J.D. Vance is a Huey P. Long Fanboi

The Republican Party of the future is not going to be the party of Milton Friedman. We're going to enjoy spitting on his grave, metaphorically speaking. -- J.D. Vance

***

The Committee to Unleash Prosperity -- which is what we need for every man a king -- to come true has done the dirty work for anyone who might be wondering who this Huey Long dude -- who's suddenly all over the place -- is.

After all, J.D. Vance, Trump's de facto successor in the Republican Party, just publicly held him to higher esteem (to put it mildly) than Milton Friedman as indicated by the quote above.

The Committee includes a photo linking to video and transcript of Louisiana's autocratic former governor and senator laying out his socialistic Share Our Wealth plan, with an excerpt beneath.

Here's a sample:

I propose a limitation on how big a fortune can get and a limitation on how little a fortune can get ...

A capital levy tax to be levied -- the first one million not to be taxed except as it is now taxed; and the second million to be taxed 1%; the third million 2%; the fourth million 4%; the fifth million 8%; the sixth million 16%; the 7th million 32%; the eighth million 64%; the ninth million 100%. That means that no man with that tax levied against him every year can possess a fortune of more than from 3 to 4 to 5 million dollars to any one man ...

How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what's intended for 9/10ths of the people to eat. The only way you'll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub he ain't got no business with ...

I agree that this sounds like Bernie Sanders, but it's worse. The delivery is slick -- skillfully focusing on envy to help his audience forget that the wealthy earned their money by trade that also improved their customers' fortunes; and imagine that stealing is okay, so long as the victim has more than the thief.

He makes his theft sound noble, and redistribution generous.

This is who Vance admires, and fortunately doesn't have the charisma to match.

I have asked this before and will ask it again of anyone holding out the Republicans as an alternative (let alone a superior one) to the Democrats: What would it take for you to concede that there is no longer a difference?

Vance is as bad on the merits as any Democrat, and worse by virtue of the common, increasingly wrong belief that the Republicans are "better for the economy" than the Democrats -- who are also much worse than they used to be.

-- CAV

Drones: Grounded Harder Than You Think

John Stossel's latest column -- and video, which I'm embedding below -- are worth your time and are both incredible for two very different reasons.

Let's start with the positive side of the ledger. Stossel's six minute video will be an eye-opening demonstration (or reminder) of the potential for this new and rapidly evolving technology to improve our lives.

"Companies like Wing and Zipline bring people hot meals in under 10 minutes. I had to watch it to believe it." -- John Stossel

Even though the technology is relatively new, and many people remain unfamiliar with it, enough people are that market feedback has led to impressive improvements. People who grouse about propeller noise, for example, may be surprised at how quiet some of the newer models are, if they notice them at all.

On to the negative side of the ledger: As amazing as this technology is, the sheer obduracy of the regulatory state is giving it a run for the money. Stossel touches on this a couple of times:

Drone delivery was supposed to be common years ago. Jeff Bezos told 60 Minutes he expected Amazon to be sending out drone deliveries by 2017.

But most of us still don't have it. Why?

And later:

President Donald Trump hopes to speed that process. He signed an executive order telling the FAA to fast-track drone deliveries by allowing drones to fly beyond line of sight.

But he did that more than a year ago. Government is, as usual, so slow! The FAA didn't even respond to Trump's order for months.

If you think that's bad, this is on top of something I commented on nearly eight years ago:

The President who wanted to remove two old regulations for every new one recently signed into law the FAA Reauthorization Act, which repeals an old statutory exemption from FAA rules for model aircraft, such as drones. The new law will take some time to take effect...

What happened to that? is just about all I can say. Unlike today, that was one of the few times the President bothered to involve the legislature in an attempt to affect a policy. It would seem to have had absolutely no effect.

Considering this in very general terms, I'd say this may be a case of things being earlier than you think on a front for the battle for freedom. This President has no principles and never bothers to articulate why he wants to achieve anything. As a result, he has blown two opportunities to build momentum for a much-needed revision of a policy that is crippling a new sector of the economy. And that sector, as we are seeing in Ukraine and the Middle East -- and can thus easily imagine -- has national security implications.

And yes, China is already way out in front of us.

-- CAV

Four Nifty Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

Editor's Note: I will be recovering from a minor medical procedure next week and will not be blogging, although I will probably post on X/Twitter most days. I plan to be back here on August 24.

***

1. Some time ago, I encountered a kitchen gadget site called the Blind Kitchen, which I used to give my wife gift ideas for Christmas that year.

One such gift was this wide-mouthed funnel, which is excellent for transferring hot food and liquids into thermoses. It's faster, eliminates messes, and prevents scalded fingers.

2. When using thermoses for lunches, I like to add hot water to them for a few minutes before the food, so as to conserve the heat in the food.

One day, I remembered a small appliance a grad school friend used for keeping hot water handy for tea, and realized that would save time in the morning and make it easier to enjoy tea later in the day. Based on excellent reviews, I purchased a three liter Zojirushi water boiler/warmer.

I just fill it first thing in the morning, plug it in, and set the desired temperature. In less than half an hour, I have all the near-boiling water I need available when I want it for the rest of the day.

3. Another item I learned about from the Blind Kitchen, but couldn't find there later was a meat chopper similar to this one.

I'd never seen or heard of these before, but I bought one.

