Economics and Flipping the Board

Posted on Monday 4 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How Trump is economically illiterate;
  • Personal aside about buying my first car in 1982;
  • Wondering again if humanity has hit a conceptual limit;
  • For example: Trump claims prices have been cut by 1500%;
  • An essay by George A. Akerlof asks, “What Do We Do When the President Acts Like a 5-Year-Old?”
  • With thoughts about how conservatives mistrust the “deep state.”
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I never took an economics course in college. But most of what I’ve learned about everything, except for the relatively basic matters of physics, chemistry, math, and music, that I learned in college, I’ve learned on my own in adulthood, over the past 45 years. And I’ve read lots of essays, even a few books, about economic subjects and how opinions split along political lines (i.e. fact- vs ideologically-driven). These days I trust Paul Krugman and Robert Reich on economic matters.

NY Times, guest essay by Steve Rattner, 4 Aug 2025: Our President Is Economically Illiterate
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We’re Living in a World of Mad Hatters

Posted on Monday 4 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • David Brin on the red state/blue state divide;
  • The authors of a report about the 2016 election set the record straight, to correct Tulsi Gabbard, and all the Fox News coverage of her;
  • Tom Nichols on the latest Trump distraction — the nuclear sabre;
  • More about the administration’s forbidden words;
  • How other nations who have suppressed real economic data have worked out;
  • And my comments from Facebook on Saturday about the new Hofstadter book.
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Let’s lead with another comment by David Brin on Facebook, saying something he’s said before, many times, on his blog. He’s commenting about another post with this graphic from Emelie Rose Barg.

David Brin on Facebook 3 Aug 2025

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Undermining and Discrediting

Posted on Saturday 2 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • More about Trump’s firing of the head of Bureau of Labor Statistics, with responses at Slate, from David Brin, The Atlantic, PolitiFact, Heather Cox Richardson, and Robert Reich;
  • How Trump is now extorting UCLA;
  • How Trump had references to his impeachment removed from the Smithsonian.
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Where we are.

Slate, Nitish Pahwa, 1 Aug 2025: Yes, Trump Firing the BLS Commissioner Is Bad. Really Bad., subtitled “Her agency told the truth about Trump’s floundering economy. That was more than the aspiring autocrat could tolerate.”
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Creeping Totalitarianism

Posted on Friday 1 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump fires the messenger of bad news about his economy, while Paul Krugman anticipates cooked books;
  • The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down;
  • And Amanda Marcotte on the idea of religious proselytizing in the workplace.
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Shooting the messenger.

CNN, 1 Aug 2025: Trump fires labor statistics chief over weak jobs numbers, subtitled “The president accused her, without evidence, of manipulating the numbers for ‘political purposes’”

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All Things Pass, America Too, It Seems

Posted on Thursday 31 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The Atlantic’s Ross Andersen on how every scientific empire comes to end, with historical precedents;
  • E.J. Dionne Jr. about the drop in murder rate, speculating why;
  • Quick bits about religion as a mental disorder, how praying for the intervention of angels never works, and the amorality of ICE, who abduct people while leaving all their property, trucks and even dogs and cats, on the road, for anyone to take.
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America too is passing. And not due to some historical tide. America is abdicating. But in the long run, humanity will prevail, and America’s abdication will not matter.

The Atlantic, Ross Andersen, 31 Jul 2025: Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End, subtitled “America’s run as the premiere techno-superpower may be over.”

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The Outright Denial of the Scientific Consensus About Climate Change

Posted on Wednesday 30 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump’s EPA now denies the worldwide scientific consensus about climate change;
  • The history of Trump’s fake history;
  • How Trump wins by suing institutions for absurd amounts and settling for relatively trivial amounts;
  • How Europe took Trump for a ride;
  • Robert Reich on what Trump thinks he’s doing;
  • And stories about the white-supremacist settlement in Arkansas.
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I mentioned this yesterday (posted this morning) but this is a big deal and deserves more notice. Let’s see, we’ve cancelled the insurance policies, taken out the smoke detectors, and now we’re tearing off our slate roof in favor of one with wood shingles. Because we don’t want any woke regulators telling us what kind of roofs we should have on our houses. Never mind the wildfires due to climate change, which we refuse to believe in.

NY Times, 29 Jul 2025: In Game-Changing Climate Rollback, E.P.A. Aims to Kill a Bedrock Scientific Finding, subtitled “The proposal is President Trump’s most consequential step yet to derail federal climate efforts and appears to represent a shift toward outright denial of the scientific consensus.”
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TV, Juan Crow, Facts and Nonexistent Things, Alfred Schnittke

Posted on Wednesday 30 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump trusts only TV;
  • Heather Cox Richardson on how Republicans are digging into positions that are contradicted by facts;
  • How the Trump administration’s “Juan Crow” echoes “John Crow”;
  • More nonexistent things that can be banned;
  • Short items about disabling hurricane satellites, passing weather control bills, a CBS bias monitor, and revoking greenhouse regulations;
  • Alfred Schnittke’s Trio Sonata.
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Well, we already know he doesn’t read. Or attend daily briefings.

The Atlantic, David A. Graham, 28 Jul 2025: The Only Information Source Trump Trusts, subtitled “The president responds more to mass media than to the substance of underlying events.” [gift link]

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Proselytism, Manifest Destiny, Arvo Pärt

Posted on Monday 28 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Let Federal employees proselytize!
  • Heather Cox Richardson on manifest destiny;
  • Arvo Pärt.
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As with that notion about regulating AI to be non-woke, have they thought this one through?

Washington Post, 28 Jul 2025: Trump administration urges federal employees to talk religion at work, subtitled “In a shift, the guidance from the Office of Personnel Management encourages religious expression among federal employees.” (Via)

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More Items from the Authoritarian Playbook

Posted on Sunday 27 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • About the conservative agenda concerning colleges, and education;
  • Charlie Kirk thinks you don’t need college; just watch YouTube videos, especially his own online courses;
  • Education Secretary Linda McMahon admits her political motivations for dismantling her department;
  • Brief items about a TN school district that wants kids in school even if they’re sick; how migrant farm worker should be replace by children; and how Trump wants to discredit mainstream media.
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So what is the conservative agenda concerning colleges?

Vox, Sean Illing, 26 Jul 2025: What the right’s war on college is really about, subtitled “Wesleyan President Michael Roth details the conservative agenda targeting American universities.”
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Conservative Thinking Means Whitewashing the Past

Posted on Saturday 26 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • A take-down of David Brooks, as an example of a conservative white-washing and distorting American history;
  • How National Park gift shops are removing books about that same history for the same reasons;
  • A religious rant bout Obama and Russia, and Noah’s Flood and “The Watchers”;
  • Once again, crime is falling remarkably in recent years, with the example of Baltimore and the conclusion that many factors are involved, not particular policies of either party.
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I note and quote NYT opinion columnist David Brooks here fairly regularly, because though he’s nominally conservative, he isn’t MAGA or populist and he often makes points about, oh, how to live a meaningful life, that are worth thinking about. Though I have noted that, for my tastes, he’s a little too concerned with how other people live what is a meaningful life according to *him*. As conservatives are wont to do; they don’t quite trust other people to make their own decisions about life, especially if those decisions are different than what conservatives think are good and proper.

Today Salon posts a take-down.

Salon, Mike Lofgren, 26 Jul 2025: David Brooks faces the truth of US history — and runs away, subtitled “NY Times’ pet conservative offers a lengthy apologia for America — and gets pretty much everything wrong”

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