Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“In the 2024 general election, several states and cities across the country put forth initiatives aimed at adopting ranked-choice voting (RCV) and nonpartisan primaries. These measures were promoted as essential steps in reducing political polarization, creating more representative elections, and empowering independent and moderate voices. However, results showed a significant resistance to change, as most RCV initiatives failed at the statewide level, with the only notable success coming from Washington DC, which passed both open primaries and RCV.” (11/14/24)
“The new originalist majority on the Supreme Court faces a problem: from their originalist viewpoint, many past opinions are ill-reasoned. Certainly, New York Times v. Sullivan is one of them. It thus may well be a candidate for overruling. Professor Holloway is to be congratulated for putting its reconsideration on the table. That said, overruling Sullivan raises many difficult questions for an originalist. Indeed, it would be a perfect issue spotter for an exam in a course on originalist theory. Holloway may well be right to favor overruling, but a few steps need to be taken before pulling the trigger.” (11/14/24)
“At the center of government in Palm Beach, Florida, plans are being hastily made for the next four years. Those of us outside the Mar-a-Lago walls have a framework for assessing these plans, one summed up in three little words: Personnel is policy. And so we scour the lists of cabinet announcements and read the tea leaves on the various contenders. I think that is the wrong way to look at things this time. Cabinet members have a degree of importance, I guess. Marco Rubio will be in charge of at least something at the State Department, along with Kristi Noem at Homeland Security, and Lee Zeldin at the Environmental Protection Agency.” (11/14/24)
“For the last five years, I have counseled that the U.S. must either withdraw from Southeast Asia or convince the Chinese regime that we and our allies are willing to stand up to them, militarily. How will President Trump respond in a second term?” (11/14/24)
“To keep the U.S. safe and prosperous, the defense gravy train must end.” [editor’s note: As if Trump gives a tinker’s dam what anyone says he “must” do – TLK] (11/14/24)
“We often talk about growing Missouri in abstract ways. We want to grow the economy, grow the tax base, grow the number of gigantic waterfalls. But I think we should try to grow Missouri in a more literal way by simply taking land and people from Illinois. There is a part of Illinois that may actually be interested. On election day, voters in seven Illinois counties approved a referendum (non-binding, obviously) on seceding from Illinois and creating a new state without Chicago. This makes a total of 33 counties that have passed this Illinois Separation Referendum, as it is called. Twenty seven of these counties either border Missouri or can be connected to Missouri by other counties that have also passed the referendum.” (11/13/24)
“Justice for P’Nut the Squirrel and Fred the Raccoon! The two furry victims, adored by audiences online, were heartlessly euthanized after the state Department of Environmental Conservation raided the home of their owners, Mark and Danelia Longo of Pine City. The DEC initially claimed the euthanization was necessary — that the panicked P’Nut chomped the finger of an agent during the nutso hours-long raid, and testing for rabies requires decapitation. But the agency plainly spun that tail, er, tale, to squeak free of the loud and swift public backlash. That account has now proved a fat fib: On Tuesday, The Post reported that the DEC was already planning on having poor P’Nut and Fred put down before the raid. Does the agency have nothing better to do than send 10 agents to chase down critters that look like Disney supporting characters? Is this how hard-working New Yorkers want their tax money spent?” (11/14/24)
“In graduate school, I recall a professor suggesting that the rational expectations revolution would eventually lead to much better models of the macroeconomy. I was skeptical, and in my view, that didn’t happen. This is not because there is anything wrong with the rational expectations approach to macro, which I strong support. Rather I believe that the advances coming out of this theoretical innovation occurred very rapidly. For instance, by the time I had this discussion (around 1979), people like John Taylor and Stanley Fischer had already grafted rational expectations onto sticky wage and price models, which contributed to the New Keynesian revolution. Since that time, macro seems stuck in a rut (apart from some later innovations from the Princeton School (related to the zero lower bound issue.)” (11/13/24)
“As we continue to sort through the wreckage of last week’s election, one thing has become very clear: Donald Trump gained ground relative to 2020 in almost every state and with almost every demographic group. Even the most reliably Democratic constituencies, including racial minorities, shifted in his direction, an ominous sign that their coalition may not be as solid as they once thought — and that the Dems have become boxed in as the party of the elite. Though it may be hard to believe this fate has befallen the party of FDR, these changes didn’t happen overnight. Over the past few decades, the Democrats gradually hemorrhaged their support with working-class voters — and their gains with a multiracial coalition, as well as with upper-class voters, never quite compensated for that loss of core identity.” (11/13/24)
“Every national election concludes with an avalanche of thought leadership explaining how the results obviously demonstrate that the author’s pet economic issue was critical to the outcome and, of course, that he or she has been right along. If only candidate X had trumpeted economic policy Y and hewed closer to the author’s own worldview, so these things always go, she could have prevailed over candidate Z, who clearly tapped into the voters demands for said economic policy/worldview. It’s a biannual tradition, and it’s almost always rather silly.” (11/13/24)