It's low-level amazing how much faster, easier, and more effective this is than the end of a spatula on the way to producing a uniform texture when cooking ground meat.

4. Stymied by an impenetrable wall of AI agents which kept telling me to do the same (ineffective) thing when I needed to gain access to one of my online accounts, I recalled a site I can't believe I've never mentioned here before: GetHuman.

This site tells you how to reach an actual human at a business of your choice.

I was on hold for about fifteen minutes, but we were able to fix the very odd and rare problem with my particular account.

-- CAV

Not Everything Is Either-Or...

... or at least the choice or the alternatives aren't always obvious.

Three very different situations I read about in my weekly look at advice columns surfaced the same common thinking error. I've heard this called "binary thinking," but I'm not wild about the term. False dichotomy is another one that doesn't quite sit right with me here, although I like it better.

I'll roll with the above title and state that not every situation has a clean-cut, either-or set of correct alternatives, or at least if there is a clear-cut solution, its application requires enough thought that applying the solution will require significant effort.

Indeed, just after writing the above, I'm inclined to see discovering the issue or application of a clear choice as issue(s) that can muddy any problem.

Two of the three letters I considered are similar in many ways, and pertain to family dynamics being strained by strong differences in ethics or political opinion.

In one of these, Carolyn Hax tackles the question of a woman who, although very different from her in-laws, is looking for a way to continue seeing them, rather than not visiting them at all, as her husband suggested. To that idea, Hax correctly argues that the choice isn't keep seeing them as usual OR not at all:

[D]on't underestimate avoidance as a permanent solution. Boycotting is extreme, sure, but... You can make the visits a wee bit shorter, a tad less frequent, a smidge more structured (a movie, a play, another venue where conversation is similarly discouraged). After a day or two, you can spin off on your own to visit a friend who lives somewhere (remotely) nearby. You can become Super DIL and go grocery shopping (alone), weed the flower beds (alone), do the dishes (alone) ... especially when politics erupt.

In other words, you can control the dosage more, and more good-naturedly, than you think. A fresher you can then focus on where your interests do overlap.

The similarity to the adage, The dose makes the poison, resolves the apparent contradiction of the woman being driven crazy by her in-laws, but still wanting them in her life. The rest of Hax's excellent answer concerns determining what, exactly, bothers the woman and helping her become able to make peace with not resolving that, at least any time soon.

An Ask a Therapist letter concerns a more serious problem that does merit leaving a relative out of certain family gatherings, but not cutting off all contact. Again, for good reasons, the writer wants to maintain contact with a wayward son and the sister he has alienated, but does not want to condone what her son has done:

Granted, this might feel like a hard limit for you to set, especially because your son might never repair the damage, but doing so accomplishes two things. First, it takes a clear protective stand: Those harmed shouldn't miss out on the joy of family gatherings; those who harm shouldn't be present in these settings. Second, it leaves room for you to continue to see your son separately -- though not neutrally.

Here, the time to cut all ties has plainly not come for the mother, who has some hope that it never will come.

The third letter, regarding the difficulties a couple face when one partner has determined a need to become sober, presents a very clear choice that someone is having trouble applying in the context of his marriage and wider social life.

That difficulty disappears when Dr. Nerdlove reminds the writer that, while his spouse can certainly support his efforts, she doesn't have to go sober herself, and that they needn't get rid of everything that came with drinking socially:

[T]hat doesn't mean that your relationship is doomed. It just means that you're going to have to figure out ways to accommodate what can feel like conflicting, even mutually exclusive desires. They don't have to be conflicting, mind you; it will just require some creativity and mutual accommodation to make it all work without threatening your sobriety.

One thing that can help is if you can figure out what, precisely, you miss about drinking, besides the literal alcohol. Many times, part of what people miss when giving up any vice is the routine -- lighting up a cigarette at certain times of the day, mixing drinks for yourself and your wife before settling in to watch a movie, going out to dinner and drinks on a Saturday night. It can be helpful to find ways to keep the ritual in your life, but without the booze component.

Other times, it could be the tangible aspects that you miss, such as how people who give up soda often miss the sensation of carbonation and the mouth feel of the bubbles or the tang of the caffeine on the tongue. Having something that can replace those sensations or those tactile aspects can make it easier to resist when you're flooded with urges to relapse.

There're a few options, if you're of a mind...

The full answer is ingenious in that it doesn't just address the very real relationship concern, but also the difficulties of making a major life change generally. Here, the choice was clear, but hard to apply, and hindered by the incorrect idea that many of the things that went with the vice would be lost forever when getting rid of that vice.

So after all of that, were there clear choices? Yes: (1) She wants to know her in-laws while keeping her sanity; (2) She wants to protect her daughter and possibly help her son; and (3) He wants to save not just his life, but his marriage, from his problem drinking.

-- CAV

Pillow Guy Holds Out for Padding

Depending on which conservative you read, either disaster was averted or an an election was stolen in Minnesota's Republican gubernatorial primary yesterday.

Credit John Hinderaker of PowerLine with enough sense to see that pillow magnate and Trump stooge Mike Lindell was a poor choice for governor:

Lisa Demuth, the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, has been called as the winner of the Republican primary for governor. Results here. This is notable because Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy, was also in the race, and he was endorsed by Donald Trump. Trump's endorsement was, frankly, idiotic. Lindell hadn't the faintest qualifications to be governor, and if he had gotten the nomination, he would have been crushed by Amy Klobuchar, something like 80% to 20%. Lindell led in some polls, but I never believed that he had a serious chance, in part because I know hundreds of people who voted in the Republican primary, and I don't know anyone who voted for Lindell. [link omitted, bold added]

Qualifications? He's loyal to Trump, just like Bobby Kennedy. Any American racing to the bathroom after a salad will tell you that's good enough.

