Trump continues down his neo-socialist path by trying to muzzle and intimidate the media. 

Exhibit one. 

His Department of “Justice” has issued subpoenas to New York Times reporters and relatives over the new Air Force One reporting.  I presume this stemmed from the report that Trump was forced to change planes and had to use the old Air Force One due to security fears. Recall that the new Air Force One was gifted to him by Qatar. The president was flying from the NATO meeting in Turkey and changed planes in England to the old Air Force One. The president said he did so because he wanted to leave the plane in England so that the troops could see it. Trump posted: “To honor our brave men and women of the military, we are sending the brand new, and truly spectacular, Air Force One to Mildenhall air force base, in the United Kingdom, to give them a chance to tour the aircraft.”

But the New York Times reported that the change in planes occurred because of security concerns regarding the new plane. The old Air Force One is equipped with a system that can blind incoming anti-aircraft missiles, along with “chaff” defenses that could be deployed to mislead a missile. Apparently, the new place has some security deficiencies. Of course, the White House denied this. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, told The New York Times: “The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff.

Well if all this is the case, then why did the president sic his Department of “Justice” on the New York Times reporters. Again, this is another example of “how do you tell the president is lying?” The “Justice” Department said it was investigating illegal leaks, adding: “Reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.” Naturally, the Times will yell that this is a lie and is trying to put a chilling effect on reporting. So David McCraw, the Times’s lawyer, called the summons a “brazen act” and “nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs”. “Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used.”

In this instance, the Times is correct and Trump is taking a page out of repressive regimes around the world in an attempt to muzzle the press. When I saw the story of changing planes, I did not think it was a big deal. Just go put the security measures on the new plane and be done with it. But the president obviously thought differently. Someone needs to remind him that this is the United States, not Russia or China.

Exhibit two.

Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr has threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of ABC and NBC because they did not air the president’s speech on election security. Frankly this is outrageous and smacks of another attempt to intimidate the media into bending to the president’s will. Carr said “Broadcasters must operate in the public interest and they will lose their licenses if they do not.” Trump had said earlier that the failure to broadcast the speech “should mean a revocation of their licenses.” So Carr is dutifully just following his boss’s orders – he likes his job. Carr had also earlier threatened ABC over Jimmy Kimmel’s show (it was taken off the air) and has now questioned the status of the View. CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s show just days after he had criticized the network’s settlement of a lawsuit filed by Trump over its editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.

As one observer said “What we’re seeing is an unprecedented attempt to silence disfavored speech by the government.” Trump’s approach to the media has drawn comparisons to former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who made hostility toward the press central to his political brand, borrowing Trump’s phrase “fake news” to describe critical outlets. 

Seriously, there is no way that the FCC will revoke the licenses of ABC and NBC. Actually, I think ABC and NBC did the public a service by providing alternative programming to the president’s speech. Nonetheless, this president has established a record of intimidating the media and seeking to bend them to his will. Where is the outrage? Can you imagine the hue and cry from the right if Biden or some democrat threatened to muzzle Fox News?

Another failed Pentagon audit. Socialist grifters. More tariff lies.

Another failed audit at the Pentagon

Trump criticized the Biden administration for failing to get a clean audit of the Pentagon calling it evidence of ongoing mismanagement. Well the Pentagon just failed its eight consecutive audit and I don’t hear the president criticizing his Defense Secretary for mismanagement of the department’s billions. The failure does not even consider the possibility of fraud or missing funds. Rather it means auditors could not verify the accuracy of the Pentagon’s financial statements with enough confidence to issue a clean opinion. After eight unsuccessful audits, the results continue to raise questions about accountability, oversight and mismanagement. 

Today’s quiz: Who said “The lack of accountability and transparency at the Pentagon is simply unacceptable, yet Congress continues to pour more and more taxpayer dollars into the agency each year. No other federal agency would be allowed to operate this way. It’s past time to rein in wasteful spending on ineffective weapons programs, stop rewarding wealthy and powerful defense contractors, and restore fiscal discipline to the Pentagon. Every federal department is required to conduct an annual audit; however, it took years for the Pentagon to complete its first one in 2018, and after eight attempts, it still has not passed.” Answer: Ilhan Omar. 

Apparently auditing the Pentagon is no easy task. It is massive and auditors must review the consolidated financial statements of the entire department, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, and dozens of defense agencies. Here is what Military.com says: Auditors examine whether systems accurately track spending, assets, liabilities, and inventory. That includes everything from payroll and contracts to facilities, vehicles, aircraft, ships, and spare parts. The process also evaluates whether internal controls are strong enough to prevent errors and ensure reliable reporting. A clean audit opinion would signal that the Pentagon can consistently account for its resources and spending.” the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act requires the DOD to receive a clean audit opinion on its financial statements by no later than December 31, 2028. Lots of luck with that. Even if the agency fails to meet this requirement, it’s unlikely to change anything.

