Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Two serious countries joining a treaty isn't two more names on a mailing list. Finland has an artillery culture, conscription it never abandoned, and eight hundred miles of border with the problem. Sweden has industry and a navy that already knew the Baltic. That's strengthening if we mean mass, geography, and … Continue reading Should Finland and Sweden’s move toward NATO be treated as a durable strengthening of the alliance, or as a new set of defense obligations the United States is not ready to resource?
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What should the federal response be to the infant-formula shortage, and does it expose dangerous concentration in a regulated food category?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — A baby doesn't eat a press conference, and that's the whole test. One plant that supplied a very large share of the WIC and retail market went down in February, the agency was slow and then loud, and the remaining handful of producers couldn't cover a category the rules had … Continue reading What should the federal response be to the infant-formula shortage, and does it expose dangerous concentration in a regulated food category?
Have the January 6 committee hearings changed the public’s understanding of executive responsibility after an election, or mainly hardened existing camps?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — I watched pieces of these the way I read a markup, looking for a sentence I could use. What I got was a miniseries. People who already believed the last president tried to break the transfer watched the clips and said so. People who already believed the institutions never accepted 2016 … Continue reading Have the January 6 committee hearings changed the public’s understanding of executive responsibility after an election, or mainly hardened existing camps?
Is the summer 2021 labor shortage a temporary residual of enhanced unemployment and school disruption, or evidence that reservation wages have shifted in a lasting way?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Help Wanted in a window and a federal supplement that still competes with a shift isn't a mystery of the human soul. It's a residual with a date on it. Reservation wages can move. People who spent a year staring at a kitchen table may want more money or a different … Continue reading Is the summer 2021 labor shortage a temporary residual of enhanced unemployment and school disruption, or evidence that reservation wages have shifted in a lasting way?
Should the United States condition COVID-era IP waivers and booster diplomacy on actual manufacturing capacity in partner countries, or treat waivers as a moral gesture regardless of fill-finish?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — A waiver that can't fill a vial is a press release, and press releases don't lower a curve in a country without fill-finish capacity, cold chain, or a regulator who can release a lot. Intellectual property isn't a vial. It's a recipe plus a factory plus a quality system, and … Continue reading Should the United States condition COVID-era IP waivers and booster diplomacy on actual manufacturing capacity in partner countries, or treat waivers as a moral gesture regardless of fill-finish?
Should social-media platforms’ post-2020 amplification and suppression decisions trigger common-carrier rules, or remain a matter of private discretion and advertiser pressure?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — Private discretion that can remove a sitting president and suppress a newspaper's reporting in the same season is not a coffee shop. A common-carrier rule that treats a ranking algorithm as a telephone line will be captured by whichever office writes it. So the honest menu is unattractive in both … Continue reading Should social-media platforms’ post-2020 amplification and suppression decisions trigger common-carrier rules, or remain a matter of private discretion and advertiser pressure?
As U.S. forces leave Afghanistan toward a September deadline, should Congress reassert statutory requirements for evacuation planning and equipment accountability, or accept that limited wars end in messy improvisation?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — A deadline isn't a plan. A plan is a list of people you won't leave and a list of equipment you won't gift to whoever holds the road in October. Limited wars do end messy. Messy isn't a permission slip to treat interpreters as weather. Congress should write the dull requirements … Continue reading As U.S. forces leave Afghanistan toward a September deadline, should Congress reassert statutory requirements for evacuation planning and equipment accountability, or accept that limited wars end in messy improvisation?
Is the first-year tax-and-climate reconciliation draft a durable industrial policy, or a credit stack that will be relitigated when inflation is no longer “transitory”?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — Industrial policy that lasts looks like a plant and a rule a banker can still use after a House flips. A credit stack looks like a catalogue with timers. This draft is a catalogue. Climate pages are credits and adders and approved equipment. Tax pages are rates that will be … Continue reading Is the first-year tax-and-climate reconciliation draft a durable industrial policy, or a credit stack that will be relitigated when inflation is no longer “transitory”?
Should schools that remain remote or hybrid into the 2021–22 year face federal funding consequences tied to learning-loss metrics, or is that an intrusion on local control?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Local control is a real value and it isn't a shield for a second lost year after the emergency year already happened. Vaccines are available to every adult who wants one. Pediatric risk was never the intensive-care story. Learning loss is now measured rather than theorized. Federal money already comes with … Continue reading Should schools that remain remote or hybrid into the 2021–22 year face federal funding consequences tied to learning-loss metrics, or is that an intrusion on local control?
After Colonial Pipeline and JBS, should ransomware against critical infrastructure be treated as a national-security event with offensive options, or remain a criminal matter for firms and the FBI?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — When a pipeline stops and a meat packer stops, you're not in a fraud unit anymore. You're in a country that just learned a criminal group can ration fuel and supper. Criminal casework still matters — attribution, the wallet, the employee who opened the attachment. What can't stay is the … Continue reading After Colonial Pipeline and JBS, should ransomware against critical infrastructure be treated as a national-security event with offensive options, or remain a criminal matter for firms and the FBI?