Sarcasm aside, the polls, as of this morning, show the same 10% drubbing as there was when Lindell -- somewhat predictably -- refused to concede, only with 99% of precincts reporting:

"I'm down by 20,000 votes with 277,00 [sic] votes left to count," Lindell said as votes were being counted on Tuesday night. "Now, would you give up if you got 277,000 left to count? And these are the day-of votes, which haven't been counted yet. These were all mail-in and early votes for Lisa Demuth. So, I mean, why would I say here and go, 'Ok, I can't make up 20,000 [with] 277,000 left to count?' So, that's where we're at."

Moreover, Lindell suggested something nefarious was afoot. [bold added]

Of course it was rigged. He'll keep going when all the votes have been counted, unless he wins.

For those of us on Planet Earth, there is good news and bad news, depending on whether one sees continued Republican Trump Party control of the Senate as a good thing. (I don't.)

As Hinderaker notes, Lisa Demuth won't "drag down the ticket" against her loony left Democrat opponent, which will benefit Michele Tafoya, who won the GOP Senate primary and faces a charisma-challenged far-left opponent in Peggy Flanagan.

This makes the GOP more likely to flip a Senate seat in Minnesota, which would make the unlikely prospect of the Trump Party losing both houses remote, as the Senate was never going to be easy.

The Trump Party, long overdue for a repudiation, thus seems less likely to get one, and so, less likely to move away from Trump and towards being the real alternative to the left that Americans are desperate for.

-- CAV

Trial by Ordeal Makes a Comeback

I hear from the Guardian that Anthony Fauci pled the Fifth 100 times in Senate hearings about his actions during the pandemic. To a certain knee-jerk portion of the body politic, I hear this means that Trump's former advisor is guilty as sin and should be locked up. [Insert whistle here.]

Amesh Adalja: "Blaming Fauci Won't Prepare Us for the Next Pandemic"

Unfortunately for MAGA, that same trial-by-ordeal-like "standard" would have have their hero, Donald Trump, behind bars long ago: He did the same thing over 400 times during a 2022 deposition in New York about his namesake organization's business practices.

But that was a witch hunt! will be their version of But this is different!

Trump is openly, obviously corrupt -- and Fauci plainly isn't omniscient and made mistakes. Two things about each can be true at once: Authorities can (1) have valid reasons for wanting to understand their past actions better, and (2) choose to perform a witch-hunt instead.

In 2022, the Democrats were incompetently trying to bring Trump down before the election for legally weak reasons -- after inadequately pursuing several serious legal matters they should have already had well underway by then.

Now, the Republicans, who -- as Amesh Adalja argues in the embedded video above -- should be interested in looking back at their handling of the Covid pandemic are instead trying to simply scapegoat Fauci.

Regarding Fauci, I once said:

As much as I am personally inclined to dislike Fauci, he is a human being who had a very difficult job to to. He should state his side of the story clearly, and we should hear it before passing judgement on him.

That isn't what happened in the hearings.

Regarding actual post-mortems, the Guardian piece mentions the commentary of Zeynep Tufekci, which I found thoughtful.

I concluded that post as follows:

It is interesting, and not in a happy way, to consider what this pandemic has revealed to us about the state of our culture (as manifest in its intellectual and governing classes), both in terms of what passes for knowledge and in terms of how society should be organized.

That observation applies particularly well today. The Guardian notes:

No surprise, really, that Fauci, now retired from his public post, invoked the fifth amendment more than 100 times during last week's Senate committee hearing.

That's the action that -- though reasonable enough given all the circumstances -- is the supposed impetus for holding him in contempt. Now the committee has referred the matter to the justice department for possible criminal prosecution.

Fauci could see the writing on the wall as this trumped-up hearing began. In his opening statement, he singled out the Kentucky senator Rand Paul, the Republican committee chairperson.

"The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, 'behind bars'," Fauci said. "Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion."

I agree with the Guardian that Fauci does not deserve this, and I agree further with epidemiologist Amesh Adalja (whose podcast is embedded above) that "Blaming Fauci won't prepare us for the next pandemic."

-- CAV

Pay for Overhead?!?! Yes, Please!

An Australian budget airline is coming under fire after offering its customers a new way to make flying less stressful.

That new way?

Paying for overhead storage:

Jetstar says the decision followed feedback from both passengers and airline staff, who identified "having bags weighed at the gate and struggling to find room in overhead lockers as the more stressful parts of the airport experience," according to a statement released by the carrier on Wednesday. [bold added]

I don't fly that much, but for a time I did. Trying to use overhead storage was so annoying for precisely these reasons that I tried to confine myself to a computer bag I could fit under the seat in front of me.

Whenever I did have a second carry-on, I usually had to hunt for somewhere to put it (and then remember to take it with me on deboarding) -- thanks probably to the people who went wild with carry-ons and are now getting the most bent out of shape over the announcement:

The move immediately triggered backlash on X, where flyers accused the airline of dressing up an unpopular fee as a customer-friendly option. "Jetstar rebranding a blatant cash grab as "Priority Carry-on Choice" is a masterclass in gaslighting. Hope it backfires," wrote one user.