Remember in March the White House asked for $1.5 trillion for defense (or is it “war”) for its fiscal year 2027 budget? Want to bet that that budget will also fail to get a clean audit. Consider that the Pentagon doesn’t even know how much is being spent on the war with Iran thanks to its notoriously poor accounting records. In May, Jules Hurst, the assistant secretary for the Army and the Pentagon’s former comptroller, told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that the war had cost about $29 billion. But a month earlier, U.S. officials “familiar with internal assessments” placed the cost at about $50 billion. That $21 billion dollar difference sounds like my struggle in undergraduate accounting to make the left side of the balance sheet the same as the right side.

Since Trump is so intent on ferreting out fraud in social programs, don’t you think he should take a look at Defense spending? As to that $1.5 trillion dollar request, the Congress should just approve last year’s budget amount plus an adjustment for inflation until the Pentagon can get its act together.

Just another socialist grifter

How can you tell a socialist is lying? His lips are moving. In the democrat primary in Michigan, another bogus working class socialist, Abdul El-Sayed, is running against an establishment democrat, Rep. Haley (I wonder if she was named after Alex Haley) Stevens. El-Sayed like all the democrat socialists is spouting the working class mantra about the evils of capitalism and giving power to the people. Right on! 

This is the socialist grift by another socialist grifter. As has been the case in every race, the working class reject the socialist while he is embraced by college educated whites. Polls are revealing. El-Sayed is up +7 with college-educated democrats. Stevens is up 22 points with likely non-college-educated voters. El-Sayed is +57 with voters who say they are socialists. And all that nonsense about racial equity spouted by the left? El-Sayed is winning white voters +12, whereas Stevens, who is white, is up an astounding +46 with black voters. Black voters can smell a grift from a mile away after growing up with Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. We know BS when we hear it. 

This is a replay of Maine where the axe-murder-Nazi-tattooed-socialist spouting Graham Platner said along with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren that he was part of the working class supporting a stridently progressive economic policy when in reality Susan Collins was way ahead in the polling of actual working class voters. Of course, the media is not calling out these grifters hoping that you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to get these poseurs elected.

More Tariff Fictions

How can you tell a Trump trade official is lying. His lips are moving. Remember when one of the many lies told by the president on tariffs was that we were being ripped off as evidence of deficits in the balance of trade with our trading partners? Never mind that no other country has the population and wealth to match our wealth. I have pointed out before that the only way for the balance of trade to be balanced is essentially for us to just stop trading. I also pointed out why was Trump putting tariffs on countries with which we had a trade surplus? Did that make any sense? Well, there he goes again when he hit Brazil with a 25 percent tariff on everything except – or course – beef and coffee. The president’s anti-trade trade representative Jamieson Greer announced the tariffs to counter “unfair trade practices.” However, later the reason given was “inadequate policing of deforestation” and that Brazilian courts had ordered “U.S. social media companies to take down certain political content.” Trump also wants Brazil to remove their tariffs on US ethanol and has used Brazil’s payment system as another justification for the new tariffs. The payment system, PIX is used by 90 percent of Brazilians and allows the transfer of funds on cellphones at no cost. It handles more transactions than all debt and credit cards combined. There’s the rub. The administrations says that PIX unfairly disadvantages Visa and Mastercard! Here again Trump’s mercantilism raises its head.

Brazil has vowed to retaliate. Its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says the tariffs are an attempt to influence the country’s election. Trump backed the former president Jair Bolsonaro was convicted for attempting to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to Lula. Trump said of Bolsonaro’s trial Trump it “should not be happening”. “It is a witch-hunt that must end IMMEDIATELY!” Now in the upcoming election one of Bolsonaro’s sons is running against Lula. Lula’s office that the tariffs were the result of “a narrative constructed with the active collaboration of the Bolsonaro family” driven by electoral objectives.

Well the Brazilian people are not buying what Greer is selling. Polls show that the tariffs have strengthened Lula’s position over Bolsonaro and that the voters blame the Bolsonaros for the tariffs.

Random Thoughts #83

The new Senator Graham. The Pentagon’s neo-socialism. Chase Burns. The World Drug Report

Darline Graham Nordone, Republican DEI?

South Carolina governor Henry McMaster named Darline Graham Nordone, Lindsey Graham’s sister to finish his term. The democrats who should know better whining that she was not qualified to be in the Senate. There was an exchange on the View where Sunny Hostin accused the republicans of DEI. Hostin said” You know, she’ll be the first woman to be a U.S. senator in South Carolina in the history of the state. And I think that that’s just — it’s just fundamentally wrong that South Carolina just couldn’t elect a woman and this is the only way that it was done.” I guess Hostin forgets that South Carolina elected a minority woman governor – Nikki Haley – and a black senator – Tim Scott. She is also too young to know that Muriel Humphrey was appointed to fill the unexpired term of her husband Senator Hubert Humphrey in 1978 and became the first woman senator in Minnesota. 

