Pun Salad

That being the title of Andrew Heaton's latest video at Reason, which contains more serious content than is usual for Andrew's videos, and I highly recommend it…

… um, unless you're of Irish descent, and sensitive about it. (In which case, best to you on St. Patrick's Day!)

Also of note:

• An easy call for me. Veronique de Rugy poses a choice for you: Tax the Rich or Discipline the Government?

  In 1950, [s Cato Institute tax scholar Adam Michel] documents, total government spending constituted roughly one-fifth of the U.S. economy. That figure has now risen to more than one-third. Real spending per person quadrupled over that same period. Jack Salmon of the Mercatus Center traced this phenomenon back to determine exactly where the long-term structural deficit comes from, and found that 98% is due to spending decisions. About two-thirds of this deficit reflects the compounding cost of interest on debt we've already accumulated. The remainder is mandatory program growth, above all with Medicare, which is on a trajectory to nearly triple as a share of GDP by mid-century compared with its historical average.

  No plausible tax increase can close a gap like that. There's a hard empirical ceiling on how much revenue the government can actually extract, regardless of what tax rates it sets.

  More fiscal fun facts from Vero at the link. The real problem? We (present company excepted) keep electing politicians who lie to us about this.

• Speaking of spending… At Cato, Chris Edwards looks at a sacred cow: Farm Subsidies: More, More, More.

  Republicans can’t get enough of farm subsidies. The House GOP is currently pushing another big farm bill just months after President Trump doled out $12 billion in special farm payments. By one measure, farm subsidies are projected to soar from $23 billion in 2025 to $42 billion by 2027, so now is a good time to review these growing handouts.

  The federal budget fattens many industries, including defense, health care, transportation, and housing. But no industry is more coddled by the federal government than agriculture, particularly field crops. Billions of dollars a year flow to farmers of corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, and rice.

  Farmers are businesspeople, but the government shields them from just about every type of weather and market risk. Furthermore, just about every part of the agricultural industry is subsidized, including insurance, loans, marketing, research, export sales, and land improvements.

  Most welfare programs are for low-income families, but farm welfare is for high-income families. The average income of US farm households in 2024 was $159,334, which was 32 percent higher than the $121,000 average of all US households. But Congress steers subsidies to the wealthiest of those farm households. Two-thirds or more of payments from the major subsidy programs go to the largest 10 percent of farms. Even billionaires can receive farm subsidies.

  As a one-time Iowa boy, I like farmers a lot, but they need to be weaned off the federal teat.

• And at the University Near Here… NHJournal has mixed news: UNH's $212K DEI Director Out, but Race-Based Policies May Remain.

  She survived years of tight budgets, legislative action, and presidential executive orders, but the University of New Hampshire’s $212,000 DEI officer is finally on her way out.

  The question now is whether the UNH administration will continue to push for the race-based policies and practices that are unpopular with the voters and — more importantly — the legislators who oversee their funding.

  In a letter to students and faculty, UNH President Elizabeth Chilton announced that Dr. Nadine Petty will be leaving at the end of the year.

  “Since joining UNH in 2020, Dr. Petty has helped strengthen the university’s commitment to an inclusive, equitable, and respectful campus community,” Chilton wrote.

  Chilton’s letter didn’t mention federal and state laws mandating an end to the so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies Petty was hired to oversee. Instead, Chilton said Petty and her husband will “relocate to be closer to family outside of New England.”

  Yes, she's leaving to spend more time with her family.

  I wish her well, and hope she exercises her talents in some less divisive field.

I believe the Amazon Product du Jour is borderline idolatry, and I only recommend it as a bad example.

The WSJ editorialists bemoan a recent legislative success: Elizabeth Warren’s Housing Coup. (WSJ gifted link)

I don't think they're making an obscure reference to the Native American ritual of counting coup. But maybe.

After Your Federal Government has made great progress in making medical care, public education, and childcare "affordable", it's about time it worked its magic on housing.

In case you need it: the headline reference.

Also of note:

• Or maybe just change their name to "Complete Ninny Network". John Hinderaker goes for the jugular: CNN Must Go. He follows up the failures mentioned here yesterday. The latest is a grudging apology for being "inaccurate", but one that still manages to be inaccurate:

  I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead…

  — Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) March 11, 2026

  Nevertheless, they persisted:

  Astonishingly, after Phillips’ gaffe, another CNN host repeated the same falsehood:

  Later in the program, CNN’s Ana Navarro said the attack was “against Mayor Mandani in New York, who was raised Muslim.”

  Let's see if Nina Jankowicz and her "American Sunlight Project" are covering this misinformation pandemic… uh, nope.

• The latest instantiation of "Horseshoe Theory". Dennis Saffran is not happy about it: The New Right Takes Up the Left’s War on Merit.

  In June 2023, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), striking down racial preferences that discriminated against whites but most blatantly against Asian-Americans in college admissions. It was one of the signal conservative judicial victories made possible by Donald Trump’s Court appointments. And, while colleges and universities have continued to resist it, it is clear that it marked, if not the beginning of the end of the “plot against merit” that has caught high-achieving Asian-American kids in its crosshairs, at least “the end of the beginning” of the effort to restore something resembling colorblind equality.

  So, of course, there’s a certain kind of right-winger who just can’t stand it.

  New Right writer Helen Andrews went on a Yellow Peril tweetstorm tear on X last month, bemoaning Asian “cheating” and “grind culture” and the “death spiral” of “unchecked meritocracy” seen in China, speculating that “the boom in Southern colleges is white flight from Asian educational norms,” criticizing high-skilled immigration, and fretting that, in the wake of the SFFA decision, the Harvard freshman class is now “over 40% Asian,” and “Asians outnumber whites” at many other top schools. She followed this up with a piece in Compact reiterating these themes and lamenting that the SFFA ruling had allegedly allowed affirmative action “to continue as long as it only harms whites and not Asians.”

  As an "I'm old enough to remember" item: it used to be Jews.

• Might even be worse than his phoniness problem. George Will translates auribus teneo lupum for us clods: Gavin Newsom has a hold-a-wolf-by-the-ears problem. (WaPo gifted link). It's all good, of course, so just a couple paragraphs at random:

  Vogue has just published an adoring profile of Newsom. Its 5,317 words begin with these: “He is embarrassingly handsome, his hair seasoned with silver, at ease with his own eminence.” Then Vogue shifts into high-gear gush: “lithe, ardent, energetic, a glimmer of optimism in his eye; Kennedy-esque.”

  This is the most beyond-satire puff piece since Vanity Fair’s April 2019 cover story on a Texas congressman who was the flavor of the month for about a month among the tiny sliver of voters who think Vanity Fair is a profound guide to U.S. politics. Remember Beto O’Rourke? Few do.

  As I type, Governor Gav is the favored 2028 Democrat presidential nominee at the Stossel/Lott Election Betting Odds site, but with only a 26.8% probability. What's that mean?

• This inspires some dark fantasies here. James Piereson calls for truth in labelling: Socialism is a hate crime.

  It is remarkable that, despite its long record of failure, socialism is now more popular than ever among college students and in progressive precincts of the Democratic Party, at least judging by the cult status of figures such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now an avowed socialist has been elected mayor of New York, the commercial capital of the United States and home to that great capitalist institution, the stock market. Even more recently, socialists here and around the world have spoken out in unison against the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, the socialist dictator of Venezuela.

  It is ironic that these socialists, along with their supporters and fellow travelers, like to censor conservatives for, allegedly, promoting “hate” and “division.” On that basis, they have banned conservative speakers from appearing on college campuses, and just a few years ago urged Twitter and Facebook to close the accounts of conservatives who spoke out against socialism.

  This raises the question: given the historical record, why don’t we label socialism as a hate crime?

  I try to avoid amateur psychoanalysis, but socialists do seem to be motivated by unhealthy and dysfunctional instincts. Just sayin'.

• Maybe not three cheers, but can we have two? Or even one? Jeff Maurer has a contrarian take: Regime Change is Good Sometimes.

  Left-wing views on regime change are largely informed by two bees that are still buzzing around in the leftist bonnet: The CIA’s work to install the Shah in Iran and Pinochet in Chile. When the 1952 election in Iran produced a Prime Minister who threatened Western oil interests, the CIA and MI6 backed a coup by the Shah that made him an absolute ruler. And when a Marxist won the 1970 election in Chile, the CIA backed a coup a few years later by Augusto Pinochet. If you know leftists — and oh I have known some leftists in my time — these are events they talk about a lot. And they have a point: The US basically supported democracy unless democracy produced leaders we didn’t like, which is kind of like being monogamous unless a really juicy opportunity to cheat comes along.

