It seems like at least once a year, the topic of “BMI,” or “body mass index,” being a flawed measuring system for fat mass and health comes up in conversation. Experts will explain how BMI leads to an incomplete perspective at best—since it doesn't take into consideration several key factors that influence a person’s body composition—and at worst, actual health risks, affecting eligibility for things like weight loss medications, insurance rates, joint-replacement surgery and fertility treatment. And then life moves forward.And yet, despite the constant debunking, the belief in BMI still marches on. And this time, it was hurled at the USA rugby star and Olympian Ilona Maher. More specifically, someone commented “I bet that person has a 30% BMI” on one of Maher’s TikTok videos. BMI is not always an accurate measure of health.Could this person have simply been pointing out the inherent flaw of BMI? Saying that Maher, an elite athlete, would be considered “overweight” using this system? Perhaps. But this is the internet we’re dealing with, so Maher (and others) interpreted it to be an insult.And under that context, Maher wasn’t having it, and chose "not to just ignore the haters."“Hi, thank you for this comment. I think you were trying to roast me, but this is actually a fact. I do have a BMI of 30. Well, 29.3 to be exact,” Maher said in response video…which became something of a roast itself.Maher talked about how she had been considered “overweight” her entire life, and even recalled being “so embarrassed” to turn in a physical form to the office which had “overweight” written on it.“I chatted with my dietician, because I go off facts, and not just what pops up here. You know, like you do.” she quipped while tapping her temples. See on Instagram Maher is 5-ft.-10-in. and 200 lbs, which is considered “overweight” by BMI standards. But as she explained, about 170 of those 200 pounds are “lean muscle mass.”“Do that math in your head…you probably can’t,” Maher said sarcastically.It’s easy to see through this example how bogus BMI really is, especially for athletes.Essentially, “BMI doesn’t tell you what I can do.”“It doesn’t tell you what I can do on the field. How fit I am. It’s just a couple of numbers put together,” she said. “It doesn’t tell you how much muscle I have, or anything like that.”Maher concluded by faux lamenting, “I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight. But alas, I am going to the Olympics, and you’re not.” The U.S. women's rugby team with First Lady Jill Biden and members of the U.S. delegation to the 2024 Summer Olympic GamesThe White House/Public Domain While Maher’s clapback was certainly satisfying, it also provided some much needed reassurance to folks. So many commented on how this outdated concept has affected (or still effects) their own body image of that of a loved one.“How can I get my teenage daughter with a high BMI (but fit!) to understand this?! She feels shamed even at the doctor for her BMI.”“Dancer here, I'll never forget at 13 being told I had the BMI of 24 of ‘overweight.’ I broke down and the nurse said it didn’t mean anything and all I could think was then WHY are you making me do this?!” Weight and BMI can't say what we can do. Giphy “I had to ask the doctor’s office to put a note on my child’s file to not bring up/talk about BMI in her check ups. It isn't an accurate representation of health!”“Thank you for sharing your weight, bc seeing lbs numbers in different bodies has been so helpful in me loving mine. I’m nowhere near an athlete's body but damn, the numbers really do us in.”Until a more affordable solution pops up, BMI will continue to rear its ugly head in doctor’s offices and in our psyches. Maybe this is a reminder that our bodies are so much more than height and weight every now and again is a good thing. And if it comes from an Olympian…even better.Maher also shut down any notions that her BMI was high due to anything other than muscle with a Sports Illustrated cover shoot in August of 2024. Um, yeah. See on Instagram Thin and fit are not the same thing. Thank you, Ilona Maher, for the powerful reminder.This article originally appeared last year.

"Like a merry-go-round."

"...I heard somebody who also felt so desperately alone".

