A POLITICAL ECONOMY LESSON ON A GAME BOARD.

That's how Monopoly got started.  "And how is it that a game conceived as socialist propaganda becomes a metaphor for competitive capitalism that inspires refinements to keep players engaged and involved?"

A board game to challenge the ruling classes still has potential.  "After facing constant roadblocks in opening a neighborhood cafe, an artist in Savannah, Georgia, created a board game that mimics the frustration of small-scale development."

Unlike Monopoly, or some sessions of Risk, where the slow strangulation of the weaker players diminishes the play value, the slow strangulation of any player's initiative is the point of Clinton Edminster's Red Tape Game.

Clinton did something unexpected. As an artist, he turned his frustration into expression by designing a board game called “Red Tape.”

The game mimics his experience of navigating city approvals:

• Neighborhood Association: Roll to gather petitions.
• Parking Requirements: Lose a turn while you redesign.
• The Bank: Roll for financing delays.
• Construction & City Council: Try again, or move back three steps.

Every square captured the illogical, discouraging hoops he had to jump through just to bring life back to a building the city had left to decay.

When the game was played at a Housing Savannah summit, it struck a nerve. City staff, elected officials, and community leaders rolled the dice and found themselves equally stuck and unable to move forward in a game designed to mirror real-life barriers. Barriers imposed by the very players of the game.

That was the “aha” moment: Red tape isn’t just frustrating; it kills good projects before they ever begin.

Instead of brushing it off, city staff took the criticism seriously. They began looking for ways to simplify and improve their processes so that residents and small business owners could invest without getting trapped in bureaucratic limbo.

Good.  I'm sure that each of the bureaucratic obstacles originated with The Best of Intentions, and I suspect that one can find peer-reviewed endorsements of many of them in Journal of Urban Economics or Environment and Planning or an archaeological journal.  Over time, though, the accretion of process is as if barnacles on a hull.  In Monopoly, maybe no houses get built because nobody gets the two or three lots of the same color group; in Savannah or Savanna or anyplace else, sooner or later somebody takes a hard look at why no houses get built.  "Every community has its version of the Red Tape Game. The rules are invisible, but the outcome is the same: vacant buildings stay vacant, and citizens give up on making their place better."  In the Strong Towns world, it might be that there's as much unsustainable Suburban Experiment construction going on as there is because the existing communities might have good bones, but for those accretions of process barnacles preventing the upgrades.  Whether those upgrades become gentrification is left to the reader as an exercise.

LET SWAP MEET SEASON BEGIN.

In Milwaukee, Oktoberfest season begins at the end of July with German Fest, and model railroad swap meet season begins toward the beginning of November with Train Fest.  This year's event took place in the downtown Baird Center, and the vendors were showing their wares and the local modellers' clubs with portable layouts were featuring their sight gags.

That might be one of the more over-the-top Lionel offerings, and I hope that any young lady with an interest in trains will prefer her FT in the Santa Fe Warbonnet.

GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM.

Market tests have a way of concentrating the mind.  "Rivian’s CFO hints the end of EV tax credits means manufacturers are being forced to finally make more affordable electric cars."

STRONG THE ENTITLEMENT IS IN THIS ONE.

Hot Air's David Strom sees "Women's Health: Being Single Makes You Happy!," has doubts.

The current cultural elite narrative that being single and childless is great is contradicted by every credible study ever done.

Single women, it has consistently been found, are about half as likely to report being "very happy" as married women.

Not that you would know this if you read Women's Health Magazine. In fact, being single gives women "joy," so quit dating and enjoy your freedom, gals!

And yes, the article does open with a good-news-is-bad-news-is-wrong vibe.

Single women, by and large, are actually quite happy, quite fulfilled, and quite content, thankyouverymuch. And as their numbers continue to grow, their experiences and wisdom could help shape the way we all approach our mental and emotional well-being. We just have to listen, as the whispers grow to a roar.

Read on, dear reader, and ask whether the article's author, and perhaps a few of the authorities the author consults, are due for a privilege check.

