More States? Yes please!

Democrats have long championed adding Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico as new states to increase their clout in Washington. That proposal has always met with resistance from the right – and rightly so.  However, there is a way to add the new states if their residents want to join the Union. First, D.C. would need to incorporate the portion of Northern Virginia originally intended to be part of the nation’s capital. The democrats might resist that since it would weaken their hold on Virginia. Second, historical precedent calls for offsetting additions: when one side of the political ledger gains, the other must as well. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 offers the classic example — Missouri was admitted as a slave state, balanced by Maine entering as a free state. More recently, Hawaii and Alaska became states in 1959 with Hawaii in the democrat column and Alaska in the republican. Balance. Balance. Balance.

So what might balance the admission of D.C. and Puerto Rico? Two candidates stand out: Cuba and Alberta, Canada. Cuban-Americans lean heavily Republican and that political orientation may well extend to the island itself. Alberta, meanwhile, is Canada’s most conservative province and has long chafed under Ottawa’s thumb and the influence of the more liberal central provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Alberta is already exploring a referendum on secession — an effort unlikely to succeed, but one that reflects a strong separatist core. As an independent country, Alberta would likely be too small to stand alone. Aligning with its neighbor to the south, however, is a different matter.

The numbers are worth examining. Cuba, with 11 million residents, would have eight representatives and two senators. Alberta’s four million people would translate to five representatives and two senators. On the Democratic side, Puerto Rico’s three million residents would bring four representatives and two senators, while D.C.’s 700,000 people would yield two representatives and two senators. Assuming Alberta and Cuba lean Republican while D.C. and Puerto Rico lean Democratic, the math favors the GOP: up to 13 new Republican representatives and four new senators, versus six new Democratic representatives and four new senators. Republicans would likely find that arithmetic appealing — Democrats, considerably less so. Of course, something would have to be done with the fixed number of representatives now set at 435 by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. But let’s look at the two new potential candidates.

Cuba

Cuba has a long and complicated history with American expansionist ambitions. In the antebellum era, southern politicians eyed Cuba as fertile ground for expanding slavery into the Caribbean. President James Buchanan and the Democratic Party actively sought to annex the island as a slave state. Annexation was described as Buchanan’s “favored project” and, by 1859, his best hope for securing renomination in 1860. He dispatched an envoy to Spain to negotiate a purchase and democrats introduced legislation in Congress to that end. The effort collapsed with the rise of the republican Party as an anti-slavery party in the 1850s — republicans made clear they would block any new slave state, while looking westward for the addition of more free states.

Fast-forward to today and Cuba is back in the American political conversation. A buildup of U.S. forces in the Caribbean has fueled speculation about the administration’s intentions. President Trump has made a series of pointed remarks, cutting off Venezuelan oil to Cuba, threatening other nations with tariffs if they fail to follow suit, and making blunt statements about the island’s future. “I do believe I’ll have the honor of taking Cuba. Whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it.” Cuba’s foreign minister responded by warning the country was preparing for “the possibility of military aggression.” Trump has added, “Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years. It looks like I’ll be the one that does it.”

The legal pressure has followed. The U.S. indicted former Cuban president Raúl Castro for murder over the 1996 downing of two planes that killed American nationals — a move Cuba’s current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, dismissed as “a political stunt designed to justify possible American aggression.”

Cuba itself is in crisis. Decades of communist mismanagement and American sanctions have pushed the island to the brink with widespread power outages, fuel shortages, food scarcity, and collapsing infrastructure. Against this backdrop, some politicians — many of Cuban heritage — have begun openly discussing a Puerto Rico-style territorial arrangement. Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) called it “a real option” that deserves more serious consideration. Representative Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), born in Cuba, agreed it is worth exploring. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) did not rule it out. Marco Rubio offered more measured language, saying he would prefer a diplomatic resolution — though Cuba’s foreign minister accused Rubio of “inciting military aggression” and falsely labeling Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism.

It is notable that every American politician quoted above is Republican. Proponents of statehood argue that bringing Cuba into the American orbit would unlock economic opportunity, strengthen regional security, alleviate humanitarian suffering, and curb migration pressures — all while adding a likely Republican-leaning state to the union.

Alberta

Alberta is moving toward a vote on secession from Canada. Premier Danielle Smith has announced a referendum for October 19, 2026, and has publicly committed to placing an independence question on the ballot if a petition effort succeeds. Unlike Cuba, Alberta comes to the table as an economic powerhouse. The province holds vast oil and gas reserves, is among the world’s top producers of wheat and canola and boasts thriving technology hubs in Calgary and Edmonton. Add to that significant deposits of coal and precious metals — including rare earth minerals — and the economic case becomes hard to ignore. Many Albertans already feel a closer cultural and economic kinship with the United States than with Ottawa.

Canada’s National Observer has gone so far as to argue that Premier Smith is “already turning Alberta into the 51st state,” suggesting it is her ultimate political goal. Smith’s government has been restructuring Alberta’s healthcare system along decidedly American lines, expanding the role of private insurance and the private sector. Her rhetoric, too, echoes that of American conservative politics. Sounding like Donald Trump, Smith has said “An unelected judge is not synonymous with democracy. Democracy is when elected officials who have to face the electorate every four years get to make decisions.” The article’s author concluded that Smith may be using these policy shifts as a cultural and legal runway toward eventual annexation.

President Trump has rattled sabers across the entire hemisphere — threatening to annex Greenland, repeatedly suggesting Canada become the 51st state, and publicly belittling Prime Minister Mark Carney. I have written before that it would really be dumb to annex all of Canada but why not just Alberta? It is resource-rich, politically aligned and eager for a new direction. It’s rich resource base, strong technology and political philosophy would make it attractive from a Republican standpoint. It is difficult to see the downside – unless you are a democrat.

Retatritide – A Miracle Drug?

