A while back, I wrote about how politics has become the new religion for many people. The parallels are hard to miss once you see them — the tribal identity, the heretics, the ritual performances of belief. This newsletter is something of a companion to that one, because there’s a specific demand that comes baked into the politicization of everything, and it’s one I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately, especially with all that is going on around the world.

The demand is this: you must care. About everything. All the time.

The Epstein files drop, and if you’re not interested, it represents that you don’t care about abused underage girls or getting pedophiles off the streets. The Trump administration is taking unprecedented action in Venezuela, and if you don’t have an opinion, you lack basic human empathy. Take almost any issue with a tangential relationship to politics, and if your view is indifference, there must be something wrong with you. The logic (if that’s what you want to call it) is always the same in that emotional investment equals moral seriousness, and the absence of it makes you a bad person.

And I am going to push back on that pretty hard.

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Someone on Instagram put it in a way that stuck with me. He said if you are emotionally invested in something you have no power to change, that’s not empathy — it’s ego. Just let that marinate for a second, because it reframes the whole conversation. It’s not that you care deeply about the Epstein files. It’s that your sense of yourself requires you to be the kind of person who cares about the Epstein files. Those are very different things, and only one of them is actually honest.

There’s a more significant issue worth examining here: the tension between empathy and anxiety. Empathy is the genuine capacity to understand and feel for another person’s situation. Anxiety is absorbing distress about things you cannot affect. What politics, the 24-hour news cycle, and social media especially ask of us almost constantly is the second thing dressed up as the first. Doom-scrolling over an issue for forty-five minutes isn’t empathy. It’s consumption. The people actually doing something about it probably think about it with far less emotional noise than the person getting worked up about it on X, TikTok, IG, Bluesky, etc. Those people actually have agency. The rest of us are largely spectators, many of whom convince themselves they’re participants.

The Stoics understood this a long time ago. I’m not a devotee in the Ryan Holiday sense. I don’t have a morning routine built around it, and I don’t base my entire life around it; the others do. However, I’ve always kept a copy of Meditations around and found it useful to just flip to a page and read. It’s not really a book in the conventional sense anyway, more like a journal that Marcus Aurelius kept to talk himself down from his own worst impulses. What strikes me about it is that here was a man running an empire, and yet he still had to remind himself not to let things outside his control take up residence in his head. If he needed that reminder daily, the rest of us probably do too.

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Epictetus, a former slave, built his entire philosophy around one distinction: what is “up to us” and what isn’t. You focus your energy on the former and make peace with the latter. This wasn’t a philosophy of coldness or checked-out indifference. It was a philosophy of sanity and of honest self-assessment about where real influence begins and ends.

Much modern psychology has largely caught up with what the Stoics were saying, even if it uses different language.

Albert Ellis, who developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, made a similar argument in the 1950s in his own unique way. Ellis was blunt to the point of being abrasive. He was a sarcastic smartass, which I kind of like. His core idea was that emotional disturbance doesn’t come from events themselves but from irrational beliefs we attach to them, especially the belief that we must feel a certain way about something, or that events happening far outside our lives are nonetheless personal catastrophes we must suffer over. He wouldn’t have much tolerance for the performative outrage that inhabits so much of society today and likely would have attributed it to something neurotic as opposed to noble.

Jonathan Haidt, who is very much a current thinker and one whose work I think holds up well, offers another piece of the puzzle. His argument in The Righteous Mind is that our moral emotions evolved from small-group living, in communities where you knew everyone, where your actions had direct consequences, and where the stakes were immediate and personal. The difference now is, we’re running that same emotional hardware on a global news cycle that delivers a deluge of things to feel strongly about. We’re simply not built to absorb all of it in a healthy way. The anxiety and outrage aren’t signals that we’re more morally engaged than previous generations. There are signs that we’re running a system past its design limits.

Which brings me back to the ego point. There’s a well-established concept in psychology around what’s sometimes called moral identity, which is the need to see yourself, and be seen by others, as a good and virtuous person. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with that on its face. The problem is when the performance of caring becomes a substitute for actually doing anything, because the performance feels like enough. You signal that you’re paying attention. You’re one of the good ones, and you care. And then you close out of whatever app you’re on and go about your day, having changed…nothing.

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This connects directly to the religion parallel I wrote about before. In the same way that political ideology has replaced theology as an organizing framework for a lot of people’s identity, political outrage has replaced guilt and confession as the mechanism for demonstrating your worthiness. Not caring has become the new sin. And like religious guilt, it doesn’t actually help anyone; it just keeps you inside the system, performing. Look this example from Jonathan Last at The Bulwark:

See what I mean? GWB isn’t out there, ranting and raving about Trump, and chose to write an essay about George Washington on President’s Day, so Last accuses him of “whitewashing authoritarianism.” He's demanding that Bush display the correct emotions about the correct subjects, and since Bush declined, that disqualifies him as a person. Last’s critique is just amazingly pedestrian.

Of course, naturally, people will push back. “Hey, if everyone checked out, nothing would ever change!” That’s fair enough, up to a point. But that argument sneaks in an assumption worth challenging: that being emotionally wound up about something counts as engagement. I’d argue it mostly doesn’t. There’s a real difference between civic participation and emotional consumption. Voting, getting involved at the local level, and contributing to something concrete that you can actually see the impact. That’s engagement. Reading hot takes, scrolling through tweets, watching video snippets, feeling terrible, yelling at the television, and repeating the cycle the next morning is not changing anything. If anything, I think the performance of caring has become a way for many people to avoid doing anything, because the performance itself feels like enough.

Not caring about the Epstein files, ICE, Ukraine, the Olympics, Venezuela, the border, the crime rate, the stock market, etc., doesn’t make you a bad person. It might just mean you’re being honest with yourself about what you can actually affect, and choosing not to set your hair on fire over things that will still be there tomorrow, regardless of how you feel about them today. Marcus Aurelius said, “The things you think about determine the quality of your mind.”

That hardly seems like indifference to me, but more like a reasonable way to live.

Did you ever work for or with someone who tried to create problems at work when none existed? Those moments at a workplace where everything is copacetic, and the gears are turning without noise, are rare. And then that person comes along, tosses a grenade, creates a huge mess, and takes satisfaction in doing so.

That is Donald Trump. The engine of America chugging along doesn’t work for him. It’s more than just being the center of attention (which he craves, obviously). It’s the unmistakable desire he has for chaos and disorder.

Look at what happened with Greenland. I don’t think Trump or any military brass ever seriously entertained the idea of invading Greenland to take over. Still, Trump was more than willing to let people think he would. And what happened? It roiled markets, and it created a further rift with our NATO allies. All the while, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are clinking champagne glasses. Remember, we don’t need to fight a war with either of those countries. They benefit from the disorder Trump creates.

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What’s happening in Minneapolis is another prime example. Look, federal law enforcement agencies such as ICE have every right to enforce the laws. President Obama was nicknamed the “Deporter-In-Chief” because of how many people his administration deported. Immigration groups pleaded with the administration to stop illegal immigration raids conducted by ICE.

But what the Obama administration did not do was send agents trained for 50 days into a powder keg of a situation and let them roam wild. And yes, Tim Walz and that nitwit Jacob Frey have not helped the situation with their hostile attitudes and their advocating for people to be nuisances to federal law enforcement.

None of that matters.

A man was killed by ICE agents, and before any investigation took place, before any facts were in, and before anyone was interviewed, the administration came out and accused this man, Alex Pretti, who had no criminal record, of wanting to “murder” federal agents. Kristi Noem said, “an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun.” Yeah, he was carrying a firearm, but he did not approach them with it in his hand. He clearly did not have the gun in his hand, and he did not have possession of the gun when he was shot.

Pretti was an ICU nurse at a VA hospital and was legally carrying his firearm. Now, one can question his judgment for carrying a gun in such a turbulent situation. But that is a matter of debate that is irrelevant to his First and Second Amendment rights. What the Trump administration is doing is what Second Amendment advocates like myself have accused Democrats of doing for years: attempting to create an environment of fear by making it seem as though a law-abiding person carrying a firearm is a threat by dint of their existence.

