Aug
31
2025

Once a Girl I Knew, All Alone and Unprepared…

Everyone remembers that old Blood, Sweat and Tears song, right? Maybe we could implore David Clayton-Thomas to write a new verse about…

Nah, I guess not. Robby Soave dredges up some dreadful history of only a few years back: Fed governor Lisa Cook's record is a reminder of 2020's social justice insanity. Robby links to last year's allegations in City Journal of Lisa's academic sloppiness (to put it charitably). Also:

But in researching the academic misconduct scrutiny, I came across something else: Cook was involved in the effort to oust Harald Uhlig, then editor of the Journal of Political Economy, for crimes against wokeness.

The Uhlig affair was a classic example of cancel culture run amok: In the summer of 2020, Uhlig wrote a few tweets in which he politely but firmly criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for embracing the slogan "Defund the police." His most provocative sentence was "George Floyd and his family really didn't deserve to be taken advantage of by flat-earthers and creationists," with reference to said supporters of defunding the police. That barely qualifies as a spicy statement. White supremacy, it isn't.

Nevertheless, in response to those tweets—as well as unproven and somewhat ridiculous accusations that he had said something negative about Martin Luther King Jr. while teaching a class at the University of Chicago in 2014—a progressive mob called for Uhlig to lose his job.

Among the economists demanding Uhlig's head were Paul Krugman, Justin Wolfers, Janet Yellen, and Lisa Cook. Wolfers was particularly emphatic: He wrote on Twitter (now X) that by continuing to employ Uhlig, the University of Chicago was effectively telling minority scholars that the quality of their work would be judged by someone who "consistently tried to minimize the legitimacy of Black Lives Matter in favor of racists."

Yeah, it was a nutty time. Lisa tweeted stuff like this:

I.e., asserting a "hate speech" exception to the First Amendment. (And it's pretty clear that whatever Uhlig may have said, blogged, or tweeted didn't even meet loose standards of "hate speech".)

But, speaking of the Constitution, there's a small debate over at National Review about a different, non-First Amendment issue. Charles C.W. Cooke explains: Why I Said the Federal Reserve Is Unconstitutional. You'll want to click over for the full debate between Charlie and Dominic Pino, but Charlie brings out one big gun, James Madison, in a famous 1791 speech in Congress:

Per the official write-up in the Gazette of the US, the key question that concerned Madison was:

Is the power of establishing an incorporated bank among the powers vested by the constitution in the legislature of the United States?

In his view, it was not:

After some general remarks on the limitations of all political power, he took notice of the peculiar manner in which the federal government is limited. It is not a general grant, out of which particular powers are excepted—it is a grant of particular powers only, leaving the general mass in other hands. So it had been understood by its friends and its foes, and so it was to be interpreted.

As such:

It appeared on the whole, he concluded, that the power exercised by the bill was condemned by the silence of the constitution; was condemned by the rule of interpretation arising out of the constitution; was condemned by its tendency to destroy the main characteristic of the constitution; was condemned by the expositions of the friends of the constitution, whilst depending before the public; was condemned by the apparent intention of the parties which ratified the constitution; was condemned by the explanatory amendments proposed by Congress themselves to the Constitution; and he hoped it would receive its final condemnation, by the vote of this house.

It should be noted that Charlie considers the Fed "to be a useful institution". The same can't be said of Reason's Brian Doherty, who contributed to their December 2024 "Abolish Everything" issue: Abolish the Fed.

In a 1995 interview, I asked Milton Friedman whether "it would be preferable to abolish the Fed entirely and just have government stick to a monetary growth rule?"

Friedman answered: "Yes, it's preferable. And there's no chance at all of it happening."

He didn't live to see the abolition of the Fed; perhaps no one reading this will. Still, a couple of years after Friedman's 2006 death, a semi–mass movement calling to "End the Fed!" arose in the aftermath of Rep. Ron Paul's first Republican presidential run in 2008. The Texas congressman found during that campaign a surprising (even to him) number of youngsters blaming the central bank, founded in 1913, for government sins from inflation to war (which is easier to wage when it can be financed by cash from a central bank summoned more or less at will).

If it was good enough for Milton, it's good enough for me. And you have to admit, it would obviate every single one of the issues we've been discussing here.

Also of note:

  • At least she didn't call for liquidation of the kulaks as a class. I noticed, but didn't blog about, a Concord Monitor op-ed written my one Jean Lewandowski earlier this month, which urged Granite Staters to Root out invasive extremists. Her opening paragraph sets the tone:

    New Hampshire gardeners and outdoor enthusiasts are familiar with highly invasive vines like knotweed and bittersweet. They climb all over power poles and fences, smothering and killing trees and shrubs. These invaders are very much like the plague of outside money and anti-democratic ideology that came to New Hampshire 20 years ago as the Free State Project. It has entwined itself around what once was our Grand Old Party and made alarming progress in pulling down our cherished public institutions.

    Yes, the dreaded Free State Project, part of the grand libertarian conspiracy to take over the world and leave you alone.

    (For the record: I've lived in New Hampshire since 1981, well before Jason Sorens launched the Free State Project in 2001. I'm not sure whether that would be enough for Jean to not consider me to be an invasive weed.)

    But, somewhat to my surprise, the Concord Monitor printed a rebuttal to Jean's screed from the FSP's current Executive Director, Eric Brakey. Eric asks, reasonably enough: Whose ideas are truly “invasive” in the Live Free or Die state?

    Recently in the Concord Monitor, an opinion piece described fellow citizens as “invasive” weeds — but who better fits the bill?

    Picture a veteran who moved to New Hampshire for the “Live Free or Die” spirit. He embraces the 1776 ideals that once animated America and still drive the Granite State. Known as a good neighbor, his community has elected him multiple times to the legislature to protect their freedoms, their paychecks and the New Hampshire Advantage.

    This describes many legislators, but I am thinking of Rep. Tom Mannion (R-Pelham). After serving honorably in the U.S. Marine Corps, Tom left Massachusetts, where the New England spirit of 1776 has been smothered by a one-party nanny state. Figures like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, sneering schoolmarms of the modern era, treat constituents like dependent children, not free adults. Tom came to New Hampshire, where that revolutionary spirit still thrives.

    Now consider Jean Lewandowski. Her columns generally push leftist causes — from gun control to Russiagate — but in her latest piece, she branded good people, like Rep. Mannion, “invasive” weeds to be “rooted out.” Whatever you think of her dehumanizing language against “Free Staters,” Lewandowski’s hypocrisy is glaring when you learn she was born in California, worked in Minnesota, and has only lived in New Hampshire for a decade.

    Beyond details of who's-lived-here-longest, Eric rebuts Jean's article point by point, and it's a textbook example of how to go about that kind of thing.

  • And finally, a helpful reminder: don't give Wikipedia a dime. I winced at the seeming redundancy in the headline of Bethany Mandel's NYPost column: Wikipedia bias influences how one's perception of reality is perceived. But things pick up from there:

    This week, I had two separate meetings with people I’d never met before.

    In both, after the polite small talk, each confessed that before sitting down with me they had quickly “studied up” by glancing at my Wikipedia page.

    (Note to readers: Please don’t do the same.)

    My Wikipedia entry is not a neutral profile — it’s a hit job.

    It’s a curated “greatest hits” collection of my worst moments, or more precisely my critics’ worst caricatures of me.

    Note that the link above does not go to Bethany's Wikipedia page. Yes, it's that way in the column.

    If you want to check out Wikipedia's "hit job" (against Bethany's advice) that's here. She's not wrong, it's an unbalanced screed.