The Social World

Category: Politics

  • Will Trump’s stake sink Intel?

    Will Trump’s stake sink Intel?

    In a move supported by Vermont’s socialist champion, Senator Bernie Sanders, President Donald Trump has arranged for the federal government to become the single largest shareholder of Intel Corporation. All for national interest, according to the White House.

    Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick announced that the deal gives the government “a piece of the action.” Is it in fact a piece of the action, or a disaster to come for the American business community?

    Created in 1968, Intel is an American multinational technology company that designs, manufactures and sells semiconductor chips and related products. Following its early successes, it has been in decline as a result of bad management decisions for the last 20 years or so.

    The full terms of the deal include the federal government taking a 9.9 percent stake in Intel, utilizing $5.7 billion from the Chips Act, a $3.2 billion grant from a national security program, and $2.2 billion by retroactively treating CHIPS Act grants as an equity investment. The federal government purchased 433.3 million shares of the corporation at $20.47 per share, a substantial 20 percent discount from the shareholder price.

    In early August, following up on Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s Senate testimony before Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, President Donald Trump became publicly vocal in criticizing Tan, accusing him of being “highly conflicted” in view of his investments in hundreds of Chinese tech firms – at least eight of which have ties to the Chinese military – asking him to resign immediately as Intel’s CEO.

    Tan then met with Trump, and, as Trump described it, the CEO “walked in wanting to keep his job, and… ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States.” During this voluntary conversation between Trump and Tan, the federal government became the single largest shareholder of Intel Corporation.

    According to the deal, the feds are a passive investor with no time limitations on their holdings. The agreement does not give Intel the option of repurchasing the shares on a future event or date. While the government has no board or governance rights and will vote as directed by the board of directors, with limited exceptions, the exceptions are worth noting here.

    What would limit the federal government from voting however it wants to? It’s common sense to realize that any displeasure the government may have with Intel’s business will be easily communicated to the C-suite before a shareholder vote is held.

    The answer is in the terms of the deal which provides the government with the option to purchase an additional five percent of Intel, with a five-year warrant at $20 per share, if the company ceases to own at least 51 percent of its current foundry business segment. That means Intel is highly incentivized to stay in the semiconductor manufacturing business, even if it’s not the most business-optimal decision. Therein lies the rub in a transaction where the government takes a massive ownership position in a corporation for an ostensibly public rationale of national security. With this deal in place, how will Intel balance its obligations to its shareholders, employees, and customers in future business operations?

    Everything Intel does will now be subject to the need to please its largest shareholder, the US government, and its multitude of interests that will likely lead the company to make political, rather than business, decisions. Yet Intel’s legal duty is to secure the largest possible profit for all its shareholders. It’s as if stakeholder capitalism – where companies consider the interests of all stakeholders rather than focus solely on shareholder profits – has now entered the economy through a Republican president’s machinations. Interestingly, the outspoken conservative foes of ESG investing – an investment strategy based on a company’s environmental, social, and governance performance, which also leads companies away from serving their shareholders – have had relatively little to say about this transaction.

    How then does Intel reconcile these things? An early indication may be seen in the company’s recent SEC filing, where it disclosed that the deal dilutes shareholders’ stock, voting and other governance rights due to the issuance of discounted shares to the government. No shareholder approval was sought for this transaction to occur. Notably, Intel also disclosed that this deal may limit future transactions that could be beneficial to shareholders. Bingo.

    Another problem Intel faces is how foreign governments will treat the company. Will Intel be viewed as an extension of the American government and its interests, resulting in additional scrutiny, regulation, fees or being blocked outright from doing business in certain countries? Roughly 76 percent of Intel’s revenues in 2024 were from international business. Intel disclosed these risks in the same SEC filing, given the clear risk factor here. These problems are merely the tip of a massive iceberg, one that could reshape not only Intel or the semiconductor industry but also other sectors of the economy.

    President Trump said the deal would only be opposed by “stupid” people and that he wants to see many such deals made for the country’s benefit. Secretary Lutnick added that we need an American champion in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, given the apparent threat from China to invade Taiwan, a country which produces most of the world’s semiconductors, including the most advanced forms of chip manufacturing. Although compared to Taiwan, Intel is a weakling in the semiconductor industry, not a champion. And Intel’s stock price appears to be negatively correlated with the recent announcement of the government’s involvement in the company.

    When the CHIPS Act legislation was first announced in 2021, it promised Intel potentially billions in subsidies to build semiconductor foundries in the United States. Intel’s stock was valued at $50 per share at that time. In August 2022, when the CHIPS Act was introduced into law, Intel’s share price had dropped to $35; recently, it has been trading under $20 per share before increasing to around $24 per share.

    Before the government’s intervention, Intel had fallen behind in AI technology, missed the mobile computing revolution, and had gradually but steadily lost ground to semiconductor competitors over the last decade. Yet, a company that wasn’t meeting market needs, and seemed headed for a serious business reorganization to survive has now locked itself into chip manufacturing to please the government and secure a much-needed financial lifeline.