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It’s complete bullshit. “He had a gun with two fully loaded magazines.” So what? Who cares? There is nothing wrong with that at all. It might be unnecessary for self-defense purposes on a normal day, but even so, that doesn’t matter. He was legally allowed to carry, and he had a constitutional right to possess a firearm. Period.

You can question Pretti’s choices all day long. None of it is relevant to how things went down and the final result. Even if, ultimately, it turns out the shooting was legally justified because of the circumstances and what agents said and when they said it, the idea that Pretti was a “threat” merely because he was carrying is 100% wrong.

Look at this from Stephen Miller:

It is grotesque. He’s slandering a dead man by calling him an “assassin” and claiming he actually attempted to murder federal agents.

More here:

This is utter nonsense. Complete nonsense. Then it descends into comically stupid:

Two organizations that called out his BS original statement? The NRA and GOA (Gun Owners of America). Nothing says “Antifa” like those two. Great job, moron.

The FBI Director got in on the asininity as well.

Yes, people actually can.

The speed at which the administration tried to not only justify the shooting, but also smear Pretti is a horrifying abuse of power. Accusing Pretti of being a threat or saying his goal was to “murder” federal agents merely for exercising his constitutional right to carry a firearm is just appalling.

I primarily avoided social media over the weekend because I knew what it would look like, and there is little point in trying to reason on platforms that thrive on sniping and school-grade insults, particularly when emotions are running high.

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However, this morning, as I finished writing this newsletter, I saw on the Wall Street Journal's home page that Trump is taking an entirely different tone. He said the administration is “reviewing everything" and that ICE agents will “at some point” leave the area. Granted, it’s not like he sat there and contemplated the events. He’s an idiot, but he’s not stupid. He knows this one is bad, and he will attempt to save face for his own sake. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Alex Pretti.

As for the Trump lackeys and throne sniffers who are taking up for the likes of Miller, Patel, and Noem and bleating out their drivel about Pretti carrying a gun? Get stuck, fools. Is the notion that “bringing a gun to a protest” is an aberration and crossing the line of decency? If so, I remind you of this:

So another year has come and gone. Technically, it ends in two days. Whatever. Ask me what I’ll be doing on New Year’s Eve and the answer will likely be “sleeping.” The allure of staying up to ring in the new year wore off a long time ago. I did the parties. I did the Times Square thing. It’s kind of like birthdays at this point: every new one means I’m that much closer to dying.

With that sunny and jovial opening, I suppose it’s time to look back at 2025 and do a brief year-in-review.

Where do we start? Well, it makes sense to begin with the elephant in the room: Donald Trump. The president made many promises on the campaign trail about what he’d do, and he’s tried to keep them. Tariffs, a crackdown on illegal immigration, legal retribution, exerting executive power, pardons, tax cuts — he promised all of it, and he’s carrying out much of it.

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The results of those promises, however, haven’t necessarily come to fruition. Trump is famous for bold pledges, such as lowering prices, but he has no real control over prices. That said, his love of tariffs — which he falsely claims are paid by foreign countries (they’re paid by domestic importers) — has led to higher prices, something Trump seems to wave off with a silly reference to how many dolls a small girl really needs.

Trump also made bold promises to bring back jobs and rebuild towns and cities. Nothing he has done has meaningfully advanced those goals. Yes, many companies have pledged billions in investment, but those investments are going to places where infrastructure and a skilled workforce already exist. Those small towns that once bustled as manufacturing hubs before plants shut down are not getting an Amazon distribution center or an Nvidia factory.

We’re in an era similar to the end of the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution, which fundamentally reshaped the American economy. Artificial intelligence and technology are doing the same today, just as they’ve been doing for the past 20 years. You cannot stop progress, and you certainly aren’t going to do it with tariffs. The promises made by Trump and those in his orbit that their policies will revive dying towns and cities are nothing but lies. And when they’re no longer around, they’ll simply point to whoever is sitting in the Oval Office and say, “Ask them.” Or they’ll blame illegal immigration or “the globalists.” It’s all so trite and juvenile.

Trump has been effective on illegal immigration after it exploded under Joe Biden. Naturally, it’s gone ridiculously overboard, with televised ICE raids and absurd social-media campaigns featuring DHS Secretary Kristy Noem cosplaying as a door-kicking agent hunting criminals. The raids and policies have led to chaos, which is exactly what Trump likes. It keeps him at the center of attention — and that matters to him more than anything else.

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\Trump has also used the Justice Department as a political weapon against perceived enemies, pursuing inane indictments against James Comey and Letitia James. Even if you think both are ridiculous people (they are), and even if you believe James abused her authority as New York’s attorney general to bring dumb cases against Trump (she did), the logic of “we must do it too” is the worst kind of response. All it does is swing the pendulum in the opposite direction until it becomes counterproductive.

I could easily write another 1,000 words about Trump’s first year, because it’s moved at a dizzying pace. His biggest flaw — and it’s been true since day one — is that he can’t keep his mouth shut long enough for anything to cool down. Remember what Madonna said? “There is no such thing as bad publicity. Worry when they’re not talking about you.” That’s Trump in a nutshell. If he senses he’s no longer the center of attention, you can bet he’ll hop on Truth Social and post something outrageous.

The press will swarm, his minions will explain it away, and his lackeys will defend it. The only thing that ever saves him is the next news cycle that buries whatever idiotic thing he said. His reaction to the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife is a perfect example. What he said was peak Trump. I don’t think it had even been revealed at that point that Reiner and his wife, Michele, were murdered — let alone by their son — but who cares? A man and his wife were dead. Trump made it about himself, and it was just gross. Watching people defend it or “whatabout” it away was even more grotesque.

I don’t give a rat’s ass about Reiner’s politics or anything he ever said or did. He was a terrific filmmaker, a great character actor (see his turn in The Wolf of Wall Street), and, most importantly, a human being. I can’t imagine the last moments of my life ending at the hands of one of my own children. It’s horrifying.

As for the Democrats, they’re responding with their usual ineptitude and hoping Trump’s excesses will be enough to hand them back control of the House — and they probably will. But they still have serious national-level problems, and those won’t disappear if they continue to defer to the far left. There are cracks, but they need to break free if they want any shot in 2028.

On the professional front, I left Fox News after about three years. Fox was a good company, but it was still a corporation — and a very controlling one. I had little freedom to do much of anything, and frankly, it was stifling. I was also tired of chasing news. Some people like to pretend that audience-driven content is a Fox-only phenomenon, which is nonsense. CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and plenty of other outlets have teams dedicated to analyzing data and publishing what their audiences want to read. That’s simply a fact. Bryan Stelter can talk all he wants about CNN’s global bureaus; it doesn’t change reality. These organizations employ people whose sole job is to serve “the audience.”

Working in communications is different, but it gives me the freedom to write — including this newsletter. It also means I can finally finish my novel. The first draft is done; now I mean done done. Whether it gets traditionally published or self-published, we’ll see.

I also discovered that woodworking wasn’t for me. I learned a lot, and it helped when I rebuilt my deck last spring, but it was the automotive bug that really bit. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Last weekend I changed the radiator in my stepdaughter’s car, and instead of paying $100 for oil changes, I’m doing them myself. This weekend I’ll be installing new spark plugs in Andrea’s Pacifica — a job that takes way longer than it should because I have to remove the manifold. SMH.

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Still, it’s fun — as fun as I remember it being when I was 17 to 21, buying shitboxes and running them into the ground after fixing them with junkyard parts. A few months ago, I picked up a project vehicle: a 1992 Dodge Dakota regular cab, long bed. It needs work, but it runs, drives, and stops. The cassette player works, the interior is clean, and the body and frame aren’t rusted out.

It just sucks trying to work on cars when it’s 25 degrees outside.

On the health front, I finally reached a place where I’ve consistently lost weight throughout the year — about 50 pounds since last February. Starting now, I’ll be adding regular exercise to rebuild muscle and cardio and keep the heart strong.

I guess that’s all for now. Here’s to 2026. Are you looking forward to anything new?