David Brooks wants us to feel sorry for Harvard kids. Again. In his latest column, “We Are the Most Rejected Generation,” Brooks wrings his hands over the plight of elite students — those sad, over-polished, ghosted, spiritually limp products of Ivy League ambition. He presents their problem as one of rejection. The college application rat race. The endless “no” from Goldman Sachs. The swipe-right silence. The club they didn’t get into. The seminar they weren’t picked for. (RELATED: The Children of Elites Are in Trouble) But he’s wrong. Catastrophically wrong. The crisis isn’t rejection; it is within — deep, deep within. These kids aren’t breaking down because they’re getting told “no.” They’re breaking down because they were raised in a culture that told them they are the performance. That their value is in the likes, the LinkedIn post, the offer letter, the elevator pitch. That they’re nothing until they’re something. And “something” is always defined by someone else. This isn’t a culture of resilience. It’s a culture of fragile illusions. (RELATED: Message for Gen Z: The Future Looks Great!) Brooks sees the effects, but he won’t name the cause. He gestures vaguely at “meritocracy,” “exclusion,” and “competition.” But he refuses to confront the deeper truth: these students aren’t suffering from too much pressure. They’re suffering from a system that replaced identity with achievement, meaning with metrics, and purpose with prestige. They’re empty, not exhausted. Let me be brutally clear: Brooks is mourning the implosion of a class he helped shape. The NPR-class, the New York Times crowd, the brunch-and-balance brigade, who thought that stripping religion, tradition, and family from the moral center of society wouldn’t have consequences. That if you filled kids with enough TED Talks, summer programs, and mindfulness apps, they’d be just fine. (RELATED: Why are Liberal Women so Unhappy?) But they’re not fine. They’re anxious, medicated, overqualified, and emotionally adrift. They can code in Python and write a diversity statement, but they don’t know who they are. They’ve been coached to answer every question except the ones that matter. What is good? What is true? What is sacred? (RELATED: John Selden: Religion Sets the Boundaries of Decency) Brooks watches this slow collapse and thinks it’s about rejection. As if the existential crisis at the core of the most credentialed generation in history is about how many Goldman Sachs internships they applied to. And Brooks, ever the milquetoast moralist, never turns the mirror around. No. What’s killing them is absence. Absence of rootedness. Absence of virtue. Absence of anything they weren’t told to want. He says these kids are living in the “seventh circle of Indeed hell.” But who built it? Who built the culture where the Ivy League is a factory floor? Who told kids to specialize by 12, perfect their “narratives” by 15, and perform adulthood by 18? Who helped flatten childhood into a CV? Who cheered the algorithmic economy that turned job applications into lottery tickets and dating into slot machines? Who clapped as faith, family, and tradition were stripped for parts and sold off for credentials, “freedom,” and five-star fellowship programs? Brooks isn’t a bystander. He’s an architect. A soft-spoken architect of the very world he’s now lamenting. He says students are haunted by rejection. But how else could it go when you raise a generation in a meaning vacuum? Strip the transcendent from their lives. Replace it with performance metrics and prestige tokens. And then act surprised when they fall apart the second someone doesn’t applaud? He complains about students being cold, polished, masters of self-presentation. That they deliver perfectly pitched answers that “warm the cockles of your middle-aged heart.” But Brooks is describing a generation that he and his class demanded into existence. Brooks touches on the mental health crisis. But again, he won’t say the quiet part out loud: this generation’s depression isn’t biochemical. It’s cultural. It’s spiritual. It’s what happens when you live in a world with no sacred center, transcendent horizon, or vision of what it means to be human beyond “be productive and be liked.” (RELATED: Christianity, Inc.: The Rise of Silicon Valley’s False Prophets) He says the Ivy League kids are afraid their degrees are “weights around their necks.” That they’re embarrassed to list their schools on applications. That in the age of Trump, merit feels like stigma. Again: who fed them the lie that merit meant destiny? That Harvard meant immunity? That progress was linear and permanent and deserved? The worst thing Brooks does is frame all of this as a tragedy of high achievers, as if the collapse of meaning is mostly about how tough it is to be rejected from the Crimson Key Society. He says nothing — absolutely nothing — about the working-class kids who never even entered the game. Who were told by 8th grade that they’d never matter. Who didn’t have parents to bankroll gap years and therapy. Who got a trade, a truck, or a warehouse shift while the Ivy League set debated the trauma of not getting into their third-choice consulting firm. Brooks asks, “Are these kids just whining through their privilege?” His answer: “Maybe a little.” No. Not “maybe.” They are. But they’re also suffering from something very real. Not rejection. Not pressure. But starvation. Moral, spiritual, and emotional starvation brought about by a world that trained them to want everything except the one thing they need. And Brooks, faithful priest of polite secularism, won’t say it. He’ll mourn the symptoms. But never the disease. There is an easier way to grow up, David. But it involves telling kids the truth: that you are more than your résumé, that failure is not moral death, that some things are worth suffering for, that truth exists, that meaning exists, and that God is not a metaphor. Until then, every rejection will feel like ruin. Because a culture that doesn’t give its children purpose will always send them begging for approval. READ MORE from John Mac Ghlionn: Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism? MrBeast’s ‘Book’ Is a Middle Finger to Every Serious Writer Beyond DEI: How a Top US University Became a Marxist Factory The post David Brooks Still Can’t Say the Word ‘God’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

