WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democrats announced on Monday that they now have a clear mandate from voters to do all the crazy stuff they never mentioned in their campaigns.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Outgoing Congressman Thomas Massie took to the media yesterday to make one final push for a job as an MS NOW anchor.

George Will cautions against "giddiness" in the wake of the midterms, concluding with a warning we should heed that the President is not well.

The whole thing is worth a read, but Will fleshes out a point I merely noted in passing yesterday: that Elon Musk's waste of hundreds of millions in Texas political spending is a a great counterexample to the idea that we should limit political spending by individuals. (We set aside for the moment the fact that such bans should be opposed as violations of individual rights.):

The importance of money in politics is more asserted and deplored than measured. In Texas, Elon Musk, the most overrated dabbler in U.S. politics, perhaps did something useful with his estimated $224 million money geyser for Republicans. He unintentionally demonstrated that there is a point at which the utility of political dollars not only declines steeply, but actually becomes negative. Senator-elect James Talarico prospered politically while saying, "Texas is not for sale."

Furthermore, all political spending funds, directly or indirectly, the dissemination of political speech. Those who have nothing intelligent, interesting, pertinent or plausible to say will injure themselves by lavish spending that makes this absence obvious. Vivek Ramaswamy will not be Ohio's governor (or a Republican presidential candidate again), in part because of a campaign ad (featuring his opponent's mother) that will live in political lore as a spectacular act of self-harm. [bold added]

Yes, again, just dumping money into political ads still depends on those ads persuading voters. But I had not considered the second case: If someone is a big enough ass, it can be a good thing that he is well able to get the word out before he comes to power.

The 2026 midterms way well have been a victory for freedom of speech, even if an accidental one.

-- CAV

In light of recent anti-Israel demonstrations, here is an excerpt of an article by Yaron Brook and me, published in the Indianapolis Star on July 24, 2002. It was written in response to the latest suicide-bombing—engineered by Hamas—of an Israeli school bus, which killed 19 and wounded dozens more. More fundamentally, it was written in response to the continuing insistence by America’s policymakers that we negotiate with the Palestinian leaders (such as Yasser Arafat) in order to achieve an “even-handed” solution. It is as timely now as it was then.

§ The Israelis and the Palestinians are not morally equal

Israel is the only free country in a region dominated by Arab monarchies, theocracies and dictatorships. It is only the citizens of Israel—Arabs and Jews alike—who enjoy the right to express their views, to criticize their government, to form political parties, to publish private newspapers, to hold free elections. When Arab authorities deny the most basic freedoms to their own people, it is obscene for them to start claiming that Israel is violating the Palestinians’ rights. All Arab citizens who are genuinely concerned with individual rights should, as their very first action, seek to oust their own despotic rulers and adopt the type of free society that characterizes Israel.

§ Since its founding, Israel has been the victim

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has had to fight five wars—all in self-defense—against 22 hostile Arab dictatorships, and has been repeatedly attacked by Palestinian terrorists. Yasser Arafat is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Israeli schoolchildren, the hijacking of airliners and the car-bombings and death-squad killings of thousands of Israeli, American, Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. Today he ardently sponsors such terror groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al Aksa Brigade.

The land Israel is “occupying” was captured in a war initiated by its Arab neighbors. Like any victim of aggression, Israel has a moral right to control as much land as is necessary to safeguard itself against attack. The Palestinians want to annihilate Israel, while Israel wants simply to be left alone. If there is a moral failing on Israel’s part, it consists of its reluctance to take stronger military measures. If it is right for America to bomb al-Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan—and it is—then it is equally justifiable for Israel to bomb the terrorist strongholds in the occupied territories.

§ Hatred of Israel, and of the United States, is hatred for Western values

Like America’s war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the Arab-Israeli dispute is a conflict between opposing philosophies. On the one side are the forces of mysticism, medieval tribalism, dictatorship—and terror; on the other side are the forces of reason, individualism, capitalism—and civilization. Arafat and his sympathizers hate Israel for the same reason that Osama bin Laden and his sympathizers hate America, i.e., for embracing secular, Western values. No “peace process” is possible with such enemies.

This is not an ethnic battle between Jews and Arabs, but a moral battle between those who value the individual’s right to be free and those who don’t. Those Arabs who value individual freedom are enemies of the Arafat regime and deserve to be embraced by Israel; those Jews who do not value individual freedom deserve to be condemned by Israel.

§ Israelis have a right to govern the land

Only Israel has a moral right to establish a government in that area—on the grounds, not of some ethnic or religious heritage, but of a secular, rational principle. Only a state based on political and economic freedom has moral legitimacy. Contrary to what the Palestinians are seeking, there can be no “right” to establish a dictatorship. There can be no “self-determination” when the result is tyranny.

§ Palestinians are not “freedom fighters”

The Palestinians want a state, not to secure their freedom, but to perpetuate the dictatorial reign of Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. Arafat’s “police” brutally expropriate property and silence opposing viewpoints by shutting down radio and TV stations. They systematically arrest, torture and murder peaceful dissenters. To call the militant Palestinians “freedom fighters”—when they support the subjugation of their own people, when they deliberately murder children in the streets or gleefully praise such depravity—is a mind-numbing perversion.

§ A Palestinian state under Arafat would become a base for terrorism

A Palestinian state headed by Arafat would be a launching pad and a training ground for terrorist organizations targeting not only Israel, but the United States. Forcing Israelis to accept a Palestinian state under Arafat is like forcing Americans to accept a state the size of Mexico, 12 miles from New York City, ruled by Osama bin Laden. As long as the Palestinians sanction aggression, they should not be permitted their own state.

§ America, for its own benefit, must allow Israel to uphold the principle of self-defense

The growing demand for Israel to negotiate with Arafat comes from an unprincipled, range-of-the-moment mentality. Surrendering to extortion—which the “land-for-peace” catechism endorses—is profoundly immoral and impractical. In the 1938 version of “land for peace,” Nazi Germany was appeased by being allowed to take over Czechoslovakia as part of the Aryan people’s “homeland”; the result was to encourage Hitler to start a world war.

We should urge our government to recognize that there is only one means of achieving long-term Mideast peace: upholding the principle of a free society, which entails the endorsement of Israel’s sweeping retaliation against the scourge of terrorism.