Another reason why Democrats lose elections.

Democrats form a circular firing squad.

I respect Democratic activists for their sincere integrity. They have political principles. They don't sell out.

Meanwhile, I scoff at the hypocrisy of Republicans who are maddeningly loyal to the GOP brand, but not to principles. Polls show that 95 percent of Republicans who voted for Reagan, Bush, and Romney now support Trump, who reversed much of what those presidential candidates stood for.

(I realize that Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger got off the Trump bus. No generalization is perfect. A few Republicans told me they "held their noses" to vote for Trump. That makes my point. They support a candidate they have contempt for.)

Democrats are fractious. My TikTok feed sent me a video of a young woman telling other young Democrats to tell their parents NOT to support California Governor Gavin Newsom for president.

Here is the text of her comment:

We all have a personal responsibility at this point to convince our older, centrist Democrat family members that Gavin Newsom sucks before it’s too late. I’m sure I’m not the only person whose moms and aunts and uncles loves Gavin Newsom for the way he sticks it to Trump and tells it like it is. But we need to make it clear that he is the worst before they start donating to the presidential primary. So here is a non-exhaustive list of why this man cannot be the next president and if I miss anything, put it in the comments.

Gavin Newsom will not answer questions on whether or not he takes money from AIPAC. 

He also says he is not pro-abolishing ICE. 

He is actually cruel to homeless people who he sees only as obstacles on the way to his presidential ambitions. 

He has publicly stated that he will fight tooth and nail against California’s billionaire tax ballot measure which would make sure that billionaires are paying their fair share. 

He also told Ben Shapiro that he agreed with him and what’s happening in Palestine isn’t genocide. 

He is obsessed with finding “common ground” with right wing extremists, platforming them on his podcast — people who have said things like that women are less than human.

Some of this is generational -- youthful passion meets parental moderation, an age-old story, so it might not portend a divided party. As the Beatles sang (Strawberry Fields, 1967) "It's nothing to get hung about." Possibly so.

But the video displays real fault lines in the Democratic response to the late-Trump era. Israel divides Democrats. Hamas and Israel have both done reprehensible things. Both are perpetrators; both are victims. Trump took a stand: Let Israel do anything it wants. Democrats want something more moderate and muddled, and no one will be happy

ICE divides Democrats. Some of its actions are reprehensible, defensible only by Trump's sycophants. But someone needs to enforce immigration laws or we have no immigration enforcement, and Americans rejected that. Democrats want something more muddled and, again, no one will be happy. 

Tax policy divides Democrats. A No Kings sign saying "Tax Billionaires", or an AOC dress reading "Tax the Rich," has clarity. But in the reality of governing, tax surcharges on incomes have consequences. People and businesses can and do move to lower-tax places. Musk moved himself and his business operations from California to Texas. Financial firms are moving from New York to Miami. A home-grown local billionaire founder of Dutch Bros. coffee just announced he was moving the business from Grants Pass, Oregon to Arizona. Newsom says the billionaire tax would mean a net loss of revenue to California. Is he right? Maybe, but the burden of responsible governance requires that he consider that. A good slogan is not necessarily good government. 

I envision a divided and politically unsatisfying presidential primary season as Democrats search for a unifying leader. I suspect there cannot be one. The Democratic Party is a collection of interest groups led by people with a mission. Abortion advocates tolerate no restriction on a fundamental right. Climate activists do not see natural gas as a transition fuel and a big improvement over coal; it is perpetuation of fossil fuels. Tax activists tolerate no limits because, after all, billionaires are morbidly rich. Immigration activists see the USA as the world's lifeboat, with a moral obligation to save refugees from violence and poverty. 

The young woman in the video isn't arguing for self-interest. She wants a better world. She is sincere. Democratic interest group spokespeople are sincere. For the sincere, politics isn't a calculation of what is possible in a democracy. Right is right and wrong is wrong. 

A California governor will carry a lot of baggage that will look extreme in Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Gavin Newsom is probably at the left-progressive-woke edge of the spectrum of candidates who could possibly win a national election, and only under the most favorable of circumstances. 

Yet he isn't good enough. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to. 

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Remembering Jesse Jackson

"I've got to admit it's getting better (better)
A little better all the time (it can't get no worse)"
           The Beatles, 1967

Maybe not. Maybe things are getting worse, not better. 

