“THE FEDERAL HATE CRIMES LAW IS BOTH UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND UNWISE”: In today’s Washington Post, George Will urges the Supreme Court to review Metcalf v. United States.
This is the case for which Peter Kirsanow and I filed an amicus brief. Indeed, Will quotes our brief in his column. In a nutshell: Congress claims to be using its power to outlaw slavery in prohibiting hate crimes. And … well … hate crimes are bad things, but they aren’t slavery.
REFUGEE WAVES VERSUS MIGRANT MARCHES: My latest Creators Syndicate column. (bumped)
OIL FROM A STONE: Conoco Is Collecting $2 Billion From Venezuela—One Barrel of Oil at a Time.
Conoco has received an initial payment of $345 million in the form of “cash and commodities” from Venezuela’s state-run oil company, the Houston-based company said on Thursday. The remittance helped allay fears the cash-strapped nation wouldn’t be able to pay off the award in a long-running dispute over asset seizures.
Conoco didn’t provide more details in its statement, but people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News on Wednesday that the company loaded about 1.5 million barrels of Venezuelan crude from terminals in the Caribbean run by Petroleos de Venezuela SA. Conoco resold the cargoes to refineries in the U.S. and Asia, the people said.
It will be interesting to see which winds down first: Venezuela’s debt to Conoco, or Venezuela’s ability to barter it down.
FASTER, PLEASE: FDA approves first new flu drug in 20 years. “Xofluza is unique in that it acts to inhibit replication of the flu virus in the first place, at a step much earlier than the current medications available, such as oseltamivir or zanamivir, which only block release of virus that has already been produced from a host cell.”
SHOT: Trump tries nicer tone after bomb threats.
CHASER: Democratic Leaders Reject Trump’s Call For Unity After Bomb Scare.
Trump didn’t win by playing nice, and there probably is no playing nice (and winning) with today’s Democrats.
NUMBERS OR FEELINGS? Over at VodkaPundit, a few thoughts on how the contest for the House feels, versus what the polls say. “The numbers all say that the Dems take the House with a slender majority, and they’ve said that to varying degrees for months now. But it just doesn’t feel that way. A booming economy, wage growth, tax cuts… are American voters really willing to risk all that by giving the House to a party which promises to undo those things?”
AT AMAZON, Lightning Deal, Joyousa Pumpkin Carving Tools Kit Heavy Duty Stainless Steel Jack-O-Lantern Halloween- 10 Piece.
JOHN LOTT: The Problem With the FBI’s ‘Active Shooter’ Data.
The FBI’s first report claimed that only once from 2000-2013 did a concealed handgun permit holder stop one of 160 reported “active shooter” attacks. These active shooter attacks include any time a gun is fired in a public place, even if no one is injured or killed. They exclude gang fights or attacks that arise out of other crimes such as robberies.
The report got massive news coverage on the front pages of such newspapers as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, as well as all of the TV news networks. Gun control activists have frequently cited the report in court cases and in political debates to claim that civilians rarely use guns to stop public shootings.
Unfortunately, the problems with the reports have continued during the Trump administration. The latest FBI report, released in May, misses still more cases. The FBI claims that from 2014 to 2017 there were 90 active shooter cases and only seven where permit holders stopped these attacks.
In all, the FBI claims that concealed handgun permit holders have stopped 3.2 percent of active shooter incidents.
But the bureau misses at least 23 cases where permit holders saved the day. That means they stopped 11.5 percent of active shooter incidents from 2000 to 2017. We at the Crime Prevention Research Center are more confident that we have all of the cases from 2014 to 2017, when 16.5 percent of attacks were stopped.
I don’t trust much of anything coming out of the FBI these days.
BREAKING: Megyn Kelly out at NBC, will likely walk with $69 million.
I’d not work for NBC for half that much, if they’re looking for somebody.
COOL: Long lost, 1930’s novel that inspired ‘The Thing’ discovered and set for publication.
