May
29
2026

Any Resemblance to Your Local Zoning Board is Coincidental

From Reason's Bragg/Heaton comedic team:

Also of note:

  • To use an old punchline: "Her lips moved." Jim Geraghty is not buying Jill Biden’s Unbelievable Debate ‘Stroke’ Story.

    … [O]ur problem is that a significant chunk of our governing class is nowhere near as smart as they think they are, and in many cases, they’re quite dumb. And they think the American people, collectively, are dumb as well, and are easily fooled. This morning, we find that former first lady Jill Biden, who had the option of just enjoying a quiet retirement with her elderly husband, has instead chosen to emerge from private life to relitigate the notion that Joe Biden was going senile, and/or too old to serve another term.

    Former first lady Jill Biden said she was “frightened” by her husband Joe Biden’s 2024 debate performance and thought he was having a stroke.

    “I was frightened, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” Jill Biden told CBS News Sunday Morning’s Rita Braver in an interview airing Sunday on CBS.

    “I don’t know what happened,” she said. “As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”

    Bullcrap.

    If you are genuinely concerned that the president of the United States is having a stroke or other medical emergency, you interrupt the debate. If the First Lady of the United States says, “stop the debate, I think my husband is having a stroke,” the debate will stop. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash were not going to insist that the president finish. The president travels with a top-tier medical team. They will check him out thoroughly. (Note that for the first time in history, the 90-minute debate featured two commercial breaks.)

    And of course, Dr. Jill made sure that Joe got a thorough checkout at…

    Well, I'm not a medical doctor either, but that would not have been my first choice.

    At least she didn't take him to a Tim Hortons. (See below.)

    Ann Althouse was similarly disbelieving: "As the president walked off the stage, he whispered to his wife, 'I really f**ked up, didn’t I?' she writes. '"Yes, you did,"’ I whispered back.'"

    I don't believe any of it. She said that during the debate, as she watched it on TV, she thought he might be having a stroke and that he'd never acted like that before or since. Sorry. Not believed. I think the new book exists to be sold — to make money — and to try to escape responsibility for depriving the American people of the power to participate in the selection of the Democratic Party's 2024 presidential candidate.

    Where is Disinformation Czarina Nina Jankowicz when we need her? Let's check her American Sunlight Project… Nope, the most recent report is from August of last year.

  • Even when he's wrong, he's right. Jeff Maurer tries to reason his way out of The Platner Dilemma. Excerpt:

    The thing that ultimately pushes me into Platner’s camp is the simple mechanics of what being Senator entails. Suppose that instead of giving the seat to either Platner or Collins, we gave it to the SenateBot 5000, and we can program the robot with either the votes Platner would cast of the votes Collins would cast. In that case, I think Platner is the clear choice. Trump is the main factor that leads me to that conclusion, and I’m comforted by the fact that Platner’s ideas are so goofy that no bill he writes will ever get within a billion light years of becoming law.

    But my hypothetical Platner vote comes with an addendum, which is this statement: The guy is clearly a nut with terrible decision making skills, and his ascension is a warning that the Democratic Party will become every bit as useless and extreme as the Republican Party if we don’t get our shit together.

    Jeff goes on to make some mild criticism of Platner's published platform: "vague lefty tripe that reads like discarded Rage Against The Machine lyrics."

  • Politicians have noticed that senior citizens often vote. True enough, but to be fair, we oldsters often have nothing better to do than vote. Young person Eric Boehm opposes the latest resulting pandering: No, senior citizens shouldn’t be exempt from paying property taxes.

    "Our seniors should not pay property taxes," says Rep. Nancy Mace (R–S.C.).

    Normally, I'd advise against paying much attention to what Mace says and even less to what she posts on Twitter. Mace is one of the most performative and vapid members of Congress—a tall task, if you're familiar with her competition. She's most well-known for having meltdowns in airports, engaging in weird bits of performance art, and terrorizing staffers, all apparently guided by the old axiom that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

    But there is such a thing as bad policy, and Mace's endorsement of expanding property tax breaks for senior citizens is exactly that.

    Mace is not alone. As a "senior citizen" myself, it's really embarrassing to get targeted as a cheap date by politicians.

    But it made me look up my little town's Elderly Exemption for property taxes and … nope, I'm nowhere near poor enough.

  • Worst Tim Hortons ad ever. But a great Liberty Unyielding headline: Canadian Man Put To Death After Fast Food Parking Lot Bowel Assessment.

    A doctor in Ontario, Canada, evaluated a man for assisted death outside a Tim Hortons and, months later, drove him to the building where he died.

    Ah, well: months later.

    Nick Gillespie is guest-writing Nellie Bowles' TGIF column this week, and he has further comments:

    → Tim Hortons with a side of death: A Canadian doctor, James MacLean, approved medical aid in dying (MAID) for a 45-year-old man after briefly assessing him outside the popular coffee-and-donuts chain Tim Hortons, named for a beloved hockey player whose death in a car crash shocked fans. After determining that the man had inflammatory bowel disease and depression, Dr. MacLean then personally drove the man to a morgue where the MAID was administered in an industrial unit filled with other human cadavers. In another case, reports The National Post, “MacLean failed to administer one of three drugs used in assisted deaths—one that paralyzes the body’s muscles, including the muscles involved in breathing. The patient resumed spontaneously breathing again after initially being pronounced dead, and after MacLean had already left the home.”

    Two observations:

    1. The closest Tim Hortons to me are either up in Bangor, Maine; or down in Fall River, Massachusetts. I think I'd be fine as long as I stay out of Canada.
    2. Why is it that many of the same people who are enthusiastic supporters of "medical aid in dying" are steadfast opponents of capital punishment for murderers?