On April 11, 2025, Aliakbar Mohammed Amin was arrested in Georgia for allegedly threatening to kill Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and her family. He was charged with transmitting interstate threats after sending text messages targeting Gabbard, her husband, President Trump, and the White House. The messages included statements such as “You and your family are going to die soon” and “Prepare to die, you, Tulsi, and everyone you hold dear. America will burn.” Federal agents searched his social media and found similar threats as well as images of a firearm pointed at photos of Gabbard and her husband. A firearm was recovered from his home during a search. He is in custody pending trial and faces up to five years in prison if convicted. Amin has been charged pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 875(c) which provides, in relevant part, the following: (c) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. This statute prohibits threats sent through interstate systems such as text messages, emails, or social media. However, under the relevant caselaw, it must be proven that the defendant transmitted the communication with the purpose of issuing a threat or with knowledge or reckless disregard that it would be interpreted as a threat. Also, the transmitted communication must convey a serious expression of intent to commit unlawful violence as distinguished from hyperbole, political speech, or idle talk. Which brings us to May 15, 2025, when — like an empty-headed, attention-seeking 13 year old — former FBI Director James Comey posted a photograph on Instagram showing seashells arranged on the beach to form the numbers “8647.” Comey captioned the picture as follows: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” (RELATED: James Comey’s Insane ‘86 47’ Threat) The post was deleted shortly thereafter due to backlash from those who interpreted it as a threat against Donald Trump, the 47th president, with “86” being slang for “get rid of” or “kill.” Comey then issued a follow-up statement on Instagram saying, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on the beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.” How could a guy who was an assistant U.S. attorney, U.S. attorney, and FBI director not know the meaning of “86ing” someone? Of course, Comey’s claim that he was unaware that “86” can be a reference to killing stretches credulity to the breaking point. Or, as President Trump commented to Bret Baier on Fox News, “He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant.” And then Trump described Comey as a “dirty cop” whose experience as FBI director from 2013 to 2017 (when Trump fired him) made his claim of ignorance completely implausible. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has publicly condemned Comey’s Instagram post. In a post on X, Noem stated, “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump. DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.” In her later appearance on Fox News, Noem emphasized the sensitivity and danger of Comey’s post, given the two recent assassination attempts on Trump in 2024. She suggested that Comey’s post was a deliberate and “highly concerning” provocation warranting a strong response. Now, in addition to Sec. 875(c) (discussed above), there are three other statutes that come into play. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 871(a) prohibits knowingly and willingly transmitting a threat to kill or harm the president. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 373 makes it a federal crime to “solicit, command, induce, or otherwise endeavor to persuade another person to engage in a federal crime of violence.” (Emphasis added) And 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111 prohibits the murder of the president. In short, the necessary criminal statutes are in place, Comey’s actions are not in dispute, and the feds are investigating. The only open question is whether Comey’s actions constitute a true threat under the statutes and relevant case law. So, is he guilty? That’s an open question that will have to be resolved by the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice. But here’s one thing that is crystal clear: Thanks to his gobsmackingly ill-advised actions, the benighted James Comey has handed on a silver platter, to a hostile law enforcement establishment under the direction of a president whom he tried to destroy, an ample investigative predicate pursuant to which his life is about to be torn apart and thoroughly turned inside out. To determine whether Comey was truly seeking to cause harm to President Trump, law enforcement has complete justification to use every investigative tool at its disposal. In addition to agents interviewing Comey, he will undoubtedly be subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury to explain himself under oath. At each stage, he will be at risk of being criminally charged for false statements to agents as well as perjury and false swearing before the grand jury. In addition, his emails, text messages, social media, home, and office will be searched for electronic and physical evidence pertaining to his Instagram post and his feelings and intentions regarding Trump. Similarly, his family, friends, business associates, neighbors, and others who have had contact with Comey will doubtless be interrogated and, if appropriate, questioned before the grand jury regarding Comey’s possible animus, utterances, associations, and actions. Who knows what will be discovered and what secrets — criminal or not — will be made public? Comey may be criminally charged and/or convicted. But, even if he isn’t, he is about to undergo the absolute and ruinously expensive hell that he and his agents have put so many others through. For, in our system of justice, even at the investigative phase, the process is the punishment. But, in Comey’s case, the suffering will be all the more intense since, as the saying goes, self-inflicted wounds are the most painful. And, for a self-adoring narcissist like James Comey, knowing that he did this to himself will only add to the anguish. Heh. George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. READ MORE from George Parry: The American Bar Association’s Day of Reckoning Shooting Blanks From the Bench The post James Comey’s Riddle in the Sand appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

