In the process of settling a bet on post-election phone calls, Miss Manners makes the following important point:
The problem is that you both look at the call as a personal interaction, rather than a professional one. The reason the loser calls the winner is that it increases faith in the electoral process by having the loser acknowledge defeat, a relevant lesson in our time.
It is hardly surprising that in a time when too many Americans seem to have forgotten in what way our government is distinct, and why that difference matters, that lots of us see failure to make that call as merely rude.
It is not: It is negligent at best, and can indeed an attack, however small, on public confidence in the electoral process -- the hiring process, if you will -- by which we choose not our rulers, but the fellow citizens to whom we delegate the power of government.
We can all think of a particularly egregious example of someone failing spectacularly to acknowledge defeat. This person, and many others like him are not merely rude, or stubborn. They are dangerous, and must be stopped.
The headline in the Washington Examiner sounds encouraging enough: "The MAGA bubble is about to burst."
It's about time! anyone not inside said bubble will doubtless think.
Intrigued, and having doubts, I read the piece. My summary verdict is that it made lots of interesting observations, but that the headline would have been more accurate with ... for now appended.
The author, Peter Laffin, makes lots of interesting comparisons between MAGA and the "Democrats" (really, the woke left, who control that party as MAGA controls the GOP), and concludes that they are both "bubbles" that look outlandish to "normal people." For example:
The woke-era Democratic bubble proved remarkably durable, surviving one reality check after another for over a decade: Brexit, Donald Trump’s 2016 win, the backlash to “defund the police,” COVID restrictions, the parent revolt against indoctrination, to name a few.
2024 punctured it. Trump’s comeback from the depths of Jan. 6 to the heights of a popular vote victory couldn’t be spun or explained away. Democrats had to face it.
As they searched their souls, Trump stormed into Washington and had his way with it. And it didn’t take him long to alienate the voters who had just handed him a mandate to clean up the Democrats’ mess. Chaotic ICE raids, whiplash tariffs, a ballroom funded by companies with business before the government, a military parade on his birthday, a $400 million gift jet from Qatar, pardons for the Jan. 6 rioters: the list of self-inflicted wounds goes on. [bold added]
An important piece of context worth remembering here is that Joe Biden was elected in the first place under the disingenuous promise (by his party)/actual mandate (from the electorate) of piloting a return to normalcy after Trump's lunatic first term.
We all know what happened there, and we should remember that.
Laffin further elaborates on what his idea of a bubble means and what will likely happen next:
Just as Democrats lost sight of how off-putting they became through land acknowledgments, talk of “birthing people,” and the use of “Latinx,” Republicans are now blind to how their own behavior appears outside the bubble. Inside it, their excesses play like strength and clarity of purpose. Outside it, the same behavior looks unhinged.
Among the more recent displays of embubblement: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s short-lived plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan. This attempted resurrection of the grisly ritual — the last public execution in the United States came in 1936 — thrilled the hardcore theocon and NatCon factions of the Right, who, for reasons ranging from biblical notions of retributive justice to the conviction that a strong state must be seen wielding its power, thought a livestreamed killing was just what America needed in this, the year of our Lord 2026. The plan enjoyed spirited defenses in highly visible conservative spaces, from the erudite heights of the First Things podcast (though they eventually agreed Trump was right to cancel it) to the seedy depths of Jack Posobiec’s social media feed. [bold added]
I have been waiting for a prominent conservative outlet to note the similarity. It is progress that people are beginning to notice how similar MAGA and the woke left are, beyond the facile and lacking urge to invoke "horseshoe theory" and call it a day.
Unfortunately, it's still early days, and the extent of the bubble bursting is only going to entail the current "embubbled" side losing political power.
Yes. The current power-holders look like champions to themselves and nuts to everyone else, and that may well cost them political power. But, just as conservatives gleefully declare the death of climate change catastrophism every time a non-catatrophist wins office, only to seem puzzled when that agenda comes back full steam afterwards, so it will be the same with MAGA.
This is so because each bubble-dwelling faction is animated by anti-individualist, anti-freedom philosophical ideas that, while not based in reality, do provide them with a moral compass that they will not discard as easily as they can lose an election.
The full extent of the woke left's soul searching concerned how to return to power, not whether its animating ideas had anything to do with reality. That, too, will be the full extent of hard-core MAGA's.
It is interesting to consider that normal voters, too, may be in a bubble. Our country has enjoyed relative economic and political freedom for so long that most people take those things for granted. Our education system has, similarly, done a worse job each generation in teaching the ideas that made liberty possible or preparing minds to understand them by cultivating independent, active thinking.
Freedom does not last long if there is no faction that actively supports it. That's the reality normies don't seem to appreciate.
As to how we look to others? My own experience with both wokescold and MAGA relatives tells me that, as individuals, we look like members of the opposite "extreme" (read: collectivist) faction than that of the person we are speaking to at the moment. As a collective, I would guess that we are taken for marks, whose votes are there for the taking.
The horseshoe is an illusion. The arrow points to freedom.
History tells us that the best way to stop being treated like chumps and advance the cause of liberty is to educate oneself and others, and make it clear that one's political allegiance is up for grabs and has to be earned.
California's Proposition 40, a one-time wealth tax of resident billionaires is on the ballot. Economists and conservative media outlets argue, correctly that this is a terrible idea from the standpoint of the government increasing its tax revenue.
