New York Times has-been Paul Krugman had enough trouble trying to sell his bona fides as a serious economist without making himself look more foolish mucking about with issues beyond his imaginary expertise. Federal law as it pertained to the president’s ability to fire Federal Reserve governors is no exception. Krugman took to his unhinged Substack blog to kvetch August 26 over President Donald Trump’s so-called “illegal” act of firing Fed governor Lisa Cook on grounds pertaining to potential mortgage fraud. “I’m not a lawyer,” wrote Krugman (no kidding), “but it seems clear that he does not have the right to summarily fire Fed officials, certainly on tissue-thin allegations of mortgage fraud before she even went to the Fed.”  Apparently he’s never read Section 10 of the Federal Reserve Act, which gave the President power to fire Fed governors if “cause” was shown. In fact, the Federal Reserve Act wasn’t even mentioned once throughout his entire piece. But Krugman just ran with his bonkers premise and spewed that Trump would be tantamount to a dictator of his firing of Cook is allowed to stand: If Powell caves, or the Supreme Court acts supine again and validates Trump’s illegal declaration, the implications will be profound and disastrous. The United States will be well on its way to becoming Turkey, where an authoritarian ruler imposed his crackpot economics on the central bank, sending inflation soaring to 80 percent. Seriously, all that was needed for Krugman was a simple search to find the text of the Federal Reserve Act, which stipulates that “thereafter each member [of the Board of Governors] shall hold office for a term of fourteen years from the expiration of the term of his predecessor, unless sooner removed for cause by the President.” Eureka!  But aside from Krugman’s clear ignorance, his disingenuous heebie-jeebies over the supposed Turkish economic implications of firing Cook were beyond ridiculous, and the markets weren’t buying it, as National Review pointed out August 27. But for Krugman, “And the damage will be felt far beyond the Fed. This will mark the destruction of professionalism and independent thinking throughout the federal government.” Krugman acted as if the only reason why Trump could potentially fire Cook was because the Supreme Court said back in May 2025 that he could only do so with “cause,” pretending like the Federal Reserve Act — which had been on the books since 1913 — didn’t exist: The Supreme Court, shamefully, has said that Trump has the authority to fire officials at will throughout the federal government, effectively eviscerating the principle of a professional civil service. But even the Court specifically carved out protections for Fed governors, saying that they can only be removed ‘for cause.’ Oy vey. No Krugman, the Court didn’t carve this out. It’s already a standing law!  The disgruntled economist proceeded to dismiss the serious allegations of mortgage fraud against Cook. “Even if true, this accusation wouldn’t meet the standard for immediate dismissal from the Fed.” Wait, what! Cook being found guilty of crime wouldn't be disqualifying? Is Krugman suggesting that he wouldn't have an issue with a potential criminal serving on the Fed's Board of Governors? The brain hurt is just devastating. On the substance — as usual — Krugman’s wrong again. As CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, an actual "lawyer," concluded about Cook’s shady behavior during the August 29 edition of CNN’s The Arena:  Now, why would someone do all this? Because you get better interest rates. Because you get better tax benefits. That can be worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars … I think that the allegations on their face could be enough for a judge to say, ‘Look, I'm going to defer to the president on cause.’      Get off the computer Krugman and maybe go touch grass for once in your life.

