Has baseball lost its soul?

 

Why do baseball players spit in their hands? My mother thought that was even more disgusting than the players’ habit of grabbing their groin. I’ve been a baseball fan since I watched Jackie Robinson play live at Ebbets Field as a kid. Recently I had breakfast with an old friend who told me his childhood heroes were all baseball players: Lou Brock, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, Bob Gibson, Roy Campanella. I asked him to name one current American black superstar. He said “Aaron Judge” — and struggled to get further. Mookie Betts, Michael Harris II, and Byron Buxton aren’t quite on that level. When I asked him to name a black starting pitcher, he came up empty; David Price has retired and he didn’t think of Hunter Greene.

The numbers back up the impression. Most major league clubs including the Cubs, Padres, Orioles, Phillies, Blue Jays, Mets, Rangers, Red Sox, don’t have a single American black starter. League-wide, American blacks make up only about 6 percent of major league rosters.

An old pattern, repeating?

That decline made me think of boxing, where the same climb-and-fade pattern has played out for a century. John L. Sullivan and the Irish dominated first. Then, in the early twentieth century, ambitious young Jews fighting their way out of poverty producing champions like Joe Choynski, Abe Attell, and Benny Leonard — boxing as a ladder out of the ghetto.

Then the ladder passed to black fighters. George Dixon, a black Canadian, won the bantamweight title in 1890 and became the first black athlete to win a world championship in any sport. Jack Johnson followed, and with him the rise of boxing greats like Archie Moore, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Evander Holyfield, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Mike Tyson, Joe Louis, Marvin Hagler, Thomas and Johnson himself. Boxing gave black athletes a way out of oppression and a source of pride. 

After them came a wave of Hispanic fighters from Mexico, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Nicaragua, mostly in the lighter weight classes. Now Asian boxers are rising in the flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight, and lightweight divisions. Manny Pacquiao, champion in eight different weight classes, may the best of them.

Boxing has always been “the sport of kings” for the downtrodden: whichever group is hungriest and most determined tends to dominate it. So does the fade of black players from baseball mean American blacks are no longer “determined and downtrodden” in the way that pattern requires? Or has the ladder simply moved — to football and basketball?

Latin soul

I don’t think baseball has lost its soul. It’s just changed hands. The first generation of black stars — like the first generation of Latin players such as Roberto Clemente, the first Latino in the Hall of Fame, along with Mariano Rivera, Juan Marichal, Rod Carew, and Orlando Cepeda — played it straight, embracing the game’s staid, all-white traditions rather than disrupting them.

Today’s Latin players are a different story. With their bat flips and showmanship, they’ve brought the flair that earlier generations weren’t allowed to show. Baseball is now a world sport with more and more Asian players but I can’t discern much “soul” in the Asian game. It’s the Latin players — with the dreads, tats, and earrings that Barry Bonds may have started — who bring the flamboyance. Once, a bat flip would get you a fastball at your ear. Now Sports Center tracks bat-flip highlights right alongside home run distance. Latinos have kept the sport fun. Call it Latin soul.

And now soccer. Soccer?

What is really intriguing is that on the US team in the World Baseball Classic there were only two blacks, Aaron Judge and Byron Buxton. But on the US men’s soccer team in the World Cup there are twelve blacks on the roster. I always assumed soccer was a suburban sport for kids whose parents wanted the boys somewhere safer than a football field. So where did all these black players come from?

Has soccer quietly become the new ladder for black youth, the way boxing was and baseball were before it? I doubt it. Pardon me, but soccer is not an inner city sport. Soccer is not offering the same path to advancement that boxing and baseball once did. So if it’s not soccer, and it’s increasingly not baseball, where exactly are we seeing that next generation of black athletic ambition go? That’s the real question the numbers are asking.

So what in the wide world of sports is going on?

 

Trying to Kill the American Dream

Some progressives argue that the American Dream is no longer attainable. Many Ivy League-educated black intellectuals have told people in urban communities that the odds are permanently stacked against them—that America is fundamentally racist and success is out of reach. At the same time, white progressives deliver a similar message to white Americans, portraying the economic system as irreparably unfair.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has argued that “you can’t earn a billion dollars,” suggesting that such wealth can only be accumulated by exploiting others. In effect, her argument implies that achieving extraordinary financial success requires unethical behavior. Bernie Sanders has likewise argued that the American Dream has “turned into a nightmare” because billionaires have rigged the system to avoid accountability. Critics have noted the irony that Sanders himself has become a millionaire.

Ocasio-Cortez argues that the “right wing’s entire political agenda …[involves] a politics that involves lying to and screwing over working and middle-class Americans so that they can steal from our healthcare, Social Security and veterans’ benefits to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest and bailouts for their crypto billionaire friends.” Her crypto billionaires excluded of course.

