And who is paying the price? Look to your left. Look to your right. Look in the mirror.

Don’t take my word for it. This is what Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had to say:

“Look, we’re going to acknowledge, obviously, gas prices are too high right now, diesel prices are too high. There’s a very simple reason for it. It’s tied, of course, to the Strait of Hormuz. We have got to get commerce stabilized in the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices will immediately come down again. The cost of groceries will, as well, because that’s tied in many ways to the cost of transport, of getting the goods to the market.”

“And so that Iranian situation, the Strait of Hormuz — as soon as that’s resolved, it comes down. Now, the president has forecast, you’ve heard him even in recent days, he thinks it can get done maybe right after the election.”

In California, diesel prices have skyrocketed to $8 a gallon. The result is that everything that travels by truck—including all your groceries — costs more.

For months, Republicans have been claiming that the war would be over by the midterms. They’re not claiming that anymore. When will the war end — and prices will go down? “Maybe right after the election.” Promises, promises.

Maybe right after the Democrats win. President Donald Trump has tried his best to gerrymander his way to victory. He’s tried to restrict mail-in ballots. The only thing he hasn’t done is end this war — a war that will cost the Republicans dearly in the election.

And who’s to blame? On this, Mike Johnson’s explanation is almost laughable. “We’re not there yet. It takes a long time to turn the aircraft carrier, the ship of state. We’re pulling out of the most disastrous situation that we inherited after Biden-Harris.” Blame Biden. Americans aren’t buying it, and they shouldn’t.

According to the latest New York Times/Siena University poll, likely voters now trust Democrats over Republicans on the economy (by 7 points), the cost of living (by 8 points) and even the deficit (by 10 points). The poll also found Democrats leading by nearly 9 points on the generic congressional ballot.

Republicans are used to owning these issues — and winning on them, as they did in 2016 and 2024. They don’t own them anymore. On the economy, voters’ No. 1 issue, Trump’s approval rating was 39% according to the New York Times/Siena University poll; and on the cost of living, it sank to 28%. As for the Iran war, 31% approved of Trump’s handling of it.

And Tuesday night, for the third time, the House voted 220-204 to end the war, approving a war powers resolution that would halt Trump’s ability to continue military action without congressional approval. It’s all symbolic — unless the Senate acts, it never even makes it to the president — if it’s Trump — who would veto it. But not in the next Congress.

Rep. Seth Moulton, a former Marine in the Iraq War, who in his last days in Congress pushed the resolution, reminded Congress of this administration’s schizophrenic view of the war. “Remember when Donald Trump said that this war would last just a few weeks?” he said. It’s time for Congress to “actually ask tough questions, as the Constitution directs us to do, rather than be subservient to another warmongering administration.”

He’s right.

Written by Susan Estrich

Anthropic’s Dario Amodei published an essay last week called “We Must Pace the Frontier.” He proposes that the major AI companies slow down together and prove it by giving outside evaluators “desks in our offices, access badges, and company laptops.” He names METR as the kind of group that should get them. Sam Altman committed OpenAI to the same arrangement within a day.

David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s former AI czar, answered on Friday. “Stop pretending antitrust law has t o be suspended so you can form a cartel,” he wrote. “Stop pretending METR is independent when it is intertwined with Anthropic’s investors and staff.” If they insist on their own regulatory framework, “we’ll know this was just another bid for regulatory capture.”

The strongest evidence for his case is in Amodei’s essay. Amodei wants Congress to require “transparency” and “third-party auditing,” and he writes that “for antitrust reasons, it’s helpful for the U.S. government to mediate or at least enable these discussions.” The head of one of the two dominant firms wants Washington in the room while competitors discuss how fast each will move, because he knows the conversation is otherwise a Sherman Act problem. The essay says nothing about product liability. Audits are fixed costs a large company absorbs easily and a startup cannot. Liability scales with what a product does, and that would cost Anthropic.

On Sept. 8, researcher Jacob Coxon announced he had resigned from Anthropic because the industry is “gambling with our lives.” The post drew 165 million views, and within days Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill creating a cabinet-level agency to police AI. The Wall Street Journal published its exclusive 18 minutes before Coxon posted. Coxon had worked at Anthropic for no more than four months.

The first three accounts to amplify him run groups funded through the Survival and Flourishing Fund, which directs the giving of Anthropic investor Jaan Tallinn. Coxon took a 2022 scholarship from Good Ventures, the foundation of Dustin Moskovitz, who led Anthropic’s Series A. Of 3,500 reposting accounts Parker Thayer sampled, 76% were foreign. Moskovitz has spent more than $1 billion on AI safety advocacy. The people who own Anthropic also fund the movement demanding that Anthropic be regulated.

If Congress builds a federal approval process keyed to model size, Anthropic clears the threshold and startups do not. The experts advising that agency will come from nonprofits the same donors fund, and the evaluator with the badge will be METR. The competitor most exposed is Meta, whose open models Anthropic and OpenAI can neither acquire nor outspend. Those models trail the best closed ones by about four months, a gap that closes on its own unless Washington keeps it open.