    American taxpayers need to understand that Intel is now too big to fail. For it to succeed, it needs to secure customers who have previously not been forthcoming for its chip manufacturing business, among other business lines.

    Will other likely companies for these customer relationships now receive pressure from the Trump administration to sign long-term contracts with Intel, America’s new champion company? Is President Trump’s other corporate deal with Nvidia, allowing the company to resume its exports of banned AEI chips to China in exchange for a cut of its sales, a harbinger of future things to come? Most importantly, will foreign companies avoid doing such business in America in the first place to escape any coercion?

    To save Intel, a Republican president has turned an American Fortune 500 company into a public utility. Surely there are better ways of serving national security than by taking equity positions?

    What’s next? Which other companies will now want to become American champions?

  • Can Trump fire Lisa Cook for cooking the books?

    Can Trump fire Lisa Cook for cooking the books?

    President’s Trump’s efforts to reign in the administrative state and prod the Federal Reserve to adopt more Trumpian policies took a dramatic turn when he ousted Dr. Lisa D. Cook, an alleged miscreant, from the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors last week.

    The drama, and there’s always high drama in Trump World, unfolded after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte made a criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice based on Cook’s apparently falsified mortgage documents for homes in both Ann Arbor, Michigan as well as Atlanta, Georgia. Cook claimed the Ann Arbor house as her primary residence, which would allow her to obtain more favorable financing terms. Just two weeks later, Cook claimed her Atlanta condominium as her primary residence as well.Pulte made another criminal referral when he discovered Cook described a third Cambridge, Massachusetts property as a second home, but used it as an investment property and so described it in contradictory government filings.Pulte released footage of a reporter visiting Cook’s Michigan residence, where the reporter encountered renters who redirected comment to the “homeowner.”

    On August 25, the President sent Cook a letter notifying her of her termination, citing as authority Article II of the Constitution of the United States and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The President noted the Federal Reserve’s authority to set interest rates and regulate reserve and member banks. President Trump questioned Cook’s character and fitness for her job and fired her “for cause”:

    “The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve. In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter, they cannot and I do not have such confidence in your integrity. At a minimum, the conduct at issue exhibits the sort of gross negligence in financial transactions that calls into question your competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator.”

    On August 28, Cook filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to deny that she had committed “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” which she claimed constituted the “for cause” standard; obtain notice and a hearing; and retain her position. In a court hearing the next day, Cook’s lawyers also claimed that Cook’s firing was pretextual. The President’s true motive, they asserted, was to (i) obtain a majority on the Federal Reserve’s seven seat Board; and (ii) force a rate drop. Cook has not yet been charged with any civil violation or crime. She has not publicly responded to the allegations lodged against her.

    Neither the Federal Reserve Act nor any other statute define the “for cause” standard. The question for the courts to consider is whether Cook can be fired for potentially criminal conduct that (i) preceded her public service and (ii) stands outside the scope of her duties to the Federal Reserve. Does cooking the books in her personal life, when Dr. Cook sets national banking policy in her professional life, give President Trump “cause” under the Federal Reserve Act to fire her? To be clear, nothing in the statute limits the definition of “cause,” so the President may yet win this battle of wills.

    A related and overarching question is what authority the President should have over independent agencies such as the Federal Reserve, which raises separation of powers issues. The Federal Reserve exercises both legislative and executive powers, but it is allegedly autonomous. The Trump administration is keen to change the status quo. To do that, the President needs to take his fight to the high court and persuade the United States Supreme Court to reconsider its landmark decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), the ruling that first embraced the notion of independent agencies and simultaneously limited the chief executive’s ability to remove agency leaders. Reversing course is not unheard of for the Court, but it will not be a light lift either. If the President succeeds, he will have remade the executive branch in his own image. Presidents for years to come will have greater authority over those who rule in their name.

    Even if Cook somehow retains her position as a Governor on the Board, her legal troubles may be just beginning. Mortgage fraud, tax evasion and wire fraud are all potential criminal charges the Justice Department may be contemplating given the allegations Pulte has aired publicly. For all the misfortunes Cook has brought upon herself, she is one piece on a chessboard much larger than just one purported mortgage fraudster.

  • Why America’s schools are failing

    Why America’s schools are failing

    It seems that every few years America rediscovers that its children can’t read. In 2024, only 30-31 percent of eighth graders were deemed proficient in reading, and our numbers in history and math are even worse. Since 2020, no state has reported improvement across subject areas.

    It’s tempting to blame “the pandemic” for these declines, but in reality, Covid only accelerated trends that were already underway. For decades before 2020, US students were struggling to reach proficiency, and the truth is that the problem isn’t today’s culture-war skirmishes over pronouns, politics and school closures. It’s the more mundane question of how children are taught to read, to count and to remember.

    Let’s take phonics, for example. Until the 1980s, most teachers were trained to teach students how to read through linking letters to sounds. Taught this way, students learned rules for decoding words, so that they could sound out new words independently. The emphasis was on systematic, sequential instruction, memorization, and drilling. So if a student saw the word “cat,” they would sound out each letter and apply the process to words like “bat” and “mat.”

