Sunday, February 15, 2026
Prayers please...
Fr.. Z's mother has reposed. In your mercy please for the repose of her soul. Having recently experienced the same loss, I extend my deepest sympathies and prayers.
Memory eternal!
Thursday, February 12, 2026
How Virginia's top court might decide Democrats' gerrymandering fate
Virginia Democrats are moving forward with plans to gerrymander their way to four more congressional seats — but they need help from the state’s top court.
After a lower court blocked Democrats’ efforts to amend the state Constitution and redraw federal congressional lines ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, the Virginia Court of Appeals requested the Virginia Supreme Court weigh in.
That puts the fate of the map — and potentially congressional control after the 2026 midterms — in the hands of a group of justices that observers say can be hard to predict.
Political and legal experts in Virginia agree the state Supreme Court is not overtly ideological, with many describing it as “small-c conservative,” leaning heavily on tradition and precedent rather than handing down ideologically right-wing rulings. And many observers say the court is wary of wading too heavily into political fights. But this time, it’s unavoidable.
“It’s kind of a state Supreme Court tradition to stay away from political matters whenever they can. They like to leave the legislating to the legislature. So this is going to be a really interesting test of that tradition,” said Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, who attended William & Mary Law School in Virginia and worked in state politics.
Read the rest here.
Baseball's Salary Wars Are About to Go Nuclear
Kyle Tucker
THERE IS A group of fans who are angry at baseball. There are a lot of them, and they do not exist only on social media. They are inside of group chats that talk about how much money the Los Angeles Dodgers are spending after winning the past two World Series, and they are in cities big and small that look at the Dodgers with envy masked by eye rolls and curses, and they might just want to devote more time to the game -- maybe they love the pitch clock or Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge or the in-person vibe or any number of things about the game today worth loving -- but they're not sure the whole thing is fair.
Owners are angry, too. Their franchise valuations aren't growing as quickly as their billionaire peers' in other sports, and they blame the system that governs Major League Baseball. They don't like it. Nearly every owner believes MLB needs a salary cap. Its presence, owners say, immediately would juice franchise values, with the labor cost essentially fixed and no more chasing Dodgers teams spending $500 million annually on players. At the same time, they say, it would provide a pathway to competitive balance, which they believe is entirely out of whack. They think a salary cap will fix everything, even if it means jeopardizing the 2027 season. "They are ready to burn the f---ing house down," one high-ranking team official said.
Read the rest here.
HT: BW
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
What Trump Is the Best at, Hands Down
President Trump is unrivaled in American history in one respect: None of his predecessors ever cashed in on the presidency as he has.
The Teapot Dome scandal under Warren Harding? Richard Nixon’s slush funds during Watergate? Those seem like junior high school by comparison with the present culture of corruption.
The fire hose of disclosures has been overwhelming. A Times editorial estimated conservatively that the Trump family has made more than $1.4 billion in documented gains by exploiting the second term of his presidency. (Others offer higher figures.)
And all that pales beside the latest bombshell: a $500 million secret deal backed by a government leader in the United Arab Emirates, just four days before Trump was inaugurated for his second term.
Here’s what we know.
The Wall Street Journal broke the story, reporting that on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, the Emiratis purchased 49 percent of a Trump family cryptocurrency company for $500 million. It’s difficult to see why anybody would pay so much for a fledgling company — unless the point was to enrich the Trumps.
Most of the money in effect went to the Trump family, but some found its way to the family of Steve Witkoff, a co-owner of the venture. Trump had selected Witkoff to become the United States’ special envoy to the Middle East.
Read the rest here.
Monday, February 09, 2026
Libertarians Tried to Warn You About Trump (link corrected)
Libertarians can be annoying, with our constant bellyaching about privacy and taxes, our obsession with the First Amendment and our fearmongering about jackbooted thugs.
But in light of how the past year has unfolded, consider cutting your friendly neighborhood libertarian some slack. After all, we did try to warn you.
On immigration, speech and trade, Americans are living in a libertarian’s nightmare. Masked federal officials are swarming areas far from the border, shooting American citizens and whisking away children in the name of immigration enforcement. Armed National Guardsmen walk the streets of several cities under the banner of vague emergency mandates to maintain law and order. Legal visa holders are being deported for expressing their opinions on Gaza and Charlie Kirk. Tariffs on China have been set at 10, 20, 54, 145 and 30 percent in just the last few months. The ownership of TikTok, Intel and U.S. Steel have all become matters in which the president has taken a personal interest — and threatened dire consequences if his wishes are not taken into account.
These stories represent a terrifying pattern and an undeniable vindication of the long-held libertarian view that the steady growth in the size of the federal government and executive power would lead to precisely this kind of runaway authoritarianism.
Libertarians have argued that the only way to prevent such abuses is to reduce the power of the federal government itself — abolishing unaccountable federal agencies, scaling back the administrative state, cutting spending — and to restore the balance of powers by reining in the executive. This path has generally been treated as hopelessly naïve at best, and morally suspect at worst.
Each of the major parties has pulled away from the libertarian elements of their coalitions (small-government, free-market types for the Republicans and civil libertarians for the Democrats), preferring instead the instant gratification of grasping power and wielding it as aggressively as possible for the period they hold it. Libertarian voices have gradually gone quiet in the halls of the capital — bullied into silence, primaried out or resigning in despair.
Yet it has never been more obvious that the grab-and-grow approach to power is a destructive and self-defeating way to conduct politics.
Read the rest here.
Honestly, I was somewhat surprised (pleasantly) to see something like this on the op-ed page of the NY Times.
(Note: I just noticed that I accidentally linked the wrong page. The link has been updated. Grrr.)
