The messaging about memos is swirling this morning. Some of us have been watching this for nearly a half century, so you can understand our feelings veer back and forth from optimism to pessimism. We do not trust the Iranians and do not know if enough of the old regime has been eradicated to change anything.

We have talked gently around some of the issues, but this is a struggle between two major sects of Islam and there are those who consider the Will of God to be part of the memorandum even if there is no understanding.

The passage a little closer to home is the one that will happen in Manhattan later today as New York erupts in triumph for the Knicks parade.

We take a certain distance to this, since we have been so close to it for so long. We are pleased that it is unlikely we will be alive when they are able to hurt Jerusalem or Washington, so we are just going to turn the problem over to the next generation. Sorry we didn’t do better for you, but this chapter has been enthralling. There is more in this we don’t understand, so we are going to relax and let word come in on whether things are working out in the international waterways. They claim there will be sixty days to sort out if this is going to work, so we refuse to be alarmed yet. We have been waiting a while.

There is going to be a similar sorting period here in our three jurisdictions of interest. We worked in the District and lived in Arlington and Fairfax across five decades. The District had their mayoral primary and we think they elected the Democrat Socialist. She has promised to take the $22 Billion District budget with a billion dollar shortfall and add 72,000 new houses, free health care, bus rides and government grocery stores. We assume there may be some noise about billionaires paying for it all, but if we may be frank, the explanation for how this is all supposed to happen is sort of thin.

This is just a guess, but the idea that there are a lot of inefficiencies that can be cut to provide investments in public infrastructure is unrealistic. It will undoubtedly begin to fail in the same manner as the free buses in New York. We don’t know if they are going to be free up there today. it would be a nice Mamdani Moment for the Parade, you know?

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