Anthropic is targeting a public offering next month, and CNBC reported the filing will list backlash against AI as a risk factor. Anthropic lost between $10 billion and $15 billion from 2021 through 2025, and OpenAI is on track to lose about $14 billion this year. Meta made over $60 billion in profit last year. For companies that have never turned an annual profit, a regulatory moat built and staffed by taxpayers is the cheapest advantage available.

Before any of this is written into the U.S. Code, somebody in a hearing room ought to ask who hired the man wearing the badge. Anthropic, to its credit, published the essay admitting it is the one who hired him.

If this piece sounds like AI played a role, it did. I asked Anthropic’s own Claude to pull the threads together, and Claude concluded it looks like a well-orchestrated campaign for regulatory capture and wrote everything above with only a few edits from me.

Written by Erick Erickson 

Official website; https://x.com/EWErickson

Let’s begin with the Supreme Court’s decision concerning mail-in ballots.

The Trump administration asked the justices to permit new Postal Service requirements before the midterm elections. The rules would have required states to provide voter information through a federal portal and use federally approved ballot envelopes with identifying barcodes. Ballots from states that failed to comply could have been denied Postal Service handling.

The Supreme Court declined to lift a lower-court injunction, allowing states to continue operating under their established mail-in voting procedures. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that the restrictions should not take effect for this election but suggested that the federal government’s underlying legal arguments might receive a different hearing if the rules were proposed sufficiently early for a future election.

The ruling is significant because it distinguishes election security from election disruption. The government has a legitimate interest in protecting ballots and maintaining public confidence. States, however, had already begun administering the election. Altering procedures at that stage could have confused voters, overwhelmed election officials, and jeopardized ballots cast according to rules citizens had been told to follow.

The court did not settle every question concerning federal authority over mail-in ballots. It decided that these particular restrictions would not govern the 2026 midterms. That is institutional restraint: recognizing that even a policy advanced in the name of integrity can damage confidence if imposed after voting has begun.

A second federal ruling tested executive authority in another arena.

U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor blocked a Trump administration rule that would have ended the nearly 50-year “duration of status” system for international students, exchange visitors and foreign journalists. Under the proposed system, most students and exchange visitors would have received fixed stays of no more than four years, while foreign journalists generally would have been limited to 240 days. Extensions would have required additional government approval.

The administration argued that fixed limits would improve enforcement and reduce abuse. Universities and professional organizations maintained that the rule would interrupt lengthy academic programs, hinder scientific research and create uncertainty for foreign correspondents.

Saylor concluded that the Department of Homeland Security had not adequately justified such a consequential change or sufficiently considered less restrictive alternatives. His order is not the final word on the policy. It preserves the existing system while the legal challenge continues.

Together, the ballot and visa cases illustrate the judiciary’s constitutional role. Courts are not supposed to decide whether policies are politically popular. They must determine whether executive agencies possess the necessary authority, follow lawful procedures and account for the consequences of their actions.

The third test is unfolding far beyond an American courtroom: around Saudi Arabia and the waters connecting the Red Sea to global commerce.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia and has intensified attacks on Saudi military and energy infrastructure. Houthi advances toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the seizure of strategically important territory have increased the danger to one of the world’s most important shipping corridors. Saudi Arabia’s east-west oil pipeline built partly to bypass the Strait of Hormuz has also been forced offline following attacks blamed on Iran-aligned forces.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sought greater American military assistance. President Donald Trump declined to authorize direct U.S. strikes but agreed to provide intelligence-sharing and targeting assistance. That limited response reflects the difficult balance between supporting a strategic partner, protecting international commerce and avoiding another expanding American war in the Middle East.

Too little assistance could embolden the Houthis, endanger Saudi civilians and further disrupt energy markets. Too much direct involvement could draw the United States into another open-ended conflict involving Yemen, Iran and competing regional forces. Restraint in foreign policy does not mean passivity. It means matching force to a clearly defined objective and understanding where military escalation might lead before it begins.

The fourth test involves America’s shifting political coalitions.

Tucker Carlson, formerly Fox News’s leading host and now an influential independent conservative voice, has defended Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s criticism of the post-9/11 wars. Carlson stopped short of a conventional endorsement but sharply criticized Republican nominee Mike Rogers and argued that El-Sayed was correct to question the cost and wisdom of American interventionism.

El-Sayed and Carlson remain far apart on domestic policy, culture and the proper size of government. Their convergence on foreign intervention demonstrates that the traditional left-right political map is becoming less reliable. Antiwar voices on the progressive left increasingly overlap with an “America First” faction on the right.

Such alliances can broaden debate, but they also require intellectual honesty. Agreement on one issue does not erase profound disagreement elsewhere. Political restraint means resisting the temptation to convert a moment of common cause into a false claim of complete unity.

The fifth and potentially greatest test comes from AI.

AI can accelerate medical research, increase productivity and expand access to knowledge. It can also create convincing propaganda, automate cyberattacks, compromise private information and place increasingly consequential decisions in systems whose behavior their creators cannot always anticipate.