When Donald Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, one of the first things he did was to prominently display the bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office once again. Four years before, President Biden had replaced Churchill’s bust with that of Robert F. Kennedy. President Trump, like most Americans of a certain age, reveres Churchill for his role in saving Western civilization during the early years of the Second World War. Trump, however,  should add to the Oval Office another bust of a World War II giant — Charles de Gaulle. Trump, in some respects, is the American De Gaulle. Physically, De Gaulle was an imposing, dominating presence in any setting. Trump is equally imposing and dominating in any setting. De Gaulle exuded confidence, and at times approached arrogance. Trump does, too. Trump, however, appears more approachable than De Gaulle ever was. De Gaulle had an air of superiority, while Trump is more at ease with the common man. Trump, of course, does not share De Gaulle’s military achievements, but Trump’s attitude about America resembles De Gaulle’s devotion to France. In the first paragraph of De Gaulle’s war memoirs, he wrote that his appreciation of France was “inspired by sentiment as much as reason.” “France,” De Gaulle continued, “is not really herself unless in the front rank…. France cannot be France without greatness.” De Gaulle expressed shame that the leaders of his country surrendered so quickly to Germany in World War II, and explained that when a nation is faced with great peril, “the only salvation lies in greatness.” (RELATED: ‘That De Gaulle, He Is Somebody’) President Trump thinks about America that way. He campaigned on a pledge to “make America great again” — a phrase he repeats as often as De Gaulle paired France and greatness in his writings and speeches. De Gaulle wrote that after the disaster of the surrender to Hitler, it was for him “to assume the burden of France.” Trump has repeatedly said that he ran for reelection in 2024 to “save” America. Like De Gaulle, Trump has assumed the burden of saving America from the disastrous policies of his predecessor. De Gaulle, both during the war and when he was President of France, infuriated France’s allies by insisting on pursuing policies in France’s national interest. During the war, he insisted that France (the Free French movement he headed) be accorded an equal voice in Allied strategy despite its much smaller contribution to the war effort. As President of France, he withdrew France’s Atlantic and Channel fleets from NATO command in 1963, and four years later, he pulled French forces out of NATO’s military structure. He denounced U.S. policies in Vietnam. He also developed an independent nuclear deterrent force and conducted an independent foreign policy based on French interests. “The defense of France,” he said, “must be in French hands,” and “France should defend herself by herself, for herself and in her own way.” In Trump language, this is “France First.” Trump, too, infuriates America’s allies when he insists they take greater responsibility for their own defense, imposes tariffs on them to level the trade playing field, and promotes America’s interests first, last, and always. De Gaulle, like Trump, was faced with “endless wars” — in Trump’s case in Afghanistan, and in De Gaulle’s case in Algeria. Both leaders viewed the conflicts and their country’s involvement in the conflicts as peripheral to more important national security matters. And I am quite certain that Trump would agree that De Gaulle’s memorable description of the French nation mirrors his own view of the American nation: She is a living entity. She responds to the call of the centuries. Yet she remains herself through time. Her boundaries may alter, but not the contours, the climate, the rivers and seas that are her eternal imprint. Her land is inhabited by people who, in the course of history, have undergone the most diverse experiences, but whom destiny and circumstance, exploited by politics, have unceasingly moulded into a single nation. This nation has embraced countless generations. … [It] comprises a past, a present and a future that are indissoluble. … [T]he legitimacy of a governing power derives from its conviction, and the conviction it inspires, that it embodies national unity and continuity when the country is in danger. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: Canada Did Not Make America Great Reflections on Our Defeat in Vietnam: Lippmann, Burnham, and Nixon Hal Brands Distorts Mackinder to Bash Trump The post Trump Is an American De Gaulle appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Luigi Mangione amen chorus is going to be with us for quite a while. Recently, retired lawyer Paul Eisner submitted to the California Attorney General the “Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act.” Named after the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, it would make it illegal for insurance companies in California to deny, delay, or modify medical procedures or medications. Eisner aims to get on the ballot for the November 2026 election. (RELATED: Luigi Mangione’s Cognitive Dissonance) He has said the initiative is inspired by his own battle with claims denials while he was battling cancer 15 years ago. Unfortunately, he misdiagnoses the problem. The real culprits are the cartelization of American hospital systems and the government regulations that incentivize it. (RELATED: Trump’s Surprising Healthcare Ally) Due to mergers and acquisitions, hospitals face less and less competition. That has given them more power to demand huge rate increases in negotiations with insurance companies. For example, last year, CommonSpirit Health, the country’s third-largest hospital system, demanded rate increases three times higher than inflation from insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield in Colorado. About 35,000 Anthem policyholders would have lost access to the 12 hospitals CommonSpirit has in Colorado if Anthem had not cut a deal. (RELATED: Trump’s Drug-Price EO Should Have Happened Decades