Pun Salad

Reason's Zach Weissmueller attempts to explain Why the internet celebrated Luigi Mangione.

There's a text version at the link. Excerpt:

It's one of those things that explains a lot of disturbing stuff out there. For example: this Power Line post that reports on a recent poll:

Support for Israel over Hamas in the conflict remains high, with 77% of voters supporting Israel.

Power Line points out that means 23% are supporting Hamas. The ones recently shown to have murdered a young mother and her two children in captivity. Something the Palestinian crowd cheered as their coffins were paraded in Gaza.

Which made this LTE from Karina Quintans in my local paper especially perverse:

This makes the Palestinians the very embodiment of our state motto: “Live Free or Die."

I can only imagine how she feels about Luigi Mangione.

Also of note:

• In our continuing exploration of depravity… Richard Hanania takes to the Free Press and looks at the other end of the horseshoe: I Can Explain Why the Nazi Salute Is Back.

  Anyone who spends any time on X today knows that the right has a serious Nazi problem, which those in the broader movement refuse to speak out against for fear of being seen as sympathizing with the enemy. When it turned out that a DOGE engineer was posting “normalize Indian hate” a few months earlier, he ended up resigning but was subsequently defended by Elon Musk and J.D. Vance and then rehired—as if talking like this was appropriate for someone with an important position in the federal government.

  In addition to reflecting the existence of an opposition culture that can’t yet acknowledge it has won, the rise of Nazi salutes reveals a movement that has yet to get serious about policing its own borders, a necessity for expanding its base and effectively wielding power. For those trying to form political coalitions and have an influence on public policy, Nazi salutes are obviously a hindrance to their goals—and they give leftists new life.

  Owning the libs is not a philosophy or a winning political strategy. As someone whose brain has undergone the same process as many on the right, I’ve learned that turning into a caricature of what your political opponents are against is both intellectually and spiritually stifling. One becomes as much a mental slave to the censors of the far left as any of their most devoted foot soldiers. It takes away the ability to engage in a measured consideration of issues or social trends, and introduces an intellectual inflexibility that makes one unable to recognize when circumstances have changed. Becoming an ironic Nazi or feeling the need to defend such posturing is little better. It is a method of communication that was almost certainly never productive but under current conditions has become truly grotesque—and should have no place in public life.

  Richard confesses that he had his own nasty "owning the libs" obsession in his younger days, so he speaks from experience.

  I'd like to think I was never that bad.

• The More Things Change… Do you recall the bad old days, when the Biden Administration and Nina Jankowicz attempted censorship-by-proxy. Well, that horseshoe has curled back on itself, as Jacob Sullum notes: Trump wants a First Amendment exception for 'fake news'

  "Fake News is an UNPARDONABLE SIN!" President Donald Trump declares in a Truth Social rant inspired by the cancellation of Joy Reid's MSNBC show. "This whole corrupt operation is nothing more than an illegal arm of the Democrat Party. They should be forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they've done to our Country."

  Trump's claim that journalism he does not like is "illegal" and constitutes a tort justifying massive civil damages should be familiar by now. He has made such claims not only in social media posts but also in actual lawsuits against news organizations. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) explains in a motion filed last Friday, these chilling attempts to convert Trump's complaints about press coverage into causes of action are legally baseless and blatantly unconstitutional.

  I don't suppose impeachment is an option with the House in GOP hands, but … y'know ‥ this is a pretty clear violation of the Oath of Office just a few weeks ago, the part about "to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States".

• Live not by lies. Jonah notes that it's tough advice to follow When the Truth Is Simple but Being Truthful Is Complicated. But it helps to be a coward! For a recent demonstration:

  On the day before the third anniversary of the brutal, lawless invasion of Ukraine, Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on whether it’s “fair to say” that Russia’s attack was unprovoked. Hegseth responded that it’s “fair to say it’s a very complicated situation.”

  This is a good illustration of the difference between a complicated question and the complications of answering a simple question honestly. The answer to the question “Does this dress make me look fat?” may be simple enough, but answering it honestly can be quite difficult in some circumstances.

  Hegseth is hardly the only prominent Republican official who has dodged the question since the president outrageously claimed that Ukraine “started” the war. Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, also repeatedly refused to answer the question.

  Sometimes figuring out who started a war is complicated. But this isn’t World War I or the War of Jenkins’ Ear. Of course Russia started it.

  Given that the answer to the question is so uncomplicated, why is answering it so complicated?

  It’s not because Russia will be offended by an accurate response. The West has provided billions in military aid to Ukraine and heaped sanctions on Vladimir Putin and his regime in response to the criminal invasion. Saying once again that Russia started the war would not change the geopolitical equation in the slightest.

  No, what makes this complicated is that Donald Trump is aping Putin’s talking points about who started the war. Publicly contradicting Trump creates complications for any Republican official who dares to do so. 

  If Trump says basset hounds can fly, they have to say it too. This is the dynamic that has bedeviled the GOP since Trump won the presidential nomination in 2016.

  That's a long excerpt, sorry. But I wanted to get to the bit about flying basset hounds.

• They should just change their name to "Baby Killers ᴙ Us". At NR, Susan Bane writes The Dark Truth About Planned Parenthood Is Now Undeniable.

  Mismanaged abortions, patients receiving expired medication, sewage leaking into recovery rooms.

  These are all incidents described in a bombshell New York Times article on the suffering quality of health care offered by the nation’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood.

  According to the report, the abortion giant has been plagued by stories of horrific treatment that patients have endured at its affiliate clinics. One center mismanaged an IUD placement in a patient, leaving her with months of sharp pain and bleeding. To add insult to injury, this woman’s family continued to receive bills from the affiliate long after they had paid their balance for the device that hurt her.

  The NYT story is pretty brutal all by itself, shorn of its pro-abortion bias.

• Attention should be paid to a brave lonely voice. The WSJ's "A-Hed" story often features someone quirky. Yesterday it Mark Weller, a defender of the currency status quo: Everyone Hates Pennies, Except This Guy.

  Whenever the penny is threatened, one man stands up to defend it.

  Mark Weller has been on a roll for three decades, arguing for the one-cent coin’s existence every chance he gets. When the penny is slighted in newspapers, it’s Weller who writes letters to the editor. He’s extolled the coin’s virtues on television and radio shows. The pro-penny group he runs, Americans for Common Cents, spits out facts to lawmakers about the benefits of the smallest unit of U.S. currency. And he’s been to Capitol Hill countless times to convince Congress to keep the penny, which the U.S. Mint has been producing since 1793.

  Here is the "Americans for Common Cents" website, pennies.org.

  I think any decent pro-market, government-skeptical publication should point out that the move to stop producing the penny implicitly contains a shameful unstated admission: despite Uncle Stupid having a legally-enforced monopoly at producing legal-tender currency, it has done a lousy job of providing what should be Job One: making the currency a reliable long-term store of value.

  That's why the penny is relatively "expensive" to produce: inflation has eaten its value away.

  I haven't even seen this point made at (sigh) Reason. Example recent article: To cut government spending, Trump targets pocket change.

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