March 24, 2025

OBAMACARE MADE EVERYTHING WORSE EXCEPT FOR THE WELL-CONNECTED:

Posted at 1:56 pm by Stephen Green

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG:

“While calling for maximum transparency from DOGE,” Winters replied.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Pam Bondi Warns Jasmine Crockett to ‘Tread Carefully’ After Threat to ‘Take Down’ Elon, Crockett Responds.

Crockett swiftly ran to MSNBC’s Alex Witt to “set the record straight,” dismissing Bondi’s threat with a defense suggesting she wasn’t being literal when she told rabid followers to take down Musk. It was the Tesla stock she was referencing.

“I wasn’t calling for violence,” she said. “It’s ridiculous that I even have to say something like that. But because they are trying to twist our words, one of the things that I told people to do is make sure you are adhering to the laws in your area.”

In her usual dismissive attitude, Crockett reiterated her explanation for the “slow people listening,” which was a reference to Bondi but likely more appropriate to anyone watching MSNBC.

“I just want to say that I have never promoted violence whatsoever,” she claimed without evidence.

Her track record, however, betrays the slow congresswoman, as Crockett has repeatedly made incendiary remarks that could be construed as a call to violence against Trump administration officials.

And other Republicans:

Related: Crockett and “code-switching:” You Should Learn to Code. “Apparently, for Crockett, code-switching from proper English down to the vulgate is important to reach out to her voters — because, apparently, speaking like an educated person just puts them all off.”

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

GOOD ADVICE FROM MY CONGRESSMAN:

Though it’s really advice for Mike Johnson and John Thune.

Related: Voter ID law and election integrity should be top priority in new Congress. Voters want it, and with good reason.

UPDATE: From the comments: “It would be interesting for Johnson and Thune to prepare and circulate the aforementioned list of five things I got done last week. From this distance we can’t see anything happening and it is disconcerting.”

Posted at 1:25 pm by Glenn Reynolds

FEDS TELL MED SCHOOLS TO STOP DISCRIMINATING. Seriously, can all these institutions please just stop engaging in racial discrimination? Just judge people as individuals. You have admission and hiring processes to allow for precisely that. Until they can make this happen, nobody has any reason to believe anything they say.

Posted at 1:23 pm by Robert Shibley

MONOPOLY ROUND-UP: The Democrats’ Corporate Lawyers Get the Humiliation They Deserve.

Lots of monopoly related news, as usual. But I want to start with an important moment in the Democratic Party establishment. Donald Trump got a major corporate law firm, pretty much the shadow Kamala Harris administration in waiting, to bend the knee. At the same time, there were massive outpourings of popular anger towards oligarchs at rallies held by Bernie Sanders, as well as rage from Democratic voters towards their own leaders at town halls. The Democratic Party is in chaos.

Let’s dive in.

For a long time, I’ve discussed a secret center of power in America, what is known as “Big Law,” a network of law firms who serve as a shadow government for the out-of-power party.

Lawyers have always had a special place in America. They must maintain a dual loyalty, serving clients with advice and court representation, but serving the public as officers of the court. There’s a dense ethical code lawyers must maintain. For instance, they can’t help their clients break the law, and they can’t switch sides in a dispute.

In 1931, Robert Jackson, who later served on the Supreme Court, gave a speech to the American Bar Association making that point. “We believe in an independent bar, free not only from government control, but intellectually independent of client control,” he said. “In the client-and-attorney relation the client is not a master, the lawyer is not a mere hired hand. He is an officer of the Court, with a duty of independent judgment in the performance of his professional service and under a duty to serve all sorts and conditions of men.”

But Jackson, along with men he admired such as Louis Brandeis, did not feel that lawyers, especially those in New York working for financial firms, lived up to their billing, instead seeking to twist the law on behalf of the powerful. And the problem is much worse in modern America, dominated as it is by oligarchs. This is especially true in cloistered specialities, like antitrust.

A few years ago, I spoke at the American Bar Association Antitrust Section, and observed the rage the gathered corporate lawyers felt towards anti-monopolists for barging into their club. While I noted at the time the legal elements of the disagreement, there’s a political element as well. These lawyers are the Democratic establishment, the real thinkers and operatives behind the frontmen like Democratic minority leader Chuck Schumer and candidates like Kamala Harris and Barack Obama. And it’s been this way for decades, such that it’s systematized. Young ambitious liberals have to get their few years at one of these firms and then they can be considered a real lawyer.