Recent reports from major AI developers have described autonomous systems taking actions beyond their assigned tasks. Researchers disagree about whether such incidents suggest an existential danger or more manageable technical failures. The disagreement is genuine, but uncertainty is not a justification for indifference, especially when these systems may affect weapons, financial markets, communications and essential infrastructure.

Trump has dismissed warnings about rogue AI and argued that excessive regulation could weaken the United States in its technological competition with China. Technology executives and safety researchers counter that capabilities are advancing faster than governments and even developers fully understand.

Both concerns deserve examination. America cannot afford to surrender technological leadership, but leadership without safeguards can become recklessness. The objective should be enforceable human oversight, clear responsibility when systems cause harm, rigorous security testing and limits on delegating lethal or irreversible decisions to machines.

These five developments concern different institutions, countries and technologies, yet each presents the same civic question: Can power be exercised without being pushed immediately to its maximum?

Election safeguards must not disenfranchise lawful voters. Immigration enforcement must not disregard academic research or press freedom. Military support must not become an undefined war. Political agreement must not conceal genuine differences. Technological competition must not outrun human control.

Institutional restraint is not weakness, surrender or indecision. It is the discipline to distinguish what government can do from what it should do, and what it should do from what it should do right now.

That discipline is what allows a constitutional democracy to confront danger, disagreement and rapid change without destroying the legitimacy it is trying to preserve.

Written by Armstrong Williams

Official website; http://twitter.com/Arightside

The Consumer Price Index shows prices rising by 0.4% over the past month, and by 3.4% over the last 12 months. The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, isn’t especially reassuring, either.

Oil and gas prices, which have climbed due to circumstances in Iran and elsewhere, account for a substantial share of that increase. But Americans nonetheless understand the big picture: Nearly six years after our generation’s “Great Inflation” began, overall prices continue to rise much faster than they should, and well above the Fed’s 2% annual target.

A new National Bureau of Economic Research paper shows why the concern remains so personal. The authors looked at payroll records for about 16 million American workers between 2021 and 2024. As surprise inflation was plaguing the economy, peaking at 9% in 2022, firms were handing out their customary 3% cost-of-living raises. Meanwhile, 43% of workers who didn’t change jobs (and 37% of all workers studied) endured reductions in real wages, most of which were quite severe. Aggregate real wages have since recovered, but the ground lost in the interim was never regained.

Considering that everyone claims to be a populist these days, you’d think the Trump administration and Congress would be making inflation a clearer priority. And by that, I certainly don’t mean pressuring Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chairman, to lower interest rates.

Instead, these officials act like beating inflation is entirely the Fed’s job. It’s not.

In a world without fiscal austerity, when the Fed increases interest rates to slow inflation, the nation’s interest payments on the debt grow too. That means more government borrowing and more claims on future tax revenue that nobody expects to be fully collected. It’s a vicious cycle in which unaccounted-for money can add fuel to the inflation fire.

To win the 1980s fight against inflation, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker was vocal with Congress and the Reagan administration about the fact that he couldn’t do it on his own. What made Volcker’s disinflation stick was not just a willingness to raise rates. And it wasn’t that Washington ran smaller deficits, either — deficits nearly tripled in the early 1980s.

What mattered was that markets came to believe a correction was coming. Congress passed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act in 1982, Social Security reform in 1983 and tax reform in 1986, and eventually enabled the surpluses of the late 1990s. Unfortunately, that lesson has been forgotten.

That brings us back to today. Warsh has signaled some key shifts in Fed policy, including maintaining the 2% inflation target. In line with this commitment, he just raised interest rates by 0.25%, hiking the final figure to between 3.75% and 4%. Now, this Congress and subsequent ones must do their part. Parker Sheppard, senior fellow at the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill, spells out two ideas.

First, Congress should commit to a credible deficit target and restore the expectation that it will keep future debt sustainable. As Sheppard notes, “deficits are running at 6% today, and 3% is a level Congress has hit repeatedly.” True, trimming deficits by half will be a serious political challenge. But considering the political challenge that inflation represents, it is worth doing.

Second, Sheppard argues that the Congressional Budget Office should include debt-service costs when it scores legislation. As things now stand, a bill can spend money in year two and offset it in year nine, and the score comes out balanced. Legislators then vote on proposals priced as if this costs us nothing. But those seven years of borrowing are not free. The Treasury pays interest on every dollar in the interim, and at current rates, it’s significant money that the score never shows.

Economic growth helps too. Removing regulations that stand in the way of investment and work is valuable on its own merits, but it also helps with fiscal finances. The resulting revenue expands the government’s capacity to service its obligations at the margin and lessens inflationary pressure.

All of this is worth doing, though it won’t save us from the need to reform entitlement spending. Some 70% of the federal budget consists of mandatory spending, and the entire projected increase in the deficit comes from Social Security and Medicare. Entitlement reform is what we should be aiming for.

So yes, we should follow closely what the Fed does to fight inflation. But we should not let Congress off the hook.

