America’s Catholic bishops are at it again: undermining the nation’s sovereignty and security for the sake of a misinterpretation of the Catholic Church’s teachings on immigration. In a ten-page public comment, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) not to bar illegal aliens from receiving public health benefits. In 1998, HHS interpreted a 1996 public health benefits law to include illegal aliens. President Donald Trump and his administration rescinded that interpretation, and the USCCB is now asking HHS to rescind that rescindment. In short, the necessity of enforcing the nation’s laws, preserving the common good, and protecting the nation’s people is far greater than in ages past. “Our concerns with the revised interpretation stem from the Catholic Church’s fundamental commitments to upholding the God-given dignity of every person, promoting the well-being of families, and furthering the common good,” the USCCB wrote. “Inherent in each of these priorities is the recognition that immigrants — regardless of legal status — possess a dignity equal to that of citizens.” It is, of course, true, that the Church recognizes the inherent dignity of all persons and that illegal immigrants are just as much sons and daughters of God as are the most law-abiding of citizens. However, with its public comment, the USCCB is continuing a troubling trend of misinterpreting the Catholic Church’s teachings on immigration. (I’ve written on this subject numerous times: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) The Church demands that nations treat immigrants — chiefly refugees — with respect. The Church also demands that immigrants respect the laws of the nation they are entering — something large numbers of illegal aliens have clearly not done, violating the first American law that they have encountered. Nowhere does the Church demand that nations provide public health benefits and all manner of resources to alien lawbreakers. While aging bishops prattle on about spending other people’s money on illegal aliens, they fail to properly apply the Church’s ancient teachings on law and order. In City of God, Doctor of the Church St. Augustine wrote that a nation must uphold and enforce its just laws or else it becomes nothing but a “band of robbers.” Another Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, expanded on Augustine’s arguments, noting the importance of laws and their enforcement for maintaining order and temporal peace. Both Augustine and Aquinas recognized and laid great emphasis upon the respect due to immigrants — again, chiefly refugees — but argued that this obligation must be balanced by a nation’s responsibility to foster and protect the common good. Of course, “immigration” in the eras of Augustine and Aquinas was far different from what it is now: Augustine lived during the waning days of the Roman Empire, while Aquinas lived during the Middle Ages. There was no “third world,” there were no international Satanist gangs like MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, and the cultural differences between nations during the lives of Augustine and Aquinas were less sharp. Today, those entering the U.S. illegally are not “sojourners” seeking safe passage across the country to a destination beyond its borders, nor are they typically fleeing war with the intention of returning home and rebuilding in a few years. They are criminals, flagrantly violating America’s laws in order to feed off of the native population’s work and wealth. Many, as the past several years have demonstrated, are murderers, rapists, child abusers, and drug traffickers. In short, the necessity of enforcing the nation’s laws, preserving the common good, and protecting the nation’s people is far greater than in ages past. Yet the USCCB would seemingly have the U.S. incentivize illegal immigration, rewarding lawbreakers with public health benefits paid for by American taxpayers, many of whom can ill afford it. After all, it isn’t really the USCCB’s money funding these public health benefits for illegal aliens. But the USCCB does cut quite a hefty paycheck from illegal immigration. With millions and even billions of dollars on the line, there must be a hell of a temptation to ignore or diminish some of the Church’s age-old teachings and only present those which prove most profitable to the bishops. READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: Cradle Catholics Are Leaving the Church. Why? EU Report Ignores Muslim Violence to Label Catholics ‘Religious Extremists’

