“One expects that history will extend to Jesse Jackson the same indulgence it has extended to his mentor, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and to such figures as Mohandas K. Gandhi and (to a lesser extent) Thomas Jefferson — he was on the right side of the immensely important issue with which he was most intimately associated, and, while that is not everything, it is enough. And that is an excellent prospect for the reputation of Jesse Jackson, who, like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas K. Gandhi and (to a lesser extent) Thomas Jefferson, had a lot of bad political ideas and some positively daft economic ideas, some of which got worse over the years.” (02/20/26)
“Gavin Newsom: friend of the Resistance, friend of moderates, friend of progressives, friend of populists, friend of labor, friend of abundance-istas, special chum of Big Tech, and hard man for the Democratic Party. He’s got it all, twinned with a preternatural ability to deliver a perfectly calibrated message to each of these audiences when called upon to do so. The Gavin Newsom message delivery system brings to mind another famed Democratic message delivery system, Bill Clinton, who was similarly adept at reaching a wide range of audiences and similarly willing to bend his principles to do so. … So is Newsom the next Bill Clinton? I don’t think so. Despite the similarities there is one huge and hugely important difference: Clinton’s message delivery magic was in the service ultimately of reaching a general election audience, not just a Democratic audience.” (02/20/26)
“No, the economy is not booming. Far from it. Last month, the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index hit its lowest level since 2014. The monthly ISM manufacturing index registered ten consecutive months of contraction through December. On February 5, the Challenger Report on the US labor market showed announced job cuts in January more than doubled year-over-year, ‘hitting their highest level since the 2009 Great Recession,’ according to Mohamed El-Erian, former CEO of Pimco. … How do we square vigorous GDP statistics with an economy clearly deteriorating?” (02/20/26)
“You can’t turn around these days without seeing some leftist somewhere whining about white men. As a white man, it seems like every Democrat is an obsessed stalker – it’s enough to make us want to take out a restraining order. I speak for all white men in this piece because, after watching a week’s worth of fawning coverage of the death of Jesse Jackson that glossed over or ignored his racism, affair (oh, the stories I’ve heard) and grifting, I remembered who he simply appointed himself a ‘leader’ and the corporate media crowned him the spokesman for black people, so I’ll take the job for whitey for today. What is the obsession the left has with us? It’s flattering, I suppose. We’ve done pretty well, though you never know it from the way Democrats talk about us.” (02/22/26)
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Angela C Erickson & Vance Ginn
“Work comes in many shapes and sizes. In today’s economy, traditional 9-to-5 employment is but one option, and more people are choosing alternatives that better fit their values and lives. These workers deserve better access to benefits like health insurance and retirement savings. Over 330,000 Kentuckians earn income as freelancers, contractors or self-employed workers. They include rideshare and delivery drivers, truckers, freelance creatives, child care providers and consultants. Together, they generate more than $18 billion in annual revenue. This workforce is growing, diverse, and vital to the commonwealth’s economy — yet state and federal policies haven’t kept pace with that reality.” (02/20/26)
“All signs point to cultural insecurity (at best) as to why so many people are uncomfortable with the prospect of free, or ever freer, immigration. A few moments’ reflection is enough to show why that’s silly, especially in the United States. Trying to control a culture is like (my apologies; I can’t improve on this) trying to nail Jello to the wall. Ain’t gonna happen. … the desire to bar foreign-born people on grounds of cultural incompatibility is ridiculous. Since wonderful America, the envy of the world, has always been a changing mix of countless cultural elements, we’d be harming ourselves by any attempt to keep things ‘traditional.'” (02/20/26)
“Mayor Zohran Mamdani has painted himself as the unfortunate victim of a historic budget crisis, but he really should be counting his lucky stars. New York City has a big spending problem, but not a revenue problem. Yet that could change soon — warning signs are already flashing. Mamdani isn’t confronting an external economic shock like a recession, 9/11, the financial crisis or COVID-19. Wall Street is doing fine; the taxes on its stellar bonuses made $5 billion of the city’s budget gap disappear overnight. As much as the mayor would hate to admit it, he needs Wall Street more than it needs him. According to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the securities industry contributes 42.3% of the city’s personal-income tax and 8.4% of its total tax revenue.” (02/22/26)
“Western travelers to Moscow often remark, with complete justification, on the sense of normalcy that the government has been able to sustain four years into the most dangerous, destructive war in Europe since 1945. But there is another, overriding sense that became especially palpable to me on my second visit since the war began in 2022. Belying this outward commitment to business as usual is a profound social, economic, and political transformation with stark implications for both Russia and the West.” (02/20/26)
“Today, the Supreme Court decided our case challenging Donald Trump’s massive IEEPA tariffs. In a 6-3 decision, Court rightly ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the President the power to ‘impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time.’ It’s a major victory for the constitutional separation of powers, for the rule of law, for free trade, and for the millions of American consumers and businesses enduring higher taxes and higher prices as a result of these tariffs. Our case was filed by Liberty Justice Center and myself on behalf of five small US businesses.” (02/20/26)
“Measuring state-level prices with adequate precision requires a lot of data collection, and there’s always a long lag between the time period measured and the release of the data. The Bureau of Economic Analysis has now released its data on state-level prices and inflation for 2024, a year when US growth patterns diverged from their pandemic-era patterns. California, believe it or not, was the fastest-growing state economy in 2024, once you adjust for inflation.” (02/20/26)
