HE’S NOT REALLY JOKING AS MUCH AS IT SOUNDS: The Rapid Onset Ruling-Class Disorder Crisis.
SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT: Analysis: Kamala Harris Is a ‘Petty Ass Bitch’.
THERE IS NO ONE THE LEFT HATES SO MUCH AS SOMEONE WHO WONDERS OFF THE MINORITY PLANTATION: The Left’s Racist Reaction to Dobbs v. Jackson.
THE JUNTA WOULD LIKE US TO HAVE AN ARMY: Amid Recruitment Crisis, Defense Dept. Poised to Axe At Least 14,000 Army Guard Troops For Refusing COVID Injections.
IT FEELS LIKE 2020 NEVER ENDED: This couldn’t have had a good effect on people’s health.
HILARY HASN’T BEEN A KID FOR ALMOST A CENTURY: Hillary, The Comeback Kid? “Now Is Her Moment”.
AND THIS IS WHAT THEY’RE TRYING TO DISTRACT YOU FROM: Joe Biden Voicemail to Hunter Indicates He Spoke to His Son About His Chinese Dealings.
THESE SHOW TRIALS AREN’T EVEN THAT GOOD A SHOW: Multiple Reporters: Secret Service to Dispute J6 Committee Star Witness.
June 28, 2022
“VINDICTIVE SORE LOSER BUREAUCRATS HAVE ENDANGERED PEOPLE’S LIVES AND INVITED CONFLICT BY ILLEGALLY RELEASING CONFIDENTIAL PRIVATE INFORMATION:” Massive Trove of Gun Owners’ Private Information Leaked by California Attorney General.
OPEN THREAD: Don’t run out of space.
FASTER, PLEASE: Venus Aerospace unveils its new dart-like Mach 9 hypersonic plane design. The subhed claims it will circle the earth in an hour, but it’ll have to go faster than 7,000 mph to do that.
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: ‘The Jewish Factor, It’s Money:’ Biden Ambassador Pick Under Fire for Anti-Semitic Tirade.
It’s two Trumps in one!
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): That didn’t last long:
As usual, the salacious stories about Trump turn out to be made up.
ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): From the comments: “Will someone in D.C. please dress up as a steering wheel and hold a dramatic press conference? ‘Ohhhh, he tried to grab me! And Mark Judge saw the whole thing!'”
Plus, this, via the open thread:
Also, from tonight’s Open Thread: “If the Ds are doing so awesome with the abortion issue, why did they change the news cycle with the bogus Trump steering wheel stupidity?”
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced To Prison In Spite Of Years Of Faithful Service To Nation’s Leaders.
I COULD USE AN ATTACK CAT: Cat chases bear away from owner’s driveway in British Columbia.
BEGUN, THE STATE ABORTION WARS HAVE: Abortion-rights groups sue to stop ‘trigger’ bans in several states.
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY REFUSES TO CANCEL CLARENCE THOMAS: A friend forwards this email from the Provost and Law Dean:
Dear Members of the George Washington University Community,
Since the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, we have heard from members of our community who have expressed feelings of deep disagreement with this decision.
We also have received requests from some members of the university and external communities that the university terminate its employment of Adjunct Professor and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and cancel the Constitutional Law Seminar that he teaches at the Law School. Many of the requests cite Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which he called the substantive due process doctrine a “legal fiction.” Justice Thomas has been a consistent critic of the Court’s legal philosophy on substantive due process for many years. Because we steadfastly support the robust exchange of ideas and deliberation, and because debate is an essential part of our university’s academic and educational mission to train future leaders who are prepared to address the world’s most urgent problems, the university will neither terminate Justice Thomas’ employment nor cancel his class in response to his legal opinions.
Justice Thomas’ views do not represent the views of either the George Washington University or its Law School. Additionally, like all faculty members at our university, Justice Thomas has academic freedom and freedom of expression and inquiry. Our university’s academic freedom guidelines state: “The ideas of different faculty members and of various other members of the University community will often and quite naturally conflict. But it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals within or outside the University from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”
Just as we affirm our commitment to academic freedom, we affirm the right of all members of our community to voice their opinions and contribute to the critical discussions that are foundational to our academic mission.
