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

This Spade Really IS Being Called a Spade. Surprisingly.

THE F.B.I. is currently investigating the hacking of Americans’ computers by foreign governments. Russia is a prime suspect. Imagine a possible connection between a candidate for president in the United States and the Russian computer hacking. Imagine the candidate has business dealings in Russia, and has publicly encouraged the Russians to hack the email of […]

Did NYC FBI Agents Plant Those Emails on Weiner’s Computer Once They Gained Custody of It? The Evidence Appears to Suggest … Possibly.

Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she is unsure how her emails could have ended up on a device she viewed as her husband’s computer, the seizure of which has reignited the Clinton email investigation, according to a person familiar with the investigation and civil litigation over the matter. The person, who […]

Was Comey effectively extorted by NYC-based FBI agents? And did those agents illegally look at some of those emails without the prerequisite court order?

Most Democrats were outraged. “Mr. Comey said he was duty bound to inform Congress,” Bob Kerrey, the former senator and governor, told me. “Quite the opposite is the case. He was duty bound to make an announcement after he completes his examination of the emails.“ Indeed, he broke with the longstanding F.B.I. policy of not […]

Newsweek Really, Really, REALLY Needs to Retract THIS Statement

Updated  | Why did FBI Director James Comey shock Washington on Friday with an announcement that the FBI “has learned of the existence of emails” related to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, and what does it mean? The truth is Comey didn’t have a choice. Because the new information followed his sworn testimony about the […]

Economic Outcomes of Immigrants v. Their Stay at Home Counterparts: What the Data Shows

by Mike Kimel Economic Outcomes of Immigrants v. Their Stay at Home Counterparts: What the Data Shows In this post, I will test whether people from countries with relatively poor economies also tend to do poorly when they relocate to the United States. As an example, GDP per capita for Haiti is much lower than […]

James Comey’s Appalling Abuse of Office

“I got a lot of respect for Jim Comey, but I don’t understand this idea of dropping this bombshell which could be a big dud,” said former federal prosector Peter Zeidenberg, a veteran of politically sensitive investigations. “Doing it in the last week or ten days of a presidential election without more information, I don’t […]

Here’s what’s missing from reports that “[t]he FCC just passed sweeping new rules to protect your online privacy” by a 3-2 vote: That the three who voted for the Rule are Democrats and that the two who voted against it are Republicans. And that the president’s party gets the majority of board members, from which the chairman is selected.

Federal regulators have approved unprecedented new rules to ensure broadband providers do not abuse their customers’ app usage and browsing history, mobile location data and other sensitive personal information generated while using the Internet. The rules, passed Thursday in a 3-2 vote by the Federal Communications Commission, require Internet providers, such as Comcast and Verizon, to obtain their customers’ explicit […]