Conservatives generally defend Voter ID laws by insisting that all voters will be able to figure out how to get a valid ID, so the law won't disenfranchise anyone. But the truth is that a certain small percentage of voters actually won't be able to figure it out, which means that a certain percentage will be defacto disenfranchised. And that is all the MORE reason to put these laws in place. If you're so dumb, befuddled, and incompetent that you can't manage to perform such a basic task, then you are not qualified to vote. You don't deserve to have a say over the direction of the country. Stay home and let the competent adults handle it.
Credit card rates are governed by the National Bank Act, which lets nationally chartered banks charge interest based on the rules of their home state. That’s why so much credit card lending runs through places like Delaware and South Dakota. That setup was locked in by the 1978 Supreme Court case Marquette v. First of Omaha, which basically said banks can export their home state rate nationwide. A president can’t override that by executive order.
An executive order could tell agencies like the CFPB, OCC, FDIC, and even the Federal Reserve to study the issue, tighten supervision, or lean on banks through enforcement and exams. But without Congress changing the law, usually by amending the Truth in Lending Act or the National Bank Act itself..a hard 10% cap wouldn’t legally stick and would almost certainly get challenged in court.
That said, pressure still matters. Banks care deeply about regulatory heat and public optics. When a president is openly calling 20–30% APRs a rip off, regulators start asking questions, headlines turn ugly, and banks start managing risk. You probably don’t get a clean 10% cap, but you can see behavior shift at the margins with more promo rates, lower APRs for prime customers, expanded hardship programs, fee tweaks, or quieter changes meant to avoid looking predatory.
So he’s basically setting an anchor. A simple number people instantly understand. It reframes the issue from abstract rates or monetary policy to “banks are gouging consumers,” which plays well when households are under pressure. More importantly, it signals to banks that this could become real legislation if the economy weakens and Congress feels forced to act.
So i believe this is less about the mechanics of law and more about leverage and timing. Credit cards are the most visible consumer pain point. He’s planting a flag there early. If Congress moves, he claims the win. If banks preemptively adjust, he still claims success. And if nothing changes, he still owns the narrative. That’s the real play.
op-ed: I’ve spoken with multiple senior Pentagon officials and others indirectly involved in the Maduro raid. Two things stand out.
First: the operation was far more impressive than the public realizes.
Second: in my assessment as an observer, the decisive factor behind its speed and success was set months earlier at Quantico when Trump and Hegseth delivered a blunt message directly to ALL the generals and admirals: “You can take more risk because we have your back.”
I see no hard, on-the-record evidence that the Rules of Engagement were formally loosened in the Maduro raid (maybe they were, maybe they weren’t). What I do see is overwhelming evidence that the units involved internalized that message.
Historically, ROEs are drafted by senior JAGs, tightened by senior administrators, then tightened again at every level down the chain until, in some cases, platoon commanders can barely return fire while under attack.
This time, more trust was placed in officers closer to the fight.
This administration trusts warfighters. It trusts that well-trained men and women on the front lines have the judgment and ethical compass to make real-time decisions to protect themselves and civilians in complex combat environments.
Ironically, that trust reduces civilian casualties and the risk of war crimes because enemy fighters are stopped before they can use civilians, including children, as shields.
This isn’t a new problem. My father, a medic in Vietnam, talked about it often. Civilians brought to him with horrific wounds by soldiers who saw the enemy coming but weren’t allowed to fire. Angry, frustrated troops. An enemy soldier burned alive because base security was authorized only to fire warning flares as he crossed the wire.
This is one reason we’ve struggled in wars since Korea, a conflict that ended in a draw largely because every time we gained overwhelming advantage, negotiations followed and ROEs were tightened. Tightened by our own generals pursuing peace without learning that you can’t negotiate in good faith with communists.
How many have suffered in North Korea because our forces were restrained while they were winning?
We have struggled in wars since Korea except the Gulf War where Powell and Schwarzkopf told the American public they wanted an unfair fight.
To be clear: I don’t have hard, on-the-record proof. But after covering many failed missions where overly rigid ROEs were the most common complaint, slowing operations and endangering both warfighters and civilians, this is one complaint I’m simply not hearing from anyone today.
The Maduro raid is what the American military is capable of when Admirals and Generals let the warfighter do their job.
Elon Musk is truly evil. He is now trying to cut funding of child care services for tens millions of children attending Somali day care centers in Minnesota.
Child care isn’t a “nice-to-have” — it’s the infrastructure that lets low-income parents keep a job at all.
If someone doesn't stop Musk, tens of millions of children will be forced onto the streets of Minnesota to die.