    But by the 1990s, most teachers were trained more heavily in whole language models, which are mechanisms used to teach students to read words and sentences as a whole, focusing on context and meaning. Taught this way, students would see the word “cat” in a sentence, and would guess the word based on the context of the sentence, or based on a picture of a cat near the word.

    By the late 2000s, though some states resisted, the whole language model was the norm in many elementary school classrooms. There was criticism early on, leading to some “balanced literacy” programs promising to blend whole language instruction with phonics, but in reality, “balanced literacy” usually just meant sprinkling in a few phonics lessons while relying on context guessing. Soon the science piled up, and decades of research showed that a heavy emphasis on systematic phonics is necessary for a child to learn how to read.

    As states began to reinstitute phonics requirements, they realized that the teaching pipeline was stuck. Education professors were trained in whole language and balanced literacy, and taught new teachers in the same manner. Major curriculum companies also had a strong influence on what districts adopted, and had built hugely profitable programs with balanced literacy at their core. Teachers pushed back on a personal level too – no one likes being told they’ve been wronging students they care about for the entirety of their careers.

    But it wasn’t just phonics and reading proficiency – similar issues showed up across educational subjects. Traditional math was standards and drill-based, emphasizing structure and singular proven methods to solve equations, but between the 1990s-2010s, new “constructivist” math allowed students to invent their own strategies with minimal direction. In the same way, traditional civics & history, which was characterized by memorizing facts and dates, was replaced with more sourcing-based lessons that ask “how do we know?” rather than “what do we know?”

    The problem leading to these shifts was, in fact, ideological, but not in the way we usually think.

    In the 1960s, The Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, the Vietnam War, and technological advances led to a widespread distrust of authority and tradition. Old ways, hierarchies and one-size-fits-all approaches began to be seen as oppressive, leading to a movement in the world of education that centered around the individual child and his or her self-expression, creativity and discovery. Memorization and drills soon became seen as not suited to a free, modern child, for whom education was supposed to serve in their process of self-actualization.

    “Knowledge,” after all, is socially constructed, and there is no single “right” process for a child to learn. At least that’s what the educational sphere began to believe, which led to phonics rules, historical timelines, and math formulas being viewed as impositions on the child – mechanisms to inhibit equity. As a child learned to read, whole language models fit better with this world-view than did phonics drilling. Many young teachers were taught that old ways of learning like phonics could be harmful to the child because it was a power-based and limiting model.

    This, then, is the pattern of the past 60 years of education: evidence-based basics like phonics, arithmetic and historical fact began to be treated as old-fashioned, and more progressive models, emphasizing meaning-making, creativity and individuality without a solid foundation became the norm. Student outcomes declined and critics called for a return to the fundamentals, but the corrections came abruptly, and teachers are now caught between what they know how to teach and what they’re suddenly expected to do.

    Those blaming declining educational quality on ideology, then, are right in one sense. Not because most teachers today are ideologues, but because they teach as they were trained in programs heavily influenced by an ideology that rejects truth. Modern parents aren’t fleeing public schools because they’ve discovered a latent love of flashcards and homeschooling, but because they believe they can teach their kids more efficiently than the modern public-school teacher.

    Yes, some teachers push their own politics, and that’s a problem. But it’s nothing compared to a system that treats phonics, arithmetic, and historical facts as relics. Kids can’t read – not because of one activist, but because an entire generation of educators was taught to doubt the very idea of right and wrong answers.

  • Britain’s war on free speech is worse than you think

    Britain’s war on free speech is worse than you think

    Where do you strike the balance between expression and security? It is a question Americans don’t need to ask. Our Constitution is plain and unambiguous about our fundamental rights to say what we want, write what we like, to gather in protest and – sweet relief – to mock our government. 

    Not everyone is so lucky. Not even our friends. “It doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful, authoritarian situation that we have now sunk into,” Britain’s Nigel Farage told the House Judiciary Committee yesterday afternoon, as he detailed the speech crackdown being carried out in the UK. “At what point did we become North Korea?”

    Ever the controversialist, the Reform leader – Britain’s new right-wing party – is always thinking about the headlines. And his claims are garnering the attention he seeks. But is it true? Is the UK indistinguishable from North Korea? Obviously, no. Is the UK upholding the country’s historical and noble commitment to free speech? Tragically, also no.

    It feels unsettling to say so. Having worked in the UK for the past decade, I knew that reports back in the States about Britain’s skyrocketing crime rates or “no go” zones were overblown. But in the case of speech, there has been a noticeable shift towards intolerance, with reinforcing legislation. Updates to the Public Order Act in 2023 have radically undermined the security Britons have traditionally had to speak freely and to protest. What’s followed has been a series of baffling, and dangerous, outcomes.

    Just this week, writer and comedian Graham Linehan landed at Heathrow airport outside of London, only to be greeted by five armed police officers at the plane’s door. His detention was so aggressive, he ended up in hospital for dangerously high blood pressure, where he wrote an account of the arrest. His crime? Three tweets from earlier in the year, making a series of controversial comments about trans men and the pro-trans lobby.

