Pun Salad

Everyone remembers that old Blood, Sweat and Tears song, right? Maybe we could implore David Clayton-Thomas to write a new verse about…

Nah, I guess not. Robby Soave dredges up some dreadful history of only a few years back: Fed governor Lisa Cook's record is a reminder of 2020's social justice insanity. Robby links to last year's allegations in City Journal of Lisa's academic sloppiness (to put it charitably). Also:

Yeah, it was a nutty time. Lisa tweeted stuff like this:

I agree with Angela Merkel and @FrankSchlibach that free speech has its limits. It should not be used to spread hatred and violate the dignity of other people. This is how you, Dr. Uhlig, used your words and your power – to spread hate. 8/Nhttps://t.co/PwB72sYLs6

— Dr. Lisa D. Cook (@drlisadcook) June 14, 2020

I.e., asserting a "hate speech" exception to the First Amendment. (And it's pretty clear that whatever Uhlig may have said, blogged, or tweeted didn't even meet loose standards of "hate speech".)

But, speaking of the Constitution, there's a small debate over at National Review about a different, non-First Amendment issue. Charles C.W. Cooke explains: Why I Said the Federal Reserve Is Unconstitutional. You'll want to click over for the full debate between Charlie and Dominic Pino, but Charlie brings out one big gun, James Madison, in a famous 1791 speech in Congress:

It should be noted that Charlie considers the Fed "to be a useful institution". The same can't be said of Reason's Brian Doherty, who contributed to their December 2024 "Abolish Everything" issue: Abolish the Fed.

If it was good enough for Milton, it's good enough for me. And you have to admit, it would obviate every single one of the issues we've been discussing here.

Also of note:

• At least she didn't call for liquidation of the kulaks as a class. I noticed, but didn't blog about, a Concord Monitor op-ed written my one Jean Lewandowski earlier this month, which urged Granite Staters to Root out invasive extremists. Her opening paragraph sets the tone:

  New Hampshire gardeners and outdoor enthusiasts are familiar with highly invasive vines like knotweed and bittersweet. They climb all over power poles and fences, smothering and killing trees and shrubs. These invaders are very much like the plague of outside money and anti-democratic ideology that came to New Hampshire 20 years ago as the Free State Project. It has entwined itself around what once was our Grand Old Party and made alarming progress in pulling down our cherished public institutions.

  Yes, the dreaded Free State Project, part of the grand libertarian conspiracy to take over the world and leave you alone.

  (For the record: I've lived in New Hampshire since 1981, well before Jason Sorens launched the Free State Project in 2001. I'm not sure whether that would be enough for Jean to not consider me to be an invasive weed.)

  But, somewhat to my surprise, the Concord Monitor printed a rebuttal to Jean's screed from the FSP's current Executive Director, Eric Brakey. Eric asks, reasonably enough: Whose ideas are truly “invasive” in the Live Free or Die state?

  Recently in the Concord Monitor, an opinion piece described fellow citizens as “invasive” weeds — but who better fits the bill?

  Picture a veteran who moved to New Hampshire for the “Live Free or Die” spirit. He embraces the 1776 ideals that once animated America and still drive the Granite State. Known as a good neighbor, his community has elected him multiple times to the legislature to protect their freedoms, their paychecks and the New Hampshire Advantage.

  This describes many legislators, but I am thinking of Rep. Tom Mannion (R-Pelham). After serving honorably in the U.S. Marine Corps, Tom left Massachusetts, where the New England spirit of 1776 has been smothered by a one-party nanny state. Figures like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, sneering schoolmarms of the modern era, treat constituents like dependent children, not free adults. Tom came to New Hampshire, where that revolutionary spirit still thrives.

  Now consider Jean Lewandowski. Her columns generally push leftist causes — from gun control to Russiagate — but in her latest piece, she branded good people, like Rep. Mannion, “invasive” weeds to be “rooted out.” Whatever you think of her dehumanizing language against “Free Staters,” Lewandowski’s hypocrisy is glaring when you learn she was born in California, worked in Minnesota, and has only lived in New Hampshire for a decade.

  Beyond details of who's-lived-here-longest, Eric rebuts Jean's article point by point, and it's a textbook example of how to go about that kind of thing.

• And finally, a helpful reminder: don't give Wikipedia a dime. I winced at the seeming redundancy in the headline of Bethany Mandel's NYPost column: Wikipedia bias influences how one's perception of reality is perceived. But things pick up from there:

  This week, I had two separate meetings with people I’d never met before.

  In both, after the polite small talk, each confessed that before sitting down with me they had quickly “studied up” by glancing at my Wikipedia page.

  (Note to readers: Please don’t do the same.)

  My Wikipedia entry is not a neutral profile — it’s a hit job.

  It’s a curated “greatest hits” collection of my worst moments, or more precisely my critics’ worst caricatures of me.

  Note that the link above does not go to Bethany's Wikipedia page. Yes, it's that way in the column.

  If you want to check out Wikipedia's "hit job" (against Bethany's advice) that's here. She's not wrong, it's an unbalanced screed.

We will classify Eric Boehm's headline as "better than none": Federal Appeals Court Says Trump's Tariffs Are Unlawful, Allows Them To Remain in Place.

At the Volokh Conspiracy one of the winning litigants, Ilya Somin, writes about the legalisms: Federal Circuit Rules Against Trump's Massive IEEPA Tariffs in Our Case Challenging Them. The majority opinion is extensively quoted, and this is also interesting:

So, I am not a lawyer, but I will summarize anyway: (1) IEEPA's text does not authorize the President to impose tariffs; (2) there's no evidence that Congress even intended to do that; and (3) even if they intended to do that, it would be an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the executive.

Does Trump think that he could (for example) decree different income tax rates?