Written by Veronique de Rugy

Official website; http://twitter.com/veroderugy

Another way of describing this is “the rule of law.” At its core, the rule of law in this country means that all individuals and entities, including the government, are subject to the same laws, which will be applied fairly, consistently and uniformly. This principle is at the very foundation of the U.S. government and legal system.

The importance of the rule of law is one of the reasons the mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy trial continues to create shockwaves. Eleven of the 12 jurors voted to acquit Clancy of murder, even though Clancy killed her three small children.

In one of her many recent interviews, Clancy juror Paula Devlin said that she and the other women on the jury saw the case as an opportunity “to make it better for other women in the future.” “Justice for those children,” she said, “is this never happening again.”

Those are manifestly incorrect statements. The jurors in the Clancy case have no control over whether some other woman someplace else kills her children. Making things “better for other women” was not their job. Nor was it their job to make sure that Clancy “gets the help she needs.” Their job — their only job — was determining whether Clancy knew right from wrong when she committed those acts.

That — not some notion of female activism — was what “justice for those children” demanded.

Devlin was also the person who “outed” the juror who would not vote to acquit Clancy, by revealing to Gayle King on “CBS Mornings” that the lone holdout was one of three men and the only Black person on the jury. That man has since been under vicious and relentless attack on traditional and social media.

That juror made his decision based on his evaluation of the evidence. He decided that Clancy knew what she was doing and was therefore guilty. He had that right, just as any juror in a criminal case does.

The jurors who have given interviews have spent an inordinate amount of time discussing their feelings. That is irrelevant. If a jury’s verdict is based not upon what the law is but upon “feelings,” then the result in any given case will depend on who’s deciding the case and how you can make them “feel,” not on the facts and what the law requires.

That is unpredictable. It is subject to enormous abuse. It is a recipe for chaos. And yet it seems to be a common modus operandi for women.

Earlier this week, I was reading a law review article written in 2019 by attorney Samantha Harris and Brooklyn College professor K.C. Johnson. Titled “Campus Courts in Court,” the authors analyzed hundreds of cases brought by students who had been accused of sexual assault at colleges and universities, and who later sued, claiming that their constitutional rights had been violated.

The schools were reacting to the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter from the Obama administration’s Department of Education, threatening all institutions of higher education with loss of their Title IX funds unless they took dramatic steps to curb “rape culture” on college campuses. Panicky schools lowered the burden of proof in sexual assault cases from “clear and convincing” evidence to “a mere preponderance” of the evidence, effectively eliminated the presumption of innocence of the accused, forbade legal representation and the rights of the accused students to cross-examine the student’s accuser, and permitted the accusers to appeal if a disciplinary tribunal exonerated the accused. Under those conditions, an accusation of sexual assault was tantamount to a finding of guilt. Accused students lost scholarships and were expelled with stains on their academic record that left them unable to enroll in other schools and affected their future employability.

In short, it was a due process nightmare, and the subsequent litigation exploded. By the time Harris and Johnson published their article, more than 500 cases had been filed against colleges and universities (with hundreds more since); the defendant institutions lost — or settled — most of them. Legal expert Gary Pavela was quoted saying, “In over 20 years of reviewing higher education law cases, I’ve never seen such a string of legal setbacks for universities, both public and private, in student conduct cases. Something is going seriously wrong.”

Interestingly, Harris and Johnson reported that the results in cases tried in federal courts did not depend on politics; there was no statistical correlation between the outcome of the cases and whether the judges had been appointed by a Democrat or a Republican president.

But there was a demonstrable difference based upon the sex of the judge. Male federal judges found in favor of the student plaintiffs in 53% of the cases. But female federal judges decided in favor of the defending institutions and against the accused students — who were almost all men — in 67% of the cases.

I am a woman who has been an attorney for 40 years. And yet I now find myself wondering whether women are cut out for decision-making roles in the legal profession — serving as judges or on juries — because distressingly large numbers appear to be unable (or unwilling) to put their personal feelings aside and decide the case according to what the law is — not “to send a message,” to “show compassion” or “to make things better for all women.”

Applying the law as it is, is difficult and lonely work. It sometimes produces results that are deeply unsatisfying, and it will rarely make you popular. You must be willing to consider not only the impact of your decision in this particular case, but the longer-term implications — the precedential effect. If a primary motivation for your actions is what other people think of you, how decisions make you feel about yourself, or how something is going to play on social media, you are ill-suited for the job.

In short, it takes not only intellectual integrity and a clear-headed understanding of human nature, but also vision and courage.

In truth, however, those attributes seem to be in short supply among woman and men in leadership roles, in the legal profession and elsewhere. We live, increasingly, in a culture where “truth” is a matter of opinion, “science” is whatever someone needs it to be to advance their agenda, and “right” and “wrong” don’t exist, except to the extent that you can whip up an irate consensus among your ill-informed followers on TikTok.

The American legal system as we have known it cannot survive that.

Our second president, John Adams, once wrote that “the rule of law” in the United States means that ours is “a government of laws and not of men.”

