Blog Archives

Daniel McCarthy’s on The Cracks in Conservatism


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Category: Statehouse

Do Not Use As Directed


It can be frustrating even when we win.

Recently in Sweden, vapers got a very favorable court reason for all of the wrong reasons:

A Swedish court on Wednesday overturned an earlier judicial decision banning the sale of e-cigarettes.

The Supreme Administrative Court ruled that e-cigarettes are not medical products, and therefore the National Drug Agency could not oppose its sale.

“To be a medical product, it must have the ability prevent or treat a disease and, therefore, provide a beneficial effect on human health,” the court’s ruling read.

The e-cigarettes “do not contain instructions on how they could be used to reduce the consumption of cigarettes or nicotine addiction,” according to the court.

In other words, something with tremendous potential benefit was un-banned for not having that potential benefit. Well, that’s only part of the case. But the irony has not been lost on vaping advocates:

The most sublime part of this ruling was the fact that [the Swedish Medicines Agency]’s case was built on their claim that since ecigs are effective cessation products, they should be brought under their juristiction in line with patches, gums, Chantix and other medicinal cessation products. The court ruled that after consideration of the available “evidence”, they didn’t consider ecigs to be effective cessation products.

So in their own special way, anti-vaping buffoon Glantz and the army of junk-science spouting “researchers” around the world have helped to prevent ecigs being banned as illegal/unlicensed medicines. It’s a delightful irony that a case whose central premise appeared to have been “These things are awesome cessation products, let’s ban them” has been rejected.

Of course, being who I am, I take a bit of the opposite view, which is that our argument, that it is a way to transition from a more harmful product to a less harmful one, was rejected in our victory.

Which does a good job of highlighting the absurdity of the current state of affairs.

Now, as not-great as the situation is in the USA, we’re at least not that far along. Or perhaps we’re further along, because the FDA tried to ban the product and failed, and so we have the product. But even when the government tried to ban it, they did so under the idea that the product is harmful and not that the product is helpful.

Even so, you can see trappings of the same conversation here in the debate about advertising. We allow ecigarette companies to advertise, but we do not let them even suggest that their product might be helpful for smoking cessation. We want smokers to vape and stop smoking, and we don’t want non-smokers to vape, but we’re forcing the ecigarette industry to advertise the product as a product in itself and not for the use we would prefer they advertise for.

There is a bit of logic here in that we don’t want them making false medical claims. We don’t want them saying that they’re completely safe because we don’t know that they are and they probably are not. We maybe don’t want them to say that they’re definitively safer than cigarettes because while that is almost certainly true, we don’t know. But saying that they are probably less risky than cigarettes is a true message worth conveying that legally cannot be conveyed by the people selling the product.


Category: Statehouse

Linkluster CDLIX


Jason Russell explains how the GOP can wrest the presidency from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton even if the former is the nominee. Just crazy enough that it could work! Not sure the public would go along with it, though.

The Friedman Foundation takes issue with an Indiana Journal Gazette article that unquestionably cites Diane Ravitch on the subject of vouchers.

Walter White made meth out of an RV in the desert. Some dude in Albuquerque sold heroin out of a port-a-potty in an adult video parking lot.

If you’re looking to escape Trump’s America, here are some options.

Batman was “created by Bob Kane,” but… really wasn’t.
Teachers informing on students who express anti-government attitudes? This is going to turn out well.

A theory that the end is high for the Higher Ed Bubble. The argument makes sense, and I can see some colleges being in danger, but I’ve been reading these predictions for a decade now.

Oh, this is nice: In addition to the other concerns I have about unnecessarily splitting up families, I have for-profit foster care to worry about.

The world isn’t all bad! A man and his penguin.

While liberals and anti-Trumpers pat themselves on the back for not being as authoritarian and scientifically inferior to Trumpers, it may be that the cause and correllation between personality and politics may not be what we think it is.

Ghost in the Shell turns 20. The meta of it all was really kind of lost on me, but holy crap it was gorgeous then and is gorgeous now.

According to the Brookings Institute, Utah has become the bastion of the middle class.

To combat terrorism, a federal pilot program is reach out to Somali youth in Minnesota.

A poll suggests that Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, and Brits support EU-style free movement. Hey, can we get in on this?

Neil Strauss, known for designing “The Game” (of the seducing ladies sort), has repented and settled down. As with Tucker Max, the whole phase may have something to do with his mother.

Mental Floss looks at the relative value of $100 in each state. Also, the richest town in each state.

An Australia man is growing too many potatoes.


Category: Newsroom

Please Do Not Make A Hero Of This Guy


CNN Exclusive: ‘Trump is a bully,’ says man who rushed stage

When Thomas DiMassimo tried to rush Donald Trump’s stage in Ohio over the weekend, he had a clear goal in mind.

He wanted to send a message.