Also of note:

• Nothing new to say about this. But John R. Lott Jr. and Thomas Massie say something anyway: the Minneapolis atrocity was Another Mass Shooting in a ‘Gun-Free Zone’. (WSJ gifted link)

  Another mass shooter has struck and the media is again refusing to say why he chose his target. Like other killers, he openly admitted that he sought out “gun-free zones.” Yet mainstream outlets refuse to acknowledge it—and thereby ignore a policy solution that could save children’s lives.

  That would interfere with their virtue-signalling narrative.

• Big, if true. Neal B. Freeman asserts Social Security Is No Longer the Third Rail of American Politics.

  We need a new metaphor. We have moved beyond “the third rail.” Given the history of democratic governance, we can predict with confidence that we will not soon see a deliberative process in which the facts are assembled carefully and then assessed soberly by men and women of sagacity and goodwill, after which we will unite behind a disciplined and durable solution to the nation’s retirement crisis. It seems much more likely that a raucous and tendentious scramble will now ensue, producing a last-minute, jerry-built compromise between two of the most powerful of America’s many warring tribes — the political tribe and the financial tribe. It seems more likely, that is to say, that our societal elders will stage a shotgun wedding, hustling an annoyed and anxious bride into holy matrimony (!) with a deeply disappointed bridegroom.

  It would have been a long and expensive transition to personal accounts even back in 1996. Today, it will be hellaciously expensive. But it will not be impossible of achievement if we can get ourselves to the right side of those “glacial forces” of demography.

  I like the "shotgun wedding" metaphor, although I'd guess they'd have to abide by those worse-than-worthless "gun-free zone" laws that Lott and Massie mention.

• Everyone she knew, running scared. Megan McArdle holds two thoughts in her mind: Some mortgage fraud is inevitable. But Lisa Cook needs to come clean. She is a fan of Fed "independence", and worries that the case will erode that.

  But now that [Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte has decided to pursue this], can we afford to say, “Well, occupancy fraud is really not a big deal, it happens all the time, and, realistically, almost no one is ever punished”? Because that’s a good way to ensure that occupancy fraud really does happen all the time, or at least more of the time, forcing banks to do whatever the banking equivalent is of putting the Target deodorant aisle on lockdown. And I don’t love that solution, either.

  So unless Cook explains why this really wasn’t occupancy fraud, we’re left with two unpalatable choices: letting a public official get away with something the system can’t afford to publicly condone, or letting Trump get away with something that no one can afford to publicly condone.

  The only way out of that conundrum is for Cook to tell us why what looks like occupancy fraud was actually no such thing. So I sure hope she does, and soon.

  Cool. Not that it matters, but I also kind of hope this issue knocks Ken Paxton out of public life.

Recently on the book blog:

Jeff Maurer announces his own ideological transformation: Trump Held a TV Meeting to Show How Government Works and Now I’m an Anarchist.

I missed it, but I probably wouldn't have been able to watch for more than a few seconds. Blood pressure, gotta keep an eye on it.

The Eye Candy/Amazon Product du Jour above popped up when I searched for "Anarchist Sign". I'm pretty sure it qualifies by demanding "Hands Off! … Our Wallets".

Back in the heady Tea Party days, people made fun of the guy who demanded that his CongressCritter “keep your government hands off my Medicare." It's fair to say that sign raises the bar quite a bit from there.

Also of note:

• Speaking of the Tea Party. Kevin D. Williamson looks back at the 2008 progenitor of Trump's Intel deal: It’s a TARP!

  You’ll remember TARP–the Troubled Asset Relief Program—and the bailouts that were executed during the 2008-09 financial crisis. I don’t think anybody remembers that time fondly except for me and other journalists who had the daily pleasure of writing about it. Bad times, great story.

  I suppose there are some similarities between the Trump administration’s partial nationalization of Intel and the Obama administration’s bailout of GM, in which the U.S. government owned an equity stake. You have two opportunistic presidents who like to talk about economic nationalism jumping into two businesses they don’t understand for purely political reasons and, in both cases, probably doing so illegally. The U.S. government ended up losing billions of dollars on its “investment” in GM, and there is every reason to believe that Uncle Stupid’s stake in Intel—whose Ohio-based chip-foundry is foundering because it has no customers—will end in tears one way or another.

  Citing the bailout policies of the early 21^st century as your model going forward is a real . . . interesting choice. U.S. taxpayers lost billions on GM, and GM is still a piss-poor company that makes inferior products at every price point from $20,500 to $130,000-and-up while pissing away billions of dollars on mismanaged overseas partnerships. It didn’t even make sense from the political baloney “saving jobs” point of view, inasmuch as GM has shed some 80,000 employees since 2008. The heavy-handed government-backed GM restructuring saw the firm kill off Saturn as a sop to the union bosses, who did not like the semi-autonomous division’s independence from rigid work rules. The parallel bailout of Chrysler (not Chrysler’s first) saw the administration essentially rob the bondholders—the secured creditors who had first claim on the firm’s assets—to pay off its union-goon allies.

  I don't watch CNBC, so is Rick Santelli saying anything about this?

• Unfortunately, the production is stuff people aren't that interested in buying. Nevertheless, Tyler Cowen Goes There: Trump Seizes the Means of Production at Intel. The whole thing's great, just a random excerpt:

  Given that this is a blend of socialism and corporate statism, it should come as no surprise that Bernie Sanders has endorsed Trump’s Intel decision. Sanders, at least, is consistent. “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return,” he said.

  Other Democrats refuse to see how they helped make this bed. They had a nonchalant attitude toward the CHIPS Act, which they saw as a sane move in the direction of a sounder industrial policy. But their underlying view of government was naive, as they assumed it would always be “the experts” in charge. The rude awakening has now arrived.