We have gone from Jesse Jackson to Donald Trump. 

Take some time today to read or watch his speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1988. Treat yourself.

Maybe in a hundred years this era will be understood as the "decline" period for the USA. The institutions and norms of our democracy -- the glue that holds us together as a people -- are dissolving, one angry tweet, one Trump rally speech, one attorney general testimony at a time. The level of public discourse has fallen off a cliff.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

We may be in the falling apart moment. The anarchy comes later.

Jesse Jackson's speech to the Democratic National Convention makes me realize that I presumed that America and the world were "progressing" in some way. Technology was getting better, people worldwide were getting richer, cures for diseases were being discovered and disseminated, and oppressed groups were gaining civil rights and respect. And in the back of my mind was the hopeful prediction of Martin Luther King: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."  Things are getting better all the time, right?

Jesse Jackson's speech is a speech about that progress. There is a better future for America: more justice, more prosperity, more peace, more opportunity for Americans, including the poor, to live the lives they desire.

Jackson repositions an idea of poor people in the U.S. that came out of opposition to Great Society poverty programs. Ronald Reagan described poor people as freeloaders. As Mitt Romney would later put it, they were "takers." Jesse Jackson described poor people differently: "They catch the early bus. They work every day."

Most poor people are not lazy. They are not Black. They are not Brown. They are mostly White and female and young. But whether White, Black or Brown, a hungry baby's belly turned inside out is the same color-- color it pain, color it hurt, color it agony. 

Most poor people are not on welfare. Some of them are illiterate and can't read the want-ad sections. And when they can, they can't find a job that matches the address. They work hard everyday. I know, I live amongst them. They catch the early bus. They work every day. They raise other people's children. They work everyday. 

They clean the streets. They work everyday. They drive dangerous cabs. They change the beds you slept in in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work everyday. 

No, no, they're not lazy. Someone must defend them because it's right and they cannot speak for themselves. They work in hospitals. I know they do. They wipe the bodies of those who are sick with fever and pain. They empty their bedpans. They clean out their commodes. No job is beneath them, and yet when they get sick they cannot lie in the bed they made up every day. America, that is not right. We are a better Nation than that! 

It is a sad irony that reading Jesse Jackson's speech would make me feel pessimistic and less hopeful. But I have watched discourse go from Jackson to Trump. This isn't better. What is wrong with us?!

In soaring language Jackson describes the tapestry that creates a good and great America. I contrast this with Trump's tweets, his speeches denouncing groups of Americans, his divisiveness, and his effort to demonize and exclude the very people Jackson credits. 

Jackson roots his speech in the moral lessons of Christianity. Feed the poor, house the homeless, free the oppressed, pay the worker a fair wage. It is the politics of Matthew 25 and the story of the Good Samaritan. Meanwhile, Trump uses the symbols and imprimatur of Christianity to argue for the opposite -- and gets cheers from people on TV who wear a cross on a necklace. The irony.

The speech takes 50 minutes to watch via YouTube. It takes 15 minutes to read.  It will remind you of what we have lost.

It has been a while since Democrats have heard an inspiring political leader on the national stage. It isn't enough to condemn Trump's cynical, corruption of the rule of law. A good speech needs a direction for the future. It combines policy and moral purpose rooted in the core beliefs of the audience. The country gets shown a direction we can feel good about.  

Loud and omnipresent, Trump has set a tone. He appeals to the worst of our instincts. 

The Bible's Book of Romans (10:17) says that faith comes from hearing. You will be saved by the power of the spoken word. I agree with that. Powerful speeches that stir hearts are an essential part of politics. Democrats need a little bit of the Jesse Jackson spirit. The messenger does not need to shock with blunt cruelty; that is Trump's schtick. The Democratic messenger needs to inspire by reminding us of our best selves.

 

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George W. Bush disappoints

"Knee-deep in flowers we'll stray
We'll keep the showers away. . .
And tiptoe through the tulips with me."

          Al Dubin and Joe Burke, 1929, "Tiptoe through the Tulips with Me"; repopularized by Tiny Tim, 1968

Former president George W. Bush published a Presidents' Day message in praise of George Washington. 

Bush tiptoed around the Donald Trump problem. 

I don't get why George W. Bush -- Bush 43 -- is careful not to offend Donald Trump. 