Some parents abuse their kids. Child welfare workers are supposed to stop that to protect the kids. But bad things often happen while they watch. “Children have a right to safety,” says Tim Keller. “If home is a danger, we as a society have to step in and protect those children.” Keller, legal director of the Center for the Rights of Abused Children, is a libertarian. “It’s surprising to hear a libertarian argue that government should do more,” I tell him. “We don’t like the state involved in family life,” he replies in my new video, but “they’re leaving children in dangerous situations.” Lots of parents abuse kids, even when they are on Child Protective Services’ radar. Maybe it happens because child welfare workers are told, “Whenever possible, keep families together.” That’s U.S. policy, and Keller says it wrecks lives. But Columbia Law School professor Josh Gupta-Kagan wants welfare workers to take fewer kids from their homes. “The horror stories go in all directions,” he says. In Massachusetts, after parents brought their young son to the hospital with a fever and X-rays revealed an old, healing rib fracture, child welfare workers took both him and his brother away from their home. They returned the boys after four weeks, but those were a traumatic four weeks. It happens because American law requires social workers, doctors, nurses, teachers, and other professionals to report anything suspicious. Those who don’t report may be fined or even jailed. Gupta-Kagan says this leads health care workers to report too many instances of possible abuse. “See something, say something. It’s surveillance, investigatory, and sometimes it leads to an unnecessary separation.” Those can be as traumatic as abuse. “About 37% of all children are going to be the subject of a CPS hotline call. Fifty-three percent of all African American children. ... Where my clients live ... the CPS agency is a constant presence. ... Folks are scared of them.” “We certainly don’t want a situation where we’re going to say, ‘We’re not going to protect this child because he is African American,’” replies Keller. “But 2,000 children a year are dying in their homes, and most of those are known to Child Protective Services.” Gupta-Kagan disagrees: “I don’t think I’ve seen any evidence that removing more children from parents saves lives. Child fatality numbers, unfortunately, have remained stubborn.” In 2023, more than 100,000 kids were taken from their homes. Still, about 2,000 die from abuse or neglect. Child welfare workers are overwhelmed. “Millions of CPS hotline calls coming in,” says Gupta-Kagan. “If you want to find the needle in the haystack, we have to stop putting so much hay on the stack.” Texas recently changed the definition of “neglect” to say that kids must be in “immediate” danger of harm before a child can be taken. As a result, Texas now has far fewer children removed from their homes. Keller calls that a mistake. “By the time a child is in imminent harm, they’ve already suffered so much trauma.” Keller, who has been a foster parent himself, wants more kids taken from their biological parents and put in foster homes, sooner. “That child only gets one childhood. We need to make sure that that child is in a safe, loving, permanent home as quickly as we can.” That’s a noble goal. It’s horrible when kids are abused. But some foster parents are abusive. This is one conflict where I have no idea who is right. Government is best when it governs least. But when children are abused, we want the government to step in. What do you think?

On Wednesday's The Last Word on MSNBC, fill-in host Ali Velshi gave a forum to Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) to rant against the expression of "f**king thoughts and prayers" after the school shooting in Minneapolis. Velshi also made a wildly inaccurate claim that children are most likely to be at school if they die. The MSNBC host began by cuing up his Democrat guest:     You expressed a sentiment very far from thoughts and prayers. You said, "These children were probably praying when they were shot to death at Catholic school. Don't give us your F-ing thoughts and prayers. Trump got rid of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Trump gutted the resources that were in place to keep our communities safe." You, like my friend Jen Psaki, have had it with the thoughts and prayers. Congressman Maxwell complained about the Donald Trump administration cutting funding for some of the programs started during the Joe Biden administration, charged that President Trump does not care about shootings, and even took a shot at pro-lifers: Donald Trump is pro-gun violence. We have to be very straight up about what's going on in this country right now, and we can't beat around the bush and assume best intentions. And I brought this up in a committee hearing with Virginia Foxx, and I brought up that they call themselves pro-lifers, but they do nothing about the fact that we have children dying in school. A bit later, he added: "Before I was a politician, I was an activist crying with legislators...So for me it's less about changing the minds of these politicians, and it's about changing the politicians themselves because for my entire life these people have not done shit." Velshi even tried to give him a pep talk by saying "what you've done is, through March for Our Lives, it did change things" and serve as "a turning point in which the forces in favor of common sense gun safety overtook the other forces in terms of the money" and "it's better than being locked down and thinking nothing can be done." In one of his follow-ups, Velshi made an exaggerated claim about how many children die at school:     There was a post from March for Our Lives which said, "Today little kids at Annunciation Catholic School were forced into a club that no child should ever join. It's a f---ed up club, and it's growing because our so-called leaders refuse to act. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in America." Read that again. "Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in America. And every day they refuse to act, more children are sacrificed." We're worried about vaccines and mRNA, we got troops in the streets of Washington, D.C., to prepare for safety, and yet, if you're a kid in America, your likelihood of dying is greatest at school. Transcript follows. Click expand to read. MSNBC's The Last Word August 27, 2025 10:21 p.m. Eastern ALI VELSHI: You expressed a sentiment very far from thoughts and prayers. You said, "These children were probably praying when they were shot to death at Catholic school. Don't give us your F-ing thoughts and prayers. Trump got rid of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Trump gutted the resources that were in place to keep our communities safe." You, like my friend Jen Psaki, have had it with the thoughts and prayers. CONGRESSMAN MAXWELL FROST (D-FL): Yeah, and thanks for having me on. We -- we've had it with the thoughts and prayers for years and for decades. VELSHI: Yep, yep! FROST: I mean, I got involved in politics when I was 15 years old because I didn't want to get shot in school. Now, I'm 28, and we're still dealing with the same thing over and over and over again. And we got some good stuff done during the last administration -- during the Biden administration -- the White House Office of Violence Prevention, the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, gun violence was going down, and then Trump comes in and on day two he gets rid of the office. And over the last several months, he's been getting rid of all these programs and all this funding -- even mental health programs for schools so we can help communities even after these shootings happen, too. Donald Trump is pro-gun violence. We have to be very straight up about what's going on in this country right now, and we can't beat around the bush and assume best intentions. And I brought this up in a committee hearing with Virginia Foxx, and I brought up that they call themselves pro-lifers, but they do nothing about the fact that we have children dying in school. And so it's just like -- I'm sorry my thoughts are all over the place, but it's just frustrating that it happens again and again and again in this nation. And the question is: When are we going to actually do something? And I've spent so much time, man, in meetings with politicians. Before I was a politician, I was an activist crying with legislators, them hugging us, saying, "Don't worry, we're going to do something," and then they do the same thing that they've always done. So, for me, it's less about changing the minds of these politicians, and it's about changing the politicians themselves because for my entire life these people have not done shit. VELSHI: Although, what you've done is, through March for Our Lives, it did change things. It was a turning point in which the forces in favor of common sense gun safety overtook the other forces in terms of the money they were able to put in in terms of putting candidates up. So, your thoughts maybe be over the place tonight, but it's better than being locked down and thinking nothing can be done. This doesn't have to keep happening. (....) 10:25 p.m. Eastern VELSHI: There was a post from March for Our Lives which said, "Today little kids at Annunciation Catholic School were forced into a club that no child should ever join. It's a f---ed up club, and it's growing because our so-called leaders refuse to act. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in America." Read that again. "Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in America. And every day they refuse to act, more children are sacrificed." We're worried about vaccines and mRNA, we got troops in the streets of Washington, D.C., to prepare for safety, and yet, if you're a kid in America, your likelihood of dying is greatest at school. FROST: And I like to spell it out even clearer for -- for parents especially. If God forbid your child died tomorrow, the most likely reason would be because of bullets. That's the country we live in. That's the decisions that Republican politicians have made time and time again. And about politicizing stuff, I remember 10 years ago, as a teenager in this movement, myself and a bunch of my friends got this sticker that we put on the back of our ID -- and I always think about this sticker. And it said: "If I die due to a shooting, politicize the hell out of my death to make sure it never happens again." VELSHI: And we saw a little of that in Florida. We saw the families saying, "my child didn't die in vain. We are not going to let this go."