  But the big problem in both cases is that we toppled governments that had democratic legitimacy. Those governments won elections, and we didn’t even wait for the leftist leader to disband the constitution and declare himself Dictator For Life And Beyond (which probably would have happened if the CIA had just kept its pants on). We ignored the people’s will in both countries, which is why folks like me — who don’t care about Marxist claptrap but do care about democracy — look at those choices and think “bad stuff”.

  Good points.

Recently on the book blog:

I own the hardcover, which I purchased back in 1980 for (I think) the full retail price at the time, $11.95. And it has sat, unread, on my bookshelf since then. About time I got to it.

Reader, I mean no disrespect to the late Philip José Farmer, but the word that kept popping into my head while reading this was "interminable". Things go on for many, many pages.

And, not that it matters, but: that's a neat cover picture, but nothing like that shows up in the book.

And, to add to my kvetching, my edition has a back-cover quote from Farmer that states:

Now ends the Riverworld series, all loose ends tied together in a sword-resisting Gordian knot, all the human mysteries revealed, the millions of miles of The River and the many years of quests and The Quest completed.

And then just a few years later, his actual last novel, Gods of Riverworld, was published. I'm sure there was a good reason for that besides squeezing out a few bucks from readers with more money than sense. Like me.

Riverworld is falling apart here. The once-reliable "resurrection" feature that rebooted dead humans into a new life along the River has stopped working: when you're dead, you're dead. And the semi-magical grailstones that provided periodic food, drink, and other consumables to humanity stop working entirely on one bank of the River. Which causes that bank's inhabitants to go to war against the other, resulting in the death of half of Riverworld's billions of souls. (Easy come, easy go.) A lot of these troubles are brought about by "X", a mysterious (and murderous) renegade from the race that created Riverworld, the "Ethicals".

Worse: there are two competing riverboats racing upriver, aimed at finding the "Tower" at the River's source: one helmed by King John, the other by Samuel Clemens. They go to all-out war, too, because why not. This involves an interminable dogfight between each boat's airplanes, closely followed by an interminable battle between the boats themselves, fought out on the river's surface.

Leaving a ragtag group of survivors to proceed to the Tower. Their (also interminable) trek is perilous and deadly, but they still have time to engage in discussions (reminiscent of college dorm rooms) of wathans, a soul-like psychic gadget that acts as a backup device for humans.

Eventually, things wind up, and it turns out to be fortunate that one of the survivors of all the carnage is Alice Liddell, Lewis Carroll's inspiration. Spoiler: She saves the day.

I don't actually recommend you buy the Amazon Product du Jour over there on your right. (Although I've put it on my possibly-get-at-library list. If I'm feeling masochistic.) It's by the failed litigator Michael Mann and Peter Hotez. And according to the review by Roger Pielke Jr., they are The Scientists Who Declared War on Half of America.

"Stark Realty" would be a good name for a New Hampshire real estate company.

Roger's not a big fan, as you might expect from someone who's named by Mann/Hotez as one of the Enemies of the Good.

Also of note:

• Trying to put a smiley face on mediocrity. The Heritage Foundation has issued an updated Index of Economic Freedom, ranking 184 countries.

  I won't sugarcoat it, Reader: the US is in a solid 22nd place. The relevant page reflects the Heritage Foundation's Trump sycophancy:

  The United States’ economic freedom score is 72.8, making its economy the 22nd freest in the 2026 Index of Economic Freedom. Its rating has increased by 2.6 points from last year, ending the precipitous five-year decline of America’s economic freedom. The Trump Administration’s pragmatic pro-growth economic strategy—lowering the costs of doing business, advancing and spreading prosperity, and enhancing long-term competitiveness—has yielded the strongest economic growth rate recorded in recent years.

  The American economy has achieved the largest score improvement among the major advanced economies and the third largest among all of the countries graded in the 2026 Index. Gains in monetary freedom, government spending, fiscal health, and investment freedom have outpaced the lower score in trade freedom, reflecting the positive impact of major regulatory and tax reforms on economic growth, investment, and business confidence. This improvement also marks America’s biggest score advancement since 2001 and the second-best in the U.S.’s 32-year history in the Index.

  You might have missed the mumble about the "lower score in trade freedom". And I'm not sure how they measure "government spending" and "fiscal health" to come up with gains.

  But it's downright embarrassing when your country is getting its clock cleaned economic freedomwise by Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, Australia, Taiwan, Luxembourg, Demark, Norway, Estonia, The Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Finland, Canada, Lithuania, Chile, Cyprus, South Korea, Czech Republic, and Mauritius.

• Like I'm five years old? Bryan Caplan bravely says: I Think I Can Explain Trump's Theory of Trade.

  Donald Trump likes exports and foreign investment, and laments imports and trade deficits. Most economists find this a baffling bundle of preferences — and the more they know about international trade, the more baffled they are. Never mind the truism that the whole point of exports is to buy imports. Doesn’t Trump know that getting more foreign investment raises trade deficits by definition? How confused can you get? While I agree that Trump is terribly wrong about international trade, there’s a big difference between being wrong and being confused. While I doubt I’m ready to pass an Ideological Turing Test for Trumpian trade theory, I recently had a weird epiphany on the topic. After said epiphany, I feel capable of articulating roughly what Trump is thinking.

  1. Above all, Trump wants the rest of the world to buy as much stuff from the U.S. as possible. He wants the world to buy our current output — and he wants them to buy our assets, too! His dream is piles of dollars flowing into the U.S. from all directions.

  2. If piles of dollars flow into the U.S. from all directions, he thinks this will boost U.S. sales and employment.

  3. Trump doesn’t know and doesn’t care about the “trade deficit” as economists define it. When he hears “trade deficit,” Trump imagines that U.S. dollars leaving the U.S. exceed U.S. dollars entering the U.S. Foreign investment means U.S. dollars entering the U.S., so on his implicit definition, foreign investment reduces trade deficits.

  Why would anyone find this story plausible? Simple: It’s unadorned, old-fashioned Keynesianism. Trump wants to boost aggregate demand. The more money foreigners spend here, the more American business will sell, and the more American workers they’ll hire.

  Since I know nothing about Keynesianism, let alone the unadorned, old-fashioned variety, I probably shouldn't comment.

  I will anyhow: I think Bryan's giving the president too much intellectual cover. I think Trump operates simply on a combination of unprincipled whim and narcissism.

• If the truth-in-labelling laws had any teeth, they would have been forced to do this already. David Strom at Hot Air fantasizes: CNN Changing Name to PNN: Propaganda News Network.

  Some things you cannot make up.

  I mean, who would believe it if you told them that CNN would turn an Islamist terrorist attack on New York City into a tale of two brothers minding their own business until they were forced to protest the injustice of white supremacists who were committing an Islamophobic hate crime?

  He's talking about this:

  Whenever the topic is something the media doesn’t like, journalists all become creative writing professors. The press has done everything possible to obfuscate the facts of this story—and it has done so deliberately. pic.twitter.com/YnwnyRwXLe

  — Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) March 10, 2026

  CNN eventually got embarrassed into fixing this particular outrage, but David has more examples. And since then:

  CNN claims the attempted bombing in NYC was directed at Mamdani
  
  It was literally two isis islamists who shouted “allahu akbar” and threw the bombs at anti-Mamdani protesters
  
  This attempt to rewrite history is INSANE pic.twitter.com/93SvU70sIJ

  — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 11, 2026

  When I see people out there claim "You can't hate the media enough", I take it as a dare. "Oh yeah? Watch me."

• But in more positive news… James Freeman pays some attention to an under-reported bit of the story: Duty, Honor, Country, City. (WSJ gifted link)

  One always hopes that in the face of danger one would act with courage. But how many among us would run toward alleged terrorists or toward an improvised explosive device even as it emits a cloud of smoke from its lit fuse? New York City police officers did both of those things last Saturday in foiling an attempted attack allegedly inspired by ISIS.

  Something to hold onto.

Yes, a very belated nod to Robert Duvall's famous line in Apocalypse Now, inspired by Jack Butler's plea for honest language: A War by Any Name. (WSJ gifted link)

And, yes, it's a very rare case where (in this very limited domain) President Trump is being more honest than his fellow D.C. swamp-dwellers.

"It is what it is." Sheesh.

Also of note:

• A wise man once noted "a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth." Thomas W. Hazlett describes a byproduct: The Equal Time Rule Was Obsolete in 1927. (WSJ gifted link)

  A debate has broken out over the Radio Act of 1927. It’s about time.

  The Radio Act established the Equal Time Rule, which still governs broadcast radio and television. The regulation specifies that “if any licensee shall permit any . . . candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station,” the station owner “shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates.”

  Proponents say the Equal Time Rule fosters media coverage of politics and affords political candidates greater public access. Critics say it has outlived its usefulness, as today’s media landscape offers a cornucopia of platforms unknown in 1920s America. The critics are right, except for one thing: The rule has never been useful and has always functioned mostly to suppress coverage for challengers.

  Kill it before it becomes a centenarian. And the FCC too, while you're at it.