Others questioned whether the airline should even be allowed to do it. "Seriously? How is this legal?" wrote another. A third vowed to take their business elsewhere: "Well I know who I won't be flying with," a third said.

A masterclass in gaslighting?

Choice is exactly what "free" overhead storage denied me most of the time. I, for one, would have loved knowing I could put any carry-on close to my seat, where I could remember it and get it quickly at the end of my flight. On top of that, on those flights when one might need access to the bag -- e.g., parents traveling with infants -- access would be quicker and there would be no need to plan for the contingency of juggling things at the last second because some clown wants to avoid checking bags.

I'm rooting for Jetstar, and hope its idea catches on.

-- CAV

Four Random Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. From a news story about the "alien chemistry" found within a meteorite, here's what to do if a meteor strikes your home and you want to help scientific progress:

He then immediately preserved and documented the entire scene using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place the meteorite fragments in glass jars.

The surviving rock weighed two pounds and was a rare, and especially interesting type.

Well done!

2. At In the Pipeline, Derek Lowe notes that researchers looking to use filtration instead of distillation in parts of the oil refining process were able to make use of a problem inherent in choosing a pore size to filter a substance containing molecules with a wide range of sizes:

... [O]ne thing that was noticed quickly was the the initial liquid coming through was still quite dark, but then lightened considerably for the rest of the run.

It turns out that a thin layer of higher-boiling material coats the insides of the pores of the PAN membranes as the first material is sent through, and analysis of the conditioned membranes suggests that this is made of up high-boiling long-chain alkanes, rather than polyaromatic material. The authors could actually wash this off with straight toluene, giving a PAN membrane with the original behavior that was apparently no worse for the treatment. It appears that the original PAN pores of around 15nm are narrowed to 2nm or below by this adsorption layer, and both the size and the chemical characteristics of the "new" pores are responsible for the separations.

So you just need to clog things up a bit, the right way, and you're in good shape. Who knew? ... [bold added]

As one commenter quips, "[G]ood as new is worse."

3. Continuing our theme of improvisation for a moment, I learned recently of a company claiming to make the world's largest zip tie:

To be clear, we're not just talking about length, although at 47 inches long it's certainly substantial. But extremely long zip ties already exist for things like wrapping large bundles of cable. This one is also cartoonishly thick, and features a similarly upscaled locking mechanism that allows it to hold up to 2,000 pounds, according to the company.

The monster ties can be had for $75 apiece, 12 for $800, or 15 for $1,700.

4. Moderna's new mRNA flu vaccine isn't just approved, it soon may be available at pharmacy near you:

Major insurers have previously indicated they will continue to cover vaccines. However, sign-off from a federal vaccine advisory panel can influence coverage in certain states, though some are moving away from requiring the panel's recommendation...

It's difficult to predict how broadly pharmacies would stock the newly approved mRNA flu vaccine in the absence of recommendations from ACIP and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Brigid Groves, a vice president at the American Pharmacists Association. However, pharmacists' authority to order and administer vaccines in many states is no longer directly tied to ACIP recommendations, meaning "authority may be less of a barrier than it would have been in the past," she said.

It's good to know that there is resistance to the hostile takeover of the FDA by the anti-vaxx movement.

One advantage of the new vaccine, mentioned in the story, is that it will be easier and quicker to change it to match the prevalent flu strains in circulation than vaccines using older technology. This is because the latter take six months to manufacture.

Based on a quick, cursory search, I think the new vaccine matches the same strains as the old. Whether this is because the group in charge of selecting the target strain chose well, or there is some other reason, I have no idea.

-- CAV

Conspiracism vs. Creativity

Although Alison Green wasn't writing about conspiracism, a recent post of hers at Ask a Manager indirectly reminded me of that phenomenon, and the seemingly creative ways that conspiracists purport to explain what's "really going on."

Green takes a question about what might motivate instances of apparently mixed messages from management in a couple of instances the writer is aware of, and the immediate short answer is what caused me to think of conspiracism:

You're imagining this as all more cohesive than it is -- that there's a grand plan unifying all their actions, but very often there isn't.

Green tackles each of the scenarios in turn, and culminates in a list of typical reasons situations like the ones she was asked about occur:

• Plans changed, and the earlier conversations planning the change took place above their heads and they weren't even aware it was under discussion.
• Plans changed, and they were in those earlier conversations but didn't think it would go the way it went, or were simply juggling too many other things to game out exactly what it could end up meaning for everyone under them until it actually happened.
• Someone above them mentioned something that put pressure on them (and therefore their team) in a way they weren't anticipating earlier.
• Something happened that you don't know about that is changing how they're approaching something / how much they care about it (for example, they told you last month you didn't need to stress about expense report deadlines and they then discovered your coworker hadn't turned any in for a year and so now they're less laissez-faire about it).
• They're being pulled in multiple directions and so haven't sat down and thought things through as deliberately as you're imagining; they are managing through chaos.
• They messed up. Sometimes this may simply be because they're human, and other times they might not be a great (organized/thoughtful/attentive) manager.

Hanlon's Razor states that one should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Not everything on the above list qualifies as stupidity, but many can look a lot like stupidity. All are things known to occur frequently enough that it makes sense to consider them as possible explanations before jumping to the conclusion that a puzzling event is motivated by some kind of plan.