“I was thinking that I could get up on stage and take his podium away from him and take his mic away from him and send a message to all people out in the country who wouldn’t consider themselves racist, who wouldn’t consider themselves approving of what type of violence Donald Trump is allowing in his rallies, and send them a message that we can be strong, that we can find our strength and we can stand up against Donald Trump and against this new wave he’s ushering in of truly just violent white supremacist ideas,” DiMassimo told CNN.

This isn’t some college rally, nor is it stealing the podium from a controversial guest-speaker. This is rushing towards a presidential candidate. It goes beyond speech into straight recklessness. He should be charged and should not be on CNN. As Dave Hackensack points out, networks have learned that if you refuse to televise people rushing on the field, fewer people do. Inversely, if you publicize them, more people will try it.

This is spectacularly dumb, cannot be tolerated, and certainly can’t be encouraged. Someone may get hurt. Someone could get killed.


Category: Newsroom

Tweetstorm: Battle of Chicago


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Category: Newsroom

Linkluster Steve Jobs Patents


As it turns out, if you make it more difficult to form a hospital, fewer hospitals are formed. Relatedly, rural hospitals are shutting down delivery rooms.runfrombat

Uncle Steve looks at when crime does pay.

Meanwhile, MIT is building a Trumpbot that can sound very Trumpy.

Laurie Penny argues that no, Brits should not Clean for the Queen.

The secrets of salt. Does anyone else remember when George W Bush mentioned that he was reading a book about the history of salt and the author of said book felt the need to denounce him? Good times.

Sometimes differences between couples compliment one another nicely, but not when it comes to impulsivity. Fortunately for the Himmelreich-Truman household, we’re both fuddy-duddies.

Jesse Singal looks at the relationship between sleep and appetite.

The notion of “vaping chic” is dumb as I can’t imagine anyone doing it to look cool. It really doesn’t. Smoking, on the other hand, has a history with cool.

Well, with all of the babies being born in Utah, I suppose this was bound to happen at some point.

Christina Cauterucci looks at the relationship between child care costs and women opting out. One argument is for free day care (which I am more amenable to than you might think), though another is a low-ish level of regulation that makes having more options beneficial (which I am, as one might guess, very amenable to). Whatever the case, it’s not expensive because of how much the childcare workers are being paid.

We’re not yet having these discussions explicitly, but I feel like they’re happening non-verbally with increasing frequency.

Dating sites catfishing clients… it’s not just for Americans.

Here’s an interview with a language inventor.

Good employers are let go or chased off on a regular basis due to employers’ failure to understand this. Also, how cool would it be if more employers understood this?

At NRO, Kevin Williamson says we should let dying communities die.


Category: Newsroom

The Republican Field, As Styled By Hollywood


Last week, I tweeted this:

And now I’m going to expand on it:

Donald Trump is a Republican character as though written by a crappy liberal writer who cannot see Republicans as anything more than caricatures. Ridiculously over the top. The writer needs to go back to writing school.

Ted Cruz is a mastermind villain written by genuinely good writer with an ideological blind spot who assumes that most people who disagree with his worldview are either insanely slimy and corrupt or stupid. The script called for the former, and Ted Cruz was what they created.

Marco Rubio was written by one of the rare breed of conservative Hollywood writers. Unfortunately, the role was entirely miscast and when he changed jobs, subsequent writers just screwed him up.

John Kasich was written by a well-intentioned liberal writer who wanted to create a sympathetic Republican character but just didn’t know how. The result is that the character is wooden and inconsistent.

Jeb Bush was written as the hapless foil the whiz-kids working on the Democratic campaign had to take down in the primary so that they face a weaker opponent. The writers omitted what, exactly, made the character somebody that they didn’t want to face. Because, as written, he seemed like a great character to face in the general.

Ben Carson was suggested as a potential character, but everybody else in the room laughed at it because it was such a ludicrous concept. They told the writer that his character was bad and he should feel bad. And feel bad he did, because the character was stupid.

Chris Christie was written because a mobster show had a political tie. Because they wanted a character who was obnoxious and corrupt, they made sure to let slip that he was a Republican. Writers spent a lot of time coming up with inventive, tortuous death scenes for the character.

Carly Fiorina was created on the spot, without much forethought. The writers must have needed a Republican character from California because that’s where the show is filmed, and they went with a businessperson because no Republican gets elected to major office in California.

Mike Huckabee was created by a frustrated southern transplant who has some major issues about where he comes from. Another writer kind of resented this, and suggested Rick Santorum instead, but everyone agreed that Pennsylvania is a blue state and that wouldn’t work as well.

Rand Paul was the unfortunate biproduct of a writing room war. A couple of the writers thought that he should be cool and sympathetic, but others couldn’t fathom that in a Republican politician and so would insert plots about Neo-Confederate supporters. The result was a mess, and a character that once had promise had to be written off the show.