The charge of DEI is interesting in that the naysayers ignore that Graham Nordone’s appointment was not unusual. All told, forty-eight women have been appointed to the Congress fill the unexpired terms of their deceased husbands. My personal view is that it is about time we had a senator named Darline.

Pentagon Neo-socialism

The Pentagon can’t balance its books but it sure can spend money. It continues the neo-socialism of the Trump Administration by spending $1 billion in defense contractor L3Harris Technologies that converts to equity when the company goes public. The Pentagon also owns $400 million in preferred stock of the critical-mineral company MP Materials and a 10 percent stake in another critical-mineral company, Trilogy Metals—alongside stakes in several other companies. The republicans in the Senate have not resisted the administration’s socialist policies saying that equity stakes can’t exceed 40 percent of a company’s valuation.

And now some baseball

The Cincinnati Reds just signed their young star pitcher 23 year old Chase Burns to a 7 year $105 contract. If Burns continues on his current pace the Reds would have – in today’s world – have gotten themselves a bargain. I have a bit of pride here. Burns is from Gallatin, Tennessee and pitched for the Tennessee Vols where he had an 8-2 record with a 2.91 ERA and 103 strikeouts in 81+¹⁄₃ innings. He was named the Freshman Pitcher of the Year. He had a less than stellar sophomore season and was moved into the bullpen after going 2-3 with a 6.10 ERA. After the season he entered the transfer portal and transferred to Wake Forest where he recovered his freshman form going setting a school record with 191 strikeouts and named ACC pitcher of the year. The Reds drafted him in the 2024 draft and now he is a star. Congratulations Chase!

More Drugs

The UN issue its World Drug Report and says that there are greater quantities and more varieties of recreational chemicals available than ever before. So much for that drug interdiction in the eastern Caribbean. The report says there is so much cocaine in circulation now that wholesale prices are dropping. However, there is a heroin shortage stemming from the Taliban’s banning of poppy cultivation. The country produced 93 percent of the world’s supply. Poppy cultivation has increased in India and Pakistan but also chemical substitutes have also increased notably nitazenes produced in China. An article in Reason notes “Unlike the “classic” drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and shrooms, synthetics don’t need vast acres of land for farming and can be quietly cooked in a basement lab, bypassing border controls or local mafias, which lowers the barriers to entry in a business where clandestine connections are everything.

There are now 755 known new psychoactive substances in circulation, and 118 of them were first identified in 2024. Today, there are more designer drugs than formally designated illicit drugs.”

All of this leads to more discussion as to the effectiveness of prohibition. The market response of cracking down on “natural” illegal drugs has led to the growth in synthetic drugs. Marijuana has been decriminalized in many countries and in many states. I haven’t researched the effects and affects internationally and nationally but the proliferation of drugs and the income flowing to cartels and criminals must be taken into consideration along with the impact on users and society.

Is Pete Hegseth Racist?

 

The Firings of Black and Women Officers

 

I don’t like Pete Hegseth, and until proven otherwise, I think he’s a racist — and a sexist to boot. He has also been accused of cronyism and incompetence. His ouster of over a dozen high ranking officers has raised concerns regarding the loss of expertise and the potential for politicization within the armed forces. The removal of these officials has sparked debates about the implications for military effectiveness and national security. Critics argue that these changes may lead to a military that is more aligned with political agendas rather than operational expertise. Amid all these firings Hegseth is trying to circumvent protocol to get one of his senior military aides on the promotion list or to get him promoted. However, Capt. William Francis Jr., a Navy SEAL serving as Hegseth’s assistant, could not be reviewed by the promotion board because he did not meet certain criteria, such as heading a major command.

So Hegseth is striving to get promoted an aide deemed unqualified while firing or blocking promotions of blacks and women that have passed the scrutiny of promotion boards. One could argue that Hegseth has ousted white male officers too like General Randy George but what is the explanation of blocking promotions of blacks and women? It is though that despite the review of the promotion boards, Hegseth is assuming that all the black and women promotions are based on DEI and not on merit.

Is Hegseth racist? Well the firings of top-ranked black and women officers along with the vetoing of promotions is exhibit one. Exhibit two, is a new directive on facial hair. Facial hair, yes — facial hair but I’ll start with the firings, which frankly feel personal. Hegseth fired Admiral Alvin Holsey, commander of U.S. Southern Command, who happens to be from Fort Valley, Georgia — home to my mother’s alma mater, Fort Valley State University. He also fired the Army’s chief of chaplains, Gen. William Green, a graduate of my father’s alma mater, Savannah State University. Since his confirmation last year, Hegseth has fired or sidelined more than 20 flag officers, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. C.Q. Brown, a black, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as Chief of Naval Operations.