    There is a good chance Linehan will avoid jail time, now that the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer has intervened to ask the police to stop policing tweets and to start prioritizing violent crime. The Metropolitan Police chief shot back, asking the government to clarify the laws that police are supposed to enforce the Public Order Act which currently has police officers reaching for handcuffs when someone takes to social media or hauling civilians into jail cells for silently praying near abortion clinics (quite literally “thought crime”). 

    The condition of Linehan’s bail is that he “cannot go on Twitter.” Heaven forbid he speaks some more. Speech is the enemy, it seems, and it must be suppressed. 

    Farage’s claim on the Hill that Americans may not be safe traveling to Britain is an exaggeration. But it is an increasingly credible hypothetical. Linehan is not a British citizen – he is an Irishman who was traveling from Arizona and it was staff based on American soil who, according to Linehan’s account, changed his seat before he boarded the plane. That feels uncomfortably close to home.

    Meanwhile, Lucy Connolly didn’t avoid jail. The 41-year-old mother was sentenced last year to 31 months in prison for a tweet, quickly deleted, she sent out around the Southport riots, triggered in the north of England when three little girls were stabbed and killed by a British teenager (10 more were injured) during a dance class. 

    Connolly’s comments were horrendous, suggesting that the lives of asylum seekers don’t matter (there was speculation at the time the murders had been carried out by an immigrant). As Farage said yesterday, her comments were “intemperate” and “wrong.” It was hate speech – which is to say, it was also free speech. 

    Connolly should have never seen a jail cell for her comments, which has only made her a martyr for the very opinions the government is trying to silence. She is now considering a run in the next election against the current Home Secretary, who oversees the policing and immigration policy. Connolly may even have a decent chance of winning: her status as a “political prisoner” means her inhumane views on immigration are now, largely, overlooked.

    These kinds of unintended consequences inevitably follow when a country starts to chip away at the most fundamental, and stabilizing, rights. If you believe the polls, Britons are now seriously considering their own populist overhaul, as voters reject both Conservative governments, which started the speech crackdowns, and the current Labour government, which has carried it on.

    Farage may have been labeled “fringe” yesterday by Congressman Jamie Raskin, but his Reform party is surging ahead in the polls. There is a real possibility, unthinkable a year or two ago, that Farage could be in a position to form the next government in Britain. If this happens, it will be his absolutist attitude towards free speech that helped propel him into Downing Street.

    In America, the political targets are the elite: the high-level politicians and household names who have got on the wrong side of the current administration. In the UK, the target is the little guy and gal: your grandpa or aunt who feels compelled to share an ugly opinion with their 135 Facebook or X followers, because they’re mad as hell and can’t take it anymore. 

    Both are forms of lawfare and neither have any place in a free society. 

  • The Senator from Virginia vs. the Declaration of Independence

    The Senator from Virginia vs. the Declaration of Independence

    At a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia – Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate – decided to pick a fight not with the nominee before him so much with the American founding itself. In a remarkable four-minute speech, clips of which went viral, Kaine challenged the very idea of natural rights – that is, the belief that human beings possess fundamental freedoms simply by virtue of being human, not because government chooses to grant them.

    His lecture was provoked by a seemingly uncontroversial statement. Riley Barnes, nominated as Assistant Secretary of State, quoted his presumptive future boss in his opening remarks: “We are a nation founded on a powerful principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator – not from our laws, not from our governments.” He warned that when rights are untethered from that principle, “they can be easily manipulated by authoritarians and bad actors.”

    As most American schoolchildren would recognize, this statement is taken nearly verbatim from the Declaration of Independence, which affirms that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” For nearly 250 years, this idea has been America’s mission statement. Yet Kaine reacted with indignation, calling the notion “extremely troubling” and insisting it should make Americans “very, very nervous.”

    Kaine centered his argument on likening the principles in the Declaration to Iran’s theocracy: “The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator – that’s what the Iranian government believes.” The comparison is absurd. The Islamic Republic of Iran has never positioned itself as a champion of natural rights. Its regime is built on repression, not liberty, and its Supreme Leader has openly sneered at human rights as a Western pretense. To liken Jefferson and Madison to clerical dictators in Tehran is simply dishonest.

    And dishonesty, not ignorance, seems to be the basis for Kaine’s statements. He is an Ivy League graduate and a former governor of Virginia – the home state of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. He knows perfectly well what the Declaration says and what the Founders believed. If he pretends otherwise, it is because he wants to send a message.

    That message became clearer as Kaine continued to protest that attributing rights to God would somehow “demean” government and law. “I would never try to demean the law,” he said. In other words: How dare anyone suggest that politicians are beneath God? Despite describing himself as a “devout” Catholic, Kaine is comfortable diminishing the divine but not the authority of lawmakers like himself.

    Although Kaine claims that appealing to natural rights is something that just arose “suddenly, after 250 years,” in fact, it is the foundation of the American tradition. The Founders insisted that government was subordinate to natural rights, not the other way around Kaine warns that divine endowments are theocratic, when in reality they are the only safeguard against despotism. Without rights anchored in something higher than law, there is nothing to stop law from becoming mere power. Kaine’s argument is not only incorrect, it is dangerous.