I get why Cabinet members flatter and fawn over Trump; it is the price of keeping their positions. I get why GOP House and Senate members handed congressional power over to Trump; 100%-obedience is necessary to keep Trump from supporting a primary opponent. 

But why is Bush 43 tiptoeing? 

Trump repeatedly insulted Bush and his family. He contradicted and condemned Bush 43's policies on immigration, on trade, on our alliances, and on the norms and practices of the presidency. Trump is a flagrant scofflaw, swashbuckling through presidential decorum, while Bush 43 generally played by the norms of polite company and presidential tradition. 

Yes, there was a moment of self-aggrandizement when he climbed out of a fighter jet in a flight suit below a "Mission Accomplished." sign, but even that incident creates a distinction from Trump. The Bush team let the image drop. No more cosplay. 

Full text of Bush's essay

Bush's Presidents Day essay commended George Washington's modesty and restraint. Washington served his country. He did not try to hold onto power. Bush's essay was accompanied by a photo of the giant John Trumbull painting in the Capitol depicting Washington voluntarily relinquishing power.  

NY Times headline

The New York Times exemplifies the reaction of the pundits I read. They draw attention to Bush's subtlety. Notice the "edge?" Notice the criticism/not-criticism of Trump? Bush kind of spoke up.

Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, would not consent to the January 6 coup attempt. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and his daughter, congressional leader Liz Cheney, drew a red line: Trump's January 6 attempt to overthrow the 2020 election was profoundly wrong. Like Pence, they said it publicly: Trump's attack on our democracy is disqualifying for any honor or future office. 

Bush 43 has kept quiet. Bush has a forum and standing. Most people who voted for Trump had earlier voted twice for Bush 43. Bush has a role to fill in American history. 

 

Bush concluded his essay with this: 

I often say that the office of the president is more important than the occupant; that the institution of the presidency gives ballast to our ship of state. For that stability we are indebted to the wisdom of our founding fathers’ governing charter and the humility of our nation’s first president. It has guided us for 250 years, and it will strengthen us for our next 250 years.

Alas, no. 

Trump reveals that the Constitution is full of loopholes and weak spots. Trump drives a truck through the supposed institutional ballast. The Constitution relies on a president's integrity, honesty, and sense of duty and shame. The institutions with armed power are under the president's control. The presidential institution does not give ballast. It gives wings and weapons.

The Constitution gives the president unchecked pardon power. A president can use it to pardon people upon receipt of a million-dollar contribution. A president can simply ignore the Emoluments Clause; his appointed attorney general says it is OK. A president can ignore the plain sense of the word "emergency" to grab power denied him by the Constitution. A president can claim we are in a state of war.

George W. Bush said everything will be OK. The words of the Constitution protect us. No. Our republic is protected by people with the courage not to stay silent, not to cross one's fingers and hope that sooner or later Americans will draw the right inferences. Not to count on words in a document. The wisdom of the Constitution requires ambition to check ambition. Unjust power is stopped by just power. It requires people with a platform to say no and send a clear signal to the American people that something is very wrong.

Bush had an opportunity and a duty, and he didn't show up. He tiptoed.

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How a child dies of measles

     “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!”
          Abraham Lincoln to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1862

Sometimes fiction is truer than mere reality. Maybe we can learn from it.

The interaction between Lincoln and Stowe probably didn't happen, even if the story persists and there is a statue in Hartford, Connecticut, of the supposed encounter.

The book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was fiction. It depicted the harsh, cruel impact of slavery on the lives of well-drawn characters, including "Uncle Tom," a Christian preacher and slave who is flogged to death by his cruel master, Simon Legree. It fueled abolitionist sentiment in the North.

I read Uncle Tom's Cabin in high school for pleasure, and then again in a graduate school class on how history is shaped by fictionalized history.

Some of the power of The Atlantic article comes from the fact that it isn't evident that it is fiction, at least at first. I read it thinking it was straight-up journalism, a confession by a mother who had not vaccinated her children for measles. It depicts the feeling of anguish and remorse she felt as she watched her two children get desperately sick from measles. Both of her children were in pain. Both were hospitalized and near death. One child had permanent disabling brain damage, she wrote.

Click: Gifted article

She wrote:

You plant her on the couch with a blanket and put Bluey on the TV while she drifts in and out of sleep. You coax her to eat by offering ice cream, which she says feels good on her throat. She’s a tough kid, but you can tell she’s miserable—there are circles under her eyes as she complains of a headache, then grimaces when she coughs. 