• And reminding us why the FCC should go is … the libertarian-friendly WePo Editorial Board: The FCC thinks it knows best. (WaPo gifted link)

  The Federal Communications Commission announced last week that it wants to crack down on call centers. No one likes dealing with customer service over the phone, but don’t be surprised if this government intervention makes an already annoying experience even worse.

  “Consumers in the U.S. regularly experience frustration and inconsistent outcomes when they connect with a customer service call center located abroad,” the FCC said. The agency also pointed to language barriers and security concerns before introducing a raft of proposed rules for companies.

  Here's an idea: if you are dissatisfied with the customer service you get from a company, take your business elsewhere. Don't look to the FCC to save you from talking to New Delhi Dolly.

• A belated birthday note. I noted the anniversary of The Wealth of Nations yesterday, but here's a late-breaking card from J.D. Tuccille: Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' remains relevant 250 years later.

  Smith is often referred to as the "father of capitalism" as if he designed an economic system as a thought experiment. But that's not the case. Instead, he described what he saw working in the voluntary interactions of people around him, and the government policies that got in the way of prosperity.

  As Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations:

  What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can in his local situation judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

  That was an important insight at a time when Europe's rulers insisted that the path to building wealth required hoarding precious metals, limiting imports, and guiding economic activity to serve the interests of the state. It remains a key point a quarter-millennium later when countries that built prosperity through relatively free markets now squander what they created with government priorities and policies that sideline the creative efforts of workers and entrepreneurs.

  I would dearly love to report that insight has won the day, but … nope.

• I don't write about Texas politics much. But Kevin D. Williamson lives down there, and he has A Brief Message for Sen. John Cornyn. (archive.today link)

  A brief question for Sen. John Cornyn: What, exactly, is the point of you?

  You’re not Ken Paxton, true. Paxton, the corrupt imbecile who serves as the attorney general of Texas and your opponent in the upcoming Republican primary runoff, is pretty gross: He is an adulterer, a chiseler, an abuser of his office. Donald Trump, whom you are satisfied to serve as the most abject and obedient of lackeys, also is an adulterer, a chiseler, and an abuser of his office. On top of that is the fact that he attempted to overthrow the government of these United States in January 2021 after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden—and you voted to acquit him in his impeachment after that attempted coup d’état. President Trump has launched an unconstitutional war against Iran, has carried out wanton massacres in the Caribbean, has overthrown the government of Venezuela, has dispatched U.S. special forces to Ecuador, and in none of these instances has he so much as nodded in the general direction of Congress—the branch of the U.S. government in which you serve, Sen. Cornyn, and the branch entrusted by our Constitution with the power to declare war. You have been exactly as faithful to your vow to uphold the Constitution as Ken Paxton was to his wedding vows—and, with all due respect to the blessed institution of marriage, your infidelity to the Constitution is more consequential than Paxton’s infidelity to his wife.

  I have no particular beef with Cornyn, but I deeply admire KDW.

• Unclear on the LFOD concept. Allen J. Davis of Dublin, NH appeals to LFOD in his LTE to the Keene Sentinel: NH: Live free, but without food choice.

  I oppose House Bill 1773, which would take away SNAP recipients' freedom to buy certain unhealthy foods.

  I wholeheartedly support Lisa Beaudoin, executive director of the N.H. Council of Churches, who said to the N.H. House of Representatives last week: This bill is a "troubling shift from support to surveillance."

  And, I want to pose this question to all House Republicans: Does "Live Free or Die" apply only to those lucky enough not to need the benefits of SNAP?

  Nobody, of course, is stopping Granite Staters from buying soda and candy.

  With their own money.

  Not that it matters, but here's what you currently can't use SNAP for (in any state):

  • Beer, wine, and liquor.
  • Cigarettes and tobacco.
  • Food and drinks containing controlled substances such as cannabis/marijuana and CBD.
  • Vitamins, medicines, and supplements. If an item has a Supplement Facts label, it is considered a supplement and is not eligible for SNAP purchase.
  • Live animals (except shellfish, fish removed from water, and animals slaughtered prior to pick-up from the store).
  • Foods that are hot at the point of sale.
  • Any nonfood items such as:
    • Pet foods
    • Cleaning supplies, paper products, and other household supplies.
    • Hygiene items and cosmetics

  Bet you didn't realize you were already living in a statist hellhole, did you Allen?

Recently on the movie blog:

I've had a very poor movie-watching record so far this year. Part of the problem: I don't report on movies if I fell asleep while watching them. And that happens a lot; I even nodded off in the movie theater during 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

But I can report that I stayed awake all the way through Song Sung Blue. And I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's the based-on-truth story of Mike and Claire Sardina, starting from their meet-cute while performing their tribute-band songs at the Wisconsin State Fair. They discover their true chemistry in the songs of Neil Diamond. And eventually build a fan following in the Milwaukee area. Until…

Well, no spoilers here. But I went into the movie not really knowing the details, and there's some bad stuff I didn't see coming. (And, sadly, neither does Claire.) But it wouldn't be a very interesting movie without some of that.

Hugh Jackman plays Mike, Kate Hudson plays Claire, and they are both great. (Ms. Hudson snagged a Best Actress Oscar nomination, well-deserved.) And, hey, that's Jim Belushi!

(For what it's worth: I am definitely going to see Project Hail Mary on the big screen. And I will try again to watch The Bone Temple when it shows up on Netflix.)

No, I'm not jumping the gun. I'm joining with Janet Bufton at Econlib to hit this anniversary right on the nose: Happy Birthday, Wealth of Nations.

Janet's examples are part of the Liberty Fund's slick website, Adam Smith Works. A font of wisdom and trivia. For example, you might think that Adam was fond of Scotch Whiskey. But no, he preferred clarets (in moderation). Which probably gave him insight into British trade with France.

Also of note:

• Let's beat up on this stupid, evil idea some more. Megan McArdle looks at The myth of the billionaire wealth tax. (WaPo gifted link)

  Unfortunately, there are serious arguments that a wealth tax would be unconstitutional. Even more unfortunately, wealth taxes have been tried over and over, and most countries that adopted them eventually abandoned the idea, finding that such taxes were difficult to administer, caused capital flight and raised little revenue. An analysis by University of Toronto economist Joseph Steinberg suggests that tax revenue would actually fall if the Sanders-Khanna proposal were enacted, because of increased incentives for tax evasion (as taxes rise, people become more willing to risk the penalties for evasion) and reduced economic output.

  But what would Adam Smith say? See: Adam Smith on Taxation

• Not just stupid? The WSJ editorialists weigh in: The Legal Case Against Section 122 Tariffs. (WSJ gifted link)

  We never expected to see progressives quote Milton Friedman. But lo, 22 Democratic Attorneys General on Thursday invoked the free-market sage in a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s new Section 122 tariffs. They have a strong case.

  Mr. Trump last month turned to Section 122 to reimpose his border taxes after the Supreme Court struck down his emergency tariffs. Section 122 lets him impose tariffs as high as 15% for up to 150 days to address “large and serious balance-of-payments deficits.” Mr. Trump says the tariffs are needed to reduce the U.S.’s $1.2 trillion trade deficit in goods.

  Let's skip down to the delicious irony:

  Richard Nixon made Section 122 obsolete when he shut the gold window and abandoned Bretton Woods. The lawsuit quotes the sainted Friedman: “[A] system of floating exchange rates completely eliminates the balance-of-payments problem . . . the price may fluctuate but there cannot be a deficit or a surplus threatening an exchange crisis.”

  And on this day, you might also check out Adam Smith's Warnings about Exceptions to Free Trade.

• 

  Happy dolphins probably not included. The cover story in the current issue of Reason is by Christian Britschgi, who writes on The Joys of Data Centers. Joy is needed more than ever these days, right?

  Sen. Bernie Sanders has a problem with data centers. They're just too good.

  In a video posted to social media in December 2025, the Vermont independent complained that billionaire tech moguls are reaping huge profits from their data center investments while the technological innovations these facilities power will automate away countless jobs currently done by human workers. He called for a federal moratorium on data center construction to "give democracy a chance to catch up with the transformative changes that we are witnessing."

  I imagine there were early 20th-century Bernies demanding a moratorium on Henry Ford's Model T factory. But…

  In Sanders' case, his complaints about data centers tacitly accept the premises of the people investing huge sums in them: that these facilities will be fabulously profitable investments that spur the development of the innovative, labor-saving technologies of the future. But the socialist senator thinks that's a bad thing. After all, no government bureaucrat has precisely planned where all this economic dynamism will take us.

  The rest of us should be able to see the tremendous upsides of the country's data center boom. Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics could liberate humanity from boring, backbreaking labor. The early profits of data center development are a leading indicator of the increasingly productive economy that awaits us in the years to come.

