Jan
30
2026

Tim Walz, the Last Confederate Governor

Charlie and John tag-team Tim:

Also of note:

  • Professor Pinker is no pinko.

    Excerpting a few more paragraphs:

    And this is a massive experiment—a global experiment—with a very clear outcome. Namely, the Soviet Union was a disaster. The imposition of communism on Eastern Europe was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Venezuela was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Maoist China was a disaster. Disaster in terms of both poverty and oppression and genocide and stupid wars. So the world has told us what happens under communism, and it’s a sign of how out of touch intellectuals can be that there are still people who defend it despite the entire world giving a very clear-cut answer.

    One more is: would you rather live in North Korea or South Korea? Would you rather live in the old East Germany or West Germany? We have an experimental group and a matched control group in terms of culture, language, and geography, and the answer is crystal clear. So this is a sign of, I think, the pathology of intellectual life—that Marxism can persist.

    More at the link, and it just gets more brutal on Marxism as it goes.

  • Depends on what you're trying to accomplish. David Harsanyi throws an Econ 101 textbook at the GOP's wannabe populists: Price Controls Won't Work Any Better for Republicans Than It Does Democrats.

    Demonizing greedy bankers and landlords is the last refuge of the poorly polling politician.

    And, as affordability remains a leading issue among voters, the Trump administration has regularly used rhetoric and ideas that mirror those of progressive Democrats like Zohran Mamdani.

    Take the president's recent idea for capping credit card interest rates at 10%. Or rather, the idea that's already proposed in a bill sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Josh Hawley. "They've really abused the public," the president said of credit card companies. "I'm not going to let it happen."

    Kevin D. Williamson chimes in: Don’t Cap Credit Cards. (archive.today link)

    Trump, of all people, is well positioned to understand how this works in the real world. During his time as an incompetent real estate developer, Trump made almost as many appearances in bankruptcy proceedings as he did on Page Six. Trump is a known deadbeat and a bad credit risk. When you are a bad credit risk, you pay higher interest rates and get credit on generally worse terms. And then, at some point, you simply cannot get credit at all, at least through ordinary channels. Toward the end of his run in real estate, Trump found it practically impossible to get loans from any of the major lenders with which he had been associated—often to those banks’ regret—over the years. Trump is, at the moment, legally prohibited from taking out commercial loans from banks in the state of New York after having been found by a court to have engaged in financial fraud. 

    […]

    Capping interest rates at 10 percent would, to be clear, simply destroy the credit card business as we know it. High income people with very high credit scores typically pay more than 15 percent as it is, whereas lower income people with worse credit scores pay a lot more—and the average rate is around 20 percent. At 10 percent, there would be more profitable things for firms to do with their money rather than take on the risk and work of operating a credit card business. If you think a bank could make a good go of it by offering credit cards at 10 percent, then my advice for you is: Do it. If you succeed, then you probably will end up being one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the world. 

    Of course, advocacy of price controls "works" for demagogic politicians, who need to fool their economically illiterate base into thinking they are "doing something" to help.

  • Go home, Chief Lee, you're drunk. The College Fix has the University Near Here in the news: U. New Hampshire student-turned state lawmaker pushing for ‘campus carry’ law.

    Samuel Farrington is a college student and New Hampshire state representative who believes that public universities should allow students to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

    Farrington, a Republican and a senior at the University of New Hampshire, recently introduced a “campus carry” bill in the state House to require just that. The bill would prohibit public colleges and universities from “regulating the possession or carrying of firearms and non-lethal weapons on campus.”

    So hooray for Representative Farrington. He makes the standard, sensible, argument that "gun-free zones" are soft targets for the murderous. This bit caught my eye, though:

    During a committee hearing on Jan. 16, two students testified against the bill, while nine students spoke in favor of it. UNH Police Chief Steve Lee also testified against the bill.

    Steve Lee has also been in our local news more recently. For example, at WMUR: UNH police chief charged with DUI.

    The police chief for the University of New Hampshire Police Department is now on administrative leave after being arrested and charged with DUI.

    Court documents show Chief Steven Lee was arrested Thursday after allegedly driving on I-95 in Portsmouth while drunk.

    Lee has pleaded not guilty. A trial date is set for March.

    UNH said it has launched an internal investigation, and Capt. Mark Collopy is now serving as the department's interim chief.

    I occasionally drive on I-95 in Portsmouth, and I have to ask: how crazily do you have to drive on I-95 to get the attention of the cops?