Nothing quite exposes the shameless opportunism targeting modern Christianity like a freshly-minted religious conversion following a lucrative legal settlement. Enter Gabriella Zuniga, the OnlyFans entrepreneur who just discovered the Lord — coincidentally, right after taking Shannon Sharpe to the financial cleaners. The timing feels miraculous, doesn’t it? One month, she’s pursuing legal remedies against the former ESPN analyst; the next, she’s photographing herself reading Isaiah and announcing her retirement from adult content creation. What divine intervention! What perfect timing! Surely this represents genuine spiritual awakening and not calculated public relations designed to transform a controversial figure into a sympathetic reformed soul. The ruthless exploitation of Christian forgiveness represents spiritual vandalism of the highest order. Yes, Zuniga could have genuinely encountered the divine. Scripture teaches that God works through all circumstances, even the most sordid ones. The Damascus Road experience can strike anyone, anywhere, even those emerging from courtroom victories. But here’s what should concern every believer: religious conversion has become America’s favorite redemption script, and we Christians keep falling for it. This isn’t just about one woman’s convenient timing. It exposes how our Christian decency has become a target for exploitation. In our hunger for dramatic testimonies and our Christ-like eagerness to forgive, we’ve accidentally built a culture where professing faith functions as instant moral absolution — no matter how contrived or perfectly timed. The more theatrical the transformation — the porn star turned prayer warrior, the hustler turned holy man — the more irresistible we find the story. We’re being played, and it’s time we admitted it. The machinery of modern evangelical celebrity culture practically begs for these spectacular conversions. Publishing houses salivate over testimonies. Speaking circuits crave dramatic before-and-after stories. Christian media celebrates each fallen star who finds Jesus, regardless of whether their transformation will last past the book tour. We’ve commodified conversion, turning sacred encounters into marketable content — and shrewd operators have noticed. Consider the financial incentives we’ve accidentally created. A reformed adult entertainer can command substantial fees on the Christian speaking circuit, write bestselling memoirs, launch devotional brands, and secure lucrative endorsement deals with faith-based companies. The earning potential of being a “former” something often exceeds the original career — especially when that career carries social stigma. For the calculating mind, conversion becomes not spiritual transformation but shrewd business pivot. Meanwhile, authentic Christians who’ve lived quietly faithful lives for decades receive no platform. No book deals. No speaking engagements. Their steady faithfulness doesn’t have the drama that sells tickets or shifts merchandise. We cheer the prodigal’s return while ignoring the elder brother’s constancy — the exact opposite of what Scripture teaches us to honor. Our priorities are upside down, and opportunists are cashing in. Real Christianity demands hard self-examination, not convenient performances timed for approval. True conversion involves repentance that carries a cost, not positioning that lines pockets. When Paul encountered Christ on the Damascus Road, he spent years in obscurity proving his transformation through sacrifice and suffering — not Instagram posts and media interviews. His conversion cost him everything; today’s conversions seem suspiciously profitable. The ruthless exploitation of Christian forgiveness represents spiritual vandalism of the highest order. Every fraudulent conversion cheapens authentic faith, making genuine seekers more skeptical and believers more cynical. It transforms the gospel into performance art, reducing sacred transformation to social media content. And we keep applauding. This commodification creates perverse incentives throughout our culture. Why pursue steady moral living when spectacular falls and dramatic recoveries generate more attention and money? Why maintain consistent character when public failure followed by religious awakening offers greater rewards? We’ve made moral failure more rewarding than moral faithfulness. This phenomenon exposes our own failures as Christians. We’ve become so entertainment-obsessed, so celebrity-hungry, that we celebrate conversions before examining their fruits. We cheer the dramatic testimony while ignoring the ordinary discipleship that should follow — and so often never does. The pattern repeats with clockwork precision across American pop culture, and we fall for it every single time. Consider the parade of celebrities who seem to discover God precisely when their careers demand divine intervention. Britney Spears embraced Jesus during a public breakdown, right as custody battles threatened her legacy. Justin Bieber’s spiritual awakening arrived not in quiet obscurity but perfectly timed for his rebrand from teen idol to serious artist. Kanye West’s born-again phase launched alongside his presidential ambitions and fashion empire expansion. Professional athletes have mastered this playbook with particular skill, knowing exactly how to tug at Christian heartstrings. Every steroid scandal produces a testimony. Every domestic violence arrest generates church attendance photo ops. Every DUI results in a baptism ceremony. The formula is so predictable it’s almost algorithmic: public sin plus media crisis equals religious conversion, followed by redemption tour, book deal, and speaking circuit — funded largely by well-meaning Christians who want to believe in second