TRYING TO UNDERSTAND

How many Jews do you see in this photograph of Democratic leaders who lean heavily to the left?  

You should have spotted three right off the bat: Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders and Adam Schiff.  Here's one you might have missed: 

AOC has also publicly acknowledged distant Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Speaking at a December 2018 Hanukkah celebration hosted by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice in Queens, she described a family history of Sephardic Jews who fled persecution during the Spanish Inquisition. Some families preserved Jewish traditions privately while outwardly practicing Catholicism.

Ocasio-Cortez has personally identified as Catholic and clarified that she is not claiming a Jewish religious identity, but rather acknowledging a multi-layered ancestral heritage that includes Spanish, African, Indigenous Taino, and Jewish roots.

Interestingly, millions of practicing Catholics throughout Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and the Southwestern United States claim or have recently discovered 15th-century Sephardic Jewish ancestry. 

A 2018 study published in Nature Communications examined 6,589 people from five Latin American countries. Approximately 23% had more than 5% inferred Sephardic, East Mediterranean, or South Mediterranean ancestry, with the largest contribution attributed to Sephardic ancestry. The findings support a substantial converso legacy in Latin America, although the sample does not represent the entire region.

Counting AOC’s reported Jewish ancestry, four of the eight prominent political figures in this photograph have Jewish roots—fifty percent. That is a striking concentration in this particular group, given that Jews constitute approximately 2% of the American population.

And politics is hardly the only arena in which Jews bat above our weight. The same pattern appears in science, medicine, mathematics, economics, literature, music, and entertainment. Consider the Nobel Prizes. Jews constitute approximately 0.2% of the world’s population. I wanna make sure you get your head around that number—.2% is .002. That about one person in five hundred. Yet JINFO’s documented compilation identifies Jews and people of partial Jewish ancestry as approximately 22% of individual Nobel laureates worldwide, and 36% of American laureates. Those figures include ancestry as well as religious identity; they do not mean that every recipient practiced Judaism. The breakdown is striking:

• Economics: approximately 40% of laureates worldwide.
• Physiology or Medicine: approximately 26%.
• Physics: approximately 25%.
• Chemistry: approximately 19%.
• Literature: approximately 14%.
• Peace: approximately 8% of individual recipients, excluding organizations.

These are rounded figures from the same compilation, which documents the individuals included and their backgrounds.

Mathematics and computing show a similar pattern. JINFO’s lists place Jews and people of partial Jewish ancestry at approximately 24% of Fields Medal recipients and 30% of Turing Award recipients. These are among the highest distinctions in mathematics and computer science.

The names behind the numbers make the contributions tangible. Albert Einstein transformed our understanding of space, time, and light. Richard Feynman helped develop quantum electrodynamics. Emmy Noether made foundational contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. John von Neumann helped shape mathematics, game theory, and modern computing. These were advances that changed how humanity understands and uses the world.

In medicine, the benefits reached families everywhere. Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin developed the injectable and oral polio vaccines, respectively. Both were children of Jewish immigrants. Their work helped protect generations of children from a devastating disease.

In economics, Jewish Nobel laureates include Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, Daniel Kahneman, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Claudia Goldin. Their different approaches also illustrate that Jewish achievement does not imply agreement about politics or economics.

In literature, the Nobel roster includes Shmuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs, Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Harold Pinter, Bob Dylan, and Louise Glück. Their work spans languages, countries, genres, and very different experiences of Jewish life.

In music, consider Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim. Their work helped define the American musical and the American songbook. Jewish songwriters even gave America such familiar standards as “White Christmas” and “God Bless America.”

In comedy and television, consider the Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, Jerry Seinfeld, and Larry David. Their influence runs through generations of American entertainment.

And yes, there are the Nobel Peace Prizes. Jewish recipients include Tobias Asser, Alfred Fried, René Cassin, Henry Kissinger, Menachem Begin, Elie Wiesel, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and Joseph Rotblat. Wiesel was recognized for his message of peace and human dignity; Rotblat for efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons.

These examples only scratch the surface of Jewish achievement. Even within the fields mentioned, the names and contributions extend far beyond those included here.

And then there is the contribution the world never received. Across centuries, Jews were murdered, forcibly converted, or pressured to abandon their identity. Others converted by choice, and their descendants’ contributions may no longer be recognized as part of Jewish history. These are different experiences, but together they make the full story impossible to measure.

What discoveries were never made because a potential scientist was killed as a child? What medicines, music, businesses, and works of literature never came into being? What prosperity might their children and grandchildren have created? How different might the political world look if those communities had survived and flourished?