Having been on this earth for 55 years, I’ve seen some stuff. Old enough to remember some of the 70s, of course, the 80s, and then so on. One thing I have found common is that people always say a particular era is the worst time in life, or that things are going downhill.

The great film ‘No Country For Old Men’ had Tommy Lee Jones' character, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, say, during a discussion about society, “Once you quit hearing ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am,’ the rest is soon to follow.” The movie took place in 1980, and he was discussing the downfall of society. One guy was complaining about seeing a young girl with “green hair.” Ten years earlier, two older guys would have been complaining about seeing men with long hair.

I bring this up because of something commentator Matt Walsh recently said on Xwitter.

Now he says “the decline can be measured,” but he doesn’t offer any evidence to support what he supposedly observes. If I walk outside my house and it’s snowing, I can say “It’s an empirical fact that it is snowing” to someone 1,000 miles away, and it would be true based on my observation of snowflakes falling from the sky.

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But for Walsh to claim “everything in our day-to-day lives has gotten worse over the years” doesn’t really stand up under scrutiny. The quality of all that he lists has declined? How? In what way?

How has the quality of food gotten worse? I could spend the entire day and 10,000 words going through all the ways food is far better and superior to what it was 20, 30, and 40 years ago. One example: jarred spaghetti sauce. Here is a screen grab from a Ragu commercial in the early 80s:

Look at that slop. Does that look appetizing to you? Maybe not now, but at the time, what was basically ketchup with some spices was convenient for people who couldn’t afford to buy the ingredients to make homemade sauce or to dine out. People can still buy Ragu, but the quality has gotten better to keep up with the competition, though it is still a lower-end product. However, if someone wants good jarred sauce, this is an option:

The ingredients? Italian Whole Peeled Tomatoes, Olive Oil, Onions, Salt, Garlic, Basil, Black Pepper, Oregano. That’s it. Yes, a jar of this will cost nearly $7 at grocery stores, but the option is there. It is better. That is empirically true.

Making homemade sauce is easy, too, because ingredients such as crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and spices are very affordable for the average consumer (and don’t come at me with higher prices at the time because that is a different discussion entirely). People have access to an abundance of food choices like never before. Even the “store brand” items are typically made by the premium sellers. At Costco, they sell Kirkland coffee beans and ground coffee. Who makes it? Starbucks. Walmart has its Great Value and Equate brands. Any idea what the difference is between Tylenol and the Equate brand acetaminophen?

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Branding. That is it. Yet, a 200-count bottle of 500mg extra-strength Equate costs $4.00, while a 100-count bottle of extra-strength Tylenol costs $11.00. Again, it is more accessible now to people than ever before.

In years past, a grocery store such as Pathmark had an entire aisle devoted to its “No Frills” items. This is what it looked like:

When they said no frills, they meant it. It was cheap, and it wasn’t very good at all, not like the store brands of today.

Now, Walsh likely has a point about traffic. With the increase in population and more people driving, it means more congestion, especially in urban areas, and it does suck. That said, traveling now, overall, is still much easier and better than it was 30-40 years ago. Cars last longer, can travel farther on a tank of gas, and people have more travel options. Yes, flying can be annoying because of TSA lines and cramped planes, but if people want to hearken back to a time when people were seated in gigantic seats with flight attendants serving steaks, then be prepared to pay $1,500 for a two-hour flight instead of $200. Andrea recently traveled to Washington state. It takes 5 hours to travel 2,500 miles and costs several hundred dollars for a round-trip ticket. That flight would cost $500 in the 80s, which is the equivalent of $1,500 today.

People can still buy and use the best if they want. But the reality is that better-quality products and services are now more accessible to many Americans than ever before.

I remember my former boss getting a 50-inch plasma television in the early 2000s, when they were becoming available to consumers. He paid $10,000 for a 720p television. The other day in Walmart, I saw a 75” 4K UHD television on sale for $400. My first HDTV was a 32” off-brand that I paid nearly $700 for in 2008. Now I have a 65” Samsung hanging on my wall that I spent less than $500 to get. Is a top-of-the-line Samsung available to me? Sure, if I had $7,000 to spend on it, but I don’t. But some people do, and they can.

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I would like to see him expand on those thoughts. How can he possibly say an iPhone 17 is “drastically” worse than a first-generation iPhone? In what way? It’s almost nonsensical.

People keep talking about violent crime, and yes, there are plenty of examples of brutal crimes being committed. But again, look at the data. Take New York City, for example. In 2023, there were 391 homicides. Do you know how many homicides the city had in 1990? 2,245. The per capita rate in 1990 was 31 for every 100,000 people. In 2023, it was 5 for every 100,000, the same rate as in 1960. Here is a visual:

Age is certainly an issue. Walsh is only 40 years old, one of those millennials who came of age just as technology exploded in a way never seen before. In their teen years and in their adult lives, they’ve only known the best of everything, and so I guess to many of them it seems as if society is going downhill. You’ll see people posting photos such as this:

With smarmy comments like, “We used to have this.” What they don’t say is that people still can, if they want to live in a home like the one above, with maybe 1,000 square feet, an eat-in kitchen, a small living room, and maybe three tiny bedrooms and one bathroom—no air conditioning. No garage.

Too many people want a home like this:

When they may have to settle, for now, on a home like this:

But too many people don’t want that. They want a bathroom in every bedroom, square footage, a giant kitchen island, a big backyard for “entertaining”, and so on. But they’ll complain because a house like that is out of reach for them, and pretend there is a societal issue at play. Yes, housing is more expensive due to the pandemic, rising interest rates, and lack of supply. But the market will adjust. People will have to wait a few more years.

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People like Walsh have become too accustomed to instant gratification. People want all the best stuff, want it now, and if they cannot, then it must be that the quality of what they have access to isn’t any good, or they act like things have gotten worse than what they were 10-20 years ago. However, there is no evidence to prove it.

I am open to anyone who agrees with Walsh to tell me why he is right. But such complaining as his has become commonplace for people in his age range and younger. If people cannot have it all now, then it must be getting worse. Or something.

I typically do not take amending the Constitution lightly, and the framers made it a complicated process on purpose. When people complain about the lack of amendments, I think it’s odd because if the process were easy, it would create a gigantic mess.

Look at states that leave state constitutional amendments in the hands of voters. It’s how states end up with terrible laws or just silly ones. In Florida, for example, the “Save Our Homes” amendment caps the assessed value of a homesteaded property so it cannot increase by more than the lower of 3% or the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the previous year.

That sounds great, and someone who purchased a five-bedroom home with an in-ground pool in a gated community on half an acre in 2000 for $200,000 — and whose home is now worth $750,000 — benefits big time. However, that comes at the expense of the new homeowner who purchases a $450,000 three-bedroom home on a quarter-acre lot, as they bear the brunt of higher property taxes to fill the gap left by those whose value increases have been capped. Also, Florida has it in its constitution that the University of Florida and Florida State University football teams must play each other every season.

Thankfully, amending the federal Constitution requires much more work: two-thirds passage in the House and Senate, followed by ratification from three-quarters of the states.

Trump made some questionable — for lack of a better word — pardons in his first term. Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and Roger Stone were all recipients. Trump also pardoned people who likely deserved it, such as Fred Keith Alford, who was convicted on a firearms-related charge in 1977 and served only one year of supervised probation.

Joe Biden threw caution (and norms) to the wind when he decided to issue a blanket pardon to his son Hunter, despite promising not to do so. Biden laughingly said he did it because Hunter’s prosecution was “political.” The laughter stems from the fact that Hunter’s father’s Justice Department prosecuted him — yet it was supposedly “political.”

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Biden also pardoned other family members and issued preemptive pardons, all under the guise of necessity so that Trump couldn’t go after them. He also commuted the sentence of Michael Conahan, a former judge convicted in the “kids for cash” scandal for accepting millions in kickbacks to send juveniles to for-profit detention centers. And worse, he commuted the sentence of Rita Crundwell, a former comptroller who embezzled over $53 million from the city of Dixon, Illinois.

