If the news reports are accurate, the United States used more aircraft and ships to “extract” Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela than it did on the mission to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability.

While the Trump administration insists that removing the head of state from his own country was in pursuit of a criminal, which Maduro doubtless is, attacking and kidnapping a head of state runs perilously close to an act of war, particularly when the removal required such massive forces.

Under federal law, eight bipartisan, senior members of Congress must receive prior notice of sensitive covert actions. In June 2025, the administration told Republicans, but not Democrats, in advance about the forthcoming U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. For the Venezuela operation, it appears no lawmakers were notified in advance.

Trump insists that the need for secrecy overrode existing law.

What that means is that Trump believes that he can ignore existing law any time he thinks it’s necessary, and I’m fairly certain that the framers of the Constitution didn’t have that in mind.

In addition, Hegseth is now attempting to reduce Senator Mark Kelly’s retirement pay from his service as Naval officer and to censure Senator Kelly for his statement that military officers have a duty not to obey illegal orders. Although Senator Kelly is a former Navy captain and astronaut, his statement was, first, an opinion in line with what all officers are taught, and, second, made as part of Kelly’s position as a senator.

When the Secretary of Defense attempts to punish a retired officer – and sitting Senator – because the Senator disagrees with the Administration, Hegseth’s actions are against both long-standing precedent and the U.S. Constitution, as well as a sign of the contempt both Trump and Hegseth have for the Constitution and the laws supporting it.

Equally unfortunate is the failure of Republicans in the House and Senate to oppose the continuing disregard for the Constitution and the very laws passed by Congress to rein in Presidential overreach.

What good are laws if those controlling Congress allow the administration to break them at will?

Both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have been playing the “Christian nation” card every chance they get lately, emphasizing the idea that the United Sates was established as a Christian nation.

That contention is inaccurate. In fact, it’s dead wrong. While the majority of the Founding Fathers were “Christian” in background, the vast majority insisted on keeping religion out of government, as demonstrated by their support of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

All of the Founding Fathers had experienced or seen the abuse created by state religions or state-supported religions, and not just in England or elsewhere in Europe, and even in the American colonies. Nine of the thirteen original colonies authorized established churches – the Congregational Church in New England and the Anglican Church in the middle and southern colonies – with the result that personal freedoms were restricted.

In the 1700s in colonial Virginia, government legally and financially supported the Anglican Church and opposed other faiths, including other Christian denominations. Preachers without a license from the Anglican Church faced fines, jail, and physical punishment (whipping). Quakers were forced to move to Maryland. New York excluded Catholics from guarantees of the liberty of conscience. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, the Maryland government adopted laws depriving Catholics of their previously held civil rights and ultimately established the Church of England as the only authorized faith. Jews were denied voting rights in most colonies.

Today, even fewer Americans think of themselves as “Christian.” According to Pew Research Center surveys conducted since 2020, the “Christian” share of the adult population has been between 60% and 64%, while the religiously unaffiliated share has ranged from 28% to 31%. Adherents of religions other than Christianity have consistently accounted for 6% or 7% of U.S. adults.

Given the shift in the belief structure of Americans, and the prohibition of religious interference in government enshrined in the Constitution, why are Trump and Vance pushing the idea of a Christian nation?

Might it just be to obtain political support for a religious authoritarian state? The Founding Fathers would have been appalled, as most Americans should be today.

Some time back, I wrote that the Republicans were “the party of no.”

Events have proven that description all too true. While Republicans have been accurate in noting weaknesses or errors in law-making and Presidential decision-making by Democrats, the vast majority of Republican “solutions” have largely failed to improve the problems they addressed, and even when they have partially succeeded, as in reducing the number of aliens attempting to enter the United States, the overall costs in other immigration areas have increased.

From what I can glean from reports, as many as twenty to thirty percent of the people picked up by ICE sweeps are either U.S. citizens or individuals here in the U.S. legally, and very few ICE raids actually result in the capture of habitual thieves or hardened criminals, which was what Trump claimed was the objective.

In a similar fashion, the Trump tariffs have so far had little impact in increasing U.S. manufacturing output, while raising the cost of raw materials for U.S. manufacturers. In addition, foreign reaction to those tariffs has been to create huge losses to U.S. farmers, so much so that Trump is now proposing massive subsidies.

