FEATURED: The Quality of Life Agenda →

We hope you had a good Thanksgiving holiday. The biggest policy-related news that happened since we last saw each other has been the revelation by legendary Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen, while on Joe Rogan's podcast, that countless startups and entrepreneurs have been "debanked." This means that their banks, as well as most banks, if not all banks, simply refused to have them as customers. This would obviously destroy their business. Since Andreessen lifted the veil, numerous entrepreneurs have come forward with their own stories.

The whole process of debanking obviously makes a mockery of the notion of rule of law or Constitution. Obviously a bank, like any business, is perfectly entitled to refuse service to any customer it likes for any reason (unless they fall in a category protected under civil rights law). But when it does so as a result of pressure from regulators or political actors, especially when that pressure is informal, debanking becomes totalitarian. There is no process, no legibility, and no appeal. It is hard to think of anything more anti-American.

What's the policy remedy, then? Common carrier laws for banks? Well, given how enmeshed banks are with the government, regulating them as utilities is not a crazy idea… But our sense that the remedy here isn't policy driven.

The remedy is deterrence. The remedy is for the Trump-Vance Administration not only to fire all politicized actors within the broad galaxy of the Federal government, but also to bring such consequences to bear on those who wielded power in this kind of un-American way that future administrations—Democrat or Republican—who may be tempted to act in this way towards political adversaries will think long and hard about the backlash they would be inviting.

Policy News You Need To Know

#France — A lot of people have been asking your correspondent to explain the political situation in France. But there's very little to explain. The situation looks as absurd from Paris as it does from DC, or the Moon. Michel Barnier was brought out of retirement to play the part of the elder statesman with nothing to lose, who would deliver the dramatic spending cuts that everyone knows France so desperately needs. The French budget situation is catastrophic, with the highest tax rates in Europe, Covid-era emergency spending still not fully reeled-in, and alarming interest rates. Barnier had a minority government, resting on the small center-right party LR and the constellation of centrist parties that for Macron's political machine. However, Marine Le Pen's National Rally had said that she would not vote against the budget if it met a certain number of red lines, which she set out publicly. Le Pen and her party are desperate to be seen as responsible actors, ready to rule, and were therefore willing, eager even, to play ball with Barnier, rather than take the easy populist win. Barnier therefore had to carefully thread the needle, but it didn't seem like mission impossible. Instead, he managed to alienate everyone by floating a number of unpopular ideas and then backtracking on them and also, it seems, by treating Marine Le Pen with contempt. Barnier failed to meet Le Pen's conditions, and therefore Le Pen has said that she would vote no-confidence in the government, which means that the budget should fail to pass and the government should fall. What happens now? Nobody knows. The Constitution says that the President cannot call an early legislative election until a year after a previous early legislative election, so there can be no new legislative elections until June. The National Rally have said that they would not form a government without the means to carry out their reforms, i.e. a majority, which they don't have. A government of the parties of the left would also have a minority and surely fall at the first sign of trouble. Some people are even saying that Macron may be forced to resign so that new Presidential elections may be held—a very far-fetched idea, but anything is possible. The most plausible outcome remains a kind of "Barnier 2.0" (whether it involves Barnier himself or not), a center/center-right minority government that would try to put together a budget. But, again, nobody knows, and the situation is just as chaotic as it looks.

#Pardon — The other big news this week has been President Biden pardoning his son Hunter. What is there to say? It's perfectly legal. Sovereign is he who decides on the exception… Ah, yes, one thing: until he lost the election, Biden was running the clock. His DOJ took the longest time possible to bring charges to bear against Hunter, letting numerous statutes of limitations expire. Time to clean house.

#LGBTQ — This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of U.S. v. Skrmetti, in which the Biden Administration challenged Tennessee's Senate Bill 1 (SB1) which bans so-called gender-affirming "care" for minors. Matt Walsh has a good overview of the case in this thread.

#Healthcare — The ever-vigilant Matt Stoller finds the monopoly angle to every story, and he finds that Trump's FDA pick is anti-monopoly.

SEE ALSO: Exclusive Interview: Matt Stoller: “Conservatives want what a government can deliver, but they don’t want a government” →

#DEI — Manhattan Institute's John Sailer on NIH's "Distinguished Scholars Program" which hires scientists who show a “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” This garbage has to stop, and hopefully under NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, it will.

#UBI — Interesting new NBER paper: the experimenters split people into two groups, gave one group $1,000 per month for three years, and the other group $50, and checked to see if their political beliefs had been changed. They hadn't.

#TheScience — The Science confirms what we've all known: going on walks helps with creative thinking. Go for a walk.