The Corrupt Pardon at the Center of Trump’s UAE Windfall
As forecast in the first post in this series, let’s turn to Changpeng Zhao, known to his crypto confederates as “CZ.”
Even before the Wall Street Journal’s recent reporting on the Trump-UAE crypto enterprise in which Zhao played a vital role, we already knew some of the story: I wrote about it last autumn and our Jim Geraghty did his usual stellar reporting on the topic.
Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian billionaire, is the founder of Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. In 2023, he was convicted of money laundering and eventually served about four months in prison. Binance was also convicted, subjected to more than $4 billion in fines and forfeitures, and was banned from operating in the United States. Zhao pleaded guilty, and the platform accepted the severe penalties and sanctions because the government’s case was overwhelming. As the Justice Department put it, Zhao turned Binance into a covert funding channel for “terrorists, cybercriminals and child abusers.”
And yet, President Donald Trump pardoned him. While it’s not a sure thing, the pardon, in wiping out Zhao’s criminal convictions, opens the possibility that Binance could be reinstated for U.S. operations. At the very least, the pardon bolsters Zhao’s chances of qualifying to do business in other markets, where Binance still faces licensing challenges. Places such as the UAE, where Zhao now lives and enjoys warm relations with the royal family — crypto enthusiasts. It’s the country he and his hosts would like to see Binance make its global hub.
Read the rest here.
See also: The Sordid Story of Trump, the Trump–Witkoff Family Business, and the UAE
Sunday, February 08, 2026
Demanding Political Loyalty, Trump's DOJ Struggles With Staffing
Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, hung an online help wanted sign for federal prosecutors last weekend that perhaps explained why so many valuable Justice Department staff members have left, and why so few candidates want in.
Assistant U.S. attorneys are not typically recruited, as Mr. Mizelle sought to do, by a former federal employee who asks potential candidates to send a private message to his X account. Nor have they been asked in the past to prove political or ideological fealty.
“If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me,” wrote Mr. Mizelle, a fierce Trump supporter who remains close with Justice Department leaders and senior officials in the West Wing.
Mr. Mizelle was acting as a private citizen expressing his own views. But the post reflected the prevailing sentiment inside the department — that Mr. Trump has the right to hire only those willing to execute his agenda. It also highlighted the dynamic that appears to be contributing to the very staffing shortages Mr. Mizelle tried to address.
The intermingling of law enforcement and political goals has made the department, long a magnet for platinum legal talent, an unappealing landing spot, according to current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The number of applications is down significantly from previous years, officials said, even as Trump loyalists have publicized vacancies through official and unconventional channels. Some of those applying are generally not as qualified as those who sought the position in the recent past, they added.
A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to specific questions, but said all of the department’s actions reflected Ms. Bondi’s February 2025 memo requiring all employees to “zealously advance, protect and defend” the interests of Mr. Trump in his role as the nation’s chief executive.
The White House has exercised extraordinary control over the Justice Department, with prosecutors pressured to investigate and prosecute the president’s enemies, all in the name of reversing purported politicization under Democrats.
Applications for vacant slots in U.S. attorneys’ offices, once apolitical questionnaires, now often include requirements to weigh in on Mr. Trump’s policies.
“How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” read one of the queries on an application for a job in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, whose ranks have drastically thinned after the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis spawned an exodus of prosecutors.
“Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired,” reads another.
Read the rest here.
Friday, February 06, 2026
Trump wanted Dulles Airport and Penn Station named after him as condition of releasing rail tunnel funds
Trump administration officials made it known to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that the president would release federal funds for a massive rail tunnel project connecting New York and New Jersey on the condition that two major travel hubs be renamed in his honor, according to three people with knowledge of the request.
The three people, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive negotiation, said President Donald Trump would agree to release the funding for the Gateway project, which has been held up since October — but that his ask was that both Washington-Dulles International Airport outside Washington, and Pennsylvania Station in New York City, be renamed for the president.
Schumer declined the offer, according to two people with knowledge of the request. “There was nothing to trade,” said a person close to Schumer. “The president stopped the funding and he can restart the funding with a snap of his fingers.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Read the rest here.
Thursday, February 05, 2026
Bitcoin down almost half from its highs
Bitcoin’s plunge accelerated on Thursday, as the world’s largest cryptocurrency fell more than 10% to below $66,000 in afternoon trading, a level not seen since October 2024. The moves underscore how vulnerable cryptocurrencies can be when investors turn away from risk.
The sharp drop was a reversal from late last year, when bitcoin surged to record highs above $125,000 a coin. In the four months since then, the digital currency has lost nearly half its value.
The selling comes as investors pull back from riskier assets like crypto and tech stocks, and rotate into traditional “safe haven” assets like gold.
Since bitcoin’s October peak, the gap between its performance and gold’s has widened significantly. As of Thursday afternoon, the value of bitcoin had fallen 32% since February 2025, while the value of gold has soared 70%.
This year alone, gold is up more than 14% while bitcoin is down more than 20%.
As crypto plummets, the U.S. dollar is also feeling the heat from wary investors who are rethinking where they put their assets.
Read the rest here.
Monday, February 02, 2026
Marjorie Taylor Greene: 'MAGA was a lie.'
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said President Trump’s Make American Great Again slogan was a “lie,” saying his first year back in office was focused on obliging wealthy supporters.
“I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors,” Greene said in a Wednesday interview with radio personality Kim Iversen.
“The big, big donors that donated all the money and continue to donate to the president’s PACs and donate to the 250th anniversary and are donating to the big ballroom,” she added.
