Jan
27
2026

Harsanyi for the Insightful Win!

I was a little tough on David Harsanyi a couple days ago. David, all is forgiven, thanks to your your response to Joseph Brown, who commented on Mark J. Perry's updated wonderful chart.

I'm sure you'll get David's point right away, but if not, go have some coffee and keep trying.

Also of note:

  • Best idea of the year, so far. It's from Jeffrey Blehar: Fire Kristi Noem into the Sun. (archive.today link)

    I don’t need to explain to you what happened over the weekend in Minneapolis, though on the off chance you’ve been sheltering underneath a rock for the last two days, I will. Amid the ongoing anti-ICE/CBP protests in the Twin Cities, a protester named Alex Pretti was gunned down by Border Patrol authorities. Pretti was legally carrying a concealed weapon while filming federal authorities on the street. After trying to help a woman shoved by an officer, he was forced to the ground and disarmed (he did not reach for his weapon). At this point — and I regret having had to watch the footage as many times as I did — he was shot nine or ten times in the back and head.

    This was a horrible tragedy, one that should be thoroughly and properly investigated.

    This, however, was unlike the “is the dress gold or blue?” miasma of the Renee Good shooting, where multiple camera angles from equally oblique views allowed people online to create their own narratives. While questions remain unanswered, the videos create a more serious optics problem for the feds. Near as I can tell, the best possible narrative available is that this was the result of a tragic miscommunication among the ICE/CBP officers (when one of them shouted “gun” as he confiscated Pretti’s weapon), possibly fueled by an accidental discharge of the weapon. I also think that anyone who walks into a situation as explosive as this should have the sense to follow Johnny Cash’s sage advice: “Don’t take your guns to town.” That, however, can be of little consolation to a dead man or to his family and friends.

    Use that free link, if necessary, to find out why Jeffrey wants Noem's solarfication. As Sigourney Weaver (as Ripley) once said: "It's the only way to be sure."

  • It's a big topic. Erick-Woods Erickson writes on… Life.

    The March for Life concluded on Friday, and on Sunday, federal agents took a life in Minneapolis.

    Had Minnesota cooperated with immigration officials, Mr. Pretti would still be alive. Had Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino chosen a less in-your-face way of operating, Mr. Pretti would still be alive. Had Noem and Bovino listened to Tom Homan, Michael Banks, the head of the border patrol, and Todd Lyons, the head of ICE, instead of marginalizing and bypassing them, this would not have happened. Homan, Banks, and Lyons have internally opposed the mass, very public roundups that Noem and Bovino have decided to do for the very reason that the public could get whipped up and bad things could happen.

    Regrettably, I spent a lot of time on Sunday reviewing the footage and I’ll tell you what I see, knowing so many are seeing what they want to see — contrary to the Trump Administration’s claims that Mr. Pretti wanted a mass casualty event or was a domestic terrorist, and contrary to my own earlier statement that Mr. Pretti was an “agitator” and not just a protestor, Mr. Pretti was not the aggressor. Unlike Renee Good, who spent her day stalking agents and used her car to obstruct them before striking an agent with her car, Mr. Pretti was filming their activities.

    Erick writes movingly and accurately about the tragedy.

  • The other F-word. I briefly mentioned owning Charlotte Twight's 1975 book, America's Emerging Fascist Economy, back on Saturday; like Megan McArdle, I'm getting a little tired of people shouting "fascist" these days. I was dismissive, because I've been hearing these Dire Warnings for a Real Long Time.

    Well, maybe I was too hasty: Mikayla Novak goes there: We’re Living in the Fascist Economy Charlotte Twight Warned About.

    In our modern politics of rage and polarization, the term “fascism” has emerged as America’s invective du jour.

    Trump; Putin; Netanyahu; Islamists; far-left Democrats; far-right European political parties; public health experts; censorship opponents; those questioning mass migration; and many more have been labelled as fascists over recent years.

    Fascism is seeming becoming an all-purpose derogatory label directed at all those we oppose, and for almost any conceivable reason.

    To critics of imprecise language, false equivalences over what counts as “fascist” run the risk that the term itself might lose all meaning.

    Perhaps one way of stepping back from the free-wheeling nature of discourse using the fascism label is to consider some of the deeper, perhaps scholarly, meanings attached to the word.

    See what you think.

  • Watch your language, Ann! Professor Althouse has a post centering on Those wonderful "-id" adjectives.

    A few posts down, I used the word "fervid," which I like, and have even blogged about before, and a couple commenters took notice.

    I like it, not just for the meaning but visually, the letters. Something about that "-id" ending, which seems a bit unusual for an adjective. And yet, if you go looking, you'll find a lot.

    Some of my favorites: fetid, flaccid, florid, gelid, horrid, insipid, intrepid, languid, limpid, livid, lucid, lurid, morbid, pallid, placid, putrid, sordid, stolid, stupid, torrid, trepid, turbid, vivid.

    I looked up the "-id" ending in the OED and …

    No spoilers, check it out for yourself. Let me just say that the phrase "scarcely a living formative" appears.
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Last Modified 2026-01-27 12:10 PM EST