The Memorandum of (Mis)Understanding has expired. What’s next?

First breaking news! My son alerted me that the Navy is considering renaming the carrier, Doris Miller after Trump! ABC News, August 21st, 2026, “Navy mulls stripping Black war hero’s name from aircraft carrier for Trump, sources.” https://abcnews.com/Politics/navy-mulls-stripping-black-war-heros-aircraft-carrier/story?id=135836486

This is beyond the pale and totally outrageous. Even Trump supporters should be ashamed of this unprecedented action. I hope the republicans in the Congress have the guts to block this action. I don’t know who initiated this move but it ranks among the worse ideas of this administration. 

Now the memorandum of (mis)understanding.

The Memorandum of (Mis)Understanding with Iran officially expired on August 17. Unofficially, it expired two weeks after it was signed. Signed on June 17, Iran started firing on ships that ignored its mandated shipping route on July 8, and the US resumed bombing immediately. Israel, which was never party to the agreement, ignored its terms as well and kept up strikes in Gaza and Lebanon.

Some experts have said the agreement was doomed by its own imprecise language. The real question is why the language was imprecise to begin with. One expert argued the wording implied Iran had control of the strait. The MOU itself committed Iran to “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only,” and further stated: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states, in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.”

As one expert put it, “no one should be surprised that Iran views that as explicitly giving them an enduring role controlling passage through Hormuz.” Sure enough, once Iran and Oman began talks over control of the strait, Trump responded by threatening to “bomb the s…t” out of Oman if it struck a deal with Iran — despite Oman being one of our own Gulf allies. Which raises the obvious question: who wrote and agreed to this language in the first place?

Trump then said he’d make the strait a US territory outright, “After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.” Iran’s response was swift and pointed. Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, posted the following on X:

I asked Claude to translate it:

First post (Aug 14): “Trump said that after Iran’s defeat, he will soon declare the Strait of Hormuz to be under America’s dominion! The Strait of Hormuz cannot be claimed with a tweet, nor with a warship, an aircraft, an order, or an election speech. Iran is not one to be intimidated by threats, nor to be awed by a show of force. (1)”

Second post (reply): “Accept reality for once: up to this point, you have suffered strategic defeats and heavy setbacks! The Strait of Hormuz has been and will remain Iranian. This strait will only close and reopen by Iran’s command, and as long as you do not accept the reality of [your] defeat and abandon these illusions, Iran will continue the siege on you. (2)”

Who’s sieging whom? I don’t know who is advising the president, but at this point all the bellicosity is wearing thin. Maybe it’s Mark Levin pushing for a military solution and the destruction of Kharg Island and Iran’s infrastructure. But even with all the threats, there’s little evidence the president actually means to follow through. At the start of this war I said no war has ever been won by bombing alone — even bombing “into oblivion,” as the president threatened. No boots on the ground, no victory, and we are not about to put boots on the ground in Iran.

So what’s left? The president says he’ll keep leaning on economic pressure to weaken and isolate Iran, which has already lived under heavy US sanctions for decades. The current blockade has been running for three months, yet Iran’s propaganda machine still sounds like it’s winning, not losing, whatever the president claims. Whether the blockade will actually succeed is doubtful, and many experts share that doubt — the only real cheerleaders – in addition to Levin – I can find are writers at the Daily Signal and Fox News. Experts like the University of Chicago’s Robert Pape remain skeptical. Defense Secretary Hegseth has said the US military can sustain a naval presence in the Middle East “indefinitely” to enforce the blockade. The real question is whether the US has the will to actually do that. Trump, in a “let them eat cake” moment, put it this way: “For you to pay a tiny, little bit more for your gasoline, just remember it’s so ‘a very evil country’ can’t have a nuclear weapon. When you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4, it’s OK — I mean, I will never apologize, I did the right thing. You just have to remember that what we’re doing is a great service for the world.”

Trump is betting that economic pressure will force Iran to surrender and has announced Operation Economic Fury (who names these things?) threatening severe financial penalties on any nation that assists Iran in evading sanctions. Treasury secretary Bessent said “If you insist on doing business with them, then the U.S. Treasury and U.S. government will put its full might and force against you.”The campaign is targeting illicit oil networks, terror financiers, and global banks that continue to facilitate Tehran’s activities. Do I hear China? Well Bessent has said that the Treasury has already issued warnings to two major Chinese banks. What remains to be seen is Trump’s resolve. Russia, China and North Korea are all partners with Iran. Will Trump be resolute this time, or will there be another TACO moment?

Meanwhile, oil producers are already finding other routes to export their crude. Treasury Secretary Bessent has said the Strait of Hormuz will become “irrelevant” within two years, predicting 50 to 70 percent of the energy that currently transits the waterway will eventually move through underground pipelines, leaving the strait to become “just another body of water.” Bessent also says the administration’s economic policies have already pushed Iran’s currency into “free fall” and inflation into triple digits.

We don’t have two years. We’ll have to wait and see whether the economic damage we are inflicting outweighs the economic damage we’re taking — and who caves first.

