“The opening chords of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ wash over a drone shot of Mar-a-Lago. As the camera shifts to a set of black high heels and then tilts up to the once-and-future First Lady, Mick Jagger screams ‘War, children, It’s just a shot away. It’s just a shot away.’ This is not a typical moment in what’s come to pass for a documentary in 2025: an endless stream of brooding explanations of lefty issues or recreations of murders rubber stamped for Netflix with overwrought scores. … But it’s this naked, smug lefty do-gooderism that has eroded the documentary form for the last two decades …” (02/06/25)
“In my recent post on US manufacturing jobs and tariffs, I mentioned a Wall Street Journal article that pointed toward American tariffs having little impact on Chinese exports; the exports are simply being shifted to other countries. In the earlier post, I discussed what that fact meant for US manufacturing jobs. Here, I discuss what that shift means for who bears the burden of the tax.” (02/06/26)
“The Trump phenomenon was supposed to be a changing of the old Republican guard, however imperfectly, for a new foreign policy ethos that was closer to Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul than Bill Kristol and David Frum. That’s exactly why so many neoconservatives and War Party Republicans got behind the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. So seven years ago, when Bolton tried to redefine Donald Trump’s America First brand as a continuation of McCain-Bush interventionism, I laughed. Did Bolton really think the conservative base was this gullible? I’m not laughing anymore. Hawks, including old neoconservatives, now present pro-war interventionism as America First all the time.” (02/06/26)
“If you’re ever asked to define the word oxymoron, just say ‘Congressional ethics.’ People instinctively burst out guffawing at the absurdity of linking Congress to upright behavior. But surprisingly, Republican congressional leaders say they’re now taking a bold stand for a little less corruption among their own members, targeting lawmakers who’ve been secretly enriching themselves through ‘insider stock trading.’ … recently, the party’s designated ethics watchdog, Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), rose on his hind legs to introduce the Stop Insider Trading Act. ‘If you want to trade stocks,’ Steil howled in operatic outrage, ‘go to Wall Street.’ Bravissimo! Except it was a fraud. Far from stopping the self-enriching stock scams of lawmakers like Bresnahan, Steil’s bill basically legalizes their corrupt transactions.” (02/06/26)
“Recent studies reveal a striking statistic: over the last decade, approximately 30% of primary care physicians have either retired or switched to non-clinical roles, leaving a notable gap in patient care. Something subtle has been happening in American medicine, and it’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. There have been no emergency declarations, no ribbon-cutting ceremonies, no breaking news alerts. No one has announced it officially. But if you pay attention — if you walk into clinics that once buzzed with conversation, if you notice how long it takes now to get an appointment, if you see how often a familiar nameplate disappears from a door — you begin to feel it. The waiting rooms are quieter. Not calmer. Not healthier. Just quieter in a method that feels wrong. The type of quiet that doesn’t signal relief, but absence.” (02/06/26)
Source: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
by David Beckworth
“Quantitative Easing (QE) is back in the news. So, too, is the large size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. The public’s renewed interest in these topics has been sparked by President Trump’s nomination of Kevin Warsh to be the next Fed Chair. Warsh is a vocal critic of both QE and the Fed’s expansive balance sheet, and he has called for a ‘regime change’ at the Fed on these issues. I am broadly sympathetic to Warsh’s concerns about the size of the Fed’s balance sheet, and in previous newsletters I have outlined several steps to carefully reduce it. In this piece, however, I will focus on QE itself.” (02/06/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“Spain receives much well-deserved praise for its rail network, the second-largest in the world after China’s, with around 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) of high-speed track. Rail travel in the Iberian country now accounts for 56% of all travel, more than road and air combined, with high-speed services connecting over fifty Spanish cities. In 2009, then-US President Barack Obama credited the 470-kilometer (292-mile) line linking Madrid to the southern city of Seville — the country’s first high-speed service, opened in 1992 — as one of the inspirations for creating a network of comparable efficiency across America. But after four incidents in less than a week, public trust in Spain’s world-class network has been shaken.” (02/06/26)
“Liberated from a dictatorship 14 months ago, Syrians are struggling to unify their pivotal Middle East country. One example was an attack last month by the new government on an ethnic Kurdish area. A negotiated settlement has since calmed the region – a small step toward democracy – but it has also brought a fresh focus on an old problem: What to do with the former fighters of the Islamic State group and their families? While ISIS forces were decisively defeated in 2019 through a multinational effort, northeastern Syria is still home to pockets of former fighters – and more than 20 prison camps administered until now by Kurdish forces with U.S. support. Some governments and analysts worry that these camps are potential hotbeds for fomenting continued radicalism. Many of the estimated 50,000 prisoners are family members of ISIS fighters from Syria and Iraq.” (02/06/25)
“Federal immigration agents have abducted Eustaquio Orozco Verdusco, a workers’ rights organizer well known in Minnesota for fighting wage theft and labor trafficking. His attorney and son say he is currently held at the Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico, run by CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison companies in the United States. For the first time, his family is going to the press as community support for his release is swelling. All we care about is having him back with us, at home in Minnesota,’ his son, Gerardo Orozco Guzman, told me. ’That’s all we want.’ Our interview followed a judge’s ruling in the District Court of Minnesota on Wednesday that denied and dismissed Orozco Verdusco’s habeas corpus petition challenging his unlawful detention.” (02/06/25)