In his second term, Trump hasn’t bothered with the pretense of responsibility, handing out pardons like someone with an unlimited budget tossing candy to children on Halloween. It’s a level of political corruption that would make Nixon’s Plumbers gasp and blush.

Trump pardoned the former CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, despite claiming he didn’t know who he was and knew nothing about him other than that the Biden administration prosecuted him — which was apparently good enough.

He pardoned January 6th participants and a slew of corrupt politicians. He hilariously pardoned reality stars Todd and Julie Chrisley after their daughter spoke at the Republican National Convention and called the prosecution political. The funny part? They were prosecuted during the first Trump administration.

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Perhaps the most egregious pardon he is considering is for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. He was like a Hollywood production — similar to one of the plots in the movie Traffic — where the supposed ally of the United States in the war on drugs was actually taking over the trade. Convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison for trafficking cocaine into the United States, Hernández is now being portrayed by Trump as someone “treated very harshly and unfairly.”

Can you imagine? The guy slapping tariffs on other countries he claims are importing fentanyl into the United States is ready to give a pass to the man caught making sure deadly drugs made it into the country.

I could waste everyone’s time detailing all of the pardons, but I think you get the point. The real issue is that the pardon power is absolute. Democrats can promise all the hearings they want. They can threaten impeachment. But the idea of impeaching a president over exercising power clearly within his constitutional purview is absurd. It’s as reckless as how Trump is using his power.

This is one where Congress will have to stand up and say, “Enough is enough.” Democrats have no excuse after what Biden did, and only those Republicans who cannot see, hear, or discuss what Trump does — since their heads are perpetually stuck up Trump’s keister — will object until the next Democrat uses that power, naturally.

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It’s also a no-brainer, and I cannot see how states will oppose it, since this power would be removed from both parties equally. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but there has to be a way to rein in that power and correct a process that has clearly become so corrupt it cannot continue as it stands.

There’s a strange liturgy to American politics now. Not liturgy in the religious sense, though it certainly taps the same instinct, but in the way people recite specific phrases with total confidence and almost no understanding. I read Peggy Noonan’s column this week, and she read Kamala Harris’s book 107 Days. She noted that Harris referred to illegal immigration as “irregular migration,” a euphemism so gently ridiculous it practically dissolves on contact. But that’s the point. It sounds softer, safer, less politically radioactive.

I see this constantly. Our public vocabulary is full of words and phrases that signal urgency, righteousness, or moral sophistication without ever requiring anyone to say something concrete. Orwell warned about this nearly eighty years ago, calling them “meaningless words”—what he said “…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

It appears in Orwell’s 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language. Nearly everyone with casual knowledge of Orwell knows his novels, especially 1984 and Animal Farm. Orwell was a good novelist, but he was a terrific essayist. If you have a chance, pick up a book of his essays or read them on the Orwell Foundation website. It is free.

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Politics and the English Language is primarily about writing. Still, what he says goes beyond how people write and describes how words and phrases used in politics have become pointless and tedious to the extent that the words don’t have any real meaning. They merely appear to have great profundity.

Despite its age, the essay holds value even in 2025. Orwell writes:

Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

“Democracy” is the critical word here because I’ve likely heard the phrase uttered in some form or another in the last ten years, eleventy-billion times. It has become entirely synonymous with Donald Trump, and for the longest time, it was all about him and the “threat” he was to “democracy.”

But since 2015, “threat to democracy” or “threat to our democracy” has come to apply to whatever political niche they choose. You can pick from a hat all of the threats: the Supreme Court, certain types of legislation, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, climate change, Fox News, the makeup of the Senate, the Electoral College, AI, elections themselves, etc. The list goes on.

It gets to a point where it doesn’t have much meaning to most people, who, we should remember, do not spend a good chunk of their time in a day, week, month, or year immersed in politics. Thirty percent of Americans cannot name all three branches of government. That’s pretty high. And while 70% can, that is basic civics, not an indicator of their proclivities as it relates to politics daily. If only 30% know what the three branches of government are, what percentage do you think know what a discharge petition is?

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So when the average person does tune in—which is typically close to an election—and they’re inundated with “threat to democracy” at every turn, what impact does one think that has? Trump, after all, despite everything that went down on January 6th, 2021, the investigations, indictments, convictions, the promise to be the “retribution” (a promise kept!) for his voters, still won. He won back all the states he lost in 2020 that he won in 2016, and picked up Nevada as well, while convincing 77 million people to vote for him—three million more than voted for him in 2020, and a whopping 15 million more than in 2016.

One could say, “But Jay, Trump is a threat to democracy!” The question of whether that is true is not the point I am making. Read what Orwell said about the word “fascism.” As noted, people have chosen to apply that phrase, as Orwell said, to “something not desirable.” Don’t take my word for it. Go look up any of the examples, and you will find it. And not among the fever swamps of the far left, but from mainstream journalists, think tanks, and other institutions. Here are some examples for the Electoral College:

The Electoral College Is the Greatest Threat to Our Democracy - Jamal Bouie

The Electoral College Is a Threat to 21st Century Democracy - Aspen Institute.

The Electoral College is a ticking time bomb - William Galston for the Brookings Institute (in the opening graf, Galston writes, “It’s time that Americans face up to the danger the Electoral College poses to the integrity of their democracy. To put this threat in perspective…”)

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The nationalist right, or new right, or whatever right they call themselves, does something similar. When they talk about a Republican politician they don’t like, they refer to them as a “neocon.” Here is Tyler Bowyer of TPUSA playing white knight for poor JD Vance, who he says is getting “attacked” (that’s criticism for normal people).

They merely use the term “neocon” as a pejorative. They have no idea what it actually means. Short for “neoconservative,” you could ask ten different people aligned with Bowyer politically to define neoconservative, and you’d get ten different answers—all of them wrong—with “warmonger” or “pro-war” likely being the constant thread among the responses.

They use the term to describe any Republican who holds an interventionist philosophy on foreign policy, but that doesn’t make them neoconservatives. I won’t get into all of what it means. If you want a good refresher, listen to Jonah Goldberg’s solo podcast from 2024, called The New Neocons. He goes into detail about the origin of the term, how it evolved, and essentially how it has become, as Orwell says, a term for “something I do not like.”

The ultimate goal of using particular words and phrases, as Orwell said, is an intent to deceive. When people say the Supreme Court is a “threat to democracy,” what they’re really saying is, “I don’t like the rulings the current makeup of the court is issuing; therefore, I will try to convince you that it is a ‘threat’ to turn opinion against it.” They’ll mask their displeasure by making comments about the court’s “legitimacy,” which again is based wholly on decisions they do not like. The attempt is to come across as objective, showing “concern” for what the court is doing, when their view is entirely subjective.

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People agree or disagree with court decisions at all levels, all the time. However, claiming the decisions one doesn’t like as a “threat to democracy” is just bad faith, just as it is in describing the makeup of the Senate, the Electoral College, or legislation.

Take Senator Chris Murphy and the latest continuing resolution passed and signed by the president to reopen the government. His message on the spending bill during the shutdown? “None of us have an obligation to vote for a budget that funds the destruction of democracy.”

The senator should take a cue from Mr. Orwell.

I’m an older guy, and the first election in the United States I really took an interest in was the 1992 election. I was old enough to vote in 1988, but like many teenagers, I couldn’t have cared less about politics and didn’t bother.

1992 was different. You had George H. W. Bush, two years after his victory in Iraq but with an economy on the downside. There was Bill Clinton — the first of the Boomer generation to run for president — and, of course, Ross Perot.

I don’t need to go into everything that happened, but I can say that my first introduction to the BS of politics came from Bob Woodward’s book The Agenda. It was primarily about Clinton’s first year in office and the administration’s efforts to get its tax and spending plan through Congress. Democrats controlled the Senate 55–45 and already had four Republicans on board to secure the 60 votes necessary to bring it to the floor. The one holdout, ironically, was a Democrat — then-Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, who was not a fan of the “soak the rich” mentality. Warren Buffett convinced him it was not a big tax hike for the wealthiest Americans, and it passed.

