“I’m looking at the 14th Amendment as to whether or not we have the authority,” US president Joe Biden told reporters on May 21. “I think we have the authority.” The “authority” he speaks of is the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, which the…

I used to live “in the country.” Now I arguably live “in the suburbs.” No, I haven’t moved closer to the city (Gainesville, Florida). The city’s moved closer to me. When I moved into my current residence ten years ago, the area around me was largely farmland, and most residences…

As I write this, the latest episode of US Government Debt Ceiling Theater seem to be approaching its denouement: Congressional and White House negotiators report “progress” in talks to raise the government’s debt ceiling before (not especially fat) lady, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, sings “default.” I say “episode,” but…

In a May 15 talk in Toronto, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called for a “global licensing and regulatory framework” for artificial intelligence (AI). As I write this, he’s preparing to offer similar recommendations in testimony before a US Senate subcommittee. The whole idea of “regulating AI” fails on at least…

I’m seeing a lot of back and forth lately on whether or not there’s a “crisis” at the border, with greatly increased migration and limited ability on the part of law enforcement to respond. Personally, I don’t consider it a “crisis” at all. Immigration is just people moving from one…

“Biden family members and business associates created a web of over 20 companies,” according to a May 10 memorandum from the US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Most of those companies, which “received over $10 million from foreign nationals’ companies,” were “formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency.” The Biden…

“One problem I have with the whole ‘mental illness’ frame for talking about mass shooters,” Paul Campos writes at Lawyers, Guns & Money, “is that the ‘mental illness’ often appears to be garden variety authoritarian ethno-nationalist misogyny, with the misogyny being the really critical ideological lynchpin [sic].” Campos is riffing…

“House Democrats,” CBS News reports, “have taken their first procedural steps to try to force a House vote on a clean debt ceiling increase.” …

“White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday discussed the brutal slaying of five people in Texas,” the New York Post whines, “without noting the fugitive accused of the heinous crime is an illegal immigrant who had previously been deported four times.” Francisco Oropesa, the subject of a continuing manhunt…