We cannot know. But looking at what so small a surviving people has contributed, I cannot help wondering:  How much more of a blessing might we have been—and how much did humanity lose along with us?

Perhaps there is a biblical thread connecting the achievements described here with the desire to help those who have less. Abraham was called to become a blessing to the families of the earth (GeFnesis 12:2–3). The Torah commands us to open our hands to the poor (Deuteronomy 15:7–11), leave part of our harvest for the poor and the stranger (Leviticus 19:9–10), and remember that the ability to create wealth comes from God (Deuteronomy 8:18). Prosperity carries responsibility.

That inheritance may help explain why socialism’s promise of taking from those with more to provide for those with less appeals to some Jews. The concern for the poor has deep roots in our Scriptures. Whether a particular political system fulfills that responsibility is a separate question—and one on which Jews profoundly disagree.

I am still trying to understand. How does such a small people make such a large mark? And how do we best fulfill the responsibility that comes with our blessings?

P.S. A word about Jewish ancestry. Judaism is in the DNA—It is in the BLOOD. That is why Hilter did NOT care if a Jew practiced their religion. If just one or two of person's grandparents was Jewish, according the Germany's Nuremberg Laws, that person was classified as "Mischling." It was a derogatory Nazi classification meaning “mixed race” or “mixed ancestry.”

ENTER JD VANCE

TEHRAN WAS BUYING TIME AND JD VANCE SOLD IT TO THEM

I believe Iran’s leaders use negotiations to buy time. Time to rebuild. Time to develop new weapons. Time to resupply. Time to plan and prepare for their next attack.

For that strategy to work, Tehran needs the other side to believe it genuinely wants an end to hostilities. But there’s another way it can work. If the people across the table are under enough financial and political pressure to end the war, they may be willing to accept a deal they have reason to doubt. They can tell their supporters they ended the fighting while giving Iran the breathing room it came to the table to get.

The danger grows when American negotiators give too little weight to what that breathing room could mean for Israel and the Jewish people. A deal may be politically popular in Washington. But if Iran uses the pause to rebuild and rearm, who will bear the cost when the fighting starts again?

Enter JD Vance and the far right.

Tehran didn't fool Netanyahu for a moment. Netanyahu didn't believe the war was finished in June 2025. Netanyahu wanted to finish the job! Trump unilaterally declared victory. 

While Trump was claiming victory, Netanyahu shifted from all-out war to a series of targeted strikes on Iran’s military leadership. While Trump bragged about destroying Iran’s military equipment, Israel focused on the head of the octopus. One by one, top commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were killed. As Israel weakened Iran’s command structure, Tehran and Washington returned to negotiations.

And so began a series of "on-again off-again" negotiations. Trump kept pressing for a deal. This went on until February 2026 when the Israel/US —Iran war entered another Kinetic phase that lasted until another Ceasefire was declared in April 2026. 

JD Vance went back to the negotiating table again. Again giving Tehran what it wanted—TIME!  

For literally decades, Israel has been battling an octopus. Tehran is the head, and its armed proxies are the tentacles. After the April ceasefire, Trump focused on keeping oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, while Israel continued fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

On April 9, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused Israel of violating the ceasefire by striking Lebanon. After the ceasefire, JD Vance led the U.S. delegation to talks with Iran in Islamabad. On July 15, speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Vance accused some people within the Israeli government of “manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely.”

The irony is that Netanyahu had publicly laid out an endpoint. In June 2025, he said the fighting would stop once Israel achieved its objectives against Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. By November 2026, Axios reported that he wanted to resume combat and urged Trump to finish the job militarily because he did not trust Tehran to honor a deal. That’s the difference at the heart of this story. Netanyahu wanted to settle the threat militarily. Vance pushed for a negotiated deal. And in my view, the longer those talks dragged on, the more time Tehran had to regroup and rebuild.

In 2006, Middle East historian Bernard Lewis warned of “the apocalyptic worldview of Iran’s present rulers.” He was writing about nuclear deterrence, but his warning raises a question for negotiators too. If Tehran’s leaders see their conflict with Israel as part of a final struggle, why assume they see a deal as the end of that conflict? They may see it as time to prepare for the next round.

On November 4, the morning after the midterms, JD Vance wrote, “The reason we lost is the war.” Among the changes he said voters wanted was a call to “change our relationship to Israel.” To me, that was the unofficial opening of his 2028 presidential campaign. The day after Republicans lost Congress, Vance was already telling voters where he would part ways with Trump and put "America First."

That quiet start will grow louder each week. JD Vance doesn't even need to say it because Tucker Carlson and his followers AND Trump/Netanyahu hating Democrats will say it for him. All that makes Tehran the winner.