Whether one agrees with her assessment or not, these messages contribute to a broader narrative that the economic system is fundamentally stacked against ordinary Americans.

Public opinion reflects this growing skepticism. Recent polling has found that fewer than half of Americans believe everyone has an opportunity to achieve the American Dream. It is not surprising that many younger Americans have become more receptive to socialism, even if they have only a limited understanding of what it entails.

The danger is that repeatedly telling people success is unattainable discourages initiative and entrepreneurship. Those willing to take risks and build businesses become fewer in number. Rather than encouraging perseverance, these messages can provide an excuse for inaction.

When challenged, Ocasio-Cortez has defended her rhetoric, arguing that critics attack her personally rather than addressing the substance of her arguments. She contends that working people deserve an honest discussion about concentrations of economic power. She says:

Some people get enraged that I draw attention to this. That’s on them. Let them call me shrill, dumb, inexperienced, girly, uneducated – these folks will say anything to distract from or undercut the truth that working people are getting screwed, and giving people a fair shake means we must have a grown conversation about reigning in abuse of power.

Most Americans never expect to become billionaires. But if someone does aspire to extraordinary success, what actually stands in the way? Success is not built on theft or exploitation. More often it comes from innovation, creativity, perseverance, and calculated risk-taking.

Companies such as Amazon, FedEx, Tesla, and Pilot have created products and services that millions of people voluntarily use and those products improve their lives. Their founders became wealthy by creating value that customers willingly embraced.

At its core, the American Dream is the belief that every individual has the freedom and opportunity to improve his or her circumstances through hard work, talent, and determination. That ideal has inspired generations of Americans and millions of immigrants seeking a better future.

If belief in the American Dream were truly disappearing, one might expect innovation to decline as well. Yet the number of U.S. patents has continued to grow over time, suggesting that entrepreneurial activity remains strong despite the pessimism from the left.

America certainly faces serious challenges, including shortcomings in education and increasing international competition for scientific talent. Yet despite these obstacles, countless individuals continue to achieve remarkable success. They have not accepted the argument that opportunity no longer exists.

I once said that there were three types of people: the 3 percent who make things happen; the 7 percent that knows what’s happening and the. 90 percent who haven’t a clue what’s happening. Political messages that emphasize helplessness appeal most strongly to those seeking explanations for personal disappointments and failures rather than opportunities to improve their circumstances.

My criticism of Ocasio-Cortez is a living contradiction of her own words. She, herself is evidence of the opportunities available in America while simultaneously arguing that those opportunities are largely unavailable to others – especially people of color, like her. Whether one agrees with her politics or not, her own career demonstrates that remarkable advancement remains possible. AOC is the embodiment of the American dream but she tries convince others that unlike her, they cannot succeed. Her mother was a house cleaner and a school bus driver. After college AOC was a bartender and a waitress. Now she is a member of congress being paid $174,000 a year. 

On a personal note, I find these arguments insulting because of my family’s history. All my great grandparents were slaves. My great-grandmother told me that she was “picking cotton on Bonner’s Hill when Sherman rode up.” Leaving the plantation with little more than the clothes on her back, she pursued a better life. Her children did the same, as did subsequent generations of our family.

For me, that powerful history embodies the American Dream. I have often remarked that only in America could descendants of enslaved people become the professors teaching the descendants of former slaveholders that the American Dream is dead. My family’s history and millions like it reinforce my belief that opportunity, while never guaranteed, remains one of America’s defining characteristics.

So pardon me AOC, but you are full of it.

Birthright Citizens, Donald Trump’s “Honest Graft”

Birthright Citizens

The star of the U.S. World Cup team who was unfairly red-carded is a birthright baby. Folarin Balogun was born in Brooklyn by sheer happenstance — his Nigerian-born parents were visiting the United States when his mother was seven months pregnant. When they tried to return to Britain, she wasn’t able to fly because of her pregnancy. Once Folarin was born, the family left for England, where he was raised.

He’s in good company. Other notable birthright citizens include Kamala Harris, Colin Powell, Marco Rubio, Mehmet Oz, Bruce Lee, Nicole Kidman, Mel Gibson, Michelle Kwan, Tammy Duckworth, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Joan Rivers, Renée Zellweger, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Ajit Pai, Seema Verma, Elaine Chao, Kash Patel, Usha Vance, and Alex Padilla. All are noteworthy, but as of this writing, many people — including my son — would argue that the most important one is Folarin Balogun.

Trump Netted a Fortune Off Crypto While Others Lost Theirs — Ho Hum

Last year I joked about the president’s memecoins. His digital tokens, sold by his family’s World Liberty Financial, netted the president $800 million. But two-thirds of the buyers of the coin are currently underwater. Trump called bitcoin a “scam” back in 2021. He was right. But that didn’t stop his family’s crypto business from flourishing despite the obvious conflicts of interest. P.T. Barnum was right. $TRUMP surged to a peak market capitalization of nearly $15 billion before plunging 97% to about $400 million today.

