Pun Salad

It's certain that government policies will keep encountering them: Great Moments in Unintended Consequences (Vol. 17).

Also of note:

• Chris thinks I'm Not Too Bright. The other day, I got a campaign mailer from Chris Bright, who's running for the Republican nomination for New Hampshire Congressional District 1. And it includes the shocking promise:

  Chris will rid our streets of dangerous drugs like fentanyl.

  My immediate thought: Huh. No he won't.

  And then I mused about how incredibly stupid Chris Bright must think his potential voters are.

  Does he have an actual, effective, plan to "rid our streets of dangerous drugs"? One that has escaped the well-meaning schemes of (probably) thousands of legislative drug warriors over (literally) decades?

  Big news if true. But it goes unmentioned at his campaign website. Why would he be hiding his wonderful drug-eradication plan from potential voters?

  I'm pretty sure I can guess, and I bet you can too.

• Good question. Randal O'Toole wonders: What Is Wrong With Our Country? But he starts out with a transit yarn:

  Four people were shot and killed on a Chicago Blue Line elevated train early Labor Day morning. Police say the victims, who were not seated together, appeared to be asleep at the time and “may have been homeless.” A suspect is in custody, and police say it was “an isolated incident and a random attack,” as if that is supposed to make people feel safer.

  When I learned about these murders, I had already been thinking about transit crime because of a story that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about the decline of the intersection of Snelling and University, two of the most important commercial corridors in Minnesota’s capital city.

  “The Green Line light rail, which launched in 2014, was supposed to reactivate economic development in an area that had seen more than its share of commercial departures,” says the article. “Instead, much of the commercial energy at the intersection is long gone.”

  “The light rail was the start of it going downhill,” says a local bookstore owner who has had to keep doors locked and buzz in customers on a case-by-case basis due to vandalism and violence. Another business owner, who originally favored the light rail, now says “it’s become one of the city’s biggest safety concerns.”

  The news is full of stories about the recent Georgia school shooting that also left four dead. But I bet you didn't hear about the four dead in that Chicago suburb. Or, unless you follow Chicago news, the six additional Labor Day weekend murders in the city proper.

  Well, the Chicago killings were more or less business as usual, I guess.

  But there's another point made in O'Toole's post. Our current Democratic candidates for New Hampshire governor are enthused for bringing Boston commuter rail up to Nashua, Manchester, and (even) Concord. They promise that the areas around the rail stations will undergo commercial revitalization. As seen, that's hardly guaranteed.

• I'd gladly pay you … never … for a subsidy today. The WSJ editorialists look at The Biden-Harris Subprime Bank.

  Move over Countrywide Financial (of housing panic fame). Washington’s new favorite subprime lender is none other than Uncle Sam. In a little noticed report last week—make that not noticed at all—the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the feds will lose $65.2 billion on risky loans and other “credit assistance” in the next fiscal year.

  Federal agencies play by fictional accounting rules under which they don’t account for the market risk of their loans. Look ma, no defaults. This lets bureaucrats and Congress disguise the cost of their spending. CBO thus estimates that Uncle Sam will lose a mere $2.4 billion on loans and loan guarantees issued in the 2025 fiscal year under government accounting standards.

  Ah, but under the rules that private businesses use, the cost balloons to $65.2 billion. That’s about twice as much as in 2019. Blame Congress for creating new lending programs. Biden officials are also underwriting more debt and easing payments and credit standards for borrowers.

  I'm finding it very tough to be amused by this, and keep sliding back into disgust. Help me, Elvis Costello!

• Blue Bloods gets more fictional every year. The NYPost reports: Feds raid home of NYPD Commish Edward Caban, other close Eric Adams allies.

  Federal agents hit NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and members of the nation’s biggest police force this week — amid a stunning spate of raids on others in Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle, sources said Thursday.

  Agents showed up to the homes of Caban, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks and the townhouse shared by Schools Chancellor David Banks and First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright with search warrants early Wednesday and seized their electronic devices, according to law-enforcement sources.

  If Frank Reagan were the actual NYPD Commissioner, he'd be leading the investigation, not a suspect in it.

• I think he might know something we do not. The National Review editorialists noted Hunter Biden’s Air of Entitlement and did not like it one bit.

  Bowing to overwhelming evidence and political reality, Hunter Biden finally pleaded guilty to tax charges on the day his trial was to begin with jury selection in Los Angeles federal court.

  Even now, already scheduled for sentencing for federal firearms felonies of which a Delaware jury found him guilty, the president’s 54-year-old son exhibited the haughty air of entitlement that has marked his adult life and disastrous choices.

  The normal defendant who is caught red-handed negotiates a plea, admits guilt, and asks for mercy from the court. Not Hunter. As a throng of prospective jurors descended on the courthouse to begin the selection process, Biden’s lawyers took prosecutors and Judge Mark Scarsi aback: Biden announced that he was prepared to plead guilty to all charges, and to concede that prosecutors could prove their case, yet he would continue to maintain his innocence.

  Read on (looks like a free link) to read about Hunter's effort to make an "Alford plea". And what an "Alford plea" is.

  But the bottom line is: expect Joe to pardon Hunter.

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