An article I recently came across in Reason left me genuinely speechless, so I’m sharing it here. One thing that surprised me was learning that obesity rates are actually declining while diabetes continues to rise — a counterintuitive trend I hadn’t been aware of. On a personal note, I was just diagnosed as diabetic myself, though I’m skeptical of the result and will be retested in 91 days.

The article focuses on Retatritide, a new weight loss drug that is apparently delivering results comparable to bariatric surgery — a remarkable claim by any measure. It also touches on other GLP-1 drugs in the same class, like Ozempic (semaglutides), which are increasingly being described in near-miraculous terms. The article states:

“Besides helping people to control their diabetes and to lose substantial amounts of fat, these compounds appear to offer many additional health benefits. These include improved outcomes in people with cardiovascular, kidney, liver, arthritis, sleep apnea, and substance abuse disorders, along with reducing inflammation generally. More recent data suggest that these compounds also significantly reduce the risk of cancer overall and lower the risk of cancer spread. Recent research somewhat allays concerns that taking the compounds not only reduces fat but also muscle mass.”

It’s an extraordinary list of benefits. Which brings to mind the old adage — if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The article can be found at

https://reason.com/2026/05/22/is-the-end-of-the-obesity-epidemic-near-people-lost-up-to-85-pounds-using-new-weight-loss-drug

Mace’s Citizenship Amendment and the Limits of Government Power

Nancy Mace (R-SC) who has been called “one of the most performative and vapid members of Congress” is at it again. Mace, now running for the South Carolina governorship, has proposed to amend the U.S. Constitution to require members of Congress, federal judges, and Senate-confirmed appointees to be natural-born citizens. The proposal is unlikely to go anywhere — and from a constitutional standpoint that’s probably for the best.

Mace, whose relationship with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party has been turbulent — she criticized Donald Trump after January 6, drawing his public rebuke — appears to be using this proposal to shore up her conservative credentials ahead of a competitive primary. Mace knows that her amendment has no chance of passing either the House or the Senate, much less passage in three-fourths of the states. But she hates Ilhan Omar (D-MN). She pointed to her and members of the Squad who are naturalized citizens says that they are not loyal citizens. “If you hold power in the American government, you should be a natural-born American citizen. For too long we have allowed foreign-born members to hold seats in this government, while making clear their loyalty is not here. We see it every day.” 

In addition to Omar, she cited Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and Shri Thanedar (D-MI), questioning their loyalty to the United States.  Constitutionally, her proposal is on shaky ground. The Founders placed a natural-born citizenship requirement only on the presidency — and that clause has long been criticized as an anachronistic restriction rooted in the geopolitical anxieties of the 18th century, not in any principled theory of governance. Note that the vice president need not be natural born. However, in the death or incapacitation of the president, the vice president cannot to ascend to the presidency.

Congress, by contrast, has always been open to naturalized citizens. Expanding eligibility restrictions to the legislative branch would represent a significant departure from the constitutional design and would require ratification by three-fourths of the states — a near-impossible threshold for a measure with such narrow support. More troubling is the underlying assertion that citizenship by naturalization is somehow inferior to citizenship by birth. This is a distinction the law does not generally recognize. Naturalized citizens take an oath — often after years of waiting, petitions, and legal process — that is at least as meaningful as the accident of birthplace. Jayapal’s description of her naturalization ceremony as one of the most meaningful days of her life reflects an experience shared by millions of Americans who chose this country deliberately, rather than arriving here by chance. 

Jayapal (D-WA) was born in India responded said “This narrow-minded, xenophobic legislation has no place in Congress and I call on all my colleagues — including my Republican colleagues who are naturalized citizens — to condemn this.” She recalled the moment she became a U.S. citizen. “My naturalization ceremony was one of the most meaningful days of my life. 26 years later, I have never forgotten that day as I stood with hundreds of people from across the world who had waited, in many cases decades, to become American citizens. This was a profound moment, as I felt the pride of my American citizenship.” You may not like how Jayapal votes but her constituents do. Does this sound like someone who hates America?

Mace’s proposal also applies selectively in its political framing. There are 26 foreign-born members of Congress — 19 Democrats and 7 Republicans. Mace named only the Democrats. If loyalty is genuinely the concern, one would expect equal scrutiny of naturalized members regardless of party. The omission suggests the proposal is less about constitutional principle than political targeting.

A separate but related effort by Florida’s Randy Fine — the “Disqualifying Dual Loyalty Act” — would bar dual citizens from serving in Congress, requiring them to renounce foreign citizenship first. This raises a different constitutional question: whether Congress has the authority to impose such a requirement through statute, or whether it would also require a constitutional amendment. The Constitution is silent on dual citizenship for legislators, and U.S. law does not require naturalized citizens to renounce prior nationalities. Fine’s bill would create a two-tiered citizenship structure — one with greater legal burdens on naturalized Americans than on the native-born.

When Omar was asked about Fine’s proposal she responded “Who’s that?” But Omar knows perfectly well who Fine is. Fine is perhaps the most vocal anti-Muslim member of Congress and has been called “vulgar,” “toxic,” “a disgrace to the United States Congress” and “an Islamophobic, disgusting bigot.” He has also been called “a swamp creature so vile that even DeSantis hates him.” When he was elected to the House, Fine posted on X that Omar and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) should “consider leaving before I get there” with the hashtag “#BombsAway.” 

The central problem with both proposals is that they expand the government’s gatekeeping power over political participation based on the circumstances of one’s birth — something no individual controls. The proper remedy for representatives whose views voters dislike is the ballot box, not constitutionally imposed eligibility tests. Voters in Minnesota, Washington, and Michigan have repeatedly returned Omar, Jayapal, and Thanedar to office. Whatever one thinks of their politics, that is the constitutional process working as intended.

Mace’s proposed amendment will almost certainly go nowhere. But it is worth noting that proposals to restrict who may hold office — rather than persuading voters through argument — are a form of political shortcut that goes against the principles of individual liberty and equal citizenship the Constitution is meant to protect. Legal disqualification is not the answer to speech with which one disagrees. 

