Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Trump on his own terms

David Hopkins has an interesting take on the failure of Trump’s presidency: Regardless of these challenges, the general verdict on Trump among historians and political scientists, reporters and commentators, and most of the Washington political community (including, at least privately, many Republicans) is guaranteed to range from disappointment and mockery to outright declarations that he […]

Covid Vaccination one dose or 2 II

There is evidence from Israel that one dose of the Pfizer vaccine is less effective than was suggested by the few person-days of evidence in the phase III trials. In Israel  “over 12,400 have people tested positive for coronavirus after receiving vaccine shots” Israeli health officials estimate that one shot is about 50% effective after […]

Tennessee’s Block Grant Is Approved by H.H.S.

“Restoring Medicaid,” What happens when states switch to Block Grants? I came across a NYT article citing Seema Verma’s approval of the Tennessee’s Block Grant recently. The Tennessee Block Grant is mentioned in section ” Revoke The Block Grant Initiative” of my post Restoring Medicaid. What Are Block Grants? Government funded normal Medicaid has established […]

“insurrections, treason, and the pardon power”

The Federalist Papers #74 on insurrections, treason, and the pardon power: an argument that such pardons would be invalid as “arising in a case of impeachment” The Insurrectionists from January 6 are already asking Trump for pardons. Probably the only thing that would hold him back from doing so is his innate selfishness: what would […]

Rescuing Disposable Time from Oblivion

Two hundred years ago this February, Charles Wentworth Dilke anonymously published a pamphlet titled The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties, deduced from principles of political economy. Four decades later, Karl Marx would describe the pamphlet in his notes as an “important advance on Ricardo.” In his preface to volume two of Capital, Friedrich […]

Liars and Their Lies

Poor Jim Jordan, singled up with no Doug Collins, Trey Gowdy, Darrell Issa, Louis Gohmert, Mo Brooks, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, …, along side him, on 12 and 13 Jan, 2021, tried valiantly, well, at least loudly and indignantly, to pull the Republican wagon out of the ditch; the ditch that they all had taken […]

Impeachment, again

I want to revisit my earlier post on impeachment.  I am more inclined to support impeachment today than I was 6 days ago, although it is still far from clear that impeachment makes sense.  Trump has done great damage to this country by making clear that congressional Republicans will allow a lawless, authoritarian president who […]

Populism

Populism has a nice ring; ‘will of the people’ and all that good stuff. So, why doesn’t it ever work? Not even in backward nations? Populism is disastrous in a nation as complex as the United States in times as complicated as these. There’s a reason that it never turns out well. Populism feeds off […]

Exploiting the Stupids: The Intellectual Foundation of Movement Conservatism

Exploiting the Stupids: The Intellectual Foundation of Movement Conservatism  From about the age of 8-12, I read a lot of sci-fi.  Along the way, I stumbled across Robert Heinlein, in particular his novel The Day After Tomorrow, initially published as The Sixth Column.  It was so crudely racist I avoided from then on anything with Heinlein’s name […]