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 When it was tried it was quickly repealed.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.

Why does Trump want to sell F-35s to Turkey?

For reasons seemingly known only to himself the president wants to sell Turkey (Turkiye) F-35s. Turkey has been denied the jet due to its purchase of Russian S-400 air defenses for fear that the jets’ radar signature would be compromised. Accordingly, it was sanctioned but Trump now says “we’re going to be taking the sanctions off.” Of course he means that he is going to be taking the sanctions off. U.S. law explicitly prohibits Turkey’s acquisition of the F-35 until it “no longer possesses” the Russian air defenses. Turkey’s president Erdogan is now requesting Russian permission to resell the S-400s to a Gulf monarchy. However, is there any assurance that Turkey would not reacquire the systems once it has the F-35s? Do we really trust Erdogan?

Trump cannot do this unilaterally. It would take an act of Congress and I don’t think it has any appetite whatsoever to okay such a sell. The Wall Street Journal points out that Trump has bypassed the Congress before when it circumvented a waiver process to lift Iran sanctions and said the memorandum of understanding with Iran didn’t need Congress’s approval despite the language of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. It could try a similar maneuver with the F-35. I would be shocked if the republicans and surely not the democrats would let him get away with it this time.

Erdogan hates Israel and remains a patron of Hamas and Hezbollah and is moving arms into the new Syria. His aggressive rhetoric is matched by his military deployments across the region. Interestingly, the coverage of all of this in the American media largely ignores Erdogan’s animus toward Israel although the Journal does mention it briefly when it says “Mr. Trump keeps giving the Turkish strongman credit for not entering the Iran war to attack Israel, even though Mr. Trump says Mr. Erdogan wanted to. Shouldn’t this be disqualifying?

The lack of mention of the friction between Turkey and Israel is front and center in the Israeli press and Al Jazeera. The headline from the Jerusalem Post reads “Netanyahu warns US should not sell F-35s to Turkish regime ‘infected by Muslim Brotherhood.’” Netanyahu says ““Turkey is a great country, but it’s governed by a man who calls openly for the annihilation of Israel.” “He occupies half of Cyprus, a NATO country. He’s threatening Greece, another NATO country, and he talks openly about conquering Jerusalem.” https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-901613

Al Jazeera looks at this differently and asks “Is Turkiye Israel’s next target in the Middle East?” https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/9/21/is-turkiye-israel-next-target-middle-east

The article continues: “On social media, Israeli academic and political figure Meir Masri posted, “Today Qatar, tomorrow Turkey.” Ankara responded sharply. In unusually harsh language, a senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote: “To the dog of Zionist Israel … soon the world will find peace with your erasure from the map.” “For months, pro-Israel media outlets have steadily escalated their rhetoric against Turkiye, portraying it as “Israel’s most dangerous enemy”.

Oops! The Nordic Monitor states that there is “growing evidence suggests that the Erdogan government may be steering Turkey toward a potential military confrontation with Israel, possibly in the Syrian theatre. This concern is reinforced by increasingly belligerent rhetoric from senior officials and a notable shift in Turkey’s strategic doctrine, in which the Jewish state is now framed as a fundamental national security threat.” https://nordicmonitor.com/2026/04/turkey-has-quietly-preparing-a-war-with-israel-primary-target/

The fact that Turkey is a member of NATO makes this hostility particular dicey for the US. NATO’s famous Article 5 says that all members of the alliance, including the US, would be obligated to come to Turkey’s aid if Israel attacked making such an attack highly unlikely. But what would the US do if Turkey attacked Israel? I am no expert but it seems that if there were to be a confrontation it would be over Syria and the continued support of Hamas and Hezbollah by Turkey.

Again, why the American media is ignoring this in its coverage of Trump’s trying to sell F-35s to Turkey escapes me completely.

 

Off with Their Heads!

