BeevaloBill

Freedom, Democracy, Free Markets. Constitutionalist. Catholic Conservatarian living in the paradise of South Central Wisconsin. Character is destiny.

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

The chief insight of economists is that the market is essentially an ordering mechanism, growing up without anybody wholly understanding it, that enables us to utilize widely dispersed information about the significance of circumstances of which we are mostly ignorant.

FA Hayek

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@Shoot_The_Glass @Acyn The Left over played its hand, just the radical nihilist Right is over playing hand now. This will not end well

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@RonFilipkowski Trump is a Socialist

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@mitchellvii Unfortunately

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

A very sad tale about a great organization that gave up its credibility for power; the price of that power was principle

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

So for anyone interested, I was a Heritage fellow from 2001-2011 and saw the seeds of the mess starting in 2008.

It's been long enough...I feel comfy telling the story:

In 2008, with the economy and markets collapsing, my colleagues in the econ dept felt necessary to endorse TARP. They were free marketers, but also Ph.D economists and accomplished lawyers trying to avert the threat of a potential depression. Anyway, TARP passed, markets recovered, and nearly all of the money was repaid. Agree or disagree with TARP, the scholar’s research at the time were wholly defensible and well-accepted by economists. (FWIW, I was not involved in the TARP debate).

Yet, after Obama took office, and many people linked up TARP with the Obama stimulus, a grassroots backlash developed claiming that Heritage had endorsed “Obamanomics and socialism” - and this spread to the board.

The key is that - ultimately - instead of defending their scholars, the fear of angering the small dollar donors, Fox News, and the Board won out. Within a few years, much of the economic team - including nearly anyone with a Ph.D. - was gone. They were often replaced with younger scholars who lacked the academic credentials but could be counted on to produce predictably partisan analysis without all the complicated nuance you get from more accomplished Ph.Ds and JDs.

This is also the time that Heritage Action was created, much of the Foundation leadership was replaced, and even Ed Feulner left by 2013. Nuance was out, brass-knuckles partisan politics were in.

I left during this time in 2011, following an incident when a reporter called me to fact check Rep. Michelle Bachmann's claim that we could balance the budget with a few waste tweaks (I endorsed the tweaks while gently noting they would not balance the budget).

When the newspaper fact check column included my information, I learned that under the new rules, “friends of Heritage” were not to be publicly disagreed with, no matter how incorrect they may be.

As punishment, I was banned from talking to the media – or even answering my own office phone (a gallingly infantilizing punishment for a scholar with 300 publications and thousands of successful media appearances). Essentially, I was being told to put partisanship above truth and intellectual integrity. The Heritage I knew was gone, and as soon as I found the right job with Sen. Portman, so was I.

I hadn't told this story because I didn't want to spill beans on a former employer. But 1) its been 15 years, and 2) my ex-employee status didn't stop their leaders from trolling and mocking me when I came out last year. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@AlaricBloodmoon @ReallyAmerican1 🤡

[Really American 🇺🇸 @ReallyAmerican1]

BREAKING: BREAKING: 2016 video of Pete Hegseth exposes staggering hypocrisy: He said the military must refuse unlawful orders, the very stance he is now punishing Sen. Kelly for taking.

Make sure everyone sees this.

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@JasonJournoDC @ScottAdamsSays @DailyCaller Scott, Christianity is not a risk-reward transaction. Believe and embrace Christ and his teachings, not in form, but in earnest and in practice with love of God and your fellow man.

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@DOGEai_tx @WhiteHouse Artificial Idiocy

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@tedcruz Did you watch Trump's Venezuela press conference?

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@TheFungi669 "Into the ground."

[MM  @adgirlMM]

As we say goodbye to 2025, let's hope 2026 is the year Congress says goodbye to the most compromised AG in American history. 🎉🥂

[Firing Line with Margaret Hoover @FiringLineShow]

In an interview from 2020, Bari Weiss told Margaret Hoover that the rise in antisemitic violence under President Trump was “of course not” an accident.

“He is dismantling the moral guardrails that keep bigotry down,” said Weiss.

“He has made things that were rightly a few years ago unsayable and unacceptable, sayable and acceptable. And that has led, I believe, to a domino effect culturally.”

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@EliteMan091 @TRUMP_ARMY_ Delusion is a helluva drug

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@Ania_In_UA How is one "America First" and the other is not?

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@ElliotKaufman6 Neo-Neocon

[Maine @TheMaineWonk]

Donald Trump working hard to address affordability crisis in his economy.

[Really American 🇺🇸 @ReallyAmerican1]

BREAKING: In a shocking moment, Trump publicly relied on Putin’s word over our own U.S. intel. "You're saying maybe the attack didn't place? But President Putin told me this morning it did."

He did this in Helsinki, too.
Trump is Putin's puppet.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

"Now I suppose it is too much to hope that the American male of the species, notoriously stubborn and boastful, will in 2026 attend to the guidance of Maya Angelou, hearken to the warning of Ellie Sattler, or listen to the remonstrance of Liz Cheney."

https://t.co/WBBWY6l1Pq

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@mitchellvii Constitutional order

[BeevaloBill @BeevaloB]

@JonathanTurley $50,000 signing bonus.