This has been another busy week in DC for me, beginning with an address at the Hudson Institute by the president of Somaliland, who was in town on an unofficial visit. I say “unofficial” because only one country, Israel, recognises Somaliland. We discussed President Abdullahi’s visit on the Talking Sense podcast, and an audio transcript of the event can be found here. Sadly, there is no video of the proceedings, so you won’t be able to see Abdullahi’s splendidly Trump-like long red tie. I’d recommend readers follow the work of Hudson’s Josh Meservey, who hosted the discussion and whose analysis of politics in Africa and the Middle East is incisive and excellent. And on the podcast, I suggested political actors from further south, perhaps from Ulundi, might be interested to see what Somaliland has achieved while neighbouring Somalia, which officially rules Somaliland, descends further into corrupt and violent dysfunction.

On to other news, this week the newish Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh raised interest rates; we have some interesting new data on income levels in the United States (US); the debate over artificial intelligence (AI) ending the world continued; and while the rapper Macklemore got booted from the Ed Sheeran tour, a documentary about Gaza by some Israeli filmmakers got a 25-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. Let’s get to it.

Warsh the inflation hawk

Facing an inflation rate just shy of 3.5% the Federal Reserve governors, in a unanimous vote, decided to increase interest rates by 25 basis points. The Fed’s mandate is to keep inflation below 2% and the newly appointed chairman, Kevin Warsh, is showing how seriously he is taking his primary job. Although one might have expected President Donald Trump to throw a fit, given how keen he is for lower rates, he has been quite muted in response.

With commodity prices on the rise and with fuel prices up due to the conflict with the Islamic Republic and the latest actions by the Houthis, Mr Warsh decided to act. As I have discussed in previous pieces, Mr Warsh recognises, as Milton Friedman explained, that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. He rejects the Phillips curve, the idea that there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment and that low levels of unemployment will lead to high inflation. Warsh is also moving ahead in getting the Federal Reserve out of politics, such as interfering in climate policies.

Perhaps Mr Trump has been less vocal in his criticism of Warsh because he trusts him and because they see eye to eye on the fundamental role of the Fed. It’s also possible that Mr Trump will appreciate the Fed’s efforts to get inflation down so that ordinary Americans experience greater real income growth (more on that below) as he tries to secure his legacy in his final two years in office. Mr Trump also just got slapped down by the Supreme Court when it ruled that he doesn’t have the kind of executive power over the Fed that he has over other agencies.

All in all, it seems Kevin Warsh is off to a strong start and I, for one, am pleased to have someone of his calibre as Fed chair just as the US dollar faces threats to its role as the global reserve currency from the likes of China.

Rising incomes?

I may have previously argued on Talking Sense, that one of the reasons for President Trump’s low approval rating is the difference between expectation and reality, which is also a general measure of happiness. Millions of voters remember the first Trump Administration when real incomes for all Americans rose, and rose fastest for the poorest Americans. High inflation and a lower-than-expected economic growth rate meant that our expected increase in income has not been achieved. Or has it?

The US Census Bureau just came out with its annual income and poverty report for 2025, and it shows that median inflation-adjusted household incomes rose by 2.6% to $87 460, which is a record high. As The Wall Street Journal points out, part of this increase in income is because Americans are working more, with more part-time workers increasing their hours, perhaps to cope with high inflation.

There are also some interesting details in the report, such as the fact that although the number of college-educated workers increased, their median incomes declined by 1.1%. Meanwhile those who went straight from high school into the workforce saw their earnings rise by 5.5%. What does this tell us? Perhaps that going to some fancy college to get a useless degree in gender studies will not set you up for any kind of lucrative employment, whereas going and getting some kind of useful skill, such as in the electrical or plumbing trades, will lead to stable employment and prosperity.

The gender pay gap shrank significantly, so that women now earn nearly 84% of what men do. That gap hides some important things, such as the fact that women often choose to work shorter hours so they can rear children and men tend to choose higher-risk professions, such as oil rig work, which compensate them accordingly. But the largest reason for the rise in female incomes is that the service sector, which is dominated by women, has grown rapidly while the more male-dominated manufacturing sector has not.

There are several other interesting findings in the report, such as the fact that child poverty hit an all-time low. Incomes for the poorest 25% rose to the highest levels ever, and the poverty rate for black and Hispanic populations also reached all-time lows. Black median household income rose faster than any other population group, including whites and Asians, at 4.8%.

