Fast Takes: RFK Jr.s not radical enough, stop the all-consuming fraud blob and more

Reflecting on news of “left-leaning American ex-pats who fled to Europe to escape Trump 2.0” only to find life there “dramatically different” than expected and plot “a move back home,” The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Hennessey points out the “shocking factual reality” that the United Kingdom, “suffocating under the weight of its bloated welfare state,” is “poorer than every American state” — and the rest of Europe is no better.Americans who “have convinced themselves they are living in a stagnant, unjust hellhole” should “stop complaining and thank your lucky stars,” because life here “beats every alternative by a wide measure”: We “have more, give more, can do more, and live better than anyone in history.”Our “monstrous national debt” has turned into a “quickly growing blob [that] is consuming everything in its path and will destroy America” unless government overspending is curbed, warns Deborah Collier at The Hill.

The $41 trillion federal debt is “a collective failure by the executive and legislative branches to root out waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.” “Every dollar spent servicing yesterday’s borrowing is a dollar unavailable for any other purpose.” Good news: “The debt blob can be stopped.” Congress should target “corporate welfare” and costly “zombie” programs.The feds can “keep covering their eyes and hope the fiscal blob oozes away, or they can finally wake up” and start slashing the vast “waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.”Yet another “fraudulent entity” just got “outed for releasing fictitious numbers in hotly contested midterm election campaigns,” notes Carl Cannon at RealClearPolitics: Wedgwood Polling.

RCP never trusted Wedgwood data, as it lacked the clear bona fides of “an actual, legitimate polling firm,” but others “did take the bait, notably The New York Times.The fake polls’ impact was most obvious in Michigan, where Wedgewood “...