Trump and the White House pooh-poohed any suggestion of a conflict of interest. “You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market is going up. We’re all profiting. I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash,” the president said. One observer put it more bluntly regarding the windfall from the crypto sale: “It looks like it was a great monetization vehicle for him and his family, and he’s taking care of his own.”

Also the president’s disclosure documents show that entities from the Gulf paid around $300 million to the president’s businesses last year. More than $2 billion in revenue across his businesses, including $263 million from selling half his stake in World Liberty Financial to a company backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan — whose brother is president of the United Arab Emirates.

Hey, no conflict there! Of course, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said “the breadth and depth of this filing further underscores our commitment to transparency,” and a White House spokeswoman insisted, “There are no conflicts of interest.”

Sure.

In a series of trades on April 3 and April 4 — days after Trump announced global tariffs — his investment accounts bought and sold hundreds of individual stocks. Those trades were among more than 21,000 moves by Trump’s investment accounts around “Liberation Day.” Insider information, anyone? The president’s accounts made hundreds of individual trades a day that April, moving an average of $4.2 million daily.

The president’s response: “Who, me? My kids run it. Almost anything they do… they have inside information. I tell my kids to stay away from as much as you can stay away from, but they also have a life.” Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, invested in Vulcan Elements three months before the company received a $620 million government loan. The Trump administration offered a $1.6 billion in financing for a project to develop a tungsten mine in Kazakhstan — and a firm partly owned by Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. invested in a company backing that same project shortly before the administration announced its minerals deal with Kazakhstan. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest.”

Sure.

His accounts bought $250,000 worth of Intel stock. Days later, Trump announced the government was taking a 10% equity stake in Intel whose stock rose more than 370%. He also purchased $155,000 in MP Materials, a rare-earth miner, shortly before his administration acquired a 15% equity stake in the company. It’s share price skyrocketed. Then Trump’s investment accounts sold some of their MP shares. Hia financial disclosure shows capital gains of $1 million in capital gains last year from that rare-earths stake.

In July 2025, the White House unveiled an “AI Action Plan,” billed as a blueprint for winning the artificial-intelligence race. That same day, one Trump investment account bought between $6 million and $30 million worth of stock — at least $1 million apiece in Broadcom, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia, plus a separate purchase of at least $1 million in Alphabet shares, according to the disclosures.

The Wall Street Journal has a name for all this: “honest graft.” As the paper put it, the main difference between Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings and the Trump family’s projects is that the Trumps are brazenly open about theirs. Hey, the man’s got to make back all that money he spent on lawyers defending himself against all the lawsuits and investigations cooked up by Biden and his cronies. 

Right?

Yes I know that Clinton, Obama and Biden enriched themselves too. But I also know that when Omar disclosed that she and her husband’s wealth had miraculously increased from around $40,000 to $30 million, the republicans demanded investigations into the source of her income and her husband’s business ventures. Omar’s gains are chump change compared to Trump and his family – let’s not forget Jared and Ivanka’s island in Albania. Where are the republican demands for investigations of the president?

Happy Independence Day, America! 2026

Note: This is my annual salute to our wonderful country.

Two hundred and fifty years. That is two and a half centuries of standing as the world’s greatest and most successful demonstration of the power of individualism, freedom, limited government, private property, and initiative. Thank you, England, for showing the Founding Fathers exactly what  governments should not do. And thanks to the Founding Fathers themselves, whose brilliance gave us the Declaration of Independence and, even more remarkably, the Constitution of the United States. Faced with the deep divide between the abolitionists of the north and the slaveholders of the south, they wrote a document that could unite a fledgling country while still laying the groundwork for the day when all would truly be equal in the eyes of the law. It is hard to imagine today’s politicians producing anything close to it; few possess the writing skill, the rhetorical skill, the intellect, or the moral seriousness our founders brought to the task.

Ever wonder why we celebrate July 4, 1776 as the country’s birthday? Why not January 14, 1784, the date the Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris and the United States began its formal existence as a sovereign nation? July 4, 1776 was the day the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, a statement that the colonies no longer existed and a new, independent nation had been born. That is why I call July 4th Independence Day and January 14th the country’s birthday. Disagree? I’m used to being in the minority.

I love this country. But every time I visit my parents’ and my brother’s graves in Atlanta, I’m struck by how few American flags fly in the neighborhoods I pass through. I notice the same thing visiting my daughter in northern Virginia, even though many of her neighbors depend on government paychecks for their livelihood. In my own neighborhood in Knoxville, flags are everywhere. I fly one at the entrance to my driveway and another at my boat dock. Why the difference? Is it because those other neighborhoods lean democratic, and somewhere along the way “democrat” got equated with “less patriotic”? Pardon me if I think that’s nonsense. Patriotism and love of country shouldn’t belong to one side. Where else in the world do you find this richness of expression paired with this abundance of wealth for ordinary citizens? It reminds me of the migrant making the long, hard journey to the southern border who, when asked why, said he wanted to live in a country where even the poor people were fat.

