“Fears have ticked up since Friday because the unemployment rate has risen enough in the past year to trigger a statistical threshold, known as the Sahm rule, that has historically been a sign that we’re in the early stages of recession.
But the U.S. economy actually still looks fine: Joblessness is at 4.3 percent, which is only bad by comparison to 3.4 percent, where it stood in early 2023. A higher percentage of people in their prime working years are employed than at any point since 2001, and the unemployment rate — which measures the number of people looking to be employed against the total number of people participating in the labor force — has risen largely because more people are seeking work, including immigrants.
U.S. GDP grew at a 2.8 percent pace in the second quarter of the year, which is faster than would be expected, especially given how high interest rates are. (Recessions are associated with an economy that is contracting, not expanding.)
Claudia Sahm, the creator of the Sahm rule, said that she doesn’t think we’re in a recession and that this time her rule might not hold.
But one thing seems clear: The economy is now slowing. The question is how much and how fast.”
“Bangladesh’s prime minister resigned and fled the country Monday, after weeks of protests against a quota system for government jobs descended into violence and grew into a broader challenge to her 15-year rule. Thousands of demonstrators stormed her official residence, a day after nearly 100 died in the unrest.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s departure threatens to create even more instability in the nation on India’s border already dealing with a series of crises, from high unemployment and corruption to climate change.”
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“The protests began peacefully as frustrated students demanded an end to a quota system for government jobs that they said favored those with connections to the prime minister’s Awami League party, but the demonstrations have since morphed into an unprecedented challenge to Hasina and the party.
The 76-year-old — who was the longest-serving female head of government — was elected for a fourth consecutive term in a January vote that was boycotted by her main opponents. Thousands of opposition members were jailed in the lead-up to the polls, and the U.S. and the U.K. denounced the result as not credible, though the government defended it.
Hasina had cultivated ties with powerful countries, including both India and China. But under her, relations with United States and other Western nations have come under strain, as they have expressed concerns over human rights violations and press freedoms in the predominantly Muslim nation of 170 million people.
Her political opponents have previously accused her of growing increasingly autocratic and called her a threat to the country’s democracy, and many now say the unrest is a result of that authoritarian streak.
Hasina arrived Monday in a city in India on the border with Bangladesh in an army helicopter, according to a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to the media. It was not clear where she would go next.
As she fled, people stormed her residence, taking furniture and pulling food from the refrigerators.
Protests have continued even after the Supreme Court last month ruled that the quota system — which set aside up to 30% of government jobs for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence against Pakistan — must be drastically cut. The government attempted to quell the demonstrations with force, leaving nearly 300 people dead since mid-July.”
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” Hasina repeated her pledges to investigate the deaths and punish those responsible for the violence. She said she was ready to sit down whenever the protesters want. Earlier, she had said protesters who engaged in “sabotage” and destruction were no longer students but criminals, and that the people should deal with them with an iron hand.”
“The answers are a bit complicated because Project 2025 encompasses a lot of different things (and there are some claims about what’s in it that are simply false). I think of its agenda as falling into three buckets:
1) Concentrating power in the presidency: The idea here is to give Trump and his appointees more power over the executive branch relative to permanent nonpartisan civil service professionals (who he disparages as the so-called “deep state”). Critics fear this will lead to the abuse of power and political hackery. Trump supports these ideas and we have every reason to believe he’d implement them.
2) Achieving longtime conservative priorities: This is stuff like slashing regulations, reducing federal spending on the poor, ditching efforts to fight climate change, ramping up military spending, and so on. Many progressives think these ideas are terrible, but they aren’t exactly new. Trump supports basically all of these. (Project 2025 mostly avoids taking firm positions on issues where Trump breaks from the conservative consensus, such as trade.)
3) Taking a hardline religious-right agenda: The project lays out quite aggressive proposals to use federal power to prevent abortions and restrict certain contraceptive coverage. It even says that pornography should be “outlawed” and its creators and distributors should be “imprisoned.””