  Milton Friedman’s longstanding insistence that government funding will, sooner or later, mean government control has now come to pass. The Democrats are not so much shocked as catatonic and lacking much of an effective response. But it is they who are responsible for making so much of the economy dependent on federal government funding. And now, they are learning lessons to their distaste when it comes to science funding, DEI in universities, and now, tech companies.

  But I also want to emphasize, and agree with, his bottom line:

  Are you a Republican, conservative, or libertarian? Have you spent most of your life believing that governmental ownership of the means of production brings terrible incentives, politicization, and is a recipe for economic and political disaster? Is that not why you have always opposed socialism?

  If so, now is the time to make your displeasure felt. Loudly.

  Maybe I can get one of those yard signs.

• One-stop ideological shopping. At the Dispatch, Scott Lincicome sums up All the Reasons the Intel Deal Is Bad. Just a snippet:

  The most obvious and immediate problems with the Intel deal rest with the company itself, which—despite all those subsidies—has struggled even more since we dug into its many longstanding problems a year ago and briefly reviewed its current situation in July. As I wrote in the Post, there’s little reason to think this latest move will somehow reinvigorate the company:

  With the U.S. government as its largest shareholder, Intel will face constant pressure to align corporate decisions with the goals of whatever political party is in power. Will Intel locate or continue facilities — such as its long-delayed “megafab” in Ohio — based on economic efficiency or government priorities? Will it hire and fire based on merit or political connections? Will research and development priorities reflect market demands or bureaucratic preferences? Will standard corporate finance decisions that are routinely (and mistakenly) pilloried in Washington, such as dividends or stock buybacks, suddenly become taboo?

  Much more at the link, and I hope you can get through the paywall, by fair means or foul.

I turned to ChatGPT once again:

draw a Dr, Seuss parody book cover titled "If I Ran the Fed" showing Donald Trump as the author

And (once again), ChatGPT told me, nicely, sorry Paul I can't do that.

But it did suggest a compromise, and I think its result wasn't too bad.

I was inspired (of course) by dim memories of Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo. The relevant Wikipedia article notes that it's one of his books that were withdrawn from publication by "Dr. Seuss Enterprises" for unacceptable "racial stereotypes and caricatures". But this is an example of where John Perry Barlow was right: "The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it." You can read the book here.

That Wikipedia article says the Seuss book was written in "anapestic tetrameter". I have no idea whether my parody obeys that scheme, but here you go:

"The Fed's in a slump,"
Said President Trump,
"And the guy who's in charge
Is kind of a chump."

"But if I ran the Fed,"
Said President Trump,
"I'd make a few changes.
Make the stock market jump!"

"Their 'rates' and their 'targets' and that kind of stuff
They have no idea that they're not good enough.
They're disloyal to MAGA and probably Blue.
They're awfully old-fashioned. I want something new!"

"So I'd fire them all, tell them to leave.
Put them out on the street, I'd not even grieve.
Replace them with flunkies I think I could find
Who would to my every whim be aligned!"

And I could go on, but probably shouldn't. I was "inspired" (if that's the right word) by the WSJ editorialists yesterday, who wondered: What if Trump Runs the Federal Reserve? (WSJ gifted link) Skipping to their bottom line:

And I found out that "afflatus" doesn't mean what I thought it meant. So I won't keep using that word.

Also of note:

• Lisa, listen to me. James Freeman writes on the Fed Governor in the midst of the current afflatus kerfuffle: The Markets and Lisa Cook. (one more WSJ gifted link)

  In 2022 a Journal editorial called Ms. Cook unfit for the Fed job after she was nominated by President Joe Biden or whoever was running the U.S. government at the time. The Journal editorial noted:

  Republicans have… raised valid concerns about Ms. Cook’s lack of monetary policy expertise. Her academic scholarship has focused almost entirely on race, and she seems to think systemic racism is the root of all economic ills. No doubt she would fit in well at university faculty lounges with similar views.

  University of Chicago economics professor Harald Uhlig recently detailed in these pages how Ms. Cook called for his removal as editor of the Journal of Political Economy after he criticized the defund police movement.

  Even if one believes that the Fed should be independent despite its manifest failure to provide price stability, one can also believe that Ms. Cook should be replaced.

  I wouldn't be sorry to see her go. I might be sorry to see her replacement.

• Maybe not for lack of trying, but… Veronique de Rugy claims Trump Is Not the Biggest Threat to the Fed's Independence.

  Concerns about the Federal Reserve's independence have grown following repeated attacks by President Donald Trump, including this week's decision to fire Fed Gov. Lisa Cook based on questionable allegations. But this debate is too narrowly focused on the president's political pressure, ignoring a growing danger in our system.

  It is true that since the Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord of 1951, the Fed has had operational independence — the ability to set interest rates day-to-day — without any obligation to make government borrowing cheap. But it never had true economic independence because the bank's monetary policy cannot be insulated from the effect of fiscal policy, and vice versa.

  As public debt grows, the link becomes more visible and fiscal dominance — which occurs when a central bank like the Fed becomes subordinate to the government's fiscal policy — looms larger.

  Vero notes, soberly: "Fed independence, in a narrow political sense, becomes irrelevant when the arithmetic of debt service dictates outcomes."

• They're baaack! The University Near Here is a pretty idyllic place over the summer. But otherwise, as George Will notes, we got way Too many college students.

  Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness (Keats), is also when too many young Americans head to college, where too many of them will study too little under the undemanding supervision of faculty who teach too little. Colleges illustrate the seepage of rigor from American life.

  Since 1990, college enrollment has increased by 6 million students (29 percent). Reasons for this include government tuition subsidies and “college for everyone” rhetoric. And “degree inflation”: irrational requirements for job applicants.