More Taxes on the Rich? California and Britain Should Know Better

 

More evidence that republicans are not the only ones practicing stupid economics, governments, regardless of party or nation, never seem to learn. California’s proposed billionaires’ tax is the latest proof. Rather than reversing the policies that are already driving people and businesses out of the state, Sacramento is doubling down on them.

The measure is on November’s ballot, championed by Rep. Ro Khanna — an odd choice given his district covers Silicon Valley. But Khanna has presidential ambitions, and nothing burnishes progressive credentials like taxing billionaires. Tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists warn it will choke innovation and growth. Khanna is now facing primary challengers backed by the same tech industry he represents. The plan: a one-time 5% wealth tax on Californians worth over $1 billion, applied retroactively to anyone who lived there as of January 1, 2026. Supporters promise billions for healthcare and education. Fat chance! It is more likely to keep driving wealth and investment out of the state.

Four questions worth asking

 

Has a tax like this ever actually raised what its backers promised? Does anyone believe it stays a one-time event? Is there any evidence that taxing the wealthy harder doesn’t send them packing? And what happens to billionaires who are stock-rich but cash-poor — forced to sell shares just to cover the bill? If I were in that position and this measure passed, I’d be gone before the ink dried, daring them to come after me. The lawsuits alone would be a spectacle.

Khanna isn’t dumb. He just plays the part — waving away the numbers on capital flight and insisting this time will be different. It won’t. IRS data show Los Angeles County has led the nation in taxpayer losses since 2023, with a net 17,496 filers leaving for other states and taking nearly $1.9 billion in income with them.

The exodus doesn’t stop there. Orange County lost a net 11,618 filers; San Diego County, 9,401; Riverside County, 8,968; San Bernardino County, 8,462. Most weren’t rich — but some high-profile ones were, Elon Musk among them, and they’ve already taken their taxable income to Texas, Nevada, Florida, and Tennessee. Pass this tax, and it’s not hard to imagine California’s high tech sector and Silicon Valley also headed for the exits.

Mark Cuban didn’t mince words: “If this passes, and it doesn’t directly impact me at all, I won’t be a Cali resident, but you can bet if I’m investing in a multi-billion dollar startup, I’m asking them to move from California first.” He added, “If this passes, only idiot startup founders stay in Cali.” No amount of evidence will stop California from trying anyway. It’s the gambler at the bar who loses a bet, doubles down on the replay, and loses again — fully aware of the cost, and completely undeterred by it.

Britain’s making the same mistake

 

Britain belongs in the same category as a poster child for fiscal dumbness. Its policies are turning it into a once proud country into one with per-capita income below that of the poorest U.S. state. The wealthy are leaving in droves. Britain now has 35,000 fewer residents worth £1 million or more than it did in 2024 — a 7% drop in two years, the sharpest decline since 2008.

Like California, Britain has built a tax system hostile to success: a 45% top income tax rate above £125,140 (roughly $170,000), a 24% capital gains rate, and a 40% inheritance tax on estates above £325,000. Now it defies reason that the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is weighing a wealth tax on top of it. A recent poll found 66% public support for one, and a proposed 2% surtax on the wealthiest is projected to raise more than £10 billion a year. Care to bet they will raise that amount?

It apparently doesn’t register that the wealthy leaving is exactly why Britain is minting fewer homegrown millionaires in the first place. So let the Californians and the Brits, if Trump lets them in, come to the U.S. They are welcome here in Tennessee, as long as they don’t bring their socialist baggage with them.

Doritos, a Health Food? Baby Food. Kwanza Jones, Superwoman 

 

Farm-to-Table Doritos?

 

I was in the grocery section of my local Walmart when I saw a display for “protein Doritos.” Naturally, my first thought was, “what’s next, organic Doritos?” Turns out there they were, labeled “simply naked.”  Fine, where are the farm-to-table Doritos? Surely that’s a bridge too far even for a company that puts cheese dust in a bag and calls it flavor.

So I googled it, because of that’s what I do, and there it was in Stat News, plain as day: Doritos are now being marketed as farm-to-table! PepsiCo has apparently discovered that nothing sells a neon triangle of processed corn like a slogan about partnering with farmers to bring the product “from the field to you.” The ads feature corn seedlings and wholesome farmers, presumably standing just out of frame from the industrial extruder.

Doritos as farm-to-table snacks? Big Food, under duress, gets creative

So What Exactly Are You Feeding Your Toddler?

 

A study presented at the Nutrition 2026 conference surveyed the baby food aisles of Austin, Texas grocery stores, and the results were about as reassuring as finding out your GPS was designed by a raccoon. More than 80% of packaged foods marketed to toddlers turned out to be ultra-processed. Nearly half failed at least one of the World Health Organization’s basic standards for sugar, sodium, fat, or calories in children’s food. Researchers combed through 2,783 products aimed at kids ages 6 to 36 months — fruit pouches, granola bars, an entire ecosystem of mysterious “puffs” — and found that 17% blew past recommended sugar levels, 25% were oversalted, 11% had too much fat, and 12% missed the mark on energy density.

Naturally, I want to know what RFK Jr. and the MAHA crowd make of all this. Where is the farm-to-table baby food? Warning labels on puffs? My mother made her own baby food by pureeing whatever she was feeding my father — and let the record show, I did not know until much later in life that pork chops and chitterlings could, in fact, be pureed. Somehow my brother and I survived this culinary exercise just fine.