Too generous to the critics, but it comes out the right way.
BUT OF COURSE: Voicemail indicates Joe Biden knew of Hunter deals with ‘spy chief of China.’ Most corrupt administration ever.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Justice Nominee Promises She’ll Divest Her Stake in Avantor.
President Joe Biden’s nominee for a top post at the Justice Department intends to sell her remaining $14.5 million stake in a company her father chairs, amid questioning about a report the company sold chemicals diverted by Mexican drug cartels to make heroin.
Vanita Gupta made the pledge in written responses to questions from Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, as part of the nomination process. Grassley cited a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation that found a chemical Avantor Inc. makes, acetic anhydride, was easily tapped by narcotics gangs.
I guess that did the trick, as Gupta was confirmed in April.
THE FDA’S DEADLY PROHIBITIONISTS: Warning: This Agency is Hazardous to Your Health. The dramatic decline in smoking among teenagers and adults during the vaping era has been a great public-health success story, but it threatens the activists, academics and bureaucrats who have built careers in the anti-smoking movement. To keep their jobs — and their cut of the $800 million in tobacco user fees that the FDA collects — they need a new enemy, so they’ve declared war on nicotine, which in itself is safe and provides genuine benefits to tens of millions of Americans.
The nicotine prohibitionists want to ban Juul vaping sticks, the most effective technology ever developed for inducing smokers to quit, and mandate lower levels of nicotine in cigarettes. This pointless and hopeless war is a boon for activists and bureaucrats — the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products has more than doubled its staff — but a disaster for public health.
PHIL MAGNESS IS MANFULLY FIGHTING LEFTIST DISINFORMATION ON LIBERTARIANS: Setting the Record Straight on “Setting the Record Straight on the Libertarian South African Economist W.H. Hutt and James M. Buchanan.”
Nancy MacLean’s 2017 book Democracy in Chains has become a quintessential example of this literature. The book’s primary villain – described in MacLean’s words as an “evil genius” – is 1986 Nobel laureate economist James M. Buchanan, who she places at the center of an elaborate academic conspiracy to “enchain democracy” at the behest of a plutocratic elite. Race naturally plays a central part in MacLean’s argument as she places Buchanan in league with the segregationist “Massive Resistance” movement of 1950s Virginia as part of an intellectual project to allegedly rehabilitate the pro-slavery constitutional theories of John C. Calhoun.
In a paper published in 2019, we subjected MacLean’s thesis to careful scrutiny, including retracing her steps through the archival materials she claimed to have used and adding other sources that she missed. The results were not pretty for MacLean’s thesis. We found that she had failed to substantiate her central allegation of Buchanan’s complicity with the segregationists, while also ignoring extensive evidence that worked against this claim. Her archival work produced a long list of misrepresented sources, misread documents, mistaken citations, faulty inferences, historical anachronisms, and outright factual errors. They nonetheless allowed her to construct a narrative about Buchanan that many on the political left accepted for its “truthiness.” Quite simply, MacLean had told a tale that seemed “true” to others who wanted to believe it. Her evidence did not support that story.
One of the main areas where MacLean’s segregationist narrative falters is the case of South African economist W.H. Hutt. In 1965, Buchanan recruited Hutt for a year-long visiting professorship at the University of Virginia. Shortly before he arrived, Hutt published The Economics of the Colour Bar – a withering economic broadside against the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa. The book built on decades of Hutt’s anti-Apartheid work, which had previously induced the South African government to suspend his passport in an effort to silence him. After arriving at UVA, Hutt continued his attacks on Apartheid and gave a string of public lectures pointing out its similarities to the segregationist policies of the Jim Crow South. Clearly, something did not add up in MacLean’s book. If Buchanan’s project at UVA existed to give an academic cover to the segregationist “Massive Resistance” movement, as MacLean maintains, why would Buchanan personally invite an economist who was widely known as an outspoken critic of Apartheid?
Because MacLean’s politics needed him to be racist.
YOU’LL OWN NOTHING, AND YOU’LL LIKE IT! Buyout Begone: Ford Says You Can Never Own Leased EVs.
