Ben McConkey

I truly think this is an underappreciated point that much of the "rising far right" polisci literature has missed.

We have n->inf findings that bad stuff leads to far right voting. But why _doesn't_ bad stuff lead to far left (or center left) voting? One big answer: A failure of political supply.

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

On the Lisa Cook allegations www.ft.com/content/e32d...

Exclusive: Fed Governor Cook declared her Atlanta property as “vacation home,” documents show A loan estimate for an Atlanta home purchased by Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor accused of mortgage fraud by the Trump administration, shows that Cook had declared the property as a “vacation home,” according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

The mortgage fraud claim against Lisa Cook is false, per documents obtained by Reuters.

Bill Pulte's accusation, the sole pretext Trump used to fire her from the Fed, was that she claimed two homes as primary residence.

These docs show she did not.
www.reuters.com/world/us/fed...

A view along the Reflecting Pool, with practically no visitors.

Slideshow of today in Washington DC, and how it looks when a terrorizing government scares people away.

By me, no paywall: fallows.substack.com/p/a-summer-a...

Eyeopening walkthrough of DC by this creator. If you aren’t in DC, worth a watch all the way to the end—

Darn, @alanbeattie.bsky.social has nixed the planned papers of several trade economists by nailing the optimistic response to Trump's tariffs in one paragraphs. Though read the whole piece for more of a masterclass in concise writing. www.ft.com/content/5de3...

Trump Administration Live Updates: National Guard Begins Deploying in D.C.

It begins

nono cool, yup, absolutely.
sure.

Pharma tariffs are leading headlines in Ireland

Ireland's pharma exports to the US are even more of an outlier than one might expect when placed in an EU context

And are very concentrated in a few US states

I discuss the numbers and their consequences here...
open.substack.com/pub/benmccon...

Former 'Alligator Alcatraz' worker describes 'inhumane' conditions inside In an exclusive report, NBC6 spoke with a former corrections officer who says she saw hundreds held in cages with no sunlight, backed up toilets and little access to showers.

A former “Alligator Alcatraz” worker says detainees are subject to “inhumane” conditions — packed by the hundreds into cages without sunlight, with overflowing toilets and limited access to showers.

Economic data is necessary to reality check policy. Firing the BLS Commissioner is unquestionably wrong. It enables the Trump Administration to pursue radical self-harming policies (where self means the American people).

www.piie.com/newsroom/pre...

Perhaps unpopular opinion — if you’ve been covering business and the economy for 25 years, you don’t have to cite “economists say” to state the truth — that firing the commissioner of the BLS is a bad thing.

I don't really know what the right media response is to this, at this point, but it can't just keep being "We cover this & ask questions as if this is a regular president & it's normal politics as we've covered since WWII." Whatever norms of journalism folks thought they were upholding are gone.

No other way to slice it: this is incredibly fucked up.

not seeing the heard and mcdonald islands among new EO tariffed countries... what did those guys say to him

you guys are still trying to redo Liberation Day. I'm telling you we can't do it. Now what we might be able to do is re-create it. We re-create it in the aggregate.

US and EU avert trade war with 15% tariff deal The deal will bring welcome clarity for EU companies though many in Europe will see it as a poor outcome.

Worth pointing out that a deal that locks in 15% tariffs has codified the trade war, not averted it.

An AI slop factory apparently tried to rewrite our article about AI not replacing workers en masse, but hit the paywall... so just summarised the paywall. If this is the robot that takes my job I'll be v embarrassed

I can't believe we're *literally* doing Liberation Day Part 2 Electric Boogaloo. I thought they would at least come up with a different, equally-dumb formula.

There is one place, however, where Musk, with the help of his minions, achieved his goals. He did indeed shred U.S.A.I.D. Though a rump operation is now operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 percent of U.S.A.I.D. grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk’s foray into politics accomplished.

Musk should be asked about this in every interview he does now and forever. To ignore it is a dereliction of duty.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

Aaaaand I think we're done here #TACO

the problem with Trump is that he loves imposing tariffs more than just having tariffs, so a couple weeks after any tariff pauses he’ll always get bored want to raise them more

very cool that for ten years people at the heights of political commentary insisted to the point of rage that the paramount threat to free speech was “censorious” college students

Trump's Retreat Still Leaves Tariffs at 90-Year Highs China Tariffs Are Now Below "Embargo" Levels, but Overall Tariffs are at the Highest Rate Since the Great Depression

NEW from me:

Trump's 90-day pause on the China trade war still leaves tariffs at the highest level since the Great Depression—and that's before upcoming sector-specific tariffs or possible un-pausing

Trump may be easing his trade war, but he's far from ending it🧵
www.apricitas.io/p/trumps-ret...

NEW with @simonkuper.bsky.social:

The prevailing narrative around increased injuries and player workload in elite football is wrong.

Players don’t play any more football than in the past. What has changed is a sharp rise in intensity of play.

Not more minutes, but each minute exerts more load.

This is basically the UK govt placing a massive tariff on its own most successful export sector. Utterly deranged stuff from a completely off the rails government.

Sorry, but this stuff drives me absolutely crazy. I’m sorry economists & journalists are just discovering the field of international political economy. But we’ve been studying & publishing about this stuff for 50 years now. There’s no new age of anything & “geoeconomics” has been around forever.

total clarity here from @edwardluce.bsky.social

www.ft.com/content/4c4b...