Exit quote: “You can’t understand the Democrats without understanding big law. Paul Weiss is the Dem establishment. Hakeem Jeffries worked there for six years. Schumer’s brother is a partner there, as are two Obama cabinet members. Sotomayor, Kagan, and RBG were all summer associates there.”

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

RIP: Former Congresswoman Mia Love Dies at 49.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I interviewed her a couple of times and quite liked her. I also remember that her favorite economist was Frederic Bastiat, which was surely unique for the House of Representatives.

Posted at 1:13 pm by Stephen Green

HOW’S THAT BOYCOTT WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA?

Pro Tip: Boycotts only work when the cause is, you know, popular enough to cause pain to the boycotted.

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

CHANGE OF THE GUARD:

Posted at 12:14 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OZEMPIC: BIG TROUBLE FOR THE BOOZE INDUSTRY. “In the US, the sector’s most important market, alcohol consumption per person fell 3 per cent last year in the biggest drop since the prohibition era a century ago, according to research by Bernstein. Drinking is now languishing at its lowest level since 1962, down 20 per cent on its 1980s peak. . . . Studies show that weight-loss and diabetes drugs, such as Wegovy and Ozempic, could cut opioid and alcohol abuse up to half. . . . He added that social media was making young people more focused on how they look and behave, which acted as a further deterrent to heavy drinking because of its weight-gain effects.”

With my distilled spirits class on a field trip to a liquor distributor, our host said that they’re really feeling the “Ozempic effect.” Though he also echoed this statement: “We suspect Gen Z’s relatively low absolute spend on alcohol has more to do with the group’s lower earnings profile.”

This article does miss that many players in the industry are also turning to cannabis products in the hopes of future growth; I don’t know how that will work out for them.

Posted at 12:08 pm by Glenn Reynolds

GOT WOKE, WENT…: As Disney’s ‘Snow White’ Performed Even Worse Than Predicted, Some Curious Data Is Found in the Details.

Looking at past averages in those conservative-versus-liberal locations it was found that “Snow White” actually performed slightly better than historical levels in those red areas against those traditional percentages.

Family and animated movies’ ticket sales come from 63% Blue counties and 37% Red counties while their attendance stems from 60% Blue counties and 40% Red counties. That means that Snow White with 40% ticket sales and 43.5% admissions from Red county-based cinemas overindexed in such locations.

What this revealing detail means is that the studio has lost its ability to spin this as a social backlash. Disney cannot dismiss this as an intolerant reaction when its film performed below expectations with its dependable blue locations. Coupled with the diminished interest in international territories, this is a sign that the product quality was the issue. Anti-woke backlash is no longer an excuse when the avoidance by audiences was across the spectrum.

What Disney is facing with this performance is that it had a functionally flawed film. Numerous misfires in the approach to the product and with casting led to a result that few had an interest in. Instead of focusing on the quality of the material, the studio looked to generate a new version with contemporary virtue signaling, making a progressive spin on a classic property.

The result was not creating a new fusion offering; instead, it ended up serving up a dish that most found unpalatable. The box office shows data points that indicate the woke tendency at Disney is a losing proposition. Looking over its recent hits – “Deadpool 3”, “Inside Out 2”, and “Moana 2” – lays out the obvious facts for the executives. When you do not force feed woke content, the audiences reward you with interest and ticket purchases. “Snow White” should serve as the object lesson for future considerations on projects they greenlight. It remains to be seen that Disney is learning from these misfires.

Related: Someone Set the Comments Section Under Snow White to Music and We Can’t … Stop … Laughing!

At 5:30, it goes on for about three minutes more than necessary, but kudos to whoever did the AI vocals.

Finally, on Saturday, the day after its debut, IMDB’s readers gave Snow White 2.4 out of ten. It’s currently:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE: China unveils a powerful deep-sea cable cutter that could reset the world order.

A compact, deep-sea, cable-cutting device, capable of severing the world’s most fortified underwater communication or power lines, has been unveiled by China – and it could shake up global maritime power dynamics.

The revelation marks the first time any country has officially disclosed that it has such an asset, capable of disrupting critical undersea networks.

The tool, which is able to cut lines at depths of up to 4,000 metres (13,123 feet) – twice the maximum operational range of existing subsea communication infrastructure – has been designed specifically for integration with China’s advanced crewed and uncrewed submersibles like the Fendouzhe, or Striver, and the Haidou series.

World War III will be fought pretty much everywhere.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The more vulnerable undersea cables are, the more powerful Starlink becomes.

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green