Bill Barr has now been Trump’s attorney general for a full year. He’s spent that year helping Trump weaponize the Justice Department for his personal benefit—showing that, like the man who appointed him, Barr is an urgent threat to American democracy.https://t.co/Xtr0BE6fVJ — The Moscow Project (@moscow_project) February 14, 2020
Federal Government
Agriculture, Economics, Economy, Federal Government, Trump
Brain Drain Plagues Key USDA Research Service After Trump Administration Orders Relocation
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
When the Trump administration relocated the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service to the Kansas City area last year, about two-thirds of its employees quit their jobs rather than move. Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, called the mass resignations a “wonderful way to streamline the government.” These departures have…
America, Congress, Elections, Federal Government, Foreign Affairs, Impeachment, Poll, Presidential race 2020, Sen. Ron Johnson, Trump, Wisconsin
Sure enough…
by JOHN ADAMS • • 5 Comments
Ron Johnson really is America’s Dumbest Senator™: MIDDLETON – U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Thursday there’s nothing improper about President Donald Trump’s call on Chinese officials to investigate his top political rival in his 2020 re-election bid. Trump extended the invitation Thursday to the foreign country as he faces impeachment over a similar request of the president of…
America, Federal Government, Law, Trump
Hear or Read the Whistleblower Complaint
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Federal Government, Government Spending
$1,000,000,000,000
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Federal Government, Government Spending, Trade, Trump
Wastrel
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Embed from Getty Images John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett report Deficit Don? Red ink gushes in Trump era (‘The president endorsed a bipartisan budget deal without any of the spending restraints previously demanded by Republicans’): With a new bipartisan budget deal that does nothing to cut federal spending, Trump is on track for another $1 trillion…
America, Authoritarianism, City, Culture, Federal Government, Libertarians, Liberty, Local Government, Politics, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump-Russia
The Biggest Story of Our Time
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In life – at least life in a well-ordered, free society – the highest matters are not political. They are familial, cultural, social – involving greater pursuits than contending over the role of the state. Under this view, one contends over politics (as libertarians do) not because it is too important but because it must…
America, Courts, Elections, Federal Government, Law
Major Supreme Court Decisions (And Where to Find Them)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There were two major United States Supreme Court decisions handed down today, on partisan gerrymandering and on a possible citizenship question for the 2020 census form. There will be significant commentary – some informed, some not – about these decisions, but it’s worth reading them in full. Like most decisions, they’re lengthy, yet always worth…
Economics, Economy, Federal Government, Trade, Trump
The Cost of Trump’s Tariffs
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Heather Long reports Trump’s steel tariffs cost U.S. consumers $900,000 for every job created, experts say: President Trump has shown little interest in removing the steel and aluminum tariffs he imposed more than a year ago despite growing evidence Americans are paying a hefty price for these tariffs and increasing pressure from Republicans in Congress…
CDA, City, Conflicts of Interest, Federal Government, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation, Trump
Trump’s Tax Returns
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
If Trump wanted his tax returns to remain private, then he should not have run for public office. So many men want to be private figures and public officials at the same time, opportunistically claiming one role or another as it suits them. Small-town Whitewater has had a problem like this for years: tiny notables…
Corruption Probe, Crime, Federal Government, History, Law, Trump
Nixon Called for an End of an Investigation, Too
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Authoritarianism, Federal Government, Law, Race, Trump
Undermining His Own Case for a National Emergency
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Elizabeth Goitein observes Trump Is Destroying His Own Case for a National Emergency (“By waiting for Congress to act, the president is undermining the legal basis for any declaration”): Here’s how the legal process for emergency powers works: Under the National Emergencies Act, passed by Congress in 1976, the president has broad discretion to declare a…
Economy, Federal Government, Never Trump, Transportation, Trump
Commerce Slows
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Update, Friday afternoon: Trump folds under pressure agrees to a three-week re-opening of the federal gov’t. Of his Rose Garden address this afternoon (one that I watched in full), Jennifer Rubin observes “[m]aybe this is part of an insanity defense for the Russia probe.” One reads that under the shutdown, interstate commerce now slows: Significant…
Economy, Federal Government, Trump
The Shutdown Brings…a shutdown
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Troy Newmyer reports Economists worry ‘zero growth’ may be reality as shutdown drags on: Kevin Hassett, the Trump administration’s top economist, acknowledged yesterday the economy may not grow at all in the first quarter if the shutdown lasts that long. And White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is eyeing an even longer impasse. He…