Ago) Similarly, in 2024, Hospital giant HCA Healthcare used the same tactics with insurer UnitedHealthcare. HCA demanded a 30 percent increase in rates over two years in South Carolina, a one-year 16 percent increase in Texas, and a double-digit hike in Colorado. HCA operates hospitals in 19 states with over 38,000 beds, more than twice its nearest competitor. In Missouri, 500,000 Anthem policyholders were threatened with a loss of access to Mercy hospitals, which demanded rate increases five times higher than inflation from the insurer. Late last year, Baptist Health demanded a 60 percent increase in rates over five years from insurer Florida Blue to keep its policyholders in the Baptist system. The dispute was settled. Florida customers will have to see what impact it has had on premiums and cost-sharing. All of the hospitals listed above have absorbed other hospitals in recent years. CommonSpirit merged with Dignity Health in 2019, HCA Healthcare bought Memorial University Medical Center in 2017 and Catholic Medical Center in February 2025, Mercy acquired Southeast Health in Missouri in 2023, and Baptist merged with Bethesda Health in 2017 and Boca Raton Regional Hospital in 2019. They are part of a trend that has accelerated since the passage of Obamacare in 2010. That law unleashed a flood of new regulations on hospitals, especially non-profit ones, including bundled payments, financial assistance policies, and Community Health Needs Assessments. About 56 percent of hospitals were part of a larger system in 2010. That had risen to 67 percent by 2022. From 1998-2010, there were an average of 71 hospital mergers and acquisitions annually. From 2011-2023, the average was 87. According to the Health Care Cost Institute, over 76 percent of hospital markets in the U.S. were highly concentrated in 2021, up from 71 percent four years earlier. Complying with regulations is costly, and mergers are an effective way of dealing with those costs. When hospitals merge, they can spread the costs of regulation over more resources. (RELATED: Rage Against the (Healthcare) Machine) In markets, more competition is better, and hospital markets are no exception. As competition declines among hospitals, hospitals have more leverage over insurance companies. When insurers can no longer fend off hospitals’ demands for large rate increases, that leaves insurers with few options to keep premiums down other than policies like prior authorization and denial of claims that don’t meet standards demonstrating the critical nature of particular procedures, treatments, tests and more. Congress and the president need to take a hard look at hospital regulation and find ways to reduce it. That will slow the rate of hospital mergers. By targeting insurers instead of hospital regulation, a measure like the Luigi Mangione Access Health Care Act misses the mark. It won’t reduce healthcare costs. It will only shift them. If insurers can’t keep costs down with tools like claims denials, policyholders will see larger premium hikes, cost-sharing, and copays. As well-meaning as Mr. Eisner may be, his efforts should instead focus on making hospital markets more competitive. READ MORE from David Hogberg: RFK Jr.’s Food Regulations Will Benefit Big Food and the Swamp Democrats Are Pushing for Government-Run Healthcare. The Time to Begin Fighting It Is Now. Blaming the Middleman Won’t Lower Prescription Drug Prices The post The Wrong Takeaway From the UnitedHealthcare CEO Assassination appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

DÜSSELDORF, Germany — The European Union remains, at least in theory, a union of sovereign nation-states. Even within the nearly identical Eurozone, national budget sovereignty still prevails. But now, through a mix of war rhetoric and Putin panic, efforts are underway to consolidate national debts at the EU level. Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz of Merkel’s CDU, delivered his inaugural government address on Wednesday. The speech, held in the Bundestag, was dominated by talk of Ukraine and the Russian threat. Germany’s prolonged recession? Brushed aside with empty phrases. He spoke much of “Europe,” with vague hints at a paradigm shift. But no substance, no pragmatic solutions. Just political waffle. Hot air without traction in the real world. Today’s Germany is merely a symptom of the larger European disease. (RELATED: German Decline: A Warning From Across the Atlantic) When the Purse is Empty, Beat the War Drum Merz’s speech could serve as a textbook on how to repackage domestic failure as geopolitical urgency. Over half of his address was dedicated to foreign policy and the Ukraine war — despite Germany’s crumbling infrastructure, collapsing housing market, and a historic wave of illegal immigration that no politician dares address without being tarred as “far-right.” (RELATED: Europe’s Asylum Catastrophe: A Warning America Cannot Ignore) His focus? Rearmament. A strong Bundeswehr. He promises to make Germany’s army “the strongest conventional force in Europe,” and proclaims that Germany is “not a neutral party” in the war. In other words, essentially a co-belligerent. That’s not accidental. The war narrative serves a dual function: to distract from domestic collapse and to justify the upcoming introduction of Eurobonds — joint debt instruments that are, according to the Maastricht Treaty, strictly prohibited. (RELATED: The Euro’s Paper Empire: Germany’s Big Bond Gamble) But fear rules first. Once the invisible curtain of panic descends, old fiscal rules vanish. In the fog of war, the strongman prevails. What was once illegal becomes policy. War hysteria paves the backdoor to debt consolidation — something the ECB or the EU Commission would never admit openly. Taxpayers become the last collateral for an energy-starved Europe that can hardly hide its envious glances at Russia’s resource wealth. (RELATED: Europe’s Energy Suicide: Brussels Trades Industry for Ideology) The plan is simple: the European Commission issues debt, the ECB buys the bonds, and the growing debt pile remains liquid. Inflation? Blame “Putinflation.” In political newspeak, this is called “solidarity” — but it means that national fiscal discipline gets drowned in Brussels bureaucracy. Germany, knowingly or not, becomes the main sponsor. Get