Wither the Two Party System?

Thomas Massie’s defeat and the president’s constant pillorying on Rand Paul make one thing clear: libertarians are not welcome in Trump’s republican Party. Should they stay? Where else would they go? Our two-party system is so entrenched that third parties have almost no path to viability. Yes, there is one so-called “independent” in the House and two in the Senate — but are they really independent? When an “independent” can mount a serious challenge for the democratic presidential nomination, the label is a joke.

Massie himself once argued in Reason that libertarians should work within the Republican Party rather than fight the two-party system. “If you want to field another team, you have to either completely replace one that’s there now or work inside one that already exists. The most expedient path for libertarians is to work within the red team.” https://reason.com/2018/09/22/proposition-libertarians-shoul2/

The corollary, it turns out, is simple: if you want to keep your seat, shut up and vote with the party. Thomas Massie refused to do that 100 percent of the time. He voted with Trump 90 percent of the time but that was not enough. He didn’t waver from his principles even as Trump abandoned his own. Didn’t Trump promise no more foreign wars? Didn’t he pledge to cut the deficit in half?

Massie and Rand Paul were first elected on the wave of the Tea Party — a movement laser-focused on taxes and spending. Remember Jim DeMint, Mo Brooks, Jeff Flake, Allen West, Dan Burton, Mike Pence, Steve King, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich? All were prominent voices for change. All are gone. Rand Paul remains a lonely voice in the Senate and will likely escape Trump’s wrath only because he’s up for reelection in 2028, after Trump is gone. Tim Scott, elected to the House and now in the Senate, has reinvented himself as a MAGA loyalist to keep his job. I spoke at a Tea Party rally in Knoxville. The energy was genuine with real hope that Washington could be changed. That hope is long gone, along with the politicians who carried it.

Much the same has happened on the left side of the aisle. In 2009, I was invited to speak to the Blue Dog Caucus in Washington. It had 54 members then — centrist, moderate Democrats like Heath Shuler and Harold Ford, Jr. Today it has a woeful 10, chaired by Texas’ Vicente Gonzalez.

Meanwhile, although Trump may be scraping bottom in national polls, those numbers are misleading. He still dominates where he dominates. He is still popular where he is popular. He may have lost the independents but not the MAGAs. His victories in Louisiana, Indiana, and Kentucky — and now Texas, where sleezeball Ken Paxton beat John Cornyn — attest that Trump’s grip on solidly republican states is as tight as ever. Republicans in those states who dared not to kowtow to Trump lost. That sends a clear signal to anyone who hopes to survive in MAGA territory, pay fealty to Trump or bye bye.

The question now is whether the Trump variant of the republican Party outlasts Trump himself. I seriously doubt it. MAGA is Trump — and when Trump goes, MAGA goes with him, the way the Tea Party went before it. What comes next? Will republicans rediscover their foundational principles — free markets, free trade, small government, laissez-faire and limited government intrusion? Will they return to the Western alliance? Or will the party remain defined by fortress America, high tariffs, and hemispheric bullying?

I have often said that I was a Republican because it was the only party that at least paid lip service to free markets. This republican Party does not. At heart, I am a Tea Party republican. I have written before about whether America could realistically splinter into several parties: a fiscally conservative party, a hard-right nationalist party, a moderate center, a progressive-left coalition of greens, progressives and socialists. I don’t know if it’s possible — but Europe offers some precedent. Hungary, Germany, and England have all seen new parties rise to prominence and reform parties shake established coalitions. Could that happen here?

If republicans nominate a MAGA disciple in 2028, I won’t vote for that person. If democrats nominate someone from the Squad wing, will moderates — including some of my friends and the remaining Blue Dogs — simply sit it out? Could a George Wallace or Ross Perot-style challenger emerge to shake up the status quo? The real signal of change would be third-party candidates winning meaningful seats at the local, House, and Senate level — much as the Tea Party once did.

The right is littered with figures like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, whose presence makes people like me deeply uncomfortable. But where can we go? The left is increasingly defined by its hostility toward Israel, which has bled into open antisemitism. Texas congressional candidate Maureen Galindo’s rant — calling for turning an ICE detention center into a “prison for American Zionists” and a “castration processing center for pedophiles, which will probably be most of the Zionists” — shocked even some of her fellow Democrats. Even AOC called it “absolutely disgusting.” And yet American Jews remain loyal Democrats by wide margins, even as the broader American left drifts toward antisemitism. Logically, Jewish voters should be looking for a new political home. But where?

I am no expert on European politics, but the upheaval in England is not likely to happen here. Traditionally dominated by Labour and the Conservatives, those two parties together won just 34 percent of the vote in the most recent local elections, across 5,066 contested seats. Their parliamentary system, of course, makes coalition shifts and new party formations far easier than ours does. Here, the two entrenched parties control the primary system — the mechanism by which candidates at every level get nominated. We have no infrastructure for grassroots parties to build from local office to state prominence to national power. And unlike in a parliamentary system, our head of government will never be the Speaker of the House. Thank goodness for that, at least.

What Will Warsh Do?

The question of what new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh will do has quietly shifted into something more uncomfortable: what can he do? The media, never content to let a story breathe, has already manufactured a crisis around the transition. Center stage in this drama is Jerome Powell, who has declined the customary exit — resigning his governorship as every Fed chair since Mariner Eccles has done — and chosen instead to stick around. Spite toward Trump? Perhaps that makes for a better headline. The more plausible explanation is that Powell has no appetite for becoming a private citizen while the Justice Department’s appetite for retribution remains unsated. His seat at the Fed offers a kind of institutional armor that evaporates the moment he walks out the door.

So what does Powell do with himself now that he no longer holds the gavel? Does he fade into the background, or does he keep talking? Powell and Warsh hold genuinely conflicting philosophies, which makes every Powell public appearance a potential grenade. Powell was a devotee of forward guidance — he loved the press conference, the signaling, the theater of Fed communication. Warsh couldn’t be more different. He has argued that the central bank should learn to work without applause, without an audience leaning forward in anticipation. Whether Powell can bring himself to honor that vision — or whether he’ll view Warsh’s reform agenda as a personal affront — is anyone’s guess.

