RAND SIMBERG reviews Lori Garver’s new book on developing space. “The book is an autobiography but it contains significant detail about the inner workings of the space agency, the interplay between it and Congress and the White House, and the culture during her tenure at NASA. Those space-policy analysts (such as myself) who were following the topic could infer much of what was happening behind the scenes at the time, but in her book Garver makes the political machinations quite explicit.”
THE FACTS ABOUT DOBBS: Issues & Insights lays it out in such straightforward, easy-to-grasp terms that even a crazed far-Left graduate of Harvard Law can understand what Dobbs actually held and why. Well, maybe not that effectively, but even so, along the way, this revealing point is made:
“Contrast the left’s vicious behavior today with the reaction of pro-lifers when the Roe decision came down in 1973. They didn’t torch buildings or call for killing Supreme Court justices. Instead, they immediately put together a “Human Life Amendment” in an attempt to counteract the court’s decision.
“They launched a massive – and always peaceful – March for Life each year on the anniversary of the Roe ruling. They worked tirelessly with state legislators to pass laws restricting abortion where they could. For nearly 50 years, they advocated for constitutional conservatives to be appointed to the Supreme Court, those who would admit that Roe was an outrageous example of legislating from the bench.
“Yes, they sometimes got arrested, for praying in front of an abortion clinic. When some crazed person targeted an abortion provider, the pro-life movement immediately denounced such acts.”
The Left’s reaction today to hearing the truth about Roe and abortion is the very opposite. The intensity of that reaction — the furious gnashing of pro-abort teeth — reminds of the deadly fury directed against Stephen, the first Christian martyr, for speaking the truth to the Sanhedrin.
REMINDER: Never Forget How Vicious And Violent Was The Left’s Top-To-Bottom Anti-Court Campaign.
“This is not normal.”
That was a phrase bandied about with some frequency during the Donald Trump years. You can still see it from time to time on the bumpers of cars, next to the fading “I’m With Her” sticker.
The left has weaponized the word “normal” to the point of farce. A secure border, fair trade, and fair defense deals were abnormal, we were told. Meanwhile, the administration that campaigned for normalcy instead ushered inflation into our economy, kicked nicotine out of cigarettes, and invited transvestite strippers into elementary school classrooms.
It becomes difficult to sort reality when words lose their meaning, which is why it’s easy to miss just how insane the unsuccessful campaign against the Supreme Court truly was.
While sure, a sitting chief executive lashing out at any and all critics on social media is a real departure from the modern presidency, the campaign of judicial espionage, targeted terror attacks and planned street violence — all either ignored or tacitly sanctioned by the leaders of the House, Senate and executive — was so far outside of normalcy that we haven’t seen it since the eve of the Civil War. The problem is that in politics, words now mean so little we sometimes struggle to categorize how abnormal our situation is.
Related: The leak, the threats, the violence — reaction to Roe is a dark day for the nation.
JUSTICE THOMAS: When oh when will we finally revisit Sullivan?
Today, however, a denial of cert in a defamation case brought a brief but pointed dissent from Thomas. In Coral Ridge v Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a Christian ministry sued over the SPLC designation of their organization as a “hate group,” which denied them access to donations through Amazon’s charitable designation program, AmazonSmile. The SPLC rebutted the lawsuit on two main points: first, their designation is a First Amendment-protected expression of opinion, and two, Coral Ridge is a “public” entity under the NYT v Sullivan precedent. Coral Ridge conceded the latter in this case but still claimed it could meet the “actual malice” standard.
The court declined to take up the case, but Thomas disagreed, wanting an opportunity to finally address Sullivan.
For what the Court could do short of overturning Sullivan, see my Rethinking Libel for the Twenty-First Century.
AND SO IT BEGAN: On this day in 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Four justices took the position that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act meant exactly what it says—that federally funded universities are forbidden to discriminate in admissions by race. Four justices seemed happy to tolerate any amount of race discrimination so long as it favored under-represented minorities. One justice—Lewis Powell, the man in the middle—apparently thought he could open the door to discrimination just a crack. Colleges and universities promptly blew that door off its hinges. We’re still paying for Powell’s error in judgment.