Lindsay Graham was written as an embarassing relative of one of the main characters in a comedy. People on Twitter get mad because such a right-wing character is presented as a mildly sympathetic goofball, but others point out that his rightwingery is usually a setup for a joke at his expense.

Scott Walker was written to be the Republican opponent, but the writers never cared so they never fleshed out the character. The writers would later express regret that they never fleshed out the character, one of them swearing up and down that the Rick Perry character had been swimming around in his head the whole time.

Robert Jarvis was written to be an out-of-touch blue blood with contemptuous attitudes towards the poor, but later stories called for a religious nut so that was retconned into his story. After writing the character, there were some concerns from the studio about diversity, so they decided to make him an Indian-American, but it was too late in the process to change much else.

George Pataki was written by an aging writer who stopped following politics 25 years ago and isn’t current on who Republicans are anymore.

Jim Gilmore was only sort of written. There was, presumably, a Republican opponent in the last election, but they never talked about him or developed him. You only know his name is Gilmore because the main character is an officeholder and there is a flashback scene on election night where you see on the vote totals television and the other guy was named “Gilmore.”


Category: Newsroom

States of the Primary: Hangover Tuesday


Ted_Cruz_by_Gage_Skidmore_9Cruz rising! At least, it seems that way. A lot of attention was paid to Kansas and his massive victory there, but it was really Maine that caught my interest. Jokes about the Canadian border aside, that’s really outside his jurisdiction. It’s important to note, however, that both Kansas and Maine are closed primaries, and closed primaries play to Cruz’s strengths. That could also explain his good showing in Minnesota. Which leaves the open question as to whether or not he can compete anywhere else in a primary system, which he will need to do in order to win the nomination outright. It’s… looking unlikely. It would seem to need both Rubio and Kasich to drop out, and while it’s possible that Rubio will after 3/15, Kasich has no real incentive to and seems relatively accepting of a Trump nomination if it’s not going to be him. So how does he Cruz get there?

The goal of #NeverTrump has shifted from trying to outright beat Trump and force a convention. That’s… far from ideal. Trump’s ceiling appears to be real – for now, at least – and seems to stand a decent chance of preventing him from getting to 1237.

Which brings us to the possible importance of Rubio and Kasich. Kasich in particular could be strong in the remaining states. He has no path to winning the nomination outright, but seems best positioned deny Trump the delegates that he needs until or unless Cruz can demonstrate a national viability that runs contrary to his entire campaign strategy.

Rubio is hurting pretty badly right now, and looks likely to lose in Florida a week from now (assuming he’s still in the race). He’s being hounded by a dour narrative and it appears his support is being eaten off at both ends by Cruz and Kasich. If he can win Florida, though, he’s back in the game to perform the role assigned to Kasich in the previous paragraph. It seems likely that even in the most optimistic of scenarios that Trump will have a plurality of delegates. However, if Trump can’t expand his share of the vote and #NeverTrump can point to a low plurality, and he starts losing, his winning at the convention seems far from assured. If Rubio or Kasich can have a good late run, they may be the beneficiary of recency bias and could actually get the nomination at a convention even with a lower delegate count. If we get to one.

On the docket today is Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho, and Hawaii. This is a pretty Trump-friendly state of affairs. Unless Kasich can perform a miracle, most polls have his opposition in Michigan pretty divided and while the delegates will be awarded proportionally, “winning states” feeds the narrative in a significant way. The opposition in Mississippi is less divided, but Mississippi has always been one of Trump’s best states. In a different universe, Rubio would be looking good in Idaho but he’s never polled well there and that’s an opportunity for Cruz. Rubio’s only opportunity is Hawaii, for which the returns will be too late to feed any narrative.


Category: Newsroom

Linkluster Government Retirement Plan


smokingcrabMichael Brendan Dougherty is in favor of Trumpism, but against Donald Trump. I can actually understand this, to a degree. But what raises my ire is when Dougherty and others are more excited about their correct prior diagnosis than disturbed by the actual prognosis.

Among the sillier attacks against Donald Trump are his allegedly short fingers. That works better than pointing out that he’s a national security threat, I guess? Whatever the case, it’s an accusation that really bothers him.

The ever-inspirational Chris Christie: “I wasn’t being held hostage.” He can say that all he wants, but the flood of endorsements that were supposed to follow didn’t. Nobody likes being a prisoner.

I’m not fond of linking to Uncle Steve when he’s directly talking about immigration, but his look at Merkel and Clinton contains some good analysis.

Gretchen explains how her life became restricted when she married a sex offender, affecting everything from where they live, whether they should have children, and perhaps where they can travel internationally.

Florida is stepping up enforcement against left-lane snails.

As a Twitter follower, I’ve seen directly Bethany Mandel attract the hate mobs of Breitbart, and it’s not pretty. It’s even creeped on to Facebook.

