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

Hillary Clinton was NOT right to separate Trump from the GOP on racism, xenophobia, and sheer meanness.*

She was wrong to separate him from the GOP on fiscal and regulatory policy and on court and administrative-agency appointees. It wasn’t a package deal, or rather, it should not have been. She could have made the distinction, but she didn’t; not with specifics and not even generically on any regular basis, anyway. Washington Post […]

2nd Amendment/Open Carry vs Police “I feared for my life”

Supporters of Open Carry and ‘Must Issue’ Concealed Carry insist that no one should be afraid of someone exercising his or her 2nd Amendment Rights whether that be in some public park or the aisles of your local Wal-Mart. Yet right along side that we have a doctrine that everyone should comply with every request […]

Who ARE those other people, Mr. Trump? Do tell.

I am now going to the brand new Trump International Hotel D.C. for a major statement. — Donald Trump, twitter, Sept. 16 at 9:23 a.m. And so he did, as all the world will remember.  That’s when, and where, he made his trumpeted “birther”-renouncement statement—er, his internationally televised ad for his new D.C. hotel. The […]

Mike Kimel vs. Yves Smith

I and many others, including Yves Smith, waded into the thicket of Mike Kimel’s provocative generic and specific-reasons-for-the-generic claims in his post here earlier this week titled “Negative Effects of Immigration on the Economy.”  I and others, including academic economist Barkley Rosser, commented in replies in the Comments thread to Mike’s post.  Yves did so on […]

One Man’s Profit is Another’s Loss

There is this fixed quantity of whatever it is and if you get more, I get less. One man’s profit is another’s loss. This dogma was already advanced by some ancient authors. Among modern writers Montaigne was the first to restate it; we may fairly call it the Montaigne dogma. It was the quintessence of […]

Unskewing 538

Different data journalists have different estimates of the probability that Hillary Clinton will be elected. The numbers will be updates, so I type the current ones before discussing. Five Thirty Eight polls plus 55.7% Five Thirty Eight polls only 57.1 % Daily Kos 63% Upshot 75% Princeton Election Consortium (Sam Wang) (random drift) 71% (Bayesian) […]

Loose Lips Sink Ships*

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump Jr. has posted a message on Twitter likening Syrian refugees to a bowl of poisoned Skittles. Seeking to promote his father’s presidential campaign, the younger Trump posted a tweet featuring a bowl of the candy Skittles with a warning. “If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you […]