chances. Reality television has perfected this exploitation entirely. The Bachelor franchise alone has spawned countless born-again influencers who discovered faith right after their fifteen minutes expired. Teen Mom stars regularly cycle through addiction, arrest, recovery, and religious awakening — often multiple times within a single season. Each phase generates fresh content, new endorsement opportunities, and renewed audience sympathy from Christians who keep buying the act. American Christianity has essentially created an insurance policy for public scandal: mess up spectacularly, find Jesus dramatically, profit handsomely off Christian generosity. It’s time we wised up. True conversion transforms lives, not just press coverage. Perhaps Zuniga should prove her faith through years of quiet service rather than sprinting toward the spotlight. The strongest testimony isn’t a flashy before-and-after tale designed to pry open Christian wallets; it’s the slow, stubborn evidence of a heart truly changed, lived in obscurity, over time, without applause or profit. Christians need to stop being such easy marks. Forgiveness and grace are sacred gifts, not marketing strategies for the morally bankrupt. We must learn to tell the difference between real repentance and cynical calculation — before our faith is reduced to nothing more than America’s most exploitable brand. READ MORE from John Mac Ghlionn: Why Democrats Can’t — and Won’t — Replicate MAGA The Rotten Truth About the Egg Cartel Bill Maher Wants You to Suffer  

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America, had better learn baseball. — Jacques Barzun The quote above from the justly respected historian and cultural critic appears in his 1954 essay collection, God’s Country and Mine. It came in the middle of the last full decade when it could be truthfully said that baseball was indeed America’s national pastime, the most popular sport in the country by far. The quote carried cultural weight then. There were only 16 Major League teams in the ’50s, and as that decade began they were all in the Northeast and Midwest. If Barzun were alive and writing today — he went end of watch in 2012 at the age of 104 — he would doubtless have located our national heart and mind in football, which overtook baseball in popularity sometime in the late sixties and never looked back. Football’s lead over baseball increased slowly over the final decades of the 20th and picked up speed in the new century. Today’s Americans just can’t get enough of gridiron head-butting. But I was a larval sports fan when baseball was number one on all score cards. The last two words of the National Anthem then were: “Play ball!” People a couple of decades or more younger than me are surprised to learn that baseball was the ’50s favorite. They’re  shocked when I tell them that the second favorite sport then was boxing. Gillette’s Friday night fights were destination viewing. My Dad and I would never miss them. Football was an also-ran, save for interscholastic football — my high school against your high school — which was popular in most places. From the 1920s through the ’50s, baseball’s most glorious era, the summer game and its everyday pleasures was part of the cultural connective tissue of millions of Americans, mostly, but not exclusively, boys and men. We watched it, played it, read about it, talked about it. We cared about it. Pennant races were followed. The World Series — the only postseason series then, wildcards being limited to poker — was a major news event. The Series games were in the afternoon then, and during my junior and senior high school Octobers (1954 through ’59), only teachers with anger management issues or those not getting enough fiber in their diets wouldn’t let students have the games on the radio during class. The ’50s are thought of by many as one of baseball’s “golden ages.” And how could it miss when it featured such standout players as — to name just the best of the best: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Ted Williams, Whitey Ford, Minnie Minoso, Al Kaline, Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Stan Musial, Robin Roberts, Frank Robinson, Henry Aaron, Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews, Roberto Clemente, and Ernie Banks? (Apologies to any old-timer whose favorite I’ve skipped.) A solid second tier of players also gave satisfaction. It was a great time to be a young boy learning about and engaging with a great game. My mates and I were engaged with baseball in a way young boys never will be again. There were lots of young boys in my fertile, blue collar Tampa neighborhood. The local playground with its baseball field was the center of our universe. It was our daily destination after we were released from the drudgery of school. Thanks to Tampa’s weather we could play baseball year round. And we did. During those months that people on the mainland call winter we spent some time on the playground’s two basketball courts. But our hearts were on the diamond. Those who excelled there were held in high regard. If any boy who attended junior high school with me had any ambition other than to be a Major League baseball player, he kept it to himself. My childhood playground is only about six blocks from where I live now.  