Iran International reported, citing classified government documents and other evidence it reviewed, that Iranian security forces killed more than 36,500 people during the January 8–9, 2026, crackdown on nationwide protests. If Trump had cut off the head of the Octopus and buried the Revolutionary Guard under the rubble of Pickaxe Mountain, in my opinion many of those slaughtered Iranians might be alive today and the Iranian people could have had the opportunity they have been promised by Trump to take back their country.

At the end of the day, Trump and Netanyahu are in the same boat. Both Netanyahu and Trump have little to lose and a lot to gain for finishing the war the right way, the way it should have been done in June 2025! 

It is still not too late!

If Israel and the Trump Administration topple the IRGC and free the Persian people from their evil government leaders, Iran’s proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis will lose the support they depend on. That will give Lebanon and Yemen the chance to take back their countries as well. 

If this were to happen, and it can, that will be Netanyahu and Trump's greatest legacy, which is what both men want. That would change the Middle East and the world for the better. 

HISTORICALLY SPEAKING

How Bad Was the Republican Defeat? The 2026 Midterms in Historical Perspective

How bad were the House losses?

Republicans took a serious hit in the House. In Ballotpedia’s November 5 tally, Democrats had flipped 30 Republican-held seats, with some races still uncalled. That count was within the range of past midterm defeats.

Democrats flipped 31 Republican-held seats in 2006 and 42 in 2018. Republicans suffered even bigger House defeats in 1958 and 1974, when Democrats took 48 and 49 Republican-held seats, respectively.

How bad were the Senate losses?

The Senate was a serious setback for Republicans. The Associated Press reported that Democrats flipped at least seven Republican-held seats, including seats in Texas, Kansas, and South Carolina. That already exceeds the six Republican-held seats Democrats flipped in 2006. But Republicans have suffered bigger Senate defeats. Democrats flipped nine Republican-held seats in Ronald Reagan’s second midterm in 1986 and thirteen in Dwight Eisenhower’s second midterm in 1958.

Notable Bad News

What stands out about 2026 is that Republicans lost both chambers in the same midterm, something that has happened only four times since World War II. The Senate losses were substantial, and the results in traditionally Republican states made them especially striking. Even so, the seat count has clear historical precedents.

Losing both chambers makes 2026 a consequential defeat for Republicans. The House numbers, though, put the scale of the loss in perspective. Republicans have endured steeper House losses before, and the size of this defeat alone tells us little about who will win the White House in 2028.

Democrats have been on the losing end, too

The closest parallel with the parties reversed is 1994. With Bill Clinton in the White House, Republicans gained more than 50 House seats and eight Senate seats, taking control of both chambers in the same midterm. Clinton went on to win reelection two years later, even as Republicans held the House.

Democrats took another major hit in 2010 under Barack Obama. Republicans gained 63 House seats and six Senate seats. They took back the House, while Democrats held the Senate. Two years later, Obama won reelection.

Both parties have suffered major midterm defeats while holding the White House. The 1994 example is especially relevant because Democrats lost both chambers, just as Republicans did in 2026. A midterm can change who runs Congress overnight. The next presidential election gives voters a fresh decision after two years of seeing what both parties do with the power they have.

Could Republicans Rebound in 2028?

The 2026 Democratic wave gives Republicans an opening in 2028, especially if Democrats struggle to deliver results. With Trump still in the White House and Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress, the next two years will bring divided government. Trump’s veto power gives him leverage over major legislation, and a breakdown in negotiations could lead to gridlock. If families are still feeling squeezed by high prices, or if voters see the new Congress spending more time on investigations and political messaging than on the issues that drove the midterms, some may turn against the Democratic majority.

Historical patterns support the possibility

The next presidential election can go either way. After Republicans took both chambers in 1946, Harry Truman won in 1948 by campaigning against what he called a “do-nothing Congress.” After Democrats took both chambers in 2006, they built on those gains in 2008, when Barack Obama won the presidency.

For 2028, much will depend on how voters feel about the economy, whom the parties nominate, and whether voters think Congress and the White House have addressed the problems that drove the midterms.

In short, the party that just won a big midterm does not automatically carry that momentum into the next presidential election. The subsequent race is shaped more by the economy, candidate quality, events of the intervening two years, and whether the newly empowered party is seen as effective.

Why 2028 could favor a Republican rebound under certain conditions

- Divided government and delivery: Democrats will have the majority but limited ability to enact their agenda without Trump’s signature. If affordability and economic problems persist (or if voters blame the new Congress for inaction), Republicans can run against “Democratic control of Congress.”

