Free Republic

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is appearing to be having technical difficulties as he acknowledged Wednesday on Twitter that his IP address had been "compromised" and used to "download child pornography." "Well, I’m on the phone with my computer security service, and as I understand it someone compromised my IP address and is using it to download child pornography," Krugman wrote in the tweet. "I might just be a random target. But this could be an attempt to Qanon me. It’s an ugly world out there." Qanon is a reference to the group of conspiracy theorists who in recent...

Well, I’m on the phone with my computer security service, and as I understand it someone compromised my IP address and is using it to download child pornography. I might just be a random target. But this could be an attempt to Qanon me. It’s an ugly world out there.

Peak Trump Derangement Syndrome hysteria in full swing among mainstream media Economist and New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman suggested Friday evening that “thousands of journalists” will end up imprisoned because of the administration or President Donald Trump goes to jail.A formal impeachment inquiry was launched Tuesday after news that Trump had asked Ukrainian officials to look into Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter regarding business dealings in the country. The transcript of this phone call was held in a special computer system for sensitive calls, according to the NYT.The White House restricted access to other phone calls between...

Whoever came up with the phrase “useful idiots” — it’s often credited to Lenin, but there’s no evidence he ever said it — was on to something. There are times when dangerous political movements derive important support from people who will, if these movements achieve and hold power, be among their biggest victims. Certainly I found myself thinking of the phrase when I read about the Trump fund-raiser held at the Hamptons home of Stephen Ross, chairman of a company that holds controlling stakes in Equinox and SoulCycle.Most reporting on the Ross event has focused on the possible adverse effects on his business empire:...

And now it is Tom Friedman’s turn to panic about the Democrats’ sharp turn to the left. Savor some yummy samples from his column yesterday: I’m struck at how many people have come up to me recently and said, “Trump’s going to get re-elected, isn’t he?” And in each case, when I drilled down to ask why, I bumped into the Democratic presidential debates in June. I think a lot of Americans were shocked by some of the things they heard there. I was. I was shocked that so many candidates in the party whose nominee I was planning to...

As far as I know, the Federal Reserve — the world’s most important economic policy institution — doesn’t have an anthem. But if it were to adopt one now, the choice would be obvious: “Send In the Clowns.” You see, the Fed’s governing board currently has two vacancies, and Donald Trump has proposed filling those vacancies with ludicrous hacks. If he succeeds, one of our few remaining havens of serious, nonpartisan policymaking will be on its way toward becoming as corrupt and dysfunctional as the rest of the Trump administration. Stephen Moore and Herman Cain are, of course, completely unqualified...

There’s a lot we don’t know about the legacy Donald Trump will leave behind. And it is, of course, hugely important what happens in the 2020 election. But one thing seems sure: Even if he’s a one-term president, Trump will have caused, directly or indirectly, the premature deaths of a large number of Americans. Some of those deaths will come at the hands of right-wing, white nationalist extremists, who are a rapidly growing threat, partly because they feel empowered by a president who calls them “very fine people.” Some will come from failures of governance, like the inadequate response to...

“Our anti-semites are better than your anti-semites” feels like a bold new frontier in modern partisan tribalism. Trump should have tried that spin after Charlottesville. As it is, at least he allowed that there were “very fine people” on both sides. As Jeryl Bier says, to Krugs it seems there are very fine anti-semites on only one side.

I have no idea how well Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will perform as a member of Congress. But her election is already serving a valuable purpose. You see, the mere thought of having a young, articulate, telegenic nonwhite woman serve is driving many on the right mad — and in their madness they’re inadvertently revealing their true selves. […] The controversy of the moment involves AOC’s advocacy of a tax rate of 70-80 percent on very high incomes, which is obviously crazy, right? I mean, who thinks that makes sense? Only ignorant people like … um, Peter Diamond, Nobel laureate in economics...

The midterm elections were, to an important extent, a referendum on the Affordable Care Act; health care, not Donald Trump, dominated Democratic campaigning. And voters delivered a clear verdict: They want Obamacare’s achievements, the way it expanded coverage to roughly 20 million people who would otherwise have been uninsured, to be sustained. But on Friday, Reed O’Connor, a partisan Republican judge known for “weaponizing” his judicial power, declared the A.C.A. as a whole — protection for pre-existing conditions, subsidies to help families afford coverage, and the Medicaid expansion — unconstitutional. Legal experts from both right and left ridiculed his reasoning...

