Democrats in South face wipeout if Supreme Court guts Voting Rights Act — NYT pic.twitter.com/goHof93AS3

— NewsWire (@NewsWire_US) October 15, 2025

This graphic is from the New York Times story yesterday (10/15): A Supreme Court Case Could Hand The House to Republicans.

The Supreme Court is considering whether to gut a key provision in the Voting Rights Act. Democrats are nervous because, if the Court strikes it down, coupled with Republican governors redrawing maps ahead of the 2026 midterms, they could be wiped out in the South.

Of course, the Times tries to lessen the impact, adding that the full effect of the upcoming ruling, should it go against liberals, might not be fully felt until after 2026, but it’s still going to be a sledgehammer to the face.  The provision centers on whether race should be considered when drawing legislative districts.

From the NYT story:

Having just commemorated two years since Oct. 7, 2023, we’re now approaching another grim anniversary—Feb. 24, four years since Russia invaded Ukraine.

President Trump deserves credit for recognizing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was vulnerable after having overreached by bombing Qatar. The president leveraged Bibi’s weakness to force a cease-fire.

Russia is in a similarly vulnerable position after the failure of its third offensive against Ukraine, yet Mr. Trump has failed to exploit this weakness. This raises the question: When is  Mr. Trump  to take advantage of Vladimir Putin’s helplessness?

Barack Obama really should follow the lead of old-time presidents and, instead of seeking the limelight, opt for a rocking chair on his front porch. In that way, he could spare himself the embarrassment of saying really stupid things.

During a podcast with Marc Maron, Obama made a comment about using the National Guard that was meant to attack Trump, but merely made Obama look ignorant and partisan.

Before even getting to the substance of what Obama said, what’s notable about the interview is how Obama looks. He’s wound up as tightly as an angry suburban leftist woman explaining to her psychiatrist why her husband was completely wrong in the recent fight they had. His legs are crossed, his arms are crossed, and his shoulders are hunched over. He looks lost in the comfy white armchair in which he sits.

Looking at this effete, defensive little man, it’s almost incomprehensible that he was the leader of the free world for eight years.

Advances in technology have often been sudden and unexpected.  Their speed and acceleration are exemplified by the fact that in one lifetime, people born before airplanes were invented saw, on television, men landing on the moon with 1960s technology.  Unpredicted was the invention and wide use of desktop computers, which not even the writers of science fiction had foreseen.

I have a memory of watching a television show as a child, hearing my parents remark that I had no idea of what life had been like before there were any televisions to watch.  I do remember a time before microwave ovens and pocket transistor radios.

As I was playing with my grandchildren, watching them use gadgets that did not exist when I was their age, it occurred to me that they had been born into an era where technology was influencing their lives, their attitudes, and their expectations in ways that we might scarcely imagine.

What’s next for them?

President Trump addresses Israel’s Knesset, October 13, 2025

1. Trump curtailed a considerable amount of Iranian oil income and its dispersal. He stopped, for the near future, the Iranian effort to build a bomb. Trump also allowed Israel to destroy Tehran’s air defenses, humiliate it militarily, and eliminate many of its top military officers and nuclear physicists. Thus, Israel’s half-century-long worries about Iranian nukes were addressed. At the same time, its stature as a military power soared to an all-time high—even if it became more isolated politically. Israel became more confident but also more sensitive to past, current, and future American military and political support—or pressure.
2. Trump allowed Netanyahu to destroy Hamas, cripple Hezbollah, and retaliate at will against the Houthis. That liberation led to general dejection among Israel’s enemies and a resurgence in Netanyahu’s own political fortunes. And that rise of Israel and the collapse of the Iranian terrorist network—the “ring of fire”— explain the greater chances for a ceasefire and possibly a peace. Trump allowed no daylight between Israel and the U.S., which, under the Biden administration, may have sent the wrong signals to Hamas prior to October 7.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is 86 years old and in ill health. Western intelligence believes he had prostate cancer in 2014 and, most recently, a severe bowel obstruction in 2022. In public, he has appeared to be weak and tired at times. Health rumors were flying after Khamenei didn't appear in public in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. attacks on Iran in June.

It doesn't take much to get tongues wagging in Iran about the mental and physical state of their Supreme Leader.

Regardless of when he dies, sooner or later, the shape of a post-Khamenei Iran is of intense interest to the U.S. and the world.

The last two years have seen the breaking of Ayatollah Khamenei's power and the weakening of the regime he leads. The events that have transpired during the Gaza War will have an enormous bearing on what Iran will look like after Khamenei dies.