Or women.

Written by Laura Hollis

Official website; http://law.nd.edu/directory/laura-hollis/

We owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude to the brave men and women who proudly serve our country in uniform — military members, law enforcement and first responders.

Protecting the United States and its citizens is the federal government’s chief responsibility. The preamble to the U.S. Constitution established providing for the “common defense” as a justification for our system of government, and our elected leaders take an oath to preserve, protect and defend our country against those who would do us harm.

Fulfilling that charge is becoming increasingly difficult, and not only because our enemies are becoming more sophisticated, although they are. It owes to our rapidly growing national debt.

This year, the federal debt surpassed $40 trillion for the first time ever, doubling in size in less than a decade. A Congressional Budget Office report this spring estimates the gross debt — the combined amount the government owes to bond holders and to itself through intragovernmental borrowing — will reach $182 trillion in two decades. That’s about $2 million per U.S. household.

Like an individual with significantly overdrawn credit card, our country’s massive debt load is snowballing. The U.S. has not had a year with a budget surplus in a quarter-century. Each deficit — the annual negative difference between what the government collects and what it spends — adds even more to the total debt, which then incurs interests, adding even more costs to the federal ledger.

This financial spiral directly affects our military readiness. Today, the U.S. spends more on interest payments to service our debt than it does on national defense.

As the debt continues to grow, so too will interest costs. The CBO projects that within 10 years, 25 cents of every dollar of tax revenue will be sucked up by interest expenses. That’s money that could be used pay servicemembers, modernize our fleets, or invest in the new technologies and capabilities necessary to stay ahead of our adversaries — but that instead automatically goes to pay borrowing costs on programs we can’t afford.

The Trump administration’s budget for next year requests $1.5 trillion for defense spending, a more than 40% increase over previous years. While at least partially necessary to replenish our military after former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden slashed funding to pay for their liberal social agendas, the request would be a big ask in good years when the government is flush with money. It’s highly unlikely when the debt is at a historic high.

The president’s budget proposes cutting domestic programs by about 10% to offset the costs. But those savings would only amount to about $74 billion, a fraction of the price tag attached to the administration’s defense budget.

There’s the dilemma. In such a big budget hole, Uncle Sam can scarcely afford to increase spending on our national defenses. And while the problem is bad now, it will only get worse as the debt grows. How much can we afford to go deeper in debt now, and for how long can we kick the can down the road?

The answer to both is, we can’t — not without creating an even bigger fiscal mess in the near future, which will be even harder to clean up, if not impossible.

Not surprisingly, the left is cheering the degradation of our country’s military strength. One radical outlet proudly proclaimed (a day before the Sept. 11 anniversary, no less) that activists should “exploit” the “dismal state of U.S. military power” to turn “anti-war sentiments into anti-imperialist conclusions.”

Sadly, these kinds of ugly, foolish sentiments typify socialists’ thinking. They cheer wasteful programs that foster the welfare state at hardworking families’ expense, thinking somehow the government can cater to their every need. Yet they loathe spending that accomplishes our government’s most important task: keeping our citizens safe.

But that’s the left’s goal. They are intent on consolidating power in a central government, even if it means bankrupting our country and making our people vulnerable to our enemies, who, make no mistake, are still intent on undermining our country and the freedoms we defend.

The United States’ huge and growing debt touches every aspect of our lives, including our national security. The government can’t perform its chief function, or it won’t be able to for long, unless we get our debt crisis in check.

Written by Ken Buck

Official website; https://x.com/FmrRepKenBuck

Signing that release ends the claim permanently. South Carolina law does not allow a victim to reopen a settled personal injury case, even if injuries worsen or require surgery that was not anticipated at the time of signing. That finality is exactly what the insurer is purchasing with the first offer.

Early Offers Arrive Before the Damage Is Fully Known

South Carolina’s at-fault system requires the negligent driver’s insurer to cover the victim’s losses. Those losses include medical bills, lost wages, future care costs, and noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering. An insurer that settles early locks in a number before any of those categories are fully documented.

Maximum medical improvement is the legal and medical threshold that matters. MMI is the point at which a treating physician determines that a patient’s condition has stabilized and further treatment will not produce significant additional recovery. Settling before MMI means the claim is valued on incomplete information, with future surgery, ongoing therapy, and permanent impairment still unknown.

The Release Problem

A signed release bars every future claim arising from the same accident. A victim who accepts $6,000 three weeks after a rear-end collision on I-26 near Harbison Boulevard in Columbia or I-77 near Celanese Road in Rock Hill, then discovers a herniated disc requiring surgery two months later, has no recourse. 