The key issue illuminated in the book was Clinton’s promise to cut taxes for the middle class. I still recall when he went on television saying how hard he worked to get that done but couldn’t follow through. The book, however, tells a different story — one in which they knew during the campaign that he would not be able to get it done but went on saying it anyway.

Naturally, it sounds like garden-variety BS, but at the time, for someone new to the game, it was a real eye-opener. The overall point I’m making here is that I’ve been involved in this at several levels for over 30 years.

Politics was always an aside for most people. Sure, as a new conservative in the mid-’90s, I listened to talk radio, read National Review, and watched Crossfire on CNN (becoming a big fan of Robert Novak). Then, for more pointy-headed stuff, I liked to watch Capital Gang Sunday, which was hosted by Jim Glassman — a panelist show that would be unrecognizable in today’s world. For the most part, life was just life. You knew what you believed and largely avoided discussing it in polite company.

In the movie Sleepers, there’s a scene in which the young boys are grown men. Tommy Marcano and John Reilly (played by Billy Crudup and Ron Eldard) walk into a bar. They hear two guys talking politics of some kind, and it goes like this:

John: Hey, Jerry... What are they talking about? (Jerry is the bartender)

Jerry: They’re talking about Reagan’s speech. (This is 1981)

John: Order those two men some drinks and put it on my tab. You tell them that Republicans are not welcome in Hell’s Kitchen and either a political conversion or a change of conversation is in order.

Jerry: Sure thing.

Jerry walks to the other end of the bar and says, “The gentlemen there would like to buy you a drink on one condition. You know the rules: No religion and no politics.

Granted, they looked down the bar and saw two thugs staring at them, so they changed the subject. However, the more important point is what Jerry said about “the rules.” You don’t talk politics or religion in certain settings. And it stayed that way up until the last 10–15 years.

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I hear all the time about how “our politics is broken” or how the government cannot function because of “broken politics.” While partially true, that’s more the result of something deeper — it’s not the root issue.

The government merely responds to the whims of voters, especially those with the loudest voices. And it’s those voters and activists — on both the left and right — who make up approximately 40% of the voting populace. When Arthur Brooks was leaving AEI in 2018, he spoke with Tim Alberta and said,

“It’s not like 50 percent of Americans thinks one thing and 50 percent thinks another thing. No, 15 percent on each side are effectively controlling the conversation, and 70 percent of us don’t hate each other.”

I think the figure has increased in the last seven years, which is why I’m saying 40%.

The 20% on the right and the left have little to do with ideology. It’s not about the “far left” or the “far right.” It has much more to do with those who’ve made politics such a significant part of their identity that it’s like religion — everything is personal. Just as with religion, people pass judgment on others over their political views. As with certain religious sects, people choose not to have friends, or end friendships, over politics. People avoid certain places or refuse to buy certain products because of politics. When I see someone say, “They want you dead,” whether on the left or the right, I think to myself, What is going on in this person’s head?

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And when I talk about it as religion, I don’t mean the kind of religion that guides people and brings them spiritual health. I’m talking about the rigid, rules-based version rooted entirely in black-and-white principles of good and evil — and again, judgment. Think about the preacher who says anyone who listens to music other than hymns is a sinner engaging in evil. That’s the mindset I equate with the level of politics that has consumed so many people.

I’ve been doing this professionally for nearly 10 years now. As a writer, I’m an observer. And as someone with opinions, I base them on my beliefs; if that conflicts with a party or a politician, oh well. I’d get yelled at all the time by people saying, “Why are you criticizing Republicans? Go after the other side!” Of course, I don’t play for a team. I was never hired by the Republican Party to be a mouthpiece for them. As a conservative, the GOP was, for the longest time, the best vehicle in politics to advance conservative ideas and policies.

At the same time, I don’t allow myself to get consumed by politics. I write about it, talk about it on social media, and work with it in many respects — but when the day is over or the weekend arrives, I have different priorities. I don’t constantly consume political podcasts, watch cable news, or spend hours upon hours on social media.

Here’s what I like to do: I like watching YouTube channels where people get old cars back on the road or convert them into something entirely different — Vice Grip Garage, Fab Rats, The Dirthead Shed, Stay Tuned, Junkyard Digs. If you want to see some crazy stuff (what they call “Redneck Science”), check out Westen Champlin. He recently swapped a Rolls-Royce engine with a Cummins.

On the weekends, I’d rather do stuff with the family vehicles. I’m coming up on 60,000 miles on my Tacoma (I just changed the oil for $45 instead of paying someone else $100), and I’ll change the differential fluid, transfer case fluid, and do a drain-and-fill on the transmission fluid (not a flush). Andrea and I like to watch The Great British Baking Show, Triple Threat with Bobby Flay, and Alex vs. America. That’s relaxing and helps me get my mind off politics.

I also don’t care who someone voted for in a given election. Sure, I might disagree with someone’s choice, but that doesn’t change my view of them as a person or friend. It just doesn’t matter. Sure, policy matters. Laws matter. Regulations matter. The political process was designed so people could have a say on those issues through their elected representatives. But now people have latched onto the notion that the person you vote for defines you — or that whatever that person does is your responsibility.

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One of the more pernicious post hoc fallacies used by people, particularly on social media, is when a politician does something and someone says, “If you voted for that person, you own this!” or “You’re complicit!” The post hoc fallacy holds that because one event preceded another, they must be causally related. Therefore, your vote for Trump, Biden, or Obama is the cause of something they did — which is just ridiculous. It’s also lazy.

This has become somewhat of a stemwinder, but there’s one last thing I want to say about all of this: you don’t have to opine on everything. It’s perfectly fine to stay quiet. When people say you “have” to speak out or “should” say something — you don’t. That’s just another fallacy — in this case, an argument from ignorance: “Oh, if you don’t speak out about it, you either agree or don’t care!” Ryan Holiday said it best:

If everything you do or say, consume, read, listen to, or watch runs through a political prism, take a break. Life’s too short to waste time being angry at a particular portion of the population. It’s unhealthy mentally, unhealthy for relationships, and takes time away from doing things that can make you happy.

What do you think? Am I off base? Let me know in the comments.

Just a quick note: You’ve probably noticed that I grabbed a custom domain for this newsletter. If you’re on X and inclined to share it, the link will now display normally rather than get buried by the algorithm. Any shares are appreciated.

When it comes to the philosophy of how government should function—and how those who govern should behave—I always turn to Edmund Burke. His writings are excellent (I really need to revisit some of them) and, at least for me, serve as a valuable starting point.

I thought of Burke when I came across an old article by Sarah Isgur at The Dispatch titled “The Quiet Lawlessness of Joe Biden.” In it, she details—against the backdrop of endless “what about…?” examples—how Biden, the supposed “restorer of norms,” abused his executive authority during his four years in office. That includes the campaign to lie about and conceal his deteriorating health and mental acuity to run for another term.

Now, I’ll stop you right here. I can already feel the spittle-flecked outrage about Donald Trump, and we’ll get to him soon. This isn’t about blame, comparisons, or deciding which “side” is worse (I could write 1,500 words on my disdain for the “sides” debate, which is both trite and utterly annoying). I’m simply using Sarah’s piece as a starting point for what follows. Good? Good.

Burke, in Reflections on the Revolution in France, wrote:

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

Burke was a strong advocate of restraint in government—the idea that true liberty comes from self-restraint and limited government.

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Of course, the word “restraint” means nothing to Trump. Forget the bull in the china shop; Trump is a Category 5 hurricane in a house of cards. But whatever Trump has done—arbitrary tariffs, use of the military in civilian situations, targeting drug cartels as terrorists, immigration raids, political prosecutions, freezing federal funds, mass layoffs—or will do, does not exist in a vacuum. Yes, what he’s done is worse. But that doesn’t make what any other president has done better.

The idea that “not as bad” equals “good” is nonsensical. If there are two men in a room, and one has raped two women while the other has raped five, the first is not “better.” He’s still a rapist. Ed Gein is not “better” than Dennis Rader (the BTK Killer) because Gein murdered two people while Rader killed at least ten.

