Pun Salad

Ah, mystery solved:

With a concrete example, George Will wonders about: The 2020 ‘stolen election’ obsession: Cynical? Delusional? Reptilian?. (WaPo gifted link) And it wouldn't be a GFW piece without a literate reference:

And if you're wondering what Sidney Powell is doing these days: here you go.

Our local 2020-truthers should be grateful that they have evaded legal scrutiny so far.

Also of note:

• It's nice to be congratulated. Greg Ip extend his best to me and my fellow geezers: Over 65? Congratulations, You Own the Economy. (WSJ gifted link)

  Demographics, rising profits and soaring asset values have together wrought a quiet transformation in the American economy. Much of it is now in the hands of the elderly.

  As of the third quarter of last year, people 70 and over controlled roughly 39% of all equities and mutual funds owned by households, compared with 22% in 2007, according to Federal Reserve data. Their share of net worth—assets minus debts—was 32%, up from 20% two decades earlier.

  This is good news: there has never been a better time in America to be old. Yet it also exposes our disjointed national priorities. We keep pouring resources into making the elderly comfortable and happy when the economy’s pressure points lie elsewhere.

  Greg, if it makes you feel better: I'm pretty sure we haven't found a way to take it with us.

  But (seriously) his overall point is well-taken: My generation has been extremely fortunate in its effective political clout, making sure those "pouring resources" to us keep up the pouring.

• Unsurprising news of the day. Jim Geraghty has it: Stephen Colbert and James Talarico Are Lying to You.

  Texas holds its primaries on March 3, less than two weeks away. State Representative James Talarico and Representative Jasmine Crockett are the two best-known Senate candidates on the Democratic side, and different polls will give you different results on which one is ahead. A little-known third candidate, Ahmad Hassan, is also running for the Democratic nomination.

  Stephen Colbert, the soon-to-be canceled $20 million per year host of The Late Show on CBS, wanted to have Talarico on his program Monday night.

  But Colbert did not air his interview. Viewers watching at home saw Colbert at his desk, delivering a monologue:

  [Talarico] was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast. Then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.

  Colbert continued:

  But on January 21st of this year, a letter was released by FCC chairman and smug bowling pin Brendan Carr. In this letter, Carr said he was thinking about dropping the exception for talk shows because he said some of them were motivated by partisan purposes. Well, sir, you’re chairman of the FCC. So, FCC-U.

  I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself, sir. Hey, you smelt it, because you dealt it. You are Dutch oven-ing America’s airwaves.

  Ah, what wit! Can you believe CBS is losing $40 million per year on that show, and isn’t keeping that guy and his program around longer?

  Colbert, it should be noted, once upon a time made a big deal talking about "Truthiness". Jim's report makes it pretty clear those days are over.

• The good old days were awful. Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg write at the Free Press In Defense of Processed Foods. Hey, someone has to do it. The article is based on their new book, Amazon link at your right.

  

  In his 2008 book, In Defense of Food, journalist and professor Michael Pollan famously instructed people to do the following: “Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”

  It’s a common refrain, intended as an indictment of a modern nutrition system dominated by artificial ingredients. But it ignores a glaring truth: Our great-great-grandmothers didn’t exactly live at a time of peak nutrition. They didn’t have electricity or running water. They would not recognize a box of fusilli or, for that matter, a mango, as food. In their old world, there were no refrigerators in homes and no frozen foods, canning was a crapshoot, and there were no supermarkets, let alone an FDA to make sure your flour, butter, and milk were unadulterated.

  The result was illness. Foodborne diseases like typhoid fever and botulism were common. Even more ubiquitous were diseases caused by malnutrition. Rickets, a debilitating childhood condition caused by vitamin D deficiency, led to bowed legs, stunted growth, and curved spines. And these are just the ones whose name you may recognize. Ever hear of marasmus? Be glad if you haven’t.

  This is the kind of thing on which I would have loved to get Mrs. Salad's take. Alas.

• Do better, Vinay. The WSJ editorialists note: A Welcome FDA Walkback on a Flu Vaccine. (WSJ gifted link) Some things are too awful and stupid even for the Trump Administration.

  Is the White House putting a leash on Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief Vinay Prasad? Americans can hope so after the agency on Wednesday walked back Dr. Prasad’s startling summary refusal last week to review Moderna’s new flu vaccine.

  The editorial reviews the history. Pun Salad was pretty scornful about Vinay's decision last week.

• I challenge you to keep a straight face while reading. Jeff Maurer urges: Let's Take AOC's Foreign Policy Vision Seriously. Well, he tries, ignoring all her manifest airheadedness. But:

  In fact, AOC’s foreign policy vision is well over a hundred years old. It was in the late 1800s that communists, socialists, socialist-leaning anarchists, democratic socialists, socialist democrats, Proudhounists, Blanquists, Proudhounist-leaning anarcho proto-communist agrarian socialists and about 80 other far left factions hatched the idea of creating a political movement based on class rather than nationality. They created the Communist International, which existed in various forms through World War II. AOC is not the first person to see pan-national class consciousness as the key to more humane international relations; she’s just one of very few to do so post-1914. But hell: Stephen Miller is a blood-and-soil nationalist, and social media is full of out-and-out monarchists, so AOC is really just playing her role in our global reboot of the foreign policy attitudes of the 1870s.

  I honestly don’t care much about the gaffes. So she said “Pacific” but meant “Atlantic” — big deal. Venezuela isn’t in the southern hemisphere, but it’s close. As someone who onced asked an Iraq War veteran “Were you afraid of IUDs?”, I won’t be the one to cast the first stone. But the message that those gaffes obscured was not a good one. I found AOC’s message to be shallow pseudo-Marxist patter that won’t solve any problems. If her goal was to be seen as serious — and it must have been, because she dressed like Lilith from Cheers on the entire trip — then IMHO, she failed.

  Once you're done reading Jeff's discussion, then you can remind yourself that she's a nitwit.