THE FRENCH ARE OFTEN WRONG, BUT NOT SO MUCH ON ENERGY POLICY: Embarrassing: Biden’s Grand Energy Plan Just Got Blown Up…By the French President. “Biden’s energy plan is toast. It got blown up. It shows Biden being outmaneuvered by our allies. The way it was done also shows that Europe knows this presidency needs to be pushed along—a lot. It was the clearest sign of the weakness exhibited by Biden. The gross incompetence is pervasive.”
Related: France’s Emmanuel Macron Drops Truth on Joe Biden About His Insane Energy Policies.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Auto Joe Handheld Cordless Vacuum Cleaner. #CommissionEarned
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Victoria Taft: Are We Finally Done With the Abortion Litmus Tests for SCOTUS Nominees?
Matt Margolis: Psst… Americans Actually Agree With the Principles of the Dobbs Decision.
Yours Truly: 29-Year-Old Transgender Dude Celebrates Big Skateboarding Win Over 13-Year-Old Girl. “In the woke world of men-on-women’s sports, women only get paid half as much as men do, I guess. That 77-cents-to-the-dollar myth from the Old Patriarchy is looking pretty good.”
#JOURNALISM: Important Questions the White House Press Corps Will Never Ask Joe Biden.
The topic of Hunter Biden is streng verboten for so-called “mainstream” journalists, and so Our Alleged President will never face tough questioning about this subject. . . .
Hey, did you ever hear anyone — anyone — from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Associated Press mention this Senate report about Hunter Biden’s involvement with Eastern European human trafficking rings? Or did any journalist from any of these organizations ever engage in real reporting about the sources of Hunter Biden’s income and possible connections with Hunter’s father? No, of course not. They are determined to ignore this story, because it wouldn’t help Democrats win elections, and helping Democrats win elections is the only thing “mainstream” journalists really care about. “Operatives with bylines,” indeed.
Indeed.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Arizona legislature approves school voucher program for all K-12 students. “The voucher program or empowerment scholarship accounts, originally began about 10 years ago to help students with special needs enroll in the right schools. Superintendent of Pima County Schools Dustin Williams said now any student in Arizona can apply and use the money to go to private or charter schools.”
MONDAY: US is already in a ‘soft’ recession: Economist Stephen Moore.
Moore, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, provided the insight on “Varney & Co.” Monday, reacting to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers contradicting President Biden on Sunday by saying that a recession was “almost inevitable” in the next two years.
Summers provided the insight speaking on Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” noting that there was a risk a recession could come sooner.
However, last Monday, President Biden said that there was “nothing inevitable about a recession,” and that he talked to Summers that morning.
Moore noted on Monday that he didn’t agree with Biden nor Summers and that he believed the U.S. was already in a mild recession.
VodkaPundit, two weeks ago: U.S. Economy Technically Enters Recession. “It’s recession time — a mild one, so far — as the U.S. economy grew at a zero-point-zero annual rate this quarter after shrinking slightly during the first three months of the year.”
JONATHAN ADLER: The Next Abortion Battlegrounds:
One consequence of the Dobbs decision is that much abortion litigation will shift from federal to state court. Just because there is no right to abortion in the federal constitution does not mean there is no such right to be found under state constitutions. Just as (to take one example) the Ohio Supreme Court has concluded that the Ohio Constitution provides greater protection for private property against eminent domain than does the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, state supreme courts may conclude that state constitutional provisions protect abortion rights through state-level rights to privacy (as in Montana) or other liberty-protecting provisions. Of course, such claims will not always be successful. The Iowa Supreme Court recently issued a state-level Dobbs decision, rejecting prior decisions that had recognized a state-level abortion right.
Some years ago, the Tennessee Supreme Court found a right to abortion under the Tennessee Constitution’s right of privacy. In a very rare exercise of amending Tennessee’s very hard to amend state constitution, voters overruled that opinion with an amendment providing that no right to abortion exists in the Tennessee Constitution, though leaving the right of privacy otherwise intact.
IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN THEY DO IT. THEY’RE WITH THE ARROW OF HISTORY: Where Are the Abortion Insurrection Hearings?
In your place, peasant! How dare you question your liberal betters?
ONLY NOW, AT THE END, DOES SHE UNDERSTAND: Liz Cheney Gets a Rude Awakening. “It turns out that her left-wing supporters learned that Cheney wasn’t actually becoming one of them and turned on her without batting an eye.”
Cheney never had any left-wing supporters, she was just a willing tool for a while.
JOSH BLACKMAN: The Constitutionality of “Shall Issue” Regimes After Bruen.
