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War Powers, Anyone?

When our country’s Founders were creating the Constitution, they had just won a war against King George III of England. They deliberately and unambiguously invested the power to wage war in the Congress, judging it to be more reticent about entering war than a head of state, who would see a war as an opportunity to increase his power.

Fast forward to today. America is embroiled in foreign wars that consume, with growing unease, our attention and resources. Yet the Senate on Thursday sunk legislation that would have required the White House to get congressional approval before attacking Venezuela. We should rely on the carefully designed constitutional structure our Founding Fathers provided to avoid further disasters and use those tools to extricate us from existing ones. 

During the 2024 election campaign, we were all told the wars were a waste and would be ended swiftly if Donald Trump won. It looks like we were fooled again.

Ukraine was supposed to be settled quickly. However, after the 10 months since President Trump’s inauguration, the current debate is whether to provide nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles to reach deep into Russia, which has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Doesn’t our governing elite think shooting nuclear-capable missiles into Russia could be risky?

Recently, and with fanfare, the Palestinians released their hostages to the Israelis, but Israel’s military, using U.S. supplied and funded weapons, has repeatedly and dramatically violated the ceasefire. It looks like all the lofty rhetoric about peace deals was just hot air.

In less than a year in office, the Trump administration has directly engaged in the bombings or has supported the bombings of Gaza, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, and possibly Qatar. It has also been financing political turbulence in countries across Asia, the Western Hemisphere, and who knows how many in Africa. Alarmingly, Trump recently has started arguing for military intervention in Nigeria.

Over the past two months, the Trump administration has been illegally assassinating, without any due process, “suspected narco-terrorists” off the coasts of Latin America. The Washington elites are circulating stories sotto voce among themselves that there are Hezbollah terrorists in the Venezuelan jungles. Now, we are supposed to be really threatened. It won’t be long before they will be whispering about Hamas fighters training in Cuba to attack Key West, or even Miami!

These fairy tales are the latest additions to the long list of old discredited war propaganda gems such as: the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, the German soldiers bayoneting and decapitating babies during World War I in France, the domino theory, the faked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, Iraqi soldiers ripping babies out of incubators in Kuwait, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, poison gas attacks in Syria, the fake Libyan mass rape claims, or of course the completely debunked claim of the many beheaded babies in Israel.

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Supreme Court Allows Trump to Mandate Biological Sex on Passports – Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Fumes

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision on Thursday, allowed President Trump to enforce a new policy that has ended the use of the “X” marker on passports.

The high court issued the decision in an unsigned order.

President Trump signed an executive order shortly after his inauguration, which directed agencies like the State Department and Homeland Security to issue IDs, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, based solely on biological sex assigned at birth.

This reversed prior allowances for self-selected genders, including “X” for unspecified.

The anti-American ACLU represented transgender individuals who sued over the Trump Administration’s passport policy.

Two liberal district court judges struck down the Trump Administration’s new passport policy.

“The President’s choice to revert to prior policy and rely on biological sex—a choice that bound the State Department—should be the last place for novel equal-protection claims or Administrative Procedure Act objections,” DOJ Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the Trump Administration’s passport policy and allowed the State Department to mandate biological sex on passports.

“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment,” the Supreme Court said.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan joined, dissented.

“As is becoming routine, the Government seeks an emergency stay of a District Court’s preliminary injunction pending appeal. As is also becoming routine, this Court misunderstands the assignment,” Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote.

“Here, the balance-of-the-equities factor requires weighing the harm to the Government from not being able to proceed immediately with its allegedly unlawful policy against the harm to the individuals who would be subjected to that policy,” she added.

Bondi celebrated the latest SCOTUS win.

“Today’s stay allows the government to require citizens to list their biological sex on their passport,” Bondi said.

“In other words: there are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth,” Bondi added.

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McIver trial pushed back as judge mulls whether to toss charges

A federal judge has indefinitely delayed Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark)’s trial on assault charges, previously set to begin on Monday, while he mulls whether to toss the charges against her entirely.

District Judge Jamel Semper wrote in a brief order today that the November 10 trial is “adjourned without date pending resolution of the pretrial motions.”

McIver was charged with assault in May following a scuffle with federal immigration officers at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark. The first-term congresswoman pleaded not guilty to the charges, and filed a series of motions over the summer arguing both that the indictment runs afoul of the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause protecting official legislative acts and that the attempt to prosecute her is politically motivated.

At an October 21 hearing, Semper heard oral arguments from McIver’s legal team and from the Department of Justice, which has asked Semper to dismiss McIver’s efforts to derail the indictment. Two and a half weeks later, Semper has yet to issue a ruling on the matter.

