GIVE LOGIC A CHANCE.

It's been my custom not to post reviews of Regnery books because too often the editing turns what might be solid arguments into polemics more effective at shoring up people already convinced than it is in persuading persuadable minds.  It is for that reason that I offer former representative Tulsi Gabbard's For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind as Book Review N^o. 8.

It's particularly unproductive for Regnery to have done its usual polemical work on For Love of Country as the representative was for a while active in the Bernie Sanders campaign, and has the honor of being called a "Russian asset" by Hillary Clinton while continuing her commission in the Reserves even after leaving both Congress and the Democrats.

As such, she might bring a novel perspective to both the usual Regnery ditto-heads and to voters leaning toward the Democrats or hoping to keep their independence.  The chapter headings are surely provocative.

1. The End of Our Democracy?
2. Fading Light of Freedom.
3. No Free Speech.
4. They See God as the Enemy.
5. The Elitist Cabal of Warmongers.
6. Fomenting Racism.
7. What's True?  The Powerful Decide.
8. Families Under Fire.

She concludes, "Elite politicians from both parties are terrified of our freedom and that we, the people, may actually begin to use our power."  Yes, there's an element of both-sides-ism in that observation, and yet, although she invokes a conversation with the late Daniel Ellsberg, yes, he of the Pentagon Papers, the topics and the people she brings in as anecdotes and experts are more often those familiar on the populist right rather than as onetime colleagues in the Sanders campaign.  That's unfortunate, as the Wise Experts in the age of Trump tend to either agree with or argue with and then vote for Democrats, but that second cohort includes populists of the left or in the so-called rainbow coalition who are not yet ready to write for Fox News or Pajamas Media.

Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge.

THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE MUST BE CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING THE DEPARTMENTAL MANAGERS.

Former homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson used that point to express his confidence in Our President.  “A presidency is more than just one man. I would take Joe Biden at his worst day at age 86 so long as he has people around him like Avril Haines, Samantha Power, Gina Raimondo supporting him, over Trump any day.”  Implicitly, he's noting that none of those people would be among the Trump administration's staffers.  He went on to suggest that the absence of competent senior managers might have contributed to the stupid and futile gesture at the Federal Capitol the day the electoral votes were tallied.  Member of Congress Daniel Goldman, a Democrat from New York, argued similarly.  "[L]et’s not just focus on Joe Biden here. Let’s focus on the people around him, the administration, the policies, and most importantly, the appreciation and protection for the rule of law and our democracy that Donald Trump, every single day, has vowed to take down."

The senior managers, and the worker bees on the staff, matter.  Immediately before that nationally televised debate, Our President's defenders were explaining away the "I'm going to get into trouble" and the lists of correspondents to call on as staff work.  And yes, the absence of that sort of staff late in 2016 put the Trump presidency on the back foot: even if you have only slim hopes of winning, shouldn't you at least have some sketch of a transition ready to go?  That noted, as the extent to which politicians' staffers attempt to influence the questions reporters ask is now making the newsies angry.

WILL HIGHER EDUCATION ENJOY A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM?

Richard Vedder draws an interesting inference.

The Supreme Court’s recent Chevron ruling, while rightly focusing on central issues like presidential immunity, also brought a potential boon for American higher education. This decision, which I believe holds promise for the future, has yet to be fully grasped by the higher education establishment.

Read on, though, and note the potential trade-off.

Specifically, in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, the Court invalidated the doctrine of Chevron deference prevailing since 1984. In the Chevron case, the Court dramatically curtailed the power of courts to rein in the actions of independent agencies and executive departments to overturn federal administrative diktats, which some think led to the creation of the modern administrative state.

Academicians, such as the economists who developed and refined the Welfare Economics Paradigm, have surely benefitted from the expansion of the administrative state, whether in selling graduate degrees or advising politicians or setting up side hustles as compliance (or creative noncompliance) consultants.  At the same time, the operation of the colleges and universities was subject to the resulting administrative ukases.

The recent Supreme Court decision has had a profound effect on universities. As Jon Fansmith, the chief lobbyist for the American Council of Education, aptly pointed out, “Almost every aspect of running a modern campus is dictated in some way by federal regulations or guidance—whether that’s how you make staffing, compensation, training, or enrollment decisions, all the way down to the level of what you put on your website.”

I contend that the golden age of American higher education came in the generation before the rise in federal higher education activism, which began after obtaining statutory authority with the Higher Education Act of 1965 but most notably after the creation of the U.S. Department of Education in 1978.

America’s role in creating the world’s best universities dates back to before 1965, when both private dollars and state governments helped finance the planet’s best universities. Aside from obtaining resources, these schools benefited from competition and academic diversity—different kinds of schools, some progressive, some conservative, some religious, others militantly agnostic. We did not have stultifying schools teaching a uniform curriculum with little diversity, the model in much of the rest of the world.

Yes, and on occasion a high university official will grumble about "unfunded mandates," which in general political discourse more commonly sounds like a libertarian or Republican gripe.

Whether we will see a flowering of departures from Washington Knows Best that don't look like Hillsdale or Florida New College remains to be seen.

The modern federal administrative state has robbed most universities of much of their individuality, with a few schools of the Hillsdale or Grove City College variety that have completely severed ties with the Feds escaping that fate, generally with great success. The modern-day Department of Education’s sins include the lamentable declaration of war against college men and Anglo-Saxon rules of judicial conduct with the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter that led most colleges into adopting an almost “guilty until proven innocent” attitude regarding allegations of male student sexual misconduct. The jihad towards men has contributed to a significant decline in male enrollment.

His conclusion is a call for future research.

To be sure, the fate of America’s universities depends on many things, and not all their ails are federally inflicted. To cite just one example, the rise in debilitating grade inflation roughly coincides with the growth in federal involvement, and while there may be links between those two things, they are not obvious or strong. Still, my tentative assessment is that the Supreme Court’s recent action improved the environment where higher learning occurs in America.

Or not, higher education being a safe space for pusillanimous administrators and castrated men who still fear the bicycle bar.  I'd be happy to report, five years or so from now, that Professor Vedder's tentative assessment holds up.

THE ERA OF TRAIN TOURS RESUMES.

Brightline to offer Taylor Swift sing-along trains.  For a Passenger Rail operator doing a lot to distinguish itself from conventional train companies, they're bringing back the themed train, complete with social directors.

Taylor Swift Sing-Along Trains from Orlando to the omnipresent entertainer’s upcoming series of Eras Tour shows at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

The announcement today (July 9), in conjunction with iHeart Radio, carefully avoids using Swift’s full name — no doubt to avoid potential legal issues — in announcing “an immersive Tay-keover train” for “Tay-lovers” to “The Big Concert” Oct. 18, 19, and 20. Trains will feature themed décor, DJs from Orlando radio stations, and offer photo ops and “curated bites and beverages” to Aventura, where shuttles will take them to the stadium.

There are no baggage cars in the Brightline fleet to convert, in the fashion of ski tours or fraternal organization charters, into long, narrow dance halls, although the features on offer would earn the approval of a Burlington or Boston and Maine passenger agent.  Better yet, the promotion has brought the free media in train.