Meanwhile, a real live Superwoman

 

The San Diego Padres were just sold for a paltry $3.9 billion — a new MLB record, and roughly the GDP of a small country. Most of the coverage focused on buyer José E. Feliciano (the private equity guy, not the singer) as only the second Hispanic majority owner in MLB, after Arte Moreno of the aka Anaheim Angels. Barely mentioned was Feliciano’s wife and business partner, Kwanza Jones, who just became the first black majority owner of a major league team. Magic Johnson, for the record, is a minority owner of the Dodgers — no pun intended.

And Kwanza Jones is not someone you casually mention in a footnote. She’s a Princeton grad with a B.A. in Public and International Affairs, a J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and a Master of Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine — which, incidentally, sounds like the exact degree you’d want if you were about to co-own a baseball team. Before any of that, she was crowned Miss Baltimore in 1995 and took second at Miss Maryland. She practiced law and taught cross-cultural negotiation at NYU, because apparently one career wasn’t going to cut it.

Then Quincy Jones — yes, that Quincy Jones — talked her into a music career. Of course, she won the famous Amateur Night at the Apollo, released three albums (Naked, Naked 2, and Supercharged), and landed multiple Top 10 hits on the Billboard Dance chart, including “Think Again” and “Turn It Up.” Somewhere between law school and the Apollo stage, she also built a business empire around personal and professional empowerment, co-founded the Jones-Feliciano Initiative with her husband, and has directed more than $250 million toward social impact causes — including a $20 million gift to Princeton and a $6 million investment establishing the Kwanza Jones and Jose E. Feliciano Program for Clinical Education at Cardozo Law.

Beauty queen, attorney, law professor, recording artist, philanthropist, and now MLB owner.“Superwoman” may be an understatement.

Donald Trump’s Legacy: The Stupid Party Gets Even Dumber

George Will famously called the republican party “the stupid party.” Thanks to Donald Trump, it has gotten dumber (stupider). The main culprit is the Economics of Trump – Trumponomics. Never mind that this brand of economics has repeatedly been shown to be suboptimal at best — Trump and his MAGA cultists have adopted it anyway: tariffs, trashing our (once) allies, and government ownership stakes in private corporations. Call it the Trump Government-Industrial Plan. Didn’t Bill Clinton declare that the era of big government was over? Donald Trump has proven him wrong, with government now moving into areas it never has before. 

Yes, tariffs have existed as long as governments have, but rarely has the United States employed them to this extent. Their sheer scale points to the flaccidity of a Congress that has surrendered its constitutional authority to the whims of this president.

I won’t dwell on the whims, inconsistencies and randomness of it all. I won’t belabor the point that tariffs are taxes — arguably the largest tax increase on households in our lifetime. What’s striking is that despite all the evidence against them, the republican establishment has embraced this tax increase with open arms (and the resulting hit to consumer wealth) and promises to keep it going long after Trump is gone. I haven’t heard a single republican — save Rand Paul — speak out against Trump’s border taxes.

The Trump Government-Industrial Plan is now the new republican economics. The question is whether it survives once Trump leaves the scene. For now, nearly every republican (Rand Paul excepted) pays it lip service. Some embrace it eagerly. Missouri’s Josh Hawley is on board — he even co-authored a bill with Bernie Sanders to cap consumer interest rates, an idea Trump has actually endorsed. The two people seen as most likely to inherit Trump’s mantle, Marco Rubio and JD Vance, have both voiced approval, with Vance going further than Rubio and positioning himself as an economic socialist. Vance wants more regulation of banks and big business and is fully on board with government taking equity stakes in private companies. But Vance is an economic illiterate — even worse than his boss. One business commentator put it bluntly: Vance doesn’t seem to understand the basic roles of capitalism and investment. Vance may be Trump’s heir-apparent. He may get the nomination. But he won’t be president.

Right now, Trump has inserted the government into industries he deems vital to national security — rare earth materials, big tech. He has decided that he is capable of picking winners and losers, despite all historical evidence to the contrary. Trump, like Biden before him, has his industrial plan of big government interference – only with different industries.

Government failure is being rewarded. “Affordability” is the buzzword of the moment, and the main fronts are food, housing, energy, and education. Isn’t it ironic that all of these could be made more affordable with less government regulation? Yet Republicans are running from deregulation and embracing the same playbook as the democratic socialists — some call it populism. I call it stupidity. What Trump is doing is making things less affordable, not more. One economist published a chart showing that the least affordable items in the economy were, overwhelmingly, the ones most burdened by government regulation. Trump and his allies have ignored Reagan’s warning about the most terrifying words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” In fact, they have embraced it.

One rationale offered for this drift toward socialism and protectionism is to appease those blue-collar workers who have migrated from the democratic column to the republican one. “I’m going to save your job through protectionism and tariffs” has real appeal. “I’m going to stop credit card companies from gouging you by putting on an interest rate cap” has appeal. “I’m going to mine rare earth minerals, invest in chipmakers, and stop the dumping of cheap goods on our markets” — all of it sounds appealing. But all of it carries adverse consequences. I’m reminded of something my sainted father used to tell me: “All that sounds good, Harold — if you’re interested in sounds.”