“A new voting method, AADV (Approve/Approve/Disapprove Voting), was proposed in 2020. Each voter has the option to approve of either one or two of the candidates, and also has the option to disapprove of one candidate. Each candidate’s approvals and disapprovals are separately summed. Disapprovals are then subtracted from approvals to obtain the net approvals for each candidate. The candidate with the most (positive) net approvals is declared the winner. If no candidate achieves positive net approvals, NOTA (None Of The Above) has won. If NOTA should win, all candidates are disqualified and a new election must be held with new candidates.”
“History does, in fact, offer sobering lessons on the consequences of unchecked government debt. Noted historian Niall Ferguson remarked in a recent Bloomberg column that his studies have led him to conclude that all great powers that spend more on debt service than on defense soon lose their great power. Whether it’s the British Empire or France’s Ancien Regime, excessive borrowing and spending lead to economic weakness, loss of global influence, and eventual downfall.
The U.S. is already crossing this ominous line. This year alone, interest payments on the national debt will reach $892 billion, which is larger than defense base funding. Annual interest payments will reach $1.71 trillion by 2034, widening the gap into an abyss.”
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” As we stand at this crossroads, will America heed the warnings of history and take decisive action to address its debt crisis? Hanging in the balance is the future of the nation’s economic strength and global leadership. If we citizens recognize the gravity of the situation and insist upon action, policymakers will have little choice but to work toward a sustainable fiscal future. The alternative—following the path of fallen empires—is a fate that a great nation like America must avoid at all costs.”
“When Trump urged the Justice Department to investigate his baseless allegations of election fraud, Roberts says, he was exercising his “conclusive and preclusive” authority. The executive branch has “‘exclusive authority and absolute discretion’ to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute,” he writes, “including with respect to allegations of election crime.”
The indictment also alleges that Trump “attempted to enlist” Vice President Mike Pence to “use his ceremonial role at the January 6 certification proceeding to fraudulently alter the election results.” Trump wanted Pence to reject electoral votes for Joe Biden from several battleground states and send them back to state legislatures to consider whether he actually won them. When the president and the vice president “discuss their official responsibilities,” Roberts says, “they engage in official conduct.” The government therefore has to overcome a presumption of immunity, which means the district court must consider whether prosecuting Trump based on these conversations would impermissibly intrude on executive authority.
Other allegations involve Trump’s interactions with state officials and private parties. Trump tried to persuade state officials that the election results had been tainted by systematic fraud, and his campaign enlisted “alternate” electors whom he wanted state legislators to recognize instead of the Biden slates.
Those actions, Trump maintained, were “official” because he was trying to ensure the integrity of a federal election. To the contrary, Special Counsel Jack Smith argued, Trump was trying to undermine the integrity of the election, and he did so in service of his interests as a political candidate, not as part of his presidential duties. According to the Supreme Court, the district court therefore must determine, as an initial matter, “whether Trump’s conduct in this area qualifies as official or unofficial.”
Finally, the indictment cites Trump’s behavior on January 6, 2021, the day his supporters, inspired by his phony grievance, invaded the U.S. Capitol, interrupting the congressional tally of electoral votes. Trump’s conduct that day consisted mainly of his speech at the pre-riot “Stop the Steal” rally and various tweets. Roberts notes that the president has “extraordinary power to speak to his fellow citizens and on their behalf.” Generally speaking, his public communications therefore “are likely to fall comfortably within the outer perimeter of his official responsibilities.” Whether Trump’s communications counted as official acts, Roberts says, depends on the “content and context of each,” requiring “factbound analysis” by the district court.”
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“The majority says Trump cannot be prosecuted for urging the Justice Department to embrace his stolen-election fantasy because such conversations fell within his “conclusive and preclusive” authority to enforce federal law. But the president is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces, which suggests that orders to the military, whether they involve assassination or a coup, likewise trigger absolute immunity. The president has plenary authority to issue pardons, which suggests impeachment might be the only remedy if he takes a bribe in exchange for granting one.
That remedy, as Roberts notes in rejecting Trump’s interpretation of the Impeachment Judgments Clause, could be foreclosed by timing or a lack of political will. If a president abuses his powers toward the end of his term (as happened in this case), resigns immediately afterward, or conceals his crimes well enough that they do not come to light until after he has left office, impeachment will not be a viable option, and his prosecution could be blocked by “absolute” or “presumptive” immunity, leaving no way to hold him accountable.