But local media is not having a hard time putting two and two together, and coming up with a load of free publicity.  The Miami Herald; FOX TV stations in Orlando, Tampa Bay, and Gainesville; the NBC affiliate in Orlando are among those who have already posted articles on the trains.

“The Sing-Along Train is a fan’s dream come true, transporting guests through musical eras as they travel to The Big Concert,” Travis Christ, Brightline’s chief commercial officer, said in the press release. “This is more than a ride – it’s a first-of-its-kind immersive experience. Welcome to the Brightline era.”

Brightline's frequency is such that there will be "conventional (non-sing-along)" trains available for, oh, Disney guests or Miami Beach tourists as well as the concert-themed trains.

Two trains will run from Orlando each day, departing at 12:50 p.m. and 1:50 p.m., with tickets at $209 for Smart and $309 for Premium seats one way. There will also be late-night return trains, departing at 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m.

That's an encouraging sign.  Years ago, the Boston Commuter Rail timetables included a note that the late evening trains would not run on nights there was a concert scheduled at Boston Garden.

CONNING THE MEDIAN VOTERS TO PROTECT DEMOCRACY.

Is a Donald Trump presidency, particularly if there's gridlock in Congress and new judicial restraints on the administrative state, such an existential threat to the Republic that making stuff up to keep him out of office is right and proper?  New York Post columnist Miranda Devine gets off an only-slightly-outrageous observation about the extent of the con:  "They would have elevated a corpse to the Oval Office in 2020 if it meant dislodging Trump, and they’ve maintained the deception ever since."  Or, as Ben Shapiro put it,

[T]he Democratic Party, which nominated Joe Biden because he represents a papering-over of the vast chasms emerging between the pro-Hamas, pro-socialism wing of their party and the more sane, tax-and-regulate left, is stuck in-between. They can't dump Biden and substitute someone else -- to do so would be to admit their complicity in this debacle. And they can't keep him -- to do so would be to doom the Democratic Party to a likely Trump victory, and in the aftermath, the victory of a rebellious hard left demanding more power.

Put another way, the Democrats participated in a "rotten Faustian bargain" the people who ran the con made, and Victor "Blade of Perseus" Hanson suggests that "Democracy Dies in Deceit" is the state of play now.  We'll leave the "rebellious hard left" reprising George McGovern and Paul Wellstone for another day.

LOSING SKIPPERS BLAME THE RACE COMMITTEE.

Freedom Week culminated with another mostly peaceful weekend in Chicago.  Second City Cop almost had a pool going.

We suppose having a live counter on the blog might be a fun retirement project, but we plan on being a little more active than sitting in front of the screen, reading news sites, monitoring encrypted radio transmissions and calling in favors.

Meanwhile, HeyJackass.com (the only accurate source for statistics) has Chicago at 17 expired and 81 bleeding as of 7 AM Sunday morning.

Have we already hit 100 and no one knows it?

The city hit the century.  "You know it's bad when even the Slum Times admits one hundred people got shot."  Come Monday, the genial socialist and former schoolteacher occupying the mayor's office found a new Republican to blame for the carnage.

In recent years, Chicago’s leaders have blamed a wide range of external factors for the city’s infamous street violence. They’ve pointed fingers at Donald Trump, Indiana, Kim Foxx, and gun manufacturers, among others.

On Monday, after 108 people were shot, 19 fatally, during the Independence Day weekend, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson became the first leader to blame Richard Milhous Nixon.

“We are standing here today talking about a violent weekend because of generations of disinvestment,” Johnson told a room full of reporters.

“Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time,” Johnson claimed. “We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes and people mocked President [Lyndon] Johnson and we ended up with Richard Nixon.”

The primary reason Lyndon Johnson did not beat Richard Nixon in 1968, historians might argue, is that Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for re-election. Nixon died in 1994.

It’s also unclear how Johnson concluded that Chicagoans, who have relentlessly called on city leaders to address violent crime, are accepting of “Black death.”

I don't know, maybe sixty years of enabling dysfunction and calling it authenticity might have had something to do with that "disinvestment." The mayor, however, unwittingly channels a bit of sass from the Great Society, something like "Four thousand years ago, Moses said 'Mount your asses and your camels and I will lead you to the Promised Land.' Now Lyndon Johnson says, 'Sit on your ass, light up a Camel, this is the Promised Land.'"  And Brandon Johnson wants Lyndon Johnson to pay to fix what the Great Society destroyed.

Johnson also suggested that federal and state law enforcement agencies aren’t doing enough to help Chicago. He called on federal agencies to respond to mass shootings in Chicago “just like they do in other places in this country.”

He “hopes” the state and feds will “swiftly come to the support of the city of Chicago,” said Johnson.

Brandon in the White House, Brandon in Chicago's city hall, farce after farce after farce.  It makes for a new marketing opportunity for the folks at Hey Jackass, now offering a "Double Dick Bundle."

FREEDOM WEEK WENT INTO OVERTIME.

This year, the DeKalb band concert with fireworks took place on Independence Day, and the Kirkland fireworks closed out their several-days-long festival Saturday evening.

The pyrotechnicians set up on the high school (Kirkland Hiawatha, is ferroequinology involved?) baseball field, and apparently there is a bit of programming presented at the adjacent football field.  There is also plenty of unobstructed viewing available from front yards, where many of the residents were launching their own pyrotechnics, and along the section roads, where I set up the camera, as well as in the adjacent city park that was home to a carnival and some county-fair-like sales tents.

The video features a "call attention" salvo that preceded playing of the National Anthem, another salvo during the show plus a few of the high shots.  Somebody managed to get one of those candle-in-a-lunch bag "UFO" gags airborne and that concludes the video.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE WORKS SO WELL ON THE BLACKBOARD.

Technocracy has a number of intellectual sires, including Herbert Croly, Woodrow Wilson, and A. C. Pigou.  Paul (Foundations of Economic Analysis) Samuelson supposedly quipped that he didn't care who got elected as long as he got to write the economics textbooks.  The good news is that there are competing textbooks, such as Armen Alchian and William Allen's Universal Economics and its various precursors, including University Economics.

There is one final point I want to make about Universal Economics that underscores its value. Alchian and Allen never set up a “perfect” market as a standard against which real-world markets are judged and found wanting. They often employ thought experiments involving frictionless markets to ascertain why particular institutions or practices exist. But nowhere do you find the facile, efficiency-engineering approach that, even at introductory levels, permeates economics curricula. Economists are most definitely not plumbers according to Alchian and Allen.

That passage summarizes the structure of textbooks as envisioned by Professor Samuelson, and sets up what I describe as the Welfare Economics Paradigm.  Stated briefly, competitive markets allocate resources efficiently, markets that are not competitive produce allocative inefficiencies we can draw up on a blackboard, and if we can draw them up on a blackboard we can prescribe fixes for all of them.

