DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH: Knife-Wielding Man Attacks Soldier Near Louvre Museum in Paris: Man shouted ‘Allahu akbar’ as he charged at soldiers before being shot and detained.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: House votes to void Obama administration’s Social Security gun background check rule.

Under the rule, which got final approval as President Obama was heading out the door in December, the Social Security Administration was instructed to scour its records to spot people who were so mentally impaired that their checks were sent to a payment representative. Those names were then to be entered in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

The GOP-controlled House voted 235-180, breaking down almost entirely along party lines, to kill the new rule using the Congressional Review Act, which gives Capitol Hill a chance to swat down a lame-duck president’s last-minute regulations.

Gun-rights groups said the rule impinged on Americans’ Second Amendment rights, denying them the chance to buy a gun without good reason.

“This rule is a slap in the face of those in the disabled community because it paints all those who suffer from mental disorders with the same broad brush,” said Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, Virginia Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

He said people who suffer from mental disorders are more likely to be crime victims, not perpetrators.

The lede is actually buried in this story.

The real news is that Congress used its CRA power to knock down an Obama regulation, which if Todd Gaziano has it right, we could be seeing a lot more of in the next few months — with Congress possibly eliminating regs dating back to the very beginning of the Obama Administration.

CONGRESS IS SUPPOSED TO GUARANTEE STATES A REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT. WHEN ONE OR TWO URBAN AREAS DOMINATE AN ENTIRE STATE WITH DIFFERENT POLITICS, IS THAT A VIOLATION? Red State, Blue City.

But that’s not the concern of this piece from The Atlantic, shockingly:

Recent events in red states where cities are pockets of liberalism are instructive, and cautionary. Over the past few years, city governments and state legislatures have fought each other in a series of battles involving preemption, the principle that state law trumps local regulation, just as federal law supersedes state law. It hasn’t gone well for the city dwellers.

Close observers of these clashes expect them to proliferate in the years to come, with similar results. “We are about to see a shit storm of state and federal preemption orders, of a magnitude greater than anything in history,” says Mark Pertschuk of Grassroots Change, which tracks such laws through an initiative called Preemption Watch. By the group’s count, at least 36 states introduced laws preempting cities in 2016.

State legislatures have put their oar in on issues ranging from the expansive to the eccentric. Common examples involve blocking local minimum-wage and sick-leave ordinances, which are opposed by business groups, and bans on plastic grocery bags, which arouse retailers’ ire. Some states have prohibited cities from enacting firearm regulations, frustrating leaders who say cities have different gun problems than do rural areas.

I think they’re saying that cities have more black people. That’s pretty racist of them. They deserve to be preempted, with that sort of attitude.

And more seriously, it’s rich to see the left, which has been all about squashing respect for local beliefs and customs, suddenly interested in local autonomy.

ORRIN HATCH TROLLS TEDDY KENNEDY’S GHOST: In Neil Gorsuch’s America.

In Neil Gorsuch’s America, the laws that bind us are made by the people’s elected representatives, not unelected, unaccountable judges.

In Neil Gorsuch’s America, the powers and limits of each branch of government are decided by the Constitution, no matter whether their enforcement produces a liberal or a conservative outcome.

In Neil Gorsuch’s America, the basic freedoms of the American people enumerated in the Bill of Rights are carefully protected, whether they are in fashion lately with the left, the right, both, or neither.

In Neil Gorsuch’s America, the views that matter are yours and mine, not those of a handful of lawyers in black robes in Washington.

It’s weird how Orrin Hatch seems to have become kinda . . . feisty in the Trump era.

I’M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY: Senate advances DeVos’s nomination, setting her up for final vote.

Senators voted 52-48 to advance DeVos’s nomination. No Democrats voted yes.

The vote, which came during a rare Friday session, sets up lawmakers to take a final vote early next week.

Vice President Pence is expected to have to break a 50-50 tie, the first time a vice president will cast the deciding vote on a Cabinet nomination.

Senate rules require an extra 30 hours of debate before senators can confirm DeVos. If Democrats refuse to yield back time and drag out the procedural clock, they could push a final vote until Tuesday.