White House spokesman Kush Desai has framed Trump’s economics as implementing “traditional free market policies that do work — like deregulation and tax cuts — while rectifying longtime America-Last policies that have left Americans behind.” In reality this should be implementing “traditional free market policies that do work — like deregulation and tax cuts — while also implementing policies that have proven not to work.” He should say that the policies that have left American’s behind are all government policies.

The republican Party is now the party of sound bites and socialist economics. The historical failures of these policies apparently mean nothing going forward. The strategy is to make the right noises, implement harmful policies, and let the consequences fall where they may. The upshot will be that affordability worsens, and the republican party (née the stupid party) gets replaced by something even worse.

Isn’t it interesting that socialists like Mamdani and El-Sayed rose to prominence on the same “affordability” mantra — a message embraced by disillusioned white, college-educated voters but rejected by working-class and black voters? What does that tell us? These voters are rejecting the looney tunes ideas coming from the left — defund the police, shut down the prisons, open the borders — while still wanting something done about food and gas prices. Ironically, those prices are climbing precisely because of the populist policies Trump and his followers have embraced. And yet they keep doubling down. 

The democrats are envious. They could not have gotten away with this but now that Trump has, be prepared to welcome all this into the fabric of American politics. Who was it that said that the republicans were just like the democrats – only a little less so?

So thanks Donald Trump for making the stupid party stupider.

Donald Trump: Naval Engineer

 

In the latest episode of “Trump knows best,” the president has ordered the Navy to abandon the electromagnetic catapult system used on the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers and revert to old-fashioned steam catapults. More troubling, he also wants the Navy to move the carrier command center towers to mimic the look of the World War II towers. Both redesigns will cost billions of dollars. Gee I didn’t know that the president was a carrier design engineer.

The catapult order directs the Navy to tear the current system out of ships already built and reinstall the older technology, again at a cost of billions of dollars. The president reportedly told Time Magazine way back in 2017 that he’d instructed the Navy to go back to “goddamn steam.” His reasoning isn’t entirely clear, beyond his claim that the new system is “too complex.” Apparently, he has restated his order.

The Navy disagrees. It has repeatedly touted the success of the Ford’s electromagnetic catapults and advanced arresting gear, which let the carrier launch and recover aircraft at a higher rate than its Nimitz-class predecessors. The fourth ship in the class — to be named the Doris Miller — and all remaining new ships will revert to the steam system, while the first three carriers, the Ford, the John F. Kennedy, and the Enterprise, will keep the electromagnetic system.

The numbers make the steam-catapult decision harder to justify. Data show the Ford, with its newer system, costs roughly $100 million less per year to operate than a Nimitz-class ship. But apparently none of that matters, because Trump knows best. This is just his latest foray into military design including negotiations over Air Force One and the F-35 fighter program, directed design changes to the Constellation-class frigate, and championed the creation of Trump-class battleships. 

Sen. Mark Kelly — hardly a Trump ally, but also a former Navy test pilot with a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering and hundreds of carrier launches to his name — put it bluntly: even with all that experience, he said, he still wouldn’t presume to tell the Navy how to engineer its own ships.

So expect the Navy to slow-walk this change and the one moving the towers and hope to revert to the more efficient, less costly designs once Trump, the military engineer, leaves office. In the meantime, anyone curious about just how complex building an aircraft carrier really is should pick up Michael Fabey’s Heavy Metal: The Hard Days and Nights of the Shipyard Workers Who Build America’s Supercarriers — Virginia Steelworkers Forge the World’s Most Powerful Naval Weapon.

You probably are wondering why the newest Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, is named after a woman. Actually, no. The naming is historic for a different reason. Doris “Dorie” Miller was the first black sailor awarded the Navy Cross. He was also nominated for the Medal of Honor but was denied by a racist Navy Secretary. Miller was a mess attendant second class aboard the battleship USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor.

During the attack, Miller helped carry wounded sailors to safety, then despite having no gunnery training took to an anti-aircraft gun. Navy records officially credit him with downing one enemy plane, though Miller and other witnesses ay he shot down several more. Admiral Chester Nimitz awarded Miller the Navy Cross on May 27, 1942, but many felt his heroism warranted the Medal of Honor too. His name was put forward for the higher honor, but Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, who opposed allowing black sailors to serve in combat roles, recommended against the award.

Miller was promoted to cook third class in June 1943. That November, he was killed in action when his ship, the escort carrier Liscome Bay, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine during the Battle of Makin in the Gilbert Islands — the deadliest sinking of a carrier in U.S. Navy history, with 702 officers and sailors lost.

I am somewhat surprised that President Trump has allowed the carrier to be named for Miller. Rep. Kweisi Mfume reintroduced legislation to have Miller awarded the metal posthumously along with the Congressional Gold Metal. But it has languished. I doubt if it will go through because the Defense Department’s webpages chronicling the heroism of Miller have been eliminated following a directive to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content from all Pentagon platforms. Trump and Pete Hegseth know no shame.