Then later:

You suffer an icy moment of realization: This is a medical crisis. What you will learn later is that the tiny air sacs inside her lungs have become breeding grounds for the virus, and the inflammation generated by her immune response is inhibiting oxygen from reaching her bloodstream.

And later, in a call to the physician before the rush to the emergency room:

The receptionist responds gently, types swiftly, and then pauses. Are your children vaccinated? she asks. Her tone is flat and inscrutable, but you detect an undercurrent of judgment. You wince and tell her the truth. No, you say, no vaccines.

The Atlantic story is part of the changing reality of the return of measles. Outbreaks are in the news. 

Maybe the zeitgeist is changing. Vaccines are getting a burst of positive publicity. Medford writer, Bruce Van Zee, a retired physician, alerted me this week to news that vaccinations may have benefits beyond protection against the primary disease. From his February 13 post titled "Surprising Vaccine Benefits, he wrote:

Data extending back 25 years suggests Flu vaccine is associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease, including heart failure, stroke and heart attack.

Dementia risk appears to be less in individuals who take a variety of vaccines including Shingles , Influenza, Tetanus/Whooping cough, and pneumonia vaccines. 

A Danish study found a 10% decrease in cardiovascular hospitalizations for those who took the Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccine, which is one of the newer vaccines recommended by authorities.

Covid vaccines have been shown to decrease the incidence of Long Covid, a debilitating illness with physical and mental symptoms.

Zeitgeists change. Misery is the greatest teacher; people value potential reward less than they dislike pain and loss. Probably more children need to suffer and die. One in 10 people who get measles require hospitalization. Parents may need to share the experience of quarantines. Someone will write a true story of loss that matches The Atlantic article.

Possibly the plaintiffs bar will get involved. Physicians are damned if they do and damned if they don't. My experience as a financial advisor informs my thinking here. If a client made a very poor decision that cost him money, the fact that it was documented as the client's decision does not protect the financial advisor. If the decision was a poor one, how come the advisor didn't talk the client out of it?  

I can envision that the parent of a child who dies or who faces permanent, expensive disability would sue the physician who consented to the parent's vaccine refusal. The parent's written consent  won't be enough to protect the physician. After all, who is the expert here? Informed consent means informed consent, and the physician could have been more persuasive and informative in talking the parent out of refusing vaccinations. Some physician or hospital probably needs to suffer and pay. If a child victim of measles-induced encephalitis faces lifetime care of $20,000 a month, someone will be looking for a deep pocket. Lawyers may do for public health what the CDC no longer will. 

I grew up in a moment of tremendous relief that vaccines were saving Americans from infectious diseases. Whew!!! The victory was too great, too complete. Many people forgot what was gained. Too many people decided vaccines are the risk. Let the herd protect you. Or get the disease. What could go wrong?

The zeitgeist will change when people engage with the alternatives to vaccination and people suffer and die. The Atlantic article is one step in that change. But on reflection, my real bet is on the plaintiff bar. No one really consents to their child being on a lifetime of bedridden life support, not in hindsight. 

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Easy Sunday: A guest post about losing.

 "Some days you bite the dog. Some days the dog bites you."

Sometimes things go wrong.  

I was 17, standing on a ladder, thinning the excess fruit off of pear trees in a Medford-area Naumes-family orchard, when I heard the words about biting and getting bit. Older guys, the Rasmussen twins, both students at Stanford said it. They, like me and Jack Mullen, the author of today's guest post, were on the same crew.

The Rasmussen twins looked cool to me -- so accomplished! So worldly! Students at one of the schools I hoped someday to attend! -- So I paid attention and remembered their wisdom. Sometimes you lose. Accept that.

Jack Mullen was one of the people watching when the USA's star figure skater, Ilia Malinin, the only person in the world able to spin in the air four full times in practice jumps, slipped and fell in his performance at the Olympics this week.

As a high school athlete in Medford, Jack Mullen experienced great successes, and some disappointments. Jack watched the successes of some of his classmates: All-American fullback Bill Enyart, whose Oregon State's football team defeated USC and OJ Simpson, and boyhood friend Dick Fosbury, who revolutionized high jumping while winning a gold medal. But no triumph survives future disappointment.  Sometimes the dog bites you. After two seasons in the NFL, Enyart injured a knee and had to leave professional football. Dick Fosbury ran for the state legislature in his home in Idaho and lost, and then died -- too young -- at age 76.