Republicans have no room for error to clear DeVos, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) saying they’ll vote against her.

If it weren’t for Harry Reid and his “nuclear option,” Trump would be shopping for a new Education nominee right now. Instead, it looks likely the DeVos will just squeak through.

Thanks, Harry!

INCOME: ‘Superstar’ Companies Are Eating Into Workers’ Wealth, Study Finds.

“The aggregate share of labor falls as the weight of superstar firms in the economy grows,” the paper’s authors conclude. They are economists David Autor, Christina Patterson, and John Van Reenen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Lawrence Katz of Harvard University; and David Dorn of the University of Zurich. The research was released in January as a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research [PDF].

The paper doesn’t name the superstars but notes that “firms may attain large market shares with a relatively small workforce, as illustrated by Facebook and Google.”

The study’s implications for policy are ambiguous. Donald Trump has promised to lift the wages of ordinary Americans but has also spoken positively about the contributions of U.S. tech giants—not just Facebook and Google but also Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and others. “I’m here to help you folks do well,” he said at a summit with tech chief executive officers in December. Superstar companies can make the pie bigger, so squelching them probably wouldn’t make workers better off.

“It’s not immediately obvious what the policy would be” to reverse the downward trend for labor, Autor said in an interview.

In Frank Herbert’s Dune, “thinking machines” had long been outlawed to protect mankind from their harmful effects, but the resulting oppressive empire ruled by shifting coalitions of noble families probably isn’t the political cure America is looking for.

OUR CURRENT CIVIL SERVICE SETUP HAS CLEARLY FAILED TO PRODUCE A NONPARTISAN, COMPETENT CIVIL SERVICE: Inez Feltscher Stepman: To ‘drain the swamp,’ Trump should look to states’ civil service reform. “As in many policy areas, the states have been leading the way in reforming their own civil services. States like Georgia, Florida, Texas, and most recently Wisconsin have implemented a system of ‘at will’ employment for public employees, while also washing away many of the Byzantine procedures that have calcified agency practices.”

THE LEFTIES THOUGHT THE TEA PARTY WAS ASTROTURF, BECAUSE THAT’S HOW THEY OPERATE: These Are the Groups Behind Those ‘Spontaneous’ Anti-Trump-Ban Protests.

UM… Sarah Silverman Asks Military to Overthrow ‘Fascist’ Trump.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Thank God for Harry Reid.

There are many people to thank for the coming accession of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Donald Trump for winning the election. Hillary Clinton for losing it. Mitch McConnell for holding open the high court seat through 2016, resolute and immovable against furious (and hypocritical) opposition from Democrats and media. And, of course, Harry Reid.

God bless Harry Reid. It’s because of him that Gorsuch is guaranteed elevation to the court. In 2013, as Senate majority leader, Reid blew up the joint. He abolished the filibuster for federal appointments both executive (such as Cabinet) and judicial, for all district and circuit court judgeships (excluding only the Supreme Court). Thus unencumbered, the Democratic-controlled Senate packed the lower courts with Obama nominees.

Reid was warned that the day would come when Republicans would be in the majority and would exploit the new rules to equal and opposite effect. That day is here.

I swear, they acted like they thought they’d never lose another election.

Related: Liberal UC Berkeley law professor Dan Farber on Neil Gorsuch. “He is a thoughtful, principled judge, albeit one who is more conservative than I would like.”

EUGENE ROBINSON: Democrats Should Filibuster Gorsuch with 2018 in Mind.

I’m not counseling eye-for-an-eye revenge. I’m advising Democrats to consider what course of action is most likely to improve their chances of making gains in 2018, at both the state and national levels.

The party’s progressive base is angry and mobilized. Many Democrats are convinced that FBI Director James Comey and Russian President Vladimir Putin decided the election. The very idea of a Trump presidency sparked vast, unprecedented demonstrations in Washington and other cities the day after the inauguration.

