LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: CisRacial People Need To Shut Up.

INSTAPUNDIT 2001 AND GUEST BLOGGING: I started teaching at the University of Tennessee College of Law Summer, 2001, the same summer that Glenn started Instapundit.  I remember vividly when he first told me about it.  “I’m starting a blog,” he said. 

Since it was 2001, I said “A what?”

“A weblog.  A page where I can write about stuff and not have to wait a year and a half for a law review to publish it.”

Frankly, I was a little skeptical.  “Weblog, eh?  Will it be about what you ate for breakfast and pictures of your family?  Or will it be a Space Law type thing?”

“No, no, no, it’s going to be called Instapundit, and I’m just going to write short posts about whatever I’m interested in, politics, science, law, cars, whatever.”

Now this sounded more promising.  Glenn is a font of interesting, weird, (and yes, sometimes even useless) information and opinions on an astounding array of topics.  Seriously, even after just meeting him in 2001, I knew that he has a breadth of knowledge about a dizzying array of topics.  What Glenn described actually sounded like the perfect medium for him and a way to harness his vast intellectual curiosity.

But who would read it?  I think it is true that I was one of Glenn’s first readers.  I remember talking over his traffic counts that summer as the site grew.  In August and September (and especially after Glenn’s amazing and poignant 9/11 posts) the site really caught fire and I exclaimed “Holy crap!  That is WAY more people than you personally know!”  Glenn replied “I know, I know!  Cool, right?”

My recollection is that one of the first versions of the site had time stamps on PST, so it looked like Glenn was awake and posting every ten minutes starting at 3:45 in the morning.  I even emailed him that Fall to express concern about his sleeping habits!  

So now being asked to guest blog (in advance of the release of my book, The Glass Half-Full: The Decline and Rebirth of the Legal Profession) is more than an honor, it’s a thrill, and frankly a little intimidating.  Some of my posts will be longish and recaps of the book, so I hope you will bear with me.  I’m, as always, very grateful to Glenn for the opportunity and for his years of friendship and support.  If you’ve ever wondered if Glenn is as good a colleague as his blog suggests, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN is on Preet Bharara’s Assault On Reason.

YES, I HAVE GUESTBLOGGERS: The usual crew plus some new ones. I’ll be off at a secure, undisclosed location. Have fun!

ILYA SOMIN: Lessons from a little pink house, 10 years later.

June 23 marks the 10th anniversary of Kelo v. City of New London, when the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 ruling that government could use eminent domain to take private property for “economic development.” At issue in the case were 15 homes, including a little pink house owned by Susette Kelo, in the city of New London, Conn., which wanted to transfer the properties to a private nonprofit with plans to revitalize the area. But after the court ruled and the houses were razed (with the exception of Ms. Kelo’s, which was moved at private expense), those plans fell through.

The condemned land remains empty, housing only a few feral cats. After Hurricane Irene in 2011, the city used it as a dumping ground for debris. Yet the first real development since the Supreme Court’s controversial decision might now be on its way: New London Mayor Daryl Finizio, who was elected in 2011 as a critic of the government taking, recently announced a plan to turn the former site of Ms. Kelo’s house into a park that will “serve as a memorial to all those adversely affected by the city’s use of eminent domain.”

It would be a fitting tribute. Although the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo was consistent with precedent, it was nonetheless a serious error.

Kelo is a disaster that needs to be overturned. As Somin points out, there has been some decent post-Kelo progress in eminent domain reform at the state level, but it’s not enough. Read the whole thing.

STEPHEN CARTER EXPLORES WHITE SUPREMACIST SITES so you don’t have to. He finds a lot of self-pity.

To those who are suffering, they offer succor. To those who are outcasts, they offer an explanation: The white race is being oppressed, and is in danger of extinction. Those feelings of being left out, they suggest, are being intentionally fomented. Every other race is encouraged to celebrate itself. Whites are encouraged only to feel guilty about themselves. They are blamed, the sites say, for all the world’s ills.

A message so framed might prove attractive to an angry and frustrated young white loner. It’s not his fault that he’s feeling isolated and hopeless, his new friends tell him. Those feelings are being imposed upon him by others.  And those others, the new recruit quickly learns, should be considered the enemy.

Not that different from the appeal that works for Islamic supremacists, minus the religious angle. Jane the Actuary has some thoughts on those parallels.

NOT SURE DE BLASIO WOULD CONSIDER THIS TO BE A BUG: New York’s Attempted Requirement That Uber App Updates Gain Regulatory Approval Will Cede Control to China: “The DeBlasio administration in New York City, through its Taxi and Limousine Commission . . . intend[s] to exercise veto rights over the technology the world uses to interact with the global ridesharing service. They require notice to the Commission every time there’s an app update.”

 “We can still review their application change after the fact,” said Allan Fromberg, TLC spokesman. “If we see a problem we can still advise them and insist that they make any necessary changes.”