Economist Paul Krugman warned of a new “axis of evil” this week that includes Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the U.S. Former President George W. Bush once spoke of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil” due to the actions of dictatorial regimes, long trains of humanitarian abuses and gulags. The new trifecta of evil, Mr. Krugman says, earn the designation for resisting reports on the severity of climate change. “There’s a new axis of evil: Russia, Saudi Arabia — and the United States,” the New York Times columnist tweeted Monday while sharing a piece by The Washington...

Nobel Prize winning Economist Paul Krugman (MIT, Princeton) opines on the future demographics of America: "The real craziness in America comes from, if you like, rural white Americans who feel their power is going away, that they are losing their ownership of their country, and they're right; we're becoming more diverse, more multicultural. Rural whites are not the future. In the end the power they still have will go away. But it's still very difficult until that happens. The future is Mayor Bill DeBlasio of New York, but there is still Ted Cruz out there, and he still has tremendous...

New York Times opinion writer and economist Paul Krugman predicted early Wednesday morning that the stock market will “never” recover from Donald Trump’s presidential victory, only to be proven spectacularly wrong in less than a day. Instead of collapsing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to an all-time high shortly before the closing bell. Futures markets imploded Tuesday night as soon as it became apparent Trump was likely to win. At their nadir, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped 750 points. At that point, Krugman chose to release a blog post in which he predicted these jitters...

Kavanaugh Will Kill the Constitution The legitimacy of the Supreme Court is on the line. By Paul Krugman Opinion Columnist Sept. 6, 2018 At a fundamental level, the attempt to jam Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court closely resembles the way Republicans passed a tax cut last year. Once again we see a rushed, nakedly partisan process, with G.O.P. leaders withholding much of the information that’s supposed to go into congressional deliberations. Once again the outcome is all too likely to rest on pure tribalism: Unless some Republicans develop a very late case of conscience, they will vote along party...

“What’s in a name?” asked Shakespeare. But hey, I’m an economist, so let me ask a somewhat different question: What’s in a number? Quite a lot, suggest Senators Chuck Schumer and Martin Heinrich. This week they introduced a bill that would direct the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which produces estimates of gross domestic product, to produce estimates telling us who benefits from growth — for example, how much is going to the middle class. This is a really good idea. Now, I’m not one of those people who think G.D.P. is a terribly flawed or useless statistic. It’s a number...

RUSH: How many of you have gone out and tried to buy health insurance lately? Have you been surprised by any of it? Well, I’m asking you out there because there is stunning news — beta 9 just dropped if you want to go — you’ve got it, okay. There’s a story here Investor’s Business Daily. Well, Investors. It used to be Investor’s Business Daily, but they have modernized.“Media Ignore Record Low Increase In Obamacare Premiums.” Anybody want to guess why? I wonder if any of you who have tried to buy health insurance lately have been shocked at how...

Friday’s outing of longtime CIA and MI6 asset Stefan Halper as an FBI asset sent to infiltrate the Trump campaign has social media abuzz today. Reactions have ranged from celebration to outrage, with little inbetween. To recap, after two weeks of hunting for a “mole” in the Trump campaign, the New York Times and Washington Post both printed incredibly detailed descriptions of Halper – withholding all but his name, solidly corroborating a March report by the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross about Halper’s meetings with the Trump aides. Neither publication give Ross credit, of course. Somehow several anti-Trump intellectuals got their...

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A G.O.P. presidential candidate loses the popular vote, but somehow ends up in the White House anyway. Despite his dubious legitimacy, his allies in Congress take advantage of his election to ram through a huge tax cut that blows up the budget deficit while disproportionately benefiting the wealthy. While the big bucks go to the big incomes, however, the tax bill does throw some crumbs at the middle class, and Republicans try to sell the bill as a boon to working families. So far this account applies equally to George W. Bush and...

In Krugman’s NYT article, he arrogantly states: It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear. Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never. Under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all...

Many of us came into 2017 expecting the worst. And the worst is what we got. Donald Trump has been every bit as horrible as one might have expected; he continues to prove himself utterly unfit for office, morally and intellectually. And the Republican Party turns out to be composed entirely of cynical apparatchiks, willing to sell out every principle — and every shred of their own dignity — as long as their donors get big tax cuts. Yet I’m ending this year with a feeling of hope, because tens of millions of Americans have risen to the occasion. The...