Nonrival

March 22, 2026

Human experts + AI summaries - on public policy, economics, and technology.

The Government Shutdown's Data Blackout Masked a Return of Inflation

ny_fed

• A four-month government shutdown created massive gaps in inflation data, leaving economists flying blind during a critical period in late 2025
• New York Fed researchers used advanced modeling to fill in the missing data and found that encouraging November inflation numbers were largely an artifact of disrupted data collection
• Once December data became available, underlying inflation trends revealed a jump from 2.55% in September to 2.83% by year-end, suggesting price pressures were building despite initial optimism

The Surgeon General Nominee Who Won't Say Vaccines Don't Cause Autism

factcheck

• Dr. Casey Means repeatedly dodged questions about whether vaccines cause autism during her confirmation hearing, despite extensive research showing no link
• While claiming to support vaccines publicly, Means has previously called the hepatitis B birth dose "a crime" and promoted anti-vaccine activists to her 100,000+ followers
• Her nomination faces uncertainty as some Republican senators expressed doubts, and questions remain about whether her inactive medical license meets the job's requirements

When Is a War Not a War? Trump's Iran Strikes Spark Constitutional Debate

factcheck

• Trump calls the U.S.-Israeli military strikes against Iran a "war," while congressional Republicans insist it's merely "combat operations" or a "limited operation"
• The semantic dispute has real constitutional implications: wars require congressional approval, which Trump never sought for the Iran strikes
• Academics use various definitions of war, with some saying the conflict qualifies based on sustained combat, though it hasn't reached the 1,000 battle deaths threshold used by war databases

In the News

February's Jobs Report Was Ugly, but Don't Panic Just Yet

employ_america

• The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February 2026, but much of the weakness stems from methodological changes to government surveys and one-off events like weather and a Kaiser strike
• The unemployment rate rose to 4.44%, though new population controls from the Census Bureau may explain some of the softness in employment metrics
• The Federal Reserve likely won't cut interest rates based on this report alone, especially with inflation still running hot and needing clearer signals of sustained labor market weakness

Analysis

The Fed's Inflation Data Just Got Cooked by Bureaucratic Sleight of Hand

employ_america

• The Bureau of Economic Analysis secretly changed how it calculates a piece of inflation data in January, making inflation appear cooler than it actually was by substituting one data source for another without public notice.
• Core inflation is already running at 3% annually—a full percentage point above the Fed's target—and should have been even higher if standard methodology had been used.
• The opaque, one-off adjustment undermines the credibility of official inflation statistics at a time when the Fed is making critical interest rate decisions based on this data.

Also Worth a Look

• FDA Commissioner's Autism Drug Promise Falls Flat (factcheck)
• The Missing Middle: Why Drug Discovery Needs More Human Testing, Not Just Better Science (macroscience)
• When Politics Meets Pipettes: The Hidden Costs of Canceling Science Mid-Stream (macroscience)
• How the Supreme Court Built an Unaccountable Security State (daedalus)
• How America's Ultra-Rich Use Paperwork as a Weapon Against the IRS (contexts)
• America's Tariff Bill: U.S. Consumers Foot 90% of the Cost (ny_fed)
• Trump's Nuclear Timeline: How Withdrawal Actually Sped Up Iran's Bomb Potential (factcheck)