Via Slate by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern: The Clarence Thomas takeover But Thomas is more than just the Trump administration’s philosophical hero. His once-fringy ideas are suddenly flourishing—not only on the high court, through his alliance with Gorsuch, but also in the executive branch. … Everywhere you turn in Trumpland, you’ll find a slew of Thomas’ former clerks in high places. They are serving in the White House counsel’s office(Greg...
Read More »“We Need You to Cooperate . . .”
[embedded content] Go to 1:30 minutes into this clip and please watch the whole event. Jail and/or prison is not a fun experience and it was never meant to be. People are taken there for court determined reasons. I have heard my share of stories from reliable sources of what goes on there and how some who are charged with guarding the population take it to the next level. There is much talk about prison reform and I applaud the thought of it. However, the...
Read More »“We Need You to Cooperate . . .”
[embedded content] Go to 1:30 minutes into this clip and please watch the whole event. Jail and/or prison is not a fun experience and it was never meant to be. People are taken there for court determined reasons. I have heard my share of stories from reliable sources of what goes on there and how some who are charged with guarding the population take it to the next level. There is much talk about prison reform and I applaud the thought of it. However,...
Read More »Money makes the world…
Even though Angry Bear has as an audience of people who are more than beginners in economic thought, I think it worthwhile to pursue basic stories about what we demand and value from our way of life, which includes the “economy”. I had a recent experience where an acquaintance came up to me and asked about Angry Bear and then proceeded to explain what formed the basics of his economic narrative. In rough form and I think my summation accurate enough for...
Read More »Shootings by Police Officers: Self-Control and More
I stumbled on a recent paper in the Police Quarterly entitled “Quick on the Draw: Assessing the Relationship Between Low Self-Control and Officer-Involved Police Shootings.” The authors are Christopher M. Donner, Jon Maskaly, Alex R. Piquero, and Wesley G. Jennings from Loyola, U of Texas at Dallas, U of Texas at Dallas and U of South Florida, respectively. Quoting from the paper: While the extant literature on police use of deadly force is voluminous, it is...
Read More »Will the Reign of Witches Pass?
“our present situation is not a natural one.” Many want to change to the popular vote to elect a president as HRC the loser in the election received more popular votes than the election winner and lost in the Electoral College. There are activities going on today with regard to the EC and how it’s vote will be determined in the future. The EC vote is being driven by the numbers of Congressional Representatives in each state plus the Senators. Since the...
Read More »IPA’s weekly links
Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. North Korea’s surprising, lucrative relationship with Africa (via Kim Yi Dionne) In an inexplicable lapse some congressional staffer has surely been punished for, the House Foreign Affairs Committee invited three eminently qualified women to testify about women’s empowerment in the developing world. Even more encouraging was that the hearing was titled “Beyond Microfinance.” Mary Ellen Iskenderian, head of the financial...
Read More »McConnell’s AHCA Bill Text and WP Interpretation
I have not had a chance to read through this; but, I thought I would put this out here for all of us to read, Senate Version AHCA McConnell Updated this post with the changes proposed in the McConnell Senate Bill as taken from today’s Washington Post. Washington Post Version How Senate Republicans Plan to Dismantle Obamacare; Washington Post; Haeyoun Park and Margot Sanger – Katz; June 22, 2017
Read More »Economism and Arbitration Clauses
By James Kwak As banking scandals go, Wells Fargo opening millions of new accounts for existing customers so that it could pump up its cross-selling metrics for investors is about as clear-cut as it gets. It’s up there with HSBC telling its employees how to get around U.S. regulations in order to launder money for drug cartels, or traders and treasury officials at several banks conspiring to fix LIBOR. Holding Wells responsible, however, was a bit trickier. The bank agreed to restitution...
Read More »Economism and Arbitration Clauses
By James Kwak As banking scandals go, Wells Fargo opening millions of new accounts for existing customers so that it could pump up its cross-selling metrics for investors is about as clear-cut as it gets. It’s up there with HSBC telling its employees how to get around U.S. regulations in order to launder money for drug cartels, or traders and treasury officials at several banks conspiring to fix LIBOR. Holding Wells responsible, however, was a bit trickier. The bank agreed to restitution...
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