Protectionist Spudsidies
At Andrew Smith’s 1,150-acre potato farm and others like it, millions of pounds of potatoes are piling up in mounds—and their future is uncertain.
The culprit: a decision by Canada’s federal government in November to suspend shipments of Prince Edward Island potatoes to the United States—the province’s largest export market for the spuds—at the behest of U.S. officials.…
“We have learned how to deal with weather and market fluctuations and supply issues and logistics. We deal with that stuff every day,” said Smith, 43, whose farm has been in the family for five generations. “But you cannot plan for government intervention.”
—Washington Post, February 5, 2022
So Just a Random Abbreviation?
Hey Karly, fortunately, DLY does not mean delay. It just means that our train prediction system is unable to predict the arrival time confidently due to trains holding longer than two minutes, trains waiting to begin trips, or during single tracking.
—Washington Metro on Twitter, March 28, 2022
Good Thing the Voters Chose the Socialist over the Dictator’s Daughter
When demonstrators picketed roads in Peru’s rural hinterland over the rising cost of fuel and fertilizer, President Pedro Castillo might have responded with empathy or dialogue.
Instead, … the president reacted Tuesday with a draconian move that has outraged and baffled almost the entire country: placing Lima, the capital of 10 million people, which had been almost entirely free of the unrest, under a strict lockdown.
—Washington Post, April 7, 2022
Congress Seeks to Understand Economic Problem
The House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing is the latest effort by Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration to demonstrate to voters that they’re working to bring down prices at the pump.…
“We are here today to get answers from the Big Oil companies about why they are ripping off the American people,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D‑N.J.), the committee’s chairman, will say this morning.
—Washington Post, April 6, 2022
Limited-Government Party Passes 841 Bills in 60 Days
Gov. Glenn Youngkin [pushed] Monday to wrap up work on the 841 bills that the General Assembly sent to his desk.
—Washington Post, April 11, 2022
This Could Be about Either Party
After getting walloped in 2020 and now facing a flurry of departures, the party’s House centrists are hunkering down to focus on ground game.
—Politico on Twitter, April 6, 2022
This Is Also Called “Buying a House”
Small groups of neighborhood volunteers are blocking companies from buying single-family homes, rewriting homeownership rulebooks to thwart investor purchases of suburban housing.…
“They’re coming in, and they’re basically bullying people out with cash offers,” said Chase Berrier, the association’s president.
—Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2022
Politicizing Everything
Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil‑A are the good guys. Disney and Twitter are the bad guys.
—Josh Mandel on Twitter, April 23, 2022