    Bishop Robert Barron, responding to Kaine’s remarks on social media, explained: “If government creates our rights, then government can take them away.” That was exactly the tyranny the Declaration was written to resist. And one need not be religious to see the danger. Secular thinkers have long defended natural rights on philosophical grounds. The point is not that every American must invoke God, but that human dignity does not hinge on the state’s permission. Yet Kaine will not even concede that. He suggests instead that rights exist only because government decrees them – a logic fit for authoritarians, not heirs of Jefferson.

    Why would Kaine want to dismantle this philosophy? Because for today’s Democratic Party, natural rights are inconvenient. They are limits on government power, barriers that cannot be legislated away. Many progressives would prefer rights to be malleable—redefined, expanded, or rescinded at will, according to the agenda of the moment. Again and again, the left reveals it values power over principle.

    Kaine’s remarks were not a stray gaffe. It was a glimpse of where his party is heading. The left’s constant attempts to delegitimize the Founding Fathers themselves, combined with the bogeyman of a supposed modern Christian nationalist movement, has become a tool to alienate Americans from the ideas that made the republic possible.

    Without the concept of natural rights, individuals don’t have rights at all – only benefits and favors granted and withdrawn by the politicians in power. For politicians who want to be the source of your freedoms, God is a rival, our founding principles are obstacles, and natural rights in particular threaten to undermine their authority. In the hearing, Kaine said the quiet part out loud: In his vision, your rights belong to him and his party. And they can take them back whenever they please.

  • Why Venezuelan F-16s buzzing US warships prove Trump right

    Why Venezuelan F-16s buzzing US warships prove Trump right

    First the boat, then the buzz. On Tuesday, an American strike in the Caribbean shredded a vessel ferrying narcotics out of Venezuela, killing eleven alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang – which Caracas, strategically, dismissed as an AI hallucination. Two days later, Nicolás Maduro tried his own spectacle, dispatching a pair of F-16s to roar over the USS Jason Dunham, one of the U.S. destroyers recently sent on a counter-narcotics patrol off Venezuela’s coast.

    The maneuvers – and the steady drumbeat of pressure that preceded them – have regime-changers daydreaming about intervention and restrainers losing sleep. But before mistaking the noise for reality, it’s worth asking: what is Washington trying to achieve?

    Those who prefer tidy binaries – many of the journalists covering this beat – often misread what President Donald Trump’s administration is doing. One week, the president is cast as Liz Cheney’s hawk; the next, he is said to have sent Special Envoy Richard Grenell on a mission to befriend Marxists. The trick is not taking the headlines at face value, but tracing the pattern of moves rather than the noise of actions.

    Though often caricatured as a schizophrenic strategy, the picture – despite all the buzz – is more coherent than it seems.

    The seeming contradictions – Chevron licenses briefly extended, then revoked; Americans released from Venezuelan jails, then a record $50 million placed on Maduro’s head; terrorism designations stacked on top – are not slips in discipline. They form a sequence. Like a chess master sacrificing pawns to open the board, Trump knows how to trade small, reversible concessions to capture the strategic initiative.

    Unlike former President Joe Biden, who offered billions in relief tied to a doomed-to-fail democratization plan, Trump has operated on a different level. Rather than pursuing democracy as a single, fixed goal, he has layered multiple vectors – immigration, terrorism and drug trafficking – into his approach. At its core, the dynamic is simple: as Trump has suggested elsewhere, he has the cards – and he intends to hold them.

    Biden’s team took Maduro’s crumbs – and even absorbed a few punches. Trump, by contrast, followed the release of all remaining American prisoners in Venezuelan jails – a Trump accomplishment that changed the strategic landscape – not with mere celebration, but with increased pressure.

    Reductionist thinking, which treats sanctions or military gestures as blunt instruments, misses the point. To frame the overall effort as “regime change,” “drugs,” or “migration” is to misunderstand the logic at play. Washington’s pressure is designed to put Maduro on the defensive, forcing him into concessions on terms we define. The goal is not to provoke reckless intervention, or to simply asphyxiate the regime because we don’t like them, but to widen the cracks in his system and ensure Maduro bargains from weakness.

    Seen this way, the ambiguity is the strategy. Optionality is not confusion, it’s leverage. If Maduro grows anxious enough to cut deals, open channels, or less plausibly, contemplate an exit, that outcome is preferable to the frozen status quo. Those who demand a singular goal misread the nature of power: here, several possible futures count as success.

    Biden’s approach yielded neither democracy, market access, nor migration compliance. Trump’s approach acknowledges that something is better than nothing – and wields power with that reality in mind.

    If anything stands out this week, it’s that after the U.S. strike – which did, in fact, occur – Caracas’ response looks less like strength and more like a busted gambler rattling coins after a loss. By denying the strike and then sending two jets on a showy flyover, Maduro hopes the media inflates the drama – military strategists, however, aren’t losing any sleep. Fear, not retaliation, is what’s worth noticing here.