Mankind’s greatest enemy: The white man.

Too many movies fail the Bechdel Test, so some scripts are up for a rewrite.

The New York Times looks at some of the changes in store for Sesame Street under HBO management. Not sure I like the changes, but it is what it is I suppose.

Something that cuts against arguments right and left, Freddie points out that most PhD’s are doing pretty well, actually.

Bradley Birzer reviews a John J Miller story The Polygamous King, which sounds fascinating.

Emily Badger says cities haven’t run out of room so much as they’re shoo-ing away potential neighbors.

I haven’t read the paper, but the idea of conferring automatic relationship status on couples that have kids together strikes me as the law back home that says young girls who get pregnant can become emancipated from their parents early. Some added diceyness to incentives for gents and ladies who want to hold on to their partner.

Loneliness is a public health hazard that may be akin to smoking and obesity. Remember, though, how justified we are in socially isolating smokers and the obese because their behavior is so unhealthy.


Category: Newsroom

States of the Primary: Super Saturday


{Ed note: This was written prior to the GOP debate last night.}

The good news for the #NeverTrump crew, is that the momentum we feared for Trump did not especially materialize. He didn’t get 50% in Massachusetts, didn’t have a shutout or a near-shutout. He doesn’t appear invulnerable in the abstract. Yet.

The problem, of course, remains the rest of the field. Little long-term clarity was achieved.

Rubio lost by inches, but lost big. A couple couple points in Virginia and he’d look a lot better. A few points in some other states would have gotten him across the delegate threshold. Whenever I write these up, there is always something that I don’t talk about that happens. Usually it’s been a near-tie, so when I talk about placing second or third I didn’t account for the fact that #3-5 would tie in New Hampshire or #2-3 would tie in South Carolina. In this case, it was those delegate thresholds and the overall delegate count. Which I did actually consider, but did not convey. It turned out to be really important to the narrative. It’s become even more critical that he win Florida, and it’s become even harder for him to do so. The media’s comparative generosity towards him has run out, and what yesterday could have been a Rubio endorsement by Romney was instead a general anti-Trump speech.

While Trump did worse than I feared and Rubio worse than I had hoped, Cruz is the only one I can point to and say definitively “He had a good night.” Good enough that it props up an iffy narrative that he can be the Trump Alternative. The problem for Cruz remains that the rest of the map looks a lot more like Massachusetts, Virginia, and Minnesota than it does like Texas and Oklahoma. He has also continued to show no message agility and it just seems unlikely that he’s going to be able to pivot to be competitive in the North. There were three data points, two largely overlooked, that could give Team Cruz hope. First, while Rubio won Minnesota, Cruz came in a close second. Minnesota is a quirky little state and it had a closed caucus, but that’s still something! The second overlooked thing is that he won the Colorado straw poll, which was also a closed caucus and is unbinding, but take the three of them together and you can sort of paint a picture of Cruz being strong-ish in the west. I’ll need to run the math, but while he wouldn’t be able to win the nomination that way he could rack up some serious wins to help his narrative against a generally hostile media. Speaking of which, one of the reasons Cruz’s outing impressed me is that he did it largely being ignored by the media, but Cruz being Cruz, it’s entirely possible that helped him.

JohnKasich2Kasich’s campaign rationale is starting to become a little bit clear. He doesn’t have much of a chance at the nomination by way of delegates, and is unlikely to get it in a convention even if it is in Ohio, but if you tilt your head you could see him starting to get a lot of attention as the guy who can possibly beat Trump in the north more realistically than Cruz. He’s probably about to get some money from people who just want to prevent Trump from getting 1237.

This weekend are Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine. Trump seems to have made Maine a priority, and it’s on his turf, so it’s easy to expect him to take it pretty easily. There could be a challenge from Kasich, however, as there was in Vermont. Trump looks strong in Louisiana, but I should point out that Louisiana has a closed primary and an unusually high number of ornery bubbas are still registered Democrats in that state. That dynamic carried Cruz to victory in Oklahoma and could do so in Louisiana. However, the gap in the polls is just too large to make that likely, and Louisiana has a soft spot for strongmen. Kansas and Kentucky are both closed caucuses and there’s not much indication that Trump has much organization there. Assuming that Cruz has organization just about everywhere, both bode well for him (especially Kentucky, which seems like Cruz country though the last and only poll there did not bode well for him). Rubio is competing in Kansas but seems to have ceded Kentucky.

Puerto Rico comes on Sunday, where it’s likely that Rubio would have the inside track. He is the only candidate to have paid it any mind and he’s received the endorsement of the Republican former governor. There has been no polling, however, and even if he does win it is unlikely that anyone will notice because most people don’t even know Puerto Rico sends delegates.

I am predicting a Trump win, however, because what the hell that’s just the sort of primary it’s been.


Category: Newsroom