It’s with regret that when I drive past it I don’t see anyone playing on the baseball field. I guess today’s young boys are at home playing computer games, staring at their smart phones (dementia phonedosis), or rapping on one of those social media platforms with goofy names. (Spotify sounds to me like a dermatological disorder.) Much of our lawn mowing and paper route money in those peaceful Eisenhower days was spent on baseball cards, which came with slabs of bubblegum, often stale and hard, which tasted about like what chewing the cards might have. Most of us just kept the cards and ditched the gum. The cards smelled like bubblegum for years. Getting a complete set of Topps baseball cards in the spring passed for an accomplishment among us. I stopped collecting these about 1957 or so when, with puberty overtaking me, I became more interested in real girls than in cardboard baseball players. Of course I still watched, played, and cared about baseball. But it no longer commanded all of my attention. There was another game in town, and the rules in this one were less clear and far trickier than baseball’s. Decades later those cards we collected became valuable. None of us suspected this would happen. So few of us kept the cards when we became grownups. While I was in the Navy my mother, in an attempt to rehabilitate the disaster area that had been my room when I lived at home, threw away three or four cigar boxes full of my baseball cards, including duplicates of the worthies listed above, as well as a large stack of comic books. I wasn’t sore about this at the time as I was no longer consulting either. I came to regret this later when it became clear that I could have lived comfortably for two or three years from the proceeds of selling those cards. There were flaws in baseball’s fabric even in the fabulous ’50s. There wasn’t much of what we have learned to call competitive balance in those years. The New York Yankees won the American League championship in eight of those 10 years, with only the 1954 Cleveland Indians and the 1959 Chicago White Sox keeping the Pin Stripes out of the World Series. The National League was pretty New Yorkie too, with either the Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York Giants taking six of 10 NL pennants. A New York team won the World Series in all but 1958, when the Milwaukee Braves turned the Yankees away in seven, and in 1959, when the transplanted Los Angeles Dodgers won it all. There were only 16 Major League teams in the ’50s, and as that decade began they were all in the Northeast and Midwest. They included such exotica as the Boston Braves, the Philadelphia Athletics, and the poster child for long-term futility, the St. Louis Browns. All three of these teams, as well as the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, would find new homes before the decade was done. The Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves, the Philadelphia Athletics the Kansas City Athletics, the St. Louis Browns the Baltimore Orioles. If I’m privileged to still be here a couple of more years, I’ll have lived long enough to see the peripatetic Athletics call five cities home: Philadelphia, Kansas City, Oakland, Sacramento, and Las Vegas. With the Dodgers and Giants moving to Los Angeles and San Francisco, the game was no longer heterocoastal but bicoastal. Dixie got in the game later with teams in Atlanta and Houston. These moves came about because of falling attendance caused by deteriorating old ball yards in deteriorating urban neighborhoods that were becoming crime-ridden. Fans would rather stay home and watch television — which was invading more and more American homes then — than risk getting mugged on the way to the ticket booth. Also there were no spacious parking lots around these old stadiums. Fans early in the previous century either walked to the ball park or took public transportation. But by the ’50s more and more fans lived in the suburbs and knew they weren’t likely to find a parking place anywhere near the stadium. They also knew if they could find a spot the chances were good that their tires, hub caps, and battery would have been sold on the city streets before the seventh inning stretch. Time to move. Tampa had no Major League team back then, at least during the regular season. But a majority of teams held their spring camps and played their early exhibition games in Florida. For the longest time Tampa hosted the Cincinnati Reds. This included the prime of Reds first baseman Ted Kluszewski, whose muscular arms were so big he cut his uniform sleeves off to keep them from restricting his swing. Teammates said he was strong enough to rotate the tires on the team bus without using a jack. I don’t know if this was true, but he was strong enough to hit 171 homes runs over a four year stretch (’53 through ’56) before a back injury put paid to his power. In ’56 the Reds promoted a fairly promising young right fielder name Frank Robinson. The team was fun to watch. And watch we