Pun Salad

James Freeman tells a tale of denial and irrelevance: Defeated by Big Sandwich, Sen. Warren Launches Attack on Big Salami.

Well, you can read the letter yourself. A whole bunch of legislators signed on, many from surrounding New England states, but I was (slightly) gladdened by the absence of Shaheen, Hassan, Pappas, and Kuster.

Also of note:

• Kristi Noem is available for whatever shooting you think needs to be done. Mike Masnick on the latest Congressional attempt to Do Something: The Plan To Sunset Section 230 Is About A Rogue Congress Taking The Internet Hostage If It Doesn’t Get Its Way.

  If Congress doesn’t get Google and Meta to agree to Section 230 reforms, it’s going to destroy the rest of the open internet, while Google and Meta will be just fine. If that sounds stupidly counterproductive, well, welcome to today’s Congress.

  As we were just discussing, the House Energy and Commerce committee is holding a hearing on the possibility of sunsetting Section 230 at the end of next year. This follows an earlier hearing from last month where representatives heard such confusing nonsense about Section 230 that it was actively misrepresenting reality.

  So what do you expect from the Congressional Clown Car? Cute illustration at the link, summing up the state of play:

  

• An interesting critique. I tend to be a sucker for this sort of thing: What Libertarianism Gets Wrong, by Jon Gabriel. It's a fair and thoughtful look, but let's skip down to…

  The primary flaw with libertarianism is its basis in scientific materialism, the belief that the physical world is the only thing that exists. It shares this flaw with communism, downgrading Homo sapiens into Homo economicus. Yes, each theory can be “proved mathematically,” but people are not equations to be solved.

  I'm not unsympathetic. But I think if you need to get into the woo-woo, you've lost the game.

  Instead, what's needed is a "middle way", a defense of traditional liberal virtues grounded in actual human nature. Something like C. S. Lewis called the Tao.

  That hasn't been accomplished, but we should keep trying.

• Trump better hope debate moderators aren't reading the Dispatch. Specifically, I think he'd get in trouble if they took the suggestion of Kevin D. Williamson for The First Debate Question.

  The project of working the refs before the 2024 presidential debates is already underway, with self-abasing Trump sycophants such as Tim Scott insisting that “the moderators will run interference for Joe Biden.” The moderators should not allow themselves to be pushed around, and they should begin the first debate with the obvious question, the one Donald Trump is most eager to talk about:

  “Who won the 2020 presidential election?”

  Exercise for the reader: Come up with an equally simple, but devastating, query to be aimed at Biden.

• Turning the demagoguery up to 11. The WSJ editorialists aren't impressed with a commencement address: Biden to Morehouse Graduates: America Hates You.

  The polls say President Biden has lost support among black Americans, and the White House appears to have settled on a strategy to win them back: spread more racial division. That’s the main message from the President’s dishonorable commencement address Sunday at storied Morehouse College in Atlanta.

  Mr. Biden naturally offered the 2024 graduates a list of what he sees as his accomplishments for black Americans. He indulged in his familiar gilded personal history as a civil-rights crusader. He gave the impression that the Delaware Democratic Party was a racist operation until Sen. Joe Biden came along. At least that’s the somewhat forgivable politics of self-aggrandizement.

  Less forgivable was the President’s attempt to stir resentment among the graduates on what should be a day to appreciate what they accomplished and to inspire hope for the future. Here’s what Mr. Biden said instead […]

  Lengthy quotes follow. My "favorite":

  “Today in Georgia, they won’t allow water to be available to you while you wait in line to vote in an election."

  That is, of course, a lie. One Politifact seems uninterested in pointing out.

• Feel free to cut and paste. Jeff Maurer performs a public service, My DEI Statement Now that DEI Statements Are Falling Out of Favor.

  Dear Prospective Employer,

  I have to admit: I’m somewhat surprised that you asked me to write a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement. These statements are falling out of favor: MIT has scrapped them, academics seem to be turning against them, and The Washington Post editorial board calls them a recipe for “performative dishonesty”. DEI statements feel antiquated; it’s like you’re asking me to make a Vine that highlights my strengths, or to “list five ways that you, if hired, intend to get jiggy with it.”

  Nonetheless, I welcome this opportunity. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values that I hold dear. If hired, I intend to make them an integral part of my work. And I plan to start by denouncing the shit-for-brains logic that has caused some people to imagine that DEI statements reduce racism.

  As they used to say: fish, barrel, smoking gun.