I've devoted many a post to the ways the structure-conduct-performance approach to industrial economics and competition policy comes up short. In the Pigou-Samuelson world, the monopoly has the ability to raise prices above marginal costs and impose deadweight losses on consumers.  That companies might pursue monopoly by improving products and selling them more cheaply, and increase consumer welfare, that is, the approach to competition policy one Joseph Biden saw as so subversive he and Edward Kennedy had to keep Robert Bork off the Supreme Court, didn't make it into Foundations or into the applied welfare economics approach that serves as an operating manual for Democrats.

Suppose the demand and cost conditions were such that one firm could undersell any combination of two or more smaller firms and it made no sense to break it up?  Well, if you can draw the cost curves, you can surely draw up a regulatory commission and have those Disinterested Experts determine the fair prices and provide a reasonable return on investment.  The problem with that approach, as Leonard Weiss, no Austrian School type he, noted years ago is that businesses learn what their costs are by doing: no such market test exists for regulated monopolies.  About the best you can do is have the regulators make their rulings and let the courts sort it out.  In that tale is the origin of the administrative state, ultimately the field of administrative law, and the concept we know as Chevron deference.  We'll continue the tale, and the fallout from Chevron's recent reversal, below the jump.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR.

You'd think five cuts in a fourteen second video challenging Donald Trump to a debate might tell you something about how with it Dementia Joe was.

Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate.

Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again.

Well, make my day, pal. pic.twitter.com/AkPmvs2q4u

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 15, 2024

I've had a little practice editing videos, but if you see a jump cut it wasn't a presidential brain short circuiting or a president's train of thought jumping the tracks.  Oh, and pro tip for layout builders: have enough of the scenery roughed in that when a train leaves the tracks it doesn't go to the next level down or to the floor.

Then came the presidential debate, and Power Line's John Hinderaker found a truly inspired riposte to it.

Who did this pic.twitter.com/zP55AIUY5i

— 𝗡𝗶𝗼𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗴 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) June 28, 2024

Mr Hinderaker correctly notes, "To be fair, though, Miss Teen South Carolina was far more coherent, and certainly more lively and likable, than President Joe Biden."

It's not that we weren't warned, as Pajamas Media's Stephen Kruiser noted.  "As recently as last Wednesday, anyone who pointed out that he's a train wreck was accused of making it up."  An editorial comment from Pravda-on-the-Hudson caught by Heather MacDonald also didn't age well.  "People are going to see actual footage [during the debate] that contradicts that [cognitive decline narrative]."  Oops, indeed.

We did not run a Friday short takes on Freedom Week Friday.  That post likely would have had a prelude entirely on the debate fallout, and that prelude continues below the jump.

DEPART DOING SOMETHING YOU ENJOY.

Forty years ago, Detroit turned its downtown streets over to Formula motor racing, something that went on in Chicago over the weekend.  Among the human interest stories that came out back in the day was a conversation between a driver and a spectator, something along the lines of the spectator asking, "Isn't that dangerous?"  The driver responded, "Do you intend to die in bed?" following up with "How do you get into that thing each evening?"  The message being something along the lines of the post's title.

So it might have been with Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders.

The former Apollo 8 astronaut best known for taking the iconic “Earthrise” photo, who died last month while piloting a plane over the waters off Washington state, was doing a flyby near a friend's house when the fatal accident occurred, federal authorities said Tuesday.

William Anders, whose “Earthrise” photo showed the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, had texted a friend to say he planned to do a flyby near her house on the western shore of Orcas Island, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary report.

The friend said Anders' flybys were not unusual, according to the NTSB. She said that he typically did two flybys, and while he sometimes rocked the airplane wings, "he never performed any kind of aerobatic maneuvers.”

Around 11:37 a.m. on June 7, the friend began to hear the “familiar” noise of his airplane, the NTSB said. Shortly after, she saw the older-model Beech A45 overhead traveling north along the shore in front of her house.

She briefly lost sight of the plane as it flew behind trees. When she saw it come back into view it was heading south and flying over the water. After it passed by, she saw the left wing drop and thought it was part of his routine. But the wing continued to drop as the plane plummeted toward the water below.

The early classes of astronauts were recruited from test pilots, and having the right stuff to take risks is what made "Earthrise" and the moon landings possible.  News accounts give the make of the plane as a Beech A45 or as a T-34 Mentor, once a test pilot, always a test pilot.

Rand "Transterrestrial Musings" Simberg, who knew General Anders, offers a retrospective.

He was the astronaut who took the iconic photo of the whole Earth from the Moon on his trip around it on Apollo 8, which was the actual moment when we won the space race. And it became the icon for the environmental movement, for good or ill.

I consider myself privileged to consider him a friend, and I’ll explain why anon, but for now, farewell, yet another hero of that era, who (unlike many of his Apollo cohorts) understood how important commercial space was.

Commercial space is still space, and the risks of exploring are still real.  R. I. P.

PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF.

Cold Spring Shops will be taking Freedom Week off.  That might include suitably decorated trains on preservation railroads.

Yes, Independence Day has become a contested holiday of late.  And yes, in the end of Chevron deference does this nation enjoy a new birth of freedom, this time from swarms of domestically appointed officers who harass the people and eat out their substance.

Major or minor, the number of questions decided by agencies has proliferated over the course of generations. For more than a century, distrust of the electorate and the ceding of more and more power to the unelected—the phenomenon associated with the Progressive Era—was the dominant paradigm of governing. The vast bulk of the executive branch became insulated from elected officials without serious challenge, even as the everyday experience of citizens rendered the notion of the superior competence of government bureaucrats ridiculous. More recently, the battle lines have been drawn as conservatives recognized the problem with a system that had departed from the structural Constitution of the Founders

That's the kind of thing that could structure a unit in my survey of political economy class back in the day, and yes, a post on Chevron and the administrative state might be in the works.  Not until sometime in July.  The Friday short takes will take a long Fourth of July weekend next week.

Thanks for looking in.  Find yourself a fireworks display, an Independence Day parade, a preservation railway, a cookout fundraiser for a local civic organization and go to it.  There will be time to fret about the State of the Republic after that.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

That didn't age well.  "'There is nothing wrong with Joe Biden' is elite misinformation."

BIDEN: *rambles incoherently about his failure to secure the border*

TRUMP: "I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either." pic.twitter.com/lxBpOVeTqJ

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 28, 2024

Donald Trump's restraint was remarkable.

This was the kill shot pic.twitter.com/kEYrVCTHNu

— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) June 28, 2024

The projection from the Jarrett regency is spectacular.

This is Trump’s Project 2025 pic.twitter.com/BpDo3rIK4r

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) June 25, 2024

Spectacular, and projection, and yet, in character.  "The truth is that Joe Biden has always been an evil and avaricious man who has never given a damn about anyone but himself."  Even Snopes Says that Joe Biden's Favorite Talking Point is a Lie.  Yes, and Donald Trump was disciplined enough to ding him on it.

No doubt, though, there are people who will respect Dementia Joe's maunderings about legislation and regulation.  "This seems self-evident, but perhaps there are some parents out there who think that burning-hot playground equipment would be appropriate for the little tykes.  You know, maybe to clear things up, safety commissioners should just send out an explanatory flyer. Of course, if they do, they would need to remind the recipients that eating a glossy trifold is not recommended. Nor is folding it into a paper airplane and launching it into one's eye. And people probably should not wad up little bits of the flyer and tamp them up their nose or into their ear canals or any other orifices. Soon enough, we will need safety guidance to protect us from the safety guidance."

