“I haven’t written much about Elon Musk these past few years. I’m no expert in rocket science, or in cars of any kind. I tended to think of him as a classic robber-baron type, an American immigrant of excessive energy, pragmatism, and nerve. I watched the video of the flying car the other day and it was as mind-blowing as that now routinely re-captured rocket. But genius and character are not often aligned, and he is becoming, it seems to me, dangerous to our democracy and the world.” (10/23/26)
“A Texas man was sentenced Friday to more than four years in prison for running a $3.1 million Ponzi scheme that promised investors profits from promoting NBA preseason games. Timothy France Johnson, 63 of El Paso, was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $3.1 million money judgment. According to prosecutors, Johnson spent 11 years convincing investors to give him money that he claimed would be used to promote NBA preseason basketball games. He then used the money to pay earlier investors and cover personal expenses.” (10/24/26)
“During the Cold War, the exclave of West Berlin, isolated in the middle of Communist East Germany, was regarded as one of the most dangerous potential flashpoints for a conflict between the Soviet Union and the West. … It is now common for Western security analysts to describe the ‘Suwalki Gap’ in northeast Poland, situated between Kaliningrad and Russia’s ally Belarus, as the most dangerous point in the growing Russia-NATO confrontation. Yet they carefully omit to recall that it was NATO, not Russia, that made it so.” (10/23/26)
“I believe that this lawsuit is abusive in its intentions and borders on frivolous in its arguments, and that it is destined for defeat in the courts should it reach the merits. It borders on frivolous because it attempts to stretch a federal statute, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), beyond recognition by snipping language from the law’s preamble and treating it as if it creates vast and open-ended new duties that the federal government can enforce on states. That is not a natural reading of the text, nor is it one that courts have taken. If accepted, it would suddenly federalize many issues of local election administration.” (10/23/26)
“With U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval rating at record lows amid high inflation spiked by an unpopular war, many pundits view the upcoming midterm elections as the only serious emergency brake left for the nation. But even if, as expected, Democrats win substantial victories in the House and possibly the Senate—and if Trump doesn’t follow through on his threats to call it fraud and somehow nullify the vote—the nation may still be heading into a political morass. Rather than rallying around a common direction—other than opposition to Trump—the Democratic Party appears to lack anything like a coherent governing philosophy or compelling leadership.” (10/23/26)