The former Georgia representative recently resigned from Congress, after airing concerns over the future of health care premiums and the war in Gaza, citing fractures within the GOP and falling out with Trump and MAGA, despite years of loyal support for the president.
On Wednesday, she said the people who truly benefit from backing Trump are financial benefactors, telling Iversen: “Those are the people that get the special favors. They get the government contracts, they get the pardons, or somebody they love or one of their friends gets a pardon.”
Read the rest here.
Trump Calls on Republicans to "Nationalize" Elections
President Donald Trump said Monday that Republicans should nationalize elections, continuing to double down on false conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
The suggestion — which runs contrary to the Constitution’s delegation of election administration to state governments — comes less than a week after the FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta, seizing ballots and other voting records from the 2020 election.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” he said during an appearance on former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast, which he relaunched Monday.
The president repeatedly insisted that he won the 2020 election “in a landslide,” alleging without evidence that people “voted illegally” in the election. He also nodded to the FBI’s raid in Fulton County, Georgia, teasing that “you’re going to see some interesting things come out” in Georgia.
Dozens of challenges to the results of that election yielded no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud, and both a statewide audit and a recount requested by the Trump campaign verified that former President Joe Biden won the state.
Trump has intensified his efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election in recent months, vowing in January that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did” with regards to the election. His Justice Department has also sued roughly two dozen states, demanding access to their statewide voter registration rolls.
Trump’s latest threat to nationalize voting harkens back to a promise he made last summer to sign an executive order bringing “honesty” to the 2026 midterm elections.
“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” he wrote in an August social media post. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”
Read the rest here.
On a lighter note...
Folks are having a lot of fun at Florida's expense with the recent cold snap down there.
Read the rest here.
SSPX Plans to Consecrate Bishops (again)
No surprise really. Of the four bishop's Lefebvre consecrated (illicitly under Catholic canon law) back in 1988, two have reposed, one after going off into sedevacantism and general nuttery. The two remaining are getting up there in years and the level of work for them has certainly not diminished in the last 38 years. This is going to throw a lot of gasoline (petrol for our overseas readers) on the slow burning debate over the traditional Catholic liturgical rites, and those attached to them, that Francis loathed. (The feelings were mutual.) Leo XIV had initially planned to address the red hot liturgy war at his recent consistory of Cardinals, but there wasn't enough time and so the matter was tabled for future consideration. But it was still there under the surface. Cardinal Roche disseminated an attack on the Old Rite and basically called for its formal and complete suppression, which provoked indignant rebuttals to His Eminence's frankly lame arguments.
Now this is going to become quite possibly the first serious crisis of Leo's pontificate. Under Catholic canon law, the consecration of bishops without the sanction of the Holy See is considered an act of formal schism and carries an automatic excommunication. How will Rome and the new Pope respond?
The formal communique of the Society of St. Pius X.
One of the world’s best universities has been captured by trans-obsessed zealots
I came to Cambridge because I wanted to learn how to think, not what to think: how to weigh arguments, test premises, spot evasions and follow a thought wherever it leads, even when it becomes uncomfortable. I did not come to be preached at, or for slogans. I expected the university – which for generations has jostled for position as the best in the world – to be a place where everything was up for discussion. Although I had long-held settled views on the sex-gender debate, they were not something I dwelt on.
That changed over the Easter holidays last year, when I attended a talk featuring the writers Julie Bindel and Helen Joyce. I met women that day who changed the course of my life. Not because they proselytised, or demanded loyalty, but because they spoke plainly, without fear. It became impossible to remain comfortably disengaged. I read Joyce’s book – Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality – and returned to Cambridge with it, as well as Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls. Both women, as well as Bindel, have been pilloried (that’s putting it mildly) for stating the truth: that biological sex and women’s rights must trump gender identity.
Back in college, I showed the books to a friend. I had been self-censoring on this subject for some time: trimming sentences and avoiding questions. I believed that a careful, private introduction to these ideas would be safe. I was wrong. Soon after, I was systematically ostracised by people I had considered close friends. Many told me they could no longer speak to me because of my views. I was branded a Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) and the word was scratched into the board on my door. I was told that buying books written by bigots was morally equivalent to being one. Argument was unnecessary; association enough to convict.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, February 01, 2026
Democrat wins solidly red Texas Senate seat in special election upset
Democrat and machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet won the special election Saturday to represent a solidly red Texas Senate district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that injected a fresh and urgent sense of a panic into the GOP from the Texas Capitol to the White House heading into November’s midterm elections.
With ballots tallied from all but a handful of voting centers, Rehmet had 57% of the vote, besting the 43% for his GOP opponent, conservative activist Leigh Wambsganss, who vastly outspent Rehmet as Republicans including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick mounted a furious funding push in a bid to tilt the election in their favor in the final days.
Patrick, the Senate’s powerful presiding officer, had raised alarm bells about the race and urged Republicans to turn out — as did Trump, who posted three separate get-out-the-vote messages on social media in the 48 hours preceding the election.
The win will be short-lived for Rehmet, a first-time candidate who will serve out the roughly 11 months remaining in the term of Republican Kelly Hancock, who vacated the seat to become Texas’ acting comptroller. But the outcome serves as a warning shot for Republicans that will likely embolden Democrats as they angle for other red-leaning seats across Texas — and the country — in November.
Read the rest here.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Thom Tillis Compares Noem to Dolores Umbridge, Stephen Miller to Grima Wormtongue
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) compared Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller to fictional villains on Friday, calling them both a “sycophant” as tensions rise over the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
“A sycophant is more than just a ‘yes-man,’” Tillis wrote in a lengthy post on social platform X. “It refers to someone who acts excessively servile toward someone important in order to gain an advantage.”
