking of mythic pasts: No Dice: Thread Shows Just How Woke the Smithsonian Has Become, and Why Trump Is Right to Overhaul It.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Cracker Barrel Goes Woke Edition.