According to Brent Stewart, a South Carolina personal injury lawyer, recognized in Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America and a Fellow of the American Bar Association, and founder of https://www.stewartlawoffices.net/, honored with Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America 2026 recognitions and listed on Attorney at Law Magazine and Best Lawyers, premature execution of a legal release permanently strips victims of financial protection: “You sign a release, and you give up your right to come back for more money. Even if your injuries get worse, even if you need a procedure that you did not know about, even if you can’t return to the same job. The first offer is rarely the best. It is a starting point for the insurance company to close the file quickly and cheaply. A good attorney can tell you whether the offer is fair. “

Future Costs Go Unrecorded

Early offers routinely omit future medical expenses, long-term rehabilitation, and lost earning capacity. A crash victim treated at Prisma Health Richland Hospital after a collision on Two Notch Road or anywhere else in Richland County may face months of physical therapy after discharge. None of that cost appears in a week-three settlement offer.

Accepting an initial settlement offer before reaching maximum medical recovery can leave an injured driver with unpaid future medical bills. Stewart Law Offices can assist crash victims by reviewing insurance proposals, evaluating long-term care needs, and protecting claims across Columbia, Fort Mill, Bluffton, Beaufort, Lexington, Lake Wylie, and Rock Hill. If severe injuries prevent travel to an office, their attorneys can meet clients directly at their location.

Adjusters Are Trained to Minimize Payouts

Insurance adjusters do not evaluate claims neutrally. Adjusters use internal claim-valuation software that systematically underweights noneconomic damages, particularly pain and suffering and emotional distress. That gap between software output and actual claim value is the profit margin the insurer defends.

South Carolina victims who are unrepresented accept the first offer at a far higher rate than represented claimants. According to the Insurance Research Council (IRC), 73% of unrepresented claimants accept the insurer’s initial number, anchoring the outcome to a figure the adjuster set before gathering evidence.

Recorded Statement Tactics

Adjusters often request a recorded statement within days of the crash, before the victim has spoken with an attorney. Statements made at that stage, when injuries are still being assessed and fault has not been analyzed, become evidence the insurer uses to reduce the claim’s value. A victim who speculates about fault, minimizes pain levels, or fails to mention all injury symptoms hands the adjuster ammunition.

Delay as Pressure

Some South Carolina insurers deliberately slow claim processing. The longer a victim waits without income or with mounting medical bills, the more pressure builds to accept whatever offer arrives. Delays are a strategy, not a processing backlog.

South Carolina’s 51% Rule Shapes Every Negotiation

South Carolina follows modified comparative negligence as established by the state Supreme Court in Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co. A victim who bears 51% or more of the fault recovers nothing. A victim with 30% fault recovers 70% of total damages.

That percentage is actively contested in every negotiation. Adjusters push fault onto the victim because each point of assigned fault reduces the payout. An early recorded statement, incomplete police documentation, or an imprecise description of the crash sequence all become tools to shift that percentage upward. Victims who settle before fault is formally analyzed often accept offers that already embed an inflated fault percentage the adjuster assigned internally.

Property Damage as a Trap

Insurers sometimes fast-track property damage settlements separately from injury claims. Accepting the property check doesn’t close the injury claim, but the conversation around it often does. An adjuster who processes the vehicle payout creates an opening to discuss the injury offer in the same call, before the victim understands the two are legally distinct.

What to Do Instead of Accepting Early

A victim’s leverage increases as documentation builds. The South Carolina statute of limitations gives three years from the accident date to file a personal injury lawsuit. That window allows time to reach MMI, gather all medical records, and build a demand that reflects actual losses.

Crash victims should prioritize gathering early evidence, including declining all recorded statements without legal counsel and requesting the full police report immediately, while completing all prescribed medical treatment and obtaining an MMI determination before entertaining any settlement figure.

The South Carolina Department of Public Safety recorded 976 fatal collisions statewide in 2023, with secondary routes accounting for the highest share. Non-fatal injury crashes far exceed that number, and the majority of those victims go through the claims process without understanding what the first offer actually costs them.

Declining the first offer is not a refusal to settle. It is the only position that preserves the full value of the claim until the full extent of the harm is known.

Staff Writer; Roy Carter

Homo sapiens, as a species, is a group of jungle savages who know very little about history, and especially do not understand historical perspective. In fact, when it comes to history, most humans are incredibly ignorant.

Two hundred and fifty years — the life of the American Republic — when compared to the entire span of human history, is not a very long time. And we Americans look at our history very narrowly, and rarely see the whole panorama that history really is. That’s typical of all humanity. We see through a glass tunnel, and very darkly.

Americans — and especially the Left — tend to judge things, current and past, through the lens of the very slender historical time period we live in — our “zeitgeist.” We rarely — the Left never — put our judgments in an overarching historical milieu. People see all things only as they see them currently, and, most often, the way they want to see them. No vision, no context, no historical perception.

Many Americans today are surprised and dismayed that massive numbers of their countrymen are moving towards socialism, communism, leftism, promiscuity, godlessness, everything the Democrats and the Left are directing us towards. We should not be surprised, and if we knew history well enough, we wouldn’t be. This movement is new for America, but it’s not new for humans, or the world.