I’ve certainly disagreed at times with the people entrusted to lead this country. There have been moments when I believed the federal government, or a state government, individually or collectively, got it wrong. I’ve done my small part to voice that displeasure and push for change. But I have never stopped loving this country. The same can’t be said for those on the extremes, especially on the left, who denigrate the country and want to fundamentally remake it. They want the Constitution rewritten or abolished. They want to abolish the Electoral College. They call their opponents names, boycott their products, hold demonstrations that are billed as peaceful but often turn violent, shout down speakers they disagree with, teach division in our public schools and universities, and push for changes that would ironically curtail their own freedom of speech and expression. Are they too shortsighted to see that? Apparently so. Yet figures like Bernie Sanders and AOC wouldn’t have the prominent voices they do if not for the very freedoms this country protects. I welcome that diversity of opinion and don’t want it silenced, even though some of its loudest voices would happily silence people like me.

The most notable shift over the past year has been the growing electoral strength of the radical left. Socialism has always had a role, however small, in American politics. Eugene Debs helped found what became the democratic socialist movement and ran for president five times, along with a run for Congress. He founded the American Railway Union and led a wildcat strike of 250,000 workers that landed him in jail, though he was never elected to office. The first socialist elected to Congress may have been Wisconsin’s Victor Berger, who won a House seat in 1910. Reelected in 1919, he was denied his seat after being convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917 for his anti-war views. The Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, and Berger went on to serve three more terms.

Today, the political descendants of Debs and Berger are far more numerous and appear to be on the rise. Sanders, AOC, and Elizabeth Warren look almost moderate next to a newer wave of candidates who won primaries in safely democratic districts and are headed to the House next term. Add to that mayors like Mamdani in New York and Wilson in Seattle. Some worry this trend threatens the country’s foundations, and it might. So far, though, these candidates have only unseated fellow democrats in solidly democratic areas. The real test comes if and when socialists start winning in republican districts. History’s lesson, that socialism erodes freedom, tends toward the rule of despots, and produces economic misery, seems lost on a generation that either doesn’t know that history or refuses to believe it. The evidence is plain to anyone willing to look: compare East Germany to West Germany, North Korea to South Korea, or Russian and Chinese per capita income to America’s. None of it seems to shake socialism’s most devoted believers. Still, most Americans aren’t fooled and it remains to be seen whether this infatuation fades into just another minor faction in American politics.

In a way, the World Cup coming to America may open some eyes among our jaded youth. Isn’t it better to live in a country the rest of the world gawks with envy? Wouldn’t you rather be the gawkee than be the gawker?

This is a unique place, a wonderful place, and I’m glad to be here. I’m glad for my heritage, and I count myself fortunate to share in the wonders of this beautiful country. 

I love you, America. Happy Independence Day.

Justices Give the President Power Over Independent Agencies

The Supreme Court has ruled on the limits of executive power over independent federal agencies. In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court considered the president’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission. Because FTC commissioners are nominated for fixed terms and confirmed by the Senate, Slaughter argued that the president lacked the authority to remove her before her term expired.

Several issues are at stake here. First, the FTC, like many of the eighty or so “independent” agencies, is required by law to be “bipartisan.” The FTC has five members, three of whom must belong to the president’s party. Under Biden three members were democrats and two were republicans, with the chairman a democrat. Trump’s election victory would normally have prompted that chairman to resign—regardless of how much time remained in the term—allowing the president to appoint a republican chairman. In effect, at the FTC, Trump preempted that tradition by firing a democrat to secure a republican majority sooner.

The second issue is more fundamental. These agencies sit technically within the executive branch, yet they make legislative-style policy decisions with independence from the president. The central question is whether the president should have authority over them. The Supreme Court answered yes, in a 6–3 vote, holding that the president may remove any member of these agencies without cause. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the case was not a difficult one for him: “Nearly 250 years ago, the Framers decided to vest ‘[t]he executive Power’ in one person – a President of the United States of America. The choice was not made lightly.” Roberts added that executive officers “were to serve as envoys of the president, not his equals. … Because these officers were subject to the president’s superintendence, they had to be removable by him at will.”

Justice Sotomayor wrote the dissent, noting that “Congress and the president together have decided that some government functions should operate at a distance from partisan politics.” She echoed Woodrow Wilson’s vision of “progressive governance,” arguing that some functions of government should be overseen by experts in those fields, writing that “the wisdom of the centuries has taught that some decisions should depend not only on who is in office—much less on who is disfavored or owed a favor by those in office—but also on judgment, expertise, and the public good.” Yet this assumes that such “experts” operate independent of political agendas, rather than carrying their own.