Mullen lives in Washington, D.C. and sent this photo of himself after he dug his car out of the snow. A small victory, until the next deep snow.

Guest Post by Jack Mullen

How to process the "Quad God'" meltdown at the Winter Olympics?

It was hard, not only for me, but for many, to explain the stunned emotions we felt as we watched Ilia Malinin, USA’S face of the Olympic Games, truncate his long program, stumble and fall multiple times, and finish eighth in the men’s figure skating competition.  

But my sadness switched to pride as an American when Ilia handled disappointment with grace and humility.

The pressure a 21-year-old feels to perform, solo, in front of a captivated live audience, along with millions on world-wide television, must be immense.  Ilia did not shy away from the many interviews in which he acknowledged the mental part of his performance that overwhelmed his years of practice and mastery of the sport. Indeed, he showed maturity beyond his years.

As I went to bed on Friday, the 13th, I realized I knew of a certain 21-year-old, a childhood friend growing up with me in Medford, Oregon, Dick Fosbury, who, somehow met his Olympic moment in front of 80,000 fans at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Foz not only won a gold medal but entered the history books by revolutionizing his specialty, the high jump, in ways unimaginable at the time. 

How did Dick Fosbury meet the moment and change how athletes high jump?

Corvallis, Oregon, June 1965

I grew up with Dick Fosbury.  We both arrived in Roosevelt grade school in the third grade – Dick from Portland and me from Missouri.  Our fathers both landed jobs at Haupert Tractor Company.  Foz, or Fosdick as he was called then (nicknamed after a character the Lil’ Abner comic strip), engaged, like many Medford kids of that era, in multiple sports. We were teammates in football, basketball, track and even baseball from the fifth grade through high school.  None of our friends or teammates took any notice of Fosbury developing mental toughness.  How could we? He was awkward, dropped passes I threw him in football and basketball and never seemed to improve.  

The only sign of any athletic ability came between the fifth and sixth grade at Roosevelt when he improved from high jumping 3’10” in the fifth grade to 4’6” in the sixth grade.  Four feet was the magic barrier that I couldn’t conquer. Fosdick left all of us sixth graders in the dust.

Early in high school, Fosbury plateaued while clearing the height of 5’4”, that is until in his sophomore year, at a meet in Grants Pass. There, he ditched his scissors and roll style and went over the bar sideways-backward, improving six inches to 5’10’, his new personal best.

Dick Fosbury’s unique sideways-backward style garnered local attention, even a UPI photo spread around the country, but not much else until he arrived in Mexico City as the third qualifier on America’s Olympic high-jumping team.

Not many of the 80,000 plus fans at the estadio Olimpico had ever witnessed someone leap over the high-jump bar backwards. YouTube shows the crowd laughing and cheering each time Fosbury jumped. Dick Fosbury jumped to a 7’4 ¼ Olympic record height.  His style of jumping, known as the "Fosbury Flop," is now the universal style of high jumping. 

Dick Fosbury obtained instant world-wide fame from his unique Olympic win. The adulation was overwhelming.  I suppose to try to feel grounded he came from Corvallis, where he was still a student at Oregon State, to visit me at my fraternity house at the University of Oregon. He was the same, easy-going Dick Fosbury I knew before. What I recall from that visit was that he said he treated jumping in the Olympics like any other track meet.

The Olympic moment wasn’t too big for Dick Fosbury. I only wish that in Ilia Malinin’s mind, he was competing at any other event and not in front of the world. One lesson Ilia Malinin left us with is that, after all, we are all just humans.

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Conservative media is not happy with Trump

Old-school conservative media dislike Democrats on principle. 

But they don't like Trump on principle, either.

Old-school conservatives are not MAGA.

Most right-wing media is Trump-cult populist. They are cheerleaders, with an audience to coddle. These media include Fox News, One America News Network, Newsmax, Breitbart, The New York Post, The Daily Wire, and 99 percent of material on social media, including Trump's posts on Truth Social. These are not conservative; they are Trump.

