Pun Salad

I scanned through the Declaration, and nowhere in its list of royal offenses did I see George III trying anything like this. The denunciations are many, but let's look at the WaPo's editorial take: The precedent of Trump’s ‘weaponization’ fund. (WaPo gifted link)

Over at NR, Dan McLaughlin delivers the ultimate insult: Trump’s Collusive ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ Takes a Page from the Left’s Playbook. (NR gifted link)

The good news is that Trump is dropping his stupid, hopelessly corrupt, lawsuit against the IRS. But…

Dan goes on to observe that similar sue-and-settle tactics have been used on the left for years. Doesn't meana it's not totally corrupt.

Also of note:

• Yawn. Another kraken about to be released "soon". I'm seeing an uptick in headlines like this one at PJ Media: Multiple 2020 Election Fraud Investigations in Georgia and Arizona Are Underway.

  In recent weeks, Trump officials have been promising that bombshell evidence regarding 2020 election fraud would be coming. Both FBI Director Kash Patel and Monica Crowley, the U.S. government's chief of protocol, have said as much. On Sunday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche sat down with Maria Bartiromo and confirmed that the Department of Justice has multiple active investigations into election fraud, specifically targeting Arizona and Georgia's Fulton County.

  Blanche didn't hedge. He didn't offer the usual bureaucratic non-answer. He said it directly: "Well, there's a ton of evidence that the election was rigged. That's not something the DOJ needs to tell you about. There's been evidence about that for many, many years. What I can tell you is that we have multiple investigations going on in Arizona, in Georgia, in Fulton County, Georgia.”

  A "ton" of evidence over "many, many years" … that never managed to impress anyone who wasn't a total Trump sycophant.

  Hey, maybe. I have no way of knowing for sure, I'm only going by the dismal history of massive conspiracies necessarily involving hundreds of people that never manage to get off the corkboards filled with newspaper clippings, pushpins, and yards of dot-connecting red yarn.

  And perhaps Blanche will say and do whatever is necessary to stay in Trump's good graces.

  Note that, taken together, Arizona and Georgia controlled a total of 27 electoral votes. Moving them into Trump's column… and Biden still wins the 2020 election with 279 EVs to Trump's 259.

• Not to wade into a thorny topic, but… I noticed a gold nugget of wisdom in a recent NHJournal article: On Housing, Local vs. State Control Is the Wrong Question made by Anthony Conte, about what level of government should have how much say over zoning:

  “Local control” is a rhetorical distraction. Dressing up “control” with the friendly modifier “local” shouldn’t make us forget we are being controlled in the first place, or make us feel better about it.

  Reminiscent of that classic Thomas Szasz quote about drugs: "There are no 'controlled substances,' there are only controlled citizens."

• All share a long tradition of … existence. Alex J. Pollock & Edward J. Pinto look at Fannie, Freddie, and the National Debt. Their argument:

  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are huge, with $7.8 trillion in assets and $7.6 trillion in liabilities. They are an essential part of the finances of the US government. But we do not find them as part of the government’s consolidated financial statements. We should.

  How would that affect … oh, wait, here it is: "With Fannie and Freddie correctly consolidated, the total government debt would be $46.1 trillion."

  This would be honest accounting, which means it probably ain't gonna happen.

• And not a funny one. Jeff Maurer notes an absurd turn of events that more people should mull over: Mail Has Become a Twisted Joke.

  Expressed in his subhed: "I'm paying for trees to be turned into garbage and sent to me"

  I recently had a run-in with the authorities: I owed $60 in tax to a state where I no longer live. I was fine with paying the tax, which was on my truck, even though I was surprised to learn that anything was due on a ‘97 Nissan whose value is surely just the combined value of the wiper blades and tires. The sand up my gearbox came from the fact that the state’s only effort to inform me of this tax came from a bill that they claim to have sent via physical mail. And to be clear: This happened this year, not 1873. Saying “we sent it to you in the mail” these days is a bit like saying “we sent you a telegram” or “we put it in the barrel around a St. Bernard’s neck and threw a stick in the direction of your house.”

  Mail has changed. You’re not wrong if you’ve sensed that mail is now mostly catalogues, credit card offers, and solicitations from charities who seek to punish you for giving $20 one time in 2009. More than half of all mail these days — 52 percent — is “marketing mail”, aka “junk”. Another large percentage is a category I’ll dub “unimportant bullshit”, i.e. my health plan informing me of minute changes, crap from my neighborhood, and my union keeping me up to date on their efforts to end capitalism except for the type of capitalism on which my livelihood depends. Mixed into that pile of spam is shit that I’ll go to jail if I ignore — what a fun little game! Not only am I paying for trees to be cut down, sent to my house in the form of chores, and then hauled away again, but I’ll also get in trouble if I miss the oh-so-important needles that are mixed into the haystack. I am enrolled against my will in a system that feels like some shit The Riddler dreamed up.

  I assume I didn't get that birthday card from Kansas I was expecting because it got lost between the weekly ads from Hannaford, Shaws, and Market Basket.