He added, “They aren’t just being nice, they are using excessive flattery, often insincerely, to get what they want, whether that’s a promotion, social status or favor.”
The senator compared Miller to Grima Wormtongue from “The Lord of the Rings,” who is an adviser to a king.
“He uses whispers and false flattery to control the King’s decisions, all while secretly serving Saruman,” the North Carolina Republican continued in his post. “He is a classic example of a sycophant who uses his position to poison a leader’s standing for his own benefit.”
Additionally, the senator compared Noem to Dolores Umbridge from “Harry Potter,” calling her a “bureaucratic sycophant.”
“She is terrifyingly sweet while she is around those she considers her superiors and she sucks up to authority to gain the power she needs to bully those ‘beneath’ her,” he said.
Read the rest here.
The federal debt is a stealth tax on every American
In response to concerns about affordability, President Trump proposed capping interest rates on credit cards at 10 percent. But the federal government’s own credit card — the national debt — is already making life less affordable for all Americans.
U.S. consumers paid $160 billion in credit card interest in 2024, averaging just under $1,200 per household. That’s a lot of money, but it’s only one-sixth as much as the $1.028 trillion we paid in net interest on the federal debt in fiscal 2025.
At $7,600 per household, interest on the federal government’s debt costs more than the average household spent on retirement contributions ($1,991), gas ($2,411), healthcare ($6,197) or groceries ($6,224) in 2024. Even as housing costs have surged, federal borrowing is costing Americans the equivalent of three and a half months of mortgage or rent payments.
One might argue that Americans aren’t really paying $7,600 per household in interest each year, because taxes haven’t risen to cover those costs. That is true — for now — because the federal government is adding its interest costs to the debt, the fiscal equivalent of not even making the minimum credit card payment.
But Americans are already paying higher interest rates on everything from home mortgages to small business loans to credit cards, because, as the Congressional Budget Office has explained, when federal borrowing increases, “the amount of funds available for private investment would decline (a phenomenon known as crowding out), and interest costs would increase.”
Read the rest here.
Friday, January 30, 2026
Gold Corrects and Silver Crashes
What a difference a day makes. Gold off 8% and Silver down ~30%. Both still up YTD. Not terribly surprised. Both metals were basically going parabolic. But the catalyst for the bull market in precious metals remains. Trump is still going to be president for another three years.
Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Goldman Sachs was right.
Last month they predicted that gold could hit $5,400 by the end of 2026. It closed today at $5,474/oz. (11 months early).
The Second Amendment Is Meaningless If the Government Can Kill You for Exercising It
What a difference four days can make. Last Tuesday, a top DOJ lawyer argued in the Supreme Court that people have a right to carry guns in public. By Saturday, another DOJ official warned: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.” The government went from championing gun rights to defending ICE agents’ fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. Only restraints on the use of force can stop officials from turning the Second Amendment into an excuse to kill civilians.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Hawaii’s Shocking Legal Argument Against the Second Amendment
This past Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez, the Second Amendment case out of Hawaii in which the Aloha State is defying the Constitution and claiming it can ban concealed carry holders from all private property that is open to the public unless they have the explicit permission of the owner. Thus, you can spend a year in jail if you carry a gun that you have a license to carry onto private property that is open to the public such as a mall or a gas station where the owner is completely silent on the issue.
In other words, silence equals prison in Hawaii.
The oral arguments were full of questions, debates, and discussion of the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s prior holdings on this very important provision of the Bill of Rights. But what was shocking was the reliance by Hawaii’s lawyer, Neal Katyal, a distinguished Supreme Court advocate, on blatantly bigoted state laws — the infamous Black Codes — to justify Hawaii’s defiance of the Second Amendment rights of its residents.
The Black Codes were some of the first laws passed in the United States to restrict gun ownership — and they were implemented in segregationist states like Louisiana after the end of the Civil War. They had one purpose, and one purpose only: to prevent newly freed black Americans from being able to defend themselves from the threats, assaults, intimidation, and killings perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan and other white, racist segregationists.
Justice Neil Gorsuch said he was “astonished” that Hawaii would “rely very heavily on an 1865 black code law in Louisiana,” with Katyal seemingly claiming that Hawaii’s law is “a dead ringer and reason alone to affirm the judgment.” Gorsuch said he really wanted “to understand how that could be,” that Hawaii is relying on a racist, historical outlier to support its argument that its law ought to be upheld.
Katyal didn’t seem to want to answer the question, referring to a California law instead, and Gorsuch chided him saying, “Why don’t you answer the question posed? I want to understand how you think black codes should inform this Court’s decision making.” Katyal admitted, “The black codes are undoubtedly a shameful part of our history,” but then made the astounding claim, “That doesn’t at all mean that this particular [Louisiana] law is irrelevant to Second Amendment analysis.”
Gorsuch’s response to Katyal’s rambling explanation of why Hawaii was embracing the racist black codes to try to uphold Hawaii’s firearms restrictions was akin to a vampire embracing garlic. In short, suggesting that such reasoning was unfathomable, inexplicable, and harmful to Hawaii’s argument.
Read the rest here.
Monday, January 26, 2026
Sunday, January 25, 2026
What is going on in the financial markets?
Ray Dalio warns that the monetary order is breaking down, leaving us with a terrible choice: ‘Do you print money or let a debt crisis happen?
Just as a quick historical note; the last time the US had a financial panic that did not center on the stock market, was way back in 1893. And it was U G L Y.
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Experts Warn America is Dangerously Close to Authoritarianism
Three hundred and sixty-five days after Donald Trump swore his oath of office and completed an extraordinary return to power, many historians, scholars and experts say his presidency has pushed American democracy to the brink – or beyond it.