OH FOR GOODNESS SAKE: Eye-rolling is a harmful practice rooted in white supremacy.
SO, COULD WE BRING IT BACK? New research suggests flowing water existed intermittently on Mars from 2.5 to 3.6 billion years ago.
RICH VEDDER: “In Princeton’s Contempt for Justice, Shades of Duke Lacrosse.”
BEFORE CANDLES WATERMELONS USED ELECTRICITY: Germany Green Energy Crisis: Warning of “Lehman Like” Contagion.
IT’S GOT A LOT OF COMPETITORS: Is the US Forest Service our most inept federal agency?
COLONIALISM AT ITS WORST: G-7 to throw out another $200 billion for third-world ‘green’ boondoggles.
THAT’S BECAUSE THEY TOO ARE A FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION: Biden’s Handlers Allow Members of a Foreign Terrorist Organization to Enter the U.S..
Again, I suggest we put them in a shipping container* and send them to China. I believe in people getting what they pay for.
*Stop kvetching. We’ll punch air holes in the container. We’ll even put some cans of rice and beans in there. Heck, we might even give them a can opener.
SIGNS OF JUDICIAL SANITY IN OTHER PLACES: New York Supreme Court Strikes Down NYC Law Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote in Local Elections.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, A BIG CONSTITUTIONAL WIN: Praying Coach Vindicated at SCOTUS in Another Big Religious Freedom Win.
AND WHILE WE’RE ON “HOW COMPROMISED IS THE POTATUS?”: Voicemail indicates Joe Biden knew of Hunter deals with ‘spy chief of China’.
BEHOLD! MY SHOCKED FACE! Report: Biden Sent Hunter $100K During Time He Spent $30K on Escorts Linked to Russia.
I THINK DIVERSITY INCLUSION AND EQUITY — I.E. DIE– IS TRUTH IN ADVERTISING: (De)Grading for Equity: New grading scheme arriving soon to NAIS private schools.
And I think they know it too, because they started scrambling the words to get a different acronym.
June 27, 2022
A LOT OF UNDERGRADS HERE REPORTEDLY RELY ON WITHDRAWAL BACKED BY PLAN B FOR BIRTH CONTROL, WHICH IS DEEPLY UNWISE: CVS, Walmart and Rite Aid Limit Purchases of Plan B Pills After Surge in Demand.
WAR ON THE NORMAL-AMERICAN COMMUNITY: Paid to Keep the Lights Off. “Rolling blackouts are coming to the U.S., either this Summer or some time soon hereafter. But the United Kingdom is a little ahead of us on the downhill energy spiral, so it is useful to see what is going on there.”
NO, THEY’RE RACISTS. LA Times wonders: Are progressive Californians ready for gun-totin’ black people?
Catching up with the 1906 Atlanta Journal:
Background here.
OPEN THREAD: Now the UFOs are real.
DON’T GET COCKY: Allen West Says Dobbs Won’t Prevent a Red Wave in November.
THEY DON’T LIKE YOU, LIZ, THEY’RE JUST USING YOU: Liz Cheney Gets a Rude Awakening. “Think about it: how many on the left pretended to ‘respect’ Liz Cheney for her ‘bravery’ for standing up to Trump, and yada, yada, yada? Well, Liz Cheney is learning the hard way that she was just a useful idiot for the Democrat Party by being a part of their partisan Jan. 6 Committee and that they really don’t look at her any better than they do any other Republican, especially now that she expressed support for the Supreme Court after Dobbs.”
JOSH BLACKMAN ON THE DOBBS DISSENTERS: The “Judges of Wisdom” and the “Mystical Aphorisms of the Fortune Cookie.”
SPACE: X Prize Foundation studying active debris removal competition.
Meanwhile, here’s a piece that Rob Merges and I wrote about orbital debris removal a while back.
WHY IS THE LOS ANGELES TIMES SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Is California ready for more Black people to legally carry guns in public?
Screenshot, in case they change the headline.
UPDATE: Some thoughts on the actual column from Ed Morrissey: LA Times wonders: Are progressive Californians ready for gun-totin’ black people?
