Great insight: Who else can we add to the list?  Trump, Musk.  Anyone else?

I’m ambivalent about this Ezra Klein piece: Trump’s efforts to stay in the news, however, are matched by Biden’s efforts to stay out of it. Biden gives startlingly few interviews and news conferences. He doesn’t go for attention-grabbing stunts or high-engagement tweets. I am not always certain if this is strategy or necessity: It’s not obvious to […]

Republicans have made their desire to cut – or gut – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid clear for decades.  Jack Fitzpatrick tells us that they are gearing up for another bite at the apple: Social Security and Medicare eligibility changes, spending caps, and safety-net work requirements are among the top priorities for key House Republicans […]

The desire to manage escalation risk – especially the risk of a nuclear attack – has clearly led the United States to withhold weapons from Ukraine.  We may also be slow-walking delivery of weapons or limiting quantities to reduce escalation risk, although perceived delays could be due to training and logistics issues or our own […]

I am not a classical liberal, but classical liberals are right about some things.  In a sane world they could play a valuable role by challenging the thinking of social democrats, welfare state liberals, and others who believe the state has an important role to play in economic affairs.  We all need to be kept […]

The Institute for New Economic Thinking has an interview up with Peter Dorman about his new book on climate policy, Alligators in the Arctic and How To Avoid Them.  I haven’t read the book yet, but Peter shared some of his writing on climate with me a few years ago when I was trying to […]

I’m not a macro person, I can’t even play one on TV.  That said, from 20,000 feet, with my admittedly blurry glasses on, I really don’t understand why the Fed and other central banks are pushing so hard on the brakes.  What follows are questions, skeptical about rate hikes, but genuinely questions. What exactly would […]

Mark Hertling is one of the people I follow on Ukraine.  He is a staunch advocate for arming Ukraine, but he recently had a tweet thread defending what some see as the overly cautious and slow approach taken by the United States.  Here are some tweets from his thread: Now, maybe we should be sending […]

DeSantis’ decision to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard on false pretenses was clearly repugnant.  In fact, it seems to have been even worse than it appears:  the organizers apparently tried to trick the migrants into reporting their whereabouts to the wrong authorities, which would have jeopardized their status. But over on twitter, Ross Douthat tries […]

I was planning to make this argument, but Fukuyama says it better than I would have: Thirdly, a Russian military failure—meaning at minimum the liberation of territories conquered after 24 February 2022—will have enormous political reverberations around the world. Russia and China prior to the war argued that liberal democracies, particularly the United States, were […]