Negative 1.4 percent real quarterly GDP growth and 8 percent inflation. What a combination. If the Fed raises interest rates to combat the inflation, it makes the growth problem worse. If the Fed eases interest rates to combat the negative growth, it makes the inflation problem worse. Likewise with Congressional spending as a form of fiscal stimulus for the economy, which Biden has pushing under the "Build Back Better" rubric. It looks a lot like later Carter or early Reagan. You can blame it on the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 pandemic or on the energy price effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, but it's an unpleasant combination even so, both for Biden's political hopes and for the household finances of American consumers.

Missile defense is the topic of my column this week. Please check it out at Newsmax ("We Could Use Missile Defense Biden Derided as 'Naive Dream'") and at the New York Sun ("Biden Leaves America Vulnerable by Shortchanging Missile Defense").

The most newsworthy political campaign commercial of 2022 may be the one recently released by Congressman Tim Ryan, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Ohio.

"It is us versus China," Mr. Ryan says. "Capitalism versus communism. I'm not backing down, are you?"

Please read the rest of the column at the New York Sun under the headline, "Democrat Ryan, Republican Rubio Press Harder Line Against Communist China."

A recent column of mine looked at announced decisions by the Ford Foundation, by Yale's endowment, and by New York State pension funds to divest from fossil fuels. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("Costly Fossil Fuel Divestment Leaves Foundations Looking Foolish") and at the New York Sun ("Fossil-Fuel Divestment Decisions Prove Costly, Ill-Timed").

The clash between Florida Governor DeSantis and Disney over what critics call the "don't say gay" law is the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at Reason ("Republicans Taking Aim at Disney Is a Reminder That Both Parties Are Hostile to Free Speech"), at the New York Sun ("Who's a Bigger Danger to Liberty Than Even Woke Corporations?"), and at Newsmax ("Why a Woke Disney Irks DeSantis.")

The president's second try at the Biden-Wyden wealth tax is the topic of my column this week. Please read the full column at Reason ("Biden Is Trying To Pass a Wealth Tax—Again. It Could Be Unconstitutional."), at the New York Sun ("Biden-Wyden Wealth Tax Sequel Just as Bad as Original Publicity Stunt"), and at Newsmax ("Biden-Wyden Wealth Tax Returns, as a Rebranded Publicity Stunt").

"Biden's Budget Tilts Priorities Toward Center"—front page news headline, New York Times, March 29, 2022.

"So much for President Biden's pivot to the political middle. The fiscal 2023 budget he unveiled Monday re-proposes most of the bad ideas that haven't passed Congress and adds a new one—a tax on wealth that he refused to endorse as a candidate in 2020. On the economy, he's pivoting further left—presumably to fire up sullen progressives in November." — Wall Street Journal editorial, "Biden's Big New Wealth Tax," March 29, 2022.

Another good reminder of the importance of reading more than one newspaper. What counts as the "center" and what counts as "left" can depend on, or disclose something about, where the person ascribing the label stands.

Russia's genocide against Ukraine in 1933, and the American lack of response at the time, were the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("Putin's War May Not Solve Russia's Ukraine Problem") and at the New York Sun ("Century of Russification, American Inaction Are Context for Putin's War.").

In Tablet, Jacob Siegel takes an illuminating and skeptical look at the burgeoning industry of fact-checking, asking, "Who are you going to believe, the Democratic Party's new official-unofficial, public-private monopoly tech platform censorship brigade, or your misinformed, disinformed eyes?"

A New York Times front-page news article reports, "One of the senior Manhattan prosecutors who investigated Donald J. Trump believed that the former president was 'guilty of numerous felony violations' and that it was 'a grave failure of justice' not to hold him accountable, according to a copy of his resignation letter."

The Fifth Amendment says "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury." The Sixth Amendment says "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

A New York Times infographic and article about the $13.6 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine reports that the package approved by Congress includes "$25 million to combat disinformation and support independent journalism." It's a puzzle to me how the New York Times accepts without any skeptical questioning the idea that U.S.-government funded journalism is "independent." One might point out that if the $25 million in government funding is necessary, the journalism isn't in fact "independent," it is dependent, on U.S. government funding.

The connection between the Ukraine-Russia war and American inaction in response to Syria's use of chemical weapons is the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("How the Ukraine War Actually Began in Syria") and at the New York Sun ("Ukraine War Began With American Weakness on Syria").

Bernie Nussbaum, the former White House Counsel to President Clinton, died earlier this week. The phrase that always comes to my mind in connection with him is from his mother: "He should have listened to my Bernie." (As quoted by Jonathan Mahler in a column that appeared in the Forward of January 30, 1998. "Imagine a strong Yiddish accent here," Mahler wrote.) She was referring to Nussbaum's advice to Clinton not to appoint an independent counsel for Whitewater. Had Clinton taken the advice rather than disregarded it, a successful presidency might have even been more so, and subsequent presidents might have been emboldened rather than constrained. (See Trump and Mueller.)

For those interested in Nussbaum, the Clintons, New York, and politics in general I highly commend Nussbaum's oral history interview available at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. Among other things it reports that Mario Cuomo was offered the Supreme Court seat that ultimately went to Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

The New Yorker has a David Remnick interview with Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor, New Yorker contributor, and eminent scholar of Afro-American studies:

because my dad worked two jobs—in the daytime, at the paper mill, and then as a janitor at the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company—he had the highest income of any Black person in Piedmont. We had the nicest house. Wealth and poverty are always relative. In that context, we were in the Black upper-middle class.

Why was Yale such a paradise for you?

Olympic athletes whose parents were also Olympic athletes were the topic of a recent column of mine. Please check out the full column at the New York Sun: "Will Congress Take Aim at Legacy Olympians?"