History offers some comfort, if not much guidance. Under Volcker and Greenspan, disagreements existed but stayed behind closed doors. The Fed presented a unified front to the world, whatever battles raged internally. That discipline eroded under Bernanke and Yellen. Under Powell it effectively collapsed — dissenting voices grew louder, though the actual votes on the Open Market Committee held until Trump planted his proxy, Stephen Miran, who made a habit of voting for rate cuts regardless of circumstances. Powell is no fool. He understands that open warfare between himself and Warsh would rattle markets in ways neither man wants. Nobody has forgotten the chaos of the Bill Miller Fed under Carter — markets loathe a rudderless Fed, and Carter eventually had to install Volcker to restore confidence. That is not a legacy Powell wants any part of.

Then there is the balance sheet question, which is shaping up to be Warsh’s first real battle. Fed Governor Michael Barr has warned that shrinking the balance sheet now would be a mistake — threatening bank resilience, disrupting money markets, and potentially destabilizing the broader financial system. Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan has echoed similar concerns. But here is what both Barr and Logan know perfectly well: there is a workaround. The Fed can let its holdings run off while neutralizing any drain on system liquidity simply by ceasing to pay interest on excess bank reserves. The objections, however sincere, are not without a solution.

And then there is the curious rehabilitation of Christopher Waller. Trump once dangled the chairmanship in front of both Waller and Michele Bowman — and, right on cue, both began voting with Miran to cut rates, doing the president’s bidding with impressive punctuality. My read at the time was that Trump never seriously intended to elevate either of them; he was simply using the prospect of a promotion to extract compliance. Now that Warsh holds the chair, Waller has suddenly rediscovered his independence, putting rate hikes back on the table if inflation refuses to cooperate. You could almost call it admirable, if the timing weren’t so transparent.

If Warsh is genuinely serious about reform — and there is reason to believe he is — the obstacles are real. He can push the Fed’s model builders to take monetary aggregates seriously again instead of obsessing over interest rates. He can redirect the reserve banks toward regional economic concerns and away from the woke seminar circuit. He can tilt the institution back toward monetary policy and away from its recent playing of fiscal policy understudy. He can begin, carefully, to wind down the balance sheet. But none of it happens without allies, and allies at the Fed are earned, not assumed. He will need the reserve bank presidents. He will need the governors — Powell, Barr, Waller, and the rest. That is a lot of coalition-building for an institution not known for its love of change.

Warsh is going to need a cape. If he can pull this off, it would be a genuine achievement — a Fed reoriented toward principle, less addicted to discretion, and more predictable for it. If he cannot, well then welcome to the new Fed: less comity but more comedy.

Gerrymandering: Racist or political?

I believe all this gerrymandering started because the republicans are fearful of losing the House in the midterms and wanted to limit the damage. The northern democrats had shown the way. What limited the southerners was that the Supreme Court had allowed political gerrymanders and the Voters Rights Act granted racial ones. The Voter Rights Act created majority minority districts – mainly in the south – to give blacks a larger voice in their states. Now that this Court has ruled racial gerrymanders unconstitutional there is a legitimate concern that many southern black congressmen who represent majority minority districts will go the way of the dodo. 

It seems that when republicans carve up the majority black district is that the democrat representative will lose. To guarantee this in the state of Tennessee, Nashville has been carved up into five separate districts while Memphis is now in three. Ironically, in both cases the democrat representative was white – Jim Cooper in Nashville and Steve Cohen in Memphis. This gave the legislature cover in saying that the gerrymander was political (which is allowed) not racial. Incidentally, the same can be said for Virginia. In its quest to get rid of its republican representatives, the state’s democrats foisted a map on the voters that changed the political composition of the state’s delegation from six democrats and five republicans to ten democrats and one republican. To accomplish that the democrats carved up the two districts with the greatest percentage of black voters. Although neither district is over 50 percent black, both have black representatives. However, the new map dilutes the black percentages and one new district is over 50 percent white. Both black representatives might find themselves replaced by whites. So the liberals in Virginia should be accused of trying to get rid of the black congressmen – but they won’t.

I was amazed, but not surprised, that this point was missed by the media and seemingly by national black politicians as well. Hakeem Jeffries had the democrats committed an astounding $40 million to flip the seats in Virginia. Jeffries who is black was not accused of racism because it endangered two black Virginia congressmen. Instead, he went all out to insure that Viriginia’s seats in the House were democrat rather than republican indicating that party affiliation not race was the deciding motivation. When the republicans in Tennessee did the same, they were called racists even though that sole democrat representative was white. Truth be told, since the overwhelming majority of blacks are democrat any gerrymander will be considered racist but If blacks were republicans, the district would still have been broken up. 

Jeffries went to Alabama to protest redistricting by that state’s republican majorities. Of course, he yelled “racism” when he was doing exactly the same thing in Virginia. Jeffries has vowed a democrat redistricting offensive aimed at creating 12 new democrat districts – race be damned. After the loss in Virginia he said “We remain undeterred. Our effort to forcefully push back against the Republican redistricting scheme will not slow down. We are just getting started.” He then said “We will ensure the people decide who controls the Congress not MAGA extremists desperate to rig the midterm elections.” Of course this is BS. Through his gerrymander attempts he is trying to do exactly the same thing. But it is ok for the democrats to do it – so say the democrats. 

One of my closest friends is a staunch democrat and hates Trump with a passion calling him “racist” at every opportunity. He told me with a straight face that he favored the redistricting in Virginia even though it eliminated the two majority minority districts. He also called the Tennessee gerrymander racist because it diluted the black vote. Well didn’t Virginia dilute the black vote? No he said because they are democrats and the new map actually enhanced their vote since it would diminish the chance of a republican winning. He also said that he hoped the two black Virginia representatives would be savvy enough to be re-elected. But if they were replaced by white democrats, then it was too bad. I could not persuade him to see the contradiction.