Why do so many Americans now prefer socialism to capitalism? Well, by studying history, we discover that most people, surprisingly, actually do prefer slavery (dependence) to freedom (risk). Dependence upon someone else means, well, somebody else takes care of us. That’s a very easy way to live, and how many millions of Americans today have opted for that course? Freedom, which virtuous Americans think is the way things ought to be, means risk, trials, hazards, individual responsibility, and acceptance of consequences. And there aren’t too many people — and never have been, frankly — who have the character and self-control to be able to conquer themselves and achieve that.

Nor do they have the spirituality. Freedom comes from God, the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property. As Franklin said, only a virtuous people can be free. But since increasingly, more and more Americans don’t believe in or obey God, and don’t want to, they end up rejecting the life, liberty, and property God provides. So, they are rejecting capitalism, free markets, hard work, and individual responsibility for socialism, i.e., letting government take care of them, in effect, sponging off other people. Countless millions of Americans not only do that, but that’s the life they prefer. Selfish dependence, not virtuous freedom.

And history tells us that such dependence — and slavery — is far more common than human freedom.

Thus, when I see the Democrat Party moving towards socialism, totalitarianism, licentiousness, godlessness, etc., it doesn’t surprise me in the least because as a historian, I try to view historical perspective and not just look at the current, narrow zeitgeist. Zeitgeists are nearly always wrong, and much of ours is too.

We today aren’t allowed to call this dependence “slavery” (our Founders did), not in our current zeitgeist. Slavery has become the worst crime in existence, the unforgivable sin, the one the Left has taught us is the greatest evil imaginable and to never forgive America for. And they teach their sheep that America should be hated for it, since we probably invented the practice. There is zero historical perspective in this, of course.

Slavery is certainly un-American because the founding principle of the country was freedom. But the Left fails to see — or admit — that it was the founding principles of America that eventually ended chattel slavery worldwide. It took time; history usually moves slowly, but that is what historical perspective is all about, of which the Left has none at all.

And, of course, the Left will NEVER admit that socialism is simply another form of slavery. Socialism is not personal, individual chattel slavery; it’s slavery to government. We give government the right to oversee all economic factors, thus ultimately controlling, and distributing — and withholding — economic resources as it sees fit. Socialism makes people dependent upon government. That’s its purpose.

And since, sadly, countless Americans today don’t have the virtue necessary for individual freedom, they want socialism.

Americans will insist they want to be free. But how many people voluntarily place themselves into dependence upon government? They don’t have to; they have a choice. But in one of history’s supreme oxymorons, they use their freedom to place themselves in slavery. But they lack the virtue, the character to take care of themselves, and to thus be truly free. And so, they turn to socialism, which makes them dependent upon somebody else. Too many Americans, if they ever had the virtue to be free, have lost it. And the Democrats love that.

The Left, of necessity, has redefined “freedom” as doing whatever one wishes to do, especially sexual licentiousness, the right to have as much sex as one wants with whomever one wishes to have it with — with no responsibility or consequences. But because of this inaccurate, and frankly vile, definition of freedom, people actually become enslaved (addicted, like a druggie) to their own lusts and passions, and, as a result, with no self-control or virtue, become enslaved to (dependent upon) government. These people want moral “freedom,” yet end up in economic dependence (socialism). Exactly what Democrats want.

It is interesting to see that the people who are pushing socialism in America are the same people who are attacking Christianity, glorifying sexual licentiousness, and who hate America—traditional, free America. And history

Historically, we shouldn’t be surprised at all.

Written by Mark Lewis 

Official website; https://twitter.com/thailandmkl

The English poet and cleric, John Donne once wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…” These written words give insight into the truth that no one person is totally self-sufficient without others. For many people, arrogance and the feeling of superiority makes them headstrong into believing that its “their way or the highway”. John Donne reminds brings us to reality that we are meant to be individuals who are interdependent with one another while maintaining a sense of community and solidarity. It is meant for us to have the type of mutual connection which is in direct contrast with the ideas of extreme individualism.

And yet while we live in a society of coexistence with people of all walks of life, it is an undisputable fact that all of us have not quite mastered the art of “getting along with each other”. Are we willing and able to empathize with those who don’t look like us or think like us? Coexistence becomes more difficult when the willingness to accept “others” is based solely on their social status, political ideology or ethnicity. An underlining factor in coexistence is the fact that every American has the right to life and liberty.

Liberty is interesting because it is defined as the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed on one’s life. It can be described as the freedom to live your life the way you want without interference from other people or institutions. Or simply, having the freedom and power to do as one pleases. We hear so much about fighting to protect our freedom and liberty as American values. Unfortunately, freedom and liberty defined does not mean freedom and liberty practiced.

Freedom means people can think, worship, associate, move, and make personal choices with unnecessary interference.  When they talk about protecting one’s freedom, it should include freedom from oppression and freedom to participate in public life, pursue opportunities, and develop one’s abilities. But freedom does not mean that a person can just do or say anything while ignoring the negative consequences their words and actions have on others.