ready, fellow Europeans, for a hot summer: media heatwaves, war drums, and yet another debt acceleration in a stagnating Eurozone. Merzonomics: Hollow Promises, Real Debt Merz’s economic program is a patchwork of contradictions. He pledges tax relief for low earners — “if the economy allows it.” It won’t. He wants to cut bureaucracy — by creating a new ministry. Only a Prussian bureaucrat could come up with that. He promises to meet climate goals without offshoring industry — by tweaking the very CO₂ pricing system that already destroyed competitiveness. No mention of restarting nuclear power. No Russia diplomacy. No rollback of the destructive “Green Deal,” the crown jewel of globalist policy. (RELATED: Germany’s Suicide Pact with Green Ideology) The heart of his stimulus plan? A trillion-euro investment and defense spending surge — financed through debt rule exemptions and a massive bond program arranged before he took office. For the rest, Merz hopes foreign capital will flood into Germany. That’s wishful thinking in a world where Trump sets a new benchmark with tax cuts, deregulation, and real political will. Merz flies abroad not to attract capital, but to distribute it — as climate reparations and development aid. It’s become tradition in a country that replaced rational policy with moralizing gestures and globalist soundbites. Even his much-praised housing initiative rings hollow. A “building offensive” is promised — while the construction sector is in free fall. Red tape, high interest rates, and regulatory overload have paralyzed private construction. Like German industry, the building sector is in a deep depression. Nothing moves. Since 2022, half a million jobs have vanished — further straining Germany’s overstretched welfare system. The deindustrialization of Germany — once the growth engine of Europe — is dramatic. Each year, Germany loses between €60 to €90 billion in direct investment. That’s capital that could build companies, jobs, and hope for a generation increasingly stuck in their parents’ homes. Dignity is vanishing. Three consecutive years of contraction have reduced the post-war “economic miracle” to a memory. Yet Merz dares proclaim that Germany will be Europe’s new “growth locomotive.” A bold claim from a man who couldn’t even secure full support from his own party in the first round of the vote. Migration: The Crisis the Left Can’t Name Where Merz becomes evasive, his rhetoric turns abstract. He talks about “renewing the promise of prosperity.” What does that even mean? Another five-year Brussels plan of Chinese inspiration? At least he admits that illegal immigration draws in unskilled masses — but refuses to even discuss cutting welfare entitlements like Bürgergeld. Instead, he declares that “Germany is and will remain a country of immigration.” Stubborn, unrepentant, EU-compliant. This is no accident. Mass immigration serves a fiscal function: it inflates GDP through debt-fueled government programs, fills low-wage jobs, and delays the pension implosion. But it comes at a steep price: social cohesion, internal security, and housing markets are buckling. Merz’s refusal to acknowledge this isn’t ignorance — it’s pure ideology. At heart, Merz is a Brussels bureaucrat, cut from the same cloth as von der Leyen & Co. (RELATED: The Scandinavian Lesson: What Malmö Warns Us About America’s Sanctuary Cities) And these Europeans are broke. Not metaphorically. Not in the euphemisms of “fiscal headwinds” or “budgetary challenges.” They are structurally insolvent. The continent is sleepwalking into a sovereign debt crisis of historic proportions — masked only by central bank interventions and a stage-managed Cold War fear narrative. The numbers? France’s national debt is nearing €3.2 trillion — 110 percent of GDP. Italy? Over 140 percent — beyond any reasonable boundary. For reference, just 15 years ago, a 143 percent debt ratio from Greece nearly brought the Eurozone to collapse. It took trillions in emergency measures and taxpayer bailouts to keep the rotten edifice afloat. Across much of Southern Europe, fiscal discipline has evaporated. The ECB is expected to cover the shortfall. Inflation? Not Frankfurt’s problem — for now. Growth? Stagnant or negative. Private investment? Collapsing. Demographics? A disaster. Youth unemployment remains chronically high, and an aging population is now funded by a shrinking workforce. Social costs are borne by labor, and no one dares put the sacred cow of the welfare state on a diet. Business Model Broken Behind the theatrical language and smug tone lies a grim reality. Europe’s economic model — cheap Russian energy, open U.S. markets, and industrial strength fueled by an undervalued euro — is gone. The ECB is cornered: raise rates, and governments go bankrupt; print money, and the euro dies. Yet recessionary pressure will force the planners in Frankfurt to debase the currency. If not, pressure from the indebted capitals will mount. President Trump is already capitalizing on Europe’s weakness. In the ongoing transatlantic tariff dispute, the EU stands as the last negotiator — economically stagnant, energy-dependent, and militarily reliant on Washington. Trump demands more defense spending, fewer industrial subsidies, and direct bilateral deals — not Brussels’ bureaucratic obstruction. In this setup, Europe isn’t a partner. It’s a bargaining chip. The European political class — protected by EU governance from electoral consequences — seeks to preserve the system at citizens’ expense. Wrapped in the language of “solidarity,” but with a clear eye on private wealth. The planned EU asset register fits neatly into a digital euro regime: full control, full surveillance. READ MORE from Thomas Kolbe: German Decline: A Warning From Across the Atlantic Trump Exposes Fractures in the Global Order The Race for Space: Europe Bets on Eutelsat to Challenge Musk’s Starlink The post German Chancellor Calls for ‘War Readiness’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