MADE IN THE USA: The Classic Leather Everyday Belt. #CommissionEarned
WELL, BYE: Netflix cancels another show after just one season. “Q-Force is an adult animated comedy that focuses on a group of LGBTQ+ superspies, known as Queer Force, who are looking to prove themselves to the American Intelligence Agency (AIA) that undervalues them.”
LET ME JUST GET OUT AHEAD OF THE STORY AND SAY THAT GHISLAINE MAXWELL DID NOT COMMIT SUICIDE: Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Sex Trafficking Crimes.
Maxwell was sentenced on Tuesday to 20 years in prison in her New York sex-trafficking case for procuring teen girls for Jeffrey Epstein for him to abuse. Maxwell, 60, has maintained her innocence.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender and financier whose elite associates once included Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton, was captured by federal authorities in July 2019, on sex-trafficking counts. He killed himself in a New York City federal jail just over one month after his arrest.
Maxwell’s attorneys had pushed for leniency in sentencing, saying that she should receive “well below” the 20 years recommended by federal probation officials. Prosecutors pushed for a sentence of 30 to 55 years in prison.
Maxwell, a former British socialite, was convicted on 29 December of five of the six charges she faced.
Related: “Maxwell looked at her victims, saying, ‘I am sorry for the pain that you experienced.’ ‘I hope my conviction and harsh incarceration brings you pleasure.’”
CORPORATE AMERICA TAKES SIDES: Google tells U.S. workers they can move to states where abortion is legal. They wouldn’t do this for gun rights. . . .
But if it staunches the flow of lefties to red states, I’m for it.
UPDATE: From a friend:
FASTER, PLEASE: Tissue model reveals key players in liver regeneration.
Obligatory Stephen Green reference goes here.
PARTY OF RERUNS: The whispers of Hillary Clinton 2024 have started. “Clinton is exactly the right person to put steel in the Democrats’ spine and bring attention to the reality that ‘ultra-MAGA’ Republicans, as President Biden calls them, are tearing apart the nation.”
THIS’LL HELP MORALE: Quote from Beijing official on ‘5 years’ of COVID-19 restrictions causes stir. “Residents of Beijing reacted with confusion and alarm Monday when a top Communist Party official was quoted in official media saying strict COVID-19 policies could be in place for five years. A story first posted in the Beijing Daily, the official publication of the capital’s ruling party, quoted former mayor and current party chief Cai Qi as saying the city will uphold the controversial ‘zero-COVID’ policy ‘for the next five years,’ the Guardian and CNN reported.”
This is the 21st Century version of the Chinese Communist Party’s many other stupid policies inflexibly applied, from “little steel” to the one-child policy.
BIDEN’S SANCTIONS CONTINUE UNDERMINING THE DOLLAR: Oil shippers are hiding Russian cargoes by paying in Chinese yuan, exchanging weapons for crude, and ‘going dark.’ “Yuan-ruble trading volumes have soared 1,067% since Russia began its war with Ukraine, though this is broadly seen as a sign of the allies strengthening ties to help weaken the influence of the US.”
ICYMI: Astonishing Testimony From Dr. Birx Lost Amid Landmark SCOTUS Rulings.
Jordan asked Birx if the government was lying or guessing when it told the public that people who received the vaccination couldn’t get COVID. Birx responded that she did not know. However, she continued, “All I know is there was evidence from the global pandemic that natural reinfection was occurring. Since the vaccine was based on natural immunity, you cannot make the conclusion that the vaccine will do better than natural infection. Although it can often do slightly better.” [Emphasis added]
Why didn’t she speak up about this while still in office? Public health “experts” like Dr. Anthony Fauci actively tried to convince Americans that natural immunity was inferior to the jabs. It’s not clear what large numbers of reinfections Birx was referring to since most positive post-infection tests were reported in asymptomatic people. One study in preprint finds that the spike protein, the part of the virus the tests detect, can remain in a recovered patient’s body for up to 12 months post-infection. How this could affect post-recovery testing in asymptomatic patients is unknown.
Jordan went on to challenge Birx about what the government knew and when. “You were part of this effort when you were in the previous administration. And you’re saying in this administration that you can’t rule out the fact that our government was lying to us when they told us the vaccinated could not get the virus,” he charged.
