Over the past decade federal military and intelligence agencies have increasingly embraced so-called woke campaigns and policy positions. Specifically, these government agencies have taken explicitly ideological positions in promoting “pride month” and more recruitment of larger numbers of gay and transgender personnel explicitly for purposes of increasing “diversity.” Actual military concerns appear to be receding into the background even as the US military establishment has recently lost yet another war and blown trillions of taxpayer dollars.

In The Broken Constitution, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021) Noah Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law School, argues that Abraham Lincoln criticized consent theories of government which allow the legitimacy of secession and defended in their stead majoritarian democracy. In this week’s column, I’d like to look at Lincoln’s argument against these theories.

Feldman says that the

The US Senate continues to debate legislation potentially adding women to the military draft in the United States. This week, for instance, Senator Josh Hawley attempted to remove from the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act provisions requiring that “all Americans” (aged 18-25) register for the draft.

November’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting finally brought the long sought-after tapering. This month, instead of unleashing $120 billion into the market to lower the purchasing power of the dollar, the Fed will aim for closer to only $105 billion per month; hence the taper. As per usual, the Q & A highlights offer great insight into seeing just how far gone the Fed is from economic theory.