In the two weeks since, Trump has only piled outrage upon outrage, as far as progressives are concerned. He took the first steps toward building his ridiculous wall along the southern border, but with U.S. taxpayers’ dollars, not Mexico’s. He squelched government experts who work on climate change. He weakened the Affordable Care Act in the hope that it would begin to collapse, which would make it easier for Congress to kill it. He displayed comic ignorance of our history (somebody please tell him that Frederick Douglass has been dead since 1895). He signed executive orders banning entry to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from around the world, an action so appalling that huge crowds gathered at major airports in protest.

And Trump is just getting started. Democrats cannot even limit the damage, let alone reverse it, without more power than they have now.

When the Democratic base is setting fire to Berkeley, leading chants of “Genocide, racial hate, America was never great” at NYU, and practically begging Republicans to blow up what’s left of Senate congeniality, I’m not quite certain the American electorate is willing to trust them with more power than they have now. Certainly that’s been the message of almost every election since 2009.

CHANGE: Morale at Homeland Security has ‘skyrocketed’ under Trump.

FAKE NEWS: Despite loads of media coverage, Neil Gorsuch never started a ‘Fascism Forever’ club in high school.

Well, given that all the Democrats in the Senate voted to confirm him, that’s a good thing. Otherwise, it would be awfully embarrassing for them to have voted to confirm a “Fascism Forever” founder.

GAVIN McINNES PEPPER-SPRAYED AT NYU SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT: “‘Genocide, racial hate, America was never great’ chant going on at the Gavin McInnes event. Man, the left sure knows how to convince ppl.”

THIS IS CNN: CNN Frets GOP Easing Coal Regs., Shows Footage of EPA’s Toxic Mine Spill.

BRIAN MICKLETHWAIT: Brexit has unified the Conservative Party and divided Labour. “The irony being that the demand that the House of Commons have its own vote on the matter has only served to highlight this Conservative Leave-inspired unanimity and Labour Remain-inspired division. For how long will EUrope divide the political left in Britain? From where I sit, the longer the better.”

Plus, from the comments: “It’s funny, I haven’t particularly been impressed by Theresa May over the years. Her stint at the Home Office was a disaster by any metric, and her attitude on freedom of information, identity cards and civil liberties is suspect to say the least. However, the trap she set for the remainders over the whole Parliamentary sovereignty issue was so blindingly obvious that it’s astonishing that the entire media and political left fell into it. As the saying goes, never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. It was baffling to watch the opponents of Leave seize onto Supreme Court/legal option. By demanding the parliamentary vote they played into the Prime Minister’s hands. From the point they instigated legal proceedings it was a lose lose situation.”

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CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: GOD BLESS HARRY REID. “Reid was warned that the day would come when Republicans would be in the majority and would exploit the new rules to equal and opposite effect. That day is here.”

THEY’RE NOT ANTI-SLAUGHTER, THEY’RE JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE: Iraq archbishop: Where were all those protesters while ISIS committed genocides?

ROSS DOUTHAT: “The Egyptian deep state’s sabotage of Morsi culminated in a coup. This is not my prediction for the Trump era.”

But:

Meanwhile, on the other side of the divide, the ascent of populism also creates an unusual level of solidarity among elites, who feel moved to resist on a scale that they wouldn’t if similar policies were pursued by normal political actors. Thus Trump, not even two weeks into his presidency, has already faced unusual pushback from the intelligence community, the Justice Department, the State Department and other regions of the bureaucracy, even as the media-entertainment complex unites against him on a scale unseen even in previous Republican administrations, and the Democratic Party is pressured into scorched-earth opposition before policy negotiations are even joined. These tensions ratcheted up over the weekend; it’s difficult to see how they ratchet down.

The more they try to denormalize Trump, the more they denormalize themselves, and the more they undermine the notion of civil society. Which makes either a coup (hint: they won’t like the result) or successful authoritarian rule by Trump or, more likely, a Trump successor, far more likely. But they don’t care because they’re spoiled children with no self-discipline.

Meanwhile, I’ve got this paper on military coups, but my other observation is that with a cabinet heavy with highly-respected generals, Trump has ensured that there won’t be a coup — unless they lead it, in which case he’s ensured that it will be successful.

TOXIC MASCULINITY: He Saved 669 People In The Holocaust.