  And although I'm relatively sure Adam Smith never wrote specifically about AI data centers, who can doubt that they are the pin factories of today?

Recently on the book blog:

A good review in the WSJ put this book by David Baron on my get-at-library list. It's easy to write off our modern age as one where the unwashed masses believe in utter claptrap, but guess what? The author, David Baron, demonstrates that back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, plenty of Americans got hooked into believing in Martians. And many of those people were well-washed.

Leading the way were the "amateur" astronomers of the day. (By our lights, most scientists back then were amateurs, although very enthusiastic.) The most famous was Percival Lowell, one of the immensely wealthy mill-owning Lowells of Boston. Percival wasn't that interested in mills, but used his fortune to build telescopes and (eventually) observatories, and his attention was concentrated on Mars.

And he reported some astounding news: Mars was an arid, dying, planet, but it had polar icecaps. And a vast network of canals, clearly meant to carry runoff water from those icecaps down to oases at lower latitudes. Clearly, the inhabitants of Mars had built them as a desperate measure to survive.

Although there were critics of this scenario, the public was swept up by Lowell's certainty. Nicola Tesla was also a True Believer, and made serious efforts to communicate with the Martians, either by huge reflecting mirrors or a even bigger radio antenna. H.G. Wells also got in on the craze with (you may have heard) his novel War of the Worlds.

But by the early 1900s, the craze was in decline. Although Lowell remained a believer in his fantasy until he died in 1916, he was increasingly isolated and depressed. (Tesla, as you might know, was even crazier, developing an (um) eccentric attachment to a white New York pigeon that he claimed visited him daily.)

Baron does a good job of getting into Lowell's head. Occasionally his prose gets purple and (perhaps) overly speculative, but that's OK.

Another book picked off the shelves of the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library thanks to its inclusion on the WSJ's list of 2025's Best Mystery Books. The reviewer, Tom Nolan, likes the author, Denise Mina, quite a bit and he says this "may be Ms. Mina’s best book." Alas, my fancy was untickled.

The protagonist, Claudia O’Sheil, is a forensic scientist, and her specialty is the "Blood Spray Probability Scale" (BSPS), a crime scene analysis tool that's brought her fame. By Dickensian coincidence, she is nearby when the grisly murder of an aristocrat and his fiancée is uncovered. (And also, a dog.) Suspicion falls on the wastrel son, but Claudia's not so sure. Even though her BSPS seems to point to him, she's becoming less convinced of its utility. Alas, the son pleads guilty, even though Claudia's increasingly convinced that someone else did the deed.

And she's got other problems of her own. Her husband was recently killed in a seeming auto accident. (Or was it suicide? Or murder?) Her sister is a drug addict. She's worried about the school her two sons will attend. And… well, she's not very sympathetic. Or interesting. Her investigatory efforts seem half-hearted and random.

The book is also full of unexplained Britishisms, most of which I couldn't even figure out from context.

I'm probably wrong. As usual, the book's Amazon page is full of praise.

Andrew Heaton, Reason's game show host, asks his unwary contestant: Is it war?.

Minigripe: Andrew didn't ask the contestant about the First Barbary War.

Also of note:

• I wish Vinay good health and access to whatever drugs he needs to make that happen. The WSJ editorialists note that Vinay Prasad Is Out at the FDA—Again. (WSJ gifted link) And it's hard to see this as anything other than good news:

  Is two times the charm? FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said Friday that Vinay Prasad, who leads the FDA’s biologics division, will leave the agency at the end of April. This is the second time Dr. Prasad is being pushed out of the agency, and to understand why, see his handling of UniQure’s gene therapy for Huntington’s disease.

  We reported in November that the FDA had moved the goal post on UniQure’s treatment. Huntington’s disease afflicts about 40,000 patients in the U.S., and there are no current treatments that slow progression. UniQure’s therapy slowed progression by 75% compared to the natural course of the disease.

  For the record: Pun Salad covered Vinay relatively positively back in early, mostly COVID, days: here, here, here, here, and here. But then things turned to is-this-the-same-guy? land this year: here, here, and here.

  I know: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Still, it makes me wonder if I'm missing something.

• It's a glum-looking bunch. We don't do a lot of linking to InDepthNH, but this seems to be pretty solid reporting: Protesters Rally Against Free State Project.

  CONCORD, NH — About 100 protesters joined the Kent Street Coalition and other local advocacy groups at the State House on Thursday to protest the Free State Project in New Hampshire, which critics say attempts to influence state politics and dismantle public education.

  Groups such as 50501 NH, Southern NH Indivisible, Granite State Matters, and Third Act NH joined the coalition to oppose the Free State Project, which was formed in 2001. Two years later the state was picked as the best destination to “reinforce and enhance an already existing libertarian culture.” Its mission — which began with the goal of a mass migration of more than 20,000 people — is to expand personal and economic freedom by concentrating liberty-minded people in New Hampshire.

  (I will observe that none of the FSP-hating folks advocated/threatened/promised moving to FSP-free states, like … well pick and choose among approximately 49 others, plus D.C.)

  To his credit, the reporter sought rebuttal quotes from FSP Executive Director Eric Brakey:

  Brakey responded to the criticism and asserted that “there is no such thing as a ‘Free State Agenda.’”

  Brakey said that the group is not a political party and does not operate with a centralized policy platform. He noted it’s a decentralized movement of people who believe the government should be limited to protecting life, liberty, and property. Citing the New Hampshire Liberty Association, he said there are about 100 liberty legislators at the State House, adding that whether they consider themselves Free Staters is “up to them, but they certainly have a lot of support from the Free Staters at the very least.”

  He clarified that not everyone associated with the project runs for office, saying that people have different ideas on how best to promote liberty. He said some build businesses, homeschool networks, and community centers, and that those on the direct political path get a lot of attention “but culture building is equally important.”

• But for the really important NH news… You have to go to Ars Technica, which asks two burning questions. Which of these two arcades is the "world [sic] largest"—and does it matter?

  In New Hampshire, just off the western shore of the vacation destination Lake Winnipesaukee, there’s a town called Laconia. With a population somewhere south of 17,000, it’s barely a blip on a map—except on Bike Week, when around 300,000 motorcyclists swarm the place. On the other, quieter weeks of the year, Laconia is best known as the unlikely home of Funspot, the world’s largest arcade.

  Meanwhile, in Brookfield, Illinois, about 45 minutes west of Chicago and the shores of Lake Michigan, you’ll find Galloping Ghost Arcade, a sprawling suburban palace with a nondescript exterior hiding a mind-blowing collection. With over 1,000 arcade cabinets (plus a further 46 pinball machines), Galloping Ghost is the world’s largest arcade.

  Yes, there are two arcades in the US labeled as the world’s largest, and while that may seem a bit paradoxical, a visit to both proves that while only one can be the biggest, both are the greatest.

  So the answer to the headline questions?

  Yeah, I'm gonna say it: the answer may surprise you.

Recently on the book blog:

I remembered this title earlier this year while reading a very good history book about Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. It was originally published in 1999, and was part of the "Feynmania" of that era. And I had never read it, and the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library still had a copy on its "530" shelf, so…

It's a 13-chapter hodgepodge of interview transcripts, speeches, talks, magazine articles, etc. And also Feynman's devastating "minority report" on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, which excoriated NASA's "well, we got away with it this time, so…" attitude toward risk evaluation, criticism that the rest of the Rogers Commission found unable to support. (Or maybe understand.)

The lightly-edited interviews are uneven. Things can get jumbled when you or I think faster than we can talk. Reader, Feynman could think much faster than you or I, and things get very jumbled here on occasion. But still interesting, if you can follow him over the leaps and bounds.

Feynman's famous musing on "cargo cult science" shows up multiple times; he was fascinated by the Pacific natives who tried to keep World War II benefits coming to their islands by crafting aircraft models, runways, control towers, and so on. He saw analogous behavior in some contemporaries, who adopted the superficial aspects of science, but lacked understanding and self-doubt. As his famous quote, aimed at 1974 Caltech grads, goes (included here): "You must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool."

Many chapters here can also be found "out there" on the web. I found my favorite one was a transcript of his 1966 talk to the National Science Teachers Association, "What is Science?" You can read it here. It contains yet another quote that should be more famous: "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."

In case you haven't seen President Trump's Truth Social post today:

Disclaimer: for my more serious rant, see my: The Right Number of Time Zones is Zero.

Number 4 in Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" is "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules". Or (alternatively) show that someone is using a different book of rules for his side:

Adam Schiff falls right into Bill Maher’s trap as he criticizes a statement he thought was from Trump but was actually from Obama.

MAHER: “This statement from the administration: ‘The president had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force because he could… pic.twitter.com/5jg3wpdAQZ

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 7, 2026

So, good for Maher.