Or they'll continue to pine for the Big Rock Candy Mountain.  "Young people think emotionally rather than logically, especially when attending a university, but as they pay more attention and get out of their bubble, they realize that what the Democrats are selling -- free college tuition, the Green New Deal, and Medicare for All -- is only a fantasy. They preach about things that sound good, particularly to college students, talking points that make it seem like Democrats care about the people when in reality, the policies are nearly impossible to enact. "

Not that our major party choices are improved by last night's show. "The difference between baseball and politics, of course, is that baseball’s administration holds its cheats accountable. Oddly, we demand higher standards in baseball, which keeps the biggest liars, frauds, and cheats out of the Hall of Fame. In politics, we elect them to the presidency."  Can they both lose?  "Biden’s longevity and Trump’s resilience suggest that perhaps soufflés, which are mostly air, actually can rise repeatedly. Which is strange."

We are in uncharted waters.  A hard rain is falling.  "You can deny reality for only so long, and the longer you deny it, the harder it will hit when it finally does break through. I don't just mean trying to hide Biden's increasing senescence. I'm talking about all the tough decisions that Washington denies they have to make about the budget, the debt, the impending bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare, the perilous condition of our military, and so much more."  We know who bats last.

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

THE COURT INTELLECTUALS WEIGH IN.

Sixteen economists who have earned a Nobel, including two with knighthoods, recently signed a public letter endorsing the continuation of the Biden presidency's policies.

While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump’s. In his first four years as President, Joe Biden signed into law major investments in the U.S. economy, including in infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, and climate. Together, these investments are likely to increase productivity and economic growth while lowering long-term inflationary pressures and facilitating the clean energy transition. During Joe Biden’s presidency we have also seen a remarkably strong and equitable labor market recovery—enabled by his pandemic stimulus. An additional four years of Joe Biden’s presidency would allow him to continue supporting an inclusive U.S. economic recovery.

Make of it what you will that Paul Krugman is not among the signatories.  It's premature to assign any causation to any current changes in macroeconomic policy, and the consequences of the real debt ceiling might have effects on "productivity and economic growth" that will come as a surprise, particularly where those inflationary pressures are concerned; and driver reluctance to buy those enclosed golf carts is real.

DON'T EXPRESS IMPURE THOUGHTS.

Current Harvard dean of social sciences Lawrence Bobo recently offered advice somewhere along those lines to his colleagues who have public forums, or something.

Vigorous debate is to be expected and encouraged at any University interested in promoting freedom of expression. But here is the rub: As the events of the past year evidence, sharply critical speech from faculty, prominent ones especially, can attract outside attention that directly impedes the University’s function.

A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs. Along with freedom of expression and the protection of tenure comes a responsibility to exercise good professional judgment and to refrain from conscious action that would seriously harm the University and its independence.

Internal discussion on key policy matters can occasion sharp differences of opinion. The expression of diverse, conflicting positions, especially those advanced with passion and conviction, is the stuff of a healthy intellectual community. Academic departments, faculty meetings, town halls, and campus publications should be regular forums for participation in University governance.

But many faculty at Harvard enjoy an external stature that also opens to them much broader platforms for potential advocacy.

Well, yes, and, well, using your stature as a scholar in one field to spout off about something unrelated has long been one of the fringe benefits of the job.  As ... which the dean seems to be objecting to now ... is the opportunity to participate in rallies or serve as court intellectual to a political party.  No, seriously.  Only, it appears he is suggesting, don't suggest university complicity in the Vietnam War.

Would it simply be an ordinary act of free speech for those faculty to repeatedly denounce the University, its students, fellow faculty, or leadership? The truth is that free speech has limits — it’s why you can’t escape sanction for shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.

Following similar logic: Is it acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to encourage civil disobedience on the part of students that violates University policies? Faculty advocacy for actions clearly identified as in violation of student conduct rules is extremely problematic. Doing so after students have received official notification of a potential serious infraction is not acceptable. Such behavior should have sanctionable limits as well.

That's "falsely" shouting fire, but between that caveat and my invocation of the Vietnam War I'm showing my age.  The dean's closing paragraphs, though, sound more like the archbishop reminding the priests and seminarians that Satan always lurks, tempting the unwary with false doctrine.

As Harvard has moved to limit its opining on salient public issues, we must use our voices as faculty responsibly. Do we allow individual faculty with large external platforms to invite external interference and encourage student misconduct without consequence?

With unprecedented freedom comes great responsibility. These are matters the leadership of this university must address directly if we are to avert a troubling recurrence of the historic challenges that have unsettled life on our campus over the past nine months.

I don't require much persuasion to see a failure of stewardship on the part of higher education's adminstrators and faculty, nor am I surprised when public officials get tired of being poked in the eye. "Where the faculty refuse to exercise proper stewardship, the trustees, and, where applicable, the legislators, must throw the challenge flag."

THE EMERGENCE OF INTRAMODAL COMPETITION.

My impression from the beginning of Florida's Brightline service was that it was an attempt to provide upscale intercity transportation in the manner of Amtrak's Acela, and I wondered how two very different services would coexist bringing sports fans into Miami, whether for basketball or for Stanley Cup finals of all things.  "The upcoming professional basketball tournament will feature contrasting approaches to Commuter Rail and Regional Rail service. Brightline and the Miami Heat have a partnership, and fans will be able to get to Heat games either on Brightline or the city's more traditional Commuter Rail operator that terminates at Amtrak's former Seaboard Air Line station."  I had similar reservations about Brightline working with the Orlando area Commuter Rail operator with shared stations.

What I did not see was the Miami Commuter Rail operator responding to the competition with express commuter trains of their own.

A new Tri-Rail express train promises to cut travel times for people heading to and from Miami.

The South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) unveiled its new one-seat service between West Palm Beach and the MiamiCentral station. The agency claims the line will cut at least a half-hour of the typical commute time between the two cities.

"We are thrilled to unveil this new enhancement to our train service,” SFRTA Executive Director Dave Dech explained. “By offering a one-seat ride and reducing travel time, we aim to provide an enhanced commuting experience for our passengers and attract new riders to Tri-Rail."

When the service begins, the train will pull out of West Palm Beach at 6:30 a.m. and it is expected to arrive at its destination at 8:05 a.m. An evening rout [c.q.] will depart MiamiCentral at 5:35 p.m.

The intermediate stops are Boca Raton, where Brightline recently saw the wisdom of building a station, Fort Lauderdale, but closer to the airport than Brightline, and the transfer station to Miami's Metro Rail, which is to say the local rapid transit.  Brightline apparently are handling enough intercity travellers between Orlando and Miami that they're no longer selling the multi-ride passes commuters on the original Miami - Fort Lauderdale - West Palm run were enjoying.  Perhaps these faster commuter trains on Tri Rail will attract some passengers.

