Justice Dept. Will Toughen Rules for Seizing Lawmakers’ Data, Garland Says (msn.com) The Justice Department will tighten its rules for when law enforcement officials may seize information about members of Congress and their aides, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said on Monday amid a backlash to the disclosure of a 2018 subpoena that swept in data from […]

chronicle of today’s political landscape

Commenter Mike Smith (?) has another good comment up in the Open Thread. I am putting him out here also in the main stream. Thanks Mike. As media becomes more and more “boring” there is considerable ince time for news outlets to begin reporting from the sidelines again as Trump ramps up his 2024 campaign. […]

The news is that Joe Manchin has described a voting rights compromise which he supports. Also Republicans immediately said it was unacceptable to them. This reminds everyone that there will be no bipartisan compromise on an issue where the two parties have diametrically opposite interests. If there were any Republicans who did not equate democrats […]

Ross Barnett didn’t invent the big lie, but he was a practitioner. One might even say that Ross was to the manor born. The big lie had been a southern thing from the get go; comes with the turf. First you must lie to yourself, and so they did. Hitler appropriated, without acknowledgment, the concept […]

Why the reference to the wings in re the two major political parties? Are we being asked to envision either of our two major political parties as a bird, an aircraft. If so, each would surely have two matching wings, one on either side of the body/fuselage. Maybe they meant to make an analogy with […]

Elizabeth Warren Slams JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon on Overdraft Fees – Rolling Stone I could watch this over and over. It is similar to when she put the spotlight on John Roberts in the Senate. This is a good take down of Jamie Dimon by Senator Elizabeth Warren. The Senator is relentless. It appears Chase […]

Do Languages Get Simpler When They Get More Complicated?  Oh, a minor diversion from the usual political economy stuff that goes up here.   This is triggered by an article in last week’s The Economist on the nearly dead San language, Nluu.  It has only two living fully fluent speakers alive, both in their 80s.  The […]

This particular post is coming out of Angry Bear’s comment section. Farmer and Agricultural Economist Michael Smith is the author. Mike grows various food items on his farm and has a hands-on knowledge of what is occurring in the beef industry today. What Mike is touching upon today is the small farmer industry and how […]

How should we grade our collective response to the covid pandemic?  What lessons should we draw for the future?  I believe that our response was poor.  To see why, just imagine where we would be today if effective vaccines had not been developed.  Our current strategy of moderate social distancing, intermittent partial lockdowns, and economic […]