What I find interesting is that in at least two states, Mississippi and South Carolina, the two black congressmen that are threatened with gerrymandering are veterans, Bennie Thompson in Mississippi and Jim Clyburn in South Carolina. It is apparent from statements by the republicans in both states, that they want them gone. Even Tim Scott has said “The Black person—yes, look at me, I’m still Black—who ideologically is aligned with their state or their district can win anywhere.” The same can be said of Byron Donalds in Florida. It not whether

Thompson or Clyburn has ingratiated themselves with white voters in their districts. On the national level both are loyal democrats. Take Sanford Bishop in Georgia. Bishop is known for delivering constituent service to all in his district which has been both majority minority and majority majority. He gets praise for being the congressman for all in his district. Yet he too is a loyal democrat and votes with his party leadership the vast majority of the time. So when the Georgia legislature seeks to redistrict him out of his seat, it will probably succeed because the bottom line is that his voters want a representative that is serving their needs both on the local and the national scenes – not just one or the other.

I admit that I am ashamed of my state for carving up Memphis for political gain and disenfranchising its black voters. I am in favor of compact districts that do not split up counties. I wish that all congressional districts everywhere would be drawn like the AI Tennessee map I posted before. But that is not to be. 

My daughter, who lives in Northern Virginia, asked me if all this gerrymandering was political or racist? It is obviously political when we look at democrat states like Massachusetts. But in her state of Virginia, it is apparent that the democrats are willing to sacrifice minority representatives if it means increasing democrat congressional seats. So Virginia has altered my perception of what is going on. Tim Scott sounds like he would get rid of Clyburn in order to get one more republican representative – and Tim Scott is no racist. I answered my daughter by saying that even if it is racist, it is political.

Miles Dewey Davis III

May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991

The Giant Among Giants

To call Miles Davis brilliant would be a gross understatement. He was a giant among giants in the bebop era, standing apart from an extraordinary generation of trumpet players that included Dizzy Gillespie, Freddy Hubbard, Blue Mitchell, Lee Morgan, Dizzy Reece, Eddie Henderson, Donald Byrd, Fats Navarro, and Kenny Dorham — not to mention my own high school band director, the great Louis Smith. All of those men were exceptional. Miles was transcendent.

My introduction to his world came through Steamin’, released in 1956 — an album I still return to today. It featured his first great quintet: Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums, and the immortal John Coltrane on tenor saxophone. Garland, a former prize fighter who recorded prolifically on his own, nonetheless deferred entirely to Davis. Midway through a solo on “Something I Dreamed Last Night,” Miles called out “block chords, Red” — and Garland shifted instantly, without missing a beat. Coltrane, characteristically, did not bend so easily. When Miles once asked him why his solos ran so long, Coltrane replied simply, “It takes a while for it to come out of the horn.” Being a clarinet player, I take particular delight in knowing that even the immortal Coltrane squeaked on “Diane.”

A Sound Unlike Any Other

My father’s reaction when I first played that album stays with me. He was a big band man — Count Basie, Duke Ellington — and he had no patience for what he heard. “How can you listen to that noise?” he said. “They’re all playing different things at the same time!” His measure of worth was simple: if you couldn’t dance to it, it wasn’t worth your time. I can only imagine what he would have made of Thelonious Monk.

Miles was cut from different cloth entirely. The son of a dentist, he enrolled at Juilliard in 1944 only to abandon it for Charlie Parker’s quintet — a decision that said everything about where his ambitions lay. He stayed with Parker until 1948, then formed his own group. Album after album followed. He collaborated with arranger Gil Evans on landmark records, including Sketches of Spain. Then came Kind of Blue.

Kind of Blue may be the most beloved jazz album ever recorded. It featured Coltrane, Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, and two pianists: Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans. Evans had briefly replaced Red Garland, making the group one of the first racially integrated bands in jazz. Kelly replaced Evans as the permanent pianist, yet both appear on the album. Davis told Kelly to study Evans — not to imitate him, but to better understand how to play alongside Miles. The session itself was famously spontaneous. Davis sketched out the songs beforehand and most were captured in a single take.

The Second Great Quintet

A second great quintet followed, featuring Kelly, Chambers, Cobb, and the formidable Sonny Rollins. When Rollins departed, he was replaced first by George Coleman, then by Wayne Shorter — who would become the band’s principal composer. The final lineup, with Herbie Hancock on piano, seventeen-year-old Tony Williams on drums, Ron Carter on bass, and Shorter on saxophone, was something else entirely. Williams, with characteristic bluntness, reportedly pushed Coleman out, feeling his playing had grown repetitive. With Shorter’s arrival, everything shifted.

This band still played many of the same songs as earlier Miles groups, yet made them sound entirely new. The texture, phrasing, and rhythmic sensibility had been transformed. Listen to Four and More or My Funny Valentine, then put on E.S.P. or Nefertiti — Davis’s last fully acoustic album — and the evolution is unmistakable. I once heard a live recording of “Joshua” played at a breathtaking tempo from inside my SUV, and the quintet was simply at the top of its powers. Hancock and Williams were electric — the drumming frenetic, blistering, and utterly alive. It was stunning.

Going Electric

When Miles went electric with In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, he shed most of his traditional jazz audience without hesitation. The expanded ensemble — adding pianists Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul, bassist Dave Holland, and others — had been shaped by Davis’s obsessive listening to Sly and the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix. He even recorded with Prince. This era culminated in Agharta, where Davis also took up the organ.

Agharta is one of only two Davis albums I struggle with — Decoy is the other. But Miles never seemed to register the alienation of traditionalists, or if he did, he didn’t care. In truth, he had been alienating purists even in his acoustic years. His stage presence was famously cold: back to the audience, rarely a word spoken, prone to walking off mid-set while his bandmates continued playing, and just as likely to barrel back onstage and cut short a colleague’s solo. And yet — I have a recording of Davis accompanying the magnificent Shirley Horn on “You Won’t Forget Me,” and in that setting he is the model sideman: restrained, attentive, adding precisely the right touch at the right moment to support her poignant voice.