Needless to say, similar kinds of things to the above non-exhaustive list can occur in other situations involving any kind of organization.

In light of the above, conspiracist "explanations" look far less creative than a truly deliberate consideration of the possible causes of a puzzling event.

-- CAV

Trump to Bring Back the Gas Line?

At RealClear Markets, Peter Grossman of the National Center for Energy Analytics considers President Trump's recent tirades against "unrealistic" gasoline prices and what an authoritarian ignoramus like him might do about them.

Along the way, a name increasingly familiar lately for other bad reasons comes up: Richard Nixon, whose brilliant solution to inflation, price controls, sounds like it would be right up Trump's alley.

I am old enough to remember gas lines and rationing fuel by allowing sales on certain days to even or odd tag numbers, but I didn't get the full picture of the carnage that wreaked: I was, after all, not even 10 back then.

Grossman fills us all in on what we can expect if Trump pulls such a stunt:

Refiners and retailers had to petition for price increases, and couldn't automatically pass on rising costs. Decisions were handed down at the start of the following month. As a result, many gas stations simply closed during the final week of each month while waiting for approval to raise prices. Allotments were also made monthly, and some stations had to close toward the end of the month having run through their supplies before they could replenish their stock. This only lengthened gas lines.

Because stations could not just pass along costs, government controls squeezed station profit margins. Consequently, hundreds of stations closed for good in 1973-4. [bold added]

Any economist who knows what he is talking about in the least will warn against price controls, but in the Trump era, will they be heard at all?

They're not part of Trump's inner circle, and he made it clear long ago that they aren't wanted in his party.

In a time when the brain-dead and those who pander to them mock "experts" and "elites" -- while praising blind faith in a single, not-too-bright individual -- it will be the voices who could easily spare us a lot of pain who are least likely to be heard.

Trump supporters would do well to consider how similar the idea that Trump will do it right sounds to the socialists who are even now saying This time, it will work!

And vice versa.

I won't be holding my breath.

-- CAV

SAVE Act a Logistical Nightmare

I oppose Trump's SAVE Act for reasons I have already elaborated upon. It is nevertheless interesting to see that even some of its supporters see its passage now as a disaster, as it is currently written.

At The Washington Examiner is an editorial supporting the legislation that points out that it is now too late to implement it in time for the midterms:

The legislation's timing provisions would make that task especially difficult. The act would take effect upon enactment rather than after a transition period. The Election Assistance Commission would have only 10 days to issue implementation guidance, and the legislation does not provide states with implementation funding. These administrative changes will take months to complete properly.

Election Day is Nov. 3, but the operational election calendar begins much earlier. Under federal law, states generally must transmit absentee ballots to military and overseas voters at least 45 days before a federal election. That deadline falls on Sept. 19.

Before then, officials must finalize ballot procedures, update databases, print instructions, test equipment, and train personnel. Early voting begins in some jurisdictions not long afterward. Registration activity is already underway, and voters are already relying on rules published by their states.

Changing those rules in August or September could create different requirements for people registering only weeks apart. It could also produce inconsistent implementation among states or even among counties within the same state, as officials interpret hurried federal guidance while defending their decisions in court. [bold added]

It is even more interesting that, surely knowing this, the President is pressuring the Senate to rush this bill through to passage.

Gosh, it's almost as if Trump wants to undermine confidence in the next election and so look justified in meddling with the results.

It's impractical! has never been a great way to fight against terrible policy, but when a policy is so bad that even some of its proponents say that, perhaps there is more reason to hope the bullet in the chamber misses.

-- CAV

'Reforming' the Jones Act?

With the current waiver of the Jones Act set to expire on August 16 and copious data indicating its repeal would be a boon to the U.S. economy, one might wonder why there isn't significant momentum behind repealing it once and for all.

The general answer -- that precious few of today's politicians are pro-free-market and that we're too deeply mired in a mixed economy for that to even be in the Overton Window -- will be obvious to most regulars here. If the minutiae of the pull peddling interests you, a recent post on the matter at The Abundance and Growth Blog will be of further interest.

That said, I'd also assign a great deal of the blame to our President, with his muddled and unprincipled views on economics. How could a protectionist like him muster the arguments or enthusiasm to use his bull pulpit to advantage despite him own dislike of the law?

So the post explains what it states plainly: "There aren't the votes for an outright repeal of the Jones Act, and there are not likely to be the votes any time soon."

That's the bad news.

The good news, such as it is, is that there might be bipartisan support for more limited reforms that could blunt some of its worst effects.

These measures are:

• An exemption for Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, and Northeast states reliant on heating oil, or perhaps just one of that set
• Repealing the build requirement of the act but not the crewing requirements, so that labor unions representing US seafarers continue to benefit, and perhaps even gain as the new foreign-built ships hire their members
• Pairing adjustments to the act with buyout offers to current US-based shipbuilders, so those affected have resources to choose a new career path and the transition is truly win-win
• Pairing changes to the act with subsidies to US-based shipbuilders akin to those in the SHIPS for America Act, so US firms face more competition but also have more resources with which to face it

Given how deadly the Jones Act has been for American shipbuilding (and how little government subsidies help the subsidized), I hate the last of these, but the others would be a real improvement, as much as they all leave to be desired.

