Pun Salad

President Biden pushed to expand free school meals Wednesday as part of what he called a new national strategy to end hunger and increase healthy eating by 2030.

In the New York Times this week, Bret Stephens complained that, in unholy conjunction with the Department of Justice, the FBI had disgraced itself yet again with its public smear of Representative Matt Gaetz. “I don’t like Gaetz’s politics or persona any more than you do,” Stephens told a characteristically bewildered Gail Collins. “But what we seem to have here is a high-profile politician being convicted in the court of public opinion of some of the most heinous behavior imaginable—trafficking a minor for sex—until the Justice Department realizes two years late that its case has fallen apart.”

Which . . . well, yeah. That’s what the FBI is for. Last week, a whistleblower named Kyle Seraphin told the Washington Times that the FBI had adopted “an entirely ridiculous internal process for determining every single national priority.” One must ask: “ridiculous” from whose perspective? Relative to the FBI’s stated mission, its behavior does indeed look “ridiculous.” Relative to its historical conduct, its behavior seems pretty standard. What the FBI did to Matt Gaetz is precisely what it did to Donald Trump. And what it did to Donald Trump is what it’s been doing since it was founded: namely, spying on, or attempting to discredit, anyone who irritates the powers that be.

But why not at least have some sort of adverse consequences for the bureaucrats who lied? Have any of the FBI officials been fired or charged with lying to the court? Has anyone in the U.S. attorney’s office lost their license to practice law?

The answer almost surely is no. It seems there are never negative consequences when bureaucrats and other public officials misbehave.

In the first five months of sending expanded child welfare payments to American families, the IRS wasted only about $1.1 billion.

In other words, this might be the federal government's most efficient pandemic spending effort—despite the huge amount of money sent to an estimated 1.5 million taxpayers who did not qualify for the payments.

During my many battles fighting against cronyism, I have often been accused of being hard on government while letting businesses off the hook. This accusation is weird. Defending the free market is quite different from a blanket defense of businesses. I am pro-business only insofar as I am pro-market — that is, I'm "pro"-allowing consumers to spend their money as they choose, and "anti"-special privileges given by government to any business.

As usual, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said it best: "You must separate out being 'pro free-enterprise' from being 'pro-business.' ... Almost every businessman is in favor of free enterprise for everybody else, but special privilege and special government protection for himself. As a result, they have been a major force in undermining the free enterprise system."

Indeed, when you advocate for the free market system, you quickly learn that businesses are all in favor of competition, tax cuts and deregulation only until they aren't — meaning, only until subsidies might benefit them. A good example is their well-known champion, the Chamber of Commerce. On one hand, you can always count on the Chamber to join in fights to reduce the burdens government imposes on its members. However, its leadership also frequently embraces loads of special favors for its members — favors such as export subsidies and targeted subsidies or tax credits.

New Hampshire residents Paul Morrissette and Ryan Ward of East Coast Cannabis in Eliot and Lebanon, Maine, have put together a deal with Jim Belushi’s company Belushi’s Farm to have the Blues Brothers brand of cannabis products for sale in their Eliot and Lebanon, Maine stores. Belushi’s Farm products are based in Eagle Point, Oregon.

In 2017, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed HB 640 which decriminalized the possession of three-quarters of an ounce or less of adult-use cannabis from a criminal misdemeanor to a civil violation punishable only by a fine. Morrissette has said, “Most of the license plates that came [to Eliot] in the last week say live free or die on them. That’s what’s going on.”