Nowhere, though, do the competing Passenger Rail operators work together.  Amtrak will not carry passengers locally between Naperville and LaGrange Road, where the Quincy services call, whilst Metra operate Naperville Zephyrs as well as other rush-hour dinkies making their first stop at LaGrange or Hinsdale or Downer's Grove.  Nor, I suspect, will Sun Rail or Tri Rail tickets be good on Brightline, let alone on the two long distance Amtrak trains using the former Seaboard metals.

WE KNOW THERE'S A PALACE GUARD MEDIA.

Maybe Dementia Joe is engaging in political theater to provide them with cover.  "White House Correspondents Push Back After Joe Biden Grouses Over Reporters Not 'Playing By The Rules.'"

Never underestimate Joe's ability to, well, you know ...

Appearing at the press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden took a question from Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove.

Wingrove asked the president if he would give his assessment of Hamas’ response to the latest ceasefire proposal. “Do you believe that they are trying to work towards a deal or is this response against a deal?” Wingrove asked.

Biden responded, “I wish you guys would play by the rules a little bit. I’m here to talk about a critical situation in Ukraine and you asked me about another subject.” Earlier in the press conference, Colleen Long of the Associated Press asked a Ukraine-related question and another one about his son Hunter’s conviction.

The president said he would answer the question about Hamas in detail later, but said that, when it comes to the ceasefire deal, “the biggest hangup so far is Hamas refusing to sign on even though they have submitted something similar. Whether it comes to fruition remains to be seen.”

NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, later issued a statement pushing back on the notion that reporters had agreed to a set of “rules” on what could be asked.

“The White House Correspondents’ Association believes it is in the public interest to make clear that at a presidential press conference, at home or abroad, there are no preconditions regarding question topics.

“While the White House does determine the number of reporters the president will recognize, it is up to professional journalists to decide what to ask. Any leader may prefer that reporters ask only one question or ask only about a topic that is of most interest to the president or another world leader, but a free press functions independently.”

She added, “WHCA would welcome more opportunities to pose a range of questions to the president in a press conference setting.”

It's possible for sympathetic pundits to cover for Dementia Joe talking about "I'm going to get into trouble ..." by noting that any senior leader has staff responsible for keeping him on schedule; the same might be true of the staffers providing a list of reporters who have been briefed in on recent events.  It's a marriage of convenience too far, though, to have a president insisting that the questions be those he is accustomed to.  Even though you don't have to be a suspicious Trumpian or a Pajamas Media stringer to think of the Washington press corps as Democrat operatives with bylines.

THE GOAL OF ANY ORGANIZATION IS SURVIVAL.

City Journal contributor John Tierney rediscovers the principle.

In the spring of 1979, a few weeks after the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, more than 65,000 people marched on the United States Capitol chanting “No Nukes, No Nukes.” As a young reporter at the Washington Star assigned to cover this new movement, I interviewed march organizers and noticed that all of them had previously organized protests against the Vietnam War. This struck me as curious: How had they suddenly become so passionate and knowledgeable about nuclear power?

I later learned that a term exists for this phenomenon—the March of Dimes syndrome—and that the tendency affects many other movements, too. Why, last year, did the Human Rights Campaign declare a “national state of emergency” for LGBT people? Why was the election of the first black American president followed by the Black Lives Matter movement? Why have reports of “hate groups” risen during the same decades that racial prejudice has been plummeting? Why, during a long and steep decline in the incidence of sexual violence in America, did academics, federal officials, and the #MeToo movement discover a new “epidemic of sexual assault”?

These supposed crises are all examples of the March of Dimes syndrome, named after the organization founded in the 1930s to combat polio. The March helped fund the vaccines that eventually ended the polio epidemics—but not the organization, which, after polio’s eradication, changed its mission to preventing birth defects. Its leaders kept their group going by finding a new cause, just as antiwar activists did after achieving their goal of ending the Vietnam War. The Three Mile Island accident offered new fund-raising opportunities and a new platform for veterans of the antiwar movement such as Jane Fonda and her husband Tom Hayden, who both addressed the crowd at that first antinuke rally.

For career activists, success is a threat. They can never declare mission accomplished.

The March of Dimes came up in a management theory class fifty years ago as an illustration of the survival principle.  In their case, it might have been an extreme example: you had President Roosevelt encouraging the donations for polio research, an effort that to this day is honored by his face on the dime, and there was encouraging research on live and killed viruses that culminated in two vaccines.  There was also, as the previous sentence hints at, quite the promotional and fundraising apparatus, there might even be car cards in transit vehicles of the era, and once the polio vaccine succeeded, it's not as if there weren't other medical challenges to go after.  I recall the promotional materials that were distributed in schools, one of them showed an archer having scored a bulls-eye on polio and taking aim at birth defects, which was the term at the time.  There was a third target, might have been muscular dystrophy, and yes, I'm showing my age, that became Jerry Lewis's cause; and yet there are plenty of challenges to the health of the moms and the babies alike to keep the fundraising going.

THE IRRELEVANCE OF THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE.

Saturday's rollout of restored Milwaukee trackless trolley car 441 featured sister Marmon trolley 9631 from Chicago on the photo line.

Trackless trolley cars remained in service on a few North Side routes into the early 1970s, by which time holding up bus drivers for their coin changers had become frequent enough that the transit companies went to exact fare (in those days, that meant keeping coins on hand) and this car is running in its as retired livery.

There are collectors who have preserved a variety of external and internal transit advertising cards, and the Illinois Railway Museum have enough such cards to provide era-and-locality correct cards for Chicago, Milwaukee, or Cleveland cars, to name three.  It's the specific dash card on 9631 that provides the transfer to the Fairness Doctrine.

EVERYTHING IS JUST FINE.

Years ago, The Washington Monthly took issue with the Carter administration with the hopes of continuing the "got a problem, get a program" ethos in the Federal Capital, and even a botched surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban didn't disconcert them.

It should therefore come as no surprise that they're all-in on continuing his faux dictatorship of populist error.

When European heads of state look at Joe Biden, they see an accomplished world-historic leader.

An aging world-historic leader, to be sure. Joke: How old is Joe Biden? He’s so old that when NATO leaders gather at their July summit in Washington, Biden will be the only one born before the organization was founded 75 years ago.

But as Biden’s age has advanced, so too has his clout and respect within the alliance. It was Biden who warned European leaders in early 2022 that Vladimir Putin was going to send his military into Ukraine, a warning many of them initially refused to believe. When the invasion happened as predicted, it was Biden who rallied Western and other allied countries to Ukraine’s defense. It was also Biden who authorized a dramatic increase in U.S. natural gas exports to Europe as Russia cut off supplies. It was Biden who picked up the phone and called the heads of Finland and Sweden with a quiet suggestion that they join NATO. And it was Biden and his team who overcame the resistance of Turkey and Hungary to make NATO expansion a reality, thus turning Putin’s military quagmire into a geo-strategic disaster for Russia.

