Myopia, solipsism, Manichaeism, defensive isolation—these are the principles of the Texas Republican Party. How can they not admit their lack of ingenuity? Denial and blanket reactionary opposition, unhappily, are hallmarks of fascism. Hopefully most Texans welcome progressive change and the usurpers of the Texas Republican Party will fail to dominate that state’s government. If Real Republicans don’t mobilize to revive their non-leftist liberal democratic values, many Texans, regardless of party, may conclude that exodus, even to neighboring Southern states, is their only escape

If the appropriate thing for the Fed to do a rise in interest rates?  They’re acting just like a bathroom tile installer who squirts caulk into the hole from which a towel rack has lost its anchor--You do what you always do, no matter the problem.   

We all know that today’s inflation is not caused by cheap money.  The pandemic has stretched the economy’s abilities and disrupted supply lines (In particular, China’s draconian response has stressed inventories globally.); wider acknowledgement of climate change has begun to cause costly behavioral adjustments; the war in Ukraine has raised uncertainty in capital and food markets   All of these and other apocalyptic events are making life more demanding and can’t be resolved by slowing money velocity.

While the mistaken measures of the Fed may cause a recession, even that won’t change the fact that the world seems to have entered a unique convergence of cyclical stresses, each of which has an inflationary impact.  Therefore, in order to relieve the common social harm of these events, the country, if hot the world, needs a central coordinator of the required adjustments in many aspects of the human condition, including personal and public health, military aggression, environmental deterioration, energy transformation, gender and racial equalization, and lifestyle expectations, to name a few.

These challenges are beyond the scope of a central banker, maybe even of the U.S. President.  But he should at least start the ball rolling towards a joint universal and coordinated effort to make the planet a rational living space for intelligent and ambitious human beings.

The riveting testimony at the Jan. 6 Committee remind me of the Watergate hearings fifty years ago.  I guess the Democrats and their Republican friends have decided that this is the best way to turn the Trump administration's antics against a Republican Party that has been hijacked by disaffected right-wing politicians.  

The Jan 6 Committee even hired a top retired broadcast executive to help them shape the hearings to appeal to TV audiences.  Unfortunately, James Goldston, formerly of ABC news, doesn't appear to have been the right guy; ABC News isn't as popular as the other networks, and the audience ratings for the Jan 6 hearings have been lackluster.  Perhaps the Committee ought to hire someone like Roger Ailes or another former Fox News executive for advice on how to stage the rest of the broadcasts, While the hearings may have some effect on AG Garland, they must compel enough viewers to win the 2022 and 2024 elections for the Democrats.  Otherwise, the Committee will just disappear.

Potentially mentally unstable people are now vulnerable to overwhelming information and diatribes on pervasive social media. This makes the easy access to weapons of war much more dangerous for society than even just twenty years ago. Therefore, it’s time to limit the public’s so-called right to bear arms, despite the Second Amendment, and make it conform to modern conditions.

Why do conservatives resist gun control? Those individuals do not want to buy AR-15s. They just oppose all limitations on personal freedom. The problem is that they define personal freedom as impulsiveness.

Therefore, remediation of the mass murder problem in today’s America can be summarized by the following syllogism:

Guns enable impulsive behavior.

Assault weapons worsen outcomes.

Modern technology stresses self-control.

Outlawing civilian access to AR-15s will save lives.