He has also blocked the appointment of nine Air Force colonels, delayed the promotions of at least two dozen more senior officers, and blocked eight Navy captains from advancing to one-star admiral — leaving an all-white, all-male slate of 22 officers as the remaining nominees.

This is unusual behavior for a Pentagon chief, since promotions are the product of independent military boards. Under U.S. law, only the president can strike a recommended officer from a promotion list. The defense secretary can recommend a name be removed for cause, but that recommendation must go to the president in writing. It isn’t clear whether Hegseth has actually followed that process. These promotion lists go through a rigorous process and the scrutiny of two separate boards. Hegseth appears to have overridden a merit-based system without offering any real explanation — conduct that may itself be unlawful. I find myself wondering why no one has sued him over it.

Separately, Hegseth has delayed the promotion of at least two dozen one-star Air Force officers to two-star rank while the Pentagon reviews their past ties to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. It’s worth remembering that any DEI compliance by these officers was a product of the prior administration’s policy — they were simply following orders. Rather than overriding the promotion boards’ recommendations outright, Hegseth could have waited to see how these officers responded to the new orders eliminating DEI. As one critic put it, the military shouldn’t be “punished for implementing orders on diversity when Biden was president” for simply carrying out the lawful directives of the administration in power at the time.

The Congressional Black Caucus and the Democratic Women’s Caucus jointly condemned the removal of black and female officers from one-star promotion lists as “outrageous” and deeply concerning, arguing that the pattern shows the administration “attacking and undermining black people and women in the military, public servants, and women in power.” The caucuses said the officers being targeted deserve support, not removal, at a time when the country needs qualified leadership at home and abroad. It’s hard to imagine this isn’t devastating for the morale of black and women servicemembers across the ranks.

Gen. Brown himself has pushed back publicly, warning that the officers being pushed out or struck from promotion lists are highly experienced and that the process underway “is not about merit.” The irony is hard to miss, a former fighter pilot, Brown was nominated in 2020 by Trump during his first term to serve as the Air Force’s chief of staff. Trump took credit for nominating the “first-ever African-American military service chief.” Trump added in a social-media post back then that Brown was “a Patriot and Great Leader!”

The Shaving Directive

Then there’s the shaving directive, reported by Stars and Stripes, which says the Navy will now separate sailors with medical shaving conditions after a year of failed treatment. Have you ever wondered why so many black men wear beards? It is because of razor bumps — a painful skin irritation from shaving that worsens when the ingrown hairs and bumps themselves get nicked by a blade. I know it only too well.

Hegseth’s new policy eliminates the Navy’s waiver process for the condition, known medically as pseudofolliculitis barbae.

Stars and Stripes: Navy guidance on shaving waivers

Under the new guidance, affected sailors get one year of medical treatment to meet the Navy’s clean-shaven standard; if they still can’t comply after that year, they’re to be classified as having an “unmanageable permanent condition” and recommended for separation from the service for failing to meet grooming standards.

Pseudofolliculitis barbae disproportionately affects black men — an estimated 60 percent may experience it, according to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology, since the condition is closely tied to naturally curlier facial hair that curls back into the skin after shaving. Sailors who keep beards for religious reasons will still need a waiver too, though it isn’t clear whether their waivers will carry the same one-year time limit that now applies to sailors with the medical condition.

This, too, strikes me as outrageous — and blatantly racist.

Why Daylight Savings Time?

A while back I wrote about the Georgia legislature voting to adopt Atlantic time and stop changing clocks twice a year. The state said that ending daylight savings time would improve health and safety. All the while, the president was advocating a change to doing the same by making daylight saving time permanent. A reader, Pat wrote that if a change was a’coming then it should be to make standard time permanent because it was more attuned to our body’s rhythms. Pat, it seems, is right so why Trump and the congress want to foist daylight savings time on us permanently is beyond me. 

Maybe it is because I hate daylight savings time so. It seems that when we spring forward I never get a good night’s sleep until we fall back. The president has endorsed it. The House voted it out 318-117. However, passage in the Senate is uncertain. The bill has failed once before and Tom Cotton (R-Ark) strongly opposes the change. Cotton reminds us that we tried this once before in 1974 and it failed miserably. Cotton said that the Sunshine Protection Act would “make winter a dark and dismal time” for people in his home state of Arkansas and many others across the country. “In January of 1974, millions of Americans traveled to work and school in darkness. Schoolchildren carried flashlights,” he said. “Tragically, some of these kids were struck by cars and killed while walking to school in the dark.”

