Tag Archives: politics

There are to be only three branches of government, the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial; so sayeth the Constitution in Articles I, II, and III. A trinity of man, by man. We were among the first to have broken free of that old ruling triad of the Church, the Army, and the King that at times in previous times had been only the one, the same. We are indeed, a nation born free. Or so we thought. First the nose, then before you know it, the...

Farmer and Agricultural Economic Michal Smith I hear this from time to time both at the market and also from the general public even in the agricultural community. It elicits a response longer than what I can usually muster as I pull my quill of sharpened microeconomic arrows of defense around to meet my macroeconomic bow. I’ve usually already lost most when I say, “well actually it’s cheaper”. The cost of food isn’t the problem. It’s more about...

Senate Republicans are being dispicable as usual. They manage to combine bad intent and pathetic incompetence in a display which must delight all right thinking people. The issue is the debt ceiling. For months Mitch McConnell has asserted both that the debt ceiling shall and must be raised and that he plans to blame Democrats for raising it. Your not supposed to say that out loud Mitch. He tells journalists that he will trick voters into...

On November 10, 2021 (I think), the Brownstone Institute posted an article entitled “20 Essential Studies that Raise Grave Doubts about COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates” by Paul Elias Alexander.  Alexander’s essay featured selective quotations, misleading spin, and (arguably) fabrication.  I wrote up a lengthy response to Alexander’s article, but never finalized my take.  Then today I was trying to decide what to do with my piece, which is long and...

Many months and many mutations ago, I argued that one shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was enough to protect against the original Sars Cov2. Since then delta. It doesn’t especially evade, but is more generally fit and I thought (and probably didn’t post) that two shots are needed given delta. Now omicron. Pfizer just claimed that three shots are enough against omicron, although two are not. Putting my shoulder where my mouth wasn’t (until...

Coronavirus dashboard for December 7: since further mass vaccination could only happen at gunpoint, the Biden Administration had better come up with a ‘Plan B, New Deal democrat No significant economic news today, so let’s catch up a little bit with Covid. There are still distortions in the 7 day average data, as States did data dumps of deaths and new cases throughout last week, after not reporting over the long Thanksgiving holiday. That...

Peter Dorman, Econospeak, A Racist Screed in the New York Times Really bad, misguided, even malicious writing serves a purpose, showing in extreme form the faults that, more subtly expressed, can pass under the radar.  That’s my reaction to this execrable column from today’s New York Times on the violation the author felt when her front lawn mini-library was perused by a white couple. In a nutshell: Erin Aubry Kaplan lives in a historic black...

Wednesday, 1 December 2021, the state of Mississippi argued before the US Supreme Court that the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision [410 U.S. 113 (1973)] giving women a constitutional right to have an abortion was in error; that it should be overturned. During Wednesday’s oral arguments, Justice Sotomayor asked Mississippi’s Solicitor Stewart whether Mississippi’s challenge was premised on religious grounds. No doubt about that. In Missouri, Alabama,...

If you want to understand libertarian politics and messaging, the starting point is to recognize that libertarian ideology is very unpopular.  They want to end child poverty – but only through deregulation.  They support good education – but only through vouchers or privatization.  They want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Well, o.k., not really.  They believe in vaccine . . . hesitancy. This puts libertarians in a difficult position.  They...

Surely someone, not something, must be to blame, must be responsible for whatever catastrophe that may have just occurred. Even CNN knows this. Blaming an event on someone obviates the need to fully explain, to seek a cause; relieves us of the responsibility to understand, to acknowledge the true cause. Seems it is somehow better if someone started the forest fire; not lightning or the effects of Climate Change. Blaming someone is different than...