Er … wut? Don’t let the headline throw you entirely because Erika Smith scores real points in the column, but that headline alone is worth attention in the wake of the Bruen decision last week. Let’s screencap it just in case someone at the Los Angeles Times thinks twice about the message it actually sends, rather than whatever it is they intended. Assuming those are two different things, that is:
[Screenshot included above — Ed]
Are they two different things? YMMV, but that headline strongly implies that the oh-so-progressive state of California is pretty danged racist, no? Actually yes, as Smith argues, and it’s not limited to the rapidly decreasing number of conservatives in the Golden State. Smith has a strong enough point to sustain that headline, emphasis mine:
Read the whole thing.
(Updated and bumped.)
THIS SEEMS RIGHT: The SCOTUS Abortion Leak Backfired: The shock of the ruling doesn’t seem to be there. Because it wasn’t a surprise.
Oft evil will shall evil mar.
THREE PEOPLE DEAD AFTER AMTRAK TRAIN DERAILS IN MISSOURI: “Roughly 243 passengers and 12 crew members were aboard the train when it derailed and there are early reports of injuries, though the railway company did not specify how many people were wounded. The incident occurred after the train struck a dump truck at a public crossing in Mendon, causing several cars to derail, Amtrak said…The derailment in Missouri occurred just one day after an Amtrak train collided with a car in Brentwood, California, killing three people and injuring two others, ABC 10 reported.”
IT’S THE RETURN OF “MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS!” This time thanks to ABC15 Arizona reporter Melissa Blasius:
We’ve been here before, of course: Bari Weiss’s November 21st Substack on “The Media’s Verdict on Kyle Rittenhouse” contained this now-viral screenshot of the unintentionally ironic Chyron by CNN from the previous year:
In accordance with the prophecy: Authorities Warn Tonight’s Protests May Escalate From ‘Mostly Peaceful’ To ‘Somewhat Peaceful.’
—The Babylon Bee, Friday.
HMM: Robots With Flawed AI Make Sexist And Racist Decisions, Experiment Shows.. “We’re at risk of creating a generation of racist and sexist robots.”
Skynet smiles, and cracks an unacceptable joke. Seriously, though, as far as I can tell they’re assuming the AI is flawed because it’s manifesting sexism and racism, which are assumed a priori to be evidence of flaws. That doesn’t seem like a scientific approach to the problem.
SALENA ZITO: Flown over: The impact of airlines cutting service to flyover country.
American Airlines is not the bad guy in this story; the cuts are in response to a regional pilot shortage affecting the entire industry, which could last for a long time.
But as the very phrase “get rid of the losers” implies, many influential people in elite institutions just shrug off or ignore the economic and emotional effects that this kind of thing has on a small-to-medium-sized city. It is much like when they shrugged when manufacturing, opportunity, and stability left such cities between 30 and 50 years ago.
When an airport stops serving your city, it denies the region’s industries (and travelers) the use of the aviation network, the common denominator that determines successful business and tourism across the country and the globe.
If there were a concerted effort to undermine the economy of Middle America, how would it look different from what’s happening now?
WATCH: Leftists Turned the Boy Scouts Into an LGBTQ Grooming Organization.
My dad and I were both Scouts, but I pulled my oldest out of scouting after his first year as a Cub.
COOLING IS WORSE THAN WARMING: How Many Ice Ages Has The Earth Had, And Could Humans Survive Another One?
THE LEFTY JUSTICES THINK IT’S BULLSHIT BECAUSE IT’S USUALLY THEIR BULLSHIT: Scalia’s “Prophecy” in Lawrence And The Joint Dissent in Dobbs: That awkward moment when Justice Breyer joins an opinion that criticizes his join in Lawrence.
Now, fast-forward to Dobbs. Here, the dissenters argued that Justice Alito and his ilk cannot be trusted on Lawrence and Obergefell. Their repeated promises that those precedents are safe are illusory. And how do we know the conservatives can’t be trusted? Part I of the joint dissent–which I think was written by Justice Kagan–highlights Justice Scalia’s Lawrence dissent. . . .
We should all learn from the prophecy of St. Nino. (This past week revealed at least three judicial miracles for legal canonization–overruling Roe in Dobbs, overruling Lemon in Kennedy, and expanding 2nd Amendment in Bruen!) But there is a special awkwardness for Justice Breyer. He joined the Lawrence dissent which promised, scout’s honor, that marriage laws were not at issue. And there is similar awkwardness for Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, who pinky-sweared that Windsor would not lead to the nullification [of] marriage laws. None of us believed them. Not for a second.
But I do believe Justice Alito, et al.
