Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
One person’s loan is another person’s asset. If the loan is canceled, the asset is destroyed. That’s how it is. No one is making payments on government-backed student loans anymore, after two years of forever-forbearance, countless campaign promises of forgiveness, various targeted forgiveness programs already in effect, and now the biggie, the general forgiveness program … Read more
Senator Ted Cruz had a chance to question FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday and asked him why the bureau is classifying some classic symbols of American patriotism as indicators of militias and violent extremism. Millions of Americans already view the FBI with an air of suspicion. The fact that they have designated these symbols … Read more
If a private company said that candy bars help you lose weight or that it is okay to stick your hand under a running lawnmower, it would be dragged into court for false and/or dangerous advertising. But when politicians make utterly dishonest claims about legislation, we have to grit our teeth and endure their lies. … Read more
Trump is still insisting that he won in 2020, because he is too weak and too much of a coward to face the facts: that he wasn’t very good at the job, in the judgment of most of the American people, who set him aside in favor of a dusty can of tuna with hair … Read more
It’s annoying when one’s words are parroted by people clearly inferior to oneself. With my talent for turning a phrase, this has happened to me a few times. Watching Tony Blair snivelling about the ‘People’s Princess’ (mine) or Owen Jones sniggering about ‘cry-bullies’ (mine again) it’s not a pleasant experience to see one’s pearls spewed … Read more
Why don’t the Democrats have better leaders? We know why the Republicans don’t have better leaders: The GOP turned itself into a Donald Trump personality cult, and would-be alternatives such as Ron DeSantis of Florida haven’t figured out how to get out from under the considerable shadow of the former president. Republicans may find some … Read more
Hollywood is Joe Biden making TikTok videos. It’s an industry that was once creatively revolutionary, but now only puts on an appearance of aspiring to a political revolution. As long as the revolution doesn’t interfere with its tax credits and Chinese box office. Behind the wokeness is a brutal war between agents, producers, writers, directors, … Read more
Is it possible to have buyers’ regret on two presidents in a row? Americans seem to suffer just that when it comes to President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump. Just as important, the Republican Party shows signs of moving on from its status in recent years as little more than Trump’s cult of … Read more
San Diego schools chief demonstrates once again that Democratic-controlled urban districts will be the first to add COVID restrictions—and subtract students. According to CDC metrics as of Tuesday morning, 35 percent of U.S. counties had “high” community levels, 40 percent had “medium,” and 25 percent “low.” That does not mean 35 percent of school districts … Read more
Everywhere, farmers are saying ‘Enough’. In the Netherlands farmers have been revolting for weeks against their government’s perverse demands that they slash their use of nitrogen compounds. The Dutch government, under pressure from the EU, has committed itself to cutting its nitrogen emissions in half by 2030. This would entail farmers getting rid of vast … Read more
The combination of green moralism with green corporatism (an unlovely and destructive feature of European politics, particularly in Germany) is defective for several reasons: It is fundamentally corrupt, as all similar corporatist enterprises are; it transforms a question of roughly quantifiable tradeoffs into an absolutist moral contest in which compromise is difficult or impossible; and … Read more
Back in May [2022], I pointed out that it is absurd for Joe Biden to claim credit for lower deficits. This Reason video elaborates, noting that red ink is (temporarily) falling solely because the orgy of pandemic spending is ending. Serious budget people, regardless of their ideology, know this is true. Almost everything Biden has … Read more
We have now passed a highwater mark on public massacres, and we are still demanding taking guns away from private owners. But there is another solution catching on, attending to mental health. We are about to launch a campaign about mental health. I am not sure where this campaign is going, but I am sure … Read more
The progressives’ delegitimization game is old, familiar, and tedious: Forcing children to parrot ideological bromides as an educational requirement is not indoctrination but “cultural competence”; climate policy is not a matter of political, social, and economic tradeoffs but a question that can be answered empirically via science, and, hence, opposition to the progressive climate-policy agenda … Read more
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot could do her city and her family a great service by walking away: Resign Lori. Now. Just walk away. Quit. Now. Chicago can’t survive much more of you. So, leave. Please. And quickly. She’d probably say that this is no time for her to quit. She might feel compelled to tell … Read more
To live under a government of laws rather than a government of arbitrary power, we must know what the law requires of us, and what it affords us. . . . Why do we write our laws down? I don’t ask that question facetiously. We seem to have forgotten the answer — or, at least, … Read more
People these days worry about the rising prices of gasoline and milk, but there’s another destructive inflation that has gone unchecked for years: grade inflation. Just like monetary inflation, which makes your bank account look great until you’re rudely awakened by the reality that you can’t buy as much as you used to, grade inflation … Read more
Our culture’s gospel of tolerance has destroyed the ability to identify threats to children In a world filled with strange developments, perhaps one of the strangest is America’s new fascination with connecting kids with drag queens. Evidently, like turkey at Thanksgiving, it just isn’t Pride Month if there aren’t any men dressed like women twerking … Read more
WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a statement given this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she feels for Americans struggling with prices at the pump and offered a suggestion for how to cope by becoming a millionaire through insider trading. “If you want to avoid suffering from high gas prices, the solution is simple,” she said. “Just get … Read more
At the height of the Stalinist purges, Soviet internal affairs minister Lavrentiy Beria famously boasted: “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.” U.S. Border Patrol agents may be wondering if the Beria standard is back in vogue with the Biden administration. The reason: Fox News has reported that the Department of Homeland … Read more
How Rent Control Hurts Renters [S]upporters of rent control tend to be the cranks and crazies, such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The vast majority of economists, by contrast, recognize that such policies undermine incentives to provide and maintain rental housing. Who is going to invest in a new apartment complex, after … Read more
There is no question that the Democrats are going overboard on the staged theatrics surrounding the horrific events of January 6th. This is a clear attempt by the Party to revive their electoral prospects this autumn, but they may well end up undermining the only man who can save them: Donald Trump. The hearings already … Read more
The current state of American family farming mirrors that of our energy industry: a system of highly efficient production and abundance that has now been driven to crisis and shortage by misguided government policies. Farmers are masters at adaptation and managing weather and price fluctuations. But the extreme cost inflation of diesel fuel and fertilizer … Read more
There have been many cases where people have given large sums to colleges with specific uses in mind, only later to find out that school officials have used the money for other purposes. In today’s Martin Center article, George La Noue advises people to be extremely careful in their giving to colleges and universities. He … Read more
If Princeton classics professor Joshua Katz had kept his mouth shut in 2020, would he still have a job? To weigh that question, first we have to back up. In the mid-2000s, Katz did a very bad thing: He had a sexual relationship with an undergraduate. While the relationship was consensual, it still violated university … Read more