  Preston Cooper, then of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, reported in 2023 that applicants for a $35,600-per-year job driving an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile (a 27-foot-long motorized hot dog) had to have a bachelor’s degree. In 2000, only 16 percent of prime-age workers earning $35,000 (in today’s dollars) had such degrees; by 2022, 24 percent did. In 1990, 9 percent of secretaries and administrative professionals had bachelor’s degrees; today, 33 percent do, and a higher proportion of job listings require applicants to have one. This “paper ceiling” is especially egregious in state and local governments, where 63 percent of those earning between $40,000 and $60,000 have bachelor’s degrees or higher. Only 28 percent of such earners in the private sector do.

  A recent report from the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation says 52 percent of recent college graduates are underemployed: in jobs not using their college learning. Meanwhile there are 750,000 industrial jobs unfilled.

  Keats was no Dr. Seuss, but …

Sabine Hossenfelder takes a GOP CongressCritter, Anna Paulina Luna, as seriously as possible:

I watched the seemingly very successful Starship test flight last night, from liftoff to Indian Ocean splashdown. Cool stuff, but why aren't we just grabbing the interdimensional tech from the aliens?

Also of note:

• In case you hadn't noticed. Back in the 1970s, there was a common saying: "A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality". Dare we hope that could be happening today? Kevin D. Williamson looks at the prospects of The Emerging Liberal Minority. Excerpt:

  Conservatives alienated from the Republican Party (as conservatives must be) may make their peace with the Democratic Party, as some have, but many (I suppose most) cannot muster much more than an “Ugh!” for a party whose moderate wing is characterized by Joe Biden and whose radical camp is rallying behind Zohran Mamdani, the professing socialist who aims to be not only the next mayor of New York City but also the new mascot of the left wing of the party of the left. But while there probably are not many estranged liberals who feel about the Democratic Party precisely the way conservatives are obliged to feel about the current Republican Party—in part because the Democrats are not at this moment led by a man who attempted a coup d’état the last time he lost an election—they are frustrated and disappointed and, at times, full of very reasonable contempt for their ancestral party. Liberals acknowledging painful truths of an uncomfortable ideological origin—whether those be Hayekian or neoconservative in character—have something in common with conservatives reckoning (as we must) with the fact that unsavory constituents such as racism, millenarian religious fanaticism, xenophobia, nihilistic antirationalism, and old-fashioned bumptiousness play a much more prominent role on the right than we had supposed. 

  I'm a little surprised that my Linux spellcheck didn't flag "bumptiousness". I guess it's a word.

• Cognitive dissonance isn't a pretty sight. Is it on the upswing? Jim Geraghty: When Mamdani says it, it’s socialism. When Trump does it, it’s genius.

  Remember, Republicans: It’s important that we stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming the next mayor of New York. The man is a socialist!

  Mamdani talked about “the end goal of seizing the means of production” during a live-streamed conference of the Young Democratic Socialists of America in February 2021, and declared that “we have to continue to elect more socialists, and we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism.” (As much as one might be tempted to attribute that to youthful naiveté, Mamdani was 29 years old at that time, and he’s 33 now.) Mamdani wants the New York government to open and run its own grocery stores.

  It’s a good thing we have President Donald Trump and his administration to stop the spread of Mamdani’s socialist agenda. Instead of having the government take greater control of private companies the way Mamdani wants, the administration is having the government take greater control of private companies the way Trump wants.

  The AI summary of the 491 (as I type) comments on Jim's article mentions that "Some comments suggest that Trump's actions align more with state capitalism or even fascism rather than socialism."

  Uh, fine. We have a better all-inclusive label. Let me drag out, once again, the Hayekian cartoon I had ChatGPT draw last week:

  

• Need some cheering up? Good news, bunkie, Noah Rothman finds it: At Least You’re Not Ken Martin. (Noah assumes Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, isn't reading National Review.)

  “Democrats, make no mistake, a storm is coming,” Martin said at the outset of the Democratic National Committee’s Minnesota summit on Monday. “In fact, it’s already here.” What we have today is “fascism dressed in a red tie.”

  “Rising inequality, attacks on democracy, voter suppression and a fascist regime that doesn’t play by the rules,” he continued. Today, the Republican Party is “led by the dictator in chief” who has cast American “values into the dustbin of history.” The Democrats, therefore, need to fight fire with fire. “I’m sick and tired of this Democratic Party bringing a pencil to a knife fight,” Martin declared. “We cannot be the only party that plays by the rules anymore. We’ve got to stand up and fight.”

  The DNC chair isn’t the first Democrat to pose as the fighting fighter who fights. The consultant class can read the polling of anxious Democrats as well as anyone, although the Democratic lawmakers who are being asked by constituents to take a bullet for the cause shouldn’t need a public opinion survey to understand their voters’ restlessness. Those Democrats, too, are offering their voters thin gruel: gratuitous profanity, all-caps social-media posts, and anguished self-pity masquerading as sorrow for the state of the country.

  I got a chuckle out of the "fighting fighter who fights" phrase. My CongressCritter, Chris Pappas, seems to work that into a lot of tweets, for example:

  New Hampshire is my home. It’s where I grew up, went to public school, and where I’ve chosen to build my life.
  
  The challenges Granite Staters face aren’t distant to me because I’ve lived them. That’s why I’ve spent my career fighting for the people of this state — and why I’m… pic.twitter.com/BpfqKyOPuB

  — Chris Pappas (@ChrisPappasNH) August 26, 2025

  Nothing says "fighter" than a cheek-to-cheek selfie with a supporter!