Gary Leff comments:

“[U]nder this model it’s actually China that wins the regulatory war, decisions they make following a Taxi and Limousine Commission model, would dictate how the business operates and interacts with consumers and drivers. Because the biggest market is China.”

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: China’s hackers got what they came for.

The Chinese hackers who are believed to have cracked into the federal government’s networks might not be back for a while.

They got what they came for.

“I think they have 95 percent of what they want from both U.S. industry and government,” said Tom Kellermann, chief cybersecurity officer at security research firm Trend Micro.

While China’s aggressive hacking operations are certain to continue, experts say the mammoth data breach at the Office of Personnel Management is a watershed event that will allow Beijing to move from broad reconnaissance to narrowly tailored snooping.

Having already obtained private information on up to 14 million federal employees — including Social Security numbers, arrest and financial records, and details on mental illness and drug and alcohol use — China’s hacking teams can now retreat to the shadows.

“For this point in time we won’t see another massive attack like this. Instead, it will be more targeted ones,” said Tony Cole, global government chief technical officer for security firm FireEye, which has conducted extensive research on Chinese cyber campaigns.

U.S. officials are still trying to figure out the full scope of the data breach, which is believed to have affected security clearance information for the military and spy agencies.

No wonder they’d rather talk about flags.

SO, MIKE FLYNN — FORMERLY OF REASON, AND AN ORGANIZER OF THE QUINCY TEA PARTY I ATTENDED WITH ANDREW BREITBART AND DANA LOESCH — is running for Congress in Quincy, Illinois.

You can donate here. He’s a good guy.

ACE: Democrats: We Shouldn’t Politicize a Tragedy But Seriously There’s Like Sooo Much Political Juice to be Wrung from This Apple.

STEVE MOORE: “Rand Paul overnight changed the dynamics of the Republican presidential race on Thursday when he released his Fair and Flat Tax plan.” It is a one-rated, 14.5 percent flat tax devised with help from Art Laffer, Steve Forbes, and Heritage’s Moore:

The 14.5 percent tax would apply to wages, salaries, capital gains, rents, and dividend income. The plan eliminates the estate tax, telephone taxes, Internet taxes, gift taxes and all customs and duties [while keeping the mortgage interest and charitable deductions].

This plan would take America from being one of the highest income tax rate nations in the world to the lowest. This would suck capital and jobs from the rest of the world almost immediately to these shores. America would move from a nation off-shoring jobs, to one that would start in-sourcing millions of them. It gives U.S. workers a fair advantage.

For low income and middle class families of four, the first $50,000 of income would be tax free. Moreover, because this plan eliminates the payroll tax withheld from worker paychecks, the average worker would with a $40,000 income would get a $3,000 take home pay raise. At a time of falling wages, that would be a big boost to middle class financial security.

Perhaps the strongest case for the Fair and Flat Tax is that it eliminates all of the special interest loopholes and carve-outs in the tax code. Tax lobbyists in Washington would become an endangered species — and it couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people. The richest one percent get the preponderance of the tax write-offs, so getting rid of the big deductions, would increase their taxable income while lowering the rate.

This plan is the essence of a fundamental principle of good and fair tax policy: broad base and low rates.

You make twice as much, you pay twice as much in taxes. You make three times as much, you pay three times as much in taxes. Simple, but…

CATO’S DAN MITCHELL IDENTIFIES THE CATCH:  “Senator Paul’s “business-activity tax” doesn’t allow a deduction for wages and salaries. This means, for all intents and purposes, that he is turning the corporate income tax into a value-added tax (VAT).”

MORE: Rand Paul and the VAT That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

So apparently you pay a 14.5% income tax PLUS a 14.5% sales tax on all you buy with your after tax dollars. A transparent national sales/consumption tax makes sense if you repeal the Sixteenth Amendment and abolish the IRS along with any need to report one’s income and activities to the government. But then it would have to be much higher than 14.5%.

Let the tax policy debate begin!

THE POPE IS WRONG ABOUT AIR CONDITIONING: It saves lives. And he uses it himself.

A CHANCE TO REPEAL NEW YORK’S DUMB AND DANGEROUS KNIFE LAW: Batter-up New York: Let’s bring gravity-knife repeal home.

But look who’s standing in the way: Will New York Republicans Kill Knife Law Reform for the Second Year in a Row? Come on, guys. Show some sense here. Even the Village Voice is on board. Plus: “Many of [those opposed] are upstate senators whose constituents are going to the city and getting arrested with the same pocket knives they’re carrying back home.” What the hell? (Bumped).

REMINDER: In 2009, Barack Obama “Joked” About Having The IRS Target His Enemies.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Why are American schools slowing down so many bright children?

ILYA SOMIN: Why State Governments Should Take Down The Confederate Flag.

It was pro-segregation Democrats like Fritz Hollings who supported bringing back the Confederate flag back in the 1960s, so why shouldn’t the Republicans who control southern statehouses now take it down?