Off with Their Heads

Now it begins. On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision in Slaughter, the president has fired the entire board of something called the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). In previous purges including Slaughter, the president fired only democrats. This time he fired everyone, republicans included. In case you didn’t know (I didn’t either), the EAC hands out grants for election security, a whopping $15 million last year, publishes a biennial report on voting statistics and oversees certification of election equipment against a set of Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. I’m sure all of that is important, but none of it seems vital to national security, or even to election security. If it’s really that dispensable, the president might as well eliminate it outright — except that would require an act of Congress.

The board members received the following email: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” So why fire everyone? Because the president was angry at the commission. He had ordered it, via executive order, to add a citizenship check to the “national mail voter registration form” and the courts blocked that order. It’s not clear why he fired the board over an order the courts had blocked. Wouldn’t those same courts just as easily veto a citizenship check added by a newly confirmed board?

Then there is the Constitutional which dictates that elections are run by local governments, not the federal government. Democrats tried to seize control of elections with HR 1and now Trump is attempting something similar with the SAVE Act. But the National Mail Voter Registration Form itself is a minor document. Even if the citizenship check had gone through, states reportedly could have opted out of using it. Here’s the form: eac.gov/voters/national-mail-voter-registration-form

Yet as they do with most things Trump does, the democrats are treating the firing of the EAC board as a national catastrophe. Chuck Schumer put it this way: “Donald Trump said Republicans should ‘take over the voting.’ Today, he took another step toward doing exactly that. Firing every remaining member of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission months before the midterms is a brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast. He is gutting the independent agency that certifies voting systems and helps election officials run secure elections. Senate Democrats will fight this power grab at every turn. The American people — not Donald Trump — will decide the 2026 election.”

Schumer, never one to mince words, knows this will not be the outcome of Trump’s actions and is condemning an action that the democrats would love to have taken themselves.  Even if Trump manages to replace the board and get his picks confirmed, it’s now all but guaranteed that the next democratic president will fire them too and install his or her own people. By law the board must be “bipartisan,” meaning any democrat nominated by Trump would immediately be suspect. And going forward, Trump — and every president after him — will be able to fire any board member at any time, without cause. Maybe some people would accept such an appointment but I would not. I believe I am not alone in saying that if I were to accept a nomination it would have to be to a position that always served at the pleasure of the president – such as a cabinet position – and not some piddling election commission.

It would be ironic if the courts, in handing Trump this kind of power, ended up motivating democrats to push for shrinking the number of federal agencies under the executive branch. They might even find some republicans willing to join them. But I doubt it because the democrats know that Trump is doing them a big favor by increasing the scope of power that befalls the next democrat who occupies the White House. In the end, the loser is the American people and when was the last time that was important to our Washington politicians?

Note: I woke up this morning to the news of the passing of Senator Lindsey Graham. I was no fan of the senator’s and was critical of his “bomb them all” attitude yet his death saddens me. I hope he rests in peace.

Trump-o-nomics. Jewish Flight?

Trump-o-nomics 101

 

Our neo-socialist president is at it again. Last year, while defending his tariffs and his effort to force the rest of the world to bend to his will, he said: “We’re a department store, a giant department store, the biggest department store in history. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay.” If he “owns the store and sets the prices,” why did he turn around and blame retailers for raising prices in response to those very tariffs? In a May 2025 posting, Trump wrote: “Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected. Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, ‘EAT THE TARIFFS,’ and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!” Does that sound like someone who “sets prices”?

This summer, Walmart and Sam’s Club announced seasonal sales and Trump promptly claimed credit. The retailers announced “From backyard barbecues and family vacations to pool days and neighborhood gatherings, the savings are designed to help customers and members make the most of the season while spending less on the products they need, want and love most.” The president then tweeted: “Great news! I have just been informed that one of the biggest, best, and smartest Retailers in America, Walmart, will be lowering prices, by a lot, at my Administration’s request to celebrate our great Country’s 250th birthday. Walmart is stepping up in a big and bold way, and other Retailers should follow the lead of these absolute Patriots.”

