One of our American heroes is Henry David Thoreau, born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817, and died there in 1862.

Note his short life: 44 years. I am 83, having been saved, as most of us have many times over, by the modern medicine that one of Trump’s ministers wants to abandon. Nowadays I find myself calculating the appalling shortness of life in former times. Some of the greats lived long—Socrates, Milton, Euler, Goethe, Twain, Borges, and your own Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis. They lived long enough, at any rate, to explore fully the range of their astonishing talent and craft. 

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President Trump wanted his own sovereign wealth fund. When the White House realized it would require congressional action, the administration went ahead and started building an ad hoc portfolio anyway, one deal at a time. Section 1051 of the Senate’s fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act would reward the administration for its opaque and legally dubious equity operation. It would give the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital a dedicated account and express authority through 2037 to buy stakes in suppliers of critical minerals, materials, chemicals, and batteries.

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The American people are eager to see the Iran war end. They showed no mercy in delivering that message in the midterm elections last week. Despite all the post-election spin, even the president and the vice president both validated voter frustration with the war and its impacts here at home. Now, having delivered a clear mandate, voters expect Congress to act.

Yet, as Congress returns to finish out the year, members are debating whether to push for an end to the war in the lame duck or wait until the new Congress begins in January. Acting now, especially while the president continues to hold off on resumption of major combat operations, is the most advantageous option for Congress. The biggest single point of leverage Congress holds over the president when it comes to the war is money, and money is the hottest item on the table, captivating the bulk of Capitol Hill’s attention from now until Christmas. 

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Many people are viewing Tuesday’s election results as a rejection of the administration’s policies, a view that’s hard to argue with. Still, whether the Republican Party quickly moves away—or moves at all—from the populist policies that appear to have brought electoral ruin remains an open question. 

One small litmus test that’s quickly coming up is a ban on stock buybacks that a group of populist senators squeezed into the “must-pass” National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Members of the House were able to keep it out of their version of the NDAA, but the legislation is moving, and the two chambers will soon have to reconcile (possibly by Thanksgiving). 

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While you were busy attending to the earthquake at the national politics level, voters around the states were addressing civic matters on their initiative and referendum ballots. Some results on issues I previewed last month, plus a few others:

• California voters rejected Proposition 40, which would have imposed a retroactive wealth tax, and instead approved Proposition 42, which bans both wealth taxes and retroactive taxes. Unfortunately, voters in Colorado narrowly approved a graduated income tax. Measures to limit income tax succeeded in North Carolina and Iowa but failed in Washington. 
• Efforts to build things in California will continue to be hobbled by the objector-friendly provisions of the notorious California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, after a partial rollback of the law failed.
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