Pun Salad

George Will writes wisely on Trump, Kimmel and the upside of ignoring big-government coercion. (WaPo gifted link)

That coercion, of course, didn't start last week. GFW discusses the sordid record of "liberal" icons FDR, JFK, and Sleepy Joe in that regard.

But here's his bottom line:

I was reminded of this Truman quote:

I only wish this would happen to Trump more often. About some things. Not others. See below.

But for one more accurate observation about recent events, let's go to Dan McLaughlin who suggests a new title for ABC's late-night show: Jimmy Kimmel, Unrepentant Liar.

So Dan unloads on Kimmel, fine. But also on the non-innocent bystander NPR, which still exists, and is up to its usual spin: Why was Kirk killed? Evidence paints complicated picture of alleged assassin.

Yes, it's complicated! Nuanced! Don't worry your pretty little heads about it, NPR listeners! From their story, emphasis added:

Dan's response:

Really? Did we ask Timothy McVeigh to tell us his views on the capital gains tax before classifying him? Did we care what Osama bin Laden’s opinions were on unions before figuring out his motive?

I'm no fan of ideological pigeonholing, but … come on. Some things just aren't that complicated, unless you want them to be.

Or we could mandate that alleged murderers be subjected to the the Pew Research Center's Political Typology Quiz. (I got "Ambivalent Right", but I hated the phrasing of a number of Pew's questions.)

Also of note:

• Better late than never, but… The WSJ editorialists put a well-deserved question mark on their headline: A New Start for Trump on Ukraine? (WSJ gifted link) They are prompted by the Truth Social post:

  After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form. With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. Why not? Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win. This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it is very much making them look like “a paper tiger.” When the people living in Moscow, and all of the Great Cities, Towns, and Districts all throughout Russia, find out what is really going on with this War, the fact that it’s almost impossible for them to get Gasoline through the long lines that are being formed, and all of the other things that are taking place in their War Economy, where most of their money is being spent on fighting Ukraine, which has Great Spirit, and only getting better, Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that! Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act. In any event, I wish both Countries well. We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them. Good luck to all!

  Among the WSJ observations:

  For the first time, Mr. Trump is articulating that a Ukrainian victory is in the West’s interests and refuting those in his circle who say Ukraine’s capitulation is inevitable. He’s right that Mr. Putin is economically vulnerable. Mr. Trump is also issuing a warning amid Mr. Putin’s drone and fighter jet incursions into Poland and Estonia—which have so far gone unanswered.

  Yet for eight months Mr. Putin has watched Mr. Trump do nothing, and the Russian seems to have concluded that he could escalate against Ukraine and test NATO. Mr. Trump’s Alaska summit with Mr. Putin was in retrospect a mistake, not unlike John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Vienna summit with Nikita Khrushchev that convinced the Russian he could get away with deploying missiles in Cuba.

  Fingers crossed, I guess.

• Klingons, too? That's my usual reflex thought whenever I read headlines like Michael F. Cannon's at Cato: What's the Key to Universal Health Care? He starts out with his own truth bomb:

  Many critiques of US health care begin with the assumption that, as The Economist put it, the United States is “one of the only developed countries where health care is mostly left to the free market.” In truth, among wealthy nations, the United States may have one of the least-free health care markets—and it’s making health care less universal.

  In a free market, the government would control 0 percent of health spending. Yet the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that in the United States, the government controls 84 percent of health spending. That’s a larger share than in 27 out of 38 OECD-member nations, including the United Kingdom (83 percent) and Canada (73 percent), each of which has an explicitly socialized health care system. When it comes to government control of health spending, the United States is closer to communist Cuba (89 percent) than the average OECD nation (75 percent).

  We're looking at another government shutdown threat from Democrats who want to get us even closer to Cuba in that regard. So we'll see how that goes.

• Worst Disneyland ride ever. Tyler Cowen issues an alert to readers: Brace Yourself: Here Comes Stagflation!

  It seems increasingly likely that the American economy is sleepwalking toward stagflation. In case you’re wondering, that is not a good thing.

  Stagflation means that an economy experiences excess inflation and excess unemployment at the same time. This was once thought to be impossible, but the OPEC oil price shocks of the 1970s triggered both high inflation and high unemployment, and voilà, we suddenly had a new, unhappy economic phenomenon.

  If I had to guess, I think there’s a decent chance that 18 months from now, America could well have an inflation rate of 4 percent (up from last year’s 2.5 percent) and an unemployment rate of 7 percent, well above the current 4.3 percent.

  Eighteen months from now... we're talking March 20-something, 2027. If I'm still around (fingers crossed), I'll check out how clear Tyler's crystal ball was.

• New Hampshire's Satanic Princess in the news. NH Journal notes: NHDems' Read First US Elected Official to Join Anti-Israel Flotilla Heading to Gaza.

  As Jews in New Hampshire began their celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, on Monday, state Rep. Ellen Read (D-Newmarket) had her own announcement.

  She will be the “first ever elected official in the US” to join an anti-Israel flotilla to break the Jewish state’s military blockade of Gaza.

  Read announced via social media, sharing a post from the anti-Israel group Thousand Madleens, which teamed up with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition “to challenge the colony (sic) of Israel’s illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza.”

  Read also threw a “#FreePalestine” into her tweet.

  Rep. Read previously made news last Christmas by demanding that a statue of goat-headed pagan deity Baphomet, borrowed from the Satanic Temple, be placed next to the nativity scene at the New Hampshire Statehouse.

• Nobody's granted me permission to post this, but… I'm gonna do it anyway: Kevin D. Williamson's article on Permissionless Journalism.

  The recent all-out assault on free speech by the Trump administration and its allies has some of my friends in the business grumbling about the fact that the United States has no national “shield law” giving journalists certain kinds of legal protections, mainly having to do with being compelled to disclose sources or being subjected to various kinds of electronic surveillance. But shield laws are the wrong policy.

  The most recent attempt to pass such a law failed in the Senate last year, not because Senate Republicans thought through the issue carefully but because Donald Trump demanded it be killed. Trump probably does not understand the law, but he knows he hates journalists. Even the doggie-vitamin salesmen who play journalists on Fox News annoy him from time to time—a true-blue Trump sycophant can never be abject enough.

  But a federal shield law (there are many state-level versions) was a bad idea before Donald Trump and it is a bad idea now—not because of the proposed shield or shields per se, but because it raises the question of who is to be protected by such a law and implies a government power to make that decision.

  It's pretty simple: given that anyone with a few dollars of disposable income can compose content that can, in theory, be viewed by the teeming masses, "free press" rules should apply to everyone.