(We'll set aside our disappointment that none express any degree of moral outrage at this brazen violation of individual rights.)
Megan McArdle takes this line of argument further, considering what dueling economists are saying about the potential impact of such a measure -- and assuming in order to make their cases.
In addition to questioning assumptions about what the billionaires might do in response to such a measure, she considers what this "group of the world's most mobile people" are doing:
Several California billionaires have already announced their departures, including Peter Thiel and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. [Wealth tax proponent Gabriel] Zucman's paper notes that if some of the most prominent tech barons succeed in fleeing, revenue estimates fall to $89 billion, but then argues that there are many small-fry billionaires who escape Forbes's wealth rankings but still have to pay the tax. Adding them back in raises revenue to $115 billion.
This assumes the undetected small fry haven't done their best to exit, but why would we assume that? Why should we believe that those who loudly announced they were shifting their residency before the year began were the only people who fled ahead of the SEIU initiative?
Mike Solana, the chief marketing officer at Founders Fund (where Thiel is a partner) and founder of tech site Pirate Wires, reported speaking with 20 billionaires who would be affected by the wealth tax. They comprise about 10 percent of the state's known billionaires. All 20, including some Democrats, said they were making exit plans; three said they'd already left. You can dismiss Solana as a Thiel acolyte, but I've heard from others in those circles that most of the state's billionaires are planning their departure, if they haven't already left. [bold added]
McArdle then notes that economists aren't the only people on earth capable of making assumptions:
They probably assume that if the tax succeeds, progressives will come back for an encore. And if it fails, they'll try, try again. Those seem like sound assumptions -- sounder, in fact, than the assumption that Californians can grab 5 percent of everything the billionaires have, and the billionaires will just have to sit there and let them take it.
It is interesting to consider the idea that California's nasty threat to retroactively confiscate so much money might already be backfiring.
A Daily Mailpiece about the Talarico-Paxton senatorial race in Texas speaks of "shy Republicans," a term I've heard more than once before, going way back to Dubya in 2004.
The term has since been reapplied to Trump supporters, and is popping up in news media again.
This time, however, with the unpopularity of the corrupt candidate Trump chose to replace the incumbent John Cornyn, the term is being used for Republican voters who plan to vote against their party's candidate. There is speculation about whether polls are underestimating the number of Republicans who plan to vote for Talarico, but are averse to admitting as much in public:
Celebrated attorney Thomas J Henry, who [once] gave $600,000 to a pro-Paxton PAC, on Wednesday night published a video on social media endorsing Talarico. He said in the clip, which received 24,000 likes in under 24 hours, that he had met with Talarico and discussed issues at length, finding him to be 'balanced, straightforward and honest.'
'I think there are going to be many, many people that are Republicans that are going to vote for Talarico,' Henry told the Daily Mail. 'And I can tell you, as a lawyer, I have dealt with many people that are on juries that are very conservative, and people that you'd think would be very liberal, and I've seen them make decisions based on certain circumstances that are not consistent with what you think they would be based on a label.
'So I think we have to give people credit for making up their own mind.'
Will it be enough to get Talarico over the line, making him the first Democrat to represent Texas in the nation's capital in 33 years?
I am not sure so many Republicans who vote for Talarico will share Henry's enthusiasm for Talarico so much as be appalled at what an atrocious character and record Paxton has, but the note about people exercising their own judgement in private stands.
As for the reluctance, I think the below might be a fair indication of the tribalist pressure many such people will feel:
His wife warned him [lifelong Republican James Edge] against it, cautioning that they would lose friends. Indeed, they have: Some now shun him in the streets. So conservative is his Brazos County home that, after he made his declaration, the local radio station invited him on air -- and then received a barrage of hate mail.
'It was as if an earthquake shifted in my world, in the area around my home,' he told the Daily Mail. 'I would think it would be relatively uninteresting, what my position would be on this. I am a well-known Republican, and a city councilor, but our city is fairly small - it's only 100,000 people.
'The attention that this has drawn has been fascinating. I have heard from countless people: individuals that are currently elected Republicans in Brazos County; staffers throughout the state of Texas that work for Republican officeholders. And they have said, "Thank you, I agree with you 100 percent. I'm with you, and I feel the same way. I can't vote for Ken Paxton."'
'But virtually none of them have been willing to do it publicly. And I fully understand that, because of the blowback that I have experienced, which has been unlike anything I really expected.'
I once lived in Texas, but am not as familiar with the electoral math there as I am with Mississippi's: I'm not sure how much crossing over Talarico would need to win. But the Daily Mail claims the race is "neck-and-neck" and even Republican voters who simply stay home or abstain in the Paxton race will help Talarico's effort.
Trump did not like how the 2020 election turned out, and tried to forcibly nullify it. What will he do about the next election whose results he does not like? He has said that his biggest regret about the 2020 election is his failure to send the National Guard to seize the voting machines. Will he rectify that failure in response to the upcoming midterm elections? Or the 2028 elections? We can't know -- but we do know that the Republicans will not defy him.
Republicans are now in thrall to Trump. They make possible his dismissal of legal constraints. The only way to neutralize Trump, then, is through a Congress controlled by Democrats. Yes, even if they are "democratic socialists." A president aided in his refusal to acknowledge the rule of law by an acquiescent Congress, is a far greater threat than legislators who want to enact socialized medicine or a ban on gasoline-powered cars.