Birx responded, “I don’t know about their discussions that they had in the task force. So I can’t tell you that.” Then, as she often did on the Trump task force, she traded on her personal situation. “I can tell you as a family member who had individuals that were susceptible, of course, we got everybody vaccinated. But we still used layered protection during surges.”
So, why was Dr. Birx vaccinated and masked? She continued: “Because I knew potentially vaccine immunity would wane like natural immunity waned. There was evidence that every four months, reinfection was occurring in South Africa.” Huh. That seems like it should have been part of informed consent before Americans decided to take an experimental vaccine or give it to their children. Four months of coverage seems like a risk-benefit ratio Americans should have been able to calculate for themselves.
Jordan continued, “When the government told us that the vaccinated couldn’t transmit it, was that a lie or is it a guess? Or is it the same answer?” Remember when the anchors on CNN and members of the administration told you to “trust the science”? Do you recall all the accomplished clinicians and researchers who have been silenced and unpersoned over their COVID-19 comments? If so, Birx’s response may infuriate you. “I think it was hoped that the vaccine would work in that way,” she said.
Hope is not a plan. Except it was the plan.
SRI LANKA, WE MAY BE JOINING YOU SOON: “Here’s What Life Looks Like in a Country That’s Run Out of Fuel.“
REPORTS: At Least 42 People Found Dead Inside Truck Carrying Migrants In Texas.
But no need to worry: Karine Jean-Pierre: It’s a fact that the border is closed.
Although Blake included it in his quote from Ginsburg’s speech, he doesn’t otherwise mention no-fault divorce. Let’s talk about why Ginsburg connected the no-fault divorce movement with the abortion-rights movement — and why these movements happened in the same time frame. One could say both movements pushed government out of the intimate sphere that belongs to the individual. Another way to put that was both movements served the agenda of the sexual revolution.
Well, that was a top Gentry Class priority at the time, so of course the courts were on board.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Was Hunter’s Russian Escort Paid for by Joe?
Plus:
- Yeah, that’s grooming
- You’ll never guess the one place where you can still find tampons
- Consistency is not the hobgoblin of little Reichs
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Biden’s Sex Police: The White House’s new regulations will gut due-process rights for college students accused of sexual misconduct.
The new rules recommend a return to a “single investigator” model that was barred under the DeVos reform. This means one administrator can act as detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury on a Title IX complaint. The new rules also undo many of the procedural protections for the accused—including the right to see all the evidence, inculpatory and exculpatory, gathered against him. “It’s an evisceration of the procedural protections given to the accused,” says historian KC Johnson, co-author of The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities.
Under the DeVos rules, adjudication of a formal complaint required a live hearing be held that included cross examination. The Biden administration lifts this obligation. The Biden rules also call for a return to investigations initiated by third parties, even if based on rumors or misunderstandings, in which male students can be subjected to Title IX proceedings over the objection of their female partners. (Robby Soave at Reason has a good summary of the Biden proposals.) . . .
One frustrated Title IX coordinator told me she sometimes thought of her job as running “The Break Up Office.” She said many young people lacked the skills to navigate relationships themselves, and often didn’t want to. Why should they? Instead of focusing on punishing students who commit truly bad acts and aiding their victims, campus administrators transmitted the message that recasting any sexual experience as malign, and then reporting it to school authorities, is an act of bravery.
Colleges shouldn’t be policing relationships. Assaults should be reported to the police. Bad experiences not rising to that level should be learned from.
RANDY BARNETT ON BRUEN: A minor impact on gun laws but a potentially momentous shift in constitutional method.
NOW OUT: Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation. #CommissionEarned
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Against the Great Reset: ‘The Great Regression.’
DAN HART: The Catastrophe of 12 Million Fatherless American Boys.
Amongst the heated public rhetoric in the aftermath of the Uvalde school massacre, one tragic detail remains stubbornly paramount: the 18-year-old male shooter came from a broken family and was estranged from his father.