A few blocks from where I sit writing this is Emory University Hospital Midtown, where Adriana Smith, a beautiful 30-year-old mother who was declared brain dead, is on life support. Smith is being kept on a ventilator because she is pregnant with her second child, a son. Emory Healthcare determined that, per Georgia state law forbidding abortions once a child has a heartbeat, it must keep Smith on life support until her baby son is born. In this terribly tragic situation, it is a miracle — and a testimony to incredible advances in medical science — that Smith’s baby will hopefully survive. Smith was declared brain dead after suffering multiple brain clots. Yet Smith’s mother is now speaking out to complain that she doesn’t have the “choice” to decide whether her grandson will live or die. April Newkirk, Smith’s mother, said earlier this week: “It should have been left up to the family…. I’m not saying that we would have chose to terminate her pregnancy, but what I’m saying is, we should have had a choice.” (RELATED: America’s Abortion Blind Spot: How Liberals Convinced Americans to Ignore the Fetus) Newkirk pointed to the possibility that her grandson will be born with disabilities, as well as the fact that the responsibility to raise him will now be hers. “She’s pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he’s born,” she said. “This decision should’ve been left to us. Now we’re left wondering what kind of life he’ll have — and we’re going to be the ones raising him.” The child’s father is in the picture as well. The baby also has an older brother, who has been visiting his mother in the hospital. One hopes that this little boy will never hear how his grandmother publicly wished for the choice to let him die, for fear of his potential disabilities or the effort it will take to raise him. And one expects that Adriana Smith would not want her family to just take care of her older son, and leave her younger son to die, but that they would take care of and love both of them. If her family isn’t willing to do that, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of American couples who would adopt this baby boy. Luckily, thanks to Georgia’s laws against abortion, April Newkirk will not be able to decide whether to kill her grandson. A spokesman for Emory Healthcare said in a statement that it “uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws.” Unfortunately, the reaction to this situation in certain quarters has been rather insane. This was the most apparent in New York magazine. Andrea González-Ramírez, “a senior writer for the Cut who covers systems of power,” wrote about Adriana Smith’s situation Thursday in an article headlined “We’re Just Human Incubators to Them.” González-Ramírez writes that Smith’s situation proves that “To abortion opponents, a woman is nothing more than a vessel.” “Smith’s story,” she writes, “is a monstrous new entry in the canon of post-Dobbs indignities and horrors.” González-Ramírez goes on, saying that Smith’s loved ones are experiencing a “horror” and that abortion opponents “want to strip women of their dignity, humanity, and right to bodily autonomy.” González-Ramírez expresses outrage that Smith’s family will “have to be responsible for a child who may face numerous health challenges if born.” In contrast to the absurdity offered by González-Ramírez, a beautiful perspective on this situation is offered by a Georgia state senator, Ed Setzler. Setzler said, “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life.” Indeed, in the face of the terrible tragedy of Adriana Smith’s death, we have the marvel of countless medical professionals working for months to keep her baby son alive. This is evidently a very difficult task. “It’s just hard to keep the mother out of infection, out of cardiac failure,” said Dr. Vincenzo Berghella, director of maternal fetal medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Adriana Smith’s baby son is as infinitely valuable as herself. It is a great goodness in the face of such tragedy that these medical professionals are working to preserve his life, as they worked to preserve hers. But, were you to listen to González-Ramírez, this is a disgrace. “The anti-abortion movement imbues every fetus with nearly messianic potential while discarding the pregnant person carrying it as a nonentity.” In reality, González-Ramírez is just denying the humanity of this little baby, casting him aside as useless and irrelevant. The miracle of his survival is “monstrous” to her; pregnancy is inherently disgusting to her for its compromise of “autonomy”; and human life is just something to be disposed of in the interest of supposed freedom. The one dehumanizing a human being is González-Ramírez, who calls the unborn baby “the pregnancy.” She says, “The pregnancy is now around 21 weeks of gestation.” In other words, he is nearly to the point of being able to survive outside his mother’s womb. Contra González-Ramírez, the pro-life movement does not view women as “vessels.” In fact, she is the one who views human beings as parasitical non-human entities and women as incubators of worthless clumps of cells. The pro-life movement sees mothers as miraculously upholding a new human life. Not, as per González-Ramírez, “people” in a monstrous and parasitical situation with a strange entity horrifically growing inside them. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: New York Times Concocts Narrative About Leo XIV How the Porn Industry Is Fueled by Nonconsensual Videos As Cardinals Enter the Conclave, Anything Could Happen The post A Miracle Baby Is Surviving His Mother’s Brain Death, and the Left Is Outraged appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