Dorie Miller may have never received the Medal of Honor, but he arguably has received something greater: an aircraft carrier bearing his name.

Doris (Dorie) Miller 1919-1943 RIP

You Got Stuff?

Southern Living recently ran an article called “12 Things to Toss Before You Turn 70 for a Simpler, Happier Life.” I’m 81. So either I’m eleven years overdue for a simpler, happier life, or the article’s full of it. Let’s find out.

Source: southernliving.com

Here’s what I was supposed to have tossed on my way out of my sixties — and my verdict on each.

1. Knick-knacks. This item was clearly written by and for someone who has never caught a foul ball. My “knick-knacks” are two baseballs snagged at the ballpark, three bobbleheads, a stone German shorthaired pointer, and two porcelain horses that I liberated from my grandmother’s shelf in Gray. Not knick-knacks. Artifacts.

2. Outdated media and electronics. The VHS tapes went years ago, replaced by CDs I still play regularly. But I’ve got roughly a thousand LPs I refuse to part with, even though the turntable died. They’re not clutter, they’re a museum with a broken ticket machine.

3. Mismatched linens. Don’t have any. Every bathroom’s linens match with military discipline. Zero cross-pollination. 

4. Unused tools and equipment. Guilty as charged. Leaf blowers, weed eaters, shovels, picks, rakes, drills, sanders, two pressure washers, two chainsaws, hacksaws, tool chests, ladders I can no longer safely climb, paint, cleaning rags, car stuff and tons of other stuff. I’ll start on the garage tomorrow. 

5. Old cookware and appliances. Actually did this one. Half the pots and pans, ancient coffee makers, blenders, and mismatched silverware — gone. I even tossed the new-fangled air fryer. It was so noisy that the dog wouldn’t come out of her crate.

6. Old coats and scarves. I own more leather jackets and fur coats than any reasonable person should. I told my son he could raid that closet for anything except one thing: my full-length raccoon coat, worn in memory of my dad, who I saw in a photo leaning against a brand-new ’38 Ford in a raccoon coat and a Stetson, looking cooler than I will ever manage. My son settled for a suede jacket and a full-length coyote coat.

7. Out-of-style jewelry. I own no jewelry unless you count my high school and Georgia class rings — and I never wear either. 

8. Books. Absolutely not! I’ve read thousands and kept only the ones I loved. The rest went to the local used bookstore, now sadly closed. My office is wall-to-wall books, and every one of them is a memory. They are staying, and so am I, right here in this chair, surrounded by them.

9. Old papers, letters, and cards. Guilty again — I’ve kept every publication I’ve ever written and every card anyone’s ever sent me. In my defense, I did clear out a full filing cabinet of academic papers nobody, including me, was ever going to reference again.

10. Heirloom china and crystal. Don’t have any. I do have my grandmother’s mixing bowls, her rolling pin, and a couple of beer steins my parents hauled back from Germany. These are not china. These are load-bearing family history.

11. Boxed-up photos. They’re already in boxes. Problem solved.

12. Unwanted art and décor. If I didn’t want it, it wouldn’t be on my wall. I get real, genuine pleasure from the art I’ve collected, including pieces by Armando Peña Jr. and other Southwest artists. 

Notice what Southern Living — clearly written with a female reader in mind — left off the list entirely: guns and hunting trophies. My zebra, deer, bush pig, bearskin rugs, impala, gemsbok, kudu, and assorted ram and bear skulls didn’t even rate a mention. Neither did clothes and shoes, which is strange for an article ostensibly about downsizing written for women. My suits, all sized for a man thirty pounds lighter, went to my grandson. I sold the fifth wheel and gave my forty-year-old bass boat to a friend in North Carolina. But I’ve still got suits, sport jackets, shirts, more Coogi sweaters than Amazon, and shoes, shoes, shoes. Guess I got the clothes and shoes thing from my Dad. I do work through the rotation though wearing everything in order. Anything I stop wearing goes straight to the local Christian ministry for resale. And I’ve made myself a deal — no more new clothes (replacement socks and underwear excepted), no more shoes, no more physical music or books, since everything new now lives electronically.

I’ve told my kids that before I die, they’re welcome to almost anything of mine they want — mostly because I feel for them having to eventually dispose of the stuff in the house in Knoxville. I’ve also got a fully outfitted cottage on the family farm in Gray and I am clearing out nothing there because it won’t be sold when I die. And if I ever moved there for good, I’d bring only the artwork and the hunting trophies. 

But much as I love being on my ancestors’ land, I will likely stay in Knoxville for there reside my friends. Last time I spent two weeks straight at the farm, I didn’t have a single face-to-face conversation with another human being. By the end I was ready to drive to the hardware store just to talk to the girl at the register.

So here’s my verdict: if I’d tossed all this before 70, my life would not have gotten simpler or happier. It would have just gotten emptier. My stuff doesn’t complicate my life — it furnishes it. I’d be miserable staring at bare shelves where the LPs, CDs, and books used to reside. Blank walls would depress me to no end. Nearly everything I own, I use, wear, or genuinely treasure — the tools being the one exception. Getting rid of stuff now would mean getting rid of pieces of myself, memories that happen to take up shelf space – stuff that makes me happy. It all stays.