While it would certainly be unfair to pin all the blame for monstrous crimes committed by young men on the failings of their parents without considering other factors, there’s no denying what is arguably the central issue facing our nation (and what the Left persistently brushes aside): the breakdown of marriage and the children that grow up fatherless as a result. The Institute for Family Studies recently summed up the situation well: “The decline of marriage and the rise of fatherlessness in America remain at the center of some of the biggest problems facing the nation: crime and violence, school failure, deaths of despair, and children in poverty.”
American boys are at the center of this crisis: they grow up to commit crime, drop out of school, and take their own lives at far higher rates than women do. From 1960 to 1996, the percentage of boys who lived without their biological father almost doubled—from 17% to 32%. Today, the Institute for Family Studies reports that “an estimated 12 million boys are growing up in families without their biological father.”
Read the whole thing.
WELL, GOOD: The Ukraine war is bleeding Russia dry.
SAFE, LEGAL, AND… AWESOME? NYC Mayor, Deputy Mayor Credit Their Success to Abortions.
When lefties started bragging about their abortions they lost the moderates.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): It was all me starting this trend.
Okay, that was actually an ancient (2004) photoshop by Allahpundit, in response to an absurdly confused t-shirt complaint by lefty blogger Duncan Black, nee Atrios.
Ancient blogosphere history, I know, but I was there for it, as were many of you.
And I call this look “Blue Steel.”
Because of course.
ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): From the comments: “No one would have guessed in 2004, but in 2022 Glenn’s (photoshopped) t-shirt message is both plausible and celebrated!!!”
What a long, strange trip it’s been. . .
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Fat studies is the field that teaches students to view obesity as ‘oppression.’
OF COURSE HE DOES: Biden sends team to make nice with Venezuela.
I’m not going to fault Joe Biden for trying to secure the release of the hostages. Sometimes we have to deal with unsavory leaders in the interest of getting our people back. We’ve had to do the same thing with Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey and even the Iranian Mullahs in the past. But this trip involves some very uncomfortable realities for the White House that can’t be ignored.
In case the President has forgotten, our government does not recognize Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Nor does most of the civilized world. He stole the last election in 2018 and we recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate leader of that country. But now we’re going back into negotiations with Maduro’s people. . . .
Also, while it’s not being announced through official channels, it seems obvious that the Citgo connection is giving the Biden administration an opportunity to speak to Maduro’s people about the possibility of arranging for some oil exports for us. We’re not supposed to be taking any oil from Venezuela because of the sanctions, but why let a little thing like that stop us, right? There’s also the inconvenient fact that Russia now controls a majority interest in Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA. So we are now apparently considering doing business indirectly with the Russians and an illegitimate socialist regime in South America rather than pumping our own oil domestically.
Fossil fuels are only bad if they come from America.
DON’T GET COCKY: More Than 1M Voters Switch to GOP in Warning for Dems.
More than 1 million voters across 43 states have switched to the Republican Party over the last year, according to voter registration data analyzed by The Associated Press. The previously unreported number reflects a phenomenon that is playing out in virtually every region of the country — Democratic and Republican states along with cities and small towns — in the period since President Joe Biden replaced former President Donald Trump.
But nowhere is the shift more pronounced — and dangerous for Democrats — than in the suburbs, where well-educated swing voters who turned against Trump’s Republican Party in recent years appear to be swinging back. Over the last year, far more people are switching to the GOP across suburban counties from Denver to Atlanta and Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Republicans also gained ground in counties around medium-size cities such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; and Des Moines, Iowa.
Ben Smith, who lives in suburban Larimer County, Colorado, north of Denver, said he reluctantly registered as a Republican earlier in the year after becoming increasingly concerned about the Democrats’ support in some localities for mandatory COVID-19 vaccines, the party’s inability to quell violent crime and its frequent focus on racial justice.
“Progressive” causes aren’t doing the Democrats any favors.
NOW OUT FROM JOE PAPPALARDO: Red Sky Morning: The Epic True Story of Texas Ranger Company F.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: I Have Beef With Liberal Lies About What Abortion Really Is. “One of the zillions of things I hate about the Marxy leftist sitzpinklers is the way they hijack our language to make their obscenities seem noble.”
SHOW TRIALS AREN’T ABOUT THE TRUTH: Exclusive: Former White House Staffer Confirms Jan. 6 Committee Lied About DOJ Attorney.
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.” (Bumped.)
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.
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