Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds

UNITARY EXECUTIVE NEWS: “The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Donald Trump to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission despite a federal law.”

The fact that NBC News referred to the fired commissioners as “Democratic commissioners” gives away the game. According to Humphrey’s Executor, the idea was that “The commission is to be nonpartisan; and it must, from the very nature of its duties, act with entire impartiality.” And “It is charged with the enforcement of no policy except the policy of the law.”

Who even remembers to pretend that was supposed to be the idea these days?!

Not the press, who regard Democratic monopolies as inherently “nonpartisan.”

IT’S COME TO THIS:

Related thoughts here.

BRITAIN IS A WOKE SELF PARODY.

The Western ruling class really has descended into utter garbage.

IF ONLY IT WERE A JOKE.

Related:

WEIGHING IN:

Related:

#WINNING:

HE’LL BE MISSED: Paul Caron: My Last TaxProf Blog Post. “I have been puzzling over when would be the right time to stop. Typepad, the platform on which TaxProf Blog is hosted, made the decision for me when it announced on August 27th that it will discontinue all blogs effective September 30th. At this stage in my life, I am not interested in starting anew on a different platform. I hope to find another home for the massive content of my 55,780 TaxProf Blog posts. If I do, I will post the link on this post before September 30th and notify the subscribers to my tax and legal education email lists.”

That stinks. But I imagine after 21 years — I’ve been doing this for over 24 — it’s something of a relief, too. Anyway, thanks, Paul, for the great contribution you’ve made for all these years. You’ve done a lot for a lot of people, and not just in the tax world.

“PROSECUTORS KEPT TURNING THIS GUY LOOSE.” The Unspeakable Evil Progressives Have Unleashed Strikes in Charlotte.

“Progressives are always with big compassion for the guy with the knife.”

Related: Horror video of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska’s slaughter on Charlotte train is met with deafening silence from Dem leaders, media.

More on that silence here.

Flashback:

UPDATE: The Image That Killed the Democrats in 2026 and Beyond: “Right now, they’re trying to ignore it, the way they tried to pretend Hunter Biden’s laptop didn’t exist back in 2020.”

YEAH, PRETTY MUCH:

DAVID MASTIO: Dismal new job numbers might be a sign of Trump’s successes, not failures.

So far under Trump, federal government employment is down 97,000 jobs. It was down 15,000 jobs just in August and it is going to keep going down as those who have already been fired, but are still getting severances, still count as employed. State government employment in August was down 13,000 too, which may reflect cuts to state government grants. And those numbers come as parts of the federal government that Trump likes, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement are on unprecedented hiring sprees.

The Trump administration also has cut tens of billions of dollars (maybe hundreds of billions) in nonprofit grants, on which the government spends a fortune. The BLS doesn’t report monthly numbers in the nonprofit sector, but you can expect that these cuts are having a big impact in the government-adjacent parts of the economy. One clue in the data is that “Religious, grant-making, civic, professional and similar organizations” employment fell 3,000 in August. In recent months, the federal government has rounded up tens of thousands of often-employed undocumented immigrants all over the country in industries from construction and agriculture to transportation and manufacturing. That’s a net negative for job growth too. Employment among Hispanics was down 15,000 jobs in August according to the new BLS data. . . .

I am no fan of Trump’s mercantilist economic policies, but any analysis of these job numbers has to consider how much of this is a sign of MAGA success, not economic disaster.

Millei’s Argentina entered a short, sharp recession when his policies were enacted before roaring back.

Related: Joel Kotkin: Don’t judge Trump’s economic agenda on one jobs report.

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.