We can do even better. We should be growing faster. Had Mr Trump not pursued his anti-trade tariff policies, businesses would have been able to expand faster and increase wages even more. But anyone who claims you cannot get ahead in America or that the great American Dream is dead isn’t looking at the data.

Whither AI

Speaking of doing the right thing, President Trump has been pretty outspoken in his support for data centres, which are the essential infrastructure for our AI revolution. His Administration is also, so far, taking a light-touch attitude to AI regulation against increasing pressure to put the brakes on, or even create a whole federal department to regulate it.

I won’t go into the latest AI kerfuffle, in part because I don’t really understand AI. But you may have seen that a 27-year-old former employee of both OpenAI and Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, publicly resigned, stating that the people developing AI could lead to the destruction of humanity by the end of the decade. Is this possible? Perhaps, but colour me sceptical.

It isn’t crazy to want to proceed cautiously with a technology that has such awesome power. And one could assume that Mr Coxon and those who support him are motivated by good intentions and are truly concerned about the future of humanity. But something is a little off with this whole story.

Consider that Mr Coxon was a low-level employee, a complete unknown, and had almost no followers on X. He resigns and suddenly his online presence is catapulted up, and he is being discussed by the great and the good all over the world. How does that happen? What sort of organised campaign is behind his calls to put the brakes on AI.

At the same time the leaders in AI, like Dario Amodei and Sam Altman called for a slowdown in AI development. What’s with that? These CEOs presumably have some power over the companies they run and so I would have thought if they wanted to pause, they would have it directly within their powers to do just that. Or maybe they are more interested in having the government step in and start regulating them because, given how far ahead they are of other startups, they will be able to control the regulations and use the government to erect barriers to competition.

Let’s not forget that all of this is happening while the campaigns against the growth of data centres are becoming more intense, with even erstwhile champions of AI, like Texas governor Greg Abbott joining in. China may be behind this data centre mischief and possibly also Mr Coxon. Between that and the self-interest of the leading AI CEOs, suddenly the great promise of AI looks a little imperilled.

I’m not quite sure how we went from “AI is the great promise of the future” to “AI will kill us all” but I’m hoping for some level-headedness in the months to come and for everyone just to calm down. As the great Frank Furedi writes in Spiked, this sort of catastrophism is nothing new, but must be resisted so that we can think clearly about the potential risks from AI, as well as its enormous potential.

Mackle-less

I must admit dear reader, that until very recently I had never heard of Macklemore. I don’t mind if you think I’m a musical stick-in-the-mud, but I enjoy classical music and jazz and, given how it formed a large part of my childhood, music from the 70s and 80s. But Macklemore’s brand of rap is just not my thing. And given what we now know about Mr Macklemore, I’m perfectly fine with that.

In doing my research I listened to one of Macklemore’s biggest hits, Thrift Shop, which I must admit is quite catchy. There’s one line that stood out to me. Mr Macklemore is talking about buying a jacket in a thrift shop and says:

“Girls standing next to me,

Probably should have washed this

Smells like R. Kelly’s sheets

Pissssssss”

In case you don’t know, R Kelly is a music producer and convicted sex offender who is serving a 30-year prison sentence. Although I, thankfully, have no intimate knowledge of the odour of his bedding, I can imagine. But you know what else smells like piss? Macklemore’s view do, particularly when it comes to Israel and the Jews.

Macklemore was touring with the English singer Ed Sheeran, as one of Sheeran’s opening acts. He took it upon himself, as so many self-important morons do these days, to use the fact that he was on stage to start pontificating about Israel and Gaza, shouting “Free Palestine.” Sheeran was due to play in Boston at the Gillette Stadium next week. The stadium is owned by Robert Kraft who is a Zionist and who has been a prominent campaigner against antisemitism. Kraft told Sheeran that Macklemore would not be allowed to perform there, so he was asked to leave the show. And this has led to accusations that Macklemore’s free-speech rights are imperilled and so the other opening acts and even Sheeran’s band walked out.

All of this is, of course, nonsense. Macklemore enjoys the same First Amendment rights that we all do. No government is stopping him from saying whatever he wants to. But Mr Kraft has rights too and he is perfectly entitled to deny Macklemore entry to his venue.

