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from The Archive
The 17th president narrowly avoided conviction in 1868.
The United States Congress has the authority to impeach presidents for abusing the powers of the office, an ability that has been invoked four times in the nation’s nearly 250-year history. Though the impeachment of former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton are widely known, less familiar among modern voters is the fate of Andrew Johnson, the first U.S. president to be impeached.
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from The Atlantic Magazine
The Prop 22 episode reveals the tectonic shift undergone by American liberalism—and the Democratic Party—since the 1980s.
On November 3, as Americans voted in record numbers to deny President Donald Trump a second term in office, Californians overwhelmingly approved Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that exempts app-based gig companies like Uber and Lyft from the obligation to classify rideshare and delivery drivers as employees. The impact of the measure, which in effect creates a new employment category—the contract gig worker—has already been profound. In January, Vons, Pavilions, and other subsidiaries of the grocery chain Albertsons announced plans to lay off and replace their full-time delivery staff with subcontractors from apps like DoorDash.
from Conservative Intelligence Briefing
California governor Gavin Newsom was once the darling of the Far Left. Elected to the liberal state’s highest office in 2018, many Democrats saw him as the party’s future: young, well-connected, and leader of the most populous state in the Union. In 2021, Newsom faces a bipartisan revolt for his hypocrisy, political favoritism, and destruction of small businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization
Anti-corporate progressives and economic populists operate under the same delusion.
Last month President Biden designated Rebecca Slaughter as acting chair of the Federal Trade Commission, where she has served as a commissioner since 2018. During a recent public forum, she gave some fascinating comments about ideological differences over antitrust, the tech sector, and economic policy that could serve as a guide for how she will lead the Commission. Unfortunately those comments—coming in the shadow of the Capitol Hill riot—presented a false dichotomy and ignored how much progressive and populist policy advocates already have in common.
A recent Bloomberg article cited a new University of Chicago survey to demonstrate a "shift" in the economics profession on minimum wage laws. Here's what they left out.
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from The Hill
LEAST BIASED, MOSTLY FACTUAL, News & Media Website in Washington, D.C.Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) defused a middle-of-the-night fight over increasing the federal minimum wage, effectively allowing Democrats to sidestep going on the record on the issue for now. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) during Thursday's vote-a-rama brought up her amendment that would throw the Senate's support behind not increasing the wage to $15 per hour during a global health pandemic. "A $15 federal minimum wage would be devastating for our hardest-hit small businesses at a time when they can least afford it," Ernst said. ... Sanders, who has led the push to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, quickly stood up to speak on the Senate floor and, in a twist, it wasn't to oppose Ernst's amendment, but to support it. "It was never my intention to increase the minimum wage to $15 immediately and during the pandemic," Sanders said. "My legislation gradually increases the minimum wage to $15 an hour over a five-year period and that is what I believe we have got to do." He added that was going to support Ernst's amendment "because nobody is talking about doubling the federal minimum wage during the pandemic."
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from Los Angeles Times
Oh, heck no. The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job. How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of this act of aggressive niceness? Of course, on some level, I realize I owe them thanks — and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro — but how much thanks? These neighbors are staunch partisans of blue lives, and there aren’t a lot of anything other than white lives in the neighborhood. ...My neighbors supported a man who showed near-murderous contempt for the majority of Americans. They kept him in business with their support.
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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED
How the American Revolution Turned North American Foreign Trade on Its Head
[Chapter 1 of Rothbard's newly edited and released Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5: The New Republic: 1784–1791.] After peace came in 1783, the new republic faced a two-fold economic adjustment: to peacetime from the artificial production and trade patterns during the war, and to a far different trading picture than had existed before the war. The largest change between the two eras of peace was the shift in trading patterns resulting from independence. Most importantly, while Americans were freed from the shackles of British mercantilism and could trade freely with the rest of the world, the United States was now a foreign country that could no longer freely enjoy a market within the British Empire.
TECHNOCRATS EVERYWHERE: CENTRAL BANKERS AS POLITICAL SAVIORS
The word “technocrat” is seldom used by the liberty crowd. It invokes the idea of a bureaucracy using technical experts to somehow make the right decisions on behalf of the entire nation and stands as the antithesis of a free society. Sadly, it captures the essence of central banking as well. This week, news came out of both Italy and Australia showcasing how this works.
How the Progressives Conquered Corporate America
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED
How the American Revolution Turned North American Foreign Trade on Its Head
[Chapter 1 of Rothbard's newly edited and released Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5: The New Republic: 1784–1791.] After peace came in 1783, the new republic faced a two-fold economic adjustment: to peacetime from the artificial production and trade patterns during the war, and to a far different trading picture than had existed before the war. The largest change between the two eras of peace was the shift in trading patterns resulting from independence. Most importantly, while Americans were freed from the shackles of British mercantilism and could trade freely with the rest of the world, the United States was now a foreign country that could no longer freely enjoy a market within the British Empire.
TECHNOCRATS EVERYWHERE: CENTRAL BANKERS AS POLITICAL SAVIORS
The word “technocrat” is seldom used by the liberty crowd. It invokes the idea of a bureaucracy using technical experts to somehow make the right decisions on behalf of the entire nation and stands as the antithesis of a free society. Sadly, it captures the essence of central banking as well. This week, news came out of both Italy and Australia showcasing how this works.
How the Progressives Conquered Corporate America
In 1924, King Camp Gillette—the inventor of the disposable razor blade—coauthored a book with Upton Sinclair, the progressive journalist famous for triggering the pure foods movement after publishing The Jungle, a muckraking account of the meat-packing industry. Sinclair was lending his writing talents to Gillette in the hopes of offering a more persuasive case for an idea that Gillette had been advocating since his first book, The Human Drift, published thirty years prior. Gillette’s idea, which he formulated long before he founded his razor blade company, was to bring about a socialist utopia by means of a giant corporation. Their corporation would vertically integrate to control the production process from the point of extracting the raw materials to the distribution of the product to consumers, while ensuring equality of wealth and working conditions among its members. Essentially, the idea was that economies could more easily be centrally planned through the use of enormous corporations enjoying grants of monopoly privilege.
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from Mother Jones
LEFT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, Media/News Company
Earlier this week, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked epidemiologist Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, the co-chair of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, about the “South African variant” of the coronavirus and whether it was any deadlier. He took a deep breath and explained that early evidence doesn’t suggest that the variant causes more serious instances of the disease, but only that this mutation spreads faster than others. He also pointed out that calling the strain the “South African variant” was not appropriate. Even though it was first identified in the country, it might not even have originated there. “It’s better just to call it by its name: 501Y.V2,” Karim said, adding that 501Y.V2 now is present in as many as 31 countries, including the United States. Camerota acknowledged that talking about the South African variant—or the Brazilian or the UK variant, for that matter—to refer to the still little-understood but worrying mutations of the virus may be more convenient for the media and the public. “I don’t mean to disparage South Africa, but it’s just a handy shorthand,” she said. But health experts and genetic sequencing researchers have a number of concerns about how geographical associations are not only inaccurate but can potentially stigmatize certain countries and populations. Donald Trump appeared to do so deliberately by constantly referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus,” a description that incited some racist demonstrations. One researcher recently described the current naming system as a “bloody mess.”
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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