No president since Ronald Reagan has more successfully wielded influence in the Western alliance. Yet Biden has also overturned one of Reagan’s greatest legacies, Reaganomics, and replaced that free market “neoliberal” ideology with an economic vision of his own, Bidenomics. Instead of cutting safety net programs, Biden vastly expanded them during the pandemic. Instead of encouraging corporate monopolies, his administration is charging them with antitrust violations. Instead of “letting the market decide” all matters of economic development, his government is providing hundreds of billions of dollars to encourage private investment in green energy and microchip manufacturing on American soil.

We still have no idea what the end conditions for Ukraine will be, let alone whether that will lead to a "geo-strategic disaster for Russia;" nor does the return of "got a problem, get a program" promise something other than Carter era stagflation and malaise.  And restoring the structure-conduct-performance paradigm to antitrust enforcement?  Spare me.

The Monthly, though, offer what might be a serious case for the continuation of the Biden presidency, one based on traditional, if wrong, notions of What Governing Is, and it rewards careful study.

THERE ARE LIMITS TO PRESIDENTIAL POWERS.

Inside Higher Education contributor Katherine Knott finds out.  "Two federal judges on Monday dealt different blows to the administration’s generous income-driven loan repayment plan. What does that mean for borrowers awaiting relief?" No, seriously, this is, after all, the house organ for business as usual in higher ed.  How else can the advocacy for all wokeness, all the time, go on if the supply of culture-studies majors dries up?

After forgiving $5.5 billion in student loans for 414,000 borrowers, the Biden administration won’t be able to wipe out the balances for any additional borrowers under its new income-driven repayment plan.

More than eight million borrowers are enrolled in the plan known as a Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, which is designed to make payments more affordable and offer a quicker pathway to forgiveness for borrowers, depending how much they initially took out in loans to pay for their education.

Federal judges in Missouri and Kansas handed down orders Monday evening dealing dual setbacks to SAVE, which has become a centerpiece of the president’s efforts to overhaul the student loan system. The Missouri judge blocked the administration from doling out any additional debt relief under SAVE, while the Kansas judge’s order prevents the department from implementing the other parts of the program set to take effect July 1.

An unconstitutional ukase issued under a twee acronym is still an unconstitutional ukase, all the happy talk about "quicker pathway to forgiveness" notwithstanding.  Moreover, that Our President is issuing unconstitutional ukases points out another failing, namely that Congress did not write a "The Secretary shall issue regulations" clause into some reward to rent seekers, which would have made the vote buying a lot easier.

In a nutshell, both judges found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their lawsuits because the department lacked the authority to make such significant changes to the income-driven repayment plan. The injunctions are temporary and maintain the status quo while the courts consider the lawsuits.  (Note: This paragraph has been updated to more accurately describe the rulings.)

Neither order rolls back the relief already provided. But undergraduate borrowers won’t see their monthly payments cut in half unless the Kansas court order is reversed on appeal. Borrowers who are not a part of SAVE won’t be affected, as the lawsuits only challenged that plan.

That's alright, the rest of Dementia Joe's unconstitutional vote-buying scheme is in legal limbo, and if he attempts to demagogue it during the campaign, he's likely to further antagonize likely Trump voters who either paid off their student loans or didn't go to college in the first place.

ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT PROPERLY CARED FOR WILL LAST A LONG TIME.

Saturday the Illinois Railway Museum reintroduced Milwaukee trackless trolley car 441, which recently went to an off-site auto body restorer for extensive restoration.

During the rededication, sister Marmon 9631 from Chicago and Milwaukee 269, a St. Louis Car Company product, joined the photo line.  The 269 still shows the effects of years slopping through Milwaukee's salty wintertime streets, and passengers can not yet ride as neither the forward nor aft stairwells are safe.  The operator has to be acrobatic to get on and off.

I don't know the past history of this trackless trolley other than that it was purchased by a bus enthusiast.  Once upon a time there was a St. Louis from Milwaukee (the squinty rear windows are the tell) grounded as a hunting cabin on County Highway W west of Crivitz, Wisconsin, and other trackless trolleys found new life in similar Up Nort' uses.  A few of them might still be available for preservation, although with preservation railways discovering they can't economically retrieve wood or steel interurbans that found a second life as backwoods cabins or chicken coops might give enthusiasts pause.

The museum announced announced a fundraising campaign to have 269 sent to the same body works that restored 441.  The mechanical workings are in good enough shape that it came out to the ceremony using its motor the way the Mechanical Department intended.

The trackless trolley cars were a way numerous urban electric railways attempted to make continued use of the overhead wire while avoiding the assessments for street repairs and the ongoing expenditure on track repairs.  Too often, though, the upgrade cycle was use the scrap value from the streetcars and the rails to pay for the trackless trolleys, then use the scrap value from the trackless trolleys and the wire to pay for new look buses, and when those buses wore out, find a way to sell the service to the county.  And now the new look buses are also in transportation museums, including at Union.

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE.

To Outside the Beltway political scientist Steven Taylor, it exists, but it's not exactly clear.  "I am not going to try and go deeply into any of this at the moment but will note that just like it is difficult to convince a lot of Americans that inflation, for example, is a global phenomenon, so too it is often overlooked the degree to which this political moment of nationalist/populist/reactionary politics is also global and not just a Trump-based phenomenon."

I don't know, maybe over a quarter century of elite failure might have something to do with it.

The public health establishment, as Kennedy observes, could hardly have failed more miserably than it did during Covid. Its ugly authoritarian streak and myopic worldview were both on full display. Public health officials amazingly denied the existence of natural immunity, stubbornly insisted on the efficacy of masks, and blithely suggested that they couldn’t care less whether locking down the economy and shutting kids out of schools caused the ruination of many thousands of businesses, the borrowing of many trillions of dollars, and the impoverishing of many millions of childhoods. Public health officials also wildly asserted, in the words of Biden’s CDC director Rochelle Walensky, that “vaccinated people do not carry the virus” and “don’t get sick”—a claim shown to be pure nonsense.

Yet Covid merely shined a spotlight on a public health establishment whose ineptitude, self-interestedness, insulation, and indifference to genuine scientific inquiry dates back at least 40 years, to the AIDS crisis. Instead of having independent research be conducted by inquisitive, truth-seeking scientists from coast to coast, almost all such research has been funneled through a small cabal of interested individuals who control, shape, and limit that research. Essentially all of the money for such research flows through the federal government, and only those who toe the party line get the government’s—that is, the taxpayers’—money.

That's Tom Klingenstein's colleague Jeffrey Anderson reviewing Robert Kennedy's campaign manifesto, The Real Anthony Fauci.  Make of the review and the arguments what you will, and yet a sponsored research establishment that has become rent-seeking and censorious didn't inspire confidence, Mr Kennedy even quotes Ike warning us (“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”); and over half a century of inconclusive nation-building wars and a foreign policy establishment that cannot offer a coherent principle applicable in Gaza and Eastern Ukraine alike, and apparently you can't fix poverty by throwing printed money at it.  Bring up such things, though, and the palace guard media will "fact check" you.

One would think that a free press corps would call out the public health bureaucrats over such ludicrous claims, which could easily have been checked. But as Kennedy observes, “The now-popular term ‘misinformation’ has come to mean any expression that departs from official orthodoxies.” Those who depart must be rebuked or censored by the mainstream press and social media.