did. Reds spring games were played at an old pile called Plant Field, just blocks from my elementary school. Ticket buyers entered the baseball stands through an old exhibition building that was used for the annual Florida State Fair. But there were multiple places where enterprising youngsters could slip in and enjoy the festivities without benefit of ticket. Spring training was a far less formal business then, and youngsters could mix and mingle with the players as they went from the clubhouse to the field and back. We also enjoyed watching baseball on TV’s Baseball Game of the Week, which for a bit was announced by Hall of Famers Dizzy Dean and his straight man, PeeWee Reese. Not even George W. Bush could mangle  English the way Diz could. Who knew the past tense of the verb to slide was slud? As in, “He slud into third”? Our English teachers might have been horrified, but we didn’t mind. A 1953 spring Reds game was the occasion of the first time I got into what passed for serious trouble at school back then. I’d read that sunny morning that the Athletics were playing the Reds in the afternoon, and a lefty named Bobby Shantz would start for the A’s. I was keen to see him work as he had managed to win 24 games the year before for an A’s team with less than a potent lineup. Also I was keen to see him as he was only 5-6, barely taller than I was. So after lunch at school I had a brain bubble that only fifth grade boys are capable of. Incredibly, I thought that if I asked my teacher to go to the bathroom, with almost 40 other students to keep track of, she wouldn’t notice that I didn’t return to class. (I know. This is how fifth grade boys think, and why they should not be in charge of anything and should be kept away from sharp objects.) Instead of going to the little boys’ room, I lit out for the ball park. On arrival I slipped in through my usual undefended spot and then slipped into a reserve seat near the field when the usher was looking the other way. SOP. I’d barely settled in when the man seated next to me turned to me and said, “See that older gent sitting a few rows above us. That’s Connie Mack.” Sure enough, there was a thin, dignified man of something more than mature years wearing a blue suit and sporting a high collar and tie. At 10 years old I had learned that the best way to deal with grownups in most cases was to humor them, so I said something appropriate, like “Wow,” even though I hadn’t the first idea who Connie Mack was. Nor could I fathom why a man would wear a suit and tie to a baseball game on a warm Florida afternoon. Later, reading a sports magazine, I learned that Connie Mack had been the A’s majority owner and the team’s field manager for 50 years. When I got home I learned that my teacher was more observant than I had given her credit for. She called my mother and reported that I was MIA. My mother had to come to the principal’s office with me in order to get me re-admitted to school. Mom, was not amused. The family dinner table that night was tense. For a few years the Chicago White Sox also trained in Tampa, but at Al Lopez field, which was four or five miles from my neighborhood. It was not only distant but newer and more secure. I could find no weaknesses in the perimeter, though Lord knows I tried.  So if we wanted to watch those such as Minnie Minoso, Nellie Fox, and Jungle Jim Rivera, it was a long bicycle ride and we had to pony up for a ticket. Very discouraging, as my mates and I were convinced that one of the articles of the Magna Carta ensured the right of young boys to watch professional baseball games for free. On this, like Rick Blaine on the matter of healing waters in Casablanca, we were misinformed. I can’t leave the subject of 1950s baseball without commenting on the positive contribution it made to race relations. Florida has not been culturally Southern — with all the good and bad that goes with this — for decades. But it was in the 1950s. The laws and etiquette of Jim Crow were enforced as rigidly here as elsewhere in Dixie. So our playground — and most other areas of our lives then — were monochrome. But professional baseball was not. Baseball was ahead of the rest of the country in integration, beginning with a certain famous Brooklyn Dodger in 1947. I never heard a single one of my playground teammates object to this. We knew how difficult the game we loved was to play. So we admired those who could play it at the highest level, regardless of complexion. As Neil Armstrong might have phrased it, “One small step…” There were other things to divert young boys in the ’50s. There was fishing, swimming, cowboy movies (John Wayne was the favorite by a mile), and riding our bicycles everywhere (without benefit of helmet or elbow pads). But the organizing principle of our lives in those simpler days was baseball. And as organizing principles go, it wasn’t bad at all. Tik Tok couldn’t hold a candle to it. The 20th century was called “The American Century.” (Who owns the 21st is still up for grabs.) The 20th was also baseball’s century. Our most traditional game has changed — some of the changes I’ve lamented in previous TAS columns.  But while baseball is considerably less central to American lives than it was before disco, it still has its moments: the slickly turned double play, the long on-target throw from deep right field to third base, the well executed hit and run. And I can still be often found manning my couch at first pitch. READ MORE from Larry Thornberry: Real Men Not Welcome at the Book Store Reflections on 1970s Baseball and the Snakes in Baseball’s Garden