- Lame-duck dynamics: Trump cannot run again. The 2028 Republican nominee will be new. A large midterm loss can sometimes free the party to distance itself from an unpopular president and nominate someone with broader appeal (though Trump’s influence over the primary remains a variable).

- Voter thermostatic behavior: American voters often punish the party currently seen as holding more power or failing to improve conditions. Controlling Congress shifts some of that responsibility toward Democrats.

- Map and candidate factors: The 2026 results expanded the map in ways that could either stick or prove temporary. Senate and House seats won in deep-red states are often harder to hold in a higher-turnout presidential year if conditions shift.

At the same time, the scale of 2026 (flips deep into red territory and a large popular-vote margin) is notable. Analysts such as Nate Silver have pointed out that waves of this magnitude in a second-term lame-duck period are relatively rare in the modern era and could signal lasting weakness if Trump’s low approval carries over to the party’s 2028 nominee. Republican recovery is plausible if Democrats underdeliver or overreach, but it is not the default outcome.

In Summary:

2026 does not doom Republicans for 2028. It creates an opportunity for them if the next two years are characterized by gridlock, persistent economic discontent, or Democratic missteps. Those outcomes have happened before; so have continued or expanded gains for the party that won the midterms. The actual result will depend on what happens between now and 2028 more than on the midterm numbers alone.

The Truth of the Matter

Donald Trump is still president. Even when Republicans controlled Congress, he had to fight to get his agenda through. He got the One Big Beautiful Bill signed into law, and its provisions will influence family finances and business investment for years. A Democratic Congress will make new legislation harder to pass, but Trump can still spend much of his time on foreign policy. That’s where I think he’s most in his element. He loves making deals, and he still has two years to sit across the table from foreign leaders and work out agreements that serve American interests.

Securing the border and enforcing immigration law. The Border Patrol recorded about 238,000 encounters at the U.S.–Mexico border in fiscal 2025, the lowest annual total in more than 50 years. From October 1, 2025, through August 11, 2026, ICE reported removing 215,447 people with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. The two figures show the scale of the change at the border and the reach of enforcement inside the country.

Falling violent crime and exposing fraud. The FBI reported that violent crime fell 9.3 percent from 2024 to 2025 and that the violent crime rate recorded its largest year-to-year decline since FBI estimates began in 1936. State and local efforts deserve credit, too. At the federal level, the Justice Department announced its largest health care fraud crackdown to date, charging 324 defendants in alleged schemes involving more than $14.6 billion in intended losses and seizing more than $245 million in assets. That’s a concrete example of protecting taxpayer dollars and the programs people depend on.

Economic growth and making more in America. The initial federal estimate showed real GDP growing at a 3.4 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2026. Unemployment was 4.2 percent in September, down from 4.4 percent a year earlier. Beyond those numbers, Trump put a question at the center of the economic debate that I think matters for the long run. How much of what America depends on can we make here at home? The U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement strengthened North American content rules for vehicles, and the One Big Beautiful Bill allows businesses to immediately deduct qualifying investments in equipment and domestic research.

Giving children a financial head start and patients another option. The One Big Beautiful Bill established Trump Accounts, including a pilot program that provides a $1,000 federal contribution for eligible U.S. citizen children born from 2025 through 2028. In his first term, Trump signed the federal Right to Try Act, giving eligible terminally ill patients a pathway to seek certain investigational treatments. Both measures give families options that can matter long after a president leaves office.

Strengthening the military and defending the homeland. Trump signed the law creating the Space Force, giving the country a military branch focused on protecting capabilities we rely on in space. The One Big Beautiful Bill provided more than $156 billion in additional defense funding, including money for shipbuilding, munitions, and air and missile defense. That investment also supports work on Golden Dome, a layered defense system the Pentagon is developing to detect and intercept threats such as ballistic missiles.

Dealing with threats and making security agreements. U.S. forces struck three Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025, and U.S. intelligence assessed that Operation Epic Fury curtailed Iran’s ability to project military power in 2026. Closer to home, Trump authorized the operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and his administration reached an agreement with Panama to deepen cooperation on canal security. The United States, Denmark, and Greenland also reached a security agreement that expands the U.S. military role in Greenland while reaffirming Danish sovereignty and Greenlanders’ right to decide their own future. Greenland’s parliament ratified it in November.

Opening doors in the Middle East. The Abraham Accords helped establish formal relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Those agreements created room for trade, diplomacy, and cooperation that future administrations and the countries themselves can build on.

Taking care of the nation’s capital. Under Trump’s initiative, the National Park Service is repairing aging park infrastructure, conserving historic stonework and sculpture, and rehabilitating fountains in Washington, D.C. The projects include Lafayette Square, Freedom Plaza, and upgrades at the World War II Memorial. These are places where Americans come to see and learn about their history. They’re worth taking care of.

