My annual predictions are always popular with Rant readers. One reason may be that I go off-road and provide an eclectic and bold set of predictions, some of which have very low odds.
In 2025, I went from the baby balance bike to training wheels on the artificial intelligence spectrum. One of the many things I’ve learned to love is letting AI evaluate things with an objective neural network of logic, although I sometimes push back, as you will see.
My January 2025 predictions were led by an acronym that Rant readers love (not), DOWZH. I like saying it anyway, DOOOHjzzhh!
I fed my 2025 predictions post into ChatGPT and asked it to score my predictions, with zero being a complete miss and five being a slam dunk or a spiked football. Figure 1 summarizes the results.
Figure 1 JLI’s 2025 Prediction Scorecard
Prediction | What Happened in 2025 | Score & Sources |
Impoundment will see court testing. | Impoundment-related legal questions did surface in 2025 as the Trump administration used rescission/impoundment messaging under the Impoundment Control Act, generating legal scrutiny and disputes. This reflects the prediction at a conceptual level, even if not a neat single high-profile case. | 4/5 — Litigation/legal testing occurred (administrative law disputes) but wasn’t a dramatic blockbuster case. Sources vary by public legal records and reporting practices. |
Daylight Saving Time – No change. | The U.S. continued switching clocks in 2025, with Daylight Saving Time beginning in March and ending in November. Efforts to make DST permanent (e.g., Sunshine Protection Act variants) didn’t pass into law in 2025, so the status quo remained. | |
Ukraine war will end. | The Russia-Ukraine war did not end in 2025. Conflict persisted. | 0/5 — Ongoing war. (Multiple international news sources affirm this.) |
Electric Vehicle tax credits chopped. | Federal EV tax credits officially expired on September 30, 2025, terminating the $7,500 clean vehicle credit and the $4,000 used EV credit. That aligns directly with the prediction of a tax credit cutoff. | |
Chevron reversal reversals. | The administration pursued regulatory rollback actions in 2025, but characterizing this as five clear EPA reversals is fuzzy; general deregulatory momentum occurred, but the “five distinct” count doesn’t cleanly map to specific EPA actions. | 2/5 — Some deregulatory action but not clearly five discrete turnarounds. Source: regulatory tracking and public agency announcements. |
NFL rule change. | No major NFL kickoff or pace-of-game rule change occurred matching this prediction. | 0/5 — Didn’t happen. NFL official rulebooks and league communications. |
Oxymoron of 2025
The Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, or DWOZH, wins the Oxymoron of the Year award for its crash-and-burn failure. Neither Elon Musk nor his leading critic, Big Balls, failed to eliminate billions in waste, from billions in social security benefits going to deceased individuals to a couple of hundred billion dollars wasted on illegal pandemic payments.
The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
That italicized part doesn’t prevent the press from colluding with the government. For instance, The New York Times ran interference for the Department of Waste Fraud and Abuse, while the Government Accountability Office noted that 11-15% of unemployment benefits released during COVID were fraudulent. “Some went to transnational gangs, prisoners, and state-sponsored hackers. The Labor Department inspector general estimated at least $191 billion in improper pandemic unemployment payments.”
The Wall Street Journal quotes Time and Newsweek columnist Joe Klein, an “open-eyed liberal, “The mainstream press, like the Democrats, think a government program has ‘succeeded’ when the bill is passed and the funding distributed. Rarely do we ask: is this well-managed, well-conceived? Does it actually work?”
There you are. That was in response to the CAFE standards (more below).
No one with power in DC cares about waste, fraud, abuse, or $50 trillion of runaway debt.
Daylight Saving Time
Regarding daylight savings time, as I wrote in April, “People like to complain. They don’t like to think. If daylight savings is locked in, it will be dark until 9:00 AM in the winter. If standard time is locked in, the sun will rise at 4:00 AM in the summer. Which would you like?”
I would say either one of these is unpalatable to 90% of the population. Early birds may enjoy sunlight at 4:00 AM, but night owls are barely getting started by the 5:30 PM sunset during the bowels of winter[1].
Hopefully, we can stick a fork in this bad idea and give it the dirt nap it deserves.
Ukraine War
The four-year-old war proved to be stickier than anyone, including me, imagined. Trump’s ability to declare victory is indeed precedented ?. The Wall Street Journal reported on Trump’s recent meeting with Zelensky that talks are underway, and optimism is being voiced. Still, there’s no ceasefire, no deal, and no movement on the core issues: Russia wants Ukrainian land, and Ukraine won’t give it up. Negotiations may be happening, but the war, including attacks on energy infrastructure, is still in full swing.
The article quotes Trump, “This is not a one-day process deal. This is very complicated stuff.” I thought, “Hmm, didn’t he say he would end the war in a day? ” CNN reported that he made that claim 53 times on the campaign trail, links included.
Where did all the Ukrainian flags in the neighborhood go?
Electric Vehicle Tax Credits
This one was easy. Leading EV states are predominantly blue-state strongholds, except Utah, which seems confused. Politically, there was nothing to lose by killing the tax credits.
Incidentally, believe what AI spews forth at your peril. After providing the link to my predictions, I told ChatGPT, “Please analyze these predictions and score them 0-5, with 5 being a perfect bullseye prediction and zero being totally wrong.”
On the EV tax credits, it replied, “1/5 — No wholesale chopping of credits across the board.” I essentially replied, “What are you talking about on that? It replied, “Federal EV tax credits officially expired on September 30, 2025.” No apologies.
Figure 2 Electric Vehicle Registrations per Capita
Chevron Reversal Reversals
On Chevron, I suggested there would be five significant rollbacks, starting with corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board inked an OpEd, Making Cars More Affordable Again. They wrote, “Corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards are a regrettable relic of the 1970s Arab oil embargo and gasoline shortages.”
Wow! That is interesting because I’ve written many times, including this post, that [rephrasing], “Energy-efficiency programs are a regrettable relic of a time when saving kWh was the goal, not managing kW or when electricity is consumed.” Energy (kWh) prices are almost completely decoupled from the cost of electricity service. Then why are “efficiency” programs clinging to embargo-era energy-savings goals for customers?
NFL Kickoff Tee Ball
Now for my favorite. Who likes the two-handed touch kickoffs? I think of the neutered football league or nearly flag league. It’s so bad that I refuse to watch kickoffs. Known as the “dynamic kickoff rule,” it “creates a safer, more exciting kickoff by changing player alignment, reducing high-speed collisions, and encouraging returns.”
Note to the NFL: safer and more exciting are more oxymoronic than the Department of Government Efficiency. “Hey baby – let’s go out for a slow but exciting drive! We can hold hands, too.” Did I mention onside kicks? Those are “exciting”. There are no surprises, only boredom.
2026?
For next week, I’ll brainstorm and provide bold forecasts for 2026.
[1]The bowels of winter start the first Monday of the first full week of the year and extend through January 31.