In the first year of Trump’s second term, the democratically elected US president has moved with startling speed to consolidate authority: dismantling federal agencies, purging the civil service, firing independent watchdogs, sidelining Congress, challenging judicial rulings, deploying federal force in blue cities, stifling dissent, persecuting political enemies, targeting immigrants, scapegoating marginalized groups, ordering the capture of a foreign leader, leveraging the presidency for profit, trampling academic freedom and escalating attacks on the news media.
The scale and velocity of what he has been able to accomplish in just a year have stunned even longtime observers of authoritarian regimes, pushing the debate among academics and Americans from whether the world’s oldest continuous democracy is backsliding to whether it can still faithfully claim that distinction.
“In 2025, the United States ceased to be a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany or even Argentina are democracies,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the prominent Harvard political scientists and authors of How Democracies Die, and the University of Toronto professor Lucan Way, wrote in Foreign Affairs last month. They argued that the US under Trump had “descended into competitive authoritarianism”, a system in which elections are held but the ruling party abuses power to stifle dissent and tilt the playing field in its favor.
Read the rest here.
Monday, January 19, 2026
William Graham Sumner: The Conquest of the US by Spain (1898)
...The Americans have been committed from the outset to the doctrine that all men are equal. We have elevated it into an absolute doctrine as a part of the theory of our social and political fabric. It has always been a domestic dogma in spite of its absolute form, and as a domestic dogma it has always stood in glaring contradiction to the facts about Indians and negroes and to our legislation about Chinamen. In its absolute form it must, of course, apply to Kanakas, Malays, Tagals, and Chinese just as much as to Yankees, Germans, and Irish. It is an astonishing event that we have lived to see American arms carry this domestic dogma out where it must be tested in its application to uncivilized and half-civilized peoples. At the first touch of the test we throw the doctrine away and adopt the Spanish doctrine...
...The doctrine that we are to take away from other nations any possessions of theirs which we think that we could manage better than they are managing them, or that we are to take in hand any countries which we do not think capable of self-government, is one which will lead us very far. With that doctrine in the background, our politicians will have no trouble to find a war ready for us the next time that they come around to the point where they think that it is time for us to have another... It will be established as a rule that, whenever political ascendency is threatened, it can be established again by a little war, filling the minds of the people with glory and diverting their attention from their own interests. Hard-headed old Benjamin Franklin hit the point when, referring back to the days of Marlborough, he talked about the “pest of glory.” The thirst for glory is an epidemic which robs a people of their judgment, seduces their vanity, cheats them of their interests, and corrupts their consciences.
-W.G. Sumner on imperialism.
Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe
Sunday, January 18, 2026
Our Impossibly Small-Souled President
This week the president of the United States finally achieved a lifelong dream, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. No, not from the Nobel Committee — they will never give anything to Donald Trump. Instead, Trump did what he is naturally best at: He extorted it from its rightful owner, and then posed with it as a trophy.
Recall that even before the Nobel Peace Prize was announced in October of last year, Trump was notably and publicly peeved at the idea that it might go to someone less deserving than him, namely the anti-Maduro Venezuelan politician and activist Maria Machado. How outrageous an attempt to deny the president his preeminence, when he was the one who bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, moved battleships into the Caribbean, threatened to annex Greenland, pondered the dissolution of the Western alliance, and visibly failed to secure peace in the Russo–Ukrainian War. The positively European ingratitude of it all was undeniable: How many penny-ante countries does a man need to use military force against to win a peace prize, after all?
It might have been merely yet another revealing insight into the funhouse world Donald Trump occupies. (Just the other day, in fact, I wrote about the essential tackiness and self-aggrandizing insecurity of the man, as demonstrated by his visual transformation of the White House into a reflection of his peculiar tastes and obsessions.) But then Trump had U.S. Special Operations swoop down and capture Nicolás Maduro, in what has proven to be a case of not-at-all regime change.
Trump, still smarting from his Nobel rebuke, declared in his post-operation press conference that Machado didn’t “have the support” of her country to lead, and instead stated that he himself would run Venezuela until such time as he saw fit to hold elections. (Later he described Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, current head of the regime and longstanding Chávista, as a “wonderful woman.”)
That leads us to Thursday, when Machado arrived with a gift for America’s (and, apparently, Venezuela’s) benevolent leader: her Nobel Peace Prize, which she of course insists properly belongs to him. Trump was happy to agree, posing with a broad grin next to his newest framed trinket. As far as people celebrating trophies they didn’t and never could win goes, it’s not quite like that time when Vladimir Putin stole Bob Kraft’s Super Bowl XXXIX ring — but it has that stench regardless. (Machado, clearly, knows how to “take one for the team.”)
Once again, there is nothing to be done about it except lament the unspeakably small-souled trashiness of our president, a man who needs to be bribed and publicly flattered to maybe do the right thing. Spare me your defense of “She gave it to him! She even said he earned it!” Nobody is fooled by the pretense. Donald Trump took office in 2025; Machado has devoted her entire adult life to opposition to Chávez and Maduro, and her party won an overwhelming election long before he retook power. Trump earned this prize in the same way that he earned the addition of his name to the Kennedy Center: by being vain enough to demand it beyond all reason.
Read the rest here.
Saturday, January 17, 2026
Trump launches tariff attack over Greenland
Trump says he will hit Denmark and 7 other countries with new tariffs until there is a deal to purchase Greenland
Meanwhile:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...
...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes...
...To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water..."