Not only that, it screwed up my deer season. 

Cotton, mentioning 1974 reminds me of the old saying “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” I believe Santayana said that – or something similar. Well in this case it should be “Those who do remember the past are still doomed to repeat it” because in 1973 Congress passed a law to make daylight savings time permanent as a test. It was a test that failed miserably and proved highly unpopular mainly due to those dark winter mornings that Cotton talked about.

Cotton points out “The sun wouldn’t rise until nearly 9 o’clock during winter in Seattle,” he said. “In Grand Rapids, the sun would rise as late as 9:15 a.m., and in Williston, North Dakota, they would not see the sun ’till almost 9:45 a.m.” It was a bad idea once and it is a bad idea now. When it was tried it was quickly repealed. Why do we have to repeat that mistake again?

Cotton would keep things as they are. However, there are those who advocate that if we change at all we should change to standard time rather than daylight savings time. The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (yes there is such a thing) have called for a change to permanent standard time, arguing that more light in the morning is better for our circadian biology (thanks Pat!).

“Circadian rhythms are intrinsic 24‐hour biological cycles that govern various physiological processes. In addition to the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus, the circadian system is organized in multiple peripheral tissues, such as the brain, heart, bone, liver, and lung. Emerging evidence suggests that disruptions in these rhythms, which are regulated by a network of clock genes, play pivotal roles in human health.” The major medical and sleep science associations overwhelmingly advocate for permanent Standard Time, linking permanent Daylight Saving to increased risks of heart issues, sleep disruption, and morning traffic accidents.

Well that certainly explains why my 1974 deer season was all messed up! 

Also according to a new study at Stanford, changing clocks twice a year not only disrupts circadian rhythms it also leads to higher rates of stroke and obesity. The study finds Either permanent standard time or permanent daylight saving time would be healthier than our seasonal waffling, with permanent standard time benefitting the most people. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/09/daylight-saving-time.html

So leave it up to our politicians to choose the wrong time. I hope this move to Daylight Savings Time does not pass and if we must fix out clocks, let’s fix it on standard time. Maybe then I will have a better deer season – permanently.

Terrorism, Irrationality and the Failure of Violence 

A personal observation

I don’t get it. Extremism in all its forms is a manifestation of irrational thinking. While it has become fashionable to single out Islamic extremism and condemn an entire religion, this framing ignores a more fundamental truth: radicalism that leads to political violence is, at its core, an act of delusion. Consider the case of Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, a 41-year-old naturalized citizen who drove his car into a synagogue in Michigan. Ghazali had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon. No one inside the synagogue was harmed; he exchanged gunfire with a security guard and ultimately took his own life. What did he hope to accomplish? Would his attack bring back his relatives? Would it shift American foreign policy? The logic simply does not hold. This is not the behavior of a strategic actor — it is the behavior of a man consumed by grief and rage, unable to channel either constructively.

Antisemitism has undeniably intensified in the Western world since the conflict in Gaza, rising simultaneously on the far left and the far right. That much is true. But the violent expression of that hatred accomplishes nothing beyond bringing grief to victims and their families — while hardening opposition against the very causes the perpetrators claim to champion.

The pattern repeats across ideological lines. Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 killed 168 people and injured over 600. McVeigh claimed he sought to avenge federal overreach at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Did the bombing prompt the reforms he envisioned? It did not. What it produced was a wave of national mourning, tightened federal law enforcement powers, and McVeigh’s own execution. The 2015 racially motivated killings at a black church in Charleston, the 2019 Walmart shooting targeting Hispanics in El Paso, the supermarket attack in Buffalo — none of these atrocities moved the country toward the ideological goals of their perpetrators. If anything, they moved it in the opposite direction.

The same futility applies to religiously motivated terrorism. Boko Haram’s sustained campaign of suicide bombings against Nigerian Christians has not produced mass conversions to Islam. Attacks on synagogues have not weakened Jewish identity or community cohesion — if anything, they have strengthened it. Ironically, some 50,000 Jews emigrated to Israel from Western countries after 2023 precisely because of rising antisemitism in their home nations, viewing Israel as a safer place than the societies supposedly more tolerant of them. One cannot escape the irony. But some might say that this was the purpose of the antisemitism – to get Jews to leave.

Political violence is not limited to the religious right. Left-wing terrorism has its own long, unimpressive record. Environmental extremists who spiked trees to injure loggers did not halt deforestation. Green terrorism has not meaningfully reduced fossil fuel consumption. The assassination of a UnitedHealthcare executive in New York and the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball practice represent a left-wing political violence that is no less irrational for being less frequently discussed. A recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that, starting with the second Trump administration in 2025, far-left terrorist plots and attacks began to outnumber those from the far right — a reversal of a long-standing trend.