But this isn’t just about saying “Free Palestine.” Macklemore has a history of spreading vile lies about Israel, including that it was committing genocide just days after October 7, 2023. And don’t forget he performed in a revolting outfit, dressed up in “Jew face” like some sort of caricature from Der Sturmer while giving a Nazi salute.

I’m confident in writing that Macklemore doesn’t care about Palestinians. He just hates Jews. And as this is a free country, he’s free to hate Jews. But can we stop with the idea that he’s somehow the victim here? Politicians, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been coming to Macklemore’s defence claiming he is being silenced. If that’s true, Macklemore is one of the noisiest silent people in history. Mr Macklemore seems like a peculiarly deranged individual, just like Roger Waters and Javier Bardem. But he is no victim.

Sheeran is now under attack for simply wanting to sing his songs and entertain his fans. Apparently now he’s somehow complicit in the deaths of innocent children. Why can’t we just listen to music we like without having political campaigns rammed down our throats?

There are some arguing that by denying Macklemore a stage, Kraft validates the conspiracy theories about Jews and their behind-the-scenes machinations. I don’t think we should dismiss this argument but given how Jews face extraordinary threats to their safety, why should Kraft or anyone else be required to provide a platform for hatred. Would we even be having this argument if Macklemore had been making anti-black racist comments or was criticising Islam? Of course not; had he done that everyone would be condemning Macklemore and praising Kraft. But somehow, it’s different when it’s Israel and the Jews. And remember that Jews represent 2% of the American population, but account for 63% of religiously based hate crimes.

I don’t know what is to be done about this current spasm of Jew hate. Perhaps Fauda, the Israeli Netflix show about that country’s special forces shows the way forward. The latest season, which was just released, includes episodes about October 7th, and it is apparently doing an excellent job in educating the public about what happened. Reportedly the show holds the No 1 spot in Lebanon, which is probably not surprising when you think how the Lebanese have suffered under the same jihadist forces that are threatening Israel.

Perhaps, if we are going to have to have performers prattling on about Palestine, concertgoers should also be given a copy of Alon Penzel’s book, Testimonies Without Boundaries, which is a compilation of first-hand accounts of the horrific acts committed against men, women, and children on October 7th. If people feel comfortable chanting “Free Palestine” they should be made to feel uncomfortable about the true evil lurking behind that phrase.

Meanwhile you may have read about the 25-minute standing ovation at the Venice International Film Festival for NAZA, an anti-Israel film about the Israel Defense Force’s actions against Hamas in Gaza. It’s worth reading Haviv Rettig Gur’s take in The Free Press on the film.

No film can be that good that it is worth standing and applauding for 25 minutes. What the filmgoers, and the NAZA filmmakers, were doing was engaging some weird cult-like frenzy. And maybe that’s what Macklemore was trying to do at his concerts. I’m pretty sure that some, maybe a majority, of those applauding until their hands were sore and red, thought that they were on the side of the angels and somehow were doing good in the world. That’s how you get ordinary people to do extraordinarily evil things.

I wonder how many of the Venice International Film Festival participants knew that many decades ago another controversial film was lauded. We don’t know if it was given a lengthy standing ovation, but it was certainly awarded a gold medal. The year was 1936 and the film was Triumph of the Will by Adolf Hitler’s favourite filmmaker, the Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl. And before long ordinary people were doing extraordinarily evil things.

On that gloomy note, let me end this Dispatch. But before I do, given how I started this week’s piece with a discussion about Somaliland, let me end with a quick note about one of America’s most famous Somalis, the congresswoman Ilhan Omar. It turns out Omar is being investigated for immigration fraud because she allegedly married her own brother to get him into the country.

That’s a very serious transgression and I’ll be watching closely how things progress. My loathing of Omar is as intense as the fire of one thousand suns. Perhaps I detest her so much because like her, I am an immigrant. Unlike her, however, I didn’t move here to change everything about America, I moved here because I like this country, I want to contribute to it, and I want to make it better. Omar, on the other hand, spits down on the country that saved her from a refugee camp and gave her everything that she has. The lack of gratitude she exhibits for America, its founding, and its kind and generous people is vile and nauseating. If she gets deported, I’ll happily volunteer to pack her bags.

Have a great weekend!