Tag Archives: politics

Rather than the Constitution granting us our rights, it should protect our inalienable rights. One might ask how is it that the constitution grants citizens the right to own a gun, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, privacy in their own home, …, all, notably, rights the colonists might not have had under a monarchy, but does not grant: every citizen the right to vote, personhood to all, women the freedom of choice? Much of the 18th century...

Michigan did not miss out on all the fun on Elector’s Day this last Monday. I was listening to Stephen Miller talk (Fox New Telecast) about sending Alternative Electors to state capitals to vote for a “trump” in place of Biden President as selected by the popular vote in each state. Sending alternative electors did not include every state in the union and just the ones which had voted with mail-in ballots. And illegally according to the claims of...

While briefly discussing (accessible link below for addition information) this decision, keep in mind this is a big deal in lowering the costs of pharmaceuticals as it goes right to the source of some of the excess takings involved in the distribution of drugs from manufacturer to drug stores. December 10, 2020: the Supreme Court handed a win to states and broadened the path for state health care cost control efforts. In Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical...

So Far the efficacy data has been presented. As reported in the press earlier, the vaccine is roughly 95% effective, that is roughly 95% of people who got Covid 19 during the trial were participants who received the placebo. Importantly, the null hypothesis that just one dose is just as good as two was not rejected. The test of this null had extremely low power as almost all participants received both doses, so basically this means cases less than...

The GOP has crossed the Rubicon  – by New Deal democrat In the Roman Republic, military leaders automatically lost their legal authority to command at the Rubicon River in northern Italy. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his legions, it was an act of war against the Republic. With the filing of their  Amicus brief in the Supreme Court this past week, the GOP as represented by their Congressional delegation similarly finally broke...

Prof. Peter Dorman of Evergreen College writes at EconoSpeak and portrays Matt Yglesias’s retrospective on how the healthcare establishment failed the public when passing information on facemasks, hand-washing, distancing, etc., and how Covid is transmitted. The direct result of not following these practices or casting doubt upon them is an elevation of Covid cases which strains the capacity and logistics of healthcare facilities, the equipment...

Given the makeup of the Supreme Court after 3 conservative appointments to the court, I was concerned as to what the outcome of the Court’s decision might be. Whether they would agree with Texas and trump was the concern. The italicized sentence is basically the Court’s decision. The note from Alito and Thomas being an acceptance of the motion for review and not grant the petitioner relief. “The justices’ dissents, though, are considerably less...

Ophelia at “Butterflies and Wheels” has a commentary about the protests in front of the home of Democratic Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson which makes for a good read along with the comments. Follow the link. It is one thing to write a letter of protest to a politician and quite another to invade the proximity of a person’s home, within shouting distance, and upset the occupants which included a child. Meanwhile the Republican leaders...

Four measures of labor market losses in the pandemic Below is a graph of 4 ways of measuring the downturn in the labor market due to the pandemic:1. Payrolls (blue) – this is the headline jobs number from the establishment survey2. Civilian employment (green) – this is the equivalent number from the household survey.3. Aggregate hours worked (red) – tracks hours rather than jobs.4. Aggregate payrolls (gold) – tracks total payrolls rather than...

The libertarian vs. populist trade-off in the 2020 election and beyond A few weekends ago I wrote that  “the Democratic ‘brand’ is ‘socially liberal, economically moderate,’ while the US electorate as a whole is socially moderate and economically progressive” citing a scatterplot graph of the 2016 electorate; and that: The path forward is to embrace, and pass, some simple economic fixes … that materially improve – and are *seen* to materially...