“The phenomenon of induced demand is as real for transit as it is for highways: If you provide a more attractive service, more people will use it. If you cut service, riders will disappear.” #JonathanEnglish https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-14/the-toronto-suburb-where-the-humble-bus-is-king
Delaware, like Columbia, is learning that you just can’t appease these people.
i mean, they tried https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/elon-musk-delaware
Screenshot of a tweet in which Elon Musk writes “At this point, any lawyer recommending incorporation in Delaware is committing malpractice”
“Section 230: We Really Should Talk About It” by @DeanBaker13 https://cepr.net/publications/section-230/
On how the Great Depression hit Romania. Let's not do this shit again, anywhere.
by @Balutescu
https://blogulluibalutescu.blogspot.com/2025/03/marea-criza-in-romania.html
(in Romanian, Google Translate will get you there if Romanian isn't your thing.)
Great paragraphs from @jamellebouie.net to have on hand next time you find yourself conversing with the MAGA-pilled. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/vance-abrego-garcia-immigration.html
Text: Vance begins with a lie. “Consider that Joe Biden allowed approximately 20 million illegal aliens into our country.” That is a load-bearing “approximately,” to say the least. The U.S.-Mexico border is where the greatest number of immigrants enter the country. But according to an analysis by FactCheck.org, from 2021 to 2024 Customs and Border Patrol officers stationed there released 2.5 million people into the United States, with notices to report to immigration authorities for further hearings and processing, out of 6.5 million “encounters” across the U.S.-Mexico border and legal ports of entry. In addition, an estimated 1.6 million people evaded law enforcement to enter the country, for a total of 4.1 million people. You may think that’s still too many. But it’s nowhere near what Vance says it is. Vance goes on to assert that this imaginary horde of “20 million illegal aliens” placed “extraordinary burdens on our country” and “committed violent crimes, or facilitated fentanyl and sex trafficking.” It’s been shown again and again that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens do. Stating otherwise is demagogic innuendo meant to short-circuit the rational mind and inflame prejudice.
i don’t think enough attention has been paid to the heroism of Senator Van Hollen. 1/
He put himself in real danger. Bukele could have locked him up on some pretext, and it’s not at all clear the US executive would have done anything about it other than smile. US courts would legit have no jurisdiction. There would just be outraged liberals. 2/
It remains unclear how Van Hollen succeeded at getting a meeting with Abrega Garcia after first having been refused. I don’t know how he pulled that rabbit from a hat, but I tip my hat and give him credit for it. 3/
Van Hollen: “If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.” Amen. /fin
govern so incompetently you create a real emergency, then assume extraordinary powers by declaring a state of emergency.
“ICE detainer” on a US citizen whose mom has presented his birth certificate to a judge. The judge acknowledges the birth certificate and its authenticity, but claims she lacks jurisdiction to release him. Presumably ICE releases him when they review the certificate. But it’s hard now to presume. https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/04/17/u-s-born-man-held-for-ice-under-floridas-new-anti-immigration-law/
all so-called independent agencies are fully accountable to Congress, the only meaningfully democratic branch of our govt. also the most dysfunctional branch of our govt. but there’s no saving American democracy without curing that dysfunction.
see David Andolfatto https://xcancel.com/dandolfa/status/1912535963294740729
kind of emblematic of what DeSantis and Rufo have done to New College.
Google news headlines: “Former New College marketing director drove naked around Lakewood Ranch” “Former spokesperson for Gov. DeSantis arrested, charged with exposure of sexual organs” “New College of Florida marketing director arrested, fired from job”
if the Supreme Court really wanted to encourage compliance by the Trump Administration, it might in a majority opinion include, Clarence-Thomas-style, an off-hand remark about how perhaps the Court's reasoning in Trump v United States bears a second look in light of more recent jurisprudence.
Text: It would be easy to assign malice to this nonsense, and there is a degree of it. There is also indeed self-interest on behalf of the oligarchs backing Trump, who might still hope they can get their tax cuts while holding onto Trump's populism (though I suspect they realize their losses aren't worth it). However, Trump isn't doing something that every political movement does in one way or another. He's trying to create a narrative and set of common reference points that transform issues associated with complex systems into digestible ones with easy solutions. To give him his credit, that's his greatest talent. The man is a master ideologist in a world where ideologies have fewer stable reference points in "big ideas." However, I suspect that the contradictions and unexpected consequences of trying to take as complex a system as global trade and payment out of homeostasis with blunt tools will create feedback loops that even he can't paper over.
hawkish fed did nothing to gold though.
2-squared / 4-squared / 5-squared
Congress has created offices and agencies within the legislative branch, right? The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, the erstwhile Office of Technology Assessment, etc.
If the Supreme Court overturns Humphrey's Executor, could independent agencies migrate to the legislative branch?
“You cannot restrict unfreedom to a particular class of people. It will metastasize to consume the entire society.” @jbouie https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/opinion/trump-court-order-constitution.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare ht @jeffjarvis
just called my Florida Congressional delegation to express my CECOT outrage. one human picked up (on behalf of Rep Luna), two voicemails (Sens Scott and Moody).
the right time to throw the ring of power into the volcano is when it is you who holds it.
we forgot that, tried to wield it, now look who we’ve become.
“nobody can be trusted with absolute power, least of all the demagogues who seek it. The one good thing Trump’s trade policies are achieving is to demonstrate this yet again. They are harbingers of chaos. The world’s challenge is to survive the folly. The US’s is to end it.” #MartinWolf https://www.ft.com/content/a3e6174c-25e9-4428-9109-16e37319e9e2
some people think it was a kind of ennui that left us open to fascism, citing perhaps Fukyama’s “last man” and a predicted rebellion against that status by those with “megalothymia”. 1/
i think it was not ennui but annoyance that left us vulnerable. people were just annoyed by pronouns and what one might call the microincriminations of “wokeness”. These seemed real, even pressing, while words like “fascism” or “tyranny” or “extermination camps” seemed hypothetical, overwrought. 2/
oops. /fin