Despite liberty and freedom often being presented as patriotic themes, it should not automatically be assumed that those who describe themselves as patriotic individuals, once given the freedom to do as they please, will do so with a sense of community and responsibility. Or do so with the morals, personal conduct and conviction to do what is right and fair. Liberty is a personal right, but the liberty to do as one pleases should not open the door to disrespect while forgetting that we are all interdependent of one another. Can we honestly self-examine ourselves and ask the following question: Does my freedom to do as I wish result in unfair or unnecessary hardship on others? In other words, while it is my desire to not be subject to oppressive restrictions, do my words and actions place or support oppressive restrictions on others? This is why we have rules so individualism can remain in check. Rules establish the boundaries that allow people with different beliefs, needs, and interests to live and coexist together. They are in place to protect equal treatment, opportunities, and peace in society.

As a result, there is a balance between rules and freedom. Freedom without fair rules leads to disorder, control and manipulation by those with a “my way or the highway agenda”.  Rules without freedom leads to oppression. A democratic society needs both: on one hand, freedom for people to live with dignity and make meaningful choices. On the other hand, rules that are just and can be equally enforced to ensure that everyone can enjoy their personal freedoms. Individualism, liberty, rules and freedom are all intertwined. Politically, those who typically fight against “big government” and against government intrusion on individual’s rights are often the same group who are quick to deny individual rights and place oppressive restrictions “others” through the government.

The Trump administration’s actions have negatively affected individual rights for immigrants, people seeking health care, students, protestors, and people relying on federal civil-rights enforcement. The administration has advocated mandatory detention without bond hearings for broad categories of immigrants. Multiple federal appeals courts have found aspects of that type of policy unlawful while denying due process. Civil liberties groups have reported threats to protesters, activists, student demonstrators, universities, journalists, and organizations critical of the administration by using investigations, immigration enforcement, federal deployments and funding pressures as weapons.

The administration has moved against Planned Parenthood and cut or sought to cut reproductive health funding reducing access to contraception, cancer screening, and abortion-related care for many patients, particularly those with low incomes or limited local providers. The administration ended or weakened many federal diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and environmental-justice programs while directing agencies to scrutinize DEI programs and related grant recipients. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan was prophetic in predicting the future Trump administration. He said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem”.

Written by David W. Marshall

Official website; https://davidwmarshallauthor.com/

One may purchase his book, which is titled; God Bless Our Divided America: Unity, Politics and History from a Biblical Perspective.

Superficially, the policy sounds good. Children raised in two-parent, single-earner homes outperform every other group in school and in earnings, and those families are the only ones reproducing above the replacement rate. We should want more stay-at-home mothers, and the vice president’s heart is in the right place. His plan is still a terrible idea. He is offering socialism-lite, and Diet Coke socialism never beats the real thing.

Republicans spent 30 years arguing that welfare made people dependent on government. In the 1990’s, former President Bill Clinton and the GOP restructured welfare to end dependency by allowing single moms to work or get a degree while their childcare costs were covered. The Vance Plan hands that money to mothers who stay home with working husbands, so long as the husbands do not earn too much and the mothers do not work.

The income cap is near $75,000 in most states, and a couple with two children would collect $18,000 a year. If the father makes $70,000 and his boss offers a promotion with a 10% raise, the $7,000 increase takes the household to $77,000 and wipes out the entire $18,000. The father must turn down that promotion, and the next one, because the math does not change until the children turn 18. By then he is in his 50’s and has passed on every rung of the ladder. The mom cannot take a part-time job, because anything paying less than $18,000 is a pay cut. A nurse who steps away for 5 years to raise kids can get recertified. A nurse who steps away for 25 years starts over at 50.

That is the benefits cliff conservatives spent a generation warning about, and it remains even when the recipient is married and votes Republican. My Christian friends praising this idea are making families dependent on government and turning stay-at-home mothers into welfare queens.

Many of the voices cheering this plan spent last year going through grocery receipts to decide whether a poor woman could buy a Coke with an EBT card. A subsidy conditioned on staying home invites a rule defining what staying home requires, and they will write it. The socialist left loves the collective and the post-liberal right knows what is best for your household, and both want a bureaucrat in Washington controlling your family.

There is a better answer, which is to not take the money at all. Give an uncapped deduction per child for as long as that child is at home or in college, and let parents who homeschool or pay tuition deduct the school taxes they pay for a system they do not use. Then address the national debt, because people do not have children when they have given up on the future and the debt destroys the private sector’s opportunities.

The people most supportive of this plan have given up on America and want to manage its decline. They have replaced the Republican establishment that gave us Medicare Part D and now want welfare expansion.

Democrat-lite never beats Democrat. The vice president is gambling that socialists will balk at subsidizing stay-at-home mothers over working mothers. They will not balk. Democrats will take the deal and raise it, and each raise gets easier once Republicans concede that Washington should put families on welfare. It is also amateurish to divide the right this close to the midterms, pitting stay-at-home mothers against the mothers who work and will pay for it.

Let parents keep their own money and run their households as they see fit. Pay down the debt, grow the private sector, and give hope back to the people instead of trying to manage a decline that itself is a choice.

Written by Erick Erickson 

Official website; https://x.com/EWErickson