Pun Salad

And now that she's been blackballed from participating in the Trump Clown Show Administration, she's speaking her mind: ‘Disgusting’: Nikki Haley Condemns Two Trump Cabinet Picks.

Nikki also had disparaging comments on Junior, as reported at Politico:

“He's a liberal Democrat, environmental attorney trial lawyer who will now be overseeing 25 percent of our federal budget and has no background in healthcare,” Haley said. “So some of you may think RFK is cool, some of you may like that he questions what's in our food and what's in our vaccines, but we don't know, when he is given reins to an agency, what decisions he's going to make behind the scenes.”

Or will it be the brain worm pulling his strings?

[Headline reference, if you're interested, here.]

Also of note:

• Some plain speaking at the Federalist. And it's from Beth Brelje, chronicling a recent ghoulish honor ceremony: Biden Fetes Baby Murder, Planned Parenthood Abortion Priestess.

  Established by John F. Kennedy in 1963 to honor civilian service, the award took the place of Harry S. Truman’s Medal of Freedom and was intended to honor “any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

  It is fair to say that Richards helped change American culture. Without her work, there would be so many more people creating art, inventing gadgets, falling in love, and making even more babies, as God intended.

  On her watch, more than 13.3 million babies were killed before their births in the United States during the 13 years she led the organization, according to the Guttmacher Institute. And, although most of those babies were killed through Planned Parenthood abortion mills, Richards has boosted the entire industry through her advocacy for laws allowing more abortions, or, as she would say it, “access to women’s health care.”

  It used to be a progressive cliché: "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."

  And, guess what? Now it is a sacrament.

• It's hard not to be disgusted. My state's senior senator sides with Hamas, as reported in NHJournal: Shaheen Votes to Block U.S. Arms Sales to Israel.

  U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) threw her support behind three resolutions late Wednesday night to block the sale of U.S. military weapons to Israel as that nation wages a war against the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah.

  The three resolutions were sponsored by Vermont Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, and they were overwhelmingly defeated by the Senate.

  Shaheen has repeatedly supported policies like the Obama administration’s Iran deal that aided the Islamist regime in Tehran, which is the primary sponsor of terror targeting the nation of Israel. She was one of just 18 U.S. Senators who supported Sanders’ resolutions.

  The article notes her current term is up in two years, she's old and may not run for reelection, and perhaps sees that as freedom to vote how she really feels.

• Whither the 'Emerging Democratic Majority'? Megan McArdle says 'Thither': The ‘Emerging Democratic Majority’ is no longer emerging. Now what?.

  For most of my working life, the Democratic Party has counted heavily on demographics. Its theory of politics had different names — the “Emerging Democratic Majority” that John Judis and Ruy Teixeira wrote about in 2002, or Barack Obama’s “coalition of the ascendant” — but the idea was the same: Demographic shifts meant Republicans would be stuck with a rump of aging White voters while Democrats built a dominant coalition from all the groups that were growing: the young, the college educated, the LGBTQ+ community, and the non-White working class, particularly Hispanics.

  Over time, this idea became somewhat unmoored from its roots. Judis and Teixeira had envisioned the party holding a healthy chunk of the White working class, but a lot of the later progressive versions envisioned a kind of demographic destiny in which the party, no longer hostage to its culturally conservative voters, would be free to move significantly leftward. (Judis and Teixeira have been trying for several years to stop this mutant version of their thesis from distorting Democratic politics.) It all seemed plausible at the time, but history has decisively falsified that thesis, as Donald Trump steadily attracted more working-class voters, particularly among Hispanic communities.

  Also see chapter nine in Yascha Mounk's book The Great Experiment.

• If you gaze long into the FTC, the FTC gazes also into you. Yeah, Nietzsche didn't exactly say that. But Veronique de Rugy nevertheless wonders: Will Trump Turn His 'Fix It' Gaze Toward FTC, DOJ Abuses?

  At now-President-elect Donald Trump's 2024 campaign rallies, attendees would hold "Trump Will Fix It" signs. Here's hoping the antitrust policy that President Joe Biden excessively politicized is one of those "its." Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance, previously said he believes that Biden's appointee as chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, has done a good job with antitrust policy. I disagree.

  For nearly 40 years, most antitrust scholars sensibly agreed that the government should base its treatment of potential corporate monopolization, mergers and related issues on these actions' effect on "consumer welfare." This standard ensures that antitrust is used only to prevent businesses from undermining economic competition, preserving a market that drives prices down and product quality up on behalf of us consumers. Antitrust should not protect businesses from competition.

  Upon taking control of the FTC, Khan discarded this standard and, along with it, decades of bipartisan agreement. Biden's Department of Justice and FTC quickly morphed antitrust into a tool for helping the White House achieve political aims that have nothing to do with keeping markets competitive.

  Lina is associated with what used to be called "hipster antitrust". But the relevant Wikipedia article deems that it must be deemed the more respectable "New Brandeis movement".

• A reading suggestion for DOGE. Eric Boehm advocates saving some taxpayer money: Abolish the Department of Commerce.

  If the Senate goes along with President-elect Donald Trump's pick, then financier Howard Lutnick will be the next secretary of the Department of Commerce.

  He should also be the last.

  On Tuesday, Trump nominated Lutnick, a personal friend with deep ties to Wall Street who is also co-chairing Trump's transition effort. In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said Lutnick would "will lead our Tariff and Trade agenda," and Politico notes that Lutnick has been a defender of Trump's plans to impose across-the-board tariffs. During an appearance on CNBC in September, Lutnick spelled it out clearly, saying "we should put tariffs on stuff we make and not put tariffs on stuff we don't make."

  In other words, Lutnick aims to make it more difficult and expensive for many American businesses and consumers to engage in commerce, the very thing that he's supposed to be overseeing. That contradiction reflects the Commerce Department's own confused status—an amalgamation of programs and agencies that often have little to do with the exchange of goods and services, or seem determined to make the process more complicated than it needs to be.

  Boehm advocates splitting out a couple of agencies currently hiding under Commerce (the Census Bureau and NOAA). I'd save the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); they do good stuff.