[H]uman flourishing does not mean bare economic survival and equal struggle for all. The condition of flourishing is that people are able to depend on their basic tool of survival, reason. They must be free to think, engage in any productive activity, and trade with others of their choosing, to survive and enjoy life. Thinking, producing, and trading requires freedom to choose one's work, to keep the proceedings from it and to prosper accordingly.
By limiting or abolishing that freedom -- through confiscation of property and "redistributing" it to others, trough taxation, welfare programs, and foreign aid, or through restricting trade through regulations -- a statist government undermines individuals' freedom to pursue their values and thereby their flourishing.
In today's Wall Street Journal, "The Weekend Interview" is "Why Did Technologists Become Doomers?"
It's not just the slant of the headline that's good. The interviewee, Zack Korman, is astonishing -- not just in being on the right side, not just in supplying important information about the risks of AI, but in actually showing that what caused the hysteria is a philosophy! And guess which philosophy: "effective altruism"!
In trying to follow their process, I had dropped my own judgment of whether the thing hung together logically. I was judging it based on whether I was following their procedure, not on whether it made sense to me. This is the problem that arises from focusing on rules instead of reality. In hindsight, my 15-step process, though it has a lot of merit and brings a lot of clarity, also encouraged a rule-focused approach to writing.
This was my first glimmer into the fundamental problem that has distorted my process for years.
At about the same time, I heard Peter Schwartz give a condensed overview of the writing process he taught me many years ago, and on which my writing process was based. (This was at last year's Randsday Weekend Conference, at which we'll both be speaking again in 2027.)
This time I heard him say, "You write because you have a message you want to communicate."
This sounds obvious, but it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Dear Abby addresses a huge, boundary-crossing ask from a favor-shark. In this case, a woman's brother-in-law, who has "selflessly" performed favors for her over the years, has become angry with her because she won't accept an "offer" to become a nanny three days a week to his newborn baby.
Abby's response is pretty good:
You are not "crazy," so don't feel guilty for refusing to allow your sister and brother-in-law to push you into something with which you are not comfortable. That they would expect you to become their babysitter without first discussing it with your partner (legal or not) is somewhere between sneaky and presumptuous.
You say your relationship with your twin and her husband is "somewhat strained." Well, it appears to be that way because you sense a lack of respect from them. That is the issue you should straighten out with her. As for her hubby, he needs to understand that: 1. You are happy working with your father in the business, and 2. Removing garbage, clearing snow and dealing with mechanical issues are not remotely equivalent to devoting three days every week to taking care of a baby. [bold added]
I have been presented with similar outlandish proposals more times than you might believe in my life, including someone hoping to foist a dog on me, and a proposal made to me in all seriousness that I let a troubled young man move into my home with my young children. (Neither my "being a mentor" nor the "free child 'care'" sweetened that second deal for me.)
In such cases, including the one at Dear Abby, the proposer -- favor-shark or not -- seems simultaneously (1) oblivious to how big an ask the "favor" is to the person it is being asked of, (2) inordinately focused on the fact that the proposed recipients are "needy", and yet also (3) engaged in magical thinking as to how the proposed arrangement will work out in real life.
(I suspect that this is just another example of altruism functioning as a mental kill switch. Why should someone who possesses something of value factor in to how it is used? How could something so "noble" as a human sacrifice fail to make everything magically work out?)
It's happened enough that I eventually came up with a succinct answer that I think even many people who have not given much thought to the underlying philosophical issues can understand: That is the kind of commitment I owe only to someone I have brought into the world or married. (And yes, that goes for adopting a dog!)
Abby is right that the favors being sharked aren't the equivalent to the "repayment" being demanded, but the issue is deeper than that. As Ayn Rand put it:
Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None -- except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality. I deal with men as my nature and theirs demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice. It is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self-interest, when they see that my interest coincides with theirs. When they don't, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs. [bold added]
The favor-sharking is an attempt to pretend that the mark has entered a voluntary relationship when that is not the case, and the earlier link about that practice has a couple of suggestions about how to deal with it.
Vivek Ramaswamy, whom I once regarded as an interesting, if not creditable Republican politician for the future, has probably just blown the Ohio gubernatorial race and -- aside from any future appointments by Trump -- torpedoed his political future once and for all.
A new attack ad features the estranged mother of Democratic candidate for Ohio governor Amy Acton calling her a "liar" and defending her GOP opponent Vivek Ramaswamy. Acton's campaign and her brother denounced the ad as a "despicable low."
Acton's mother, Donna Arthur, whose husband was accused of raping Acton when she was a child, says in the spot, "It's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy was a serious problem. She is a liar; she lies about her past."
...
[Acton's brother] said that after their stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was arrested and charged, he and Acton were removed from the Arthurs' custody and lived with their father.
"Our birth mother stayed married to Amy's rapist until he died," Stearns said. "This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core -- a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants." [bold added]
The couple fled Ohio for good when Arthur was on bail, so he never faced charges.
This episode reminds me of Clayton Williams's election-costing remark in the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race, in which he crowned a series of gaffes with a "joke" likening rape to the weather. Williams had been leading in the polls. Unlike Williams then, Ramaswamy, was already behind.