The Wall Street Journal and Reason magazine are old-school conservative. The WSJ is well known as a newspaper of business, but it also reports on, and editorializes on government. Reason magazine is libertarian in outlook. It publishes six to 12 news-opinion articles a day. The WSJ is internationalist in outlook, seeking global business prosperity and American engagement with the world. Reason voices the isolationist, mind-our-own-business segment within American conservatism. Both the WSJ and Reason represent policies and tone that would be familiar to small-government, low-tax, separation-of-powers, pro-business, states-rights federalism that characterized the GOP from the end of World War II until the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and Trump.

This morning's WSJ has this newsy editorial, publishing facts well-hidden from consumers of Trump-friendly populist media:

Click: gifted article

Trigger warning to Republican readers: The editorial is heresy. Trump is lying to you:

No matter how often President Trump insists his tariffs are taxing foreigners to enrich the U.S., economic studies keep showing that Americans actually pay the bill. On Thursday it was the New York Federal Reserve’s turn. In an analysis on the bank’s website, four researchers write that last year “nearly 90 percent of the tariffs’ economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers.” . . . 

The figures for November suggest the tariffs had “an 86 percent pass-through to U.S. import prices,” the researchers say. “Our results show that the bulk of the tariff incidence continues to fall on U.S. firms and consumers." . . . 

Don’t forget the economic dynamism that’s wasted when companies devote time and talent to reacting to Mr. Trump’s mercurial tariff whims, or hedging against them, or trying to guess what the next one might be. The tariffs are economic losers, and in November voters may show they’re political losers too.

Reason magazine can be summarized by sharing yesterday's daily email, which listed the day's articles. All eight articles object to Trump's policies. The links are live, but simply scanning the titles of the articles reveal their drift. Reason magazine is free and available to everyone.

The ATF Created a Backdoor Gun Registry. Lawmakers Want an Explanation.

Federal law bans the creation of a gun registry, but regulators made one anyway.

By J.D. Tuccille

Kristi Noem's Response to ICE Killings in Minnesota Exposes Conservatives' Double Standard on Gun Rights

The Second Amendment protects your right to carry a gun at a protest.

By Steven Greenhut

How Much Is Kristi Noem's Alleged Adultery Airplane Costing You?

If the DHS secretary is actually having a high-flying affair with Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, the taxpayers are the ones getting screwed.

By Eric Boehm

The Feds Used Threats To Silence Their ICE-Tracking Speech. Now They're Fighting Back.

A lawsuit argues that Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem coerced Apple and Meta to censor two popular ICE-monitoring tools, which violates Americans' right to freedom of expression.

By Autumn Billings

The Cowardice of the Republican 'Tariff Skeptics'

Finally given a chance to influence trade policy, the vast majority of House Republicans decided it was more important to keep President Donald Trump happy.

By Eric Boehm

A Federal Judge Explains Why Trump Can't Jail Legislators for Producing a Video That Offended Him

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon notes that Sen. Mark Kelly's comments about unlawful military orders were "unquestionably protected" by the First Amendment.

By Jacob Sullum

Trump's $10 Billion Lawsuit Against the BBC

A federal judge has set the date for the president's push to punish a news organization he dislikes, again.

By Reem Ibrahim

The El Paso Drone Scare Is the Future of National Security Paranoia

Fear over mysterious objects in the sky keeps disrupting society.

By Matthew Petti

The Wall Street Journal and Reason magazine generally reflect the values and policies of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, the Bush presidents, and Mitt Romney. The Trump-GOP now rejects those presidents. They are RINOS -- Republicans in Name Only. The WSJ and Reason are RINOs, too.

The WSJ and Reason magazine are stranded, without a party to promote, but they have not capitulated to Trump nor given up. They are still embers of "conservatism."  Nearly all Republican officeholders and voters evolved from Reagan-Romney to Trump, loyal to the GOP brand not it principles. But the transition is not complete. There are still voices in the wilderness.

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How to launder money: a guide.

It is tax season.

You are watching the mail for your Social Security statement, your bank and brokerage reports, your 1099s, and the confirmation letters from nonprofit organizations verifying your charitable gifts.

The USA had a well-founded reputation for voluntary tax compliance. It was the law. The IRS had means to check up on you. And paying one's taxes was a cultural norm, the legal, patriotic thing for good Americans to do.