Trump hates trumpets too?

Recent polling finds that 59 percent of Americans view tariffs unfavorably against just 29 percent favorable. Also 72 percent of Americans understand that tariffs raise prices while just three percent think they lower them (who are these people?). Another finds that 64 percent of Americans disapprove of how the president has handled tariffs.

Free Trade: The Consensus Is Growing

Yet President Trump persists in his trade war and its border taxes. Trump has been willy nilly and inconsistent. He has put higher tariffs on our allies than on our adversaries – creating adversaries out of our allies. He has imposed his border taxes on countries with which we run a trade surplus. He has grabbed at every straw his advisors can find to keep on the border taxes in the face of legal challenges and defeat. He makes exemptions for personal rather than economic reasons like taking the tariffs off diamonds after getting a watch encrusted with 300 diamonds from some merchants. He even imposes his border taxes in order to influence foreign elections – re: Brazil.

There is no logic except the president just likes to play god (with a small “g”). He says that he imposes his border taxes for national security reasons. Yet wouldn’t it make more sense to make those items as cheap as possible and to exempt them altogether? Taxing vital imports is just plain dumb – materials like steel, aluminum and copper should be border tax free. Yes, I know some would say that the American manufacturers of those products should be shielded from foreign competition. But why? Less competition means higher prices for American consumers and less incentives to improve efficiency. If they are in danger of being driven out of business, then the government can subsidize them. But the object should be to make those items vital to national security as cheap and plentiful as possible.

The latest absurdity in Trump’s border tax follies is that the administration is extending the 25% border tax on steel, aluminum and copper because of “national security” – of course. The Commerce Department actually lists the products covered by the extension. Included are “brass-wind musical instruments and parts and accessories thereof.” I kid you not. I guess the president’s trade lackeys Robert Lighthizer and Jamieson Greer must play the saxophone. Bryan Riley, Director of the free trade initiative at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, said “It’s not immediately clear why trumpets threaten to impair U.S. security.” Maybe the army’s supply of bugles was being threatened by Chinese knock-offs. (US Army bugles are exclusively made by Buglecraft, Inc. manufactured in Long Island City, NY. I don’t know if it imports its raw materials).

Isn’t it ironic that Trump would be imposing border taxes on trumpets? Maybe he is out to get the French. The border taxes are supposed to make US producers more attractive than foreign ones, but Conn-Selmer one of this country’s largest manufacturer of musical instruments has announced the closing of its facility that manufactures French horns and off-shoring production. The reason? The cost of importing materials and that the higher border taxes on copper, which is a major component of making brass, have made it more costly to build the instruments domestically.

One liability of all this nonsense has been the impact on young beginning musicians. The higher border taxes have caused Americans to buy fewer instruments. Musical instrument imports are down 20 percent since 2024. One observer notes that “Higher tariffs have raised prices and suppressed imports—particularly of instruments for beginners.”

But hey, it’s a small price to pay for the increase in national security. Right? Maybe Conn-Selmer should announce that it is changing the name of the French horn to the American horn and bringing out a commemorative Donald Trump-et. Don’t you think it is time to play taps on this nonsense?

Oil versus Beef: A Primer on the Elasticity of Demand

Our neosocialist president has been on one of his usual rants, going after the oil companies for booking large profits following his conflict with Iran. He complained: “When you look at one company where they made 12 times what they made the year before, they ought to give some of that back to the public. And they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.” This from a man who made $2 billion last year while sitting on his butt. At ExxonMobil, quarterly profits more than doubled from a year earlier to their highest level since 2022, reaching $14.5 billion. Chevron posted its highest quarterly earnings on record, at $12.1 billion.

Trump’s carping doesn’t sound like a republican – he really is an economic socialist. He actually sounds like Joe Biden who made the same accusation, charging fossil-fuel companies with profiteering on the Ukraine war after oil prices spiked following the Russian invasion. Biden asked Congress to pass legislation penalizing oil-and-gas companies. At least Trump hasn’t gone that far — yet.

What would an economist say about oil? They would say that its demand is inelastic with both prices and profits going up. What about beef? Tyson Foods, the country’s largest meat processor just lowered its profit forecast because of the runup in beef prices. So why would an oil company’s profits rise as its price soars, while Tyson’s profits fall even though the price of beef is soaring too? Economists have a name for this: the elasticity of demand. It describes the relationship between a change in a product’s price and the resulting change in total revenue. When that relationship is positive, demand is said to be inelastic; when its negative, demand is elastic.

Consider beef. When its price climbs, consumers buy less of it and substitute other meats. So when the price rises but the quantity purchased falls enough that total revenue actually declines, economists call that elastic demand — and that appears to be exactly what’s happening with beef. Consumers are substituting. Since Tyson also processes pork and chicken, it will be worth watching how the company’s overall profits hold up as chicken and pork consumption likely rise (eat mor chikin! – and the other white meat). Tyson’s beef costs rose by $575 million last quarter, pushing up its prices with falling  beef revenue. The company’s beef sales price rose almost 12% year over year, but sales volume fell 16%. Tyson now expects an adjusted operating loss of $500 million to $650 million for its 2026 fiscal year — though it says its chicken business should keep overall profits steady.