I am old enough to remember when Republicans often said that character matters in an elected official, and I agree. Even if, for the sake of argument, Acton were a "serial fabulist," as the Ramaswamy campaign insists, this was obviously not the way to address the issue if indeed there was a good one. Furthermore, if the attack was not desperate and disgusting, it certainly makes Ramaswamy look that way.
That is a bad look, and will fail to help Ramaswamy establish himself as different from the corrupt dwellers of the moral sewer that is MAGA.
I have not followed the Ohio race at all, but if Williams lost Texas with his remark, I think it will be a miracle if Ramaswamy wins Ohio now.
In the New York Times, E.J. Dionne asks, "Could Mississippi Elect Its First Black Senator Since Reconstruction?"
While Scott Colom, the candidate in question, is not a minister, the piece notes that he is quite religious, and he reminds me a bit of Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and James Talarico -- who is polling ahead of the charisma-challenged, corrupt James Paxton, whom Trump hand-picked to get rid of the quite electable incumbent, John Cornyn.
Donald Trump, aided by the spinelessness of a party that should have at least tried to keep him under control, has made what might have been unthinkable only a few years ago into a distinct possibility.
This he has achieved by (1) adopting unpopular and foolish economic policies that have hit Americans in the wallet; and (2) pandering to racists on top of demanding state legislators gerrymander their voting districts to eliminate Democratic seats.
The former will fail to motivate fiscal conservatives -- and the latter will strongly motivate traditionally Democratic constituencies -- to show up to vote.
This is doubly bad news for Republicans in Mississippi.
First, here's a taste of the position the incumbent finds herself in:
They form the core of his critique of Ms. Hyde-Smith, whom he sometimes refers to as "Cindy High Prices." With inflation a central issue everywhere, she gave him an unexpected opening when a local television interviewer asked her about the rising price of beef. She replied, "You know you have so many proteins to choose from." [bold added]
This is even less inspiring than Your daughter doesn't need 30 dolls for Christmas, coming as it does from the political party that once owned the economy as an issue.
Second, the non-Republican elephant in the room in Mississippi, demographics, can easily kick in to make the upset happen:
There is hard math behind Mr. Colom's thinking. Mississippi Democrats start with a strong base in the Black community, which represents 37 percent of the population, the largest share of any state. The longstanding rule of thumb, as Mr. Colom's pollster Margie Omero told me, is that a Democrat can win by securing high turnout among Black voters and roughly a quarter of the white vote. [bold added]
To this native Mississippian, the piece makes interesting reading, although Dionne gets one thing partly wrong:
Senator Warnock, first elected in a dramatic December runoff after President Joe Biden's 2020 victory, alluded to the not-so-behind-the-scenes battle over whether national Democrats should add Mississippi to the growing list of states in which they're investing. "Believe me when I say Mississippi has the ingredients of our win in Georgia, and then some," he said. "I'm also pushing the Democratic Party to invest more in the South. I think the Democratic Party fails to invest in the South at its own peril."
If by invest, he means, fund candidates, he's correct to cite Warnock. If he also means, send national figures there or play up progressive messaging, he's wrong. Voters in Mississippi are more socially conservative (and religious) in general, and this includes blacks. If national Democrats come in sounding like wokescolds, they will alienate many of these voters for various reasons.
It's already an uphill battle for Colom: If there is any doubt that he is anything other than a traditional Democrat, he will lose.
I completely agree with Andrew McCarthy, who writes at National Review, that Trump's likely interference with Ukraine's access to Starlink/Starshield technology and illegal lifting of economic sanctions against Russia merit immediate Congressional attention.
Not only was this ["energy ceasefire"] agreement non-existent; it was patently rigged against Ukraine. For three days Zelensky heeded Trump's warning to cease attacks on Russian refineries, but Russia continued pounding Ukraine's electrical grid and other energy infrastructure. When Zelensky cried foul, the Trump administration countered that the "energy ceasefire" only applied to oil refineries. As Trump officials knew, Ukraine has no operational oil refineries, Russia having bombed the last one four years ago; by contrast, Russia has dozens of refineries. That is, the "energy ceasefire" was insidiously designed to prevent Ukraine from conducting the kind of strikes that most deter Russian aggression, yet enable Putin's continued obliteration of the energy infrastructure Ukrainians need to survive the imminent cold season.
Now, we have what Congress -- Republicans and Democrats, together -- should regard as the last straw.
...
Coincidentally, while [Starshield] was compromised, Putin's forces conducted some of the most intensive aerial attacks against Ukrainian territory since the war began, firing 39 ballistic missiles and 128 Shahed drones, mainly at the greater Kyiv and Kharkiv areas. At least nine civilians were killed, and many others wounded. Zelensky says 26 power facilities and four oil and gas facilities were damaged. More than 600,000 people lost power, for the most part, in the capital.
According to Musk, the restrictions on Starshield had to be caused by the Defense Department "and ultimately POTUS." The government, not SpaceX, owns and controls the system. Initially (i.e., after the devastating Russian attacks), Trump officials denied that the White House had anything to do with the restrictions. As of this writing (on Thursday evening), neither the president, nor his staff, nor the Pentagon has responded to Musk's statement. Reuters, however, has reported that the order to impose the restrictions came from inside the White House. (The report, behind the paywall, relies on two U.S. government officials and one official from a Western government, none of whom is identified.) [bold added]
The Republicans are at best, only cautiously pushing back on this. They already deserve to have their heads handed to them come November and that may well come to pass: Perhaps a Democratic Congress will instead finally hold Putin's sock-puppet accountable.
