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Thursday’s Tariffs Tome: The Jayjum Version

Here’s a heavily condensed Cliff’s Notes-style summary of the article, targeting around 800 words.  I call this the Jayjum Version because Jayjum is my friend who is perpetually on my case for being overly verbose.   The author reflects on how his views have evolved over 30 years, admitting to a contrarian streak that matured into iconoclasm—an urge to challenge idols, even his own ideas. He’s also an institutionalist, blending skepticism with a belief in systems. This duality frames his take on economics, particularly trade and taxes. Conservatives aren’t uniform, he notes. Once a conceptual free trader, he still is, but…

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Thursday’s Terrifically Terrifying Tariffs Talk

The older I get, the more I realize how we make idols out of everything, including ideas.  Lately I've been thinking of my own views and how they have changed the past thirty years of relative adulthood.  I say relative because at the core of every man is a naughty twelve-year old boy sniggering in the back of a middle school classroom. See what I mean?  It's just the way guys are. Back to some seriousness if I must because I'm in a long term transitional period called life.  I'll let Jules explain. My friend Doc used to call me a…

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Wednesday Wraps

As part of an effort to deliver content and keep my writing wits sharp, I'm going to post a daily series of Quick Takes. Some may carry more weight and be more serious than others.  Wednesday Wraps is a perhaps not so Quick Take. Tariffs The elephant in the room today was the brThe older I get, the more I realize how we make idols out of everything, including ideas.  Lately I've been thinking of my own views and how they have changed the past thirty years of relative adulthood.  I say relative because at the core of every man is…

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Tuesday Trends

As part of an effort to deliver content and keep my writing wits sharp, I'm going to post a daily series of Quick Takes. Some may carry more weight and be more serious than others. Today's Tuesday Trends will look at patterns or emerging ideas within the terrorism targeting Tesla. I had a chuckle at Abby Phillp telling Scott Jennings on CNN Monday night that Elon Musk's stump speech in Green Bay last weekend was "hyperbolic" because Musk was pointing out the significance of the state supreme court race on power in the House of Representatives and the resultant change would…

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Sen. Zell Miller on Repealing the 17th Amendment

Zell Bryan Miller (February 24, 1932 – March 23, 2018) was an American politician and author known for his extensive career in Georgia politics and his evolving political stance. Born in Young Harris, Georgia, he was raised by a single mother in a rural mountain community after his father’s death. Miller earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of Georgia and served as a U.S. Marine in the 1950s. His political career began as a Democrat in the Georgia State Senate (1961–1965), followed by roles as lieutenant governor (1975–1991) and governor of Georgia (1991–1999). As governor, he spearheaded…

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Monday Musings

As part of an effort to deliver content and keep my writing wits sharp, I’m going to post a daily series of Quick Takes. Some may carry more weight and be more serious than others.  Today's Monday Musings post began with a funny post in my Facebook timeline and ended up being an academic exercise in the dangers of consanguineous marriage resulting in a not-so-Quick Take.  Have a great day, everyone! One of my favorite page follows on Facebook is Terrible Maps. On Sunday they posted a map of states where it is legal to marry your first cousin.  I didn't…

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Sunday Sundries

As part of an effort to deliver content and keep my writing wits sharp, I'm going to post a daily series of Quick Takes. Some may carry more weight and be more serious than others.  Let's sift through the week's loose items while we steel ourselves for the week ahead. The political fallout from Signal has metastasized into "gate" status with everyone calling it Signalgate.  This is amusing to me because for half a century we've been told "it's not the crime, it's the coverup" when there has been no coverup whatsoever.  Let's break down a few facts to help us…

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Saturday Summaries

As part of an effort to deliver content and keep my writing wits sharp, I'm going to post a daily series of Quick Takes. Some may carry more weight and be more serious than others. Let's take a look at some stories that may have flown under your radar this week that may not have been in the Signal chat you were inadvertently added to. NORRA & the Restraining Judicial Insurrectionists Act The Babylon Bee goes hard in the paint. No district court judge should be able to issue nationwide injunctions and parties shouldn't be able to jurisdiction shop until they…

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Friday Fancies

As part of an effort to deliver content and keep my writing wits sharp, I'm going to post a daily series of Quick Takes. Some may carry more weight and be more serious than others. Since this begins on a Friday, let's consider serious ideas with some imagination and whimsy. I'd rather be annoyed by brevity than pissed off by substance   It's hard to write a good story around a bad premise.   I read the book before they wrote it.   If you ignore the obvious, you can get away with anything.   Deeds matter, words are meaningless.  …

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Signals

Let’s talk about the bizarre twist of the "Houthi & the Blowfish" Signal chat-a group meant for top Trump administration officials like National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Vice President J.D. Vance to discuss military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. Somehow, it ended up including Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Was this the ultimate blunder, a deliberate leak, or something else entirely? I’m not here to break news or claim I’ve got it all figured out-I just want to understand what happened. The administration insists it was a mistake, a simple misdial in the digital…

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