There has, however, been some activity on a different motion to force the Trump administration to take down “extrajudicial statements” that denigrate McIver. Semper said during oral arguments that the Department of Justice needed to “redouble their efforts” to take down offending social media posts and statements, and some have been removed in the weeks since then, but McIver’s attorneys wrote in a new letter today that other prejudicial posts still remain available.

Also still lacking a resolution is a separate court decision over whether to allow disputed acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, who has led the prosecution against McIver, to continue serving in her role; three judges on the Third Circuit Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in that case on October 20, but have yet to come to a decision.

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Trans Violence: Transgender Virginia Teacher Posts Gun In Rainbow Pointed At Someone’s Head

A “transgender” high school teacher in VA is in trouble, according to The College Fix.

In the most recent trans related hoopla the teacher posted to the Instagram account an image of a rainbow gun pointed to “a person’s head and the demand “PUT THE PRONOUNS BACK IN THE EMAIL.”

This is the latest in leftist and so-called trans incitement and violent rhetoric.

The teacher in question, named Sabrina Morris, according to WSET, teaches in Danville Public School in Virginia.

“A district spokesperson said local police are involved in the matter, and that Morris “will not be present on school grounds while this matter is under investigation.”

The spokesman went on to say, “We are aware of a recent social media post involving one of our employees that has caused concern within our school community. We take such matters very seriously, as the content shared does not reflect the values or expectations of professionalism that guide our division,”.

The school district has since erased the info relating to this ‘teacher” and his Instagram is now in private mode.

According to The College Fix, “it appears Morris got it from the Dream for America Instagram account, which purports to ‘inspire  young Americans to defend democracy & fight fascism online, on-campus, & across the country.”

Dream For America claimed it was all in good humor and was not meant to endorse violence.

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Carrier USS Ford Holding Off Of North Africa As Trump Reportedly Won’t Strike Venezuela

wo days after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to the Caribbean, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford has not moved significantly from a position just west of Morocco in North Africa, the Navy confirmed to us Thursday. The flattop and elements of its strike group were ordered by President Donald Trump to join the ongoing enhanced counter-narcotics mission in the region, but it is unclear if plans have changed.

The relatively static position of the Ford and at least two of its escorts comes as reports are emerging that the Trump administration has decided, for now, not to carry out land strikes against Venezuela. It is unknown at the moment if there is a correlation, and the possibility remains that the carrier could still soon sail westward. We have reached out to the White House for clarification.

The Trump administration on Wednesday told Congress it is holding off for now on strikes inside Venezuela out of concern over the legal authority to do so, CNN reported on Thursday. The briefing was conducted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and an official from the White House’s Office of Legal Counsel, the network reported, citing sources familiar with the events.

Lawmakers were told that the authority given to suspected drug boats did not apply to land strikes, the network noted. So far, nearly 70 people have been killed in at least 16 publicly known attacks on vessels allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific. The most recent acknowledged strike took place on Tuesday. The strikes have garnered heavy criticism for being extrajudicial and carried out without Congressional authorization.

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California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Hike Is Killing Jobs

In 2023, California adopted a law that raised the minimum wage to $20 per hour. It also created a Fast Food Council with the power to further increase wages by dictate every year. Twenty bucks an hour is a nice, round number which is probably why state lawmakers picked it—though it’s not clear why they stopped there. After all, if you’re going to create prosperity by command, why not shoot for the moon and make all the Golden State’s fry cooks millionaires? But it’s just as well that they didn’t go further—that hike to $20 per hour is killing jobs as it is.

One Law Kills 18,000 Jobs

“On April 1, 2024, California raised its minimum wage from $16 to $20 per hour for fast-food workers employed at chains with more than 60 locations nationwide,” Jeffrey Clemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer write in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper that was first addressed by Reason‘s Peter Suderman in the November print issue. “Our median estimate suggests that California lost about 18,000 jobs that could have been retained if AB 1228 had not been passed.”

The authors initially calculate that “employment in California’s fast-food sector declined by 2.7 percent between September 2023 and September 2024 relative to fast-food employment elsewhere in the United States.” But they make the point that, prior to the passage of A.B. 1228, the bill hiking the minimum wage, fast-food employment was rising faster in the state than elsewhere in the country. Allowing for that, and for changes in the overall labor market, they estimated the real decline in California’s fast-food employment at 3.6 percent to arrive at 18,000 lost jobs.

That’s a lot of missing opportunities for Californians to get a foothold in the work world, make money, and pay their bills. It also squares with other estimates of the attempt to legislate prosperity.

In September, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) drew on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data to estimate “15,988 fast food jobs lost since the law went into effect in April 2024.” The group added, “California’s fast food job loss rate (-3.3% of jobs lost) more than doubled the losses in fast food restaurants nationally (-1.6% of jobs lost) since September 2023.”

That EPI memo built on a November 2024 study that found “more than 4,400 California fast food jobs have been lost since January,” based on federal data. That study also found “10.1 percent menu price increases by April 2024 since the law’s passage in 2023.”

