Notes on the Way
Roe’s demise, the lure of price controls, gun violence con job, midterm election blues
It looks like we’re in for a season of hysteria and violence in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s demise. It turns out that progressives’ faith in “our democracy” stops short of democratic accountability where abortion is concerned. So the usual suspects, e.g. the odious Rep. Maxine Waters, are making the usual threats and telling the usual lies. One of those lies is that the justices on the majority side of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe misled the Senate during their confirmation hearings. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a pro-abortion Republican, has hurled that charge at Brett Kavanaugh. Well, if Senator Collins really believes that she received an assurance from Kavanaugh that he’d vote to uphold Roe, she was hearing what she wanted to hear, not what he said. Judicial nominees never, ever give such assurances concerning matters that might come before them; to do so would be a serious breach of judicial ethics. Now of course, a given nominee’s likely position on a given issue can be inferred from his or her background and record. So if Senator Collins truly didn’t realize that a conservative justice was more likely than not to come down against Roe v. Wade, she’s not as smart as I thought she was...
In the universe of dumb economic ideas, the notion that price controls are the cure for inflation holds a prominent place. So naturally, it’s embraced with fervor by progressives like Senator Elizabeth Warren. She has introduced a bill that would impose a price-control regime on the US economy, with hefty fines for any business that exceeds the price ceilings established by government bureaucrats. The bill declares that “It shall be unlawful for a person to sell or offer for sale a good or service at an unconscionably excessive price during an exceptional market shock, regardless of the person’s position in a supply chain or distribution network.” Whether a particular price is “unconscionably excessive” would be left to the judgment of the Federal Trade Commission. Progressives do love sonorous but imprecise adjectives, don’t they? As it happens we have evidence going as far back as the Roman Empire to show that price controls are not only futile but destructive. (See Diocletian's Edict on Prices.) But dim-bulb lefties like Liz Warren are never deterred by mere facts…
I can no longer abide more than a minute or two of Joe Biden’s incoherent blather, so I thumbed the off button after the first few moments of his remarks prefacing the signing of the just-passed gun control bill. From what I heard, our ludicrous president is very pleased with himself: He and Congress have finally “done something”! Trouble is, that something has next to nothing to do with the prevention of mass shootings. The so-called boyfriend loophole has been closed, for instance. How many school shootings will that prevent? As usual, “doing something” boiled down to putting more restrictions on legal gun owners. In this case the restrictions are nugatory, hence unobjectionable. What irritates me is the element of the con embodied in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. It’s our political class, Democrat and Republican, pretending to us that it has taken decisive action when it hasn’t. Bah…
Writing for The Cook Political Report, Amy Walter wonders whether Democrats can somehow “break away” from the flailing and failing Biden Administration. She has her doubts about that, but the fact that the question is being asked tells you something about the political state of play as the 2022 midterm elections draw near. On the economic front, there’s unlikely to be a big turnaround—on the contrary. The possibility of a recession looms larger and larger and it could come sooner rather than later. Inflation continues to blaze away, as does violent crime. The president and his administration give the impression that they just don’t know what the hell they’re doing. No wonder that the American people seem dispirited and fearful for the future. Midterm elections are always tough for the party of the president and this time around it could be brutal. It may be that here and there an endangered Democratic incumbent will find a way to distance himself from Joe Biden. But the party as a whole is stuck with the guy...