Also of note:

• "Dumb" is actually the nicest thing you can say about it. So Charles C.W. Cooke is being more polite than I would: Anti-Billionaire Sentiment Is Dumb. (archive.today link)

  The current habit of attacking “billionaires” as some problem to be solved — and, more specifically, as the source of all of America’s contemporary problems — is illiterate, intemperate, ungrateful, frivolous, and, above all, dangerous.

  (That's more like it, Charlie. All better adjectives than mere "dumb".)

  A representative question — advanced with all the rhetorical confidence and tragic folly of John Cleese asking, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” — is this:

  What do billionaires contribute to society?

  — Harry Eccles (@Heccles94) March 5, 2026

  Really? Really? I suppose if you believe that the only useful institution in our universe is the government — and, in tandem, that you have convinced yourself that it is never adequately funded — then you might plausibly struggle to answer this. But that’s on you. Extraneous conduct aside, what billionaires have “contributed to society” are the things that made them billionaires in the first instance. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Phil Knight, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Walt Disney — these men did not spring up from the earth, fully formed as tremendously rich guys. They created products — computers and phones; shoes and athletic gear; ubiquitous online shopping; retail hardware stores; movies, TV shows, and amusement parks — that other people wanted to pay for. Lots of people. Oodles of people. Millions of people, in fact. And when those millions of people wanted to pay for those products, billions of dollars changed hands. The billionaires got the money, and the buyers — some of whom are now complaining about it — got the products. This was voluntary, virtuous, and, in almost all cases, useful.

  CCWC for the win.

• Don't cry for her, South Dakota. Jim Geraghty performs the indispensible duty of throwing a few more of Kristi's flaws onto the pyre: Kristi Noem Has No One to Blame but Herself. Among (many) other items, Jim puts that Mount Rushmore ad into context:

  You can watch the 60-second DHS ad here. Featuring Noem on horseback at Mount Rushmore and a lot of stock footage, it is utterly indistinguishable from a campaign ad. As Axios put it in October, “The most expensive political ad campaign of the year is being run by the Department of Homeland Security.” For perspective, in 2025, the campaign of Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger spent $28.4 million on TV ads, or just under 13 percent of the DHS spending. Except Spanberger spent her donors’ money, and Noem spent ours.

  If that ad campaign had been a television series, it would have ranked among the most expensive series of all time. That’s the total amount in Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love’s contract extension in 2024, when he became the highest-paid player in NFL history to that point. DHS could have bought anywhere from 770 to 880 Lamborghinis for that sum, depending upon the model.

  Now, if you’re skeptical that President Trump would approve a $220 million ad campaign, the president told Reuters that he knew nothing about it.

  Except Kristi testified under oath that he approved it. So either Trump or Kristi's lying. Want to guess who?

• Nothing? Come on, Peter; she gave you something to write about! Peter Suderman asserts (nevertheless): There is nothing positive to say about Kristi Noem's tenure at DHS.

  Noem was let go with a few nice remarks from President Trump and an appointment to a new gig, special envoy for the Shield of Americas. What, exactly, is the Shield of Americas? No one can say for sure. I can't prove that it's a fake, made-up, face-saving appointment. But it sure looks like a fake, made-up, face-saving appointment. Apparently, there's a Shield "summit" at a Trump golf club this weekend.

  Just keep her away from the puppies.

• I can't help but notice that the New York Times is doing clickbait headlines for geezers. Dave Barry gets sucked in by one: Are You Aging Well? 4 Simple Tests to Find Out. (Fun fact: Dave is approximately 3½ years older than I am.)

  I am 78 and a half years old. At this stage of my life, my definition of “aging well” is “still not dead.” Nevertheless I was curious to see what trajectory I’m on, so I clicked on the article, which lists four physical tests you’re supposed to take. The first one is called the “Sitting-Rising Test.” Here’s how the Times describes it:

  The goal with this assessment is to go from standing to sitting on the floor, and back up again, using the least amount of support as possible. The test is scored on a 10-point scale — five points for sitting down and five points for standing up — and you lose a point for every hand, knee or other body part you use to help yourself. Subtract a half point if you’re unsteady or lose your balance.

  So my goal was to get an 8, although I would have settled for a 7, or even, given my advanced age, a 6. I took the test in the privacy of my bedroom, going from standing to sitting on the floor, then back to standing again, using as few body parts as possible to help myself. I don’t mean to brag, but on my very first try, with no practice and without warming up, I scored somewhere around minus 137. There was no way I could keep track of the exact number of body parts I used to help myself get down and back up, but it was definitely most of them, including at one point, I believe, my spleen. Also if you count a bedpost as a body part, my actual score was closer to minus 138.

  I'm not even gonna tell you my score.

Recently on the book blog:

Picked this up at the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library thanks to its inclusion on the WSJ list of 2025's best mysteries (WSJ gifted link). If that's not enough for you, the book's Amazon page will reveal more copious critical praise.

But a mystery? Or even a crime thriller? You may ask yourself those questions until around page 307 of the 386-page hardcover; no mystery, and the crimes, if any, are pretty minor before that. But those last 80 pages are pretty blood-soaked.

The book reminded me somewhat of Tom Wolfe's novels, although the author's politics seem to be a couple miles to the left of Wolfe's. We have a detailed look at the three central characters: (1) Chicky is the titular doorman, working at the "Bohemia" apartment building on Central Park West in Manhattan. An honorable widower who is not just teetering on the edge of financial ruin, he's dropping down the cliffside, hitting every rocky outcropping and cactus on the way down. (2) Emily, living up in Bohemia's apartment 11C and D, is trapped in her marriage to a fantastically wealthy cartoon villain she despises. And (3) Julian, down in the much cheaper (but not cheap) apartment 2A, a "gallerist" (look it up, I had to) who is being edged into irrelevance by changing tastes and has a pretty serious health problem.

For the first 300-or-so pages, there is (of course) some building suspense, as we see hints and foreshadowing of what the book's finale will bring. But it's mostly a (very) well-written examination of the characters' inner lives and their environment. There's plenty of strife (economic, racial, ethnic, social), some steamy sex scenes, infidelity, occasional perversion. Just don't go in expecting a whodunit; keep your eyes open and you'll figure it out before it's revealed.

The Issues & Insights editorialists take on The Man Who Loves To Tax.

Our Headline du Jour is a reference to Isaiah Berlin's essay "The Hedgehog and the Fox" which contained the ancient Greek aphorism: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

And Hedgehog Bernie "knows" one big, albeit delusional, thing: He (and his allies) would spend the wealth of those hated billionaires far more wisely than they do.

I commented on Bernie's latest envy-fueled scheme a couple days ago. But I guess it's time to comment on Bernie himself. Over to you, editorialists:

Also of note:

• I'm really beginning to appreciate the upside of "boring". Vince Gill Vance Ginn pleas: Make Antitrust Boring Again. (NR gifted link)

  The Federal Trade Commission’s recent appeal in its antitrust case against Meta and the government’s new appeal in the Google search case are not just legal headlines. They are signals to capital markets about how political the federal government wants antitrust policy to be.

  If we keep pushing antitrust toward populist storytelling instead of consumer harm, we will get less investment, slower innovation, and weaker competition. Antitrust works best when it is boring. Not toothless, but disciplined.

  In the bad old days of the Biden Administration, conservatives and libertarians were properly scornful of "hipster antitrust". (So was Pun Salad.) If you thought Trump would be better, you were wrong.

• This shouldn't have been an issue. But apparently, Trump would prefer to keep his mitts on his unconstitutional gains. Ilya Somin notes the latest: US Court of International Trade Orders Refund of All Illegally Collected IEEPA Tariffs.

  Today, in the case of Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States, Judge Richard K. Eaton of the US Court of International Trade ordered the Trump Administration to refund all tariffs illegally collected by the Trump Administration using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA). On Monday, in V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump, the case I helped bring that led to the invalidation of the IEEPA tariffs by the Supreme Court, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unanimously rejected the Trump Administration's efforts to delay lower-court proceedings on repayment. It is notable that all 11 judges of the en banc Federal Circuit agreed, including the four who voted against us on the merits when the Federal Circuit ruled on the case last year.

  The federal government owes some $175 billion in tariff refunds to importers who paid them, and they repeatedly promised they would refund them money if they lost the case - a point which was crucial to their argument that appellate courts should stay the trial court injunction blocking further illegal tariff collection, while the litigation proceeded. Each month the government delays repayment costs taxpayers some $700 million in accumulated interest payments.

  $700 million would buy a lot of drones and torpedos. Just sayin'.

• "Better" shouldn't be hard. "Good" might be harder. The WaPo editorialists had a wistful observation on Wednesday evening, 6:53PM: It would be easier to fund DHS with better leadership. (WaPo gifted link)

  As government extends its powers more deeply into everyday life, it becomes less effective at everything. That annoyance becomes dangerous when the state isn’t entirely capable of its most important job: providing basic security and stability. Consider the Department of Homeland Security, which isn’t fully funded and lacks the leadership and credibility to effectively make the case for more money.