I sorta do.
WALTER JON WILLIAMS: “Four days after the workshop ended, I successfully tested for my 6th degree black belt in Kenpo Karate. In the days since, I’ve been judging at the tests of lower-ranking belts, and participating in a demonstration in front of a live audience. All with a torn achilles tendon which requires me to walk with a cane much of the time.”
Not everyone is this badass.
NEW YORK SUPREME COURT DELIVERS A VICTORY FOR ELECTION INTEGRITY: “The New York State Supreme Court delivered a crushing blow to the Democrats’ power grab in New York City, ruling that non-citizens cannot vote in local elections.”
MADE IN THE USA: The Classic Leather Everyday Belt. #CommissionEarned (Bumped)
YOUR TERMS ARE ACCEPTABLE: Pop Star Pink Demands Pro-Life Americans ‘Never F**king Listen to My Music Again.’
Related: ‘F*** America:’ Green Day Star Billie Joe Armstrong says he’s renouncing his U.S. citizenship during London concert in wake of SCOTUS overruling Roe. “The musician said he was staying in the UK and that ‘there’s just too much f***ing stupid in the world to go back to that miserable f***ing excuse for a country.'”
As Jim Treacher notes, “Okay. Goodbye and good luck. Hey, wait… he’s moving to England? Doesn’t the UK have stricter abortion laws than California? Forget it, he’s rolling.”
MILTON FRIEDMAN ISN’T RUNNING THE SHOW ANYMORE: Millions in California to Get up to $1,050 in ‘Inflation Relief.’
California Governor Gavin Newsom announced late Sunday night that he had reached an agreement with state legislators on a $17 billion “inflation relief package.”
“Millions of Californians will be receiving up to $1,050 as part of a NEW middle class tax rebate. That’s more money in your pocket to help you fill your gas tank and put food on the table,” he tweeted.
What could possibly go wrong? Hint: Bloomberg’s use of scary quotation marks in the headline seems quite appropriate in this case.
(Classical reference in headline.)
WELL, GOOD: Clearwater, Florida Woman Shoots and Kills a Neighbor Who Attacked Her in Her Own Bedroom.
UPDATE: A reader emails: “In the spirit of bipartisanship, I propose that we refer to self-defense firearm killings by women as ‘ballistic abortions’ in order to reassure crestfallen Democrats that it’s still legal to kill someone in order to save a woman’s life.”
UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Someone Dropped a C8 Corvette Interior in a ’92 Chevy Camaro.
READER FAVORITE: Kitchen Mama Electric Can Opener 2.0. #CommissionEarned
INTERPRETING CRIMINAL STATUTES MORE STRICTLY: Supreme Court Sets Higher Bar for Prosecuting Doctors Who Prescribe Opioids for Pain. “Approximately 20 percent of medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are legally prescribed “off‐label,” i.e., for different purposes than those for which the FDA approved them. The originators of off‐label uses fall outside the mainstream of prescribers, but they are not treated as criminals. And many off‐label uses are later approved by the FDA. This is one of the ways clinical medical science advances. The lower court convictions of Drs. Ruan and Kahn treated what, at worst, could have been medical malpractice or standard of care violations as criminal matters. This amounted to, in effect, cops practicing medicine. Cases and convictions like these have sent chills up the spines of other health care practitioners who are trying to help their patients in pain, causing many pain patients to be under‐treated or, worse, abandoned.”
SAY ANYTHING: Michigan Governor Won’t Stop Lying to Voters About Job Gains. “Gretchen Whitmer says the state has added 25,000 auto jobs since she took office. It has actually lost thousands.”
HOW MSNBC ACCIDENTALLY KILLED ROE: Tell your viewers conservatives are Neanderthals and they just might get complacent. “Democrats, here’s your game-changer: third-trimester abortions at every post office. And then, when you get shellacked in November, when you lose both houses of Congress, just remember this: the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards frantic attempts to normalize the gruesome.”
FAUXCAHONTAS ON THE WARPATH: Mad About Abortion, Elizabeth Warren Calls for the Destruction of the Supreme Court As We Know It.
THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE REASONS: The Supreme Court Just Did Exactly What Joe Biden Voted for… in 1982.
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Relationship Success: 8 Reasons to Marry a Fit Person.
YOU STAY CLASSY, CHICAGO! (Video) Chicago Mayor Lightfoot: “Fuck Clarence Thomas.”