• And this is simply wonderful. The WSJ has a front-page "A-Hed" daily column, and it's fun, but I really liked this one from yesterday: Baseball Organists Keep Bringing the Heat, Thanks to Their 78-Year-Old Muse. (WSJ gifted link)

  The Kane County Cougars were trying to rally against the Quad City River Bandits when bees started pouring from behind the visitors’ dugout.

  Umpires halted the game. Players sprinted for the outfield. Ushers hurried to shepherd panicky fans. Perched above the fray in a suite, Nancy Faust sprang into action.

  Placing her fingers on the keys of the ballpark’s organ, she launched into “Flight of the Bumblebee,” the frenetically paced number by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. From there she segued into Jewel Akens’ “The Birds and the Bees,” Jimmie Rodgers’ “Honeycomb,” the Beatles’ “Let It Be.”

  She's a genius. The story goes on to note that when she was playing the organ at old Comiskey Park for the White Sox, she learned that visiting KC Royal, George Brett, had had recent hemorrhoid surgery. So:

  When he came up to bat, she played the Dovells’ 'You Can’t Sit Down.”

"… and how about decreeing new crimes, like flag burning?"

For more on that:

• This should be off the table. Robby Soave points out an inconvenient truth: Trump's executive order prohibiting flag burning is unconstitutional.

  President Donald Trump issued an executive order prohibiting the burning of the American flag on Monday. There's a big problem with the order, though—one that Trump even acknowledged in his press conference touting the E.O. Flag burning is clearly protected by the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court has twice affirmed that this is so.

  Moreover, any administration that purports to care about freedom of speech should easily reach the conclusion that criminalizing provocative yet nonviolent acts of political expression is a violation of this principle, even if the constitutional issue was not so cut and dry.

• Will the EO cause any prosecutions, or is Trump just baiting his adversaries? Noah Rothman is Betting on the Bait.

  Those who have taken the time to peruse Donald Trump’s executive order on “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag” know that it does not, in fact, recommend the federal prosecution of those who burn or are otherwise “desecrating” the flag. Instead, it notes that the Justice Department will take actions “consistent with the First Amendment,” which has been found by the Supreme Court to protect activities like flag burning. Indeed, only if acts of flag desecration amount to incitement to violence (which would be a high hurdle to clear in a courtroom) or if the flag-burner is engaged in other criminal behaviors are offenders likely to be prosecuted.

  There is just a lot less to this initiative than the heavy breathing that it has inspired among the executive orders critics and supporters alike would lead observers to believe. Indeed, the reaction to this order seems so divorced from its black-and-white text that we can probably conclude that inspiring impassioned reactions was the whole point of the exercise.

  So there's almost certainly not much going on here other than another display of Trump's deeply flawed character.

• 

  But it gives me a chance to quote SCOTUS Justice Nino. I recently read The Essential Scalia (Amazon link at your right, my report is here), there was a super-relevant quote within and (fortunately) Jonathan Turley dug it out so I don't have to: Running it up the Flagpole: Why the Trump Order on Flag Burning is Unconstitutional. In his SCOTUS votes, Scalia was a consistent libertarian on the issue:

  Scalia continued to defend his votes in public comments. He stressed that “if it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king.”

  He later added:

  Yes, if I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government. I mean, that was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress.

  Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn’t just mean written words or oral words. It could be semaphore. And burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea – “I hate the government,” “the government is unjust,” whatever.

  If I were king, I would demand that you check out our Eye Candy du Jour from Mr. Ramirez one more time.

• It's not as hard as you might think! Kevin D. Williamson describes How to Murder an Economy With Happy Talk.

  We should have eaten our spinach.

  Nearly 20 years ago, I started writing a column for National Review called “Exchequer,” with a focus on fiscal policy, debt, and deficits. A point I frequently returned to—and frequently return to still—is that dealing with our national debt problem and getting the U.S. government’s finances back onto stable footing is something that will be easier to do the sooner we start and more painful to do the longer we wait, especially if we put off reform until we are in a fiscal crisis of some kind, which is what Washington seems dead set on doing.

  I was—and am—what my friend Larry Kudlow calls an “eat-your-spinach guy.” Kudlow and other sunny optimists, such as Arthur Laffer, are not big on eating spinach. They are big on ordering dessert first, counting on tax cuts and other incentives to goose the economy to such an extent that GDP growth does the hard work for us—what I have referred to at times as “naïve supply-side” economics. When it comes to diet, eating dessert first will indeed tend to make you grow (like it or not), but economic growth is, alas, a little more difficult to goose.

  KDW's spinach recipe seems to (roughly) involve getting Uncle Stupid's revenue and expenditures to where they were at the end of the Clinton era: about 20% of GDP. (FY 2024 revenue: about 17% of GDP; spending: about 23% of GDP.)

  I wouldn't be happy with taxes that high, but it's better than fiscal armageddon.

• But speaking of "happy talk"… Bryan Caplan has a question for you: If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?

  Economists have long scoffed at know-it-all business and financial gurus with the rhetorical question, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” And sometimes the gurus use the same question to scoff at know-it-all economists.

  The standard answer, which I’ve occasionally used myself is: “I’m claiming that society is dysfunctional, not that there’s a viable get-rich-quick scheme lying on the sidewalk.” Open borders, for example, holds immense economic promise, but to activate it, you have to persuade a country — or at least a government — that open borders is a good idea. And both persuasive efforts are, alas, exercises in futility.

  On further thought, however, there are also plenty of unilaterally feasible ways to get rich that most of us leave lying on the sidewalk nonetheless. Such as? Work much longer hours. Work on weekends. Take second (and third) jobs. Take the highest-paid job, regardless of your quality of life. Easiest of all: Live way below your means — and invest the money you save. Seriously, have you ever considered how little money you actually need to keep earning money?