Justice Sotomayor surely knows better, as do Justices Kagan and Jackson, who joined her dissent. As I’ve argued before, the officials who write regulations—in essence, make law—at these agencies do so without presidential approval, subject only to congressional oversight. So the more relevant question may be why these bodies aren’t simply made part of the legislative branch rather than the executive branch. Sotomayor is correct that this ruling substantially expands presidential power. As she put it, “the Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted.”

On that point, she is correct—and notably, Justice Gorsuch, who joined the majority, agreed with her. Gorsuch wrote that it was doubtful Congress would have given executive-branch agencies such expansive authority—especially quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial authority—if the president could control them without the other constitutional checks Congress had tried to impose. “From here,” he wrote, “the only sure path is to finish the journey we start today and restore legislative and judicial powers to where they belong: in Congress and the courts.”

Because this ruling applies to all independent agencies except the Federal Reserve, it presumably extends to the banking agencies as well, including the FDIC and the National Credit Union Administration. At the NCUA, Trump removed both democratic board members—including one he had nominated during his first term—leaving only the republican member in place. The NCUA had until 1978 been led by a single administrator who, like the Comptroller of the Currency, served at the pleasure of the president. When the law was changed, the NCUA board was created and I was appointed by President Carter to serve on that first board. Going forward, the president will still be bound by the statute’s bipartisan requirement, but will have to appoint one democrat and one republican to the NCUA board—either of whom can now be removed without cause. It will be interesting to see whether this ruling affects the caliber of future appointees, and whether the president now takes a more active role in these agencies’ rulemaking.

Lastly, I thought that like Chief Justice Roberts, that this was not a difficult case, that the precedent, Humphrey Executor was a decision likely to be overturned. I also believed that if Trump were not president that the vote would have been 9-0. Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson were voting against giving Trump more power rather than ruling on the basis of the Constitution. I am certain that they would have voted otherwise if a democrat were president.

Next, I will post on Trump v. Cook, the special case of the Federal Reserve.

Can the President Fire a Fed Governor?

 

Whew — that was close. 

In Trump v. Cook, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that President Trump cannot fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. If one justice had ruled otherwise and the Court instead held that the president may remove a Fed governor for any reason at any time, financial markets would likely have reacted with real turmoil. There is little doubt Trump would have immediately fired Jay Powell, Lisa Cook, Michael Barr, and Philip Jefferson. Interest rates would have jumped, stocks would have sold off, and the dollar would have fallen sharply on world markets.

I recall an earlier episode when the Open Market Committee once voted against the chairman, markets tanked in response. That reaction would look mild next to what a single flipped vote in this case could have unleashed. A ruling for Trump would have ended the Fed’s independence. Any new Trump appointees might not even have secured Senate confirmation — and if they had, they would have been widely seen as presidential cronies. Then, when another president took office, that president would likely have fired all of Trump’s appointees and installed a new set of loyalists. And when the terms of the regional reserve bank presidents all expired in February 2031, a reconstituted board could have fired them as well. Then the president would have complete and total control of the nation’s central bank.

Trump has consistently pushed for a 1 percent interest rate even in the face of elevated inflation. A Trump-dominated Fed would have delivered that, and likely more. What would that have meant for rates and inflation? Every president wants lower rates and easier money, especially heading into an election year.

So that one vote likely spared us a period of economic chaos and inflation approaching levels we associate with some of our South American neighbors.

Again, whew!

The Case for “Cause”

Trump maintained that Cook was being fired “for cause,” citing an allegation of mortgage fraud. The Court initially held that Cook could not be removed without a chance to respond to that allegation and allowed her to remain at the Fed while the matter is litigated. Presumably, if the allegation were proven, she could then be removed. As I noted earlier, Trump wanted to fire Cook “be-cause” — not “for cause” — but because he wanted control of the Fed.

As in the companion Slaughter case, the Court split along similar lines, with the president prevailing there by a wider margin. In Slaughter, the three liberal justices voted against expanding presidential removal power, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh. Under the Slaughter ruling, the president can now fire any presidential appointee of any independent agency for any reason — except at the Fed, where cause must exist and, presumably, be proven. Trump has said he will continue seeking Cook’s removal.

Why the Fed Is Different

The Chief Justice warned that without such constraints, “any perceived or alleged misstep — past or present — could provide a ready pretext for a Governor’s removal,” a risk that would weigh on a governor as he or she decided what to say and how to vote. But the same logic could just as easily have applied in Slaughter. So what makes the Fed different?

The Chief Justice pointed to the Fed’s unique role in conducting monetary policy, invoking the tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States, which Congress chartered partly to regulate the currency. Justice Thomas countered that those early banks “possessed no sovereign power,” whereas today’s Fed wields substantial executive authority over the regulation of financial institutions. On this point, Roberts and Kavanaugh seem inconsistent with their own reasoning in Slaughter. My own read is that much like the three liberal justices in Slaughter, Roberts and Kavanaugh were voting against handing this much power to Trump specifically — and not ruling strictly on constitutional grounds.