  With conflict in the Middle East increasing the risk for terrorism in the homeland, it’d be nice if DHS was fully functional. But the department has faced a gap in funding since Feb. 14, which has left critical agencies short staffed. DHS Secretary Kristi L. Noem tried to persuade lawmakers to end the partial government shutdown this week, and it didn’t go well.

  Yeah, we heard. And, unfortunately for Kristi, so did her boss. Robby Soave has yesterday's news: Trump fires Kristi Noem from DHS.

  President Donald Trump is replacing Kristi Noem, the embattled secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), due to mounting concerns about her performance, including from many Republicans.

  In a Thursday Truth Social post announcing her successor—Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin—Trump thanked Noem for her service and said she would serve as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a new security initiative that has yet to be formally unveiled. But the face-saving appointment does not change the fact that Trump has effectively fired Noem as DHS head.

  Apparently she will be hanging around D.C. for a while, drawing a salary. North (oops) South Dakota puppies are safe for now.

• Somedays I despair that we've learned nothing from his entire oeuvre. Jeff Maurer is baffled: Did We Learn Nothing From Jeff Goldblum’s Speech in Jurassic Park?

  The war in Iran has me thinking a lot about Jeff Goldblum’s speech in the 1993 arthouse film Jurassic Park. And I don’t mean Goldblum’s “your scientists didn’t stop to think if they should speech”, or his “we’ll give the alien a cold” speech, which was actually from Independence Day. I’m talking about the speech in which Goldblum explains chaos theory while not-so-subtly informing Sam Neill’s character that he could totally bang his wife if he wanted to.

  He's talking about this:

  Small correction: Google tells me that Laura Dern's and Sam Neill’s characters "were not married, but they were in a committed, romantic relationship. "

  And I don't think Goldblum's Jurassic Park observations compare to his response to a question posed by a bunch of college girls in the 1977 movie Between the Lines: "Whither rock and roll?"

  Goldblum's character responded: "The only real answer to the question … is "hither". Some misguided people think that the answer is "thither", they're wrong, those theories are passé."

  Also he points out: "They say that Rock & Roll is here to stay. But where? Certainly not at my place, it's too small."

Matthew Hennessey tries to inspire my (lame) inner Alan Jay Lerner with his headline at Free Expression: Trump Will Abstain From Trade With Spain. (WSJ gifted link)

Furthermore:

Well, I've never been to Spain, but I kinda like the music. (There are also rumors about the mental stability of their females.)

Also of note:

• At least she didn't lie about her lies about her lies. Jacob Sullum detects only one level of meta-dishonesty: In Senate testimony on DHS shootings, Kristi Noem lies about her lies.

  After Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees fatally shot Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti on January 24, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed he was "brandishing" a gun and "attacked those officers." She also said Pretti "committed an act of domestic terrorism."

  None of that was true, as bystander video immediately showed. But when given the opportunity to correct the record during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Noem instead lied about what she had said. Her obfuscation and dishonesty provoked angry rebukes not only from the Democrats on the committee but also from Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.), who reiterated his recommendation that she resign.

  Senator TIllis was also disturbed by less recent history:

  “Secretary, I read your book last week, and honestly, some of the parts of it impressed me, but some of it distresses me,” he said.

  “You talk about killing a dog that was 14 months old. I train dogs, all right, and you are a farmer, you should know better. You should know that if you’re going out to a hunting lodge and you’re putting pheasants out and you’re putting dogs out, you don’t take a puppy out there. A 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years. You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time in training. And then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it’s a leadership lesson about tough choices,” he said.

  Shoulda been a red flag back in her confirmation hearings.

• Not only a dishonest puppy-killer, but also corrupt. Tag-teaming against Kristi at Reason is Autumn Billings: DHS Spent $220 Million on Ads Featuring Kristi Noem. Both Parties Grilled Her About It in the Senate.

  During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem was grilled by Republicans and Democrats alike over $220 million in taxpayer-funded contracts for an advertising campaign that prominently features the secretary herself. The no-bid contracts circumvented the normal competitive process and were secretly awarded to a company with close ties to Noem and her political operations.

  Republican Sen. John Kennedy from Louisiana pushed the secretary during the hearing on the fiscal responsibility and wisdom of spending taxpayer money on the ads that greatly enhanced Noem's name recognition, such as this one obtained by ProPublica featuring her on horseback at Mount Rushmore. Noem testified that the campaign is meant to tell undocumented immigrants to leave the country or face deportation and was signed off on by President Donald Trump. But Kennedy said it was hard for him to believe that Trump or those at the Office of Management and Budget would have agreed to this kind of campaign.

  And for your viewing pleasure (because you paid for it, sucker):

  It was not revealed if she shot the horse after the ad was made.

• For the 145th time. Veronique de Rugy explains: Why Health Care Is So Expensive in America, and What to Do About It.

  America's health care system consistently ranks as the most expensive in the developed world. It's not, as some politicians claim, expensive because markets have failed. It's expensive because the market has been repeatedly blocked from succeeding. Until we're honest about that, any potential reforms will only address symptoms while ignoring the disease.

  The health care market is hindered in many ways, but the core structural problem is simple: The person receiving care is almost never the person actually paying for it. Roughly 90 cents of every dollar is covered by a third party — an insurer or the government.

  Getting rid of the notorious tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance would be ideal, but Vero realizes that's a political non-starter. So she recommends Health Savings Accounts, under control of the consumer.

It's a great quote, and that's a nice picture Amazon will sell you, but there's no evidence Thomas Jefferson ever actually said that. (Gerald Ford did, though.)

There's currently a push to get government working on taking away everything you have, though. Actually giving you everything you want? Or anything you want? That's in the works. They promise.

On that theme today, let's first look at Daniel J. Mitchell, who outlines The Nightmare Scenario Leading to a Wealth Tax. Far more likely than you or I would like:

Daniel's post is link-filled. Specifically, he looks at one recent actual proposal, described by Ira Stoll at the Free Beacon: Sanders, Khanna Unveil $4.4 Trillion Tax Increase.

Needless to say, it's a horrible idea, should be plainly unconstitutional (an uncompensated "taking" banned by the Fifth Amendment), and fueled by the worst kind of demagoguery.

And, as Jack Nicastro poionts out, there's an additional small problem: The Sanders-Khanna 'billionaire tax' would make all Americans poorer. Excerpt, with some basic econ:

Another point, not particularly subtle: assets automatically become less valuable if they can be arbitrarily expropriated by "legal" thieves. The money that might be raised from a wealth tax would prove highly evanescent.

Also of note:

• Shame on me. I've read a lot about Adam Smith (example), but not anything by him. Helen Dale urges me to mend my ways: Adam Smith’s Gift.

  Smith thought people could morally improve themselves in part by entering imaginatively into other people’s perspectives, in part by stepping outside their own perspectives and taking, as my mother used to say, a good long look at themselves. I could do the former, often in a way redolent of the Robbie Burns couplet: O wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us! Observe, in embryo, the future novelist.

  All imaginative fiction depends on writers being the eyes for other people, something quite unnerving for those on the receiving end of such focused attention. One friend of mine—on recognising herself in one of my published short stories—told me years later that it was like someone had turned her upside down and gone through the contents of her pockets, but without once touching her. She also asked me not to do it again.

  I’ve come to call this the gift of noticing, and it’s something at which Smith excels. Go back and re-read his description of the pin factory in Wealth of Nations if you haven’t done so for a while. Hold it in your head alongside Charles Dickens, say, in Hard Times, describing machines in a mill as “melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the day’s monotony … at their heavy exercise again.”

• What does it take to be a "researcher" at Harvard’s Global Education Innovation Initiative? River Page invites us to Meet the Internet’s New Iran Expert—Who Thinks the Illuminati Runs the World. River notes that Xueqin Jiang is (indeed) listed as a researcher at that prestigious institution. And he's received a lot of attention lately. Including:

  On Monday, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, hosts of the popular daily news podcast Breaking Points, spoke to Jiang in an interview that seemed somewhat reasonable—until it wasn’t. Jiang said that he thought President Donald Trump was acting hubristically in Iran because of his success in Venezuela, predicted that the U.S. would send ground troops into Iran, and opined on what the effects of decreased investment from the under-fire Gulf States could mean for the U.S. economy. Then things got more interesting.

  “The last factor that is very important is an eschatological factor,” Jiang said, veering the conversation into territory that was unprompted by the hosts. “If you look at the Epstein files, it’s clear that we are run by secret societies. It’s clear that the world is run by these individuals who have a lot of power. We don’t know who they are, but they control the military. They control the national security apparatus. There are different names for these people. You can call them the Illuminati. And the Illuminati are composed of three major groups, okay? You have the Jesuits, who control the Vatican. You have the Sabbatean Frankists, which control the modern state of Israel today. And you have the Freemasons, which control the national security apparatus of the United States, and they believe that Israel, this war in the Middle East, is key to the end times, in creating heaven on Earth.”

