Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
The future of public transit is nearly empty buses and railcars. Yet President Biden’s American Jobs Plan calls for spending $85 billion on transit. Although transit carries less than 1 percent of passenger travel in the United States, and no freight, this represents 28 percent of the funds Biden proposes to spend on transportation. Considering … Read more
Deeds, not words, will rebuild America’s cities and restore the people’s trust. Fill the potholes and the rest will follow. All politics is local, former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill used to say. Presidents and senators have big plans about the broad strokes of history, but most local government means providing important services to … Read more
San Francisco is not in need of a bold, imaginative plan. It is in need of government — basic government, government of the oldest and most fundamental kind, government of the sort understood by everybody from Machiavelli to Hobbes to the decidedly lesser figure of Rudy Giuliani, who was a pretty effective mayor before he … Read more
I was Trump-tolerant right up until the November 2020 election. But his refusal to concede was unacceptable, in my view. I make a strong distinction between disliking the electoral process and refusing to accept the electoral outcome. I should point out that I had the exact same reaction in 2000. I actually voted for Al … Read more
Senator Tim Kaine, the “Catholic” lawmaker from Virginia, writing in the National “Catholic” Reporter, gives us the familiar sanctimonious line: Just as I don’t believe Catholic clergy should dictate how I do my job representing a pluralistic society, I don’t presume to suggest what church doctrine should be. Right. He’s not going to tell our … Read more
Government breeds corruption by giving sleazy people a way of obtaining unearned wealth. Politicians and special interests are the winners and workers, consumers, and taxpayers are the losers. It’s easy to find examples. Simply look at tax policy, spending policy, regulatory policy, energy policy, industrial policy, agricultural policy, foreign policy, health policy, trade policy, drug … Read more
Seemingly independent phenomena such as cancel culture, media bias, and campus madness would be better understood as manifestations of the same phenomenon: institutional failure following institutional capture. What’s Wrong with the Audubon Society Forward! Related PostsThe Forever Emergency Are Woke Foundations Killing Real Philanthropy with Big Donations? Academic Standards Are Crumbling Worldwide His Majesty, the … Read more
In one of the great ironies of history, we find socialists and anarchists on the side of the new generation of slave-holders. The workers and wage-slaves of the world are being delivered into the hands of the overlords of the globalist future. These socialists and anarchists, obsessed with the slavery that was, sell us into … Read more
Black intellectuals who refuse to subscribe to the liberal consensus on race have been belittled, insulted and ignored by a predominantly white left wing elite William F. Buckley once said that Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams should never be on the same flight because if the plane went down it would mean the death of … Read more
The global woke loathing for Israel is taking an even darker turn. Two weeks ago Turkish forces launched a military assault in the Duhok region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Villagers were forced to ‘flee in terror’ from raining bombs. It was only the latest bombardment of the beleaguered Kurds by Turkey, NATO member and Western ally. … Read more
Among conservatives, there are those who like to sneer at the Affordable Care Act provision allowing adults to stay on their parents’ health-insurance plans until they are pushing 30, but who also are eager to see corporations act — to see them forced to act — in loco parentis, providing employees not only with health … Read more
[2021] marks the 100th anniversary of insulin being isolated for the first time. Remarkably, within a year of that discovery, a 14-year-old boy became the first patient to be successfully treated with the drug. It is difficult to overstate the impact that insulin has had. In 1909, life expectancy for a Type I diabetes patient … Read more
Welfare for the Rich Corporations Are Getting Rich off Government Aid Related PostsWill New York Times, Washington Post Return Pulitzers for Misleading ‘Russia Collusion’ Stories? FBI, HHS Stonewalling Congress Over Illegal Chinese COVID Lab In California Is Remote Work Draining the Swamp? Ohio’s Long-Running Corporate-Welfare Farce Takes Another Absurd Turn The World Does … Read more
Carjackers put a gun to 73-year-old Doug Nelson’s head as he arrived home a little after midnight. The Vietnam veteran and grandfather of 11 had just finished his usual late shift at the U.S. Postal Service. “As I was exiting the vehicle, this guy came up with the pistol and said ‘Give me the car. … Read more
The rot within U.S. House Republican leadership is obvious. The rot is evident in Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s jihad to jettison House Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney in favor of an unaccomplished liberal Republican, while at the same time refusing to snub radical Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and the scandal-ridden Rep. Matt Gaetz of … Read more
Matt Taibbi writes, In 2021, we’re seeing a surge in con-like corruption cases once again, many involving old-school ripoffs. An economy puffed up by the steroid enhancement of Fed support has led to a great flowering of such creative grifts. Some are not terribly accessible to non-financial audiences at first glance, so to make it … Read more
Relative to your expectations, how well did government respond to COVID? How about regular people? How about business? Before you answer you have to ponder your general expectations for government, regular people, and business. In my case, I expect absolute performance to be awful for government, mediocre for regular people, and excellent for business. Since … Read more
He uses the threat of “white supremacist terrorism” to ramp up spying on private communications. After the Capitol riot on January 6, the Biden administration is seeking to increase its ability to spy on Americans and disrupt political dissent. According to a recent report, the administration plans to use private companies to monitor the private … Read more
“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap,” Napoleon is reputed to have said more than two centuries ago. Boundless ignorance is also not a handicap, as Congress demonstrated last December by approving a 5593-page bill without reading it. Plenty of activists and editorial pages howled over the sloppy procedures propelling $2.3 trillion in new federal … Read more
A good exercise for economics students is to find instances of economic nonsense in a politician’s speech. In his speech of last Wednesday before Congress, President Joe Biden provided good course material. The proverbial Martian landing on Earth would have thought that Biden’s goal was to emulate his immediate predecessor. Even some elements of style—the … Read more
Workers Pay for Privileged Students See “Canceling Student Debt Would Be an Insult to Trade Workers“ Related PostsIt’s Appropriate to Demand That Intellectuals Put Their Money Where Their Mouths Are The Left’s War on Childhood Ann Coulter says ‘Trump is done’ Archbishop Naumann: Biden’s Self-Contradictory Catholicism on Abortion Deserves Correction Insight From My … Read more
“The push for college came at the expense of every other form of education,” says Mike Rowe. Americans took out $1.7 trillion in government loans for college tuition. Now, some don’t want to pay it back. President Joe Biden says they shouldn’t have to. He wants to cancel at least $10,000 and maybe $50,000 of … Read more
As recent events have caused the eyes of the nation and the world to focus on Minnesota, a question I’ve wondered about has resurfaced: Why is Minnesota so politically radical? That Minnesota’s politics are radical is seen in a simple survey of the state’s prominent politicians. Both of Minnesota’s two U.S. Senators, Amy Klobuchar and … Read more
On the menu today: A big look at how lack of Democratic unity, not the filibuster, is what is really blocking the progressive agenda; how the outlook for Democrats keeping the House keeps getting cloudier; and a corrective dose of perspective to counter one of the gloomiest New York Times articles in a while. What’s … Read more
A failed congressional candidate in Texas told Republicans truths they needed to hear, but didn’t want to. . . . Mike Wood has done harder things than running for the House of Representatives, and some of those hard things he did in Afghanistan, where he won two Purple Hearts and a Navy Commendation Medal — … Read more