Jan
6
2026

A Day Late

(But Not a Dollar Short)

I'm somewhat ashamed of missing this yesterday:

More information? Keith Whitaker writes In Defense of the Constitution of 1776.

[The New Hampshire State Constitution] was enacted on January 5, 1776, thirteen years before the United States Constitution, and, indeed, before any other state constitution in the emerging nation. It was the first.

And yet, the Constitution of 1776 gets little respect. The State’s own website does not include a page for it. There appear to be no events planned to celebrate its birth. Historians call it a “woefully makeshift” piece of machinery. It was replaced by a completely new constitution on June 2, 1784.

Whitaker notes the bumpy road of New Hampshire government after the last royal governor, John Wentworth, fled to Long Island in 1775. (He wound up in Nova Scotia.)

As long as we're talking about New Hampshire, Ronny Chieng's comedy bit about state mottos is pretty funny, and guess which one he leads with:

There are some F-bombs in there, so use your own judgment on playing it within earshot of sensitive souls.

[2026-01-27 UPDATE: In the "My Face is Red" Department, it totally slipped my notice that I've LFOD-cited Mr. Chieng's routine twice before, in 2019 and 2020. I'm not sure apologies are in order, let alone to whom.]

Continuing in the Granite State vein, I wondered a couple days ago how CongressCritter Maggie Goodlander (D-NH02) would square her gripes about the "legality" of Trump's Venezuela Venture with her previous demand that soldiers "refuse illegal orders". A CNNdroid made a feeble attempt to pin her down on what should have been a pretty straightforward question:

Sure, Maggie.

Also of note:

  • These dots need connecting. Jeffrey Miron makes a good libertarian point about Maduro, Venezuela, and the Drug War.

    Set aside the legal issues raised by the U.S. removal of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro (but see here and here for perspectives that make sense to me);

    And assume, as asserted by the Trump administration, that Maduro has been involved or complicit in the illegal drug trade, with adverse consequences for the United States such as violence, corruption, and overdoses.

    Under these -- the best case -- conditions, is removing Maduro good policy?

    Not even close.

    Removing Maduro might shift underground drug markets from Venezuela to other countries, temporarily, but even that is unlikely. And any disruption of the Venezuelan black market will likely exacerbate the adverse impacts of underground markets.

    The right policy is for the U.S. to legalize all currently prohibited drugs. This will eliminate underground drug markets, which are the real reason for most adverse consequences typically attributed to drugs.

    I'm ambivalent about Miron's foreign policy stance, but I think he's got a valid point about the drug war.

  • Pun Salad gets results! I have little doubt that my posting of this cruel-but-true Michael Ramirez cartoon yesterday pushed Tim over the edge:

    Robby Soave is also happy about it: Tim Walz drops out of Minnesota governor race. Good riddance.

    With dark clouds gathering over his previously sunny reelection bid, Tim Walz has had enough. Minnesota's Democratic governor announced Monday he would abandon his pursuit of a third term following widespread negative publicity due to his mishandling of welfare fraud allegations.

    Walz has not been accused of personal wrongdoing, but the buck stops here, as they say. Walz was the man in charge while fraudsters stole millions, or perhaps billions, of taxpayer dollars by setting up fake charities, ransacking the medical system, and operating dubious child care services. The sheer amount of plunder has attracted national media attention in recent weeks, with even The New York Times throwing Walz under the bus.

    The governor's response has not reassured his critics that he is laser focused on restoring credibility to these programs and mercilessly prosecuting thieves. It is fine to insist, as Walz has, that the entire Somali diaspora not be smeared for the criminal behavior of some community members, but the governor has made a habit of trying to redirect blame to other groups, such as white men. This is unpersuasive, since the accusations against the Somalis are about proportionality, not absolute levels of crime. Moreover, saying that we must be color-blind with respect to the ethnicities of the fraudsters while also calling for more white men to be held accountable is totally incoherent.

    Totally incoherent? Well, he probably took lessons for that from Kamala.

  • "Crime is common. Logic is rare." Allysia Finley speaks the truth: The Scandal of American Welfare Goes Beyond Fraud. (WSJ gifted link)

    Economist John Maynard Keynes suggested that the government pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up. This is an apt metaphor for progressive government these days: It creates social dysfunction, then shovels out money to correct it. Dredge, fill and repeat.

    Healthcare and social assistance added more than 1.6 million private-sector jobs between June 2023 and June 2025, according to comprehensive data from employer payrolls published by the Labor Department in December. Yet the U.S. gained only 1.3 million private jobs during that period, meaning there was a net loss of jobs in other industries.

    These two industries accounted for more than half of the new establishments (businesses and nonprofits) created over those two years. Minnesota’s welfare-fraud scandal make you wonder: How many of these new entities and their employees are actually helping people, and how many are merely looting the government?

    In case you aren't tired of it yet, one of Pun Salad's adages applies: "When Uncle Stupid starts dropping cash from helicopters, there will be plenty of people out with buckets."

    (Headline quote source: Sherlock Holmes, "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches")


Last Modified 2026-01-27 4:42 AM EST