-US Constitution Article I sec. 8
Thursday, January 15, 2026
Trump’s role in the staggering rise of the world’s oldest currency
In the past year, the dollar has undergone its worst overall devaluation since the 1970s. At the same time, the price of gold has surged nearly 75pc to record highs.
No commodity acts better than gold as insurance against inflation, financial instability and geopolitical turmoil.
Call it “Trump Derangement Syndrome” if you like, but financial markets are increasingly betting on all three.
Almost everything the Trump White House does seems deliberately designed to undermine the dollar, last weekend’s renewed attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve being only the latest example.
None of it makes any sense, including the almost certainly hollow promise to cap credit card charges.
Price controls? Milton Friedman will be turning in his grave.
Read the rest here.
Squatting Isn’t a Housing Policy. It’s Theft
In October last year, Absolum, age 18, finally got to visit the $115,000 home. But as he approached it, he realized something was wrong — someone was already living in the house.
Absolum called the police, who told him there was nothing they could do. The family living in the house had been scammed into believing they were renting it, and Absolum would have to go to court to evict the squatters.
“He was a victim once, and he’s a victim again,” his mother, Avril Absolum, told the Baltimore Banner in an article published this week. “He did the right thing. And there were people in his house.”
The case is pending in court, and Absolum still has not moved into his home.
Back in 2024, when “squatting” was having a moment, Republican governors such as Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Florida’s Ron DeSantis signed legislation making it much easier to evict people who took up residence either in people’s homes or in vacant buildings. Yet for around half the country, squatting is still only a civil matter; if a vacationing family returns home to find someone has moved into their residence, it could be months or years before they are able to expel the interlopers.
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Some Thoughts on Greenland, Don-Roe and Trump's New Imperium
Today, Vice-President Vance is meeting with representatives of Denmark about Greenland. That's not encouraging as Vance has gone out of his way to assume to role of Donald Trump's attack dog. Some thoughts on where we are and the implications of Trump's revival of great power imperialism...
An armed attack by the United States on Denmark (which Greenland is a part of) would have earthquake level ramifications. It would instantly turn the United States into an international pariah, on the same level as Russia. It would effect not just trade and commerce, but also security. Europe would be forced to treat the US as an unfriendly, or even hostile foreign power. It would shatter the transatlantic relationship that has existed since World War II. NATO in its current form would effectively be dead. Most likely the Europeans would cease sharing intelligence with us. It is entirely possible that they would politely tell us to remove our troops from their soil. Beyond Europe, it is likely that pretty much the entire democratic world would look at America as just another predatory great power, not to be trusted, and against which they need to guard themselves.
For the moment, we are still living in a one superpower world. This is in large part because, unlike Russia and China, the US has a global military presence. We have bases all over the world that allow us to project power where and when we need to. This is almost entirely because the countries that are hosting our bases like and trust us. This is something unique in history. In the past, great powers with overseas bases almost always were colonial empires. The locals had no real choice about hosting their overlords' troops or ships. As far as I am aware, America is the first global superpower whose power is based on goodwill and a deep trust in our honor and benevolent intentions. The loss of that trust and good will would be catastrophic for global peace and security. But it would also have a devastating effect on our own ability to project military power. Imagine what would happen if the Europeans decide to evict us from the massive bases we operate there. That's the logistical nexus for our capabilities to operate in the Middle East, Africa and of course Europe. The Sixth Fleet is able to dominate the Mediterranean because of the bases we have in Italy and Spain and friendly port facilities in France, Greece and Turkey. What if Japan, S. Korea and Australia suddenly started rethinking their relationship with us? Yes, we have Hawaii and Guam, but they can't replace the loss of of forward deployed troops and ships near potential hot spots. Guam can't absorb even a fraction of what we have in Japan and S. Korea. China would be able to swallow Taiwan at its leisure. The strategically vital base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean could also be lost.
In the course of a single year, Donald Trump has taken 80 years worth of good will that this country has accumulated, put it all in a big pile, pored gasoline on it and struck a match. It now remains to be seen if he is actually going to throw the match. All in the name of his ego and desire to put his name on a new American Empire.
Monday, January 12, 2026
‘Sell America’ trade: Dollar drops, gold surges as Trump’s Fed pressure campaign raises fears about U.S. system
Precious metals are jumping to records. The U.S dollar is dropping. Stocks are choppy.
Monday is all about the “Sell America” trade after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s bombshell announcement that he’s under criminal investigation — which market participants see as a sign of President Donald Trump’s interest in stripping away the central bank’s political independence.
“This is unambiguously risk off,” said Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI.
Guha said a so-called “Sell America” trade could play out similarly to what was seen in April, when the stock market cratered after Trump first announced his plan for broad and steep tariffs. Global investors will place a higher risk-premium on U.S. assets, while safe-haven trades like gold should take a leg up as a response to the turmoil, he said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 500 points at one point in morning trading, while the U.S. dollar index shed 0.3%. But the popular safe-haven trades of gold and silver surged to all-time highs in the session.
“Clearly, the market doesn’t like it,” Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, told CNBC on Monday.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, January 11, 2026
Hegseth pushes legal boundaries in feud with Kelly
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is forgoing a promised court-martialing and taking a behind-closed-doors track to attempt to punish Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
The administrative move — which seeks to reduce Kelly’s retirement rank and military pension — is the latest in the bitter back-and-forth between the Trump administration and the retired Navy captain after he joined five other Democratic lawmakers in a November video reminding service members that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders.
While Hegseth is taking Kelly into uncharted legal waters, using an action typically meant to scrutinize service members’ active-duty conduct, a Pentagon packed with President Trump loyalists could unfairly tip the scales against the Arizona Democrat, according to military law experts.