Whenever possible, I list three wins at the end of each day. Here are a few from a recent review of my planner.
***
1. Contrary to how things usually work out for me, I managed to celebrate Columbus Day this year. One of the things I enjoyed was a guided tour of the Abita Springs Brewery, who craft Andygator, one of my favorite local beers.
2. I love poached eggs and my son loves hard boiled eggs. I hate guesswork and messes, so I used to buy his eggs pre-made and enjoy poached eggs only at restaurants.
Intrigued by the mention at Ask a Manager of Dash egg cookers, I looked at some reviews and bought one.
On top of being stupid simple to use, this egg cooker hits the supposedly impossible trifecta of good, cheap, and fast. What a find!
3. Back in August, I underwent an operation for the third time to relieve a painful condition that interfered with my vision.
The third time was the charm, although I will have to stay on top of an underlying condition to prevent a recurrence. That is a small price to pay for the relief, and to preserve my vision.
4. It was my father-in-law's birthday. I'd had a busy day and was at home getting ready to cook something complicated.
"Did the kids say 'Happy Birthday' to Grandpa?" my wife texted.
I already had done so myself, but was indeed about to drop the ball.
My mind briefly flashed back to yesteryear, and having to round them up, and place the call. None of that is especially difficult, but I was overwhelmed at the moment and not in the mood.
And then I remembered: My kids aren't toddlers anymore!
So I spotted my son, who was downstairs, and told him to find his sister and call Grandpa to wish him a happy birthday.
In addition to reminding me of a Seinfeldepisode, a question at Miss Manners also helped me appreciate personal growth in an area that used to cause me unnecessary worry.
The writer is a nail salon customer who can't seem to shake the feeling that she is being talked about in the native language of the staff, and asks what to do. The nut of Judith Martin's reply is:
[Y]ou could simply acknowledge that people can talk among themselves, without eavesdroppers assuming ill will.
And even if they were gossiping about her, who cares, so long as it isn't so obvious as to be rude. It's just a business transaction.
When I was young, a similar issue came up for me right after college, and a friendly acquaintance accidentally helped me see I was making a mountain out of a molehill. We were talking about something else entirely, when he shrugged off something silly someone had said about him, saying People talk about other people all the time.
That may sound like stating the obvious, but it was a lightbulb going off for me, and helped me achieve anough psychological distance from what I was worried about to think about the issue more objectively. Soon after, the kind of scenario that caused the pedicure customer so much angst stopped bothering me.
Reputation still matters, of course, but whether to be concerned about someone speaking well or ill of you is highly context-dependent along multiple axes.
The writer admits to wanting to remain a customer, so the very low bar of being treated with a reasonable degree of courtesy seems to have been met, and she is happy with what she has paid for. I'm a little surprised she is even uncomfortable, but that wouldn't have been true of me many years ago.
President Trump's DHS raided Ilhan Omar's (D-MN) Washington residence Monday morning, thereby placing her in a good position to play up her victimhood (imagined and now real), fund-raise, and galvanize her base.
I am no fan of the antisemitic, socialist congresswoman, but I strongly object to this raid, which is an obvious, hamfisted attempt to intimidate a political opponent.
But don't take my word for that. Both stories linked above note that it is unusual for the Department of Justice to take such actions within 60 days of an election, the first elaborating:
As The Associated Press notes, "The Justice Department has historically sought to avoid public investigative actions involving a candidate within 60 days of a primary or general election." That norm is observed precisely to avoid abusing the law enforcement power of the federal government for political purposes -- and to avoid generating suspicions that legitimate investigations are political. [bold added]
.The piece continues, stating the obvious:
That the Trump administration is choosing to shun that norm gives away the game. Furthermore the fact that since last year Trump has been saying he wants Omar out of the country and that he thinks she shouldn't be allowed to serve in Congress is a clear signal about potential motives.
This source is an editorial in MS Now, a left-wing outlet, but consider the following:
... While [Trump] has effectively singled out white South Africans for entry into the country as refugees, he describes Somali immigrants as "garbage" and "low-IQ people" who ought to be kicked out. Trump sees trying to oust Omar, a Somali American, from Congress (or the country) as a way to deliver red meat to the most extreme elements of his base. In his comments on the raid Monday, Trump said, "I think she's a terrible person, she's just a complainer. She comes from a country that is a non-country. Then she comes over here and complains about our constitution." The implication is that Trump seems to think Omar's specific national origin should bar her from having the full rights of a citizen -- and he appears offended that she exercises them so confidently. [links in original]
This all follows "The reality, it should be easy to deduce, is that Trump sees Omar as a convenient target for his white nationalist agenda." Trump is plainly a bigot and a xenophobe. The only debatable part of this sentence is whether he has an actual agenda for anything, or is enabling others in his orbit who do.
In any event, as someone who has called himself a fiscal conservative in the past, I have seen and been subjected to smears for "racism" by leftists, who eagerly package-deal capitalism with racism in order to discredit the former.
Donald Trump is not only a threat to longstanding American political norms, he and his cronies are a gift to such people that will keep on giving.