Roberts glides over such possibilities, focusing instead on the threat to presidential authority that allowing prosecution for “official acts” could pose. One of the charges against Trump, for example, alleges that he defrauded the United States, which is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison under 18 USC 371. Section 371, Roberts notes, “is a broadly worded criminal statute” that can cover “any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of Government.” Since “virtually every President is criticized for insufficiently enforcing some aspect of federal law,” he says, “an enterprising prosecutor in a new administration may assert that a previous President violated that broad statute.”
Without immunity, such prosecutions of former presidents “could quickly become routine,” Roberts worries. “The enfeebling of the Presidency and our Government that would result from such a cycle of factional strife is exactly what the Framers intended to avoid. Ignoring those risks, the dissents are instead content to leave the preservation of our system of separated powers up to the good faith of prosecutors.””
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“Barrett disagrees with the majority’s holding that “the Constitution limits the introduction of protected conduct as evidence in a criminal prosecution of a President, beyond the limits afforded by executive privilege.” In a bribery case, for example, the official act that a president allegedly performed in exchange for money would be clearly relevant in establishing his guilt. “Excluding from trial any mention of the official act connected to the bribe would hamstring the prosecution,” Barrett writes. “To make sense of charges alleging a quid pro quo, the jury must be allowed to hear about both the quid and the quo, even if the quo, standing alone, could not be a basis for the President’s criminal liability.”
In response, Roberts says “the prosecutor may point to the public record to show the fact that the President performed the official act” and may submit “evidence of what the President allegedly demanded, received, accepted, or agreed to receive or accept in return for being influenced in the performance of the act.” But the prosecutor may not offer “testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing the official act itself.””
“Did the social justice protests of 2020 cause a wave of police officers to leave the force? A recent study suggests the truth may not be so simple.
In May 2020, a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd by pinning him to the ground with his knee. When video of the encounter circulated online, the image of a white police officer nonchalantly kneeling atop a black man until he asphyxiated ignited a powder keg: Americans, stir-crazy from sheltering in place for the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, took to the streets to protest police brutality, in some cases violently.
The conventional wisdom says that amid a nationwide spike in crime and mounting protests in which demonstrators proclaimed that “all cops are bastards,” many officers simply gave in.”
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“A June 2021 survey from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) found a 45 percent increase in retirements in 2020–2021 when compared to the previous year, as well as an 18 percent rise in resignations.
But a new study from Duke University law professor Ben Grunwald challenges this narrative. To assess the validity of the claim that officers resigned en masse after the 2020 protests, Grunwald collected data “on every job held by every officer in all 6,800 local law enforcement agencies across fifteen states that, together, cover half the U.S. population.” That database came to encompass over 972,000 officers between the mid-1990s and 2022, though for the study, he focused only on 2011–2021.
Grunwald found that “the increase in separations” among those agencies “after the summer of 2020 was smaller, later, less sudden, and possibly less pervasive than the retention-crisis narrative suggests.”
“Separations were nearly stable in 2020 compared to the year before,” he writes, while “in 2021, separations increased by historically large numbers but substantially less than the most widely reported figures for that period.” Specifically, separations in 2020 increased “by less than 1% compared to 2019” while they “rose far more in 2021, by 18% relative to 2019.” Grunwald notes that while this increase “was historically unusual, larger than any two-year period in the previous decade,” it is also much smaller than the 2021 PERF study suggested, and about one-third of it “can be explained by pre-existing trends that long predate the events of 2020.”
“All told, the cumulative effect on aggregate employment by the end of 2021 was just 1%,” Grunwald concludes. “This was not because of increased lateral mobility [officers transferring to another department or another role within law enforcement], as some have wondered. Rather, [the database] shows that the vast majority of excess separations in 2021 were by officers leaving the field, at least for a while.” He does acknowledge, though, that “a substantial minority of large departments [those with 500 or more officers] were meaningfully hit, losing over 5% of staff by the end of 2021.””