-- CAV

Four Wins

A Friday Hodgepodge

Open Bigotry as Opportunity

Letters from readers of Miss Manners and Prudence each show the potential value of meeting bigotry with a dignified response.

One of these letters, to Miss Manners from an American who frequently travels abroad, deals with a common complaint: people who make snide comments about "Americans" at our expense.

Miss Manners replies in part:

As such comments are almost certainly based on the age-old cliche that all Americans are rude or bullies, they ignore the hypocrisy that only rude bullies would offer such an insult to a guest in their country.

The proper response is therefore to silently, but politely, make clear that you know you have been insulted. If you can excuse yourself, do so. If not, look stern and ignore the speaker for a time. This forces others to question their assumptions both about Americans and about themselves -- which will be far better for you than getting into a fight in a foreign country. [bold added]

In the second letter, a reader contributes his perspective to advice she gave to a gay couple about possibly attending a family reunion together. He says in part:

[A]ll the times we calmly showed up and were just nice and pleasant had an effect on my whole religious family. They couldn't keep up the bigotry in the face of two decent and kind guys just living their lives authentically. My relationship with my parents became really close, and my nieces and nephews started telling their parents that they didn't want to listen to them bad-talking their uncle when they preached "love one another" in church, but then talk hatefully about their own brother.

...

I would tell the writer not to do anything they don't think they can handle or that would make them feel unsafe, but sometimes it is the simple act of showing up and being yourselves that brings people around and forces them to confront their bigotry. Plus, you never know which niece or nephew might desperately need to see you living your authentic lives to give them hope and courage to weather their own situation... [bold added]

This is a prime example of the approach Miss Manners advises paying off in getting people to overcome dehumanizing prejudices. (The corollary of politely letting an ass know you've been insulted is to enjoy the company of those who aren't going along with it.)

As the emphasis on safety in the second letter indicates, everyone must make a risk calculation about such situations, especially when they're avoidable, but standing up for oneself in the face of bigotry is a way to improve the world one lives in small, but appreciable ways.

-- CAV

Reparations: Still Unjust

Judging by the headlines in the New York Post, reparations for slavery are back in the news. This time, Alameda County, California, which notably contains Oakland, is considering cash payments to black residents.

The conservative outlet, predictably, is against the idea and, just as predictably, focuses on the impracticality of the idea and its historical absurdity, while sloppily conceding the moral high ground to its advocates.

California’s Kamala Harris, the first black female presidential nominee, also reportedly has a slave owner among her ancestors.

Is she supposed to pay reparations to herself?

This is humorous for the second or two before one realizes that the very premise that makes it humorous goes completely unchallenged, which is quite a price for a giggle.

By contrast, an older opinion piece by Brian Phillips goes for the jugular, starting with his title of "California Reparations Task Force: Fighting Injustice with Injustice." (The piece also addresses what I suspect is a big factual miss by the Post: The reparations might not even be about slavery, but about racist policies.)

Phillips's central argument is clear, straightforward, and refreshing in an era when the conservative movement has gone so far astray that it has been sighted in the weeds of economic illiteracy and corruption:

Justice demands that the guilty be punished and they make restitution to the victim. To give restitution to those who were not victims is to grant unearned rewards. To punish those who did not participate in an injustice is to penalize the innocent. Neither is an act of justice. Neither restitution nor punishment should be dispensed simply because of skin color. Yet, this was what the task force wants to do.

So, regarding that joke: What is Kamala Harris -- or anyone else -- supposed to do regarding "reparations" that distribute money looted from individuals to others, based on accidental membership in a group, such as a race?

Oppose that idea as the evil, unjust proposal that it is.

-- CAV

Mark Kelly in '28?

In The Atlantic is a lengthy profile -- over 6500 words -- of Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who is contemplating a presidential run.

Based on his standing up to President Trump and Pete Hegseth last year regarding the impropriety of military officers following illegal orders and his subsequent legal persecution by the same, I have come to admire Kelly as among the few good men in politics in a position to offer meaningful pushback against Trump's authoritarian, lunatic administration.

I welcome this news.

While I hardly expect to agree with many of Kelly's political positions, given that he is a Democrat, the need to repudiate today's Republicans without ushering in a woke or socialist administration that would assume it had a mandate makes any sane Democrat worth a look.

Given the strong slant of the profile (and the lefty political slant of the publication), I took a look at Kelly's Wikipedia entry for that purpose, and find that while his political positions are far from ideal, they fall into the category of sane/tempered by facts/I could live with someone like that in office. As for the profile itself, I found it to be a mixed bag.

I was not thrilled to learn, for example, that a willingness to bend politics in the name of altruism is a major part of what got Kelly into politics in the first place:

... I asked Kelly what had made him decide to run for office. First off, he said, he was concerned about "the trajectory of our country with Donald Trump in the White House." This did not exactly make him a brave and lonely voice in the Democratic wilderness. But Kelly traces his particular aha moment to a get-out-the-vote rally that he attended in Phoenix before the 2018 midterms. A woman, probably in her 30s, approached him.

"She just stands next to me and says, 'Hey, my son has Down Syndrome. And I'm terrified he's going to lose his health insurance. Would you please consider running for the U.S. Senate?'" Kelly told the woman he would think about it.

This is not great, but it isn't Eat the Rich, either, and it's pretty culturally in the mainstream, which is (with only the rarest exceptions) what one has to expect of a politician today.