“It’s more doable to be single,” says Bella DePaulo, PhD, a social scientist and the author of Single at Heart. “If you don’t want to cook, there’s takeout. If you don’t want to do your laundry, there’s laundry service. If you don’t want to do repairs in your house, you can go online and find people.”

Our interconnected world also means we don’t need to rely on a live-in partner for socializing or emotional support. “Communication technologies have made it much more fulfilling to be single,” DePaulo says. “If you’re single and you live alone, you’re not isolated. You are one text message, email, chat room away from the rest of the world.”

While stigmas still persist around singlehood—especially for women—DePaulo also notes that the increase in unmarried people may be self-perpetuating.

The effect of all those creature comforts on income and wealth inequality are left as an exercise.  When the television is on at headquarters, there's a good chance that a few of the advertisements are for those sorts of service: it's also possible to hire in a cleaning service or to have the dog food delivered as well as to interact selectively with people online rather than take pot luck at the bar, coffee house, or library.  And Professor DePaulo has long been a critic of the marriage-industrial complex.

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE.

I never lack for opportunities to reflect on the same things.  "Maybe the best thing for urban neighborhoods is for Wise Experts and their Urban Renewal to go away.  Those hero projects of the 1960s and 1970s tended not to turn out well."

SELF-AWARENESS IS NOT THE WOKESTERS' STRONG SUIT.

James "Long Emergency" Kunstler notes, "You might have noticed by now that the most hysterical voices crying about 'fascism' are exactly the people who yearn to push everybody else around, tell them what to think, run your life, wreck every institution and relationship in society, and take all your stuff. The Left never notices how all that resembles their notion of what fascism is."

TRANSCENDING COMPLEXITY.

Physicists Have Mathematically Proven the Universe Is Not a Simulation.  It's unlikely that somebody could program the universe as a simulation for the same reason that it's difficult to write a climate extrapolation model.  "The short form of Steven Hayward's argument is 'in a complex adaptive system it is impossible to capture the behavior of the system without fully describing it in your model.' There's something Cantorian, or perhaps religious about the problem." Add more code, run out of computing capacity.

THE MAKING OF A LIBERTARIAN TORY.

The correlation of forces creating such people might be strongest in ... New York City.  Reason's Zach Weissmueller raises that possibility.  "The troubling rise of Zohran Mamdani is about more than policy. It's about culture."  One of his sources is Inez Stepman, who describes herself as a libertarian turned conservative.  Her focus is on the possible error of challenging "socialism" using traditional political economy.

One unsettling possibility is that economic reality is secondary to cultural shifts when it comes to 21st-century U.S. politics, and the culture necessary to maintain a free society is slowly deteriorating.

"The pure economic analysis of Zohran just fails to account for the cultural worldview and ideology that is very clearly not only part of his candidacy, but to me is a central piece," says Stepman. "It does touch something in us that is deeper and somehow more politically potent than housing regulations."

That might be so, and yet the "cultural worldview and ideology" of the culture-studies types, which might or might not overlap with "socialism," is contributing to the deterioration of the culture, which means bourgeois norms, that maintains a free society.

Stepman describes Mamdani's anticolonial views as a "terrifying meld of third-world resentments and modern sort of elite, woke views" that somehow reconcile enthusiasm for Palestinian statehood with gay rights in the form of "queers for Palestine" signs.

"Don't you realize you'll be thrown off a building there?" asks Stepman.

The Venezuelan writer Carlos Rangel called the ideological blend of Marxism and anticolonialsm "third worldism," which rests on the idea that precolonial societies were socialist paradises. The so-called "noble savages" lived in communal harmony before European imperialists came to pillage their lands and impose savage capitalism, brutal individualism, and a rigid social hierarchy.

This iteration of socialism purposely conflates imperialism and capitalism, which helps explain why Mamdani has said that socialists and Palestinians are fighting "the same struggle."

Lots of high-concept stuff for the common room there, as well as in the balance of the article, which runs for many paragraphs beyond what I excerpted.  The [Not Detroit] Free Press contributor River Page, though, might have a more grounded, if less academically inclined, understanding of the deterioration that might lead to libertarian tories.

I’m a social democrat who campaigned for Bernie Sanders. You might think I’d feel more at home in a blue state like New York than in the Southern red states I lived in for my entire life until seven months ago. But I don’t. I hate it here—and I want to go back.

Here’s the difference: In a red state, the government doesn’t care about you. For example, when I lost my job in Florida during Covid, I gave up on trying to apply for unemployment benefits because, as Governor Ron DeSantis himself admitted, the website set up to process the claims had been intentionally designed with “pointless roadblocks” meant to frustrate unemployed Floridians into giving up their opportunity to receive benefits. Florida has also refused to expand Medicaid coverage under Obamacare even though 90 percent of the costs would be covered by the federal government. Red states may hardly help their citizens, but the upside is that they usually don’t bother them either. New York has bothered me since I got here.

After seven months of living in a blue state, I have come to the conclusion that the guiding principle of the Democratic Party isn’t really lukewarm welfarism combined with social liberalism. Instead, it is paternalism for the law-abiding masses and permissiveness for society’s antisocial underbelly. In other words, living in a blue state means that the government treats you like a child and does everything in its power to make your life just a little more annoying and inconvenient—unless you start openly smoking crack on the street.

Ignore for the sake of discussion, dear reader, the columnist's refusal to understand that Floridians pay Federal taxes and thus bear the costs of that Medicaid coverage, and focus on how "permissiveness for society's antisocial underbelly" is a fancy way of saying "enable dysfunction, get more of it."  The Tory part of his argument expands on how "progressive" policies enable dysfunction; the libertarian part notes the continued small annoyances of living according to all those rules.  "It’s the little things that break you; the small inconveniences that litter your life. Blue states have a million of them, and the world is no better for it."

In the bull session that accompanies his post, nobody has weighed in with a "These Policies are For Your Own Good (You Deplorable)" or a sardonic "And we'll all be better persons for it."

THE MAKING OF A MILITANT NORMAL.

Town Hall columnist Laura Hollis claims "Misguided 'Compassion' Contributes to Political Polarization."  She wrote the column after attending an event at Notre Dame University (no luck needed) that appears to combine the Protestant Social Gospel with the Catholic social teaching that originated with Paul.  The event she attended addressed the politics of cultivating hope, which is probably a fool's errand.  "Two weeks ago, Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., participated in a Q and A session on campus with Notre Dame's president, the Rev. Robert Dowd, CSC, during which McElroy offered his thoughts on ways to address political polarization in America."

ISN'T THIS LAST CENTURY'S NEWS?

Scientists Demand Ban on Bacon, Claiming Link to 54,000 Cases of Cancer.  Smoked meats, or preservatives in meats, or maybe meats themselves, have long given Wise Experts something to fret about.

First they came for sugar, then they came for bacon. Will life be worth living once all the simple ‘unhealthy’ pleasures are banned? I haven’t read the study, but a first thought is whether people who eat lots of bacon aren’t unhealthy in other ways that might explain a higher incidence of bowel, breast and prostate cancers. That’s often the problem with these studies – there are so many potential factors that could explain an 18% increase in various maladies. They’ll have statistical techniques to try to deal with that, for sure. But trying to work out why diseases like cancer develop as a result of eating certain foods is never an exact science.

Academicians, though, like to have more attention than another Minimal Publishable Unit in Rivista Internazionale Numere Due di Bovini will get them.

A coalition of leading scientists says the refusal to ban nitrites - preservatives used to keep processed meats pink and long-lasting - has come at a devastating human and financial cost, with the NHS footing an estimated £3 billion bill to treat preventable cancers over the past decade.

Their analysis, based on figures from Cancer Research UK and the British Journal of Cancer, estimates that around 5,400 bowel cancer cases each year in the UK are caused by eating processed meats. Treatment costs for each patient average £59,000.

That the National Health Service have no clue how much any one treatment costs, or how much the quality of a life year without bacon is lessened, is immaterial to "leading scientists."  Read on, and consider the source.

The warning comes exactly ten years after the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen - placing it in the same risk category as tobacco and asbestos.

Despite this, ministers have done 'virtually nothing' to reduce Britons' exposure, according to Professor Chris Elliott OBE, founder of the Institute for Global Food Security and a former government adviser.

He said: 'A decade on from the WHO report, the UK Government has done virtually nothing to reduce exposure to nitrites - the curing agents that make these products pink and long-lasting but also create nitrosamines, compounds known to trigger cancer.

'Every year of delay means more preventable cancers, more families affected, and greater strain on the NHS.'

The scientists who worked on the original WHO report have now written to Health Secretary Wes Streeting urging him to ban nitrites in processed meats.

Ah, yes, the World Health Organisation, the international agency that did so well managing the Wuhan coronavirus a few years ago.  As far as "strain on the National Health Service," well, if you can't ration the medical care directly with those quality adjusted life years, you can ration it indirectly by rationing the purchase of cured meats.  How long until bangers and mash or those sausages at a Full English Breakfast come with warning labels?

CHICKIFICATION MIGHT BE TOO FRIVOLOUS A DESCRIPTION.

For years, the late Rush Limbaugh called attention to the "chickification" of American culture, not in a good way.

In a truly pathetic news story, this is deeply troubling. We have been talking recently on this program about the chickification of American culture, the feminization of American universities, the chickification of the news business. From the Associated Press, this a story by Melissa Dutton, and this is about man showers. Brian, you went to one of these just last week, a man shower.

In that excerpt, from 2008, he alluded to a more destructive phenomenon then presenting in the knowledge and information industries. The "man shower" was somebody's idea about how to make the concept of a bridal shower more inclusive.

THE BIG CITIES DEFUND THE POLICE ONLY FOR THE POORS.

Here's an observation that has Friday short take written all over it, but for us taking Hallowe'en off.  “San Francisco [is] a sort of market-segmented scheme [extracting] the basic comforts of civilization and licensing them back as upgrades.”

It wasn't always that way.  Eleven years ago, the fretting among the sort of people who fret was about how the superstar cities were inequitable, in that only high income owners could make the rents.  "I remain skeptical of cities going after Creative Class amenities as a way of attracting Creative Class employers who will hire Creative Class workers. Countervailing forces, including congestion and bid-rent curves remain at work."  That post predates the notorious poop maps, but closer to Cold Spring Shops headquarters, the ominous signs were there.  "We've seen that at work in Chicago, with the accompanying stratification into a lake-side quasi-gated community with gangland war-zones south and west."  We saw further deterioration in Chicago even before the corona tyranny.  "[A]t what point will the city no longer be able to maintain what is effectively a gated community surrounded by increasing despair and increasing frustration with Democrats?"  That frustration might be present, and yet Rahm Emanuel gave way to Lori Lightfoot gave way to Brandon Johnson.

The observation that opened this post led to the following.

I am not a filthy poor, and therefore conditions on the street level in Portland do not matter to me.

I drive my Jaguar to nice restaurants, give it to the valet to park, then go inside and order a fancy treat. So long as the valet parks my car, and the waiter brings my fancy treat for me to consoome in peace, I am utterly unaffected by conditions ten blocks away.

While I am technically forced to acknowledge that other humans exist — otherwise who would park my car or prepare my fancy treat? — I am not actually forced to consider what their lives are like.

And if you try to force me to confront this, I will simply point out that you are a filthy poor, who is unable to live a lifestyle that insulates you from this sort of unpleasantness.

At which point I don’t have to pay attention to you, loser.

That prompted the proprietor of Quotulatiousness to respond with the essence of the Tragic Vision.

It probably costs slightly less than that to have zero drugged-out and/or schizophrenic bums urinating on your porch, but again, in Tennessee, this is a free service that comes with the “Western Civilization” package.

Also, it doesn’t cost anything go to a drugstore where nothing is locked behind glass, and be told “have a nice day” by someone at the register who actually means it.

And I’m told there is some sort of mythical beast called “graffiti”, but I have to go online to find out what it looks like.

In short, the argument that “civilization is just fine because I can still buy my way out of trouble” doesn’t hold any water, because it ignores the fact that you have to buy your way out of trouble, because civilization is shrinking.

You can’t have civilization without ass-kickings.

And if you forget that, you start having to buy your way into ever more and more exclusive clubs where the uncivilized can’t afford to go.

Until they figure out that they don’t have to pay, they can just push their way past the doorman. At which point you must be prepared to kick ass again.

All civilization rests on pillars made of violence. You are in danger until the moment you understand this.

Arguably, living in suburban or rural Tennessee where the drug stores and Wal-Mart supercenters don't keep everything under lock and key is a way of buying your way out of trouble, and that might include less access to the artsy places and frou-frou food.  Certainly that exchange does nothing to disabuse me of my fear that the "pillars made of violence" include suburbs or small towns one flash mob away from going sundown.

CHARLIE BROWN'S REAL LIFE ENCOUNTER WITH THE RED BARON.

Snoopy flies a Sopwith Camel in the comic strip.  In real life, Charlie Brown, of West Virginia, piloted B-17 The Pub, and on the cover of Adam Makos's A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II, you'll see The Pub with a Messerschmitt fighter tucked in off the starboard wing.  Mr Makos acknowledges the assistance of Larry Alexander.

Book Review N^o. 8 can tell you, dear reader, that the "combat and chivalry" part of the subtitle is accurate.  Recall, for instance, that Hermann Göring surrendered to an Army Air Force unit which treated him as a distinguished guest (as Hauptmann Göring in the first war, he was a pretty good fighter pilot) until higher command authority ordered he be remanded to Allied custody.  Fighter pilots on both sides considered themselves heirs to the knightly tradition and so conducted themselves, as pilots and as captors, and much of Higher Call relates that through the eyes of Franz Stigler, the Messerschmitt pilot whose plane is on the cover.  It's fair to use the Red Baron reference given the missions he flew during the war, particularly as the correlation of forces turned against his country.

I will not reveal here either why the Messerschmitt was flying formation (confirming a shoot-down? escorting to a safe place to land?) or whether the pilots had a chance, as many veterans of the War did, to compare notes late in life.  Why spoil a good war yarn, which this book is, by telling all of it?

(Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge.)

THE PROGRESS DELUSION.

Crooked Timber contributor Lisa Herzog asks, "Does 'forward' still make sense?"  It doesn't and regular readers of Cold Spring Shops get that.  "Complex adaptive systems tend to do what they darn well please, and when a new social order is emerging, a Vanguard to Lead the Way has the same problems as everyone else, namely, Where Are We, and What's The Most Promising Way to Go?"

CALIFORNIA HITS BOTTOM, KEEPS DIGGING.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through California, Governor Newsom scratched internal combustion cars off future gift lists.  Yes, that link goes to a satire post that nevertheless has some grounding in reality.

Among this year's proscriptions, because what is the use of a Democrat governor who doesn't issue foolish ukases, is any resale of full sized coaching stock.  "California governor signs bill banning resale of retired diesel rail equipment."  There is retired diesel rail equipment because the only part of the slowly-taking-shape high speed rail connection between San Francisco and Los Angeles is the electrification of the Bay Area commute zone from San Francisco to San Jose.  There is a ridge of hills between San Jose and the north end of the high speed line project that has not been surveyed for construction, and I bet a crew of Chinese immigrants with pickaxes and mules could build that stretch faster than whatever environmentally friendly concatenation of machinery California approves of these days will, if they ever will.

What good, dear reader, is a self-styled progressive who doesn't signal his virtue?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law a bill prohibiting state agencies from reselling or otherwise transferring older diesel-powered rail equipment after it has been decommissioned by a public agency.

SB 30 was introduced last December by Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) in response to Caltrain’s sale of retired equipment for use to start a commuter rail operation in Lima, Peru [see "“Caltrain equipment …,” Trains.com, Nov. 15, 2024].  When the bill was passed by the Senate in May, Cortese said in a press release, “I believe California should be leading the world in clean energy — not shipping our pollution problems elsewhere.” But at the time the bill was introduced, a Caltrain representative pointed out a U.S. State Department study had determined the transfer of the equipment to Lima would take 4,000 cars off the road and remove 20,000 metric tons of pollution from the air [see “Caltrain equipment sale to Peru sparks legislation …,” Trains.com, Dec. 8, 2024].

The bill bans such sales unless the diesels involved meet EPA Tier 2, 3, or 4 standards; the diesel engines are removed; or the sale is approved in a public hearing. It was one of dozens that Newsom announced he had signed or vetoed earlier this week.

I am at a loss for how best to mock a policy that, as a commenter at Trains notes, leaves residents of poorer countries in their cars.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE.

The country's Newspaper of Record has fun with a recent sports-betting scandal.  "WNBA Players Assure FBI They Weren't Missing Layups To Throw Games, They Just Suck At Basketball."  It takes skill to make a deliberate miss look like an accident, which is one way point-shaving might manifest itself.

A group of players met with FBI agents Thursday afternoon to vehemently deny such rumors, clarifying that they were just all really awful basketball players.

"I know it seems like a scam, but we're all just really, really bad at this game," said Chicago Sky star Angel Reese. "The truth is, we're just not that good at making the ball go into the little circle. We really are trying. It's just a lot harder than it looks."

According to insiders with knowledge of the federal investigation, the FBI was grateful for the WNBA's cooperation even though the organization was not on their radar. "I've never even heard of women's basketball," FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said. "In fact, the whole league sounds like some sort of scam."

Although the sports-betting investigation continues, it might be that the large winnings Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker reported are on the up and up.  ‘He’s a whale in Vegas.’  That might not be the best choice of words.

In Chicago’s business community, Pritzker has long been known for his affinity for cards. A poker book has been seen on the shelf of his Chicago office, and he’s been spotted sidling up to a table while traveling.

That interest in poker goes beyond the personal. Pritzker teamed up with Jim Gray, who founded OptionsXpress, to start the Chicago Poker Challenge, a high-profile charity tournament that raised millions for the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, which Pritzker also helped establish.

Though Pritzker no longer plays in the event, its reputation is legendary. It was once held at the exclusive Casino Club that sits in the shadow of the John Hancock Building, not far from Pritzker’s residence.

The guest list has included an impressive roster of Chicago’s elite, including Citadel’s Ken Griffin, billionaire entrepreneur and ComPsych founder Rich Chaifetz, and OptionsXpress Holdings founder Gray. Even poker pro Phil Hellmuth Jr. has been a regular attendee.

“He is a very thoughtful player,” Ariel Capital Management founder and Democratic donor John Rogers Jr. said of Pritzker. “He has a very good understanding of the game’s nuances. He is really comfortable around a poker table. He’s always one of the better players at these tournaments.”

All the same, if evidence surfaces of Democrat donors laundering campaign contributions at the poker table, there isn't enough popcorn in the house!

PIE SLICING IS A POOR METAPHOR FOR ECONOMIC ACTIVITY.

Years ago, before the staff went crazy, Charles Peters's Washington Monthly ran an article comparing the relative merits of pie-slicers, meaning people who worried how much a pie of a given radius each eater got, as opposed to pie-arrangers, who worried about how to produce larger pies.  I liked the metaphor so much I used it to mock a silly classroom plan long ago.

Pie-slicing, though, continues to be an obsession of the socialists.  Here's Robert Reich from 2004.  "If I’m right, and the current lopsided apportioning of the American economic pie between wages and profits is permanent, mark my words: It’s only a matter of time before the vast American middle class demands a fair portion of the pie. That may mean, at the least, higher taxes on profits and lower taxes on wages."

Twenty years later, two Common Dreams contributors sound the same theme.  "The share of the U.S. wealth pie owned by the top 0.1 percent grew 59.6 percent from 1989 to 2024, according to an Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Federal Reserve data, while the share of the U.S. wealth pie owned by the bottom 50 percent of households has declined 26.1 percent, adjusted for inflation."

I DON'T GIVE A DARN.

"The Los Angeles Dodgers Are America’s Team," according to Peter Savodnik in The [Not Detroit] Free Press.  He continues, "You might find the Dodgers hard to root for in the World Series. Here’s why you should do it anyway."

Why?  Because.

It’s been a doozy of a year for La La Land. The fires, the ongoing Hollywood contraction, our hapless, hopeless mayor (and the dearth of any serious challengers in 2026).

That’s to say nothing of the graffiti and the housing market and the homeless. We’re told by the powers that be that things are getting better, but literally no one here thinks things are getting better.

Who's on first? "There was probably no better seat to observe industrial decline than that of a tenure-tracker at Wayne State."  But during that hitch, the Detroit Tigers caught fire in 1984, winning 104 games in the regular season, ultimately winning the World Series, after which the fans set the neighborhood on fire.

Make of it what you will that Kirk Gibson, Michigan State athlete, who hit a home run to seal the deal at Tiger Stadium a few years later hit a home run to seal another World Series deal with ... the Brooklyn Trolley Los Angeles Dodgers.

WAIT FOR THE DEBT CEILING TO CRASH IN.

Don Wolfensberger, a contributor to The Hill with lots of experience in Congress, including as chief of staff for the Rules Committee (those are the Members of Congress who decide what gets marked up for debate and vote) some thirty years ago, takes stock of the current horsetrading over what additional pet projects ought be stuffed into the latest evasion of regular order.

Theoretically, the support of House and Senate Republican majorities for the president’s unilateral funding cutbacks may qualify as small “d” democracy in practice. Two things that may (or may not) validate that assumption are public opinion and Congress’s ability to finesses constituent needs and national priorities.

Public opinion and politics go hand-in-glove though there is often a lot of finger-pointing and wrist twisting hidden in the mittens. The president’s powers of persuasion and direct pressures on members will wax and wane as members’ own political fortunes teeter on the brink of next year’s midterm elections.

President Trump has already responded to some of his party’s expressed concerns by transferring research and development funds in the Pentagon to pay the salaries of uniformed military personnel, and by temporarily restoring some of the funding for the Center for Disease Control’s missions that were being zeroed-out.

The American people seem to be inured by all this, having seen government shutdowns come and go like the seasons. The standard public response seems to be, it’s just politics as usual, compromises will be struck, and life will go on. However, any drying-up of resources affecting the broader public will eventually bear down on the constituents of individual members.

It is politics as usual.  I have not seen any argument from pundits who pay attention to such things or from political scientists who analyze, well, politicking, to disabuse me of my view that Members of Congress would rather not report out regular order appropriations, particularly when the majority party at least pays lip service to appropriating and spending less money and terminating some projects with extreme prejudice.

I think Mr Wolfensberger fears that, at least in part.

In previous government shutdowns, the assumption was always that once a shutdown showdown is resolved, the status quo ante would be restored and life would resume as before. Those assumptions may be dated given today’s shutdown in which government will not likely emerge and function as it once did. Those consequences will truly represent a turn of the screw on how our system of government will function and persevere in the future.

Buckle in, that "turn of the screw" might be reinforced by the bond market further discounting Treasuries.

IT'S CALLED RENT SEEKING.

Is anybody surprised that Our President, who was not above using eminent domain to clear space in Atlantic City for a failed casino venture, is not above putting the touch on a few fellow rent-seekers to reconstruct the Savarin Room on the White House grounds.  Red State's Brandon Morse notes, "The People Helping Fund the New White House Ballroom Are a Who's Who List of Big Names."  At The Hill, Brett Samuels adds editorial comment.  "Amazon, Apple, Google and other major companies are among those donating to help cover the cost of President Trump’s massive new ballroom at the White House."  He hints that there might be rent seeking at work.  "Many of the companies, such as Apple, Amazon, Meta and Google, have sought to strengthen ties with the Trump administration."

Jake Johnson at Common Dreams finds a commentator willing to expand on "strengthen ties."

“Demolishing the East Wing is bad enough, but carving the names of corporations and billionaires into the White House walls would mark a permanent scar on the People’s House,” said Jon Golinger, a democracy advocate with Public Citizen, said in a statement Thursday.

“Money buys access and influence and, in this case, a long-term presence on the White House wall,” Golinger added. “This is easily understood and blatantly disgusting.”

Ah, yes, Public Citizen, when they're not grousing about people buying access and influence in the federal government, they're looking for ways to expand the scope and influence of the federal government, which is harder for people to understand whilst more blatantly disgusting.