As U.S. debt burgeons and the White House leans on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, people are beginning to talk about “fiscal dominance,” a scenario in which keeping government financing “cheap” eclipses the control of inflation. The federal budget is set to add trillions onto the U.S. debt — raising the cost of servicing that obligation. President Trump, meanwhile, has made explicit calls for the Fed to cut rates, in part to further his tariff policies for increased industrial development, but also to lower the federal government’s interest costs — now at 14 percent of the budget — roughly $100 billion more than defense. Cook also called on the University of Chicago to fire its economics professor, Harald Uhlig, in June 2020 after Uhlig criticized the Black Lives Matter movement. The White House’s efforts have raised concerns that the administration wants the Fed to return to a bygone era when it kept rates low in order to allow for lower-cost borrowing. A July article by David Beckworth asserts that the U.S. is “Drifting Toward Fiscal Dominance” —  asserting that America’s mounting debt, political rhetoric, and quiet regulatory shifts suggest we are on a journey to that end. The U.S. experienced the phenomenon during and shortly after WWII, when the Fed was required to keep interest rates low to finance the costs of the war. The inflation spike that followed led to the 1951 Treasury-Fed accord that restored central bank independence. Trump Is ‘Quietly’ Altering the Fed, Even Without Firing Powell Earlier this month, President Trump called for the Federal Reserve’s board of governors to override the power of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, criticizing the head of the central bank for not cutting short-term interest rates (in particular the Fed’s discount rate.) Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump called Powell “stubborn.” If Powell doesn’t “substantially” lower rates, Trump posted, “THE BOARD SHOULD ASSUME CONTROL, AND DO WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS HAS TO BE DONE!” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week made it clear that the Trump administration intends to shake up the Federal Reserve — just as it has done with the rest of the federal government. “What we need to do is examine the entire Federal Reserve institution and whether they have been successful,” Bessent told CNBC on July 21. “All these Ph.D.s over there, I don’t know what they do.” “This is like universal basic income for academic economists,” he said. Change at the central bank will accelerate once Chair Jerome Powell steps aside at the end of his term in May 2026 — or earlier if he resigns. Those changes include the rules that affect the largest U.S. banks; these are already being reviewed. The Senate Banking Committee is expected to soon consider Trump’s nomination of Stephen Miran, head of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, to fill the vacancy on the central bank’s board left by Fed Governor Adriana Kugler, a Biden appointee. Miran, an advocate of lower rates, is Trump’s choice to fill a spot on the Federal Reserve in time for its next interest rate decision at its mid-September meeting. Two Primary Residences? President Trump on Wednesday called on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook to resign after officials accused the Fed board member of mortgage fraud. Bill Pulte, the chair of the Federal Housing Financing Agency (FHFA), posted a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, stating that it appears Cook “has falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statutes.” Pulte refers to a mortgage Cook took out in June 2021 to purchase a property in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which stipulated it would be her home residence for at least a year. Cook then took out another mortgage in Georgia two weeks later, Pulte said, also declaring that property as her primary home address. Cook’s Georgia home was later listed as a rental, according to Pulte. Cook indicated on the mortgage agreement in Ann Arbor that the property was to be her principal residence within 60 days after the mortgage was executed. And she was to continue to occupy the property for at least one year after the date of occupancy. The Free Press independently found records for both properties referenced in Pulte’s letter. Property records for the Ann Arbor residence show the home was last sold in 2005. Under a tax portion of the records, there is a section called “Principal Residence Exemption %.” The records show 100 percent for 2025 and 2024. Experts suggest that it’s possible the “one year” clause for the Ann Arbor residence would be where