    Maduro’s touting of 4.5 million “militiamen” is yet another absurd claim that underscores his fear – one that CNN reported without any further explanation. Many of these so-called militiamen are just boys and girls sent into parades because, as a viral video making its rounds in Venezuelan social media show, “Maduro me obligó” (“Maduro forced me”). For context, Ukraine’s active military personnel is at around 1 million, reading that Maduro is parading 4.5 million understandably freaks folks out. Calling it misleading doesn’t do it justice – it’s laughable.

    The flyovers and grandiose claims are performative; they mask weakness. Maduro wants to signal that he can act, especially to his citizenry, but the truth is he doesn’t hold the cards – and that’s exactly the point.

    Maduro can posture, he can bluff, but he cannot rewrite the balance of power. Washington doesn’t need a singular, dramatic victory; it needs to exploit the fissures and make attainable demands. Every concession, every crack exposed, every gesture coerced is a win – quiet, methodical and unmistakably real. In this game, the noise is an illusion. The leverage, the cards, and the power are what matters.

    Don’t confuse the moves for the endgame. With prudence, the US can use both carrot and stick to advance America’s concrete interests. The signal is clear: you don’t want a conflict – and neither do we. Act against us, and consequences could get worse.

  • Why America needs the Department of War

    Why America needs the Department of War

    Six months into President Trump’s second administration and there is perhaps no other government department that has been subject to more controversies than the Department of Defense. Brouhahas have ranged from the in-fact favorable (see the banning of affirmative action) to the admittedly concerning (see significant leaks of sensitive information). And now Trump has pulled the pin on possibly his most powerful grenade so far – and rolled it Pete Hegseth’s way. But after the smoke clears from this particular explosion, there is a real opportunity for the department to be born again, fighting fit, from the debris.

    President Trump has signed an executive order returning the Department of Defense to its original moniker, the Department of War. In his inimitable style, Trump proclaimed, “We went woke and changed to the Department of Defense. This is something we thought long and hard about it. We won World War One, World War Two, everything before that and in between… we’re going to change it to the Department of war, it’s a much more appropriate name.” This will take an act of Congress, but Republican support seems forthcoming.

    The reactions from the president’s detractors have been outlandish, particularly on social media. Critics have labeled the decision “a reckless and outdated stunt,” “performative” and a waste of taxpayer dollars. Opponents claim it is hypocritical for Trump to say he’s pro-peace while promoting this change. They even argue that it reveals the administration to be “warmongering neocons.” Some have suggested that this is merely a precursor for imposition of martial law and a total descent into fascism.

    In reality, it is none of these. The title of the Department of War is more descriptive, honors our history, reduces rhetorical confusion and better fits the geopolitical moment.

    The War Department was the second executive branch department created by Congress, being established on August 7, 1789. Until the Navy Department was created nearly a decade later, the War Department held all military portfolios in the US government. America fought the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and both World Wars under this arrangement, building our nation into the world-spanning colossus that it is today. The War Department would remain a staple of American government until 1949, when the various martial branches were consolidated under the auspices of the Department of Defense. Returning to the original name and portfolio would honor our nation’s military history in the lead-up to our nation’s 250th anniversary next year.

    It would also better suit the actual purpose of the department and reduce confusion and overlap. The Department of Homeland Security, established in the wake of 9/11, carries out many of the functions of territorial defense of the nation. It polices our borders, enforces immigration and criminal law, and patrols the waters of our near-abroad, safeguarding our coasts. As such, the Defense Department is not engaged primarily in homeland defense; it fights wars and carries out missions everywhere on the planet and will likely do the same in the space domain this century. Warfighting is indeed what the military is for. We should not shy away from that reality; our adversaries surely do not.

    And that points to the most useful aspect of this change: as a threat to our enemies. America faces the gravest geopolitical situation that we have seen since at least 1991, if not 1945. Our foes are arrayed against the US-led world order and have been threatening and attacking their neighbors in a quest to undermine our primacy and the very idea of national sovereignty. China, Russia, Iran and their satrapies are becoming more closely intertwined and dangerous with every passing day. They make no secret of their goal: overturning the international system and replacing it with something more amenable to their belligerent, expansionist desires.

    This antagonism must not be ignored. It must be confronted head-on. This requires a change in mindset. No longer are we in the stable, post-Cold War era, where non-state actors posed the largest challenge to America. We are in the rough-and-tumble age of great-power rivalry. Our adversaries understand this. It is time we do as well. Returning the Defense Department to its original title shows that we are recognizing the new reality.

  • By taking on the cartels, Trump is reasserting American authority

    By taking on the cartels, Trump is reasserting American authority

    The reporting process on Donald Trump’s war on the cartels for my latest cover story for The Spectator, published here today, mostly focused on the administration’s theory of the case: what they intend to do about the challenge of the drug running, human trafficking and terrorist activity by the narco syndicates to America’s south and why they believe a major escalation is necessary. In the intervening time between filing a piece and going to press, the theoretical became very real with the fiery destruction of a boat carrying drugs in international waters, allegedly steered by 11 now-dead members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua cartel. 

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio, asked about the shocking (to those who haven’t been paying attention) military strike, made clear that the rules of engagement have changed, and they are not going back to the old pattern of interdiction and trial. 