A February 2025 paper from the Berkeley Research Group (BRG) found the fast-food sector “lost 10,700 jobs (-1.9%) between June 2023 and June 2024.” The researchers added, “this decline sharply contrasts with the sector’s historically compounded annual growth rate of 2.5% and marks the only December year-over-year decline in fast food employment this century–excluding the Great Recession (2009) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020).” That report also found that “menu prices at California’s fast food restaurants increased by 14.5% between September 2023 (the month AB 1228 was signed into law) and October 2024, nearly double the national average (8.2%).”

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How the West dismantled the last pillars of nuclear stability

Diplomacy, like poetry, depends on the precision of language. The stakes are higher, though, because a poorly chosen phrase can accelerate a crisis rather than illuminate a path out of it. Yet here we are: a renewed nuclear arms race may be triggered because the president of the United States appears not to understand what the term “nuclear tests” actually means, and no one in his own administration is prepared to offer clarity to Russia, the only other country capable of ending the world in an afternoon.

Time, as ever, moves faster than our political instincts. The system of strategic stability agreements that shaped the late 20th century has been swept away like autumn leaves on a November sidewalk. Each individual collapse seemed manageable, almost technical. But look back to 2002, when Washington abandoned the 1972 ABM Treaty, and the trajectory becomes unmistakable. Since then, one agreement after another has either died or been deliberately dismantled: the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and most recently, New START. Now the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 looks likely to follow.

The lone survivor is the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. But even the NPT’s foundations are loosening. Article VI obliges nuclear powers to pursue, in good faith, negotiations on ending the nuclear arms race. Once those negotiations end, and they effectively have already, non-nuclear states are entitled to conclude that the system no longer protects their interests. Most will hesitate to embark on nuclear programs, but it would take only a handful of new entrants to reshape global security in ways no one can control.

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J.P. Morgan Quietly Helped Jack Smith Target Trump Media

The weaponization of federal power has reached a new level. 

In a shocking revelation, Special Counsel Jack Smith secretly subpoenaed J.P. Morgan Chase for the private banking records of Trump Media and Technology Group—despite the company not existing at the time of January 6. 

The move, uncovered by Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes, represents yet another case of the Justice Department extending its political reach far beyond reason or legality.

Trump Media became a public company in 2024, years after the events that Smith’s investigation supposedly focused on. 

Yet, Smith’s “Arctic Frost” operation went after Truth Social’s bank records as though it were somehow connected to the Capitol protests. 

That alone raises the question: what possible justification could exist for subpoenaing a company that didn’t exist at the time of the alleged crime? 

None—unless the motive was political.

As Nunes explained in his interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, the subpoena was not only unjustified but also secret. 

Trump Media was never notified. Even more concerning, J.P. Morgan Chase—one of the largest banks in the world—complied without question. 

For a company headquartered in Florida, such cooperation with an unfounded federal demand may have violated both state and federal laws. Yet the bank went further.

At the height of Trump Media’s public offering in early 2024—just as Truth Social was preparing to go public and raise $250 million—J.P. Morgan abruptly “debanked” the company. 

That decision, coming amid active cooperation with the Biden Department of Justice, effectively sabotaged a major free speech enterprise. 

It was a clear act of corporate compliance with political intimidation.

J.P. Morgan later told Fox News that it does not close accounts for political reasons.

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BBC bosses quit amid scandal over doctored Trump speech

The BBC’s director general and head of news have resigned after the British state broadcaster was accused of misleading the public in a documentary about US President Donald Trump’s role in the 2021 Capitol riots.

The BBC announced the departures of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness on Sunday, a day after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt branded the broadcaster a “Leftist propaganda machine” and accused it of being “purposefully dishonest.” Leavitt’s remarks followed allegations that the BBC had spliced together different segments of the speech delivered by Trump on January 6, 2021.

BBC director general Davie barely touched on the issue in his resignation statement and did not specify the reasons for his departure, simply stating that “the current debate around BBC News has understandably contributed to [his] decision” and that “there have been some mistakes made.”

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Unbanked In A Connected World

Financial exclusion remains high in many parts of the world. In several countries, more than two out of three adults are unbanked, yet the majority own a mobile phone. This contrast between connectivity and financial access highlights both the persistent gaps in global inclusion and the massive opportunity to close them.

Created in partnership with Plasma, this graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross, shows how ownership of financial accounts and mobile phones compares across countries. It’s part of our Money 2.0 series, where we highlight how finance is evolving into its next era.

The Unbanked Gap

In low- and middle-income economies, 84% of adults own a mobile phone, while 75% of people have financial accounts. This gap is much wider in some countries, especially in Africa and the Middle East.

For the most unbanked countries worldwide, here are the percentages of adults who own a financial account and those who own a mobile phone.

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