Chicago’s last Republican mayor left office in 1931.
SOME PRETTY CHOOSY COERCION CONCERNS FROM SOTOMAYOR’S DISSENT IN FOOTBALL COACH PRAYER CASE…
Second, schools face a higher risk of unconstitutionally “coerc[ing] . . . support or participat[ion] in religion or its exercise” than other government entities. The State “exerts great authority and coercive power” in schools as a general matter “through mandatory attendance requirements.” Moreover, the State exercises that great authority over children, who are uniquely susceptible to “subtle coercive pressure.” Lee, 505 U. S., at 588; cf. Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U. S. 565, 590 (2014) (plurality opinion) (“[M]ature adults,” unlike children, may not be “‘readily susceptible to religious indoctrination or peer pressure’”). Children are particularly vulnerable to coercion because of their “emulation of teachers as role models” and “susceptibility to peer pressure.” Accordingly, this Court has emphasized that “the State may not, consistent with the Establishment Clause, place primary and secondary school children” in the dilemma of choosing between “participating, with all that implies, or protesting” a religious exercise in a public school.”
(PDF page 55; most cites removed for readability.) Great. Can we apply this to the endless, relentless pressure on K-12 public school kids to adopt and parrot state-established views on issues race, sex, LGBTQ issues, etc.? Oh, wait, those views aren’t “religious,” so publicly funded propaganda on that is OK, but a football coach offering optional prayers on the field is not. Got it.
Does anyone actually find this reasoning convincing, as opposed to convenient?
WE COULD USE MORE OF THOSE: Dobbs Wasn’t a Pro-Life Victory, It Was a Victory for Federalism.
TIPPI HEDREN, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Dive-bombing crows targeting visitors to California park.
THE MILLION VOTER MARCH: Guess who’s winning the party-switching sweepstakes this cycle?
Hint: Don’t get cocky.
IN OTHER NEWS, THE NYPD HAS BEEKEEPERS ON STAFF: NYPD beekeepers called to remove 2,000 bees from Manhattan restaurant.
FALLOUT: Russia ‘Defaults on Foreign Debt’ for First Time Since 1918 Amid Western Sanctions. “The $100 million interest payment deadline due to be met by the Kremlin had initially been set to May 27 but a 30-day grace period was triggered after investors failed to receive coupon payments due on both dollar and euro-denominated bonds.”
I’d like to know how Powell got fooled the first time.
A VICTORY OVER BIGOTRY AND DISCRIMINATION: Brown University ends no-whites-allowed course after complaint.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: One American Gun Manufacturer Is Fighting Back Against the Left’s Wrath.
SPACE: The Webb Telescope is already exceeding NASA’s expectations.
On July 12, NASA plans to release a suite of teaser observations that illustrate Webb’s capabilities. These will show the beauty of Webb imagery and also give astronomers a real taste of the quality of data they will receive.
After July 12, the James Webb Space Telescope will start working full-time on its science mission. The detailed schedule for the coming year hasn’t yet been released, but astronomers across the world are eagerly waiting to get the first data back from the most powerful space telescope ever built.
I can’t wait.
NOW OUT FROM PETE HEGSETH: Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Unhinged Abortion Left Should Probably Focus on Mental Health Care for a While. “The reactions ran the gamut from America’s Dumbest Bartender belching up her last three brain cells to the most mentally unbalanced progressives sharing their emotional weakness with the world.”
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Elitist environmentalists hate the working class.
CALM BEFORE THE STORM? Washington Free Beacon reports little in the way of actual protesting at the homes of Supreme Court Justices Kavanaugh and Thomas. But an odd lot of Grannies “storming” the Kavanaugh spread isn’t necessarily a sign the worst is over, given those reports linked earlier this morning by Glenn.
IT’S NOT SUCH A REACH FOR THEM, TO BE HONEST: Desperate Dems turn to Chinese spyware to reach young voters.
A PROPHET IS NOT WITHOUT HONOR, EXCEPT IN HIS OWN COUNTRY, OR IN THE SQUISHY PARTS OF HIS OWN POLITICAL PARTY:
MICHAEL WALSH: Guns N’ Roeses.