It brings to mind the old line that the only law politicians really want to repeal is the law of supply and demand. Trump claims he controls prices, then blames companies when those same prices go up and then takes credit when they come back down. If he really believes that, why not just sit down with Lutnick and Bessent and set the price of everything? He’s already tried it with pharmaceuticals, credit card interest rates, and gasoline. Surely AI could handle the rest. Trump graduated from Penn with a bachelor’s degree in economics — which makes this either a failure to grasp the fundamentals he was taught, or a deliberate rejection of them. Either way, Penn should rescind his degree or fire its economics faculty.

Bring Me Your Huddled Masses…

 

In the Daily Signal— a publication of the Heritage Foundation — Michael Freund argues that “The rise of democratic socialism is an opportunity for Republicans.”https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/07/07/democratic-socialism-opportunity/

His argument echoes Ronald Reagan’s famous line that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party — the party left him. For Freund, the ascendance of the progressive wing now occupying the Democrats’ far left is reason enough for traditional democrats to bolt the party.

Freund points to the situation facing American Jews, who have encountered growing hostility from the left — hostility that surged after October 7 and Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Progressives led demonstrations against Israel, often turning violent, rarely acknowledging the country’s right to defend itself or respond to the terrorists who attacked it. Antisemitic incidents rose sharply. Jewish college students reported harassment and candidates openly hostile to Israel’s existence have since been elected to office. Some progressives insist that anti-Israel sentiment is not the same as antisemitism, but few are convinced, and democratic leadership has done little to press that distinction.

Can Jews — historically among the most reliable democratic voters — stay in the party? And what does that mean for Jewish elected officials like Chuck Schumer? There are currently 25 Jewish members of the House and 10 in the Senate. Notably, only Jerry Nadler, who is retiring, currently sits in the Progressive Caucus — though newly elected Brad Lander will likely join.

All of this underscores a deeper problem: America’s lack of real political diversity. In a parliamentary system, the far left would form its own party, leaving Jewish voters free to stay comfortably with an establishment democratic Party. Instead, some Jews may drift toward independent status until the progressive wave recedes, but I expect most will remain democrats. A few more might have considered the Republican Party were Trump not its standard-bearer. His support for Israel hasn’t been enough to offset domestic actions that many Jewish voters find off-putting.

James Carville has said the progressives should break off and form their own party, leaving his behind. Carville, no one’s idea of a moderate, is nonetheless rejecting the radicals who have seeped into his party. But moderate Democrats still exist — the kind once known as Scoop Jackson democrats, who love this country, believe in public safety and secure borders, respect its founders and traditions, and still believe in the American dream.

Freund writes that “the GOP should become the natural home for Americans who believe in ordered liberty, economic opportunity, strong families, religious freedom, public safety, and patriotism without apology.” It should — but so should the democratic party. Those ought to be American values, not partisan ones. Rather than extending an olive branch to Jewish voters alone, republicans should pair that appeal with the principles that actually define their party: limited government, economic freedom, less intrusive regulation, a strong defense, free markets, lower taxes, family values, and individual responsibility. Republicans should tout politics aimed not at dependency but at opportunity, enabling self-sufficiency rather than permanent assistance. Unfortunately, under Trump, those themes have eroded and in some cases been abandoned altogether. That makes it hard to court disaffected democrats when so many republicans are disaffected themselves.

Graham Platner. Clinical Diversity Trials

The Last of Graham Platner

Graham Platner ended his Senate campaign after a self-described progressive democrat came forward with an allegation of rape. An earlier allegation — made by a republican — had been waved off by the same democrats who had spent months defending Platner despite a mounting pile of red flags. Once a fellow progressive leveled the charge, though, the same people who had shrugged off his Nazi tattoo, his odd tweets, and every other red flag suddenly bolted.