This is why the “Stop trying to both-sides it” line annoys me. It is on both sides. It doesn’t matter if Trump is worse—and he is. That doesn’t give anyone permission to wave off the past because it’s inconvenient to discuss. That’s essentially the point Sarah was making.

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Take Biden’s attempt to wipe out nearly $500 billion in college debt. For years, Biden and other Democrats—including Nancy Pelosi, who a year earlier said Biden needed congressional approval—acknowledged that eliminating college debt required an act of Congress. Because it essentially amounted to an appropriation (money owed to lenders doesn’t turn into fairy dust, à la Matthew McConaughey in The Wolf of Wall Street), lawmakers had to approve it.

Biden did it anyway, relying on a legally flimsy claim that he and the Secretary of Education had broad authority under the HEROES Act. When he acted, other Democrats wilted like week-old lettuce. Pelosi reversed herself and said he “clearly” had the authority. As we know, the Supreme Court struck it down. But that didn’t stop the president. He tried again and boasted, “The Supreme Court blocked me, but it didn’t stop me.” Another example of restraint in short supply.

President Obama did something similar with DACA. He repeatedly said he didn’t have the authority to implement Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on his own.

• In 2010, Obama said, “I’m President; I’m not king. I can’t do these things just by myself.”

• In March 2011, he said that “with respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case.”

• Two months later, he said he couldn’t “just bypass Congress and change the (immigration) law myself. ... That’s not how a democracy works.”

Then in 2012, he did it anyway.

Naturally, people argue, “But what Biden and Obama wanted to do was good.” I get it. People are frustrated that Congress can’t pass meaningful, bipartisan legislation on serious issues. But frustration is not a permission structure for any president to declare, “I’ll do it myself.”

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Part of the problem is that “bipartisanship” has become a dirty word. When Congress passed Biden’s infrastructure bill with ten Republican votes in the House, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called them “traitors.” The current government shutdown is being driven largely by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which refuses to open the government without getting what it wants. It’s reminiscent of the Tea Party era (2011–2013), when a handful of members thought they could force a Democratic Senate and president to accept their spending priorities.

We also have to think about the future. Too many people assume JD Vance will win in 2028. What if he doesn’t? What if President Newsom or President Buttigieg decides to cancel Defense Department contracts and lay off civilian personnel en masse? What if they redirect funds appropriated for the Department of Energy to the Department of the Interior? What if one decides to “pass” a single-payer health care plan by executive order?

For those who say, “That wouldn’t happen,” I ask: Why not?

What would stop them? They might promise not to do it—but Biden promised to work with Congress on student loan forgiveness. When he realized it wouldn’t pass, he went beyond his authority anyway.

I could spend another thousand words explaining how this could all play out again, but at this point, it’s not in the cards. Have we reached a point of no return? I’m an optimist. I hope the system will return to some sense of normalcy—but I don’t see it happening in the next election cycle or beyond.

What it will take is a leader willing to remind Congress of its superior role (the “coequal branches” language is a myth), to tell members to get to work, talk to each other, stop chasing viral clips, posting on social media, and running to cable news cameras.

That should happen without the qualifier: “If you don’t act, I will.”

It would be refreshing to hear a president say, “If Congress doesn’t act, nothing gets done. And perhaps you should elect representatives who will do their jobs and work with each other to move the country forward.”

Wouldn’t that be a nice change?

It’s hard to believe I first started this newsletter over seven years ago. At the time, I didn’t know Substack existed, as it had only launched a year earlier. I was using MailChimp, which is a much better platform for businesses than writing. I had the opportunity to meet Hamish Mackenzie and decided to make the leap. Several years later, I had over 1,200 subscribers and started offering paid subscriptions.

And then I had to shut it all down.

My previous employer (more on that here in a moment) put the kibosh on doing anything outside of its realm. So it had to go dark, as did any freelance writing, being on podcasts (without permission from media relations, which said “No” both times I inquired, so after that, I didn’t bother), or doing anything else. And I get it. Some outlets are much more open to employees creating content elsewhere, and some are going to keep it locked down. It was very frustrating, but understandable.

Still, life moves on, and it’s time for the next adventure. I have left Fox, and beginning today, I start my role as Communications and Strategic Initiatives Director with Mair Strategies. I am sure most of you know who Liz Mair is. If not, you can read about her background here and follow her on Twitter/X (whatever you want to call it).

This is new to me, but exciting. This is not the first time in my career that I have been on one side of a mutual business relationship and moving to the other. So it will be different from an editor role, but I am looking forward to the challenge. I appreciate that Liz gave me the opportunity.

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It’s been quite few years this year. You tired, too? If you recall, the constant chaos of the Trump administration was something Steve Bannon telegraphed years ago. He basically said, “The press can’t keep up with everything” so the administration would throw stuff out daily, knowing something that would typically set off alarms would go quietly uncovered. Naturally, Trump doesn’t like quiet, so it’s loud but some stuff does fly under the radar.

For those not old enough to remember, the “Friday night news dump” is what happened when someone in government whether it was at the federal or state level, would quietly release bad news late on a Friday afternoon. Before the advent of the internet and social media, such news wouldn’t rate much coverage over the weekend because of how the news cycle worked.

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Trump has managed to flip that on its head. He relishes the idea of being the news — good or bad. So just when you thought things were slowing down for the weekend, he’d send out a Truth Social post or the White House would release a statement about something…anything…what would be sure to consume the news cycle for the weekend and turn newsrooms into a frenzy when everyone thought it was time to head out for a drink or to head home and relax. It’s utterly exhausting.

And there are more than three years left.

So Creed has made one hell of a return to the scene, selling out shows and featuring crowds of new fans and older Gen X fans alike. The reason I bring in Creed at this point is the title of one of their songs fits so well with this administration:

It’s good to be back. I made tiny bit of money off this newsletter before I had to close it down, but I never did it for money. For me, it was fun. I just enjoy doing it, getting feedback (even negative), and just throwing unfiltered thoughts out into the ether. I’ll be writing elsewhere as well. I have a feature in the latest issue of the Washington Examiner Magazine which you can read here. I think WEX has gone to a pretty strict subscription model, so you might it difficult to access.

Couple of housekeeping notes:

A. My primary platform for sharing this content is on Twitter/X. Of course, Elon decided Substack was some kind of threat and buries Substack links, so I will likely be getting a custom domain for this newsletter to make it easier to share. You won’t have to do anything but once that change is made, any shares to social media would be appreciated. You can follow me here.

B. I am going to try to gear up the FB page. I had to get back on FB after my wife got tired of me messing up her Marketplace algorithm by searching for tools, cars, etc. You can find that page here.

C. There is probably something else but I can’t remember. I’ve 55! I forget stuff. You should see me hunting around for my reading glasses. I have one pair that I really like and I “misplace” them several times a week. What that actually means is I put them down and then like an idiot, forget where I put them. Apple needs to make a micro-Airtag so I can use “find my” to locate them.

See you next week!

Post-election “autopsies” usually discuss obscure issues, and 2024 was no different. Podcasts were center-stage, but there is no evidence that they significantly influenced the election, as some claim. Team Trump ran ads showing Kamala’s support for providing taxpayer-funded transition surgeries for California prisoners and broad Democratic support for biological males playing girls’ sports. That, too, was an issue but certainly not one that cut across vast swaths of support for Trump.

The economy was one of two issues voters considered most pressing in the election. And for those who think the economy was not doing all that well, those voters broke primarily for Trump.

Throughout the spring and summer, journalists and Democrats could not comprehend why Biden was not getting better job approval numbers and puzzled over his poor marks on the economy. What was their reaction?

Blame the voters.

“It’s all vibes!” “They know things are good, but they feel like it isn’t, so they’re not giving credit Biden!” “Voters really don’t understand these macroeconomic issues.”

Look at this story from Politico (with CNN’s Brian Stelter — more on him in a moment — sharing a particular tidbit):

“They simply refuse to believe it! Bunch of dummies!”

To which I replied:

I hate to be that guy (well, not really), but I have been warning about it for months. I warned that Democrats were downplaying the economy, that it was more than just “vibes,” and that while unemployment was low and year-over-year inflation was down, people were still seeing more of their paychecks go toward higher food prices, car insurance, rent, homeowners insurance, home prices, energy prices, and credit card interest rates.