After their twin defeats at the Supreme Court last week, regarding two of their most sensitive issues (both of which derive from their devotion to cultural suicide, which is their principal objective), don’t expect them to give up easily. They subscribe to their version of Islamism or the Brezhnev Doctrine: once they’ve conquered moral or physical territory, it can never go back to the way it was. They see themselves as the heroes of their own movies, good red-diaper babies constantly battling the forces of revanchism and irrendentism, which are you. The idea that they’re the bad guy never occurs to them.
These are, after all, the same people who refused to accept George W. Bush’s narrow presidential victory in 2000 (“selected, not elected”); refused to accept Bush’s win over John Kerry in 2004; rained hellfire and brimstone down on poor Sarah Palin, whose only crime was a surfeit of motherhood, and snarlingly turned on her running mate and their erstwhile favorite maverick, John McCain in 2008; and went bonkers over the surprise victory of Donald Trump in 2016, thus triggering the entire “Russian collusion” hoax that started with Hillary Clinton and eventually came to embrace the FBI, the intelligence community, the media, and the judicial system. . . .
All we want, by contrast, is to be left alone with a culture we love and prize and wish to pass on to our children. But they want to take us with them because, as we all know, misery loves company. Either we’ll learn to care, or they’ll die trying. Because in their world, right now, everything’s coming up guns and Roeses, and they can’t have that, not now, not ever.
Yep. Leftist politics is weaponized neurosis.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, AMERICAN STASI EDITION: American University Launches Title IX Investigation Of 8 Law Students Who Criticized A Student’s Pro-Dobbs Views In Group Chat.
I’m glad to see the Title IX shoe on the other foot, though. Fair is fair.
FOR DEMOCRATS, IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT TARGETING THEIR ENEMIES: State Attorney General Suggests Considering Applicants’ Ideological Viewpoints in Denying Carry Licenses: The California AG endorses denying licenses based on the applicant’s “hatred” or “racism.” “This strikes me as clearly unconstitutional under the First Amendment, even apart from the Second Amendment. The government can’t restrict ordinary citizens’ actions—much less their constitutionally protected actions—based on the viewpoints that they express.”
No, but that’s the goal.
YOU DON’T SAY: Global economy ‘flashing red’, warns world’s central bank. “In analysis that suggests the federal government will struggle to meet its pre-election promises around real wages growth and budget repair, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) used its annual report, released on Sunday, to warn of a global ‘regime shift’ that could lead to a repeat of the economic turmoil of the 1970s.”
19TH CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: I Married The Wrong Person, And I’m So Glad I Did.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Under Armour Men’s Charged Pursuit 2 Running Shoe. #CommissionEarned
RACISM AND HATE AND DISCRIMINATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA’S GUN POLICY: Another gun case waits in the wings.
Allen Whitaker is a resident of Washington, D.C., who holds a handgun license. In April 2019, police stopped Whitaker, who is Black and wears dreadlocks, and his male cousin at gunpoint when they were returning from a gun range with Whitaker’s daughter and girlfriend and stopped at a gas station at which a few of the other patrons got into an altercation. Noticing that Whitaker wore an empty pistol holster on his waist, the officers handcuffed the two men. They searched the vehicle as well as Whitaker and his family, found an amount of marijuana legally permissible in the District belonging to Whitaker’s girlfriend, and seized both the marijuana and Whitaker’s gun that was stored in a lockbox in the trunk. The police eventually released Whitaker and his family without charge, but they refused to return the handgun.
After applying to register a new firearm, Whitaker received notice from the Metropolitan Police Department that his gun license would be revoked. D.C. law allows the MPD to determine whether a person is a “suitable” applicant to own a handgun. The notice explained that the gas-station incident, combined with Whitaker’s misdemeanor criminal history that had been evaluated in his originally approved application for a gun license, demonstrated a “propensity for violence or instability” unsuitable for a firearm owner. The Concealed Pistol Licensing Review Board denied Whitaker’s administrative appeal. Whitaker filed suit in the D.C. Court of Appeals, which dismissed the case as moot after the MPD voluntarily reinstated Whitaker’s license mid-litigation. In Whitaker v. District of Columbia Concealed Pistol Licensing Review Board, Whitaker asks the justices to review two aspects of the appeals court’s dismissal.
On the merits, Whitaker argues that the D.C. regulation is unconstitutionally vague. The “propensity for violence or instability” standard, Whitaker says, “confers standardless discretion on the MPD to disqualify anyone [for a gun license] based on the agency’s subjective judgment.”
I agree, and the Court should, too.
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