Recently, Secretary of State Rubio hosted a summit on radical leftist terrorism with 65 national delegations. Rubio said “Today we face a new wave of this old evil here in the United States: the share of left-wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in decades.” Rubio said the administration is rebuilding the U.S. counterterrorism strategy around what it views as an increasingly transnational threat. He argued the United States and its allies must respond by expanding intelligence sharing, law enforcement cooperation and efforts to disrupt terrorist financing.

It is worth acknowledging that “terrorism” is not a monolithic category. Vandalism against Tesla vehicles in protest of Elon Musk’s politics is not morally equivalent to firebombing a church. The academic definitions of terrorism share a common thread: the calculated use of violence or intimidation to generate fear and influence political outcomes. By that standard, almost none of these acts succeed on their own terms. Terror rarely produces the political change it demands.

The historical record is remarkably consistent. White supremacists did not transform Georgia or Mississippi into racially homogeneous enclaves during what I call the reign of deep south terror. Radical Islamists will not convert non-believers through attacks on places of worship. Extremism consistently fails to convert the mainstream to its cause. It alienates potential sympathizers, provides opponents with propaganda, and typically results in the imprisonment or death of the perpetrators themselves.

There is something almost tragic in this. Some grievances are legitimate. Whatever grievances motivate a terrorist, the choice of political violence virtually guarantees those grievances will go unaddressed. The cause becomes inseparable from the atrocity. Radicalism that expresses itself through terror wastes lives, wastes energy, and reliably produces the opposite of its intended effect.

A necessary distinction: this analysis concerns attacks on civilians and non-combatants. Covert military sabotage during wartime occupies a different moral and legal category. Less clear-cut are historical cases like the Allied firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo during World War II — acts that, by the standard definitions, qualify as terrorism against civilian populations, even if conducted by states rather than non-state actors.

Lastly, a word on Islamic terrorism. Even if the proportion of Muslims susceptible to radicalization is as low as one to two percent, two percent of two billion people is forty million. The number is sobering. Yet it raises a useful counter-question: Israel has nearly two million Muslim citizens. By the same rough math, forty thousand might be expected to be radicalized. Yet the rate of domestic terrorism from that population is strikingly low. Whatever combination of economic integration, legal equality, and social investment explains that outcome, it suggests that the conditions producing terrorism matter at least as much as the ideology that inspires it. But I am no expert on Islam.

Terrorism to the terrorist is not irrational and is a moral judgment and a strategic assessment. It must be frustrating. Across ideologies, religions, and continents, terrorism directed at civilians has a near-perfect record of failure. Yet it continues and is verification of the old definition of insanity – continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different outcome. Those who believe otherwise are deluding themselves while sating their own hatreds.

Pat Oliphant (July 24, 1935 – July 13, 2026)

Pat Oliphant, one of the greatest political cartoonists of his generation, has died. He skewered everybody including the rich and the famous. Presidents from Nixon to Reagan to the Bushes to Clinton and Obama saw themselves rendered as cartoon characters. Although he retired in 2015, he came out of retirement to draw two noncomplimentary cartoons of Trump. No one, it seemed, was safe from his pen — not even Margaret Thatcher. “You’re not doing your job if you’re not ticking people off,” he once said, and tick people off he did. He was fond of Ronald Reagan, yet that didn’t stop him from lampooning the president. 

Although Oliphant leaned left, he didn’t spare the left either — he depicted Obama as an Easter Island head worshipped by voters.

No kings? He drew Bill and Hillary Clinton as a king and a queen. He drew Bill Clinton saying he didn’t inhale and Hillary with a Pinocchio nose.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee branded two of his cartoons as racist. The Catholic League called him “one of the most viciously anti-Catholic editorial cartoonists ever to have disgraced the pages of American newspapers.” One particularly brutal cartoon, “Celebration of Spring at St. Pedophilia’s — the Annual Running of the Altar Boys,” drew condemnation from Catholics, and the New York Times, Washington Post, and other papers chose not to print it. Another cartoon depicted Michael Jackson wanting to join the priesthood.

Yes, his cartoons were sometimes met with hostility and dismay, but if he cared, he never showed it. Knoxville was fortunate to have Charlie Daniel as its resident cartoonist for many years and like Daniel there are plenty of editorial

cartoonists working today. But standing in the tradition of Oliphant and Herb Block before him is Michael Ramirez, who is every bit as fearless. Ramirez’s work sometimes goes unpublished by the mainstream media — I suspect because he’s an unapologetic conservative. He draws for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and can be found on the internet. The mainstream media and the left were especially incensed when he depicted Hamas using babies as human shields. And many refused to publish it. Ramirez calls it one of his best pieces of work.

Conservative though he is, Ramirez doesn’t spare his fellow conservatives either.

