Don Boudreaux has reprinted a few paragraphs from a George Will column under the heading: George Will explains that RFK, Jr., is what people get “when trust in government collapses.” Here are the quoted paragraphs, my bold: Indifference to evidence, and an appetite for startling hypotheses, are well-known characteristics of cranks. Kennedy is a man-child […]
Matt Yglesias has a critical piece up on Biden. I am largely in agreement with Yglesias’ take, although I tend to see his failings as due to longstanding character traits, while Yglesias puts more emphasis on Biden’s age. A couple of snippets (the whole thing is worth reading, but not sure if it is public): […]
Let’s do some pessimism. Trump has already made it clear that he does not recognize any legal limits on his behavior – no constitutional limits, and no statutory limits. This is reflected in his effort to halt broad swaths of federal spending for 90 days (which violates both the constitution and the Impoundment Control Act […]
A few days ago Microsoft Copilot showed up in Word. It offers to rewrite stuff for me. So I tried it out on a few paragraphs. I have to admit it’s not blowing me away. Let’s have Copilot rewrite that paragraph: Recently, Microsoft Copilot has been integrated into Word. It provides an option to rewrite […]
Over at Cato, Michael Cannon tells us that Ezra Klein will become a libertarian. As evidence, he cites the following passage by Klein: The thing I’ve changed my mind most on in politics in recent years is how destructive bad regulations can be and how seriously I take it now when I hear that regulations […]
When is it okay to “heighten the contradictions”, to allow bad things to happen for the sake of instigating political change? I’ve been noodling on this problem for decades without making much progress, and Trump’s victory has forced me to dig in once again. This is my current thinking, for what it’s worth. Democrats have […]
As Biden’s presidency winds down, I have tried to collect my thoughts on his presidency, on what went right and (mostly) what went wrong, and why. I want to confess up front that I do not follow “inside the White House” reporting very closely (I have not read any books on the Biden White House, […]
Is Jay Bhattacharya a libertarian? Does it matter? Jay Bhattacharya was an author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued that we should let covid spread freely among healthy people to reach herd immunity as quickly as possible. The elderly and those whose health made them vulnerable to covid should be given “focused protection”. Bhattacharya […]
It seems that Hegseth may be forced to end his bid for Secretary of Defense due to his alcoholism and history of sexual abuse and mismanagement of nonprofits. On one level this is as it should be. I could probably live with Hegseth if he was well qualified for the job but got quietly soused […]
The Trump problem is not – and never has been – the electoral college The problem is that Donald Trump is a competitive presidential candidate in the United States, despite his manifest unsuitability for office. There are various reasons for Trump’s competitiveness. Some of these reasons are structural (the weakness of our parties and our […]