Pun Salad

I assume this is in response to Trump's May 4 interview with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. From the (slightly reformatted) transcript:

I get what Trump is trying to say: he considers the actual legal issues to be unresolved.

But—geez, Donald: When you are asked whether you need to uphold the Constitution, you simply answer, "Yes, of course."

Also of note:

• Another mile down the Road to Serfdom. Gee, we didn't have to wait very long to get (as the WSJ editorialists say) Trump’s Worst Idea Since Tariffs (gifted link).

  President Trump and Republicans appear to be shrinking from reforming Medicaid, but that’s not the worst of it. To replace the spending slowdown they won’t get in Medicaid, they may expand drug price controls. For that trade we could have elected Democrats.

  Trump officials are pitching Republicans on a “most-favored nation” drug-pricing regime for Medicaid. While the details are hazy, the idea is for Medicaid to pay drug makers the lowest price charged by other developed countries. Mr. Trump proposed a similar scheme for Medicare Part B drugs at the end of his first term, and it was a bad idea then too.

  That's an older article, but things did not get better, according to Michael F. Connon at Cato more recently: Trump Attempts Price Controls on Prescription Drugs.

  I’m usually the guy reminding everybody, “It is not a ‘price control’ when the government reduces the prices [it] pays for drugs.” I expected that I would be singing that tune again this morning when President Trump released an executive order on drug pricing. To my knowledge, Trump has never taken any steps to impose actual price controls on prescription drugs (read: coercive restraints on pharmaceutical transactions outside of government programs).

  I was wrong. Unlike the Inflation Reduction Act or Trump’s past proposals, Trump’s executive order is an attempt to impose government price controls on pharmaceuticals.

  I'm (I guess) amused at the efforts of Trump cheerleaders to find some way to shake their pom-poms at this. Example at the Federalist: Dems Sworn To Oppose Trump Land Awkwardly On The Side Of Higher Drug Prices.

• But to be fair… Jacob Sullum, in a Reason post timestamped one minute after midnight today: Trump rightly decries "absurd and unjust" overcriminalization in federal regulations. So yay!

  After mountain runner Michelino Sunseri ascended and descended Grand Teton in record time last fall, his corporate sponsor, The North Face, heralded his achievement as "an impossible dream—come true." Then came the nightmare: Federal prosecutors charged Sunseri with a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail for using a trail that the National Park Service described as closed, although it had never bothered to clearly inform the public of that designation.

  Sunseri unwittingly violated one of the myriad federal regulations that carry criminal penalties—a body of law so vast and obscure that no one knows exactly how many offenses it includes. An executive order that President Donald Trump issued last week aims to ameliorate the injustices caused by the proliferation of such agency-defined crimes, which turn the rule of law into a cruel joke.

  The Code of Federal Regulations "contains over 48,000 sections, stretching over 175,000 pages—far more than any citizen can possibly read, let alone fully understand," Trump's order notes. "Worse, many [regulations] carry potential criminal penalties for violations."

  Good job, Team Orange. But…

• With Trump, the bad news is never far away. In a post timestamped at 5:50pm yesterday (so just 6 hours and 11 minutes before the one linked above) Jacob Sullum brings it: Since immigration is an 'invasion,' a top Trump adviser says, the president might suspend habeas corpus.

  The writ of habeas corpus, a right deeply rooted in English common law and recognized by the U.S. Constitution, allows people nabbed by the government to challenge their detention in court. That complicates President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Last month, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that foreign nationals who allegedly are subject to immediate deportation as "alien enemies" have a right to contest that designation by filing habeas petitions. And foreign students have used the writ to challenge the claim that they are "subject to removal" because their political opinions undermine U.S. foreign policy interests.

  Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, has a potential solution to this inconvenience. Last Friday, he told reporters that Trump is "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus to facilitate the deportation of unwanted foreigners. "The Constitution is clear," Miller said. "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion."

  I am not a lawyer, but, yeah, that sounds … unconstitional.

• Not being British, we have no excuse. Kevin D. Williamson attempts to jog our American memories. The Forgotten Word: Sex.

  “There are only two genders!” Up goes the battle cry from certain quarters of the right and from the president whose line they toe with such perfect servility. Over at Facebook, it was 54 genders before it was 72 before it was … whatever it is today.

  In reality, the number of genders is neither two nor 72 nor anything in between: The number of genders, outside of grammar textbooks, is zero. “Gender” is a grammatical term that became, over time, a figure of speech masquerading as an indelible (for purposes of discrimination law) yet infinitely fluid (for other rhetorical purposes) personal trait, one that is conflated—often intentionally, with its less malleable non-synonym, sex.

  As George Orwell observed in his famous essay “Politics and the English Language,” the corruption of language goes hand-in-hand with the corruption of thought. One of the reasons we have such an excruciating time talking our way through sensitive questions about sex and about what we call “gender” is simple linguistic imprecision. The activists on the progressive side of this issue never cease shouting that sex and gender are not the same thing, and, in that much at least, they are correct–and we should start acting like it.

  Headline explanation, if you want it,A here. (And KDW refers to it too, so subscribe, hippie.)

• Advice about which I have mixed feelings. Robert F. Graboyes offers it to the Democrats: Persuasive Beats Abrasive.

  Here are my dozen suggestions for how Democrats might persuade my hand (and the hands of similarly-minded Americans) to gravitate toward the “D” on the 2028 ballot. Consider this in the vein of a “Chautauqua”—the social movement that encouraged discourse even between those who disagreed with one another and which Theodore Roosevelt referred to, near the movement’s peak, as “typical of America at its best.”

  [1] If your message only works when shouted, you won’t persuade me. “DONALD TRUMP IS A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY!!!!!” is a message that only tends to be delivered loudly and angrily—and shouting almost never persuades. (Say that sentence softly, with a smile, and you’ll sound a bit unhinged.) If you think Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, calmly itemize his behavior on January 6, his unsettling third-term chatter, and his suggestions that the U.S. take Greenland by force. To help you distinguish between these modes of communication: Bernie Sanders, AOC, Chuck Schumer, and Jasmine Crockett always shout. Josh Shapiro, Ro Khanna, Abigail Spanberger, John Fetterman, and Ritchie Torres tend to discuss.

  … and there are eleven more suggestions at the link. All good ideas. It's hard to imagine Democrats taking many of them.