  The obvious response to these tactics, of course, is: “It’s not too smart to live in toil and poverty in order to maximize net worth.” A fine objection, but it highlights a much-neglected opportunity to scoff at know-it-alls. Rather than ask, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?,” we should be asking, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy?”

  So there.

We're seeing competing charges of Calvinball flung back and forth! Here's Jonathan Turley with one I find credible: The Judicial Calvinball of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

In the interests of equal time—I might as well do that every so often— TechDirt's Mike Masnick was more inspired than aghast: Justice Jackson Correctly Defines The John Roberts Supreme Court As The Calvinball Court

For a more balanced take, see SCOTUSblog.

I admit that I'm averse to the notion that a single District judge in Massachusetts can direct that hundreds of millions in taxpayer money must keep flowing to NIH's DEI grantees.

But I am not a lawyer, and, barring supernatural methods, we have no answer to the question: "What would Antonin Scalia do?" Other than emit a chuckle at the Calvinball reference.

And (holy moley) it's coming up on thirty years since Bill Watterson closed up his comic strip. And it's still a cultural icon.

Also of note:

• Imagine me standing in the rain, yelling "Stella!" Stella Artois, that is. Eric Boehm is upset (and so am I) that Trump's new trade 'deal' with the E.U. leaves out beer, wine, booze.

  Americans who enjoy German lagers, Belgian saisons, and Czech pilsners will get no relief from the higher tariffs that President Donald Trump has poured on their favorite brews.

  The framework of a much-anticipated trade deal between the United States and the European Union was made public on Thursday. The deal locks in the 15 percent tariffs that Trump has imposed on most European goods imported into the U.S., but it also serves as a promise from the Trump administration not to target European goods with product-specific tariffs that could be announced in the coming weeks or months—including potentially huge new tariffs on pharmaceuticals, something the White House has been teasing for months. The deal also creates a pathway for the United States to reduce its tariffs on European cars to the 15 percent threshold, once the E.U. reduces some of its own tariffs on American industrial goods.

  The written agreement seems to solidify the handshake deal struck in late July, though it is still "not a legally enforceable pact," but rather a step towards one, as The New York Times noted.

  But for alcohol-related businesses and booze-loving consumers on both sides of the Atlantic, the "deal" seems more like a buzzkill.

  Seriously, I pretty much stick to Sam Adams these days, as American as beer comes.

• Like an iceberg, there's a lot of it you don't see. But it's still dangerous, as Dominic Pino points out: The Hidden Damage from Tariffs.

  Tariffs are a particularly destructive form of taxation that distorts market efficiency, raises prices, and reduces output. As you’ve no doubt heard many times by this point in Donald “Tariff Man” Trump’s presidency, economic theory demonstrates each of these effects clearly.

  But maybe you think economists don’t know what they’re talking about and all those supply-and-demand graphs are witchcraft. What nonmarket reasons are there to oppose tariffs?

  For one, they feed the swamp. Tariffs are a full-employment program for Washington attorneys and lobbyists. Analysis of lobbying disclosure forms by Advancing American Freedom (AAF) found that spending on tariff lobbying surged from $1.3 million in the second quarter of last year to $8.8 million in the second quarter of this year. That’s on top of $4.9 million in spending on tariff lobbying in the first quarter of this year, suggesting that more people are realizing that lobbying can pay off.

  There's more, I hope you can read it, but I'm out of NR gifted links for the month.

• I have at least one big one. Jeff Jacoby says The convictions that count are the ones that sometimes sting.

  JONAH GOLDBERG, the columnist and conservative intellectual, recently published an essay about America's complicated relationship with freedom. Writing in The Dispatch, he argued that most Americans are libertarian only when it comes to freedoms they personally prize and are often content to let government regulate or prohibit freedoms they don't value — or don't want others to have. This selective consistency feeds today's partisan hypocrisy, with both left and right defending liberty or state intrusion depending on who's in power.

  From there he built to a larger point — that beneath the rivalry between red and blue, America's real exceptionalism lies in its culture: a deeply ingrained instinct for individual rights, autonomy, and resistance to government meddling. That common instinct, which Goldberg calls "American groundwater," runs deeper than our politics, and those politics would be healthier if more of us could train ourselves to see fellow Americans — even those with opposing views — as part of the same liberty-valuing culture.

  I bring up Goldberg's essay not only to recommend it but also because I was struck by the question with which he introduced it: "What principle do you hold," he challenged his readers, "that is against your self-interest or political desires?"

  OK, here's mine: We need to get Federal spending in line with revenue. This will require decreases in entitlement spending, mostly Social Security and Medicare. And that, realistically, will involve some means-tested haircuts to the well-off.

  And that would be me.

  How about you, reader? Any response to Jonah's challenge?

• Squandering their credibility. Allysia Finley takes on The Doctors Who Cry ‘Science’. (WSJ gifted link)

  Third Way, an organization that describes itself as championing “moderate” ideas on the “center left,” posted a memo Friday titled “Was It Something I Said?” It advised Democrats to avoid such terms as “housing insecurity,” “triggering,” “pregnant people” and “minoritized communities.” Such language makes Democrats sound “superior, haughty and arrogant.”

  Perhaps because they are. In Third Way’s view, Democrats’ problem isn’t that they think they’re more enlightened than ordinary Americans and want to force their ideology on those who disagree. It’s that they’re too obvious about it. Such condescension isn’t confined to cultural issues. It’s pervasive in the scientific realm.

  Liberals and medical advocacy organization often use such imperious terms as “pro-science,” “science says” or “consensus shows” when the science is murky or conflicted at best. What they are really saying is: We believe this, and therefore it is so.

  Allysia goes on to cite examples of the American Medical Association pushing left-wing ideology under the aegis of, yes, "science".

