Closing the tabs ...
Pete Buttigieg is abandoning ship on DEI, admitting that it often amounts to "making people sit through a training that looks like something out of Portlandia."
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 20, 2025
Buttigieg is like a LibBot2000, fine-tuned by McKinsey consultants. The tide is turning.pic.twitter.com/5IFC5zqb3V
Ed: I hesitate to believe Pete Buttigieg has been red-pilled. He's not wrong, however, in assessing that Democrats have now become the Portlandia Party and are creating Trump voters with every struggle session they impose. And even though East Palestine Pete is about the lightest of political lightweights, he has figured out that diversity means equal opportunity and dignity rather than the basis for redistribution.
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The simplest and fairest tax code of all is a consumption tax, but it would be very foolish to introduce a consumption tax without first repealing the 16th Amendment. Otherwise, we will have two parallel systems of taxation, and the government will take up to 40 percent of GDP, like in much of Western Europe. We are stuck with the income tax—absent radical political change—so we should try to make it as fair as possible.
It's doubtful that we could ever achieve a completely flat tax—there will always be some progressivity. But flattening it a bit would go a long way toward fairness and economic growth.
Ed: The signals from the Trump administration hint at an end to the income tax altogether. They believe that tariffs can make up the difference, once DOGE erases enough spending. However, the only way to end it for good would be to repeal the 16th Amendment -- and if Trump can unwind the IRS, perhaps there will be the votes for that in Congress. If not, Jared Dillian's warning should be heeded.
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For those who don't like to squint, here's a dirty cut and paste of the text of the editorial, using the internet wayback machine:
— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) February 20, 2025
>EDITORIAL: Secrecy, deception erode public trust
>By THE PRESS REGISTER
> Your Clarksdale Press Register will be the first to say that a sin tax… https://t.co/ZZtW9rio0T
Ed: Read all of this. The judge who signed this order should be removed from office. But in a sense, this is exactly the kind of censorship that the Biden administration and the bureaucrats in DC attempted with their "misinformation" hysteria. They shut down speech and debate that turned out to be true in the end, mainly because that speech and debate offended people in power. Which is why ...
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Section 1. Purpose. It is the policy of my Administration to dramatically reduce the size of the Federal Government, while increasing its accountability to the American people. This order commences a reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary. Reducing the size of the Federal Government will minimize Government waste and abuse, reduce inflation, and promote American freedom and innovation.
Sec. 2. Reducing the Scope of the Federal Bureaucracy. (a) The non-statutory components and functions of the following governmental entities shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law[...]
Ed: Presidents have issued declarations about this intent before. Trump seems very inclined toward action. Note well that the EO recognizes that many functions are required by statute, which Trump pledges to honor, but only to the extent the statutes require. We'll see how this plays out in court, but this is a signal that Trump really did do his homework before taking office this time. Also, keep this EO bookmarked, since it will come up often over the next few months, presumably.
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NEW: Rep. Jasmine Crockett says she does *not* support the DOGE dividend, says she doesn't know what an extra $5000 is going "to do for you."
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 20, 2025
They're falling right into the trap. Remarkable.pic.twitter.com/eTiuUGUuzj
Ed: There was no money for them when Congress created three rounds of stimulus checks either. Congress was very much in the business of printing money as handouts at that time, including in March 2021 when it was no longer necessary. And if Crockett doesn't know what $5000 would do for you, what did she think $1400 would do? I'm actually opposed to this dividend idea because it's likely to be inflationary and it should go to debt and deficit reduction, but at least the money has already been printed.
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The National Science Foundation went beyond the staff cuts demanded by the Trump administration in a move that set off a frenzied backlash at the science funding agency.
NSF fired about 10 percent of its staff at the end of Tuesday, removing 168 people who included most of the agency’s probationary employees and all of its experts, a class of contract workers who are specialists in niche scientific fields.
The agency didn’t have to fire its experts but decided to in the interest of fairness, a top NSF official told staffers in an emotionally charged hybrid meeting Tuesday morning at its Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters.
Ed: Nonsense. They fired the experts to create a narrative that Trump fired them. They know the media will blame him for it, even though Trump never ordered it. You can watch the narrative hatch in real time here.
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After suffering through more than three hours of “Saturday Night Live” unfunnyness on Sunday night, I’ve come to the sad realization that “SNL” was never that funny. There were moments — Belushi, Radner and a few others — but mostly the sketches were heavy on physical comedy and light on thoughtful humor. The 50 year anniversary had almost no funny moments.
My criticism goes deeper. The 50 years of “SNL” mediocrity helped to destroy really funny, laugh-out-loud comedy as practiced by such masters as Groucho Marx, Jackie Gleason, George Burns, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Woody Allen, Elaine May, Bob Newhart, Don Rickles, Alan King, Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, Red Skelton, Danny Kaye and George Carlin.
Maybe it’s just a matter of taste or generational preference. But I really don’t think so. By anything close to objective standards, comedy has gone downhill since “SNL” became its dominant platform.
Ed: I wonder if Dersh is right about this. I have some good memories of laughs in the early days, but also some nagging thoughts about how there were only a handful of real laughs in each episode. There are still good stand-up comedians too, but that seems more despite SNL in the last couple of decades than because of it.
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All of which is to say that it’s fine that Cynthia Erivo, an actor and black queer person, was picked to play Jesus Christ in a staging of the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar that’ll open this summer at the Hollywood Bowl. When it was announced that Erivo got the role, conservative media erupted. This response from John K. Amanchukwu was typical: “With all due respect, and humbly submitted, Cynthia Erivo is too BALD, BROWN, and BI to play Jesus. Casting a woman as Jesus Christ is an intentional form of blasphemy that Hollywood would be fuming over if done to certain other religions.”
Conservatives forgot to ask the basic question that’s fundamental to their philosophy: Is Erivo the best person for the job?
The answer is yes—or at least one of the best.
Ed: Mark and I batted this back and forth a bit in private. Neither of us convinced the other, but I will agree that it's not really anything to get heated up over either. I just think that there are good roles for women in that musical, and that casting Erivo means a male actor who needs the exposure more than the incrediblly talented and already celebrated Erivo does these days won't get a chance at it. Plus, the choice is transparently performative in the woke Hollywood sense, but to Mark's point, what's new about that? It's not even transgressive these days. Meh.
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