Pun Salad

I believe that Romney is one of the most capable and admirable men ever to run for president. I have said this many times. I believe that the voters’ rejection of him in 2012 was tragic. But I’m glad that Utahns saw fit to send him to the Senate. He is a credit to America.

Romney is voting to convict, on one count. Honestly, I’m not sure what I would do: I could argue either way. My colleagues have argued on either side of the question. But I do know that Romney has brass ones. He is willing to stand apart, and to stand alone, at least in his party.

“Mitt Romney. Not one of us.” That was an ad that Obama-Biden ran against Romney in 2012. I’ve come to believe that the ad is true. Romney is not like us — not like most of us, at least.

Romney’s decision was terrifically predictable, and given his vote did not swing the results in either direction, the gravitas that he already assigned to his decision — in the form of two interview “exclusives” — seems a bit theatrical and self-indulgent. There’s an unshakeable self-satisfaction that Romney exudes when he goes on heavy-headed tours, demarcating to the adoring left how he is decidedly different from all the other GOP members.

Yes, he’s different from many others within the GOP in the sense that he has no firm principles upon which to base his political decisions besides self-interest and self-importance. He is vaguely in favor of free markets insofar as he appreciates a pro-business environment, having been a businessman once. But that seems to be the extent of his political personality.

My fellow taxpayers, this is your quarterly warning that Uncle Sam is not a good steward of your money. The Congressional Budget Office just released its most recent 10-year projections for federal spending and revenues. The picture is not pretty.

A quick overview: This fiscal year, 2020, the federal government will collect $3.6 trillion in tax revenues. But due to its spending addiction, the government will expend $4.6 trillion. This means that the government will have to borrow $1 trillion this year alone, in order to cover a deficit of 4.6% of GDP. This is the first trillion-dollar deficit not due to a global recession.

The money to fund the deficit comes from individual and institutional investors, both domestic and foreign. And for all the anti-China rhetoric out there, it's worth remembering that China is the second largest foreign investor in our federal debt, right behind Japan. I guess that's one Chinese import the Trump administration doesn't seem to mind.

According to the CBO, this enormous overspending will continue and expand over the next decade, from 21% of GDP to 23.4%. Revenue as a share of GDP is projected to grow from its current 16.4% level to 18% in 2030, or $5.75 trillion. But that's not enough to cover the $7.5 trillion the federal government will spend then, hence a projected budget deficit of $1.74 trillion.

Feelings and opinions have displaced facts and evidence in many areas of the liberal arts. This is nothing new. A more recent phenomenon, however, is the extension of this trend into the realm of biology, which has fallen victim to the idea that men can become women—and vice versa—merely by reciting a statement of belief. It is an insidious movement that combines the postmodern contempt for objective truth with pre-modern religious superstitions regarding the nature of the human soul.

The subordination of science to myth was exemplified in the recent British case of Maya Forstater, who’d lost her job after pointing out the plain truth that transgender people like me cannot change our biological sex by proclamation. “I conclude from…the totality of the evidence, that [Forstater] is absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate,” concluded Judge James Tayler at her employment tribunal. “The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”

I’m not sure where that leaves me, a British transgender person who agrees with Forstater. As I know better than most, sex is immutable. I may have transitioned socially, medically and surgically, but I am as male now as I was the day I was born (and the days I fathered each of my three children). As a scientist, I know this to be a fact. It’s Judge Tayler who’s the absolutist here: Under the guise of tolerance, he’s put the force of law behind a cultish movement that treats biological reality in much the same way that the Catholic Church once treated Galileo and his heliocentric ideas. Just like its medieval forbears, this neo-religious crusade demands that adherents chant an absurdist liturgy—in this case, “Transwomen are women. Transmen are men.”

Federal oversight wouldn’t need to mean Orwell’s ministry. Our hypothetical entity could function more like connective tissue than menacing monolith, putting private companies, governmental departments, non-profit organizations, and university researchers into close and regular contact. At a time when the Administration often behaves like a dystopian MoT, it would be important to “watch the watchmen” and create safeguards against political bias or factionalism. Authority would need to be distributed among relevant parties, lest any one group gain a monopoly on truth.

On February 4, 2020, over 300 people showed up at the Representatives Hall in Concord, New Hampshire, to speak up against proposed House Bill 1621-FN. That bill would make motorcycle helmets mandatory. The main argument? “Freedom” and “choice” according to the InDepthNH journalist that reported on the story. I have a question for you: should a toddler be allowed to roam free on a busy boulevard for the sake of freedom?

Via CNN's DJ Judd, during a campaign stop in New Hampshire yesterday after traveling overnight from Iowa, former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) tried to recite New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die" state motto, but slipped up and instead said, "Live or Fry." 

When he realized the slip: "I'm still thinking of the pizza place we just left. We didn't get a lot of sleep last night."