  That Third Way memo is here. I performed an experiment: asking Google for occurrences of "minoritized communities" at the University Near Here. Seven results! Example, from the heady days of 2022:

  I am in the beginning stages of a research project that will examine inclusion and belonging in public sector workplaces for marginalized and minoritized communities (specifically for black and brown people, LGBTQIA, women, elderly, immigrants, refugees, and lower socio-economic groups). The research seeks to identify and discuss ways to move beyond implicit and explicit conflicts and resistance to foster inclusion and a sense of belonging.

  I really like that "specifically", immediately followed by a totally non-specific laundry list.

Recently on the book blog:

Liz Wolfe has a balanced take when Trump instructs lawyers to look into Smithsonian museums.

It's easy to imagine that Trump will go about this in his usual hamfisted, overreaching way. "Omigod, is that a baby in the bathwater? Nooo, don't throw… argh, too late!"

You don't have to look hard to find the usual Trump cheerleaders breaking out their pompoms. Example: (which makes some valid criticisms of Smithsonian content) at the Federalist.

And the usual suspects have been, predictably, losing their shit. MSNBC had a Princeton prof opine that Trump is seeking a history "that’s rooted in a white nationalist project."

Liz, for her part, suggests a "starve the beast" solution:

The Smithsonian, per The Washington Post, "receives about 60 percent of its funding from congressional appropriations and federal grants and contracts, according to fiscal 2023 numbers, but those funds cover operations, infrastructure and maintaining collections. Generally, exhibitions are funded by private donations." Though this isn't really within the purview of the executive, the Trump administration could exert pressure on Congress to stop funding the Smithsonian and make clear that the museums need to shift to being entirely privately funded. Then Bill Ackman and Alex Soros and whoever can duke it out and decide which types of stories about America get told, and taxpayers in Wisconsin who never get to avail themselves of"The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture" can save a buck.

Certainly a goal to look forward to.

Also of note:

• A shameful admission. My CongressCritter, Chris Pappas (D-NH01), is looking to step into the US Senate seat being vacated by Jeanne Shaheen. Which means there's a scramble for Pappas's position. So I should find NHJournal's story, headlined "Elizabeth Girard Creates Campaign Committee for NH-01 GOP Primary" to be interesting, right?

  Elizabeth Girard, whose time as head of the New Hampshire Federation of Women (NHFRW) was plagued by controversy, has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to become a candidate in the 1st Congressional District primary.

  Gee, it doesn't sound as if NHJournal likes her.

  But my shameful admission: I'm pretty sure I've never heard of Elizabeth Girard.

  It gets worse. NHJournal goes on to name three other candidates:

  • Bedford GOP Committee vice chair Melissa Bailey
  • Businessman and veteran Chris Bright
  • Manchester Rep. Brian Cole

  Nope. I'm going 0 for 4: never heard of Melissa, Chris, or Brian either. But, if you're interested:

  • A WMUR story about Melissa Bailey;
  • Chris Bright's campaign website;
  • Brian Cole's campaign website;
  • Elizabeth Girard's Twitter (which has a link to, I assume, her campaign website, which doesn't work as I type).

  Those middle two ask for your info upfront. Suggestion: don't give them any.

• Not politics. Dave Barry on Pets. Opening with sad news:

  Our household is currently dogless. It's been that way since the passing, back in January, at age 17, of Lucy, who it goes without saying was the Best Dog Ever, as well as the Dog Whose Face Whitened The Most Over Time.

  The loss of Lucy means that, petwise, we're down to tropical fish. We have five of them. We've had them for what feels like decades. They are survivors. They are the Keith Richardses of tropical fish.

  But the thing about tropical fish is, not dying is pretty much all they do. They don't provide a lot of companionship. They never rush to the front door, tails wagging, to greet us, the way Lucy used to. Of course the fish also never attacked our Christmas tree, which Lucy did once; our living room looked like it had been hit by a Yule-seeking missile. But we weren't home when that happened, so we'll never know the whole story. Possibly the tree started it.

  Dave rambles, and eventually talks about the latest fad in China: pet yeast. No, not an affliction for your dog, it's yeast, that's a pet.

  Not that you should care, but I am also recently dogless. (Picture of happier days here.) I am down to one cat, petwise. Dave scorns cats, but I'm pretty sure they don't care.

• Advice to writers. No, not from me, from Neal Stephenson: Say it, don't show it.

  I’m generally not very interested in meta-writing, which is to say, writing about how to write. But for the last few years I’ve had a single sentence from Dickens hanging around on my desktop in a tiny text file, which I open up and re-read from time to time. It’s a moment from The Pickwick Papers. The titular character is attempting to board a stagecoach. It’s crowded and so he has to get on the roof, which is a bit of a challenge because he is old and portly. A passing stranger, seeing his predicament, offers to give him a hand. What happens next is described as follows:

  ‘Up with you,’ said the stranger, assisting Mr. Pickwick on to the roof with so much precipitation as to impair the gravity of that gentleman’s deportment very materially.

  If you’re a fluent reader of the Dickensian style of English, these few words will conjure up a whole short film inside of your head. You might actually have to stop reading for a few moments to let that film develop and play out. And while you’re doing that you might savor the arch and clearly self-aware phrasing that Dickens is using here, which unto itself is a way of poking fun at Mr. Pickwick and his social circle.

  It's kind of neat that Neal enjoys "the Dickensian style".

Andrew Heaton suggests a new lyric query: Why do so many jobs require a license? Trust me, it's funny:

And the Headline reference is pretty obscure, but interesting! (I am ashamed to admit my first guess was Dusty Springfield.)