Legacy and the Road That Led Here

Davis was brilliant through it all — through heroin addiction, a hip replacement, and a five-year absence from music between 1975 and 1980, during which he later wrote that “sex and drugs took the place music had occupied in my life.” When he returned, Decoy is the only album of real substance before his death in 1991. Like many of his contemporaries, he lived surrounded by temptation. My band director, Louis Smith, was the trumpet player in the celebrated Horace Silver Quintet — his dazzling work is on display in Silver’s Live at Newport ’58. Mr. Smith told us that his wife had issued an ultimatum: leave the band or lose the marriage. His first “real job” landed him at Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School in 1958, and I was one of only three eighth graders in the varsity band that year. I was twelve years old. Sitting in the band room, my feet did not reach the floor.

It was Mr. Smith who put Steamin’ in my hands and made me a Miles Davis fan for life — through all the transformations, all the controversies, all the years. We have had other great players. But there has been only one Miles Davis.

Happy Birthday and rest in peace.

Are Trump’s tariffs smart? More stupidity on the left. And breaking news?

Memorial Day, 2026

Happy Memorial Day and thanks to all those who have served and thanks to their families and friends for their support. My brother flew B-52s over Viet Nam. A cousin who I considered my other brother has a bronze star. My Dad was never drafted into WWII because of being the principal of the black elementary school in Madison, GA. Dad half-jokingly said it was because he couldn’t cook. But my mother’s brother-in-law was a mechanic in the Navy in the Pacific theatre and was haunted from being below decks when his destroyer was rocking and rolling during encounters with the Japanese. My other half’s father was a Bedford Boy and landed at Omaha Beach. The D-Day Memorial is in Bedford, VA. https://www.stripes.com/special-reports/featured/d-day/2024-06-02/bedford-boys-dday-wwii-virginia-army-normandy-14056070.html

People ask me if I am a veteran and I say that I served in the southern campaign, University of Georgia 1962-1966. I would have gone through ROTC, like my brother at Purdue, had it not been for a bigoted colonel commanding Georgia’s Air Force ROTC. But that is another story for another day. Today – and every day – I am grateful for all of those who wore the uniform and all of those who supported them.

Are Trump’s tariffs smart?

I have said it a dozen times before: Trump’s tariffs are not erudite – just the opposite. The president loves universal tariffs. Those are not smart because he puts tariffs on countries with whom we run a surplus even though he rails about trade deficits. He says that his tariffs are to protect US manufacturing when half of our imports are inputs making manufacturing more costly. US automobile companies are facing losses because of tariffs on their components (see aluminum and steel). Then puts tariffs on stuff we don’t make or grow ourselves. Again, not very smart. Goodyear is closing its Fayetteville, North Carolina tire plant and laying off 1,700 workers because we don’t grow rubber trees. Goodyear is losing buckets of money – $249 million in the first three months of this year because of the high cost of materiel inputs. Translation: we don’t grow rubber trees. Even with an anticipated refund on the first round of the president’s illegal tariffs, the company will still face increased costs of $420 million this year due to tariffs and inflation. A smarter tariff – if there is such a thing – would exempt stuff we don’t make or grow. Goodyear gets rubber from Thailand to make its tires. Trump probably thinks rubber trees grow in North Carolina. But they don’t. 

Remember that Trump’s trade representative said that the new tariffs are based on “excess supply” beyond a country’s needs. So since obviously Thailand produces more rubber than it can consume locally, it must be exploiting all the countries to which it exports, thereby driving out the competition of local rubber. Growers Only problem is that there are no local (US) rubber growers. No matter trumpets Trump. No soup for you! Just like denying the automobile companies relief, no relief in sight for Goodyear either. That means more tires from China as domestic producers are cutting back production due to this tariff madness. And higher prices. Raise your hands if Trump’s tariffs on stuff we don’t produce makes sense to you.

The fourth part of this madness is the tariffs in the name of national defense. It seems to me that if some important goods are vital to national defense then we should have zero tariffs on them to get them as cheaply as possible. Isn’t it stupid to make us pay more for something that is deemed “vital”? Rather, if they are so vital then instead of placing a tariff on them, why not start to heavily subsidize American manufactures to produce those products while charging a zero tariff on imports? Although I am certainly no fan of subsidies this seems a more efficient way of doing things. 

I only hope that the next administration sees things differently, however unlikely. The democrats have always embraced restraint of trade thinking it benefits their labor union constituents. Republicans – before the RINO Trump – generally supported free trade because it lowered input costs. There is a high probability that the next democrat in the White House will keep whatever tariffs deemed legal in place. What will the next republican president do?

The Met gala: More leftist stupidity

We just were subjected to the Met Gala (and no that is not where a baseball team from New York is sitting around eating apples). This year’s attendees were highlighted in the press showing their outrageous tasteless attire. Missing this year was AOC attending the $30,000 per ticket event in a high dollar designer dress saying “Tax the Rich.” Can you imagine someone doing something that stupid? Oh. It was AOC so the answer is obviously “yes.”

This year’s occasion became the latest in which the progressives have taken the opportunity to assail the rich. Whoever it is that writes the progressive playbook has deemed it is “tax the rich even more week.” All of a sudden the left is attacking billionaires, reading out of the same playbook. Jeff Bezos was one of the sponsors of the Gala and was promptly attacked by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Warren pompously intoned “If Jeff Bezos can drop $10 million to sponsor the Met Gala, he can afford to pay his fair share in taxes.” Bernie Sanders tweeted “The reality of American life today: Jeff Bezos, worth $290 billion, spent: $10 million on the Met Gala, $120 million on a penthouse $500 million on a yacht. Meanwhile, he‘s planning to throw 600,000 Amazon workers out on the streets and replace them with robots. Unacceptable.”