“The bottom line is, this is not lawful,” Rachel VanLandingham, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and former judge advocate, said of Hegseth’s bid to reduce Kelly’s rank under the military code. “It’s just never been done.”
Hegseth on Monday issued a letter of censure to Kelly, claiming the senator’s actions were prejudicial to good order and discipline. The letter kicks off the proceedings against Kelly, with Navy Secretary John Phelan to make a recommendation to Hegseth within 45 days as to whether a reduction in retired grade is warranted. Hegseth will then decide if he will reduce Kelly’s grade.
Hegseth is basing the proceedings under 10 U.S. Code § 1370(f), which determines when a reduction in retirement grade is allowed. Under such law, Phelan is solely responsible for the grade reduction recommendation, with no board involved, according to Todd Huntley, a retired Navy captain and former judge advocate.
That gives the relatively new Navy secretary, a Trump loyalist, an oversized influence on how the saga may play out. The founder of the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC, Phelan was a major contributor to Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024, giving more than $800,000 to the then-candidate’s joint fundraising committee in April that year.
Read the rest here.
Saturday, January 10, 2026
Trump Threatens to Take Greenland ‘the Hard Way’
President Trump again threatened on Friday to forcibly annex Greenland, saying that he was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”
In a White House event discussing his plans to have American companies exploit Venezuela’s vast oil reserves under the threat of a military blockade, Mr. Trump advanced an imperialist vision of American foreign policy, where the U.S. must dominate strategically important neighboring countries because of the perceived possibility that rival powers might do so first.
“If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland,” Mr. Trump said, falsely suggesting that Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, was surrounded by Chinese and Russian warships. Russia and China are active in the Arctic Circle, but Greenland is not ringed by their ships, and the United States has a military base on Greenland.
Mr. Trump delivered an ominous warning to Danish and Greenlandic officials, who have consistently opposed the president’s plans to take the island: “I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way we’re going to do it the hard way.”
The United States’ taking Greenland by force would rip apart the central agreement that underpins the NATO military alliance, of which Denmark and the United States are both founding members. Under that treaty, an attack on any member is treated as an attack on all members.
But Mr. Trump dismissed that central principle of the alliance as he explained why he wanted to annex Greenland, suggesting that he would defend the island only if the United States were to govern the territory directly.
“When we own it, we defend it,” Mr. Trump said. “You don’t defend leases the same way. You have to own it.”
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, January 07, 2026
Is the far right embracing imperialism?
The U.S. administration’s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and President Donald Trump’s plans to open that country’s oil reserves to major energy companies has sparked a resurgence of pro-colonialist sentiment among some prominent figures inside the White House and the broader MAGA political movement.
“Not long after World War II the West dissolved its empires and colonies and began sending colossal sums of taxpayer-funded aid to these former territories (despite have already made them far wealthier and more successful),” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, one of the aides Trump has tasked with overseeing the Venezuelan government, wrote on X the day after American forces raided Maduro’s compound and brought him to the U.S. for trial on a series of charges.
“The West opened its borders, a kind of reverse colonization, providing welfare and thus remittances, while extending to these newcomers and their families not only the full franchise but preferential legal and financial treatment over the native citizenry,” Miller wrote. “The neoliberal experiment, at its core, has been a long self-punishment of the places and peoples that built the modern world.”
The ode to colonialism, delivered by an aide who has been described as Trump’s id, comes as Venezuela’s stability is in question and Trump has cast his eyes on Colombia, Cuba and Greenland — two independent nations and one large territory that has long belonged to Denmark.
Miller’s take is at odds with most mainstream scholarship on the topic of colonialism, not to mention the ethos of political self-determination and economic independence that fueled the American revolution. In the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs, University of Arizona professors Ritwik Agrawal and Allen Buchanan wrote in February that the “fundamental wrong” at the heart of the “immorality of colonialism” is “colonizers regarded the colonized as incapable of managing their own affairs, in effect relegating them to the status of minors or mentally incompetent adults.”
Read the ret here.
Monday, January 05, 2026
Trump and Clausewitz vs Thomas Aquinas and the Post 1945 World Order
“War,” the Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz wrote, “is a mere continuation of policy by other means.” If there is one line that virtually every Army officer learns from Clausewitz’s posthumously published 1832 book, “On War,” it’s that description of the purpose of armed conflict.
Those words were among the first that popped into my head when I woke up Saturday morning to the news that the American military had attacked Venezuela; seized its dictator, Nicolás Maduro; and brought him to the United States to face criminal charges.
The reason those words occurred to me was simple: The attack on Venezuela harks back to a different time, before the 19th-century world order unraveled, before two catastrophic world wars and before the creation of international legal and diplomatic structures designed to stop nations from doing exactly what the United States just did.
One of the most important questions any nation must decide is when — and how — to wage war. It’s a mistake, incidentally, to view Clausewitz as an amoral warmonger. He wasn’t inventing the notion he describes; he was describing the world as it was. His statement is a pithy explanation of how sovereign states have viewed warfare for much of human history.
When a strong state operates under the principle that war is just another extension of policy, it is tempted to operate a bit like a mob boss. Every interaction with a weaker nation is tinged in some way with the threat of force: Nice little country you have there — shame if something happened to it.
This is not fanciful. In a telephone conversation with The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer, President Trump threatened Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president. “If she doesn’t do what’s right,” Trump said, “she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”
Diplomacy and economic pressure are almost always still a first resort for powerful nations, but if they fail to achieve the intended results, well, you can watch footage from the American strike in Venezuela to know what can happen next.
But the Clausewitzian view isn’t the only option for nations and their leaders. There is a better model for international affairs, one that acknowledges the existence of evil and the reality of national interests but also draws lines designed to preserve peace and human life.
