Donald Trump has learned nothing from decades of endless war. I went to war three times for this country. Working class folks will pay the price of his military adventurism. Americans are sick of it. I’m sick of it.

Sadly, this is about the next election. He’s laying the groundwork to declare his election “emergency” to change rules and argue to courts they can’t question his national security judgment in war time. And if the Court does, he’s preparing to say that’s beyond their constitutional powers.

🧾Tariffs acting as another tax on essentials 💡 Electricity bills soaring 📈 Health care costs spiking 💸 Household debt rising but Wages remain stagnant “There are a lot of things going on at once and it’s not good,” our Liz Pancotti told @theguardian.com.

Warners/Paramount - Are you in the biz? Will this merger adversely affect you? @matthewstoller.bsky.social @richardrushfield.bsky.social talk about what you can do .https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/warnersparamount-talking-whats-next?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

In 1965, CEOs made 20 times more than workers. Today, it’s 281 times more. At some companies, it's even worse. Patriotic Millionaire Todd Oppenheimer explains decades of policies have concentrated wealth at the top and how we can clean up this mess. craftsmanship.substack.com/p/the-craft-...

No wonder 65% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of inflation & 75% say they want him to do more to show he’s actually focused on bringing down costs.

Spanberger was fantastic on crime

Today marks four years since Russia invaded Ukraine. These are some thoughts (recorded yesterday) on what Ukrainians have done for all of us and what we can learn from them.

NEW: Alongside 16 other Democrats, @warren.senate.gov is introducing the American Homeownership Act of 2026. This bill takes private equity's chokehold on housing head on — ending major federal tax deductions & other unfair benefits for Wall Street landlords, while reinvesting in families.

Yet another reckless attempt by the Trump Administration to deface one of America’s crown jewels — Big Bend National Park in West Texas. As Pecos County Judge Joe Shuster put it plainly, “Nobody wants this damn wall. It serves no purpose.”

Excellent op-ed from @superwuster.bsky.social on the business model of price gouging highlighting our research on how corporate greed—not rising costs—has fueled higher prices.

Interesting post RE: imbalanced trajectory set in 1945 & reset in 1971. Those old systems were going to break at some point. The US $ was the world's reserve currency, US became the world’s "consumer of last resort", while this "hollowed out its industry." What now, especially for middle powers?

The gap in growth between the U.S. and Europe might be primarily a measurement issue rather than something that exists in the world cepr.net/publications...

Europe the Beautiful Can’t beat it - latest illustrations from politics, the economy and markets (and verified on my hardship assignment to the French province) open.substack.com/pub/independ...

From STANDING AT THE EDGE: Power, for example, can blunt our capacity for empathy, as if our brain had sustained serious damage. An article in the July/August, 2017 issue of The Atlantic summarized it this way: “The historian Henry Adams was being metaphorical, not medical, when he described

That post is very interesting. So Europe isn't the productivity laggard of conventional wisdom. Thanks for posting, Dean.

Looks like the secret to the faster productivity growth in the U.S. compared with Europe might lie with our statistical agencies. sethackerman.substack.com/p/europes-pr... I'll write more on this later, but this is an amazing story where people who should know better got EVERYTHING wrong.

Great discussion with Paul Krugman and Ro Khanna, but they get one thing badly wrong paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-wi... It is not the free market that made the oligarchs incredibly rich, it was government-granted patent and copyright monopolies and other policies.

We must ask not what America can do for Silicon Valley, but what Silicon Valley can do for America.

A new 👑 King Donald tax

Supreme Court strikes down Trump's tariffs. A stitched together majority, as expected. Read along thread here.👇 www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

A popular app in Denmark identifies American products so that Danes know not to buy them www.independent.co.uk/tech/us-boyc...

Would be nice to have a Congress right now. We could maybe even put them in charge of funding our government and signing off on wars. Just a thought.

New post on how terminal AI tools (e.g. Claude Code) make my work easier. As the discourse is caught between hobbyists and programmers, mass unemployment and slop, I thought some normie use cases saving me several hours this past month would be helpful. newsletter.mikekonczal.com/p/three-ways...

I am a confirmed LLM hater, as anyone who follow me here knows. This piece from @mtkonczal.bsky.social is the first thing I've read that has made me think that maybe I need to be a bit more open-minded, and see if there are things I can use these tools for. newsletter.mikekonczal.com/p/three-ways...

All the other countries have consequences for criminals, pedophiles, and insurrectionists. But not here. We could have nice things, too, if we just stood by our founding principles.

Trump officials say there's a 90% chance of strikes on Iran. He can’t without Congress. Rep. Thomas Massie & I have a War Powers Resolution to debate & vote on war before putting U.S. troops in harm’s way. I will make a motion to discharge to force a vote on it next week.

Hassett is attacking both the independence of economics scholarship & the central bank here, trying to deter unwelcome research findings through bullying. Describing any weaknesses he sees would be the appropriate response.

WHERE IS CONGRESS?!?!? U.S. Military Moves Into Place for Possible Strikes in Iran www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/u...

The CFPB was built to stop predatory financial practices from spiraling into crisis. But after months of slashing staff, halting enforcement, and dropping cases, the WH released a study claiming the CFPB has *cost* consumers billions. The “findings” are an effort to justify dismantling a watchdog.

@ivehaditpodcast.bsky.social Have you seen this magnificent @hillaryclinton.bsky.social BBC interview? youtu.be/HBFhpjXTPew?...

Economic Liberties is hiring a number of roles for our Communications, Research, and Rethink Trade teams! Check them out here: economicliberties.us/careers/

That tweet held up magnificently over a decade, Anne Applebaum.

CBS's cancel culture? Bari Weiss is fine with cancel culture, as long as you are cancelling the "right" kind of bad culture?

Guys I found the best Epstein Files email. The one that illuminates an elite class that's cocooned themselves into an unaccountable shell of wealth and privilege, fighting to protect their secrets and offenses. I could write a novel about this email. prospect.org/2026/02/17/e...

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One thing you will learn, if you read a good history of American settlement like Greg Grandin's *América, America*, is how much the English wars of extermination against Native Americans developed directly out of, and were self-consciously modeled on, their near-contemporary wars on the Irish.

This morning, I awoke to an email from Fr Richard Rohr meditations to discover they'd sent out a podcast I recorded with them several weeks ago. It is hopeful, empowering, beautiful. A perfect way to begin Lent. I hope you'll take 30 min and lean into good news. open.substack.com/pub/dianabut...

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For more than a decade, Kevin Warsh has advocated reining in the Fed’s pivotal role in the nation’s financial markets. Now, he may finally get the chance to do it. And Wall Street is obsessed with finding out what comes next. w/ @samjsutton.bsky.social www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

Remember: Viktor Orban has built a corrupt, stagnant Hungary that is much poorer than it should be www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Why would anyone want this??!? That our president has caused medical researchers to pull back on trying to fight disease is madness. Vaccine Makers Curtail Research and Cut Jobs www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/h...

Our grasp on reality is slipping. The response rate to the survey behind the unemployment rate (and the rest of the household survey) is now lower than during the pandemic. The decline in response rates during the first year of the Trump Admin 2.0 was larger than at any time outside the pandemic.

Via PBS News Hour, Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, today endorsed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. "Your sucess is our sucess," Rubio said. Orbán, of course, has been the model for controlling the news media as a way to stay in power. www.pbs.org/newshour/wor...

A $270,000 hospital bill? Matt Rosenberg found a few problems with that bill, ...and got a $238,00 discount.

Thank you, Rep Doggett

Roses are red, Violets are blue, Evidence—not intimidation—decides what interest rates do. #FedValentine