Are they saying that Bezos hasn’t added value and can’t do what he wants with his own money? I guess Liz and Bernie don’t use Amazon and they don’t employ 1.58 million people – but Bezos does. But this is now the left’s playbook. I think AOC started it with saying that no one is worth a billion dollars and if they got it they must have cheated, stole, or ripped people off. She said “You can get market power, you can break rules, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they’re worth, but you can’t earn that.” This is the Marxist notion that the economic pie is fixed and to get more for yourself you have to take from others. Ted Cruz called AOC and “idiot” and “a little Marxist.” He was being kind. I would have called her a fool. My Dad used to tell us that envy was a wasted emotion. He would always say “Don’t ever be jealous of anyone. Make them be jealous of you.” 

Even the left must realize that this pillorying of billionaires is a lie. If it were true then there would be no economic growth and we would all be impoverished as an increasing population would fight over a stagnant GDP. But the billionaires create wealth – not only for themselves –  and add value. The economic pie is only fixed if you are a Marxist. Look at all the Teslas running around, Starlink and Space X. You may not like Elon Musk but he may soon be the world’s first trillionaire.  Did he add value? Look at all the employees and wealth created. Steve Jobs didn’t add value? Google didn’t add value? What about Bill Gates?

The left knows that what they are spewing is BS yet they persist. You have got to be really blind and really stupid to believe this nonsense. Mamdani wants to increase taxes on the rich who have second homes in New York. The mayor of Seattle has told the rich that if they don’t like more taxes then they can leave. And they are. Didn’t New York governor Hochul tell the rich “we don’t want you” and now she is begging them to come back? 

The left conveniently ignores the fact that many of those dastardly billionaires create jobs and are major contributors to charities in their states and cities. Is AOC critical of Bezos giving $100 million to a charity funding early childhood education in New York or Ken Griffin – recently the subject of Mamdani’s ire – giving billions in philanthropy? But what I find interesting is why are the left’s billionaires allowing their subjects to sharply criticize them as well? Soros is a billionaire as are Steyer, Bloomberg, Linkedin’s Hoffman, Google’s Schmidt, Illinois governor Pritzker among others. All in all there were 28 billionaires who backed Kamala Harris. So why don’t they tell their wayward children to just shut the you-know-what up?

Breaking news?

Word is that we are close to a memorandum of understanding with whoever it is that is negotiating for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard with our crack (no not Hunter Biden) negotiators Jared Kurshner and Steve Witkoff. They are promising to de-mine the Strait of Hormuz. (Make them send the first boats through just to show its safe.) We are going to let them sell some oil because they are running out of places to store it. We have promised to tell Netanyahu to stop assassinating their leaders – if they can find them. They will dig up all the buried enriched uranium and since Israel has assassinated all their nuclear scientists they will give it to us so we can make them a bomb. Trump, reportedly said no to all of this until they offered to rename the country the Islamic Republic of Trump. That sealed the deal! (Apologies to the Babylon Bee).

Kevin Warsh, Fed Chairman

The next Federal Open Market Committee meets June 17-19. It may well be the most closely watched meeting in recent history. It will be the first presided over by new Fed chair Kevin Warsh. Although the president will likely still be agitating for a cut in the Fed funds target rate, the minutes of the last FOMC meeting indicate that there will be considerable resistance to doing so. The market is actually saying that the probability is greater for an increase rather than a decrease in the rate. At the last meeting three reserve bank presidents famously dissented not in the decision to hold rates steady but in the wording that retained the so-called easing bias in the Fed’s statement. 

The Fed only targets short term rates. But the long term Treasurys are already showing that investors expect inflation to persist or even rise. The yields on the 10-year Treasury note have risen from a low of about 4% in early March to around 4.6%, a move that has rippled into mortgage and corporate borrowing costs. “A lot of what’s driving long-term rates is a repricing of the Fed path—away from cuts and toward hikes,” said one analyst. Remember when Janet Yellen and Powell said that the inflation under Biden would be “temporary?” Well Treasury secretary Bessent and Trump have said the same thing, that the runup in prices caused by energy spikes will be “temporary.” Haven’t we been down this path before?

What about Warsh’s desire to sell off much of the Fed’s balance sheet acquired during Quantitative Easing (QE)? This then would be Quantitative Tightening (QT) which would result in a rise in rates and a reduction in bank liquidity as well. With Trump in the White House, you would think that would be a no-no even under the best of conditions. But Warsh could say that the FOMC has decided to hold rates steady on the Fed funds rate when in fact it could raise short term market rates by selling off some of its portfolio. So as to not incur the wrath of Trump, he could do a QT instead, causing rates to rise without raising them!

So Warsh has a perilous tightrope to walk. He has Trump insisting on lowering rates while members of the Open Market Committee may push for higher rates. He wants to sell off much of the Fed’s balance sheet but some reserve bank presidents, joined by the financial markets caution about the impact on bank reserves and systemwide liquidity. One analysis said “In a market that relies upon liquidity and leverage, that would inject an unnecessary risk into an economy that is over-reliant upon the financial sector.” However, Warsh can offset this decrease in liquidity by lowering or stop paying the 3.65% interest that the Fed pays on banks excess reserves. By lowing the rate or eliminating it the banks will be motivated to expand lending or purchasing Treasurys to make up for the loss in interest earnings. Warsh quoted Paul Volcker often at his confirmation hearing. Warsh also thinks that an increase in productivity spurred by AI will help grow the economy and mitigate the burgeoning deficit. Increased lending of their reserves by the banks coupled with increased productivity is a Reagan throwback to counter congress’s deficit spending. Can Warsh pull the rest of the Fed to help him out? We will see.

Warsh was previously at the Fed during Bernanke’s runup of the Fed’s balance sheet with all the QEs. As only one vote on the Open Market Committee he could do little to deter the Fed from moving from monetary policy to be actively engaged in support of fiscal policy initiatives. As chairman, he will still have only one vote. It will be interesting to see if he can coalesce support for his positions. Warsh testified that he wants to “reform” the Fed. A starting point will be the conduct of monetary policy. 

