“American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten is known primarily for two things: screaming into microphones at political rallies and making the teacher’s union an extension of the Democratic Party. However, Weingarten had an unintended substantive moment when she changed her earlier position on the elimination of the Education Department. Weingarten previously shrugged off the elimination of the department as not a big deal for education. Recently, she returned to her irate default in denouncing the elimination. The reason, however, was telling. After Trump was reelected in November, Weingarten said that the elimination was not a big deal and that teachers had originally opposed the creation of the department: ‘I mean, my members don’t really care about whether they have a bureaucracy of the Department of Education or not. In fact, Al Shanker and the [American Federation of Teachers] in the 1970s were opposed to its creation.'” (03/11/25)
Source: The Daily Economy
by David Hebert & Emily Bissett
“Imagine that you wanted to do some grocery shopping. To do so, you drive your car from your house not to the grocery store, but to a parking lot miles and miles away from the grocery store. There, you get on a bus (which you have to pay for) that will then take you to the grocery store. You do your shopping, get back on the bus (paying once again) with your groceries, which then takes you back to your car where you can unload the groceries from the bus and reload them into your car before ultimately driving home. This would be absurd. It’s also remarkably similar to how people in the great states of Hawaii and Alaska must do almost all of their shopping, thanks to the Jones Act.” (03/13/25)
“During a February 20, 2024, speech at a new General Dynamics factory outside Dallas Texas, Biden made the alleged ‘economic benefits’ argument explicitly. A supplemental spending measure pending in Congress at the time contained a total of $95 billion in foreign aid, including money for Ukraine, Israel, and other countries. Of the $60.7 billion for Ukraine, $38.8 billion would go to U.S. factories that made missiles, munitions and other gear. ‘While this bill sends military equipment to Ukraine,” Biden emphasized, “it spends the money right here in the United States of America in places like Arizona, where the Patriot missiles are built; and Alabama, where the Javelin missiles are built; and Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas, where artillery shells are made.’ Republican pro-Ukraine hawks embraced similar ‘logic’ …. Such justifications, which should be termed military Keynesianism, are not only erroneous, but also sleazy.” (03/13/25)
“No serious person mourns the offshoring of apparel employment. Clothing production is a low-tech industry that even in its heyday mostly employed immigrants who, despite being represented by a powerful union, were paid low wages and often faced harsh working conditions. For a poor nation like Bangladesh, apparel jobs are a big step up from the alternatives. But American workers have better, and better-paying, things to do. As I said, no serious person wants the apparel industry to come back. But Donald Trump’s economic team aren’t serious people.” (03/13/25)
Source: Common Dreams
by Dr. Sanjeev K Sriram & Chiamaka Okonwo
“Medicine is about trust. As a medical student, I’ve been taught that trust in medicine is built on honesty, evidence, and a commitment to patient well-being—principles that should guide physicians and leaders in healthcare. But how can we trust a man who built a career on misleading patients to oversee healthcare for 160 million Americans? Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former TV doctor notorious for promoting unproven ‘miracle cures,’ has been nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency that millions of seniors, children, and low-income families depend on for care. Yet, he promotes predatory Medicare Advantage programs and unscientific remedies that harm citizens. His nomination cannot stand.” (03/13/25)
“President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order renaming the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge after Jocelyn Nungaray, a Houston girl whose tragic murder at the hands of two unauthorized Venezuelan immigrants, captured national attention. The decision, while framed as an honor to the young victim, raised eyebrows. It marked yet another instance in which Trump leveraged symbolic renaming as a political tool. Previously, in a move that defied geography, diplomacy, and common sense, President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming a section of the Gulf of Mexico as the ‘Gulf of America.’ But what exactly has been renamed? … While it was clearly intended as a symbolic assertion of American sovereignty, the renaming not only violated international conventions but also flew in the face of basic geographical principles.” (03/13/25)
“America’s central economic problem is preserving the nation’s capacity to sustain growth vigorous enough to counteract an impending fiscal crisis of escalating national debt. Part of the reason that growth has declined in the last decades is the stifling force of over-regulation. The new administration’s sweeping agenda for regulatory rollback thus need not represent merely political posturing, but has the potential to address one of the most profound threats confronting contemporary America. To understand its rationale and architecture is to grasp a bold attempt at putting the nation’s financial house in order and preserving its future prosperity.” (03/13/25)
“Past recessions have been the result of policy errors or disasters. The most typical policy error is when the Federal Reserve Board raises interest rates too much to counter inflation. That was clearly the story in the 1974-75 recession, as well as the 1980-82 double-dip recession. Then we have recessions caused by collapsing financial bubbles, the 2001 recession following the collapse of the stock bubble, and the 2008-09 recession following the collapse of the housing bubble. And of course, we had the 2020 recession because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But now Donald Trump is threatening us with a recession — not because of something that is any way unavoidable, but rather because as president he has the power to bring on a recession.” (03/13/25)
“Last month, I put out a request for experts to help me understand the details of OpenAI’s forprofit buyout. The following comes from someone who has looked into the situation in depth but is not an insider. Mistakes are mine alone.” (03/13/25)
“President Trump declared in his March 4 congressional address that he will seek ‘a state-of-the-art golden dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland’ from all kinds of attacks. He also said he’s bolstering U.S. Navy shipbuilding through a newly created ‘office of shipbuilding in the White House.’ There’s both bad and good news here. The first goal is physically, and fiscally, impossible. The second is a worthy investment. Here’s hoping that those now force-feeding the Pentagon can tell the difference.” (03/13/25)