State law allows Platner to be replaced on the ballot if he withdraws by July 13. His replacement must be named by July 27. Platner himself isn’t going quietly — he’s accused the media and political establishment of acting as “judge, jury, and executioner,” denied any wrongdoing, and claimed he’s being targeted by democratic insiders threatened by his brand of populism. That’s garbage. Both the progressive and the democratic establishment have run from him as fast as their little legs can take them. Also the establishment showed that they would happily back Satan himself for a shot at flipping a Senate seat. But Platner’s comments do point to the rift between the Bernie Bros and the democrat establishment that is usually glossed over by the media.

The parallel to Biden and Harris is hard to miss — a candidate wins the primary, then exits, and party leaders anoint a successor. Maine democratic leaders will now pick Platner’s replacement from a bench that includes candidates already rejected by Maine voters in past elections. Do they recycle a previous loser or go looking for a fresh face? For now, Susan Collins looks safe either way.

Curiously, early polling had Platner leading among women and Collins leading among men — the opposite of what you might expect, given that the allegations against Platner would seem more likely to alarm women, while his rugged, tattooed, tough-guy image would seem to appeal to the men of Maine.

Even so, Platner was the perfect candidate for today’s democratic left: the son of well-off parents who adopted a working-class aesthetic while preaching the politics of the college-educated progressive class — the group I call the “downwardly mobile.” Their politics, though, aren’t the politics of the working class or of most minority voters, as election results keep showing.

What this episode really reveals is how little character matters in today’s politics, so long as a candidate makes the appropriate clucking sounds and holds some appeal. Swap the “D” next to Platner’s name for an “R,” and he would have been pushed out long before this last allegation surfaced. I found the whole episode a sad indictment of American politics and an embarrassment for democrats —if they can be embarrassed. Many of the same democrats went after Brett Kavanaugh over an allegation from his high school years while giving Platner a pass for vile conduct as an adult.

In the end, what stands out most is that Platner won his primary — defeating a sitting governor — despite everything already public about his past. Primary voters were clearly drawn to him. Prominent progressives campaigned at his side while establishment democrats stayed quiet or offered only tepid, hedging statements. It’s a far cry from the moment Republicans across the board condemned David Duke when he won a Louisiana gubernatorial primary — some going so far as to say they’d vote for his opponent, the famously corrupt Edwin Edwards, instead. Today, both parties are willing to trade honor for a winnable seat.

Bring Back Clinical Trial Diversity

I’ve argued before that the administration’s push to purge diversity efforts from government is shortsighted and clinical trials are the clearest example of why. Cutting funding for clinical trial diversity rests on the assumption that we’re all biologically alike. We’re not. Different ethnic groups carry different incidence rates for the same diseases and treating a homogeneous study population as universally representative produces medicines that don’t work equally well for everyone.

Kidney disease is the starkest example. The formulas long used to assess kidney function — and to determine eligibility for treatment and dialysis — were built on data that underrepresented black patients. The result was systematic bias, delayed diagnoses, denied treatment, and higher rates of preventable death. As one researcher has put it, “A lack of diversity in clinical trials compromises data quality, obscures critical safety signals, and produces treatments that may not work for everyone.” That isn’t an ideological claim — it’s simply a description of what happens when a sample doesn’t match the population it’s meant to serve.

BiDil makes the same point from the opposite direction. In trials on a general population, the congestive heart failure drug showed no meaningful efficacy and looked like a dead end. But when researchers analyzed subgroups separately, they found the drug worked dramatically well in black patients — a finding that led the FDA to approve BiDil as the first drug approved for a single ethnic group. Without that subgroup analysis, an effective treatment would have been discarded entirely.

Both cases point to the same conclusion: clinical trial diversity isn’t political — it’s a data-quality requirement. Folding it into the broader anti-DEI push is simply dumb or stupid producing consequences that are measurable and harmful, not abstract. Let’s hope the administration corrects this obvious misstep.