Economy

John McCain’s 2008 campaign slogan, “Country First,” does not describe the worldview of Republicans, suggested Pierce on Monday. For them, the Esquire blogger implied, it’s more like “GOP über alles.” The peg for the post was chit-chat in the political and media worlds about whether President Trump is of sound mind, or, as Pierce put it, about “the possibility that the presidential trolley has…

CNN took the time during Wednesday’s edition of The Lead to take jabs at President Donald Trump for not being able to get much done during his first three and a half weeks besides create controversy. When asked by host Jake Tapper to walk him through the events of Trump’s first month in office, reporter Tom Foreman joked that “it's more like staggering than walking cause it's quite an experience…

In the editorial titled "The Grand Old Party of Disenfranchisement," the Washington Post rides to the defense of convicted felons by conflating the rights of criminals with the rights of blacks in taking aim at Virginia Republicans who are pushing to make it more difficult for felons to regain their right to vote. In its first sentence, the article accuses the Virginia GOP of trying to "suppress…

If you were like one of the many viewers watching the Super Bowl LI, you may have seen a commercial from the American Petroleum Institute (API) with the catchy opening line, “This ain’t your daddy’s oil.” It was actually a play on General Motors’ 1988 commercial pitch, “this is not your father’s Oldsmobile,” in an effort to attract a younger generation. 

There is little question in most academic research that increases in the minimum wage lead to increases in unemployment. The debatable issue is the magnitude of the increase. An issue not often included in minimum wage debates is the substitution effects of minimum wage increases. The substitution effect might explain why Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a national network of business owners and…

At the Associated Press, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III and six other formerly despised Republicans and business leaders have suddenly become "GOP senior statesman." What accounts for this instant transformation? The group is pushing what it calls a "Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends.” In a Tuesday evening Wall Street Journal op-ed, Shultz and Baker advocated "a gradually increasing…

Things became awkward during CNN’s The Future of Obamacare debate Tuesday night, as Senator Bernie Sanders appeared to become a little irritated with a small business owner who admitted to him that she was not providing health care for her employees. Texas salon chain owner La Ronda Hunter explained to the senator that because of Obamacare’s mandates she could not expand her business and could…

Appearing as a guest on Monday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman incorrectly claimed that there has only been one case of a foreign-born terrorist staging an attack in the United States when there have, in fact, been a significant number of cases. Friedman: "Of course we want people vetted. I mean, but who said the vetting system had failed us? What is the…

It appears that on Monday night CBS wanted to follow in NBC’s lead, from earlier that morning, and highlight the super bowl ads that pushed the liberal agenda. “The 1984 Wendy's super bowl ad finding its way into the presidential campaign. Well this year, in something of an end reverse, politics found its way into the Super Bowl ads,” hyped anchor Scott Pelley, while reporter Don Dahler touted, “…

UPDATE, Feb. 7: On Feb. 5, Jake Tapper tweeted that "if you're concerned about things being 'incomplete' maybe consider adding into your post Manchin on same show response to rule." I attempted to find that video, and could not. If it was so important, and in the interest of balance, one would hope it would be part of the CNN video at the web link cited below — and it's not. As Nicholas…

Republican members of Congress met in Philadelphia last weekend for what was called a retreat. It might have been more accurately labeled an advance. Perhaps not since the days of Franklin Roosevelt's first term has so much been done by so few that will potentially impact so many (to paraphrase Winston Churchill in a completely different context).

You would think that the establishment press and the rest of the opposition to Donald Trump's administration might be able to capitalize substantively (shrieking fundraising letters don't count as "substance") on Kellyanne Conway's shaky reference to "alternative facts" about a week ago. (She should have said, "I have different, more defensible estimates than you do," because she did.) So far…

In what seemed like the ramblings of a 19th century Luddite, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Tom Friedman appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday where he issued a ridiculous warning about the US economy under President Donald Trump. “So what’s going to happen if prices go up? American companies will build those factories here,” he exclaimed, “And you know what they'll do?…

A January 24 item in the East Bay Times, which serves the San Francisco East Bay area, wondered: "What’s behind the spate of recent restaurant closures?" While it didn't ignore the problem, the article made only glancing references to current and planned increases in state and city minimum wages. Preliminary year-end statistics at the U.S. government's Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Bay…