(Btw, JVL: if I pointed you to that McSweeny’s piece, I’m glad you liked it!)

So this kind of bullshit from Hassett — a cheap take that makes perfect sense if and only if you expend exactly ZERO THOUGHT on it — is becoming a Trump/Musk specialty:

• American business are uncompetitive because it’s illegal to pay bribes in corrupt countries. Uh… no, the largest democratic economies all make it illegal for their own businesses to pay bribes in order to make foreign petty corruption a self-defeating …