Cartoonists like Oliphant are rare. But Ramirez carries that mantle well.

https://michaelramirez.substack.com

Warsh Gets a Reprieve — For Now

 

“Whew!” If that isn’t a direct quote from Kevin Warsh it should be. The pressure was building for a rate increase and we all know what Trump feels about a rate increase. Someone had told me that they anticipated that Warsh would try to put through a rate decrease once he was in place at the Fed. I scoffed and said “That’s foolish talk and Warsh is no fool.” What he wants is not to have to raise rates.

Well last month’s CPI report came out and showed inflation cooling to 3.5%, down from 4.2% the month before. That’s still above the Fed’s 2% target, but it’s progress. It is a godsend to Warsh. The cause wasn’t a mystery. Gas prices fell after Trump and Iran reached a memorandum of “understanding” with Trump declaring the Strait of Hormuz open. It was the first monthly CPI decline in two years, and that’s even with the effect of Trump’s tariffs baked in. Gas prices dropped 9.7%, though they’re still up 26.7% year over year.

That drop won’t last, but it buys Warsh some breathing room. With inflation running above 4%, the Fed was going to have a hard time justifying its current rate range. A cut was never going to happen, but a 25-basis-point hike was looking increasingly likely. That pressure has eased heading into the July 29 Open Market Committee meeting. But now that hostilities in Iran have flared up again, gas prices are climbing right back. In Knoxville, I’ve watched regular unleaded jump 50 cents a gallon, with diesel back above $5 at some stations. That’s not a good sign for the Fed’s September 16 meeting. Warsh has to be hoping the conflict is resolved and the Strait reopened by then. Before the CPI report came out, markets had priced in a 40% chance of a rate hike, afterward, that fell to just 17%.

What about the Personal Consumption Expenditures index — the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge? It sat at 4.1% in May, and June’s figures won’t be out until after the Committee meets. It will likely show a similar improvement to the CPI, but July looks less encouraging. The renewed conflict with Iran will push costs back up, and computer prices are already climbing on the back of AI-related spending, up more than 17% for the year. On the plus side, prices have fallen for apparel, used cars, car insurance, and medical care. Trump could ease the pressure on Warsh by rolling back his tariffs, but that seems unlikely.

Warsh testified before the House Financial Services Committee right after the CPI release and cautioned against reading too much into a single month of data. “There might be some who look at this morning’s data and say, ‘Well, mission accomplished, everything is swell.’ That is not my view.” 

The Open Market Committee doesn’t seem to share that view either. Warsh also offered this: “If we get policy right—and we will—the inflation surge of the last five years will be a thing of the past.” True to form, Warsh continues to withhold forward guidance on the Fed’s plans, a break from his predecessors. Asked why, he explained that if policymakers publish economic projections, “We’d then find ourselves sort of taking information that’s consistent with our priors and rejecting information that’s inconsistent. It’s not the way to do things. Being somewhat more circumspect is a better way of calling balls and strikes.”

My goodness, that almost sounds a bit like Alan Greenspan.

Are the Democratic Socialists Democrats?

 

In a race for a Tennessee congressional seat, the state’s republican party barred two candidates from its primary for not being republican enough. That raises a question: why do democrats let non-democrats run in their races? Bernie Sanders, a longtime independent socialist, has run in democratic primaries for years, and today’s crop of democratic socialists has followed his lead. Given that James Carville has said he doesn’t want some of the newly elected members in the democratic caucus, why keep letting them run as democrats in the first place?

Do democrats actually agree with the agenda the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) just released? If so, they should welcome DSA members into the party openly. If not, they should tell them to leave and form their own party. Meanwhile, the supporters who believe socialism is just capitalism with a more generous safety net deserve to see exactly what the DSA has proposed. Anyone who values freedom should help make sure that agenda gets wide attention.

The democrats I know love America. Representative Tom Suozzi of New York’s third congressional district made that case in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. He argued that democrats need to reclaim patriotism instead of ceding it to republicans. Suozzi credited well-regulated capitalism with building the strongest middle class in history, while insisting that fair rules and accountability are what will make it work better. He urged his fellow democrats to reclaim patriotism as a tradition belonging to every American rather than one party.

Contrast that with the DSA. In June, the group’s leadership met to set its national agenda, and the resulting document calls for scrapping the U.S. Senate, sharply cutting the criminal justice system, defunding the Department of Defense, granting amnesty to all immigrants, and replacing the presidency and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by the Congress.