It's the democrat's chance to show what they can do.

They can change policies and take the country in a different direction, but they can’t take these accomplishments away from Trump. They’re part of his record, and I believe their benefits will be felt for years. It will be hard for Democrats to surpass that record, and Trump still has two years to add to it. That’s why I’m looking ahead with some optimism.

LOOKING FORWARD AFTER THE MIDTERMS

"To rule is easy, to govern difficult."

PERSPECTIVE

America is waking up to the results of the mid-term election. Here's some thoughts on what we are waking up to. 

The Senate has been virtually useless anyway. According to an October tally, during Trump’s second term, the Senate had passed only 85 bills that originated in the House. Separately, Speaker Mike Johnson said in September that about 700 House-passed measures were awaiting Senate action. Senate Majority Leader John Thune was McConnell’s top deputy and a close ally. Like McConnell, Thune has been virtually useless, at best, during Trump’s second term. The constitutional presiding officer of the U.S. Senate is the vice president of the United States, JD Vance.

Moving forward, if the hyperpartisan Chuck Schumer becomes Senate majority leader, there should still be enough balance in the Senate to make passing any really crazy bills difficult. And if some get through that Trump doesn’t like, he can veto them. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers—67 senators if all 100 vote. Trump still holds the trump card.

In addition, scheming Chuck Schumer’s painful partisanship is on full display when he reveals his hateful obsession with going after Trump. If Democrats make impeaching Trump and Cabinet members their main focus over the next two years, I doubt it will help them in 2028.

Another attempt to impeach Trump would be extraordinary—and, in my view, absurd. It would reinforce the very argument Democrats should want to disprove: that their opposition to him has become an obsession driven by personal hatred and partisan vindictiveness.

Plus, if Dems succeed in having Trump impeached and removed from office, JD Vance becomes president! Vance would likely govern even more conservatively than Trump. Incumbency could give him an advantage going into the 2028 election. Democrats would be doing themselves no favors, and the smart ones know that.

Besides, Trump has only a couple of years left in office anyway. If the impeachment process takes a year, removing Trump would merely trim a year off his term and speed up Vance’s rise to the presidency.

A lot of what Trump is going to do over the next two years won’t involve Congress very much anyway. Foreign policy is largely the president’s responsibility. He can pursue deals, although Congress retains influence through funding, sanctions, and oversight. If Marco Rubio stays in place, Trump will also retain a key partner in pursuing his foreign policy agenda.

If Trump focuses on finishing off Iran and bringing down oil prices, he can pursue much of that agenda through executive authority, although achieving those objectives will depend on more than his decisions alone.

Ironically, for the next month or two, Trump and Netanyahu are pretty much in the same boat. And they both have the same objective: to finish off the IRGC. That’s the legacy they both want.

If Trump continues to score some big foreign policy and economic wins while Democrats spend two years trying to impeach him and pass tax increases and socialist policies, they are going to look pretty bad heading into the 2028 campaign, which will kick off before we know it.

Last but not least, Democrats have now sent another putrid antisemite to Washington by the name of Abdul El-Sayed, along with some others. Islamists continue to tear apart Europe. The scourge is now in America's House. Results of this election truly are a wake-up call. 

What’s more, Schumer endorsed El-Sayed, and that choice deserves scrutiny. If El-Sayed promotes antisemitic rhetoric, Schumer cannot escape accountability for helping elevate him. The same standard applies to every other Democrat who supported El-Sayed, either directly or by backing candidates who endorsed him. That includes AOC, who also endorsed El-Sayed.

Democrats are convinced they’ve just scored a huge win. I’m not so sure Trump didn’t win in some bizarre way. Knowing Trump, he will probably frame it that way.

The situation just got very interesting!

One final thought: if Democrats want to call this election a referendum against Trump, they must also answer for the alternative they intend to deliver. Trump has stood against the far Left’s push toward socialism and fought for secure borders, controlled immigration that serves America’s interests, a competitive capitalist economy, and the return of American manufacturing—for both prosperity and national security. Democrats would make a profound mistake by treating this election as permission to abandon that vision simply because they despise the man advancing it. Hatred of Trump is no substitute for a governing vision, and it will not excuse the consequences of their choices. Winning seats is one thing. Taking responsibility for what comes next is another. To Democrats celebrating today, I say: be careful what you wish for.

P.S. For those who believe a higher power is in control, my assessment may make even more sense. 

“And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding.” —Daniel 2:21, KJV