This week, Axios ran a fascinating piece about the supposed “redefinition” of Americanism under President Donald Trump. Titled “Inside Trump’s American identity project,” Axios posited that “President Trump is wielding government power to enforce a more rigid, exclusionary definition of what it means to be American.” What would this new definition entail? “In MAGA’s telling, America is the heir to ancient European civilizations, built on a Judeo-Christian foundation of white identity, meritocracy, traditional gender roles and the nuclear family,” says Axios. “These tenets are cast as universal truths — and mantras such as ‘America is an idea’ or ‘diversity is our strength’ are dismissed as liberal fictions.” First off, America is heir to ancient European civilizations — particularly with reference to private property, the common law system, traditions of free speech and freedom of religion, among others. Second, America is built on a Judeo-Christian foundation. Third, America is built on the meritocracy, which argues that the best and most productive ought to succeed in a free system. America is built on traditional gender roles and the nuclear family, as is every successful society in history. While America is an idea — or a set of ideas — those ideas must be reified in institutions and human behavior. And the notion that any nation can be built on a completely specious phrase like “diversity is our strength” is counterintuitive at best. So, what is Axios attempting to do? Axios is attempting to link actual traditional definitions of Americanism with white supremacy. Never mind that all the ideas Axios cites as “traditional” fundamentally reject ethnic identitarianism: equality before law, for example, presumes racial indifference; Judeo-Christian religion rejects racial classification; the meritocracy is definitionally opposed to racial preferences; and traditional gender roles and the nuclear family are institutions held in common by people of all races. The goal is simple: a forced choice between “racism” and a left-wing definition of Americanism that bears zero weight. This, presumably, is the real drive behind the left’s opposition to much of Trump’s policy. The same Axios piece posits that the Trump administration’s decision to screen incoming immigrants for “anti-American” ideology ought to be seen as an outgrowth of nativism rather than common sense; that opposition to radical sexual politics in our nation’s military is a manifestation of bigotry rather than reason; that restoration of classicism in architecture represents a return to racial exclusivity rather than taste. As the authors write, “MAGA’s utopia looks a lot like America in the 1950s — before the sexual revolution, mass immigration, the Civil Rights Act and expanded LGBTQ rights reshaped the country’s culture and demographics.” Well, actually, MAGA’s utopia looks mostly like what most Americans think of as the American dream: upward mobility, solid family structure, safety in the streets, decent education, and a vibrant social fabric complete with community and church. The fact that so many on the left — and in the media — find this vision to be irredeemably “racist” demonstrates their utter disconnect with most Americans. And it’s why Trump is president for the second time. Ben Shapiro is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author. To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

On Monday’s PBS News Hour, co-anchor Amna Nawaz discussed the latest arrest of the media’s favorite Maryland man, illegal immigrant and alleged gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, mistakenly deported to El Salvador and held in prison there before being ordered returned to the United States: NAWAZ: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident whose deportation sparked scrutiny of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, was arrested again this morning during a meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore….Before his arrest, Abrego Garcia spoke to a crowd of reporters. GARCIA [through interpreter]: To all the families who have suffered separations and who live constantly under the threat of being separated, I want to tell you, even though injustice is hitting us hard, we do not lose faith. Nawaz was joined by Garcia's attorney and the first question was a typical PBS softball about the figure who has bizarrely yet predictably become a liberal icon: “What can you tell us about where your client is right now and how he and his family are doing?” Later, Monday political discussion with NPR’s Tamara Keith and pollster Amy Walter also brought up Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants as a cudgel against him (though Nawaz did admit it helped Trump get elected again). NAWAZ: Well, we know the immigration debate, Tam, obviously was a big part of what helped to propel President Trump back into office. We reported earlier on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is now facing a second deportation, this time to Uganda, a country to which he has no connection. And this one case has become sort of emblematic of the entire Trump administration's approach. But when you look at how people are viewing that approach, there's a new Economist/YouGov poll that shows, on immigration, president has a 43 percent approval rating and a 53 percent disapproval rating. Do those numbers say to you that people feel like he's gone too far? Keith made an interesting, unwitting admission about how the media emphasizes liberal “sob stories” in its coverage of the illegal immigration crackdown.     You know, when President Trump sat down with Meet the Press with Kristen Welker before he even took office, he talked about his immigration policy and he said that there was a risk that there were going to be stories of families or people that were sob stories that get put on television and those stories are going to affect the perception that people have of his immigration policies. Well, those stories are all over the place now and they are affecting the perception that people have of mass deportation…. What stories aren’t “all over the place” on the legacy networks and PBS news programs? The victims of violent illegal immigrants as PBS News Hour and its weekend counterpart have run zero stories on two victims of illegal immigrant killers, Rachel Morin (raped and murdered in Maryland in 2023) and Jocelyn Nungaray (a 12-year-old sexually assaulted and strangled in Texas in 2024). PBS has offered nothing thus far on the illegal immigrant truck driver Harjander Singh, who broke a traffic law and caused a collision that killed three in Florida earlier in August. Another unwitting reference to liberal bias happened in the program’s previous segment in a question from congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins to Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas. She asked a question then felt the need to clarify that not all consumers of PBS news products are Democrats (though surely most of them are, consider which groups are rushing to PBS’s defense): “Some Democratic viewers have asked me — we have viewers across the spectrum, but Democrats have asked me, why aren't we seeing more marches, more rallies?”