Warsh has claimed to be a devotee of the sainted Milton Friedman (one of my several living heroes who are now dead). Freidman’s research and recommendations were for use of a monetary rule with steady growth in monetary aggregates while basically ignoring interest rate changes. Friedman was an opponent of discretionary monetary policy where the central bank constantly fiddles with its policy tools. Friedman said that this caused uncertainty in the financial marketplace and hindered rational decision making. Freidman famously said that inflation was everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon caused by excessive monetary expansion. But Fed economists since Bernanke have effectively ignored monetary aggregates in efforts to have interest rate control. Indeed Powell told a Senate hearing in 2021″When you and I studied economics a million years ago…monetary aggregates seemed to have a relationship to economic growth. Right now, I would say the growth of M2, which is quite substantial, doesn’t really have important implications for the economic outlook. Monetarism is something we have to unlearn.” 

Warsh at his hearing essentially said that Powell was wrong. As I learned in graduate school under Karl Brunner, if you try to control interest rates, you lose control of monetary aggregates. This has been the case, especially in 1991 moving forward. If the Fed had not exploded the money supply, the Biden inflation and now the Trump inflation could well have been avoided. Warsh seems to believe this too. He has aligned himself with positions similar to Milton Friedman’s monetarist theories, where price stability and rules-based credibility are pre-requisites for growth. He is skeptical of the idea that central banks can fine-tune outcomes without distorting the economy. He has repeatedly warned that prolonged monetary activism does not support the economy but reshapes it rewarding speculation and leverage over productivity and technological improvement. For me this is incredibly uplifting.

This is decidedly out-of-the-box thinking for a central banker whose counterparts – regardless of country revel in fiddling around with things just to show their importance at being god-like. I recall a cartoon depicting Paul Volcker and Jimmy Carter sitting on a stage. The moderator said “Now ladies and gentlemen, I give you the most powerful person in the world!” And they both stood up.

Warsh at his senate hearing quoted Volcker in saying that monetary aggregates were a useful indicator of the effects of monetary policy on inflation and chided today’s Fed for ignoring control of the money supply. Warsh in his desire to “reform” the Fed is not going to be able to change that entrenched establishment overnight. What really will be interesting is whether the establishment will eventually change him. 

Wrong for Texas? Wrong for Kentucky?

Wrong for Texas?

The president just endorsed Ken Paxton for the Senate from Texas spurning the incumbent John Cornyn. The democrats are rejoicing. Now there have a better chance of flipping the seat with their weird ball candidate. Trump apparently hasn’t forgotten that Cornyn was late to endorse him and initially resisted ending the filibuster to vote for the SAVE act. But Paxton is a sleezeball of dubious repute. Cornyn seems like an honorable man. Cornyn desperate for the president’s support finally came around and said that in some instances, waiver of the filibuster might be warranted. I guess that was not enough. The president tweeted “Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate.” He added that Paxton “has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to WIN. Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness.”

Trump posted that “John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.” Trump went against the Senate leadership that had spent more than $10 million in support of Cornyn who spent months highlighting the controversial state attorney general’s many scandals, including an investigation into misuse of his office that resulted in an effort by state Republicans to impeach him. He’s also in the middle of a messy divorce and has been accused of adultery by his wife. No matter. He’s Trump’s guy.

Now Texas voters have a choice – assuming Paxton wins his primary runoff against Corryn – between a scandal ridden sleezeball and democrat James Talarico whose views are weird to say the least. Talarico is a progressive Presbyterian seminary student who says that God is non-binary. Talarico is not opposed to boys playing in girls’ sports. He is pro abortion and favors gender surgeries on children. And the democrats actually think he might win. Paxton is so bad that this guy is polling within single digits of him. Now when the campaign gets going in earnest you can bet that the republicans will highlight all of Talarico’s views and label his “wrong for Texas.” But isn’t Paxton “wrong for Texas, too?” BTW, all that progressive money has been flowing into Texas giving Talarico a war chest of $27 million in the first three months of this year. The last time this much money came to a candidate was when Jaime Harrison raised a stunning $57 million to lose to Lindsey Graham.

Poor Texas.

Massie loses

Was Tom Massie wrong for Kentucky’s fourth congressional district? Massie seemed to be the perfect embodiment of the 4^th. A son of the dirt who worked the farm on his wife’s family land. He also had that independent streak that is famous and admired in his state. He voted with the president 90 percent of the time and only deviated where his conscience demanded. But Trump demands 100 percent fealty and wanted him gone. 

Well Trump reigned supreme in Kentucky 4 with Massie losing to Trump backed Ed Gallrein in the most expensive House race in history. It wasn’t particularly close with Massie losing by 9 points. Again was it the president or the avalanche of PAC money against Massie? Probably both. As per usual, the president was his old courteous self, tweeting  Massie “is the Worst ‘Republican’ Congressman in History, voting against Tax Cuts, the Wall, Law Enforcement, and in favor of the Transgender Mutilization of our Children, Men playing in Women’s Sports, and so many more horrible things.The Great People of Kentucky are wise to Massie — He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left, The incredible people of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District gave us a ma.date to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. And the person that will help us do that is Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Fifth Generation Kentucky Farmer, Captain Ed Gallrein, a true America First Patriot.” 

Trump continued “Thomas Massie is a terrible congressman, he’s been a terrible congressman from day one. Dealing with him is just horrible. I don’t think he’s a Republican, I think he’s actually a Dumbocrat, he’s not a libertarian, you know, sometimes they say he’s a, he’s really a Dumbocrat. He votes against us all the time.” BTW, remember Massie voted with the president 90 percent of the time.

But congratulations to the president. Despite all his negative press and the dismal polling, the president remains popular where he is popular. The voters in Kentucky 4 are still MAGA-folk.