Highlights of the DSA’s agenda:

1. Calls for popular control of resources and production, central economic planning, and equitable distribution, framed around feminism, racial equality, and “non-oppressive relationships.”
2. Demands the total abolition of capitalism, to be replaced by a centrally planned economy with a government-guaranteed job for everyone who wants one, plus free water, energy, transportation, food, and other necessities.
3. Proposes using state action to acquire private property and convert it into publicly, democratically controlled housing.
4. Calls for agricultural collectivization, direct government regulation of food production and prices, nationalizing major industries (finance, health care, real estate, utilities, manufacturing, technology, media), and aggressive regulation of any business not suited to nationalization.
5. Supports free abortion on demand and opposes parental-consent requirements for minors seeking gender-affirming care.
6. Proposes government policies to discourage air travel and personal automobile use.
7. Demands decarbonizing the economy within ten years through solar, wind, and geothermal power.
8. Calls for government-paid, race-based reparations at the local, state, and federal levels.
9. Seeks to abolish the Senate and Electoral College, expand the Supreme Court, move toward a parliamentary electoral system, and extend voting rights to non-citizens and felons.
10. Advocates the total abolition of police and prisons.

This summary draws on the analysis in “The Left of the Left: A Radical Agenda,” available at Capital Research Center.

Traditional democrats primaried by DSA-backed challengers, and republicans who face them in general elections, should keep asking them directly whether they support these policies. This is not the mild, cuddly platform that some gullible, college-educated supporters imagine. The DSA has told us plainly what it stands for and its candidates should be made to defend that agenda in public. Right now many of them are getting away with soft-pedaling it — the question is how long will that last. As Abraham Lincoln is said to have put it: you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

France vs. Spain: A Match Worth Watching

 

I’ve been immune to World Cup fever this year. My son, on the other hand, has watched almost every game. I’m sure Qatar vs. Switzerland was thrilling if you’re Qatari or Swiss, but it didn’t do much for me. Watching with friends, I’ll admit France vs. Morocco was genuinely exciting, mostly thanks to Morocco’s goalkeeper, who was outstanding even in a 2-0 loss. I was looking forward to Norway vs. England given all the hype, but it turned out to be a snooze, and I switched over to a baseball game instead.

But even I will be tuning in for France vs. Spain, thanks to the controversy stirred up by former Spanish foreign prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who claimed the French national team plays “without Frenchmen.” His remark targeted the African heritage of the French players, implying the team doesn’t reflect a “genuine” French identity and quickly drew accusations of racism. Yet of the 26 players on the French roster for the tournament, only three were born outside France: Michael Olise, born in London to a British-Nigerian father and a French-Algerian mother; Marcus Thuram, born in Parma while his father, French football legend Lilian Thuram, was playing in Italy; and Brice Samba, born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

I guess that Rajoy doesn’t realize that not all of Spain’s players are ethnic Castilians. One, Aymeric Laporte was born in France and is a naturalized Spanish citizen. Another, Robin Le Normand was also born in France. Also there are three players of color on the Spanish team: Nico Williams (Ghanaian refugee parents), Lamine Yamal (Moroccan and Equatoguinean descent) and Yeremy Pino (born in Las Palmas, Canary Islands). Rajoy is clearly a fool as well as a bigot.

One member of the Spanish squad pushed back on Rajoy’s comments, calling for tolerance: “If they play for the French national team then at the end of the day they are French, regardless of the color of their skin, because ultimately we have to be tolerant with everyone. The color of their skin doesn’t matter because we are all people and we all deserve respect.” Rajoy caught plenty of criticism inside Spain too. Transport Minister Óscar Puente called him a “dim-witted, post-Francoist crook.”

However, Rajoy wasn’t the only one making racially charged comments about the French squad. Argentine politician Hebe Casado described the French as an “African team” and Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla questioned Kylian Mbappé’s French identity after Paraguay lost to France. Amarilla went further, calling Mbappé — the French captain and star — a “colonized Cameroonian who has really pretended to be French, embittered, nouveau riche, arrogant and ugly,” and claimed he was “scared to death” during the match. 

Wow!

Mbappé responded directly, calling her comments unacceptable and criticizing her conduct as a public official.

“Madame Celeste Amarilla, You are a despicable woman who is unworthy of your position. You do not represent Paraguay, a country that demonstrated passion and honor throughout the competition. Because of your irresponsibility and blatant racism, the entire world has already forgotten the historic journey and effort your players made during this World Cup, and instead now associates your country with an incompetent woman who has given it the worst possible image. I will never allow people like you the freedom to spread their hatred and racism throughout the world.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also weighed in, condemning the racist attacks aimed at his team’s captain: “The President of the Republic stands with Kylian Mbappé and the French team in the face of the racist attacks directed at the Bleus’ captain.”

But the best line came from Olivier Faure, leader of France’s Socialist Party, who posted:

“The French team consists only of French people. France is not an ethnic nation; it has no skin color or religion. It is a political nation united around the republican motto. Much to the dismay of the racist right.”

France and Spain kick off today, July 14, at 3 PM — and I’ll be watching.