Pun Salad

Senator Maggie's letter to Newell is reproduced at the link. No doubt Steam is hosting some nasty stuff. But you know what? So does Amazon.

Nobody's forcing people to play games at Steam. None of the stuff Maggie mentions is prohibited speech, and if any legislation was (somehow) enacted to ban it, it would be declared unconstitutional in a few nanoseconds.

And yet Maggie is demanding that Steam do the things she's unable to do herself. With a hefty undercurrent of "or else".

And my "Live Free or Die" state just re-elected her. It's a funny old world.

Briefly noted:

• Speaking of another senatorial bully from New England, J.D. Tucicille reports on what Liz is up to: Warren’s Crypto Bill Targets Financial Freedom, Not Fraud.

  Beyond politically connected scammers and frothy valuations, the attractiveness of cryptocurrencies lies in their potential for doing what cash does, but across distances. When governments inflate money, people turn to other stores of value, including crypto. When politicians and their financial-sector accomplices block transactions of which they disapprove, people look for alternative means of doing deals without permission, crypto among them. So, when officials talk of stripping privacy and autonomy from cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, you know they would do the same to cash if they could.

  "Rogue nations, oligarchs, drug lords, and human traffickers are using digital assets to launder billions in stolen funds, evade sanctions, and finance terrorism," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) huffed this week. "The crypto industry should follow common-sense rules like banks, brokers, and Western Union, and this legislation would ensure the same standards apply across similar financial transactions. The bipartisan bill will help close crypto money laundering loopholes and strengthen enforcement to better safeguard U.S. national security."

  The bipartisan bill to which Warren refers sports the tendentious moniker, Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022. Stripped of grandiose claims, it attempts to extend the financial surveillance state cooked up by drug warriors and anti-terrorism fearmongers to cryptocurrencies. Warren and company picked an opportune moment to do just that, while the public is occupied with a headline-grabbing financial scandal that taints crypto's already sketchy reputation.

  Exploiting your fear of "rogue nations, oligarchs, drug lords, and human traffickers". With the unfortunate side effect of treating ordinary honest citizens as criminals.

• Bari Weiss's Free Press is a worthwhile stop. Bari's spouse, Nellie Bowles, takes a look at: Just Another Week in the U.S.A. Among the stories she covers and comments upon:

  Our favorite high-flying crypto mogul and Democratic mega-donor has finally been arrested and jailed. The charges: mail and wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to avoid campaign finance regulations, and more. Bankman-Fried claimed he needed to get out on bail because he was depressed and also a vegan. (Why does one always come with the other?)

  SBF has hired the lawyer who defended Ghislaine Maxwell, which is a little too on-the-nose.

  His parents, Stanford Law School professors who teach on philosophy and taxes, were there in the Bahamas as their son was booked. From the CoinDesk reporter who was in the courtroom with them all: “Bankman-Fried’s mother audibly laughed several times when her son was referred to as a ‘fugitive’ and his father occasionally put his fingers in his ears as if to drown out the sound of the proceedings.” The fugitive’s father, Joseph Bankman, who was paid by and worked with his son, will not be teaching his usual tax-policy course this year. Stanford Law students are there to learn how to cheat the tax code successfully—not to learn how to get caught!

  Nellie's witty and charming, I'll probably quote her again next week.

• Kevin D. Williamson is Against Adhocracy in Oregon.

  The death penalty in Oregon has in effect been abolished by the state’s lame-duck Democratic Gov. Kate Brown—who has no legitimate power to do any such thing.

  She does have illegitimate power to do this—by abusing her gubernatorial powers of clemency to effect a policy change rather than using them for their intended purpose, which is to engage in the democratic continuance of the formerly royal prerogative of offering extraordinary mercy on a case-by-case basis. Gov. Brown has simply commuted every death sentence in Oregon to life imprisonment, making an end run around the legislature and the state constitution both.

  Here we have two competing moral and political considerations: The death penalty should be abolished, but executive unilateralism of the sort being practiced here by Gov. Brown is an invitation to chaos. This raises an old question, one that has especially vexed conservatives in the liberal-democratic context: What do we do when a bad process produces a good outcome?

  I don't have a lot of patience with "conservatives" who want to play the same game as Kate Brown. But it's a dangerous one.

• And Jeff Maurer has a pretty good question: Why Do We Even Bother Making Movies?.

  Movies haven’t really recovered from Covid. In 2019, the film industry made $181 million during the Thanksgiving period; this year, it was $95 million. A senior analyst at Comscore dubbed the movie market “confounding” and called the dismal Thanksgiving returns “an attention getter for an industry that’s still reeling”. 41 percent of consumers say they “rarely” go see movies; 18 percent say they never go at all. Just about the only movie that’s doing well right now is Black Panther: Wakanda Literally Forever Because We Will Keep Cranking These Out Until You Stop Going To See Them.

  Everyone knows basically why this is happening: streaming. Why put on pants (already a non-starter as far as I’m concerned) and go out in public and interact with — shudder — human beings when you can watch a movie from home? Covid just accelerated a trend that had already started, and nobody in entertainment is unaware of the shift. But I think what’s happening is an even more profound change than most people realize. I think it’s time to ask “What is a movie and why do we even bother making them?”

  Well, if every movie made were Top Gun: Maverick quality, Jeff wouldn't be asking that question, would he?