    “The President has been very clear that he’s going to use the full power of America and the full might of the United States to take on and eradicate these drug cartels, no matter where they’re operating from and no matter how long they’ve been able to act with impunity,” Rubio told journalists after traveling back from meetings in Mexico City. “Those days are over.” He added:

    I think as long as those vessels are in the region and as long as the President’s in the White House, he’s made very clear he’s not going to allow the United States to continue to be flooded with cocaine and fentanyl and other drugs coming from different places – this one is from Venezuela, which is a common route. But by the way, some of it ends up in Europe. A lot of it ends up in Puerto Rico and then on into the United States mainland. So no one should be surprised.  That’s why they’re there on a counter-drug mission, and they’re going to continue to operate. As far as specifics and future operations, I have to refer you to the Pentagon on that. This is a DoD operation…

    The President was very clear, and that is we destroyed a drug boat that left Venezuela operated by a designated narcoterrorist organization, which is what these are, and he’s been clear that the days of acting with impunity and having an engine shot down or a couple drugs grabbed off a boat, the – those days are over.  Now it is we are going to wage combat against drug cartels that are flooding American streets and killing Americans.

    The election-year depictions of Trump as a dovish isolationist who adopts a Lindberghian attitude toward America’s role in the world has never been accurate, and it has consistently been proven wrong not just in his first term but even more so in his second. The President’s attitude toward Canada, Greenland and the like have been dismissed as foolish talk, but the truth is that he is presiding over a reassertion of American authority over the Western Hemisphere that is long overdue. The war footing this administration is adopting now toward the cartels is still in its early days, but the die is cast – and there is no going back.

  • China intends to set the rules of a new world order

    China intends to set the rules of a new world order

    Beijing gave us a glimpse of the future this week. Across Tiananmen Square rolled column after column of tanks, missile launchers and robot dogs. Above, sleek new J-35 stealth fighters cut through the smog, together with drones and surveillance aircraft. The centerpiece was unmistakable: gleaming hypersonic and ballistic missiles, designed to extend China’s military reach across continents. Reviewing all this was Xi Jinping, flanked by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. It was military theatre, yes. But it was also a declaration: China is no longer just a regional power. It intends to set the rules of a new world order.

    This was no isolated spectacle. It was the third act in a carefully choreographed summer. First, in July, the BRICS summit in Rio: a “Rio Declaration” with 126 commitments, called for reform that would see less Western influence and more involvement from the BRICS nations – and the general Global South – in international decision making.

    Then, in August, the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s largest-ever meeting in Tianjin saw Beijing reaffirm the call for a new model of global governance, one that aspired to “true multilateralism” in a clear swipe against the Trump agenda. This included plans for an SCO development bank which analysts saw as yet another move to develop an alternative payment system that could circumvent the US dollar and the power of US sanctions.

    The role of the Victory Day parade was to support Beijing’s political ambitions with a show of its military might. The post-war US-led order has long been underpinned by America being the pre-eminent military power. Now this is no longer the case (at least in terms of quantity, if not quality, given China’s lack of war-fighting experience), the premise of American global leadership and the global application of its liberal order is no longer secure.

    Overall, the message to the world of the last few months is clear: the center of gravity is shifting to Beijing.

    China and Russia, supported by other authoritarian states, are now attempting to build what might be called a Counter-Alignment: an alternative set of rules, laws, values and institutions underpinned by their combined power, but dressed in the rhetoric of multipolar fairness. They seek to achieve this not only through diplomacy but by harnessing technology, geography, and ideology. China’s drive to command the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Counter-Alignment’s grip on key Eurasian trade routes, and Beijing’s cultivation of dependent states through infrastructure and digital standards all lend substance to a sovereignty-first order that challenges Western primacy.

    India’s position is the most striking. Long cast in the West as the democratic counterweight to Beijing, New Delhi has in fact been leaning into both BRICS and SCO with new enthusiasm. In Rio, Narendra Modi signed up to the bloc’s AI governance framework and echoed calls for equal rights in global rule-making. In Tianjin, he nodded along with Xi on cooperation against cross-border terrorism.

    True, he skipped the martial theatrics of the Beijing parade – unlike Putin and Kim – but the direction of travel is unmistakable. One reason is personal. Donald Trump has repeatedly needled India with fresh tariffs and treated Modi less as a partner than as a supplicant, a humiliation the Indian prime minister has not quickly forgotten. And India is hardly alone. Brazil, South Africa and a clutch of other Global South powers are embracing these Chinese-led forums, giving the Counter-Alignment a veneer of legitimacy that Western capitals dismiss as posturing but much of the developing world hails as overdue reform.

    The contrast with Trump’s own parade in Washington in June could not be starker. Ostensibly marking the US Army’s 250th anniversary, it was a brash, inward-looking jamboree: tanks parked on the Mall, fighter jets roaring overhead, a speech heavy on domestic grievance. Not a single foreign leader attended; the audience was largely red-capped supporters, not heads of state. Beijing’s extravaganza, by contrast, was outward-facing and international, with more than two dozen leaders in attendance. Trump staged a piece of political nostalgia; Xi orchestrated a global summit with missiles attached. One was a rally. The other, a manifesto.