Much more compelling is Kelly's willingness to take a stand to protect our form of government:

Kelly keeps his official letter of censure from Hegseth taped to the door of his Senate office. I hadn't noticed it until he mentioned it to me. The document -- dated January 5, 2026 -- is addressed to "Captain Kelly" and printed on "Department of War" stationery. It is three pages long, one of them crooked. Kelly told me that he hung the missive sloppily on purpose, to reflect his lack of respect for its contents and sender. Perhaps, he said, he should smear it with ketchup.

I asked Kelly why he displays the letter on his door.

"I think that, you know, the seriousness of this whole thing," he said.

"It's good for me to be reminded of what's at stake, and who these people are." [bold added]

And, later:

Kelly made this clear to me too. If "they actually sent me to prison, I'll be fine," he told me. "I'll continue to fight back against these people."

I mentioned that it would seem unlikely at this point that Kelly would be sent to jail over the "illegal orders" video. The government, after all, already failed once to win an indictment against the lawmakers. Kelly agreed, but then went on to describe scenarios in which it could happen: If, Kelly suggested, his lawsuit against Hegseth goes to the Supreme Court and they rule against him, the Pentagon could then have other punishment options. "I could wind up in a nonjudicial punishment process in the Navy," he said. "And you know, that's a big pain in the ass."

"I tell you what they could do; they could try to indict us again," Kelly continued. "Then, maybe do it in a place where maybe they get enough grand jurors. And then I wind up getting charged with seditious conspiracy."

I joked that if Kelly did wind up in prison, he would probably raise $50 million within a week. He reiterated that he was not scared of imprisonment. His wife is not worried about it either, he said. [bold added]

Kelly is surely making a politician's calculation here to the effect that he would be able to raise enough of a public outrage to blunt the effects of such an effort. But this is hardly an easy way out and I see few other politicians willing to confront this Administration so openly.

I could probably support Mark Kelly for President. I am glad he's considering a run.

-- CAV

Murkowski vs. the SAVE Act

At the Wall Street Journal, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) explains why she will be voting against Donald Trump's ill-considered and disingenuous attempt to federalize and overhaul American elections.

Many of her objections sound like those I raised in March, only greatly exaggerated by Alaska's peculiarities as new, far-flung state with a very low population density:

Or maybe you're a fisherman in Unalaska, out on the Aleutian Islands. The flight to Anchorage -- the closest election office, some 800 miles away -- would cost about $1,500 round-trip. You would also need a hotel, cabs and food while in Anchorage because it would be impossible to fly in, register and return home the same day.

These examples assume you have on hand the documents necessary to prove your citizenship. But take one more: You are an 85-year-old Native elder born in your parents' house, 18 years before statehood. Getting a certified copy of your birth certificate, especially if you have never had one before, would be incredibly difficult.

Previous comparisons of this proposal to a new poll tax are tame compared to the above.

But the fun doesn't stop there: Murkowski notes a few other whoppers most people probably have never heard of:

I've also asked for the effective date of the legislation to be pushed back to give all states enough time for implementation. As written, the bill would take effect immediately -- but it is unreasonable to expect immediate compliance.

This bill would force many states to modify their election laws. Some legislatures might need special sessions to do that. Thousands of local jurisdictions would have to implement new processes and find workers willing to risk being personally sued. Under the bill's private right of action, individuals or groups could sue election officials if they believe verification requirements aren't being strictly enforced.

Even if federal resources are provided through the budget reconciliation process to help facilitate these changes, it will take weeks or months for those dollars to arrive and much longer to overhaul state voting processes. [bold added]

Does the Trump Administration want to suppress voting? Is it grossly incompetent? Both?

Whatever the answer, if there is a bill that should be Dead on Arrival, this is it.

I recommend reading the whole thing.

-- CAV

Blog Roundup

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. "How About a Genuine America-First Policy?," by Peter Schwartz (PeterSchwartz.com):

The movement Trump launched claims that his policies will "make America great again." Here, too, there is a prior question that demands an answer: What made America great in the first place? And it's the same answer: freedom.

America's exceptionalism rested on the premise that each individual has rights, and that the task of government is not to rule him but to protect those rights, by leaving him free. In the 18th century, a world dominated by despotic monarchies, this was a radical view. America was founded not simply on the idea that the people ought to elect their government representatives, but on the more fundamental idea that the individual has inalienable rights -- rights that may not be violated even by the wishes of a majority.

785 words/3 minutes

2. "Are Taxes 'The Price We Pay for Civilization'?," by Jaana Woiceshyn (How to be Profitable and Moral):

[Author Carol Off's] paraphrased quote from the U.S. Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the early 20th century: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization," prompted my post. I wanted to challenge the premise that the tax-funded welfare state is the ideal civilized society. The focus here, therefore, is on the chapter about taxes.

Off sets up her defense of the welfare state with a false alternative: either we have a welfare state or a libertarian anarchy (which she equates with capitalism). She argues that the welfare state is ideal as the only social system that can achieve equality of outcomes for all, with the government collecting taxes from the productive and "redistributing" them to the less productive through various subsidies and programs.