Consider, for example, a recent juvenile remark by his heir apparent, JD Vance, which is par for this course:
"Trump, Vance & GOP could offer TX voters solutions for the affordability crisis, healthcare, immigration, Epstein accountability & ending the costly/deadly Iran war," political commentator Andy Ostroy wrote Tuesday. "Or, they can just claim Talarico is gay & obsesses over 'trans kids & drag queens'..."
New York Times contributing opinion writer Matthew Yglesias also weighed in.
"Having made inroads with various traditionally blue constituencies in 2024, Republicans have spent the fall telling everyone that they really do hate gay people and all non-white immigrants," he said in an X post. [bold added]
As he has done with his foreign "policy" of insulting friendly nations and alienating allies, Trump and his cronies are destroying their own credibility, that of their party, and that of anyone who has ever been associated with conservatism or libertarianism. On top of that, the left will happily take the fact that he is living up to all their dishonest stereotypes of "Republicans" and run with it.
The damage Trump is doing to this country, the cause of liberty, and those who ally with him -- especially those who do so only out of desperation -- is enormous and will take a very long time to recover from.
At Reason, Veronique de Rugy warns us that we should be terrified of price caps.
Regulars here will already know that this is an immoral and impractical idea that would distort markets and lead to shortages if put into practice.
Same regulars might not know how popular this stupid idea is, though:
A new Wall Street Journalpoll finds remarkable bipartisan support for government limits on prices, with 93 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of Republicans supporting capping prescription drug prices. Nearly four in five voters support capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent. And large majorities favor capping child care charges for working families. [bold added]
This news should be a clarion call for anyone with half a clue about economics.
Fortunately, de Rugy follows this up with a few brief paragraphs that might help any reasonably intelligent, thoughtful adult who isn't up to speed on economics realize why this idea is even worse than it is popular:
Consider credit cards. A 10 percent interest rate cap sounds lovely. Many Americans pay twice that. Why not simply tell banks that's the limit? Because an interest rate isn't an arbitrary number. It is the price of credit that reflects funding costs, administrative expenses, and, not least, expected default risks.
Congress can cap the rate, but it can't cap the risk. When the price a lender can charge falls below what the risk costs, lending stops. Lenders turn down applicants, cut credit limits, and close accounts. The borrowers the cap was supposed to protect still need the money. They end up at the payday lender or the pawn shop instead. In other words, interest rate caps hurt the economically vulnerable people they are supposed to help. [bold added]
De Rugy does the same quick analyses with two other areas that have politicians talking about price controls. Perhaps these walkthroughs will help people understand that price controls lead to shortages.
The piece is far from perfect, most glaringly in that it takes for granted the flawed idea that self-interest is predatory. This limits the usefulness of the piece to serving only as an economic lesson, although it is clear enough that the various price-capping measures out there will, in fact, harm the people they're supposed to be helping.
Price caps are not just stupid, they violate individual rights and, as such, they are also a moral outrage. But getting the word out about the former can be a decent place to start.
Writing at Reason, Billy Binion demolishes the Vice President's recent assertion that socialism "actually means ... that you want to replace American workers with foreign workers, and you want boys to play in girls sports"
You can go to the article itself for his quick demolition of the low-hanging fruit at the end of that ridiculous pronouncement.
The rest explains why Binion rather charitably labels J.D. Vance an "accidental socialist:"
[T]he Trump administration has complained about socialism while subtly embracing it. The government has, for example, taken stakes in dozens of private companies. "Federal ownership of private companies has become routine, and it is happening on the right even as members busily point fingers at the left for its socialism," wroteReason contributing editor Veronique de Rugy in August. "The DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] at least tells Americans clearly what it wants. The danger on the right is quieter: a government acquiring the means of production one letter of intent at a time, and a political party acting as though socialism is something only the other side can do."
That's not to imply the White House is moving to abolish private property. Yet never before has a Republican administration exerted such control over the private sector while making "socialism" its primary bogeyman. Is irony dead?
Immigration is a particularly useful subject through which to examine this phenomenon. Which is closer to the concept of "socialism": when the free market decides whom companies can employ? Or when the government does? [bold added]
I am glad such a prominent commentator has finally made this identification.
In the same vein as I have said numerous times, "It is no business of President Trump where I buy my car from any more than it was Biden's what fuel it uses." It also isn't the President's business where my employees live. The Republicans' new anti-immigration/anti-free trade agenda is indeed much closer to socialism than it is to economic freedom.
I'm in the mood for some laughs this morning, how about you?
1. It can do many things, but can AI create inspirational posters? My favorite -- at least that holds up best without its background image -- from this collection is:
Glorious is the father who owns his quotes, for he also rejoices over his hut.
2. One of the more benevolent communities on the internet is the Bald reddit, which helps folks to "lose your hair, not your head."
People go there to get advice from "the council" on whether it's time to just shave the rest of it off, and may be jokingly told things like You're already bald! or (when they still look good with hair) Hold!
Recently, a guy who was sure it was time asked for confirmation, and his top-of-head shot inspired a Game of Thrones-themed map in reply.
For the record, I'm a hold, but barely, thanks to minoxidil. My wife and I joke about her letting me go bald, if I'll let her her go grey.