When I was a boy, I loved numbers, and I still do. Only when I was a sophomore at Princeton did I shift my attention from mathematics to literature, in part because the same part of my mind that loves numbers also loves poetry. “I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came,” said Alexander Pope, describing his early childhood and his poetic fascination. I entered Princeton, wanting to become a mathematician and a poet, the former serving to support the latter. I did not know, when I entered, anything about the childhood of such mathematical geniuses as Pascal or Maxwell or Ramanujan. Nor had there been anyone in the schools I attended who could have made me aware of them. I did not have teachers who enjoyed play with numbers. What used to be called Higher Arithmetic had long been eliminated from American curricula, as was mental math, which I was a whiz at. Sometimes, to help settle my brain to go to sleep, I square four-digit numbers in my head, or test four- or five-digit odd numbers not divisible by 3 to see if they are prime. Call it a pointless hobby. But there are a lot of things that people could have shown me, if they had known about them and if school had not been set up against their showing them. No advanced mathematics would have been necessary. These are doorways into the advanced. Let me give an example. Suppose you have a prime number — say, 37. You are now going to divide by 37 a positive integer N that is not itself a multiple of 37; say, 43. The remainder may be anything from 1 to 36, with an equal chance for each remainder. But now multiply N by itself before you divide. The remainders suddenly are not all represented; 2, 5, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 29, 32, and 35 are out. Raise N to the 6th power and then divide by 37. Now the only remainders possible are 1, 10, 11, 26, 27, and 36. Raise N to the 9th power, and the only remainders possible are 1, 6, 31, and 36. But for powers 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, and others, all the remainders are equally likely. For the 18th power, the only remainders are 1 and 36; for the 36th power, the only remainder is 1. You don’t have to do all that cumbersome multiplication, though. You can show the child that for the sake of the problem, only the remainders count. If N/37 leaves a remainder of 2, for example, then N might as well be 2. Since 38/37 leaves a remainder of 1, that remainder is going to stay the same regardless of how often you multiply 38 by itself. The results are quite pretty when you draw them out, especially if you label the higher half of the 36 remainders as negatives, so that, for example, the remainder of 36 in the problem above would be labeled as -1, because it falls 1 short of 37. The most fascinating patterns arise. “But what is the point?” you ask. The professional point, assuming that we must have one, is that you are giving the child an important introduction to Number Theory, one of the most active branches of mathematics. The human point is that this is play, involving delight in pure knowledge and discovery. (RELATED: Invest in Education, Not the Department of Education) Or you can do what the boy James Clerk Maxwell did, using twine and a ruler to draw a variety of interesting mathematical curves; this will be the child’s introduction to advanced geometry. Or you can prove the Pythagorean theorem without algebra, even without any numbers besides the idea of doubling, by drawing certain squares, rectangles, and triangles. You can open the door to topology by asking what sounds like a simple question but is not: “What shapes can you make from a flat piece of paper? What shapes can you not make?” Higher arithmetic has all kinds of applications. Why does a ballplayer’s batting average rise when he gets a hit? How is that like adding a drop of pure alcohol to a solution of alcohol and water? He is batting .300, but he goes 1 for 4, and his average drops a little. How is that like adding a little bit of a more dilute solution to one already prepared? We can do similar things with physics, without advanced mathematics. Why does a billiard ball spinning clockwise strike the bank and veer to the left? Or how does the ball carom off another ball of the same weight, if the other ball is itself not resting on a bank? Or with chemistry: how can certain insects skate on water? What characterizes the water molecule that makes it possible? And with poetry. Maxwell, taught by his mother till she died when he was eight, committed long passages from Paradise Lost to memory. Why not? The boys in Shakespeare’s troupe committed whole parts to memory — and played some of the greatest roles ever written for female characters: Cleopatra, Rosalind, Miranda, Juliet, Lady Macbeth, Viola, Beatrice, and many more. Teachers of English to children should have the grand vistas in mind, bringing before them whatever wonders they are ready for, and leading them to thirst for more. (RELATED: Leisure for Thought) What I am suggesting would not have seemed strange to the men who taught boys when school was not meant to “socialize,” a role for which ours are singularly ill-suited anyway. Nor were their schools meant to keep young people in holding tanks for twelve years, because nobody can figure out what else to do with them. I am not implying that there should be some ghastly national curriculum to integrate material taught in the earliest years with what real mathematicians, physicists, poets, artists, and engineers do. That would destroy the spirit of the enterprise, and it would universalize and perpetuate the inevitable mistakes. For 70 years, we have known what a disaster it was to dumb down children’s readers and to have children treat English words as if they were hieroglyphics. Yet we are still fighting against it. Besides, bureaucratization frustrates or repels the most imaginative among us. Set them free. (RELATED: Reclaiming Education for Boys) Abolish all requirements that teachers have degrees or certificates in education. There is no such thing as “education” apart from the subject to be taught. If you are going to teach arithmetic, learn more and more about math, so you can direct your charges to higher things. Are you going to teach English? Learn more and more about the language and its literature. If you are not fascinated by language and grammar, you are in the wrong line of work. Be aware of what vistas grammatical knowledge opens up; know about other languages besides English. If you are teaching history, you may do well to collect old tools and learn how they were used, and why should you not have a stack of maps to pore over? Maxwell was a very bright boy, no question, but his fellows in the Edinburgh Academy did not consider his knowledge of Milton to be all that prodigious — not by itself. We want those conditions again. We need teachers who know where the paths are that ascend the heights, and schools to encourage them or at least get out of the way. READ MORE from Anthony Esolen: Love and Reason in the Ruins On Old Snobs and New Woke Isn’t Quite Dead: Chaucer Now Comes With Trigger Warnings The post Keep the End in View appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.