Also of note:

• V is for… The WSJ editorialists are righteously disgusted by Trump’s Vendetta Campaign Targets John Bolton. (WSJ gifted link)

  I assume you've heard the news today (oh boy). So we'll jump down to the bottom line:

  Mr. Bolton has continued to speak candidly about Mr. Trump’s second-term decisions, pro and con, including in these pages this week [gifted link added] . The President may also hope the FBI raid will cause Mr. Bolton to shut up, though knowing him we can’t imagine that working.

  The real offender here is a President who seems to think he can use the powers of his office to run vendettas. We said this was one of the risks of a second Trump term, and it’s turning out to be worse than we imagined.

  Indeed it is.

• Does he, though? Kevin D. Williamson thinks Ted Cruz Knows Better, and he lives in Texas, so I'll defer to his take:

  Competition for the top spot is fierce, but the very worst of Donald Trump’s enablers and sycophants aren’t the rage-addled, rustic, resentment junkies but such polished epitomes of servility as Sen. Ted Cruz, who insists that his highest political calling is the defense and fortification of the Constitution, and who—being one of those anti-elitist sons of the Texas caliche who learned his ABCs at Princeton and Harvard Law—knows full well that the president’s contempt for the Constitution is exceeded only by his ignorance of it. 

  Here is Trump on social media, serving up the baloney pretext for his next attempt to nullify an election: 

  Remember, the States are merely an “agent” for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.

  This is, in the familiar Trump style, a motley bolus of stupidity and dishonesty. The Constitution says, in fact, precisely the opposite: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Where there is a federal role, it belongs to the lawmaking branch, not to the president: “[B]ut the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” I do like that anachronistic “chusing”—more than I like many of the laws and regulations that Congress has written over the years with regard to voting. 

  Yes, "bolus". He went there.

  KDW eventually gets to his point about Ted Cruz, Harvard law graduate.

• Somewhat resembling the classic definition of "chutzpah". George Will notes an academic version: In a classic cartel move, college sports beg for federal help. (WaPo gifted link)

  Athletic competitions mesmerize because, being unscripted, their outcomes are unpredictable. But as college football season lumbers forward, there is occurring a predictable but nonetheless entertaining event associated with college athletics: Government and large, mostly state-run universities are collaborating to reestablish the cartel that for decades enabled the schools to reap billions from the negligibly compensated labor of “student-athletes.”

  That phrase, which has become risible regarding the best revenue-generating athletes (principally male football and basketball players) central to today’s drama, is clung to by the cartel that coined it. It puts a pretty patina on a business model that until 2021 suppressed what all cartels everywhere exist to minimize: costly competition. The cartels are the NCAA’s Power Four conferences, which generate the lion’s share of college sports’ billions.

  I'm reminded of the guy who observed that Harvard is like Pfizer with a football team.

Recently on the book blog:

I'll discuss that cartoon below, but right now it's an illustration of Daniel J. Smith's WSJ column: Trump, Intel and the Road to Serfdom. (WSJ gifted link)

Well, that got my fist pumping. Also weighing in, the NR editorialists with a milder criticism: The Government Shouldn’t Get into the Chip Business.

Yes. True dat.

But about the cartoon above: that's my effort at using ChatGPT for image generation, which puts me about three years behind everyone else, AI-usagewise.

My first prompt:

draw an interstate highway with a car labeled "Intel" heading toward a destination labeled "Serfdom"

I got a good result. But after thinking a bit, I decided I could be a little more ambitious and explicit:

Make the car a convertible and show President Trump driving it.

And ChatGPT responded:

Sorry, I can’t help with that.

Sigh. I think I get it: ChatGPT doesn't want to get involved in politics. So, I pared back my request:

make the car a convertible

And you know what? It did that, the result is what you see above, and darned if it didn't slyly make Trump the driver anyway! Funny old world.

Also of note:

• And can they be as bad as we all imagine they are? James Freeman is curious: Will CBS Release its Biden Tapes? (WSJ gifted link)

  The main question about the Biden administration remains unanswered: Who was running the U.S. Government prior to Jan. 20, 2025? There are related questions about who knew what and when regarding Mr. Biden’s cognitive challenges. Now the former controlling shareholder of the parent company of CBS News suggests that in 2023 staff at the network got a damning look at a struggling Mr. Biden that they never shared with viewers.

  James discusses the possibility, raised in an interview with Shari Redstone, that 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley interviewed Joe Biden back in 2023, during which he seemed "drowsy and had to be prodded to answer."

  So, to repeat James' headline: will CBS release its Biden tapes? My guess is that doing so would demonstrate both (1) Biden's cognitive decline; (2) CBS's general reluctance to display Democrat incoherent babbling. Neither would be a surprising revelation.

• Speaking of incoherent babbling… Trump's been doing some of that too, as Andrew C. McCarthy demonstrates his recent constitutional ignorance: Trump Has No Power to Tell States How to Conduct Elections.

  As is reliably the case with President Trump, one can agree with his policy preferences while recoiling at his disregard for the constitutional processes and principles attendant to making such policy. I happen to agree with him that we would be better off without mail-in voting (and related innovations, such as ballot harvesting and drop boxes). But Trump’s notion that he can direct such an outcome, or that the state legislatures should care what he thinks, is not just ill-conceived but alarming coming from a president who has already once abused his powers to try to retain the office.

• An amusing turnabout. As revealed by John R. Puri: Wait, the ‘Washington Post’ No Longer Thinks Elections Should Be Federally Run?

  He compares the WaPo's recent reaction to Trump's screed:

  Everyone loses when the federal government runs elections

  … with their opinion back in 2021 about the "For the People Act":

  Republicans’ rhetoric on H.R. 1 is apocalyptic. Are they that afraid of democracy?

  To the WaPo's (slight) credit, the 2021 was from Congressional Democrats, not a Presidential Decree, so arguably more constitutional.

Recently on the book blog: