THE THOUSAND DESCRIPTIONS OF RENT SEEKERS.

In The Daily Economy, Vincent Geloso comes up with an infelicitous new one, "beefsteak socialists," brownish on the outside, red on the inside, that brown referring to a shirt, to describe a Rube Goldberg-esque accretion of reform upon reform that provides plenty of work for bureaucrats and rent-seekers, each accretion further reducing allocative efficiency.

Two problems immediately emerged. First, this enlargement of government power raised the value of possessing government. Second, government interventions produce unintended consequences. As a result, rather than repeal the original measure, governments frequently respond with another intervention, followed by another. The unintended consequences multiply, and so do the interventions. Growth grinds down to a halt.

There is a risk in blowing all the interventions up and starting over.  Mr Geloso uses the accretion of interventions in Chile leading to a quasi-Marxist government gaining control over a corpse, after which a military coup and shock therapy might have been the most extreme form of starting over.  On a smaller scale, abolishing the Interstate Commerce Commission and privatizing Conrail might have done some good, that is, until the regulatory state started adding on again.

That, Mr Geloso argues, is the nature of public choice: rent-seekers and careerists in the saddle.

The danger for the United States is not that it has reproduced Chile in 1973. It plainly has not. (Yet.) The danger is that American politics is beginning to reproduce the underlying dynamic: rival movements encouraging one another to abandon liberal restraints.

By "liberal restraints," he means modestly ambitious governance with enumerated, separated, and limited powers.  That's not how one makes a name in "public service," and that's how things go wrong.  "There must first be a long process of politicization of every aspect of social and economic life. Reverse that politicization and you halt the weakening."

THE NOT-SO-COLLATERAL DAMAGE OF LIBERATING TOLERANCE.

There's something of a Mark J. Perry Venn diagram to be contemplated featuring "People who denounce white Christian extremism" and "People who denounce people who denounce radical Islamic terrorism."  The good news: one of the family members reading names in New York this morning denounced "radical Islamic terrorism" to the applause of the crowd.

A 9/11 widow just rent rogue in NYC…

She read her husbands name and then called out Islamic terror and Saudi Arabia.

She called out Bush, Obama, Biden and JD Vance/Trump while they sat right in front of her. The entire crowd at ground zero cheered. pic.twitter.com/xICEZL6FOv

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) September 11, 2026

She's undoubtedly getting grief from the usual suspects.

The first step in undoing the deleterious effects of liberating tolerance, and its obnoxious manifestations in cancel culture is to recognize that it exists, and it is wrong.  Consider, dear reader, the Katyn massacre.

Herbert Marcuse might have been early into his exile, and the 1950s, 1960s attempts by leftist thinkers to distinguish revolutionary from reactionary violence were a few years away.  The institutional left of that era, however, involved cancel culture.  As long as the Hitler-Stalin, Ribbentrop-Molotov agreements to carve up Poland were in place, nobody in the American left would dare say what they ought to have been saying about Nazi Germany.  During the carve-up of Poland, it was Soviet organs of state security murdered those Polish officers, and it was Soviet propagandists who asserted those dead officers were simply another day at the ditch for the Einsatzgruppen.

LET THE POSTURING CONTINUE.

Trust a quartet of Washington Post reporters to put the most favorable spin on it.  "Under pressure, Iran lashes out and ramps up rhetoric."  I suspect they're running out of gas mains to dig up and pack with propellant.  But whatever.  "Amid economic pressure and a fight to retain diplomatic leverage via control over the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is lashing out with increasingly bellicose rhetoric and, on Thursday, a strike on U.S. forces in Kuwait."

CONFLICT CREEP.

Outside the Beltway's James Joyner, who knows a few things about international relations (countries boffing each other, mostly), suggests that what goes on across the Berezina might be worth paying attention to.

Whether this is “state sponsored terrorism” really depends on the nature of the attack. If it was simply aimed at a cargo plane transporting materiel to Ukrainian forces, it is a legitimate military target and any incidental loss of civilian life would be collateral damage. If, on the other hand, it was intended to destroy civilian infrastructure to send a political message, it’s terrorism.

Regardless, it represents an escalation in the proxy war with Russia. While we’ve supported—rightly, in my view—Ukraine against Russia’s illegal invasion, supplying intelligence support and ever-more-lethal weapons, we’ve been careful not to directly participate in hostilities against Russia. Until now, Russia has assiduously avoided kinetic attacks into NATO territory, although there have been violations of NATO airspace and some stray shots that have made it across the border into Poland.

A direct attack on a core NATO ally could certainly trigger enforcement action under Article 5. There will be little appetite for a direct war with Russia, but this may result in further lengthening of the leash put on Ukraine’s use of Western assets.

The dogs of war have been given longer leash for some time, possibly for nearly twenty years looking back to that color revolution in Ukraine that put the current government in power.  Arguably, the War was festering for many years prior to 1939, considering the Spanish civil war, Japan's imperial ambitions in China, and the colonies of the nineteenth century empires changing hands.  Buckle in.

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Over the weekend, United States Central Command claim to have destroyed drones or rockets carrying mines (or perhaps trash bags or beachballs) in order to effect some kind of closure of Hormuz, or at least the spooking of energy traders.  In retaliation, the mullahs flipped some flying gas mains toward United States bases in Jordan, apparently without effect.  We'll see what Our President orders up.

EXCESSIVE COMPLEXITY PRODUCES DIMINISHING RETURNS.

Anyone who has suffered through endless faculty meetings knows that.  The Credentialed Experts who worship process are beginning to figure it out.

All these ways of seeing our world converge dynamically in the current historical moment: this Fourth Turning, or Long Emergency — however you label it — in the arc of our techno-industrial order of things. A lot of these things are coming apart now, and in astounding ways, and it remains to be seen what we will do with these broken and discarded parts, and whether any of it can be put back together in a satisfactory way.

Saecular entropy, properly understood, cannot be reversed.  The saecular order to come will hold surprises.

YOU AND WHOSE NAVY?

"Iran threatens 45 tankers with fines, confiscation in Hormuz escalation."  Regime dead-enders think they've identified the ships participating in the shuttle operation transloading Gulf Arabian product to ships sheltering well away from the mullahs' putative blockade.

THE GAS PUMP PAIN ARISES MAINLY IN UKRAINE?

The Establishment's Narrative^(TM) on higher summer gasoline prices is "It's All Trump's Fault."  These are the same fear-mongers who were sounding off about crude oil prices north of $175 per barrel in the aftermath of rogue Iranian elements attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz.

YOUR SCOLDING IS NO LONGER EFFECTIVE.

I'd really rather the culture warriors types leave Sophie Cunningham be, to sink those trilighters and protect her teammates. But the po-faced common scolds, such as supposed sports pundit Jason Page, have to contextualize her celebrating a milestone birthday at a country bar in downtown Indianapolis and energetically delivering that boot, courtesy of the Red White and Blue.

And again… tell me exactly what you are about without telling me exactly what you are about.

Just own who you are and stop talking about “loving everybody”. https://t.co/bSAUDTD3Mk

— Jason Page (@TheBackPage) August 15, 2026

He ran out of ripostes faster than Iran ran out of missiles, and well down the thread somebody posted, "They're bodying you in the comments and you deserve it."  Maybe the ratio came in a boot.

Any day we discover the Anointed losing their power to scold is a good day.

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Stephen "Vodka Pundit" Green is not yet urging "Faster, please."  Historian Scott Powell suggests the time to finish the mullahs is now.

Iran is already a militarily defeated nation. To allow this evil, suicidal regime to rebuild and reconstitute itself would be a tragic missed opportunity to liberate the vast majority of Iranian people who want to live as free people under some form of democracy. And fundamentally, it would be a dereliction of duty to the greater Middle East. Defeating this regime also puts the nail in the coffin for Hamas, Hezb’allah and the Houthis, all of which dramatically improves the prospects for peace in the region.

A lot can change in a few days.  Last week came the usual sort of posturing.  "Tehran has vowed not to reopen the critical shipping lane “until America corrects its behavior,” despite a looming agreement with Oman reported to have been close for days."  As well as the usual scavenger hunt in the arsenal.

Iran's regime fired two ballistic missiles toward shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates has had enough. Abu Dhabi responded by severing every trade, commercial, and financial transaction with the terror state, effective immediately.

Roughly $28 billion in annual commerce is now gone. The UAE was Iran's single largest source of imports, a lifeline the mullahs just torched with their own missiles.

UAE Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Afra Al Hameli made it official Wednesday. No end date. No conditions. Just a hard stop tied to Iran's escalating aggression.

“All trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice.”

It helps if you have ordnance that works if you seek concessions.  Dud missiles scratchbuilt with whatever the mullahs scraped together might even have changed minds at CNN.  "Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz."

JUST FINISH THINGS.

Sometimes, the right sort of air power can be persuasive.

That might not convince one Roland Oliphant, who in London's Telegraph offers "proof Iran won the war."

MORE THAN ONE FORM OF STRATEGIC PATIENCE.

Another weekend, another pattern-bombing of Iran stopped to give negotiators more time, another manifestation of Iranian duplicity.

Right on time... https://t.co/61Y8ENl5lF

— Ken Gardner (@KenGardner11) August 2, 2026

Is it going to be Game On tonight?

Or is Reason's Matthew Petti correct, it's another empty threat?  "We’re locked in a cycle: The president threatens to resume the war, he claims Iran backed down, and then he gets frustrated with Iran again."

HIGH MODERN AUTHORITARIANISM IN THE DOCK.

Yes, in the argot of academic political science, when democratically elected representatives delegate responsibility to government employees, and those employees go astray, that's something gone wrong in the way the democratic republic implements policy, not an authoritarian dictatorship at work.

That delegation might be a necessary evil in a complex world.  Something happens that elected officials conclude requires their oversight, and they'd rather identify the outlines of the challenge and delegate the messy work to an independent regulatory commission; or expand the set of inferior officers as they think proper, then delegate by enacting legislation with "The Secretary shall issue regulations" language; or in a pinch, find some Highly Qualified Functionary and with no irony at all refer to that person as "czar."

That sounds pretty authoritarian, dear reader, particularly when such a functionary issues ukases on insufficient information.  "The problem is that these process-worshippers are comparing an ideal technocratic vision, a Michael Munger unicorn, if you will, with a messy reality that the best epidemiologists are still attempting to quantify and contain."

It looks even more authoritarian when such a functionary issues all manner of ukases, a faction of the elected government brooks no criticism of that functionary, other government employees claim that criticism of the ukases not to mention evidence of the ukases going wrong are misinformation or disinformation or downright dangerous, and so-called journalists choosing not to interview people who offer differing perspectives, and the leading social media companies enforcing The Narrative.  Maybe influential politicians and journalists pile on by referring to skeptics as "science deniers," weaponizing a term that originated to shame people who questioned the existence of Nazi Germany's ethnic cleansing.

Under such circumstances, aren't dissident Militant Normals understandably going to bridle at an unelected bureaucrat behaving in an authoritarian way?

So let it be with Don Antonio.

ONE LAST ACT OF DEFIANCE?

As of yesterday, Our President was still hoping for the best.  "Trump says US and Tehran having 'good talks' as drones hit Iran's neighbours."

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday that messages were still being passed between the sides through mediators and Iran had not forsaken diplomacy, but reports that it requested negotiations were "fabricated."

"This is not in our DNA," he said.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday that Iran would halt its own attacks as long as Trump's self-imposed ceasefire continued.

Iran's central military command later on Monday accused the U.S. of threatening vessels and ‌oil tankers in its territorial waters and of "attempting to implement an illegal maritime ⁠blockade", which it said "constitutes an escalation of the conflict in the region."

Saudi Arabia said it shot down drones aimed at petroleum targets, including in Riyadh. It said they had been launched from Iraq by Iran-backed armed groups, and it reserved the right to respond.

That halt lasted about as long as a special price on a three-meter carpet.

Iran has brought days of relative calm in the Middle East to an end after launching what the US called a "surprise" attack in a striking change to the pattern of fighting.

Rather than responding to a fresh American strike, Tehran chose to restart the fight itself, showing a growing willingness to use military force to shape the course of the war on its own terms.

This in turn sets the stage for fresh escalation. "We are going to beat the f**king sh*t out of them," US President Donald Trump told Fox News Wednesday morning. "We'll be hitting them hard. They're going to get a beating."

That threat could hardly have surprised Tehran, which launched its missiles knowing they might bring US bombers back.

Trump had attributed last week's pause to a request from Iran because "they asked us very nicely" and wanted talks. Tehran never publicly committed to the recent pause, although a senior Iranian official said "our armed forces also decided not to take military action."

That makes Iran's decision to resume fire all the more significant.

Hours after publicly signaling that it would match the US restraint, Tehran targeted American forces – apparently deciding that raising the pressure was worth the risk of restarting the nightly bombardment.

"Something appears to have changed fundamentally in Iran's approach, particularly regarding its willingness to initiate a strike if it considers that to be the only viable option," Hamid Reza Azizi, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, wrote on X.

Our President's propensity to posture and threaten a rain of ruin only to order a halt when somebody from Pakistan or Qatar or Oman suggests there are elements in Iran willing to talk might have remnant hardliners feeling their oats.

THE CONTINUED CASE FOR STRATEGIC PATIENCE.

After thirteen days of air strikes on and from Iran, both major combatants have paused, again, perhaps to talk.  "Airstrikes have paused and talks are pressing forward. But can the US and Iran take the off-ramp?"

RIP THE BANDAR OFF.

You'd expect to find Iran hawks such as Kevin McCullough writing for Town Hall.

The easiest decision any president can make is the one he never has to make.

Hold another meeting. Send another envoy. Extend another deadline. Issue another carefully worded statement expressing “grave concern.” Washington has turned delay into a governing philosophy, and nowhere has that habit been more dangerous than with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Forty-seven years after the ayatollahs seized power, we’re still hearing the same promise: Just give diplomacy a little more time.

President Donald Trump appears to have answered that question. Reports indicate he has approved plans to strike Iran’s deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility should Tehran continue refusing to abandon its march toward a nuclear weapon.

Process, nuance, failure.  Now that the World Cup has wrapped up and the teams and spectators are heading home, perhaps it is time to open up a can on the mullahs.

THE ILLOGIC OF MERCANTILISM.

Yesterday, Our President floated the idea of collecting payment for escort services.  I'm referring to the Arabian Gulf, get your mind out of the gutter.  National Review's Andrew McCarthy promptly and correctly flagged that proposal as illegal.

The strait was open when Trump decided to start the war. This was to the great advantage of the United States, a trading colossus with the world’s most formidable economy. If Trump were to impose tolls, fees, taxes, or whatever he deigns to call them — i.e., if he were to do exactly what Iran has been trying to do — that would induce other nations to extort payments for transit through international waters and straits of importance to international trade where they are in a position to intimidate shippers. Free trade would break down, which would be a catastrophe for nations heavily engaged in international trade, such as our own.

Congress should authorize the use of military force to keep the strait open. Still, regardless of whether one thinks the president has authority to use force to remedy a problem he created (because, however we got to this point, it is in America’s vital interest to keep the strait open), he has no authority to toll the strait, as he proposes to do.

It is entirely possible that Congress should enact legislation and/or that a binding international treaty should be forged that would reimburse the U.S. for security costs. I doubt that; I’d estimate that the benefits that the U.S. receives from free transit across the world far outweigh the costs of discouraging Iran from tolling the Hormuz Strait. But wherever you come out on that equation, a president has no authority to dictate transit taxes, and trying to do so is a provocation both constitutionally and in international relations.

I'll leave it to people who pay more attention to international affairs to evaluate whether that strait was open out of parties mutually looking the other way, the mullahs at infidels buying their oil, and the customers at the mullahs developing nuclear weapons.

WILL THE THING FINALLY BE PRESSED?

The useful idiots at Common Dreams are doing what useful idiots do.  "Iran Condemns Fresh US Bombing Campaign as ‘Serious Threat to International Peace’."  Pure projection, but isn't it the way of the abuser to accuse everybody else of being abusive?

The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned the United States’ latest round of airstrikes as a “flagrant violation” of international law that threatens to permanently derail efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the war, which US President Donald Trump launched earlier this year in coordination with the Israeli government.

This past weekend, said Iran’s Foreign Ministry, the US carried out “brutal attacks” and “acts of aggression” that pose “a serious threat to international peace and security, rendering futile all efforts made over the past several months to reduce tensions and restore stability in the West Asia region.”

For 47 years the mullahs and their revolutionary guard storm troopers have been fomenting instability and raising tensions.

CONTROLLING THE POLITICAL PIPELINE.

It's Friday, and a reinforcement of a frequent Cold Spring Shops theme, "Perhaps, instead of asking 'who is John Galt?,' dear reader, ask 'who is running for school board or mayor' and 'what is she proposing?'" is in order.

Town Hall's Ashley Evdokimo suggests that the Donk establishment enabled the Democratic Socialists (who might not really be socialists, but I digress) to position a lot of candidates through their Ahab-like obsession with the Golden Golem of Greatness rather than, to use the Sunday show locution, paying attention to the issues the American people care about.

While Republicans and Democrats have poured enormous amounts of energy into presidential politics, media cycles, and national messaging, the DSA has invested in something much less glamorous—but arguably much more important.

The political pipeline.

School boards become city councils. City councils become state legislatures. State legislators become members of Congress. Members of Congress become committee chairs, governors, Cabinet officials, and eventually party leaders. Politics has always been a farm system, and the DSA understands that.

Ironically, while much of the Democratic establishment spent years defining itself in opposition to Donald Trump, the DSA spent those same years defining the future of the Democratic Party. And unless Democrats outright say they’re against it, we can’t “trust” their alliances.

The emergence of Michael Harrington's disciples is also giving Never Trump conservatives heartburn, as they are personae non grata among Republicans and the irritated rump flexing among the Donks will have no truck with them.

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

The Memorandum of Understanding is a dead letter, kinetic actions that might not involve the United States or Israeli forces, and Dmitri Bolt advises Our President, "Iran Is Already Begging for a Deal. Don't Give Them One."  I can understand Our President's hope to leave those Iranians who are not mad Moslems, such as the ones who took advantage of the weekend of mourning to go to the beach, with the vestiges of a civilian infrastructure once the mullahs bug out.