    This all carries an uncomfortable lesson. The institutions and rules of the Western-led order – the UN, NATO, the Bretton Woods system – are being steadily co-opted, challenged and, in places, duplicated. What western politicians still wave away as talking shops, the summits of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are quietly evolving into something more substantial. They now produce development banks, alternative payment systems, and even draft frameworks for AI governance – the slow but deliberate scaffolding of a parallel order.

    Taken together, these initiatives form the basis of a new world system: one that borrows the architecture of the West but seeks to rewire its foundations around sovereignty, multipolarity, and Chinese leadership.

    The parade in Beijing was not simply a display of new hardware. It was a declaration of intent, a projection of power and a plea for legitimacy, delivered in front of a carefully curated international audience.

    We should recognize the deeper struggle unfolding: the fight over who writes the rules of the 21st century. Power, as history teaches us, only endures when it is coupled with legitimacy. China and Russia, with India and Brazil and others in tow, are betting they can assemble both. The West, distracted and divided, may soon find itself living in a world not of its making.

  • Why California shouldn’t foot the bill for Kamala Harris’s protection

    Why California shouldn’t foot the bill for Kamala Harris’s protection

    The first time I worked alongside the California Highway Patrol’s Dignitary Protection Section was in Beverly Hills in the late 1990s. Think swimming pools and movie stars. The setting could have been a Hollywood caricature of itself: manicured hedges, a mansion where priceless Old World paintings hung in the hallways, and a guest list that ran from President Clinton to Barbara Streisand. The rest is appropriately redacted. I was a new Secret Service agent then still learning the art of protection, but amid the clinking glasses and camera flashes, what struck me most wasn’t the celebrities. It was the calm professionalism of the CHP officers beside me. That was my introduction to an agency that proved, time and again, to be one of the finest partners I encountered in 23 years of protecting American presidents.

    That same agency is now in the headlines again because the CHP, along with the Los Angeles Police Department, has been tasked with protecting former Vice President Kamala Harris. This follows the Department of Homeland Security and President Trump’s decision to end her Secret Service protection in August, a decision some critics cast as political. But set the rhetoric aside: the decision was lawful, prudent and entirely in line with precedent and threat intelligence.

    Since 2008, former vice presidents have received six months of Secret Service taxpayer-funded protection after leaving office. That’s it. President Biden extended Harris’s coverage to a full year, which was an exception to the long-standing six-month norm. Mike Pence, who left office under bipartisan criticism and faced objectively higher threats, was denied an extension beyond six months. Harris, like every vice president before her, has had plenty of time to adjust to private life and arrange her own security.

    It’s worth remembering that until 1951, vice presidents received no Secret Service protection whatsoever and it was voluntary even then. It took the upheavals of the 1960s for permanent protection to become mandatory. The rules today are not a slight; they are the product of decades of balancing public duty with private status. The very fact that vice-presidential protection was not required until the 1960s highlights how exceptional continuous coverage really is.

    The Secret Service has more than enough on its plate. Each September, the UN General Assembly brings 150 world leaders to New York, a logistical and workforce colossus. Add to that an ever-expanding roster of protectees and an international and American threat environment unlike any in modern memory, and the case for focusing resources is obvious. After two assassination attempts against him last year, President Trump is acutely aware of the consequences of political rhetoric. But decisions on protection must be judged by precedent and threat, not politics.

    Which brings us back to the CHP and the LAPD. They are world-class agencies, fully capable of protecting Harris, just as they protect California’s governor, first family and visiting dignitaries. Their Dignitary Protection Section doesn’t just stand posts; it runs threat assessments, coordinates intelligence, and executes the same protective tradecraft the Secret Service practices daily. Having worked shoulder to shoulder with them in my earliest assignments and many times since, I can say with confidence: Harris is in good hands.

    But capability isn’t the point here. Appropriateness is. When police unions themselves question whether their officers should be pulled off homicide cases or narcotics investigations to provide security for a private book tour, the problem is clear. Every officer detailed to protect Harris is one less officer tackling Los Angeles’s fentanyl crisis, or responding to wildfires, or working the endless grind of homelessness on the city’s streets. Security for a multi-city tour can run into the millions of dollars that publishers, who stand to profit, are far better placed to absorb than taxpayers.

    There is no dishonor in Harris providing her own security. Many public figures do quietly, professionally and without subsidy. Indeed, some of the same private security firms employ former Secret Service agents and CHP veterans. To suggest otherwise is to confuse celebrity with sovereignty.

    The California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles Police Department deserve praise for stepping up when called upon as they always do. Their officers are some of the best in the world, and their history of partnership with the Secret Service is a model of interagency cooperation. But their resources are not infinite, and their first responsibility is to the citizens of California. Every hour an officer spends guarding a private citizen is an hour not spent on the crises California faces daily.

    George Orwell once noted that “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” Strip away the noise, and the facts here are plain: precedent was followed, taxpayers should not carry a private burden, and California’s finest officers deserve to spend their time where they are most needed.