3. David Bushell doesn't just complain about bad software, he does something about it, as you will see in "Fine! I'll Build My Own Text Editor!":
"They don't make 'em like Sublime Text anymore" resonated with a lot of folk. Software these days is garbage. That got me thinking; I'm good at building garbage!
Why can't I build my own text editor?
VS Code is built upon Monaco Editor which is a <div> soup hellscape. I was late to the VS Code train because for years my Intel inside™ Mac was too slow. That issue was resolved when I bought Apple silicon. If that's the standard I have a lot of room to make mistakes.
I thank Bushell for the laughs, and for introducing me to an old meme, illustrated above at right, that escaped my attention back in the day.
The advantage of finding memes five-plus years older than your children is that there's a decent chance they don't know about them and you can get a laugh, as I learned the last time we did a family painting class outing.
4. Rob Walling's "How to Detect a Toxic Customer" is a humorous guide to early detection, and includes such signs as:
Warning Sign #3: Multiple Contacts, Often Through Multiple Channels
One of my favorites is to receive 3 emails (one each to our sales, support and info addresses), and a voice mail from the same person within a few minutes.
The request is not time-sensitive, the person just want to make sure someone receives it. And we do receive it ... four times.
I've never really understood this one; either they are really anxious to have their question answered, or they don't believe they are going to hear back. Either way, if you have to send four requests in order to hear back do you really want to buy software from that company?
Interestingly, the post itself shows the author practicing what he preaches, and still making a sale even after refusing to do business with a clueless, entitled person who tried to buy from him.
Editor's Note: There is a small but nonzero possibility that weather associated with the hurricane brewing in the Gulf of Mexico will cause me to miss a post tomorrow or be offline for a day or so.
***
Someone responded to a Dear Prudence column with advice for dealing with chronic pain that struck me as worth keeping in the bank for any kind of similar problem that can't be solved:
Over time, I have come to see my migraines differently. My graduate school mentor, who studied healthy aging, would regularly say something along the lines of "Growing old is a privilege too few people get" when people, usually younger students but also the elderly study participants, would get a bit gloomy about the challenges older folks often face... I have done quite a bit of reading about the kind of head injury I experienced, and what I've learned is this: The vast majority of kids who get hurt as I did die immediately or shortly after. As one of the few who lived, I am one of the lucky ones. My migraines aren't going anywhere, but I have the privilege of being alive. I have an incredible wife, and a smart, funny, sweet, cool-as-could-be young daughter. My job, where I have too few days off to take leave when I get migraines, involves attempting to prevent people from developing chronic or deadly health issues. The price I must pay to have these incredible people and this meaningful life is frequent migraines. I accept that price.
That kind of perspective may not relieve that man's pain, but it puts him in a place of agency, which he otherwise would not occupy. He won that perspective by considering how things might have been different, and focusing on the values in his life.
This account reminds me of the sports saying, Play through the pain, except that it is constructive, rather than a foolish invitation to injury. Perhaps Live through the pain can leverage the familiarity to help one remember this positive alternative, if it is ever needed.
-- CAV
P.S. I would sound a note of caution about Prudence's mention of psychedelics. While they have helped some, they can themselves cause permanent, negative side effects.
[T]hey've never faced the fact that while they've rejected so many other doctrines of their childhood preachers, altruism is the one they've never been willing to let go. -- Ben Bayer
***
While I cannot, off the top of my head, recall exactly where I first learned the above insight, I do recall seeing words to that effect by Ben Bayer and admiring what a great connection he had made.
Bayer elaborates on that connection at length in the upcoming Breaking Free from Faith-Based Morality, which will be published by Ayn Rand University Press in December.
In addition to its preface appearing at New Ideal, the book is available for preorder through Amazon.
Below is the conclusion of a look at America's "culture-wide religious fervor," which emphatically includes the secular part of the left:
I love the cover! (Image from Ayn Rand University Press, viaNew Ideal.)
Each of the other [left-wing] activist movements demands similar Abrahamic submission. Whether we are to sacrifice economic prosperity to Gaia's pristine wilderness or economic freedom and property rights to the classless society of the future, the activists demand we surrender ourselves and our values on the altar of the allegedly "higher" end of serving some Other. This moral outlook enjoins the virtue of humble self-sacrifice, and condemns heretics who commit the sin of prideful self-esteem. Even though many of the modern activists think of themselves as secular, they draw these core doctrines from none other than Judeo-Christian religion -- whether they know it or not.
More rational thinkers in the secular camp may agree there is something wrong with the religious fervor that motivates these activists, but concede that there is something noble about their (professed) ends. They may say that the Bible verses quoted by Talarico and Warnock are from a primitive mindset, but they motivate people to uplift the poor (etc.). But how do these thinkers know that their conception of the noble end is noble and not itself a product of that same primitive, religious mindset?
I think secular altruism -- the doctrine that morality consists in selfless service to others -- is in fact such a product, a holdover from Christianity's two-millennia monopoly over our thinking about right and wrong, good and evil. [bold added]
This will come as no surprise to anyone with more than a passing familiarity with Ayn Rand's critiques of altruism. What this book will do, I hope, is both to make it easier for Objectivists to apply that critique to today's cultural particulars and help some of today's secular leftists reach a point of being intellectually ready to consider that critique and thus learn of a much more practical and intellectually fertile way to think about morality.