  He has a Wikipedia page, but it doesn't mention this. Yet.

Damon Root puts it succinctly: The Iran War is unconstitutional.

Boy, did Jimmy Madison call it, or what? Damon also cites St. George Tucker's 1803 book, View of the Constitution of the United States.

And nothing more recent than that.

I am in total sympathy.

But for more recent history, turn to another Jim: specifically, Geraghty, writing at the WaPo: Iran is the sound of another president becoming a hawk. (WaPo gifted link) Looking at the muscular actions of Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, and now Trump, his bottom line:

I get that, too.

Also of note:

• You can't say you weren't warned. Noah Smith makes a bold claim: Superintelligence is already here, today.

  Right now, today, AI can do mental tasks that no human can do. In a few minutes, it can read an entire scientific literature, and extract many of the basic conclusions and insights from that literature. No human can do that. A single human can be an expert in one or two complex subjects; an AI can be an expert in all of them at once. A human needs to eat and sleep and take breaks; an AI agent can work tirelessly at proving a theorem or writing code. And AI can prove theorems and write code — or write paragraphs of text — much, much faster than any human.

  These are all superhuman cognitive capabilities. They go far, far beyond anything that even the smartest human being can do. They are the result of combining the roughly human-level language ability, pattern recognition, and conceptual analysis of an LLM with the pre-2022 superhuman memory, speed, and processing power.

  I don’t want to get sidetracked here, but I think there’s a nonzero chance that AI never gets much better than humans at most of the things that humans were better than computers at in 2021. It seems possible that humans are simply incredibly specialized in a few types of cognitive tasks — extracting patterns from sparse data, synthesizing various patterns into “intuition” and “judgement”, and communicating those patterns in language — and that we’ve basically approached the theoretical maximum in those narrow areas.

  Noah's post is quite long, and well-argued. Recommended to anyone interested in a minor topic like the future of humanity.

  It's long been my hope (and also fear) that AI could be used to design and develop cheap, scalable artificial photosynthesis, allowing easy-peasy control of atmospheric CO₂. Global warming solved! (But perhaps also introducing possible doomsday, so…)

• Deserves a look. I'm generally a knee-jerk opponent of tax-raising schemes, but Scott Hodge might win me over: Targeting this $2.8 trillion tax shelter could solve a big U.S. problem. (WaPo gifted link) What's he targeting?

  The Congressional Budget Office’s latest economic report offers a bleak forecast of the U.S. government’s fiscal health. The study projects deficits surpassing $2 trillion for years to come, and the widening gap between federal spending and tax revenue means that the national debt will hit levels not seen even in wartime.

  The menu of solutions to close this gap is just as depressing: slash benefits and services or raise taxes. But one option could generate substantial revenue while making the tax system fairer: ending the tax exemption for America’s massive nonprofit business sector.

  Many “charities” have become big businesses. While numerous benevolent charities do wonderful work, the industry is dominated by some of the top companies in America operating largely free from the tax obligations that burden their for-profit competitors. The commercial revenue generated by these nonprofits totaled $2.8 trillion in 2023, nearly three times the amount nonprofits receive from donations and government grants.

  Scott specifically mentions AARP. Yes! Go get 'em! (Why? See my 2023 rant: AARP Treats Me Like I Was Already Senile)

You-know-who is dead:

Here's hoping nobody's gonna go after Trump's little dog, too.

(Sorry, that doesn't really work: he doesn't have a dog. Still…)

Also of note:

• That's a very strained parallel, Katherine. I usually agree with the small-l libertarian party line at Reason, and often link to the print edition's lead editorials from editor-in-chief, Katherine Mangu-Ward. But she lost me with her latest: What the ICE crackdown and China's one-child policy have in common. After describing the horrific Chinese policy…

  Today, China's population is shrinking, births are collapsing, and the same government that once punished pregnancy is now begging for it with subsidies, propaganda, and social pressure, all of which have so far failed to reverse the trend. Even after decades of highly directive engineering and violent enforcement, the "right" number of people remains stubbornly out of reach.

  ***

  The same category error animates today's immigration crackdowns in the United States. Population control is technocratic arrogance at its most intimate and brutal.

  The Trump administration is attempting to violently control the country's population numbers. Officials insist that there is an optimal number of people, that this number can be known in advance, and that the state is justified in taking extraordinary measures to reach it (perhaps as many as 100 million deportations). Human beings are reduced to variables in a giant math problem—too many or too few, surplus or shortage—rather than agents whose individual choices matter.

  Geez, Katherine, I'm pretty sure the primary rationale behind Trump's "immigration crackdown" is not "population control". That might be part of the argument, but it's not among the ones at the forefront.

  The comments on Katherine's editorial are much more brutal than my mild criticism. I'm sure she'll be back to form next month.

• Ah, but Reason is redeemed! Thanks to Nick Gillespie, in (heh) the Nick of time, who reminds us stupid people: It's the Spending, Stupid!

  With a few days' perspective on the State of the Union address, which grows ever closer in spirit and content to outtakes from the prophetic 2006 comedy Idiocracy, it's worth revisiting one of Milton Friedman's most enduring insights. "Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending," the libertarian Nobel laureate counseled. "That's the true tax." Don't be distracted, he added, by talk about balancing budgets or cutting marginal tax rates. Focus on how much money the federal government spends each year, because that's the ultimate indicator of how much it costs.

  Friedman was talking in the late 1970s, when top marginal income-tax rates were 70 percent and debates were focused on lowering the tax burden and, by implication, government spending. Back then, deficit spending was something that mostly happened during wartime or recessions, rather than being taken for granted the way it has been since Jimmy Carter occupied the White House. If you cut the amount of money the government brought in, went the general argument, you also cut the amount of money it could spend. Friedman was emphasizing that whether spending is paid for in the moment, it is the best proxy for government involvement in everyday life. It has to be paid for eventually, either by raising taxes, reducing services, or by inflating the currency—all actions that make us subordinate to politics and politicians.

  Ah, but who's really being stupid? The politicians that keep spending money they don't have, or … could it be the people who keep electing them?

• Meanwhile, down in Connecticut… It's the usual rational discourse with which we've grown accustomed: Sign stolen, thrown across room: Hostile crowd greets TPUSA at Wesleyan University.

  The “unofficial” chapter of Wesleyan University’s Turning Point USA ended up exiting a campus student center following an encounter with a hostile crowd at which a TPUSA sign was stolen and tossed across the room.

  According to The Wesleyan Argus, the TPUSA table at the Usdan University Center lasted only about an hour as an “unidentified” student snatched and threw a sign that read “Dump Your Socialist Boyfriend.”

  Another student caught the sign and ran away with it.

  Sigh.

  Not that it matters, but Amazon reveals a lot of merch—mostly t-shirts—ordering you to

  Dump Your   (ideological/political/religious affiliation)     (romantic partner)  

  I'd prefer a "Mind Your Own Business" shirt myself. If I had had one, I could have worn it to one of my rare efforts of actual reporting at Pun Salad.

• It's the continuing enshittification of everything, I tell ya! Jonathan Turley, like me, is no prude. But he's getting pretty tired of modern discourse: I Do Solemnly Swear: How Profanity Has Taken Hold of American Politics.

  “Respectfully, f–k off.” Those words by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spokesperson, Izzy Gardon, summed up the current race to the bottom of American politics.

  Democrats appear in a competition of the profane where voters are now subject to a virtual carpet-bombing of f-bombs and other indecent language.

  Gardon’s response was to a standard media inquiry after Newsom’s controversial statement to a black interviewer.

  In an Atlanta event, Newsom declared: “I’m like you … I’m no better than you. I’m a 960 SAT guy … literally a 960 SAT guy. You’ve never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech.” It was widely denounced as racist, but Newsom insisted that he was only talking about his struggle with dyslexia.

  The spin quickly fell apart after his statement, “I’m like you … I’m no better than you,” which suggested he thought the audience in Atlanta had low scores.

  Reporters followed up to ask for proof about his disability, including his claim that “I cannot read.” The response was an f-bomb from Gardon.

  It has worn out its shock value, and is rapidly getting tiresome. Is it supposed to appeal to people? Who?

• Watch for the Wizard of Oz reference. For some reason, I never watched Tina Fey's 30 Rock sitcom. It was on in pre-TiVo days, I think. But I'm now working through it via Prime Video, and it's hilarious. Even Alec Baldwin is good. But this little ditty showed up at the end of a recently-watched episode, and see if you are not as charmed by it as I was:

Recently on the book blog:

This completes my "Reread Robert Crais" mini-project, which I started back in 2020. I previously read this one in 2019, snapping up the Kindle edition on its release day. Since then, Mr. Crais has adopted a very leisurely schedule: only two newer novels.

