Tag Archives: politics

The High Cost of Phone Calls in Prisons Generates $1.4 Billion a Year, Disproportionately Driving Women and People of Color Into Debt (businessinsider.com) It has been a while since I have tackled issues with the prison system in the US. Besides it being heavily skewed towards the color of a prisoner and the funding they possess to mount a defense; once convicted and imprisoned, the screwing over the prisoner increases. If they go to trial, the...

and gasoline exports at a 26 month low . . . Blogger and Commenter R.J.S., Focus on Fracking: “Oil price is highest since 2014; natural gas price fell from 12 year high after largest inventory increase in 16 months” Oil prices finished higher for the 7th straight week after OPEC decided to only add the minimum to global supplies in the coming months . . . after rising 2.6% to $75.88 a barrel last week as rising global demand amid tight...

I did not believe I would have to put this up on Angry Bear. Prof. Heather Cox – Richardson in her Letter From An American, October 11, 2021; The Eastman memo, uncovered by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa at the end of September in their new book Peril, flew largely under the radar screen, explained away as more of Trump being Trump even as it laid out, in writing, the steps to overturn the 2020 election and even as we knew that the former president...

Blogger RJS, Marketwatch 666, September jobs report September Summary Major agency reports released this past week included the the Employment Situation Summary for September from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the August report on our International Trade from the Commerce Dept, and the Full Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for August, and the August report on Wholesale Trade, Sales and Inventories, both from the...

Steve Bannon: “The Democrats don’t matter,” he had said to me over our lunch. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” This piece by Genevieve Newton published by the Brownstone Institute is a masterclass in innuendo and misdirection:  At the core of my concern is that despite what we’re being told by our government and policy makers, this is not a black and white issue. I have many...

What did you know and when did you know it? J. Michael Luttig, the former United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit: “I was honored to advise Vice President Pence that he had no choice on January 6, 2021, but to accept and count the Electoral College votes as they had been cast and properly certified by the states…. I believe(d) that Professor Eastman was incorrect at every turn of the analysis in...

Updated US wealth distribution data shows how bad the Great Recession and its aftermath were, and how effective the pandemic assistance has been   The desert of new economic data this week continues today. But last week the Fed released its quarterly data on wealth distribution in the US, and it shows an important point about the efficacy of the emergency pandemic assistance. Let’s take a look. Let’s start with the raw absolute levels of...

Consider these excerpts from a recent piece by Jeffrey Tucker at the Brownstone Institute with the understated title “The Purges Have Begin”.  Would someone who took these extreme, apocalyptic arguments to heart oppose efforts by a faction of ethno-nationalist Republicans to steal an election or entrench themselves in power? The policies have been bad enough but the political polarization has been the real poison. In history, we’ve seen where this...

Over at 538, Nathaniel Rakich points out that Biden’s approval rating is continuing to decline, despite the fact that Afghanistan coverage has declined.  It’s hard to know what is going on here, but my guess is that two factors outside Afghanistan are important.  First, the pandemic is dragging on, and people tend to blame the President and his party for not fixing problems.  This reflects what Brendan Nyhan called the Green Lantern theory of the...

Michael Smith, Real Farmer and Farm Economist Ooh boy have we got a lot going on in ag world. Run sent me this a little while ago and I think this is important. The Tricky New Way That Big Ag Is Getting Farm Data, The Atlantic, Claire Kelloway, October 5, 2021 Big data collection is 100% not in the favor of the farmer by corporations. The more we see John Deere et al get tech heavy where they are collecting data about the equipment used...