she could possibly be accused of “occupancy fraud.” Trump took to Truth Social, stating, “Cook must resign, now!!!” Cook responded saying, “I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position.” But There’s History With Cook The Fed governor was widely criticized by Senate Republicans during the fight to confirm her to the Fed in April 2022. The Federal Reserve nominee agreed with calls to have the Federal Reserve focus on targeting its federal funds rate to improve the black unemployment rate instead of the national employment rate. Cook also called on the University of Chicago to fire its economics professor, Harald Uhlig, in June 2020 after Uhlig criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for its support for defunding the police. Cook accused Uhlig of “racial harassment.” She claimed that “free speech has its limits.” If Cook were to resign from the Fed’s board, that would leave only two governors appointed solely by a Democratic president out of a total of seven seats: Fed Governor Michael Barr and Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson. Kugler stepped down from her governor position earlier this month. Powell has been appointed to Fed roles by Democratic and Republican presidents, and his term as chair ends in May 2026, though his position as a governor stretches to 2028. The president has explicitly stated that he’ll only pick a new chair who agrees that rates should come down. So, are Trump’s actions with the Fed a step toward “fiscal dominance” or just a president doing what every resident in the White House does: make every effort to fulfill a political agenda while keeping interest rates low, so as to grow the economy, jobs, and personal income — as they always promise — during the campaign? READ MORE from F. Andrew Wolf Jr.: The Debanking of the American Conservative The Media Must Admit Their Complicity in Russiagate

The Zebras From Minsk By James H. McGee (James H. McGee, 312 pages, $14.99) James H. McGee retired after a 35-year career in government service as a senior security advisor in a Cabinet-level agency. His extensive experience conducting criminal investigations and developing counter-terrorism programs at the local, state, and federal levels has peppered his writing for The American Spectator. Jim’s comprehensive security background is also the inspiration for his second career as a thriller writer. “I’ve long been fascinated by the Baltic states — their history, their resilience, their strategic importance — and I think they deserve far more attention in American storytelling.” His latest book, The Zebras From Minsk, a sequel to his 2022 debut novel Letter of Reprisal, opens with the crash of a delivery van and the murder of a deputy sheriff in a remote area in rural Virginia. The van’s contents suggest a foreign terrorist plot to destroy certain foundational U.S. systems and to obstruct the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The novel’s premise is that the primary character, Harry York, a former special operations agent turned academic, is provided with “a letter of reprisal,” which is a government document that authorizes individuals to act as “an agent of the government” against a foreign entity engaged in wrongdoing or unlawful behavior. The catalyst for Harry’s selection for this mission was his past special operations training, his broad network, and, most importantly, his close relationship with Toby Parks, a former colleague who is now a congressman in upstate New York. When Toby is severely injured in an attack from the aforementioned terrorists, Harry is called out of retirement to assemble a team to investigate and take down these criminal forces. Harry, who has Estonian roots, was additionally qualified for this particular mission that involved coordinating operations in the forests of Belarus. In an interview with The Baltic Times, McGee expounded on his motivation for writing a novel where critical scenes take place in the Baltic region, “I’ve long been fascinated by the Baltic states — their history, their resilience, their strategic importance — and I think they deserve far more attention in American storytelling…. That passion comes to life in the world of Harry York, the protagonist of both Letter of Reprisal and The Zebras from Minsk.” McGee further elaborated on the genesis of the novel’s title, “You can’t always think horses when you hear hoofbeats. Sometimes it really is a zebra — and sometimes it’s already too late when you realize that.” Although I have not read Letter of Reprisal and was not familiar with its cast of characters, I found The Zebras from Minsk to be an engrossing, fast-paced story. McGee describes counter-terrorism programs in language that is simple but not patronizing for those who are new to the genre. The dialogue was also particularly rich, which suggests that the content could be seamlessly adapted for a screenplay. McGee’s skill at vividly depicting violent sequences without being gratuitous — no easy task — is impressive. McGee doesn’t completely avoid some of the familiar problems with stories that feature a large ensemble cast of characters. Some characters could be more fully developed and some composites of real people seem a little too obvious. But overall, The Zebras from Minsk is a dialogue-rich. action-packed novel that keeps readers engaged with its intriguing story lines and unexpected plot twists.    READ MORE from James H. McGee: The American Spectator Has Had the President’s Ear for Decades: A Conversation With Kultursmog Director Robert Orlando Behind the Making of Kultursmog: An Interview With Rob Orlando, Director of New Documentary on The American Spectator Living in a Materialists World  