Almost random cutting of federal employees hasn’t measurably reduced federal spending, not with massive increases in defense spending.

Negotiations with Putin have failed to result in peace between Russia and Ukraine, unsurprisingly, given that Putin only respects force, and the only people Trump likes to use force against are immigrants, U.S. citizens, particularly women and Democrats, and purported drug-runners in small boats.

The Republican majorities in the House and Senate have yet to pass any significant legislation offering positive steps in any field, only significant cuts in programs designed to help poor and low-income individuals and families. Almost ten years have passed since Trump promised a better national health plan, and there’s no sign of one yet.

Pretty much the only significant “yes” coming from Trump and the Congress has been a large tax cut for the very wealthiest Americans, but that’s about all Americans should expect from the party of no, because merely finding faults in your opponent’s policies is almost never sufficient to significantly improve anything.

Data center energy demand is skyrocketing, primarily driven by AI and digitalization, with global consumption projected to double by 2030 from 2024 levels. In the U.S., demand could triple by 2028, with forecasts showing substantial growth from 4% to over 10% of total U.S. electricity by 2030.

Behind these forecasts is an assumption that public utilities and other power generating facilities will be able to build the systems to deliver such power. For almost a decade, until the last year or so, power generation facilities showed minimal growth, but to meet data center and other demands will require an expansion of power output/generation of more than 25%, according to studies by the Deloitte Research Center and others.

Data center demand alone is projected to take a fivefold jump from 2024. Industrial electrification from increased manufacturing facilities will increase power demand by 2030, on top of growth in household and commercial consumption.

At the same time, new supply is not coming online fast enough. The energy mix is shifting toward renewables, which accounted for 93% of new capacity through July 2025, with solar and storage making up 83%. But the pace of connecting these new energy sources has lagged. Two terawatts of capacity are stuck in interconnection queues, almost twice the currently installed capacity.

In addition, the power grid faces other challenges, particularly from extreme weather events. In just 2024, there were a record 27 extreme weather events that cost more than US$1 billion each. Such events have risen steadily since the 1980s, when there were on average 3.3 disasters per year that cost US$1 billion or more (inflation-adjusted).

All this growth will require investment, and investment has to come from somewhere. The electric power sector’s traditional funding avenues – filing rate cases and issuing debt and equity – may not suffice. Customer electricity bills rose 23% between 2019 and 2024, with residential prices climbing by nearly 26%, and state power commissions may be reluctant to allow massive price increases.

Significant additional federal funding is problematic, and additional tax breaks for power companies might have a political downside, especially in the 2028 election.

So… who will pay for the coming AI power-demand… and how?

For some time, I’ve been pointing out the decline of the mass market paperback, and the latest issue of Publishers Weekly contained an article entitled “An Ode to the Mass Market Paperback,” which effectively announced the demise of the pocket-sized paperback book with the decision by Readerlink to discontinue distribution at the end of this year.

So what brought about the decline and pending death of the mass market paperback?

The major factors were a significant increase in production costs combined with the decline and then collapse of the distribution network that fueled the growth of mass-market paperbacks. In the late 1980s, publishers could use a network of more than 600 independent distributor wholesalers to deliver inventory to more than 100,000 outlets where magazines and newspapers were being sold. By the late nineties, that network had been replaced by a few national distributors, who couldn’t or didn’t serve the bulk of the smaller magazine outlets.

Personally, I’ve also noted that book sections in big box stores, such as Walmart, are smaller and hold fewer titles, and especially fewer fantasy and science fiction titles. Grocery stores have reduced or eliminated book and magazine sections. At one time, Anderson Merchandisers supplied books to big-box retailers, but, from what I can tell, after Readerlink purchased the company, the quality and breadth of books provided declined.

According to Publishers Weekly, Circana BookScan recently reported that U.S. mass market sales plunged from 131 million books in 2004 to 21 million in 2024, a drop of about 84%, and sales this year through October were about 15 million units.

Then, add to that the cost. The last book of mine to be issued in a mass-market edition was Contrarian, in July of 2024, and the list retail price was $14.99. The Amazon discounted price was $13.30, but the ebook price after six months dropped to around ten dollars.

The bottom line is that is costs more than $10 to produce and distribute a mass market paperback and only a small fraction of readers are willing to pay more than $10.