Pun Salad

Also up in smoke, it appears: past promises about relative spending restraint. Cato asks, dispassionately: How Does the Congressional Government Spending Deal Measure Up?.

Jonah Goldberg has advice for dissatisfied GOPers: If Republicans Want a Better Budget Deal, They Need to Win More Elections.

Because see the headline.

By all means, Congresscritters, vote against the deal if you want. Just stop wasting everyone's time with internecine spats that accomplish (as we've seen) nothing.

Also of note:

• Consumer note. Alex Tabarrok has some good news about Power Dishwashers!.

  Why do today’s dishwashers typically take more than 2 hours to run through a normal cycle when less than a hour was common in the past? The reason is absurd energy and water “conservation” rules. These rules, imposed on dish and clothes washers, have made these products perform worse than in the past, cleaning less well or much more slowly. One of the best things that the Trump administration did (other than Operation Warp Speed, of course) was creating a product class–superwashers!–that cleaned in under an hour and were not subject to energy and water conservation standards. The Biden administration reversed these rules but the 5th circuit just ruled that the reversal was “arbitrary and capricious.”

  The ruling found that people shifted to handwashing rather than put up with lousy performance from a dishwasher. Which winds up using a lot more water and energy.

• Soft targets galore in California. Jacob Sullum has another epic-length headline on his syndicated column: Gavin Newsom Defies the Supreme Court's 'Very Bad Ruling' on the Right to Bear Arms: California Made Carry Permits Easier to Obtain but Nearly Impossible to Use. I almost don't need to excerpt, but I will anyway:

  California Gov. Gavin Newsom thinks the Constitution should be amended to accommodate the gun regulations he favors. But in the meantime, he is trying out a different strategy: If we ignore the Second Amendment, maybe it will go away.

  In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right to carry guns in public for self-defense, saying states could not require residents to demonstrate a "special need" before allowing them to exercise that right. Newsom responded to what he called a "very bad ruling" by backing a new law that makes carry permits easier to obtain but nearly impossible to use.

  Senate Bill 2 bans guns from 26 categories of "sensitive places," including parks, playgrounds, zoos, libraries, museums, banks, hospitals, houses of worship, public transportation, stadiums, athletic facilities, casinos, bars, and restaurants that serve alcohol. The list also covers any "privately owned commercial establishment that is open to the public" unless the owner "clearly and conspicuously posts a sign at the entrance" saying guns are allowed.

  I predict massive civil disobedience.

• Activism and journalism go together like politics and religion. Jesse Singal has a long and interesting take on Platformer’s Reporting On Substack’s Supposed “Nazi Problem” Is Shoddy And Misleading.

  As some of you know, there’s presently a debate raging about the fact that Substack will not automatically ban Nazis who pop up on this platform. That’s because Substack’s content guidelines are written in an intentionally liberal way, to allow most speech. One of the only red lines is direct, credible incitement of violence — racism alone, including of the Nazi variety, doesn’t qualify.

  These content guidelines aren’t new, but the present controversy has led to an open letter republished on many individual Substacks, calling on Substack to crack down on Nazis, a counter–open letter calling on them to maintain their laissez-faire approach to moderation, and a bunch of folks leaving or threatening to leave the platform.

  The whole thing was sparked by a November article in The Atlantic by Jonathan M. Katz headlined “Substack Has a Nazi Problem,” and by Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie’s response post, in which he confirmed that no, Substack would not be banning or demonetizing Nazi content that didn’t cross the aforementioned red line. In my view, this whole thing is little more than a moral panic. Moreover, Katz cut certain corners to obscure the fact that to the extent there are Nazis on Substack at all, it appears they have almost no following or influence, and make almost no money. In one case, for example, Katz falsely claimed that a white nationalist was making a comfortable living writing on Substack, but even the most cursory bit of research would have revealed that that is completely false.

  And there's much, much more. The phrase "obscuring key information" is deployed.

• No, it's pinin' for the fjords. At Reason, Dan Drezner asks: Is the 'Washington Consensus' of Neoliberalism and Globalization Over?.

  Back in the day, columnists for the Financial Times were of a type. They were predominantly pale, male, Oxbridge-educated world travelers. Their politics ranged from centrist to libertarian right. Most importantly, they were fans of neoliberalism.

  The term neoliberal has been stigmatized far more successfully than it has been defined. For our purposes, it refers to a set of policy ideas that became strongly associated with the so-called Washington Consensus: a mix of deregulation, trade liberalization, and macroeconomic prudence that the United States encouraged countries across the globe to embrace. These policies contributed to the hyperglobalization that defined the post–Cold War era from the fall of the Berlin Wall to Brexit.

  Neoliberalism was embraced by policy makers from both major parties. For free market Republicans, neoliberalism meant scaling back barriers that stunted market efficiency. For moderate Democrats, it was viewed as a set of policies that could lift the poorest of the poor out of poverty. What united those across the political spectrum was the belief that neoliberalism fostered greater economic interdependence, which could, in turn, generate global peace and prosperity. After all, why would China ever go to war with the West if it could get rich by trading with it instead?

  DD's bottom line: "Post-neoliberals are having a moment. If it continues for too long, the result could be a less productive, less resilient, more warlike economy."