Justice Gorsuch had the more principled position. He voted consistent with the law as written and if Congress were unhappy with the result, it is Congress’s job to change the law. Gorsuch noted that Congress might never have delegated so much authority to agencies like these “had it known that the President would come to control them.” The 1935 Humphrey’s Executor precedent, he argued, made independent agencies more attractive vehicles for delegated power precisely because presidents could not easily reach them — a dynamic that produced a steady accumulation of power in an alphabet soup of administrative agencies that write and enforce law. Gorsuch called on Congress to reclaim its legislative authority and on the Court to revive its long-dormant non-delegation doctrine, which holds that Congress cannot hand off its core legislative powers to another branch, or to a private entity, without an “intelligible principle” guiding that delegation.

A Cleaner Fix

Gorsuch is right and the underlying dilemma has a fairly clean solution — one I’ve been proposing for fifty years: split the Fed into two distinct bodies. The first would handle monetary policy, staffed by governors with genuine expertise in monetary economics. At the moment, Christopher Waller is the only sitting Fed governor who fits that description. The second body would handle the Fed’s regulatory functions and could be staffed by the remaining current governors. Monetary governors would be removed only for cause, as today. Regulatory governors could be removed for any reason, consistent with the standard now applied to other “independent” agencies under Slaughter. That would preserve Fed independence in monetary affairs and allow markets to rest easily.

The Supreme Court’s Birthright Citizenship Decision

The Supreme Court ruled against President Trump in the birthright citizenship case. The president had issued an executive order directing federal agencies not to recognize citizenship for children born in the United States unless at least one parent was an American citizen. He was sued immediately and lost at every level, including the Supreme Court.

I had predicted the president would lose and likely lose unanimously. Instead the decision was 6-3. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented.

The Majority Opinion

Roberts wrote the majority opinion saying ““The Fourteenth Amendment achieved its aim. The Citizenship Clause mirrored the common law’s criteria for citizenship,” Roberts wrote. “The Clause starts, like the common law, with territory—a child must be ‘born in the United States,’ not elsewhere (even to

American parents). And the Clause ends, again like the common law, with sovereign power—a child must be ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States, unlike (say) the families of foreign ministers. A child born on American soil and subject to American law was made an American citizen. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-bornperson in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”

The Dissents

I had speculated that Justice Thomas might side with the majority in that an earlier ruling in 2022 indicated that he supported the 14^th Amendment. I was wrong. Thomas wrote for the minority saying Thomas wrote that the majority “has repurposed the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the president’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens. In doing so, the court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.” “Today, the Court does so again by recognizing a constitutional right to citizenship for the children of all foreign birth tourists and illegal aliens. I am not sure that today’s opinion will stand the test of time.”

Clarence Thomas is one of the few of my living heroes still living. But he’s wrong here, on two counts. First, the decision has already withstood the test of time in the sense that matters most: it follows directly both from the text and the history of the ratification of the amendment. Second, this Court did not repurpose the Fourteenth Amendment at all. As I wrote in an earlier post, if Congress had wanted to exclude the children of noncitizens, it would have said so when it drafted the amendment. The ratification debates make that clear.

What the Ratification Debates Actually Show

Here is what I posted back on April 1, 2026: Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania asked whether Californians were expected to sit quietly while overrun by immigration from the “Mongol race,” and whether they would be driven from their homes by Chinese immigrants. It’s not a stretch to say that sounds like something Stephen Miller might say today.

The Senate’s answer came from Senator John Conness of California, who told Cowan not to trouble himself over the Chinese in California or on the Pacific coast and said the Senate was entirely willing to accept that children born there to Chinese parents would be citizens, entitled to equal protection under the law just like anyone else.

So Justice Thomas is wrong.

Gorsuch: The Real Surprise

The real surprise is Justice Gorsuch, who sided with Thomas and Alito, a striking reversal from his own questioning at oral argument. Reason magazine reported that the government’s lawyer, Solicitor General John Sauer, had argued that birthright citizenship should turn on whether a newborn’s parents were “domiciled” in the United States, meaning lawful presence with intent to remain permanently. Gorsuch pushed back hard on that framing, noting that the term never appears anywhere in the congressional debates over the amendment. He stressed that the clause focuses on the child, not the parents, and called the absence of any mention of domicile “striking”, according to Reason’s account.

Gorsuch also pointed out a second problem with the government’s position: immigration law is far more restrictive today than it was in 1868, when someone could establish domicile with no immigration law standing in the way at all. If the Court is going to apply an 1868 understanding of domicile, as the Solicitor General himself insisted it should, then a person’s immigration status shouldn’t matter under that same test. In other words, the historical meaning of domicile the administration was leaning on actually refuted its own argument.