865 words/3 minutes

3. "The Key to Sustainable Real World Results and Other Updates," by Jean Moroney (Thinking Directions):

When I see two mistakes of the same type, I look to draw a principle. Given that I've been teaching "motivation by love" (aka the value orientation) since my speech on the topic in 2019, I can talk for hours on the subject, and the principle is integrated into everything I teach in the Thinking Lab, how could I have been blind to these two major areas of threat orientation in my own life? The answer hit me at once: writing and time management are the two skills that I had given the most time and attention to prior to 2019. I had already put more than 20 years into understanding each of them before fully grasping the fundamental importance of a value orientation. This meant that my value hierarchy in these areas was integrated with mistaken beliefs about what was possible.

710 words/2 minutes

4. "Alan Greenspan -- Not a Eulogy," by Harry Binswanger (Value for Value):

[W]hile Alan Greenspan started out as a basically good man, he ended up as a traitor to capitalism, Objectivism, Ayn Rand, and his own soul. He went to Washington, and began to play the game. He chose the road of power.

Here are some points of acceleration in his decline. He "saved" Social Security by expanding its destructive power. At a State of the Union address, he rose up -- next to Hillary Clinton -- to join in giving a standing ovation to the call for universal (socialist) medical care. After the fall of communism, he refused to recommend capitalism to the newly freed regimes.

In the end, he abjured capitalism and, indirectly, Objectivism, as the logic of his premises required. He was an inexcusable blend of Peter Keating and Robert Stadler.

680 words/2 minutes

-- CAV

Taking Pet Adoption Seriously ...

... sometimes means not adopting at all.

A couple of advice columns dealing with pets reminded me of the time one of my brothers broke up with a girlfriend decades ago.

The straw that broke that camel's back: She came home with two yippy dogs without having consulted him about it.

I am not a dog person. I was sympathetic then, but it took me time to appreciate what a good move this was on his part. That wisdom has nothing to do with my preferences regarding dogs and I would go so far as to say that anyone who seriously appreciates dogs should agree with me.

Why?

Because some pets -- off the top of my head: anything dangerous, high-maintenance past a certain point, or large enough to have the run of the house -- inherently affect the daily life of the members of a household enough that everyone in the household deserves a say before making such a commitment. I can even see the argument that such pets demand a degree of commitment that is comparable enough to a human relationship that whether to adopt one is a major life decision.

Two advice columnists bear this out. In one case, a woman who works in an animal shelter has brought home so many dogs it is beginning to make her family's home life unbearable despite the fact that they all like dogs. In another case, one partner in a dog-loving couple appreciated that a new pet would not work for them at this time in their lives -- but her partner went ahead and brought home a dog, anyway:

Fast-forward: Butch is a sweet, loving pup. I adore him, but he's a ton of work. My fiancé is back in school and working so he's not happy stopping multiple times a day to take Butch out for air and exercise as the dog is an active breed. He does it, but some days are stressful for us both.

Abby, I resent him for this. We're both overloaded and now have another full-time responsibility plus extra bills. We love Butch but are overwhelmed. I would be miserable giving him away, which is what my fiancé now suggests.

Both columnists correctly advise their readers that finding a new home for a pet can be the best option, including being an improvement for the pet itself.

In each letter, it is clear that the writer sees the pet as part of the family and cares for it, which underscores that bringing a pet into one's home is a serious decision. (And conversely, when someone unilaterally does this, it is a red flag.)

On top of my positive point, the cultural baggage of altruism can make this harder than it needs to be: The pet needs a home. Lots of people will deem protecting one's own time and sanity, rather than sacrificing it to an unwanted pet, as "heartless," for example. Such ideas can lead to a bad decision motivated by inappropriate guilt or unwarranted pressure from others.

The discussion about whether to adopt a pet isn't the time for martyrdom, or giving in to an out-of-context desire to help an animal, or appeasing the rest of the family in the moment. Any such discussion has to be made with everyone's best interests in mind, especially those of the caregivers.

If someone truly cares for animals, they will not adopt one on a whim.

-- CAV

Franchise Model Update

There may soon be good news for businesses that rely on the franchise model, which, along with gig work, has been under assault from the left for quite some time.

The good news comes in the form of proposed regulations concerning "joint employment" that have just passed the required period for public comment:

These distinctions between business relationships and arrangements matter under our labor laws. What's known as "joint employment" occurs when two or more entities are both liable for a single worker's terms and conditions of employment. There's been a fight in Washington over changing the nature of franchising, staffing agenices, and even independent contracting relationships from partnerships to traditional employer -- employee arrangements, to the detriment of all and the communities they serve. The good news is that the Trump Department of Labor planted a flag in the ground to protect these independent arrangements in its thoughtful proposed joint employer rule.

The public comment period just concluded, but from the over 200 submissions, many franchise owners clearly communicated that they are their own boss, not the franchisor. Federal policy should weigh in favor of protecting this distinction rather than increasing legal liabilities for franchisors over the day-to-day employment decisions of independent business owners -- causing the whole model to crumble. [bold added]

The rest of the article does well to flesh out the advantages of contract work and the franchise business model, and by contrast, the potential damage of removing legal protection for them.

While this is good news, one must keep in mind a fact that is also apparent from the piece: As a regulatory change, this measure will be subject to the policies of future administrations. (A similar move in the first Trump term was just about wiped out by Biden.)

Until and unless advocates of liberty gain enough cultural momentum to cause a decisive political shift in favor of free markets, this battle will continue indefinitely, threatening countless small businesses in the long-term and discouraging entrepreneurs.

A battle may have been won, but the war rages on.

-- CAV