Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Rasmussen just came out at 51% Approval despite the Fake News Media. They were one of the three most accurate on Election Day. Just about the most inaccurate were CNN and ABC News/Washington Post, and they haven’t changed (get new pollsters). Much of the media is a Scam!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2018

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In my opinion, the most important sources of moral disagreements are disagreements about what conditional or unconditional predictions—whether deterministic or probabilisitic [sic] predictions—to make about future empirical facts. For example, we cannot expect a moral consensus in our society as long as we strongly disagree on what the likely effects of the conventional anti-inflationary policies will be in somewhat unusual economic situations, for which no real historical precedents may exist; or on what the long-run effects of continuing inflation will be on our social institutions; or on how our children will be affected in the long run by an increased emphasis on 'creativity', and a decreased emphasis on 'intellectual excellence', in our schools; or on whether a greater pressure on certain despotic regimes will speed up or rather slow down their hoped-for liberalization and democratization, etc. No doubt, further progress in human psychology, in the social sciences, and, in some cases, in the natural sciences, will give clearer answers to some of these problems than now are available to us. But open problems of this type will always remain with us—partly because the very solution of some of these problems will give rise to new ones. By solving some of these problems a radically new historical situation is created, and even if we have learned how to make predictions in the old situation, this may not help us very much in making predictions in the new one. Keynesian economics has enabled us to make much better predictions about the effects of various economic policies in conditions of mass unemployment. By this means, it has also enabled us to eliminate these very conditions, and to create a completely novel economic situation of continuing high employment, in which Keynesian predictions may no longer work.

(John C. Harsanyi, "Nonlinear Social Welfare Functions: Do Welfare Economists Have a Special Exemption from Bayesian Rationality?" Theory and Decision 6 [August 1975]: 311-32, at 329-30 [endnotes omitted])

See here for an upcoming conference.

Passion (1987).

You will be called upon to celebrate some good news.

Here.

Here.

Donald Trump's approval rating is 51%. Barack Obama's approval rating at the same point of his presidency was 47%.

Here is Kurt Schlichter's latest column.

The Department of Homeland Security is compiling a list of media professionals and top media influencers. As an American who believes in a free press and freedom of speech, I find this alarming as well as a potential threat to our democracy.

President Donald Trump's constant assault on media professionals and his labeling of stories he doesn't like as fake news has set a dangerous precedent, and the Homeland Security list seems poised to further discredit our media.

I want my elected officials to know how concerned and alarmed I am about the potential abuse this presents. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are cornerstones of our democracy; I urge my representatives to please defend them.

Bill Rozen • Chesterfield