People didn’t see it that way. Tom Nichols tried to blame the media (of which he is a part):

Fundamentals in elections still matter despite all the think pieces you’ll read trying to pull at threads to find the deep-hidden meaning behind the results. When looking at the data, you see what it was all about.

The gimmicks did not work. I said the “weird” thing Tim Walz started when Kamala chose him as a running mate would not last and was much more of a social media phenomenon than anything else. I was told, “We will see it until November.” We did not.

Democrats tried to turn immigration into an issue that didn’t necessarily favor them but one in which they could find some room to move. I said it would not happen because people saw the previous three years with millions of people crossing the border — and that no one would buy Kamala the “border hawk” act she was selling. Of those who said immigration was the most crucial issue in the election (11% of voters), 90% voted for Trump.

I said the whole “joy” thing with the Harris campaign was almost entirely media-driven (and the bump she received was more about Democrats getting excited than anything else) and was not reflected in the overall electorate, and by the fall, that was true as the race moved back to a tie. And the Harris campaign knew it wasn’t working because it went from a campaign of joy to her hollering, “NEVER AGAIN!” by the middle of October when the “threat to democracy” theme returned. It was given an octane boost with comparisons to Hitler and calling Trump a fascist in the final weeks.

This is not to say that Trump won’t go rogue, and he already has with several of his cabinet nominees. Contrary to all the fear-mongering about Trump and being a dictator, he knows he enters office as a lame duck, so he’s swinging for the fences with ridiculous picks like Matt Gaetz to head up the Justice Department, RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard as head of Director of National Intelligence.

There is also the concern over how much executive power Trump will exert, and we’re already watching a battle play out with the threat of recess appointments to mold his administration the way he wants. Chances are, the scheme doesn’t work, but it’s not for a lack of trying. Andy McCarthy of National Review is having none of it:

The Framers were concerned that the presidency they were creating could become tyrannical. The road to tyranny — meaning, to the eradication of Americans’ liberty — would always be the accumulation of too much power in any one government actor’s hands. Hence, they divided power, structuring the government so that the branches checked each other’s authority. In that vein, they empowered the Senate to ensure that high executive officials had the qualifications and character fitting for public trust — the government offices in which they would wield enormous power. The president can fire any executive official at any time — subordinates are delegated to exercise the president’s power only at the president’s pleasure. But the president cannot hire anyone he wants. Nominees are subject to the Senate’s constitutional duty to advise and consent (Article II, Section 2).

This is where the “mandate” issue becomes ridiculous. I loathe the word “mandate” to begin with, regardless of the margin of victory in a presidential election. But too often, an incoming administration views its victory as a green light to run down a checklist of everything it wants to do and claim they were elected to do so. That’s not the case.

Trump won because of the economy and the horrid job the Biden administration did with combating illegal immigration.

Regarding the deportations, I am sure Tom Homan will do the job effectively. Why? He was the point person in the Obama administration, during which the former president deported more illegal immigrants than any other president before him.

On the economy, that’s a different matter altogether. People tend to credit or blame presidents for the state of the economy, but they don’t have as much control as they think. Still, Trump’s plan to raise tariffs exponentially will only exacerbate inflation and cause prices to increase. Whether someone has his ear to tell him is another matter. Republicans in Congress will likely not stand in his way, and he’ll use “emergency” executive powers to implement the tariffs, which could turn the opportunity for prices to come down on its head.

Time will tell.

An insurrection took place in the U.S. Capitol building yesterday in Washington, and it was one of the more shameful days in United States history. The people who did it are responsible for their actions. Still, President Trump bears responsibility for inciting what the world witnessed after he fed his supporters a steady diet of lies and conspiracy theories for the last 60 days.

It culminated in Trump giving a rambling, mostly incoherent speech on the day Congress was to go through the largely ceremonial process of counting certified electoral votes from all 50 states and putting a figurative stamp of approval on the election results. But Trump, of course, continued to shovel loads of bullshit to faithful supporters who gathered near the White House and who then descended on the Capitol as he commanded them.

What we all witnessed looked like something out of a movie. I was half expecting to see Gerard Butler show up at some point. Insurrectionists forced their way past barriers, broke windows, ignored Capitol Hill police. Many of them proceeded to trash offices, rifle through Speaker Pelosi’s desk, take over the House and Senate chambers. As a result of the chaos fomented by Trump, one woman was shot by Capitol Hill police and later lost her life, and from what I have read, three others died as a result of other medical emergencies. They died because they believed Trump’s lies. It’s disgusting.

While I thought Trump’s Ukraine phone call was impeachable, I didn’t think it was worthy of removing him from office. And this may sound strange, but I don’t think it’s worth trying to remove him from office at this point. Regardless of what went down yesterday, it’s unlikely the Senate can get to 67 votes to remove Trump from office.

However, Congress can impeach Trump and disqualify him from ever holding a federal office again, including making a bid for 2024, as many expect him to try. Article 1, Section 3 gives the Senate that power. The text says:

Judgement in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement and Punishment, according to Law.

The Constitution requires two-thirds of the Senate to agree on removal but says nothing about disqualification, meaning it would require only a simple majority. Depending on when Georgia certifies the elections of Jon Ossoff and Rafael Warnock (counties in Georgia have to certify their results to the state by January 15th), they could both get sworn in before January 20th to take a vote.

Unless I am mistaken about control, that still leaves Senate control in GOP hands with a 50-50 split until the 20th when Kamala Harris takes over as Vice-President. All it takes is one Senator to vote with Democrats to disqualify Trump from holding office in the future.

I think more than a few would join in. And they should.

When Donald Trump steps out of the White House on January 20th, he should never have the opportunity to go back unless he’s taking a tour. Trump is a dangerous narcissist who thinks what’s rightfully his was taken from him by Joe Biden. Put it out of his reach for all time. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he announced shortly after Biden gets inaugurated that he will run again in 2024. Why wouldn’t he?

The Senate can stop that from happening. The window is short, but screw the pomp and circumstance at this point. The Constitution, laws, norms, procedures, tradition, separation of powers? It all means nothing to him. Trump issued a statement through his caddie Dan Scavino, saying there will be an “orderly transition of power” on January 20th. So what? Whatever Trump says directly or through a spokesperson is worthless.

Impeach him. Disqualify him. End this madness once and for all.

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As for Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, both of whom entertained this clown show and helped it along, they’re a disgrace to the offices they hold and the institution where they serve. They joined in the farce for one reason only: To curry favor with the most fervent Trump supporters. Even after what happened and Congress reconvened to certify the results, Hawley and Cruz still voted to reject Arizona and Pennsylvania's electors. I told people they wouldn’t vote to reject enough electors to overturn the election. They did enough that Biden still retained 275 electoral votes.

Their pathetic cravenness for the approval of Trump and his supporters makes them look small and weak. Both Cruz and Hawley often speak of their reverence for the Constitution. However, they both ignored the oaths they made to defend that document by voting to ignore certified results from two states because the President is too much of a child to accept defeat.

State courts, federal courts, secretaries of state, and other officials found none of the malfeasance alleged by Trump. Even if you agree that some of what the states did in the run-up to the election wasn’t right, it doesn’t fall on Congress to reject the one set of electors delivered to them by the states. As Utah Senator Mike Lee said, their job is to count the electoral votes. Nothing more.

After watching the fiasco, Andrea, who voted for Ted Cruz in the 2016 primary, declared herself #NeverCruz. “I’m done with him, man.” I agree.

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Thirteen days left. Let’s not pretend for a moment the nightmare ended until Biden officially gets sworn in.

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It’s inevitable. Following the horror of a mass shooting, the issue of gun control gets debated. It’s not the easiest conversation to have, particularly when emotions run high. People have a tendency to shout at each other in the public square and more so on social media. I’m going to attempt in this issue to advance the debate as best I can. Good faith arguments can take place and that has to come from both sides. People who support gun rights are not advancing a debate when screaming, “MOLON LABE!” and neither are gun control supporters when they accuse those on the other side of “wanting to see children die.” 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden went with this drivel in a New York Times op-ed where he wrote, “…the problem is with weak-willed leaders who care more about their campaign coffers than children in coffins.” Does he really think that’s going to get people to side with him?