And yet, after laying out that devastating critique of the government’s case, Gorsuch voted with the dissent, siding with Thomas and Alito. Justice Barrett, interestingly, walked through the same reasoning, reached the same conclusion that the president’s argument was fatally flawed, and voted the other way, joining the majority to uphold birthright citizenship.

Go figure.

(A personal note: I am having cataract surgery tomorrow and likely will not post. Forthcoming are posts on the Court’s decisions on whether the president can fire officials appointed to fixed terms who are confirmed by the Senate.)

World Cup

I suspect that both progressives and Donald Trump have reason to resent the World Cup — though for very different reasons.

For progressives, the tournament has inadvertently produced an extended advertisement for American life. To be sure, the visitors arriving to watch their teams play are largely affluent by their countries’ standards— international travel requires both money and time. But the news has been filled with accounts of guests marveling at things ordinary Americans take entirely for granted: Buc-ee’s, Costco, Chick-fil-A, bottomless chips and salsa, free refills, the quality of the housing stock, and, perhaps above all, air conditioning. But even I was blown away the first time I walked into a Buc-ee’s. Who wouldn’t be?

One British visitor reportedly quipped that asking for a free refill back home would be like “asking for a second mortgage.” He must have been in the south because once I asked for a refill in a northern restaurant and was looked at as if I were speaking in tongues.

All of this enthusiasm for American abundance must sit uneasily with those who spend their days cataloguing the country’s failures. The familiar complaints about “affordability” and the perils of Trumpism ring a little hollow when voiced by people riding around in Teslas, chatting on iPhones, and sipping lattes — while visitors from around the world wish they had it so bad. We take abundance for granted because abundance is what most Americans have always known. Not true for most of the planet.

Trump, meanwhile, has his own reasons for discomfort. His sustained campaign against America’s allies — attacking NATO, imposing tariffs, threatening to annex Greenland, and alienating Canada — has taken a measurable toll on tourism and, by extension, on economic growth. Tourism accounts for roughly three percent of U.S. GDP, and tourism had been declining as a response to Trump’s actions. Canadians, in particular, have responded to Trump’s provocations by boycotting American goods and canceling vacations stateside. The World Cup has temporarily reversed that trend, injecting money into the economy and, more importantly, giving millions of visitors a chance to experience this wonderful country firsthand. Many stereotypes, one imagines, did not survive the encounter. In many ways Trump embodies the caricature of the “ugly American” — yet the Americans themselves have shown the world a warmer, more generous side.

The Scottish invasion of Boston has received the most attention. Videos of Scottish fans singing in pubs, marching through city streets, and trading banter with locals have racked up millions of views online, earning Boston the affectionate nickname “New Scotland.” But the phenomenon has played out in every host city. Who knew that ranch dressing would be a revelation? 

Another visitor was taken by Indiana:

“Indiana is exactly how I dreamed America would be — small towns, wide open spaces, cornfields, barns, cute houses, diners, water towers, friendly people, great food, American flags everywhere, and so much more!”

Indiana? I haven’t seen reaction of visitors to Atlanta where 250,000 descended on the city and turned downtown into a festival. But it should be noted that some host stadiums dramatically increased their concession prices. Not so at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium where the prices were shockingly low. 

What are the prices for food and drinks at Mercedes-Benz Stadium?

The prices for food and drinks at the stadium include:

• Fountain Coke products – $2
• Hot dogs – $2
• Fries – $3
• Draft beer – $5
• Bottled water – $3
• Popcorn – $2
• Pizza slice – $3
• Cheeseburger – $5
• Pretzel – $3
• Nachos w/ cheese – $3
• Fountain Coke products in a souvenir cup – $4
• Chicken tender basket w/ french fries – $6

 My son, a retired Waffle House executive, would be delighted by this one.

All of this wonderment at a different culture brought to mind the Babylon Bee’s spoof of two Californians adjusting to life in Texas: https://babylonbee.com/video/californians-adjust-to-new-life-in-texas

I doubt if the progressives will stop bad mouthing America. But maybe people will start to realize that most of what they say is an exaggerated lie. And also maybe, just maybe the president might reconsider all the damage he has done to the country and to the world with his threats and tariffs and start walking them back.

Fat chance. 

But thank you, World Cup.

Don’t Seat Them!

The election of two avowedly radical candidates to the U.S. House of Representatives raises a question that is both constitutional and moral: should Congress seat members who have openly expressed contempt for the country they are sworn to serve?

The Oath of Office

Every member of Congress must take the following oath before assuming office:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

The question is whether newly elected representatives Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez can take that oath in good faith. Chevalier has described the United States as the “ultimate embodiment” of Western imperialism and colonialism and was a founding member of a college organization that called for the “total eradication of Western civilization.” Valdez has called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, granting citizenship and voting rights to all undocumented immigrants, and has argued that the United States has “no right to enforce its borders” because it is a nation “founded on genocide and mass displacement.”