Scolding Normals that it's better here than it is in Britain or Germany, let alone Venezuela, isn't the argument Professor Taylor thinks it is.  Your condescension and preening about your good intentions and appealing to arguments that don't work off the chalkboard no longer impresses.

GRIDLOCK IS GOOD.

If politicians devote their waking hours to expanding their power, Constitution be damned, the best voters might be able to do is to fill the Federal Capitol with elected officials who have different ideas about how best to expand their power.

We know that didn't happen.  "Donald Trump was his own worst enemy, and his grievance tour in Georgia might have done more for the Jarrett regency than any of the efforts of the soon to be former representative [Liz Cheney], or the establishmentarian squishes of Conservative, Inc."  I maintain that the electorate voted for gridlock in 2020, and Mr Trump's Georgia machinations gave the coot just enough of a governing majority in Congress to give us Malaise 2.0.

Something similar appears to be shaping up now, or perhaps what was simmering is starting to boil, but with the colors reversed.  " There's a slice of the electorate that is frustrated with Biden but sticking with the party on the state level."  Well, yeah, even Donald Trump gets that at some level, in one of his weekend rallies he went on at length about soft on crime prosecutors in the big cities: it's the school boards and city councils that matter more than the presidency.  The problem with thirty years plus of the national parties doing everything they can to jam through as much of their less incrementalist agendas is that eventually the public tires of the perpetual crisis-mongering.  "In the Trump era, split-ticket voting has appeared all but dead, but some voters now are hinting they may want more checks and balances than the take-no-prisoners approach of the last eight years."

BRACING SKEGNESS.

It appears as if the younger Royals are in the beach-going spirit.

Buckingham Palace confirm that the Princess of Wales herself took the photo somewhere in Norfolk.

There aren't that many beach days along the North Sea, as residents of the Upper Lakes will understand.

WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, BUY A PACKER JERSEY.

Cheese Makes You Happy And Could Boost Healthy Aging.

A huge genetic analysis has found that people with better mental well-being tend to live longer and healthier – and certain lifestyle choices, like eating more cheese, could play a significant role in that effect.

Researchers in China didn't comb through the genes of millions of Europeans only to show that gouda is good-a for you, but that is one of the more attention-grabbing results. After all, who doesn't want to be told that eating more cheese will help them live longer and healthier lives?

Still, there's a lot more to the findings than just eating foods that make you feel happy.

Past observational studies have found that happiness can have an impact on how a person ages, even more so than smoking. But these are just associations that could be confounded by other, overlooked factors, such as socioeconomic status.

There's no mention of Packer jerseys among those confounding factors, which doesn't rule their ownership as contributing to your good cheer.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

Likewise.  "We're done trying to make sense of this nonsense. We'd prefer just to mock it."

That illustration might be a derivation of the workings of the Welfare Economics Paradigm.  You have to look hard for the errors that are designed in.  "Governance in the hands of self-appointed experts tends to spark backlash.  Without democratic accountability, the further technocratic governance reaches, the greater resistance it arouses."  Particularly when the experts keep getting it wrong.  They need to show their work.

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

NO. NEXT QUESTION?

Today's demonstration that there's no common sense at Common Dreams comes from Stephen Zunes.  "Can Biden Learn From 1968 Before It’s Too Late?"  For purposes of this post let us understand that it is not Biden learning, rather it is his puppet masters.  The premise of Mr Zunes's column, though, is amusing.  "In order to get the necessary turnout among young people, minorities, and progressives to prevent a Republican victory in November, the Biden administration needs to change its policies, and soon."  I don't know that the parallel works: in 1968 Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, and George Wallace all were pretty clear on where they stood on things, and nobody tried the conjuring trick of running Dementia Joe as some sort of not-quite-crazy Democrat until you looked at the platform, but who ever pays attention to party platforms?  Perhaps we should have.  "Dementia Joe is trapped.  His Justice Department is still holding people who trespassed in and disrupted day-to-day political activities in the Federal Capitol: should he shout out a Right on! to people occupying landmark buildings at Columbia or UCLA, the Trump ads would write themselves."

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LEGAL RESIDENCY BY DECREE.

The positive theory of immigration amnesties, starting with a maintained hypothesis that the underground economy serves as a sort of apprenticeship, is too crass for Sensitive People.  Thus we get either protracted tussles in successive Congresses over some sort of procedural reform, or presidents issuing ukases.  Those bring a different sort of troubles, as Outside the Beltway's James Joyner, describing "a morally right but politically fraught move," explains.

I’m more of a stickler for the rules than most but it’s really hard to make a good moral argument for deporting people married to American citizens because they didn’t have permission to be in the country at the time of the ceremony. While there are doubtless some small percentage of people who get married to game the immigration system, the overwhelming number of these people are simply building lives together and starting (or have long since started) families. Sending them back to their countries of origin, and thus separating them from their family, for months or even years would be unconscionably cruel.

At the same time, it’s not obvious to me that this is a sound political move. I’m skeptical that the number of “mixed families” in battleground states outweighs the percentage wanting to crack down harder on the border.

Well, yeah, a few high-profile crimes with illegal aliens held as suspects will do that.  Moreover, it is only fitting and proper that if people, whether as establishmentarian political scientists or as Democrats and their court intellectuals, vest all their hopes in a president, that the blame will land in the Oval Office, sooner or later.  "There’s no reason at all to doubt that Americans writ large are frustrated by our border policies and, unfair though it may be, blame Biden as the incumbent President."  Live by the executive order, die by the executive order.  His conclusion, though, suggests that the past century has been the most roundabout journey from Ellis Island to Ellis Island.  "Biden is on the right side of the issue, wanting to toughen border enforcement and end the abuse of the asylum system while treating folks who have been here for years in violation of our immigration laws with some sense of humanity. We’ll see whether that pays off politically."

LET'S UNDO THE FATAL CONCEITS.

As long as I'm in a taking-dim-views mood, let's recall, dear reader, why Technocracy Fails.  "Technocrats, you see, are pretty good at pulling the right policy levers, and Wise Experts can always design legislation and write the subsequent rules to Improve The General Welfare."

Alas, in Washington, a lot of that designing and rewriting slipped from the hands of The People's Representatives to what the Militant Normals like to call "unelected bureaucrats," and Congress was fine to leave the grunt work to others, and Separation of Powers wasn't something for courts to worry about.

I could set this post to a Sixties rhyming chant: Two! Four! Six! Eight! Smash the Administrative State!  We've already called attention to the overreach.  "The Environmental Protection Agency allocation tsar recently set hand and seal to ukases requiring multiple changes in the personal automobiles and in the commercial trucking business."

Perhaps, notes Reason contributor Veronique de Rugy, not for much longer.  "The Supreme Court May Be on the Brink of Radically Restricting Bureaucrats' Power."  The problem, she notes, combines legislative lassitude with specialist ambition.