For blog readers: my 2019 report on the book is here.

It was interesting to compare this book with one I read just previously, the new one from James Lee Burke. Crais's prose is spare, while Burke's is ornate, maybe? And certainly Crais's heroes, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, are a lot less haunted than Burke's Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel. Still, they all have dedicated their lives to going down Chandler's mean streets. So I'm there, with my finger waiting to punch Amazon's "Pre-order now" button, whenever it may appear.

I have to admit it's about the same as Jim Treacher's. who responds to a guy who can't seem to decide whether he's a Nazi or a Commie, but wants to be a US Senator from that state across the Salmon Falls River:

It's improving mine, because I enjoy watching bad people get angry. https://t.co/zCJH9txLCq

— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) February 28, 2026

Blowing up foreign bad guys is an area where I tend to depart from libertarian gospel. But if you'd like to see that, check out Cato Experts React to U.S. Attacks on Iran, where you'll read words like "indefensible", "clear and blatant overreach of executive authority", and "risks drawing the United States into yet another open-ended conflict in the Middle East."

I get that.

But for counterbalance, the WSJ editorialists think it's OK: Trump Enforces His Red Line on Iran (WSJ gifted link)

So we can at least hope that happens.

Also of note:

• It's also a dangerous thing to do to an actual fat cat. James B. Meigs notes that violating the Tenth Commandment can be pretty popular: ‘Soak the Fat Cats’ Is a Bad Idea That Refuses to Die. (WSJ gifted link)

  Here’s an irresistible political formula: “We’re going to fix some big problem, but it won’t cost you, the ordinary citizen, a dime! We’ll just make those rich fat cats pay the bill.” We see this formula at work in New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign to freeze city rents. We saw it during the Biden administration when the president blamed high prices, not on his own inflationary policies, but on greedy grocery stores “ripping people off.”

  The populist right loves the fat-cat approach as well. Witness President Trump’s call to cap credit-card interest rates at 10%. “We will no longer allow the American Public to be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card companies,” the president promised in a Truth Social post. In a vivid confirmation of the horseshoe theory, Sen. Bernie Sanders quickly introduced a bill to turn that suggestion into law.

  Policies like these are all founded on the appealing but fallacious notion that businesses have an inexhaustible reserve of resources that do-gooders can divert to nobler ends. If we hold down rents to help low-income tenants, those rich landlords will suck up the loss, this theory assumes. They can afford it. Credit-card companies should give everybody their lowest rate! Why not, they’re rolling in dough!

  As Pun Salad moves into its 22nd year. with more than 8600 articles, I'm pretty sure I've made similar points at least a few hundred times. Still, it's something that needs to be said over and over: thou shalt not covet.

• "Hey, Kevin D. Williamson!" I cried. "Give the kid a chance!" "Sorry, Pun Salad," Kevin replied. "I'm writing about J.D. Vance’s Doomed Quest to Balance the Budget instead.".

  Trump’s incoherent State of the Union address on Tuesday featured his usual stroke-victim diction and his patented blend of stupidity and dishonesty. Fact-checking his claims is laborious, because he speaks almost exclusively in simpleton’s superlatives, and it also is pointless, inasmuch as the people who most need to know the facts are not much inclined to listen to them, being, as they are, members of an especially tawdry and shameful cult. Suffice it to say that inflation was not at record levels when Trump assumed office this time around, and it is not plummeting today—it was high when he came in and remains elevated. Foreign direct investment in the United States is in fact down, not soaring by trillions of dollars. There is no such thing as a “second lady,” with apologies to Usha Vance, who probably could have married a doctor. Some of the speech could have used some context: I admire Michael Dell and his generosity, and it is true that he made computers in his dorm room at the University of Texas—but mainly he has made them in China, a fact of corporate history that ought to be of some interest to the Trump gang.

  The competition is considerable, but it may be that the dumbest and most dishonest claim of the night was that J.D. Vance’s newly announced fraud commission will, if it does its job, produce a “balanced budget overnight.” Vance is as contemptible a specimen as American public life currently has to offer, but he is relatively new to the cult game, and he has here foolishly taken on a high-profile task that can be evaluated quantitatively. The projected deficit for 2026 is $1.9 trillion on its way toward more than $3 trillion per annum over the coming decade. For scale, this year’s projected deficit will amount to about 5.8 percent of GDP. Which is to say, to balance the budget by means of fraud prevention, fraud in federal programs would have to amount to an industry right around five times the combined global size of all those AI-enabling data centers we hear so much about.

  "OK, Kevin."

• I miss Dubya. And I still do, even after reading Jeff Maurer's Review of George W. Bush's Substack. Specifically, Dubya's (so far, only) post on George Washington (actually a pointer to a Free Press article): What I Learned from George Washington. Jeff reacts:

  Some have criticized Bush for not mentioning Trump in the essay. Bush praised presidential humility and warned against those who would ”[retain] power for power’s sake”, but didn’t say “like the current president, for example”. In my opinion, Bush did not need to mention Trump; anyone who can read can read between the lines. The commentary was not subtle — it was more like the scene in Back to the Future where Marty’s guitar amplifier blasts him across the room. Those calling for Bush to be more explicit in his criticism of Trump remind me of this joke I once saw about Hemingway’s editor:

  

  Bush’s argument that a president should have humility and be guided by something other than a thirst for power is a sign of how much Trump has eroded American values. Because personally, I did not think Bush was a good president; I didn’t vote for him either time. But he and I clearly share a basic understanding of what the presidency is and isn’t meant to be. The bounds of what’s acceptable in American politics have been stretched so radically that Bush and I now occupy similar territory on this fundamental issue. It shouldn’t be controversial to say that a president should not have God-like faith in his own abilities and respect the limits of power. And 15 years ago, my response to this essay would have been “no shit, President Sherlock”. But today, entry-level statements about basic American values seem like scathing social commentary.

  As favorable as I am toward Trump's blowing up foreign bad guys (Dubya did his share of that too), I'm on the Maurer/Bush team here.

  For a recent example…

• Could they just make some movies that don't put me to sleep? That's all I really want, but Jeff Blehar reports instead on the latest deed-shuffling on the Monopoly board: Netflix Is Out on Warner Bros.

  Nearly everyone in the world of media and entertainment was taken by surprise yesterday when Netflix announced they were withdrawing their proposed bid to acquire Warner Bros. film studio and its substantial catalogue of movies and intellectual properties. But last December, mere days after Netflix’s bid was announced to the world, I pointed out that it wasn’t a done deal at all:

  Understand that this is all still quite contingent: Paramount Skydance (the product of another merger completed a few months ago) has appealed directly to Warner Bros. shareholders in a hostile bid to force them to overturn their board’s decision. The deal also still requires antitrust clearance from Trump’s Federal Trade Commission. Given that Trump has reportedly been pushing for ally David Ellison’s Paramount to win the bid, don’t be surprised if Netflix fails at the last hurdle. Trump is a rather . . . transactional type, and he’s already announced his intent to personally review the acquisition. Expect something delightfully sordid!

  And here we are. I’ll admit, I missed big by predicting something “delightfully sordid.” Instead, we got something unpleasantly sordid: The final nail in the coffin for the Netflix bid was almost certainly board member Susan Rice’s ill-timed appearance on a podcast hosted by Preet Bharara on February 20, where she promised “accountability” for Trump administration wrongdoers once the Democrats took office. This was interpreted by MAGA’s most agitated online voices as a promise of lawfare against the administration — the irony of complaining about this is apparently completely lost upon them — and led to Laura Loomer loudly demanding the former national security adviser resign her position on the board of Netflix.

  Pun Salad's recent commentary on Trump, Rice, and Netflix here and here.

• Only two? Well, as George Will notes, they're biggies: Two big things Trump the wheedler misunderstands about Russia. (WaPo gifted link)

  Donald Trump continues trying to wheedle Vladimir Putin to end his war to extinguish Ukraine’s nationhood short of that outcome. Trump’s persistence calls to mind the man Gulliver encountered during his travels: He had spent “eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers.”

  The president misunderstands two things. First, the more blood and treasure Putin expends in Ukraine, the more he wants to win in order to redeem his blunder. This war was supposed to prove Russia’s might, and that Ukraine is an ersatz nation. Instead, it has revealed the yawning gap between Russia’s pretensions and its capabilities, and has created an incandescent Ukrainian nationalism.

  Second, the way for the West to economize violence and military expenditures in the long run is not to prepare for future conflicts with a Russia emboldened by success, but to deepen its diminishment by enabling Ukraine to continue bleeding Russia’s army and economy.

  GFW points out that Trump (and little Marco Rubio) have forcefully supported the reelection of "Europe’s most pro-Putin and aggressively anti-Ukraine leader", Viktor Orban. That's not great.