If either takes the oath, they would be making a promise their own public statements suggest they do not intend to keep. If they refuse, a different set of questions is raised entirely. In either case, should Congress refuse to seat them?

Carville’s Warning

Democratic strategist James Carville thinks that they should not be allowed in the democrat caucus. He said “Two of ‘em I don’t think are even Democrats. This Chevalier lady, I don’t – they should not seat her in the caucus. Her views are totally against anything that any Democrats have. We believe in pluralism, she doesn’t believe in interracial dating. I don’t think there’s a place in the party. I’m not, by the way, I’m not sure she wants to be a Democrat. Go do something else! Form your own party!” 

“She is not a Democrat, okay?” Carville said. “That is pretty clear, and frankly, I think a lot of Democrats feel like I do. I don’t have any power, just an old washed-up consultant, but I wouldn’t seat her! This is not who we are! And we should just say, look, you’re duly elected, have your seat in Congress, but you would not be getting any committee assignments when the Democrats got the majority.”

That is a reasonable starting point. But does it go far enough? Not only would I deny them a seat in the democrat caucus, I would deny them a seat in the Congress.

A Constitutional Remedy

Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution grants each chamber of Congress the authority to judge the qualifications of its own members:

“Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide.”

This provision has been used before. The House famously refused to seat Adam Clayton Powell Jr. following an ethics investigation. After the Civil War, members who had supported the Confederacy were denied their seats on grounds of disloyalty. The precedent exists. The question is whether the Congress has the political will to do the right thing.

Representatives who have called for the destruction of Western civilization and argue that the United States has no legitimate right to its own borders cannot in good conscience swear to defend the Constitution of the nation they openly despise.

The Working-Class Myth

Good old Bernie Sanders, our resident senior socialists is still clueless. He hailed the elections as a triumph of working people over establishment politics. He said “working people” across New York delivered a powerful message: the era of status quo politics is over.” Sanders said in a post about “lessons” from Tuesday’s election that “when working people stand together, organize, and fight back, they can defeat establishment politicians and enormous amounts of money and political influence.” 

Garbage. The actual results tell a different story. Both Chevalier and Valdez won by significant margins in higher-income, college-educated districts and in heavily Muslim precincts—but lost by roughly ten points in working-class and minority neighborhoods. Hispanic voters in particular rejected both candidates.

This is not the uprising of the proletariat that Marx envisioned and Sanders celebrates. It is, as New York Attorney General Letitia James observed, a reflection of the political preferences of gentrified, spoiled college educated newcomers who have displaced the very working-class residents the socialists claim to champion.

Excuse me, but do you know your ankles are swollen?

STAT reported that Eli Lilly and the FDA had granted special access to the experimental drug retatrutide through the agency’s “compassionate use” program, which allows patients with serious or immediately life-threatening conditions to receive unapproved treatments. The drug has not yet received FDA approval.

The patient – who I call Patient X) was described as a 79-year-old man with refractory obesity, obstructive sleep apnea, and pulmonary hypertension. Now who does that sound like? Well the democrats were quick to demand whether the mystery patient was the president. In a letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) wrote that she was “deeply concerned” by reports suggesting someone “may be bending the rules of a federal program, and exerting improper political pressure, in order to provide a well-connected individual with free access to an exclusive prescription drug.” Of course the White House denied any connection. Communications director Steven Cheung dismissed the STAT reporter as a “big idiot” on X.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) went further, suggesting that Patient X might be the president suffering from a “terminal illness,” citing video of the president appearing to doze off during Cabinet and Oval Office meetings. Cheung responded by calling Lieu a “dumbass” in a separate X post.

Speculation on the president’s health isn’t new. Trump has been photographed with bruising on his hands, which he has attributed to frequent handshaking and daily aspirin use. He has also appeared in public with swollen ankles and was diagnosed last year with chronic venous insufficiency — a condition common in people over 70. (Is that why my ankles are swollen?) The president’s most recent physical recorded his weight at 238 pounds, a 14-pound increase from April 2025 and at the threshold of clinical obesity. The White House, predictably, described him as being in excellent health.

Which brings us back to retatrutide. It would not be the first time Trump received medication under the FDA’s “compassionate use” program. During COVID, he was given a monoclonal antibody cocktail through the same pathway. The difference here is that retatrutide isn’t for a life-threatening illness. It is an experimental anti-obesity drug. Developed by Eli Lilly, it acts as a triple hormone receptor agonist targeting GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon receptors. Clinical trials have reported average weight loss of 15–24% over 48–72 weeks. Common side effects include nausea and diarrhea.

So if all of a sudden the president starts throwing up and running to the bathroom we can rule out pregnancy. And if he starts losing weight, then maybe, just maybe, he is patient X.