I'm glad to hear about this book and look forward to reading it over the holidays.
One of the few good things about the current Administration is its pushback against bad energy policy. A recent piece by David Simon at the Washington Examiner focuses on a report by the Department of Energy that challenges "climate change" orthodoxy.
Its foreword is by Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, and states in part:
Climate change ... is not the greatest threat facing humanity. That distinction belongs to global energy poverty. As someone who values data, I know that improving the human condition depends on expanding access to reliable, affordable energy. Climate change is a challenge -- not a catastrophe. But misguided policies based on fear rather than facts could truly endanger human well-being.
A regular here is likely to recall that Alex Epstein, author of Fossil Future, helped popularize the term energy poverty. And such a reader may also wonder why the name Chris Wright rings a bell.
I did, and remembered listening to Epstein interviewing him several years ago. The notes for that episode of Power Hour, as the podcast was then called, state in part:
In the past month Chris has done two very cool things.
One is that he has responded to the ESG movement with a report entitled "Bettering Human Lives" that highlights the amazing benefits of the oil and gas industry, and encourages rational thinking about climate.
Chris has also been making a lot of noise with a new "Thank You, North Face" billboard and video campaign.
In our discussion Chris and I cover:
Why he chose to be an entrepreneur
The response to his revolutionary ESG report
The response to his "Thank You, North Face" campaign
His role working with Mitchell Energy to bring about the shale revolution
What Chris's activist successes can teach other energy CEOs
Chris's plans for future activism
Our common motivations for focusing our careers on energy
How we think about criticism
The full interview is embedded below.
Chris Wright, proud Oil & Gas CEO
The Examiner piece is worth reading for an update on Wright's work, although the title is bombastic: While it is encouraging to see a government report like this one make rational arguments about a subject long dominated by hysteria, one must keep a broader perspective.
As good as it is to see this, at least compared to what a Democrat administration might produce, it fails to challenge the premises that the government should be weighing in on scientific arguments or that it has any business controlling the economy. This Administration's hostility to freedom of speech and its improper, constant, and corrupt meddling with the economy both severely undercut whatever good this report will accomplish. Furthermore, since there is no plan to dismantle the welfare/regulatory state, everything remains in place for the next leftist administration to reverse any reforms and reinstitute the previous messaging.
As welcome as this report is, it categorically does not "eviscerat[e] climate change hysteria." It offers counter-arguments, which many on the left will dismiss out of hand, if they hear them at all.
Fighting climate catastrophism isn't the government's job and doing do, as an intellectual campaign, is beyond the government's power, anyway. It is wrong to act like the battle is over just because "our guy" is in charge and got a government organ to produce a good report.
This is a battle won, but it is far from the end of the war.
I generally agree with George Will's call for "carnage" for the GOP during the midterm elections, including his exceptions:
If Mike Rogers, former seven-term congressman and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is not Michigan's next senator, Abdul El-Sayed will be. The Democrat is comfortable in the company of antisemites and Holocaust deniers.
If Sen. Susan Collins loses in Maine, this will be partly because she did something admirable and senatorial. Standing against manufactured hysteria, she voted to confirm Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In 4,192 words spoken on the Senate floor, she examined his extensive judicial record and the sexual assault allegations against him. Demonstrating the complete lack of corroborating evidence, she concluded that the allegations could not meet even the minimal "more likely than not" standard. Read her statement and marvel at its sobriety about the Senate's "advice and consent" duty. This is vanishingly rare among incumbent senators of both parties. [bold added]
These and his hope, obiter dictum for just enough Republicans left to sustain a presidential veto sounds about right to me.
Will's rationale is spot-on:
If Republicans lose not only their House majority, but Senate seats they currently hold in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and Texas, they might begin to wonder: Could we be doing something wrong? Such a resort to thinking is necessary to begin restoring legislative checks on the executive. And it is necessary if America is ever again going to have a conservative political party. [bold added]
Or, better than merely conservative, I would add, a pro-liberty party.
I realized the other day that we've had our two long-haired Siamese cats, Lucinda and Seymour, for a couple of years now. Here's an update...
1. Lucinda, who likes to sit on my desk during writing time, has taken to announcing her arrival by stretching up, propping herself on my chair, and tapping me on the shoulder.
I then pick her up and place her on my lap, so she can hop up to her spot.
2. Seymour loves pets and belly rubs, but tends to roll over onto the ground quickly. That's not great for my back, so I've taught him to climb up to the top of the litter cabinet for a session after I say Pets?
No. This is not Lucinda. So far.
3. Lucinda isn't the pet fiend that Seymour is, but she will ask for a session now and then. It's usually at some optimally awkward point during my evening routine -- which she always follows me around to supervise.
She emits a quiet, gravelly and high-pitched meow that sounds almost pathetic when she wants her pets and back scratches.
4. Seymour is a wonderful cat, but he has some kind of skeletal or neurological deficit that affects his movement. (Our vet has said that pinning it down would be very expensive and that there would be little we could do for him. She added that, "so long as he does 'all the cat things,' he'll be fine.")
Fortunately, Seymour does do "all the cat things," but sometimes a little oddly, as if he has had to teach himself some of them.
He does a few of his own things, too. My favorite is that if he hears something unusual enough that he wants the lay of the land, he'll stand on his hind legs like a meerkat and look around.
