Pun Salad

A brief confession: I was an Apple fanboy, but I got better.

My first "real" job was selling computers at ComputerLand in Rockville MD in the late 70s, early 80s. Mostly Apple ][s. And an Apple ][ was my first computer, eventually tricked out with a Z-80 CP/M card from Microsoft, a nine-inch B&W Sanyo monitor (eventually upgraded to color). When the Mac came along, the good folks at Osborne bought me one, and I wrote a book for them.

But at a certain point, I was forced to admit that I was being played. The bang-per-buck just wasn't there. (The mid-90s were not great for Apple fans.) So I gave up on Apple. (Mostly. I still have an iPod for car music listening.)

And I do not have an iPhone. Friends, it's easy to not have an iPhone. So I'm even more bemused as usual about the latest efforts to "protect" us, as described by the WSJ editorialists: Biden Fires an Antitrust Shot at Apple.

There's something about the heartbreak of Android users, whose texts appear in iPhone in green bubbles, or something. Somehow I've been able to live with that.

Somewhat more concerning, unrelated to DOJ antics: Apple Chip Flaw Leaks Secret Encryption Keys. Not good, Apple!

Also of note:

• What do you expect from a cheap populist demagogue? Stephen Moore is unkind, but accurate: Biden's Tax Plan That Puts America Last.

  I am often asked if President Joe Biden is intentionally trying to dismantle the American economy with his imbecilic energy, climate change, crime, border, inflation and debt policies. But I've always believed these policies are driven by a badly mistaken ideology -- not malice.

  Then I watched Biden's State of the Union speech. When Biden thundered that he was going to make corporations "pay their fair share," the Democrats in Congress leapt to their feet in applause.

  When I read through the details of Biden's new multitrillion-dollar tax plan, it's hard to come up with any plausible explanation other than that he's trying to make American industry less competitive. Biden's tax scheme would hobble United States businesses with nearly the highest corporate tax rate in the world -- higher than our primary competitors.

  If he can't get 'em with antitrust, he'll cripple them with taxes.

• Via Jerry Coyne, Melanie Phillips notes that Biden is not just going after successful Americans, he's also engineering The American betrayal of Israel.

  America could end this war tomorrow by telling the Qataris that unless they instruct Hamas to surrender and release the hostages, Qatar will forfeit its preferential treatment by the United States and will henceforth be treated instead as an international pariah.

  Instead, America is feeding Israel into the Qatari jaws. The outcome, writes Carmon, will be escalation into a total regional war by Iran not only against Israel but America.

  America’s action is so preposterous it’s hard to believe. Yet in any event, the Biden administration has already pivoted from supporting the destruction of Hamas to working for its ultimate victory.

  To be sure, the Biden Administration is treating all the Hamas-enabling states well: U.S. Grants Iran Sanctions Waiver Worth $10 Billion.

  The Biden administration renewed a sanctions waiver on March 13 that grants Iran access to $10 billion in previously escrowed funds. The waiver, which allows the Islamic Republic to use electricity revenue from Iraq for budget support and debt repayment, comes just six weeks after an Iran-backed drone attack killed three U.S. servicemembers in Jordan. The Biden administration last extended the sanctions waiver on November 14.

  Disgusting.

• Go outside, scan the skies. Do you see any pigs flying? G. Patrick Lynch continues his look at the self-destructing LP, asking When Will the Libertarian Party Have Its Moment?

  When you talk with leaders from each side of this conflict ["Old Guard" vs. Mises Caucus] it’s clear that even though both camps are much, much closer ideologically than they’d admit, ultimately Aristotle was right – humans are fundamentally political creatures. The entire episode reminds me of a conversation I had at one of my first Liberty Fund conferences when I was hired, directed by Pierre Lemieux. I was talking with a conferee who was eyeing me suspiciously and asked me, which economist I preferred, Mises or Hayek. I told him that as a political scientist I was more drawn to Hayek, and this prompted him to label me a socialist, turn away from me and find someone more “orthodox” to chat with.

  The broad contours of a liberty-based political movement would be simply less government and more personal freedom and responsibility in realm x. One would hope people could compromise on the range of constriction on government and expansion of individual freedom somewhere between 100% and 5%. But for more than 5 decades the Libertarian Party has been unable to create a broad consensus on how to pursue those goals. That leaves the world without the prospect of seriously considering more liberty during public deliberations over governance alternatives. Elections, admittedly highly imperfect ways to decide governance, are worse for not providing voters with a wide range of options and choices. The frustration for observers and non-combatant libertarians in this conflict is that we face an upcoming election featuring two deeply unpopular, anti-liberty candidates. The fear that libertarians will find no representation in this election is not invalid.

  Libertarians disagree with statists, sure. But they really like to fight with libertarians who fail their purity tests.

• I have some weird-ass beliefs, but fortunately not the ones Jeff Maurer is talking about. He provides, very entertainingly as usual, More Evidence Emerges that Lefty Racial Justice is Mostly Just the Weird-Ass Beliefs of Highly-Educated White People.

  Few people dispute that something happened in the American left in the early-to-mid 2010s. We can debate the causes and precise start dates, but, clearly, something happened. Michael Brown, #MeToo, the Bernie Sanders campaign, the Racial Reckoning — these were things. Just about the only thing that the woke left and non-woke left agree on is that we did not all fall asleep watching Malcolm X and simply dream the recent period of lefty resurgence.

  Though this resurgence focused mostly on identity issues, it’s never been clear that the policies deemed necessary to advance fill-in-the-blank justice actually represent the views of the groups they ostensibly help. Of course, it’s surely true that some bits of the lefty agenda are things that marginalized people want; even a clock-with-no-batteries-in-it-because-batteries-are-capitalist is right twice a day. But some cleavages have been apparent for a long time. It was clear from the jump that most Black people don’t want to defund the police. 75 percent of Latinos want more border security. Of course, it’s often hard to tell what any group of people want: Issue polling is only slightly more scientific than the Psychic Vampire Repellant that Gwyneth Paltrow sells on Goop (meanwhile, I’m over here knee-deep in non-psychic vampires — thanks for nothing Goop!). But the claim that the mostly white activists who cluster in big cities and elite institutions speak for non-white people across America was always dubious to say the least.

  He looks at the polling that seems to show Voters of Color are drifting away from the Democrats, and toward… Trump?! Whoa. Did not have that in my crystal ball.

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