Emergency dispatchers save countless lives. But today, I’m worried about the lives of the dispatchers themselves. According to official figures I’ve been able to track down, between 30 percent and 50 percent of cell phone calls to 911 aren’t made by people in life-threatening situations — they’re made by clumsy people. Instead of hearing, “Hello, I’ve just been run over,” dispatchers hear “jingle jingle jingle” (the sound of keys and coins). In the United States, it’s estimated that 84 million 911 calls each year are just accidental button presses. In the United Kingdom, there must be a prankster on every block, because nearly 100,000 calls are deliberate jokes. Look at environmental policies, especially in Europe: if it weren’t for the Republicans, Democrats would have happily imported them to the U.S. Years ago, back when we still used landlines, I knew an idiot who thought it was hilarious to call any company or organization 20 times in a row asking for “Michael.” Later, he’d call the same number again and say, “Hi, this is Michael. Have I gotten any calls today?” And he’d laugh himself silly. Cell phones have freed us from jokes that aren’t funny. Caller ID has freed us from robotic salespeople (now real robots) who call during your nap to ask if you want life insurance; to which I’ve sometimes replied, “If you wake me up from my nap again, the life insurance will be better for you” (stroking my Colt M1911 as if it were a kitten). Columnists like me tend to pretend we’re in a good mood, but when we’ve slept little, we can turn into monsters. And we always sleep little. I’d explain why, but my hepatologist is reading this now, and I don’t feel like hearing his tantrums again. Another interesting fact: of all real 911 calls, only a small percentage require direct intervention. Most people who think they’re having a heart attack have simply forgotten to take their daily anti-anxiety medication, and many who call and hesitate aren’t having a stroke — unless you count “whiskey on the rocks” as a stroke. I have a friend who, during one of his last drunken binges at a house party, called 911 to request ice packs because he’d run out. The operator found the joke funny. My friend insisted that, strictly speaking, it was a damn emergency. He was right about that. Politicians still haven’t tried to fix this inefficiency of stupid 911 calls. I suppose if left-leaning lawyers tried, they’d invent a tax on cell phone manufacturers to cover the cost of accidental calls. First, they’d make phones more expensive, then force manufacturers to require a security PIN to place emergency calls. The result? About the same number of accidental or prank calls — but with pricier, potentially harder-to-use phones, and a lot of deaths from people who truly need help but can’t get past the PIN. Although none of this has happened yet (and for heaven’s sake, I’m not trying to give the politicians new tax ideas), I like this story because the abstract thinking of the left always keeps them from dealing with reality. Look at environmental policies, especially in Europe: if it weren’t for the Republicans, Democrats would have happily imported them to the U.S. They try to solve every problem with a mix of taxes and complex bureaucracy. And because they’re always a bit demagogic, they put the costs on the manufacturer, naively thinking the manufacturer can’t pass them on to the consumer. This inefficiency is a good example. Conservatives understand that plenty of things don’t work and don’t have easy fixes, so they simply live with them — perhaps because they know public services involve human beings, and humans aren’t perfect. The left seems to see taxpayers instead of people, believing taxpayers can always adjust to government designs. But in reality, that’s not the case. Progressives believe progress means fixing what’s wrong at any cost. Conservatives believe progress (if it’s needed) is often about leaving things as they are when government intervention would make them worse. READ MORE from Itxu Diaz: Professional Protesters Don’t Even Know What They’re Protesting Holiday at War: My Week Fighting an Ant Invasion Low-Cost Cruises Are a Sociological Phenomenon

from ZeeeMedia: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by St. Funogas, Survival Blog: I appreciated JWR’s comments in his August 19th article on artificial intelligence. I’ve also had a lot of thoughts on AI recently, which I’d like to share. JWR’s informative article addressed many of the societal changes and threats we’ll experience just as sure as the grass is green. At this point, my […]