“The party that cries wolf is at it again. Democrats are back in Congress after their shutdown to launch another anti-Trump hoax. This time, it’s not a fictional ‘pee tape’ but the old Epstein horse they keep flogging. On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Democrats selectively released three emails among 23,000 handed over by the estate of the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein to try to implicate Donald Trump, yet again, in Epstein’s sexual abuse of underage girls. Of course, the Oversight Dems, who include such adornments to Congress as Jasmine Crockett, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, left out crucial information that exonerated the president, instead claiming that the emails ‘raise serious questions about Donald Trump and his knowledge of Epstein’s horrific crimes.'” [editor’s note: Devine’s picture should be in the DSM next to “Trump Devotion Syndrome” – TLK] (11/12/25)
“During the recent government shutdown, the temporary interruption of benefits to 42 million food stamp recipients was hyped as practically the greatest human rights violation of our time. A Nation magazine headline howled: ‘The United States Is Letting Its People Starve.’ But the delayed payments had scant impact in part because many states offered supplemental benefits, many recipients had leftover benefits on their Electronic Benefit Cards (EBTs), and because vast numbers of food pantries and other private charities provided relief. Democrats accused Trump of ‘weaponizing hunger.’ But the real problem is that politicians going back more than half a century have weaponized dependency to destroy limits on government power.” (11/12/25)
Source: Macroeconomic Policy News
by David Beckworth
“What if Macroeconomists Could Finally Run Experiments? That is the startling implication of a new paper by Tara Sinclair and Sophia Kazinnik, titled ‘FOMC in Silico: A Multi-Agent System for Monetary Policy Decision Modeling.’ Using large language models (LLMs), they built a synthetic FOMC — an ensemble of AI-generated versions of Jerome Powell, Michelle Bowman, Chris Waller, and others — capable of debating, dissenting, engaging in water-cooler talk, and ultimately voting on monetary policy. To be clear, we already have DSGEs and VARs for simulating macroeconomic outcomes under different shocks or policy rules. What Sinclair and Kazinnik are experimenting with is the policymaking process: how a committee of imperfect humans, armed with noisy data and facing political pressure, reaches decisions.” (11/12/25)
“As in his first term, Donald Trump now presides over a visibly sinking ship as his approval ratings slide. MAGA, a movement built around the personality of one man, never amounted to a coherent political force or even a workable coalition. Claims that Trump and his lieutenants won a mandate in 2024 and then ‘saved’ the country were always delusional. After all, his margin was thin, as was that of his party in Congress. Three forces are killing MAGA, perhaps even pushing the US in a distinctly socialist direction. The first are the internal divisions, which are growing ever-more pronounced and will only intensify as an aging Trump becomes an ever-lamer duck, particularly if Democrats romp to victory again in the 2026 midterms.” (11/12/25)
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Charles Eisenstein
“ve been rereading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. This passage from Chapter 5 is shockingly relevant to the farm crisis today. It describes the early stages of the consolidation and corporatization of farms that continue to accelerate. Even more relevantly, it illuminates the systemic nature of that process, which defies any attempt to locate blame.” (11/12/25)
“‘Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.’ — Thomas Jefferson … This clearly states a scriptural principle (one found in the Bible, that is.) Peter told the Sanhedrin, ‘“we must obey God rather than men.’ Tyranny, even its milder forms such as authoritarianism, are evil, sinful, and an affront not just to human liberty and freedom and people, but to the God who has given us liberty and freedom. But tyranny is not just evil, it is corrupting, it is disgusting, to any lover of liberty, to anyone who values human life and dignity, to anyone who believes that humans have rights. (Regardless of where those rights come from.)” (11/12/25)
“This is an administration that is willing to kill people whether it’s legal or not or whether it’s ethical or not. It’s an administration that is contributing to the erosion of our ability to appreciate the full weight and value of personhood. They’re exploiting our disposition to use distance and country of origin to calculate the permissibility of sin. Some may find themselves apathetic to the murder of these people. That sort of attitude commits you to barbarism: human life has no value. Did we always believe that or did our transition begin in 2016?” (11/12/25)
“Few topics feel more relevant right now than how Americans see others who disagree with them politically. As a social psychologist, I get to regularly teach students about these dynamics. And now, from FIRE’s latest National Speech Index, there is new data that almost perfectly illustrates the extent of partisan bias in this country.” (11/12/25)
“History and the constraints of American federalism suggest the euphoria and catastrophism that have followed Zohran Mamdani’s election victory are misplaced.” (11/12/25)