First, I’m going to start with a list of the kind of arguments I’ve seen gun control advocates advance since I’ve been debating this issue, which goes back over 20 years. They’re not arguments so much as they are appeals to emotion. Second, I’ll cover the ways I think politicians disingenuously discuss the issue, making it harder to take any concrete steps and then show how the proposed legislation on the table at the moment, won’t impact violence committed with firearms.

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I invariably come across or face the following arguments and I’m going to say up front that they don’t hold merit. They’re not based on logic or reason and adds more to the toxic environment than it adds to the discussion. It’s possible you may not like my characterization but I’ll leave it to you to make the case why I’m wrong. Here we go.

“You don’t need an AR-15.” Another variant of this is, “No one needs an AR-15 to hunt.” The question of what people do or do not need, is not a question for the government to decide. There are plenty of everyday items people use that they don’t need. No one needs a 70” television. No one needs a MacBook Pro, an iPad pro, an iPad mini and an iPhone. No needs a Ford Expedition or an 8 inch Mac chef’s knife.

Law enforcement agents will get people to waive their fourth amendment rights by telling them, “If you didn’t do anything wrong, you don’t need to worry.”

The response often leads to the next reason…

“Guns are designed are to kill.” Guns can kill, yes. But to argue they are “designed” to kill assumes if one uses one and doesn’t kill someone, the firearm must have a flaw. I’ve fired plenty of firearms and never killed a human or animal. I’ve slaughtered plenty of paper targets, however. No one would argue, “Knives are designed to kill” despite the fact nearly 1,600 people were murdered in 2017 with a knife. More people used their bare hands to murder than people did with rifles (700 vs. 400). Nearly 500 people were murdered with blunt objects like bats and hammers.

“These are weapons of war.” The latest to advance this argument is Mike Mullen, the 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The argument is fallacious and the simple rebuttal is, “They are not weapons of war.” An AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle, meaning one has to pull the trigger each time for it to fire. The weapons used by infantrymen and women in the military have settings for burst (typically three rounds) and also full auto. People refer to them as “weapons of war” because they look like military weapons. Look at the two guns below:

The first is a Bushmaster AR-15 (which does not stand for “assault rifle” - it stands for Armalite rifle, the company that developed the first model in the 1950s) . The second is a Ruger Mini 14. Does the Ruger look like a weapon of war to you? Meanwhile, look at this one:

That is a Heckler and Koch 416 rifle. That one looks like a weapon of war, does it not? The first two are pretty much the same firearm. They both take ..223 rounds and the Ruger has a detachable magazine and one can add other accessories such as a barrel shroud or pistol grip. The HK certainly looks scarier than the Ruger, but it it’s only a .22 rifle, what many enthusiasts call a “plinker” as people will typically use it for shooting cans or bottles.

“Now hold on a second, Caruso! Mullen is a retired Navy admiral. Doesn’t he know what he’s talking about?” He has his opinion, sure. But that doesn’t mean he’s right. I doubt many people would accept the views of Michael Flynn on national security, despite his long history of military service. Arguing Mullen is right because of his service is an appeal to authority and it wouldn’t take long to find someone who takes the opposing view. What then?

“If it saves one life, it’s worth doing.” This argument has more to do with gun control legislation that I’ll cover in more detail, but it’s a common refrain. If the goal is to save lives, there are plenty of avenues to take. The number one cause of unintentional injury death for people between the ages of 5 and 24 is motor vehicle accidents. If the goal is “saving lives” why not implement a nationwide 25 mph speed limit? Sounds preposterous doesn’t it? The savings lives argument is one that stems from emotion. It’s the kind of thinking that got us The Patriot Act. It’s nonsensical in that it doesn’t add to the debate but gets used as a “one-up” in an increasingly emotional debate.

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As for the politicians…well, that could take up an entire newsletter but I wanted to focus on one thing in particular. But the other day, I tweeted out that what Chicago Senator Dick Durbin said in this tweet is untrue:

I said I’d answer some critics as to what is untrue. Let’s get one thing straight, convicted felons (under 18 US code chapter 44) cannot legally acquire firearms. By claiming felons can “avoid our laws” by getting guns at gun shows and on the internet, Durbin is being dishonest. If you attempt to purchase a firearm at a gun show from a federally licensed dealer, you will undergo a background check.

Granted, private sales do not require a background check, but those sellers make up a small percentage of the vendors at gun shows. Also, private sales are not exclusive to gun shows. Selling a gun privately out of one’s home or at a garage sale is the same thing. It’s part of the reason I cringe when I hear people use the term, “gun show loophole” as it is total misnomer. No one says, “The garage sale loophole.” Once again, if a person is prohibited, they are not making a legal purchase. Loopholes in the law, allow people to do something legally, while circumventing a poorly written law to prevent something.

This is where people say, “Then how come we don’t pass the universal background check law especially if it polls so high?” Because it’s impractical. The FBI can barely measure crimes committed via the purchase of private sales because the rate is so low. None of the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years (and before) would have been prevented those shootings under such a law because they all acquired their firearms through via a process that already had them undergo a background check. The idea that a parent, who already owns guns and receives a gift from his son who also owns guns, must go through a background check for that gift, is ridiculous. People who are intent on committing a crime will just find another way.

As for internet sales, it’s more complicated. First, purchasing a gun from a place such as Bud’s Gun Shop online is an easy enough thing to do. So where does the gun get sent? Not to your home. The gun will get sent to a federally licensed dealer who will perform the background check.

What about private sales? If you sell a gun online to a person outside your state, you must ship it to an a federally licensed dealer who will perform a background check, and you’re required to use a common carrier as well as notify the carrier in writing that you’re shipping a firearm. Any deviation from those steps is a violation of federal law. If you ship in state, you can send it directly to a person but it still requires the use of a common carrier and notifying the carrier in writing.

So for Durbin to claim there are legal loopholes for felons to get guns is just not true. The avoidance of a background check is not a loophole. That person is still committing a crime that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

One final note on gun shows. The press often refers to people who sell privately as “unlicensed dealers.” That’s simply not true. A person who has 10-12 guns and decides to sell them at a gun show is not a “dealer.” And if the ATF finds that a person is acting like a dealer, and doing so without a license, those people are going to face some questions.

Additionally, Democratic politicians continue to claim we have an “epidemic of gun violence” in the United States and it’s false. I’d agree we do have an epidemic of suicide in the country as the rate of suicide continues to rise. But gun violence? It’s half of what it was in the 80’s and 90’s. Don’t take my word for it. Vox – Yes, that Vox – has that info:

Violent crime overall hasn’t been lower since the 1960s. The American people haven’t lived in a safer era in over 60 years. Epidemic of gun violence? Not even close.

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I get that this is contentious issue. But it is not one that’s cut and dried and plenty of times, the “common sense” laws proposed don’t make much sense. It is not too much to ask that gun laws have a practical purpose. HR 5087, the House bill that would ban “assault weapons” is one that is not practical. That HK416 .22 plinker rifle? An “assault weapon” under the proposed bill because it has a pistol grip. The proposed law defines an “assault weapon” as:

A semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and any one of the following

1. A pistol grip.

2. A forward grip.

3. A folding, telescoping, or detachable stock.

4. A grenade launcher or rocket launcher.

5. A barrel shroud.

6. A threaded barrel.

Note that none of what’s on that list, changes the functionality of a rifle. A barrel shroud does nothing but prevent people from burning themselves when the barrel heats up. But add one to a rifle and it suddenly becomes an “assault weapon” and that’s just silly. It has nothing to do with functionality and everything to do with how a particular rifle looks.

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I welcome the feedback, especially if you disagree or if you think there’s something I didn’t cover. If you think any of the arguments I wrote about at the top are valid, please feel free to tell me why. If you think the legislation will create the kind of change necessary in the country, please explain why.

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Until next week, folks!