President Trump is eroding that public trust by flagrant self-serving grift: free planes, getting billion-dollar investments in his imaginary crypto coins, and his own tax returns that showed he paid exactly $750 in total taxes while living and spending like a billionaire. This week he adds a claim for a $10 billion settlement from his own IRS appointees, a settlement that will come to him tax free, which he can then publicly give away in an act of self-declared "charity." That would give him charitable deductions for use in eliminating billions of dollars in taxes on any taxable income his businesses generate that he could not hide in some other way. Clever! So generous!

In a 2016 debate, Hillary Clinton challenged him for his history of not paying taxes. Trump did not disagree. Instead, he explained: "I'm smart."

Trump encourages and enables a new norm for filing an honest tax return: Only saps pay taxes. He has fired the IRS auditors who audit complicated returns.

College classmate Erich Almasy's guest post is a mix of serious and satire. I consider it a version of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." It is a commentary on the Trump grift and loopholes to hide money that Trump has inserted into the law. Erich does it in the form of instructions on how to be just as cynical, dishonest, and unpatriotic as Trump. Erich and his wife Cynthia Blanton, also a classmate, live in San Miguel de Allande, in Mexico.

Almasy

Guest Post by Erich Almasy

Money Laundering

Do you have an illegal business somewhere in the world that generates a lot of cash? Need to find a place to put it where it can earn even greater Ill-gotten gains? I have just the place for you. It’s called the United States.

"What?" you say. How can that be? Isn’t the United States a country of laws? Doesn’t the FBI force Swiss banks to reveal miscreants like Bernie Madoff? Doesn’t the Treasury Department require a filing by banks of any suspicious transactions involving over $10,000 in cash? Isn’t the DEA going after drug cartels and dealers who amass huge amounts of cash? Hasn’t the United States Congress placed sanctions on Russian oligarchs? Didn’t the U.S. discontinue denominations over $500 in 1969? Well, yes, but that hasn’t stopped any and all of these people from laundering money here in the good old United States. How, you ask? Let me count the ways.

*** 1. Real Estate: Until the Biden administration, real estate transactions in the United States did not require disclosure of the beneficial owner. They could be bought by numbered or shell corporations. One estimate claimed that more than 1,300 (over 20 percent) of all the Trump Organization’s condos were purchased this way. In 2017, USA Today reported that more than 70 percent of Trump properties sold in the previous twelve months went to limited-liability companies, whose owners’ names were not disclosed. 

The United States was not the only country with this situation. In Canada, specifically British Columbia, nearly 40 percent of property in Vancouver had no listed owner other than a company. A new publicly searchable database established under the Land Owner Transparency Act (LOTA) ended this opacity. However, in the United States, the Corporate Transparency Act, which does the same, was suspended by the Trump Treasury Department in March 2025. Trump also canceled the Anti-Money Laundering rules that required real estate professionals to report on all-cash transactions involving legal entities or trusts. So, it is safe to park your illegal cash in real estate again. 

*** 2. Cryptocurrency: Technically, purchasing crypto is not anonymous but “pseudonymous” since all transactions are supposed to be recorded on a public blockchain ledger that could theoretically be traced to a bank account or name. Major platforms, such as Coinbase and Robinhood, even have KYC (Know Your Customer) rules. However, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) often use Uniswap or PancakeSwap, which do not require user accounts. Bitcoin can be purchased anonymously through ATMs. P2P (Person-to-Person) marketplaces offer direct purchases with no-name transactions. Privacy coins are cryptocurrencies designed to be anonymous. The large number of crypto transactions that appear to be made through the Tor browser on the dark web suggests a desire to mask and launder funds. The vast majority of respected economists believe that crypto’s sole purpose is to launder money. But, hey its legal. I know this because Trump, his sons, and his administration say so.

*** 3. Venture Capital: Private Equity, and Hedge Funds: Got a spare $20+ million lying around that you don’t want anyone to trace? Just set up a numbered corporation through a bank account in the Channel Islands or in the South Pacific island country Vanuatu, and invest in a private equity fund. By law, private equity funds are not required to disclose their funding sources publicly. Theoretically, they must comply with anti-money laundering (AML) laws, but there are significant loopholes, such as offshore private vehicles, like the one we just set up. Venture capital firms and hedge funds are covered by pretty much the same rules.

With this primer, you can now launder money: Set up a Middle Eastern private equity fund; create your own cryptocurrency fund, coins, and laws; and sell real estate to the Russian Mafia. Just as your favorite politicians do.

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