Carl von Clausewitz, meet Thomas Aquinas.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, January 04, 2026
Greenland Next?
Donald Trump has set his sights on a US takeover of Greenland after capturing Nicolas Maduro and saying he would run Venezuela.
“We do need Greenland, absolutely,” the US president told The Atlantic magazine, adding that the Danish territory was “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships”.
He said officials in his administration would decide what happened to Greenland, which Mr Trump has claimed the US must annex for its security.
“We need it for defence,” he said of Greenland.
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, urged Mr Trump to “stop the threats”, adding that Greenland is “not for sale”.
“The US has no right to annex any of the three nations in the Danish kingdom,” she said, pointing out that Denmark already has a defence agreement with America, which gives it access to Greenland, and that Copenhagen had boosted its investment in the Arctic region’s security.
“I would therefore strongly urge the United States to stop the threats against a historically close ally and against another country and another people who have very clearly said that they are not for sale,” she added.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the prime minister of Greenland, earlier on Sunday rebuked the Trump administration, calling it “disrespectful” and saying that the territory was “not for sale”.
He was referring to an image posted on social media by Katie Miller, the wife of Mr Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, showing the map of Greenland painted with the US flag and captioned “SOON”.
Ulf Kirtsersson, the prime minister of Sweden, said on X: “It’s only Denmark and Greenland that have the right to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland. Sweden fully stands up for our neighbouring country.”
The mission to capture Mr Maduro has triggered concerns about further US military operations in the Western hemisphere, which the Trump administration views as part of America’s sphere of influence.
A US invasion of Greenland is deemed unlikely by analysts who point out that the Danish territory is a part of the Nato alliance along with the United States.
However, the renewed threats are likely to alarm European leaders as the American split with the continent grows.
Read the rest here.
Saturday, January 03, 2026
After Venezuela, Trump hints the entire hemisphere is in play
As President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for now, he and top aides made clear that the U.S. may not stop there — and demanded that the rest of the world take note.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Venezuela’s long-time dictator, Nicolas Maduro, captured in an overnight raid and extradited to New York on Saturday to be indicted on narco-conspiracy charges, “had a chance” to leave on his own before becoming the latest example of a leader paying a high price for not responding to Trump’s pressure.
“He effed around and he found out,” Hegseth said of Maduro.
The menacing comments were interwoven with specific threats toward three other countries that could soon be in the administration’s sights: Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.
The rest of the hemisphere is paying attention, and attempting to push back on Trump through condemnations of the strike itself and warnings of what could come next.
“All nations of the region must remain alert, as the threat hangs over all,” the Cuban government said in a statement.
The administration’s warnings, meanwhile, are getting bolder and more definitive. Trump again accused Colombia’s president of “making cocaine” and reaffirmed his past threats that he “does need to watch his ass.” He predicted “we will be talking about Cuba.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a more sinister threat of future American action.
“Look, if I lived in Havana and I worked in the government, I’d be concerned,” Rubio said.
Earlier during a phone interview with Fox News, Trump warned that “something will have to be done about Mexico,” stating that he’s asked President Claudia Sheinbaum if she wants the U.S. military’s “help” in rooting out drug cartels.
“American dominance in the Western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Trump said.
Read the rest here.
As New York goes hard left, San Francisco edges back towards the center
...It’s a bicoastal split screen that speaks to a realignment of America’s progressive power base. In New York, Mamdani, a democratic socialist who took office on Thursday, was swept into power on promises of free buses, childcare and widespread rent freezes. In San Francisco, Mayor Daniel Lurie, an heir to the billion-dollar Levi Strauss fortune, has focused on austerity measures, beefing up policing, reviving a hollowed-out downtown core and supporting the booming artificial-intelligence industry.
San Francisco, once an incubator to a host of modern progressive ideas from the LGBTQ+-rights movement to ethnic studies in classrooms and protections for undocumented immigrants, has changed. Even progressives acknowledge it isn’t the liberal trendsetter of yesteryear.
That shift has already upended the national political narrative around the city. For decades a lefty caricature and punching bag for conservatives, pundits and politicians on the right are now racing to make Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party in the midterms. Meanwhile, moderates in San Francisco, while celebrating their victories, hold their city up as a warning sign for what they cast as the excesses of the left.
“The message is you can take things too far,” said Nancy Tung, chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party and a moderate who’s helped lead the city’s centrist shift. She added, “Don’t expect that voters won’t notice forever.”
Or as Chris Larsen, a billionaire crypto titan who has been pouring money into local elections, put it: “The cost issue was the overriding thing in New York. Whereas, in San Francisco, it was cleaning the mess that the far left created over the last decade … It was safe, clean streets and getting back our reputation, which I think we largely have now.”
Read the rest here
Trump says US will ‘run’ Venezuela, control oil production
President Trump said Saturday that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela until a transition takes place following the capture of the country’s President Nicholas Maduro.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition,” Trump said during a news conference from his Mar-a-Lago resort.
“We don’t want to be involved with having somebody get in and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years,” he added.
When asked to clarify specifically who will run Venezuela, Trump said the U.S. will be running it with a team...
...The president went on to note that the U.S. would also take control of its oil production.
“As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time,” Trump said. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
His remarks come hours after the U.S. arrested Maduro and his wife on narco-terrorism charges amid a strike on Venezuela overnight. The capture took place just days after the Venezuelan strongman said he was open to conducting negotiations with the U.S. regarding drug trafficking and oil.
Read the rest here.
Friday, January 02, 2026
Thursday, January 01, 2026
2026
Being honest, 2025 is not a year I will look back on with much fondness. Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous new year.