The United States Constitution vests all legislative powers in Congress. Yet, over the past century, we've witnessed a disturbing trend of legislators increasingly delegating much of the authority to set the laws that govern the land to the executive branch, which includes unelected officials at administrative agencies. This undermines democratic accountability, contributes to government bloat and abuse of powers, and disrupts the balance of power crafted so carefully by the Framers.

Reasserting congressional authority is essential for maintaining a balanced government and ensuring that policies reflect voters' wishes. It's also the best hope for promoting economic freedom and growth. Unfortunately, getting Congress to stop evading its authority is an uphill battle. After all, we're talking about an institution that systematically fails to do another of its primary jobs by passing legitimate budgets on a timely basis.

Nevertheless, there is some light at the end of the tunnel, as the Supreme Court might soon stop being so deferential to executive branch agencies in interpreting the laws set by Congress.

In doing so, the Court is going to upset both Business as Usual and the teaching and research plans of political economists.  For Business as Usual has meant Congress not concerning itself with the details of regulation (craft a bill with an appealing title, put "It is the intent of Congress that ..." in the preamble, and conclude each section with "The Secretary shall issue regulations ..., which means, in practice, some task force of newly-hired Master of Public Administration types draft the regulations) in part because getting the details right is work (can you imagine Jasmine Crockett and Marjorie Greene on fisheries or retention toilets on trains) and in part because years of Academic Accomplishments argue in favor of these Issues as Too Subtle for Laymen.  (Thus, too, did the reading of the entrails of chickens become Holy.)  Moreover, there was enough in the way of those academic arguments to the effect that courts were of limited utility in balancing the conflicting claims, and thus best defer to those rookie public officials, who ... are unelected bureaucrats.)

LET'S PRETEND THAT PASSING LEGISLATION IS GOVERNING.

I'm no fan of "got a problem, get a program."

Perhaps the voters who voted were not in favor of Doing Anything More, and at least some of the eligible voters who didn't vote didn't see that What Was Done worked. If What Was Done had more than a little rent-seeking in it, all the better.

Thus, I'm not impressed with recent claims by acolytes of the Jarrett regency to put their figurehead president figuratively on Mt. Rushmore.  Recently Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin went to the virtual Recombobulation Area to make a video, transcript not yet released.  A service called Wisconsin Right Now released the pretense I call attention to.  "Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin insists that the Joe Biden presidency is 'one of the most successful administrations in generations. In terms of legislative accomplishments, it is one of the most successful administrations in generations. And passing legislation that will have generational impact, that will unfold over the next decade, is really striking.'"

THEY'RE MUCH MORE USEFUL AS FIGURES OF FUN.

Donald Trump might be up in the presidential preference polls, and that's scaring the usual suspects.  Rachel Maddow recently appeared as guest on "The View" and the fear-fest began.

RACHEL MADDOW: Well, so, I was asked, “Am I worried about me?” And my answer was I'm worried about all of us. I'm no worried about me than I am worried about everybody in the country. I think it's bad to have somebody saying give me as much power as you can in this country so I can use it to go after other Americans, so I can use it to go after these subhuman internal enemies and I will destroy them. That's just not a good system for anybody and I don't think anybody is safe if that's the sort of basis on which he wants to get more power.

BEHAR: Well remember when Nixon had an enemy's list, that was a proud moment when they were on the enemies list. That was a proud moment for a lot of people if they made it onto the enemies list. Maybe we have to turn it around like that.

MADDOW: I mean I don't – if he decides to go after you or me or anybody who is well-known, you know, we have resources, we will likely be fine, but I think there's a pattern where he picks out individual people and effectively terrorizes them. I mean, there's Stormy Daniels wearing a bulletproof vest to get into the courthouse.

BEHAR: Once you have political violence you have fascism following that. So you've characterized some of Trump's rhetoric as being pornographically violent. That's a good phrase, I like it. In just the last weeks he's joked about his supporters committing suicide, listen to this, did you catch this, he tells them wouldn't it be bet tore commit suicide than to vote for Biden? He's going full Jim Jones now, you know? It's like the Kool-Aid thing. Is he losing it or what? Do they think he's kidding when he says that? What?

There must be a corollary to "your social standing varies inversely to your familiarity with Las Vegas" that governs where "The View" is concerned, and yet, the whiff of fascism drives ratings, doesn't it?

THE PUNISHMENT CYCLES CONTINUE.

Do we have any more compelling evidence of the emptiness of politics than the touting of false narratives by the True Believers?  Guardian contributor Rachel Leingang files a refreshingly objective, given the source, report on what the Jarrett regency is calling "cheap fakes."

For viewers of rightwing media or social media feeds tailored toward conservatives, these videos of Biden surface near-daily in an attempt to underscore one of the president’s key liabilities, his age.

They’re often selectively edited to make Biden look, well, old. They kick off a series of headlines about how his age or senility is showing, then another series of headlines about how the videos are created to mislead.

The videos, and the subsequent hand-wringing over them, show how bifurcated today’s political and social media ecosystems are. Few watch a full speech or a full newscast, instead getting a quick example of what they missed from an account they align with. Your view of a given event – of a speech by a president, or a campaign rally - is colored first, and often predominantly, by the way it’s presented by the people you follow.

Yes, that's both-sides-ism, it's what you'd expect from punishment cycles, and it's not terribly edifying.  Dear reader, if the Democrats' policies are as bad as Republicans claim, does the senility or not of the president matter?  Conversely, if those policies are working, does the erratic behavior of the former president matter?  Only, she continues, because both major parties are running geezers.

In reality, both presidential candidates are old, a fact that doesn’t change. Trump is 78; Biden is 81. Whether you view them as prone to senior moments, incoherent and rambling, or slow on their feet relates mostly to your views on who they are – and the content you’re seeing about it.

The two candidates’ ages may create more of these gaffes, and the coverage of these gaffes gets extended because voters are concerned about the age of the next president. There seems to be a “little bit of a ping pong game of who has the senior moment du jour”, Schafer said. Endless repetition of age-related criticisms can influence voters and reinforce concerns they have over fitness for office, which is why these news cycles, and promotion by both campaigns, continue.

These separate media ecosystems aren’t new this election cycle, though they create alternate realities for their viewers. It’s not just how something is covered, but whether it’s covered at all, [process-worshipper Bret] Schafer noted. A viewer of some rightwing media could be served coverage of a story incessantly while it doesn’t make headlines in the broader press.

Alas, the so-called "broader press" has revealed itself, or so the Trumpian populists think, as Democrat operatives with bylines.

WATCH: Fox’s @GregGutfeld calls out liberal media over claims from White House that Biden videos are ‘cheap fakes’: "Where were these anti-hoaxers in the ‘fine people hoax’, the ‘drinking bleach hoax’, the ‘koi pond hoax’, the ‘migrant kids in cages hoax’, the ‘border patrol… pic.twitter.com/LmnygWM4kW

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) June 18, 2024

So it goes.  But invocations of legislation passed, bridge-building commenced, money printed, and military hardware abandoned, you know, the meat and potatoes of governing, aren't terribly interesting.  Thus we focus on the presidency, er, the gerontocrats seeking the office, and neglect the dog-catcher and the school board and the city council.