Oil is a different story. Like beef, oil has substitutes — green energy, shale, hydrogen, natural gas, electricity, nuclear, and hydropower. But those substitutes are useless for immediate use. I can’t simply swap hydrogen for diesel in my F-250 or gas in my GLS 450. My only real alternative is to drive less – or ride my motor scooter more. Beyond cars, oil heats our homes and serves as a critical industrial input well beyond simply fueling engines. It’s the foundation for plastics, synthetic rubber, and countless other chemicals. As someone once put it, “petroleum is everywhere.” It’s an input to transportation, electricity generation, and heating, and to the production of everyday consumer goods — smartphones, clothing, make-up, toothpaste, medicine, carpet. Given all that, we’d expect demand for oil to be relatively inelastic in the short run, since it takes time to retool production processes and transport systems around alternative inputs.

So did the quantity demanded for oil fall when prices rose? According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the answer is actually yes. Oil demand has declined in recent months. But that drop wasn’t large enough to bring total revenue down at the higher prices.

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php

None of this should surprise us. We’ve seen this story before, and we should come to expect it. The oil market is inherently volatile, driven by OPEC’s production decisions, geopolitical events, and natural disasters that disrupt refineries and supply lines. Trump’s confrontation with Iran is only the latest in a long, unending line of events that move the price of oil.

Markets are dynamic. Prices change constantly. If Trump is unhappy about how much money Big Oil is making, he shouldn’t point his finger at the executives of Shell and ExxonMobil. He should point it at himself.

Trump Skedaddles. Kushner Bro Buys the Lakers. Hong Loses 

Trump Hides, Leaves Rubio and Bessent Behind

Did you see the reports that when Trump got off the plane in Turkey for security reasons, he left Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent behind on the plane? Also left behind were Stephen Miller and White House Communications Director Stephen Cheung. Trump, remember, was pulled off the plane over fears of an assassination attempt by Iran — U.S. intelligence had reportedly picked up multiple signs of a potential threat to the aircraft carrying him. The president took with him only his closest aides: Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations; and Natalie Harp, who assembles Trump’s daily briefings.

Trump and his inner circle pulled off quite an extraordinary piece of deception — boarding Air Force One in full view of the cameras, then sneaking off in an airport catering container and leaving the country on a military jet instead. According to CBS, the decision to keep Rubio and Bessent on the decoy plane was meant to preserve the line of succession in case something happened to Trump. Forgive me but what does it say about the president leaving a hundred people on a plane that might be attacked, while the select few slip out in a cargo container. This is astonishing. Even more astonishing is that none of the “sacrificial lambs” quit. They must really love their jobs.

Kushner (Josh) and Iger to Buy the Lakers

Jared Kushner’s older brother Josh, along with Disney’s Bob Iger, are buying the Los Angeles Lakers for a record $12.5 billion. The Lakers are currently owned by Mark Walter, who bought the team last year from the Buss family for what was then a record $12 billion. Walter still owns the Dodgers and holds a minority stake in the English soccer club Chelsea. Iger is a partner in Kushner’s venture capital firm, Thrive Capital, which buys assets in companies that technology can’t duplicate — I guess he’s never played “Madden.” Kushner is also a minority partner in the Miami Heat and presumably will have to sell that stake once the Lakers deal closes.

Hong Loses in Wisconsin

To the surprise of just about everyone — including the winner David Crowley — Francesca Hong lost the democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin. Hong had been leading by double digits in the polls, 44% to Crowley’s 22%. She lost anyway, but barely: 39.8% to 39.4%. I was surprised. Wisconsin has long been fertile ground for socialists, featuring the Peoples’ Republic of Madison. For years, the state capitol, Madison has been dominated by the far left. Voters in the state had just ousted two conservative members of the state Supreme Court and current governor Tony Evers has been a sharp contrast to Scott Walker. I figured the path was clear for socialists to take statewide office.

But Evers endorsed Crowley — the Milwaukee County executive who had earlier dropped out of the race and who had endorsed the state’s lieutenant governor, Sara Rodriguez, who in turn dropped out over “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings.” Before that, the state’s former lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, had dropped out, saying the polling made clear who the next nominee would be (Hong). Crowley then jumped back into the race.

Hong, a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is a state legislator who endorses the entire DSA platform. She said Thanksgiving was a “colonizer” holiday and should be canceled. She wants Medicare for All, taxpayer-funded childcare, the top tax rate raised to 17%, and the elimination of all college debt. She wants to abolish ICE, defund the police (which she says exists to uphold white supremacy), and believes poverty drives crime — so that redistributing wealth to address poverty would stop criminals from being criminals. She wants to abolish the Senate, though she admits that’s “not practical at this time.” She wants the government to take over private enterprise, and to launch a state “public option” for health coverage. She would set up a Wisconsin Public Bank to give small businesses better rates, and she wrote a bill to create publicly-owned grocery stores. She would repeal Wisconsin’s right-to-work law, offer illegal migrants state IDs, and use sanctuary policies to “protect Wisconsinites of all documentation status from secret police.” She would raise the minimum wage to $20, legalize marijuana, and pass a “binding clean electricity standard requiring 60% renewable power by 2030.” She wants a 32-hour work week with no cut in pay and would cap utility costs “at 2% of income for energy-burdened households.” What’s not to love? A friend of mine called Hong “Looney Tunes.” That disrespects Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Tweety Bird. The fact that she came so close to the nomination is sobering.

As usual, college-educated white voters voted for the socialist. But she lost blue collar voters, voters without a college degree and blacks – Crowley is black. So the pattern continues. What’s interesting now is that Crowley’s win dampens republican hopes of flipping the state’s governorship. The republican nominee is Rep. Tom Tiffany, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and the most right-wing member of Wisconsin’s delegation. Of course, Tiffinay is endorsed by Trump, which in Wisconsin may be the kiss of death.

More Trump Never Forgets. Michigan’s Punt – and a wee flashback.

Trump Never Forgets

 

On top of writing two new executive orders to curtail birthright citizenship and hounding Lisa Cook, the president is now pushing for new charges in the Reflecting Pool case. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro dismissed the case and sharply criticized Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for the evidence presented in the indictment. Trump was livid — I’m honestly surprised he didn’t fire Pirro on the spot. Instead, he’s asking, or really demanding, that the Justice Department reconsider the case.

Pirro said the government’s decision to charge Olympic canoeist David Hearn with a felony was ill-informed, and that a botched renovation — not vandalism — was actually responsible for the reflecting pool’s damage. Now, at Trump’s urging, his “Justice” Department is exploring whether a case built on misdemeanor charges might still be viable.

Trump said Pirro should “revisit her hastily made decision,” and he posted a photo on social media captioned “Vandalism” that he claimed showed graffiti and damage to the Reflecting Pool. He also said “a highly credible witness” saw Hearn ripping and tugging at the pool’s coating. Hearn himself admitted that out of curiosity he reached into the water to touch a piece of coating that had already come loose from the bottom. Reopening a case like this would be highly unusual under normal circumstances. But Trump’s vengeance knows no bounds.

Michigan Punts on Freshman Grades – and a wee flashback

 

First the University of Michigan has allowed its students to terrorize the Jewish members of its board of regents. Then the state elects a Muslim to replace an incumbent Jewish regent. The state democrats then nominate an avowed antisemite to run for the Senate. Now is it merely circumstance that the university’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts has decided beginning in Fall 2027, in the interest of “mental health,” to stop reporting traditional letter grades on first-semester transcripts for incoming freshmen? They will replacing them with “pass” or “no credit” designations. Students will still get a letter grades and receive instructor feedback in every course, but those grades will stay internal. They won’t appear on official transcripts or affect first-semester GPAs. The college explained “We believe that covering grades will help students start strong and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals.”

I’ve always been in the “you’re in college now, this isn’t 13th grade” camp. But when I brought this up recently, a dear friend suggested that maybe the transition to college is genuinely tough, and that Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts had seen a number of student suicides connected to grades. If so, we’d have to assume that underlying mental illness had gone undiagnosed, and that even though the number was small, the college judged it serious enough to shield all incoming freshmen. But that is speculation for no data were provided by the college to justify its decision. Why only this one college, and not business or engineering? Michigan has 19 schools and colleges. Why is this the only one with “sensitive” students, especially because I doubt if any of the departments within the college are noted for their academic rigor. I hope that my Phd alma mater does not follow this lead of That School Up North.

This will not end well. For what it’s worth, Johns Hopkins tried the same thing 40years and it was a dismal failure. Students mostly goofed off their first semester, which made it harder, not easier, to adjust to campus life and classroom rigor. The university stopped the practice in 2017 and said “Faculty members believe that covering grades can delay development of study skills and adaptation to college-level work. That delay is particularly a concern for students in sequential courses, where the second-semester syllabus builds directly on first-semester work.” Some students were naturally upset and a group of them issued this statement “Students from low income backgrounds, first generation students, students struggling with mental health, students with disabilities, international students, and sexual assault survivors, as well as students whose experiences exist at intersections of marginalized race, gender, and sexuality, are disproportionately affected by this change.”

I suspect the University of Michigan administrators would say the same things to justify this move. But those same administrators would be aghast at what my father did when he opened my first-quarter grades from the University of Georgia. Back then, grades were mailed directly to your parents. Dad opened the envelope, balled up the grades, and threw them on the floor. He pointed his finger at me and said, “Don’t you ever bring grades like that into my house again!” I was aghast. I thought I’d actually done pretty well, especially considering that almost every night that quarter, someone broke my dorm windows, set my room on fire three times with lighter fluid squirted under the door, scratched obscenities into my door, jammed my keyhole with chewing gum, and vandalized the bathroom that only I used. In the classroom, no one would even sit in the same row as me, and at least one professor was openly racist – I was the University of Georgia’s first Black male freshman.

So I picked the grades back up and unfurled them. I’d made an A, a B+, and a B. Later, when I made straight A’s, Dad said, “Don’t they give A pluses at that place?”

More than once I was asked “How do you handle the pressure of representing the entire black race?” My response was “That’s easy compared to handling the pressure of representing my family at home.”