Before taking over editorial duties on the magazine and publishing seminal works by authors like Isaac Asimov, Jack Williamson, Robert A. Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt and others, Campbell himself was a writer, and the last major piece of fiction he published was “Who Goes There?”, in which a team of researchers stationed in the Antarctic battle the shape-shifting occupant of a crashed alien ship.
But now, according to The Verge, a longer version of that story may be coming to light decades after being locked away. While researching his new book, Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, author Alec Nevala-Lee learned that Campbell had actually written a novel-length version of the story, which he cut down for publication in the magazine.
I hope there’s enough there-there to make a solid, longer story, but I’ll read it regardless.
HILARIOUSLY AWFUL CLAIRE MCCASKILL RADIO AD: SHE’S ‘NOT ONE OF THOSE CRAZY DEMOCRATS.’
Narrator Voice: She actually is one of those crazy Democrats.
BIPARTISANSHIP: Sens. Ted Cruz and Doug Jones have introduced a Civil Rights cold case bill that is both righteous and politically clever.
“[I]n many cases,” Sens. Jones and Cruz write, “witnesses were intimidated into silence and evidence was intentionally brushed under the rug by corrupt officials. Victims and their families were often afraid to pursue justice against their attackers. And despite the best efforts of law enforcement in many cases, they did not have access to modern forensic methods, and trails went cold.”
They add: “Records and evidence from many of these cases sit locked away in files and vaults, outside of the public eye. As memories fade and witnesses, victims and perpetrators of decades-old crimes pass away, our window to solve these cold cases shrinks.”
The proposed legislation would require that the cold case files be made available at the National Archives and Records Administration. The idea here is that NARA would then create a “collection of documents that would be publicly disclosed, although for certain reasons disclosure of some information may be postponed.” The bill is also careful to take steps to provide identity protections where requested and/or necessary.
As Jones and Cruz explain it, the bill aims mostly to make the information available to “private detectives, historians, victims and victims’ families,” with the ultimate goal being that some of these cases be solved finally.
That would be nice.
TIM BLAIR: IT TAKES A LOT TO LAUGH, IT TAKES A TRAIN TO TEACH.
Don’t worry about that massive caravan of Guatamexicans or whatever they are. The real problem is refugee locomotive homelessness:
Thomas the Tank Engine is to introduce a “homeless” Kenyan train to teach children about refugees.
Oh good — kiddies’ TV shows about anthropomorphized toy trains really need to become much more woke.
RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: New ISIS Threat of Knife, Gun Attacks to ‘Terrorize the Crusader Nations.’ “Days ago, media group released a poster with shadowy imagery of the Pulse nightclub attack, along with images of a soldier and an explosive device.”
They might find America a harder target than disarmed Britain or France.
IN THE MAIL: From John F. Carr, War World: Falkenberg’s Regiment.
SHARYL ATTKISSON: How the Russia Collusion Story Revealed a Scandal to Obstruct President Trump. “Taken together in context, the evidence points to two important findings. First, U.S. government insiders, colluding with numerous foreign citizens and governments, conspired to interfere in the 2016 election. Second, after the election, these figures conspired to undermine, oust, and perhaps even frame Trump and some of his associates.”
PROGRESS: SpaceX official says company about to launch a Falcon 9 for the third time.
SpaceX has since flown a handful of Block 5 rockets twice, but it has not taken the step of flying one of these rockets for the third time. However, that may happen quite soon, according to Lars Hoffman, senior director of government sales for the California-based rocket company.
“We’ve launched Falcon 9 over 60 times,” Hoffman said at the Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium on Wednesday afternoon. “We’ve landed our first stage booster 30 times now. And relaunched 16 times. We’re about to relaunch a booster for the third time. So we’re turning this into routine access to space. High-reliability, higher-performance, lower-cost access to space; that opens it up to everybody.”
The company has not officially confirmed its plans, but at present SpaceX intends to reuse a Falcon 9 rocket for the third time to launch a rideshare mission of dozens of small satellites for Spaceflight. This Spaceflight SSO-A mission currently has a launch date of November 19, according to a calendar maintained by Spaceflight Now. An earlier report in The Space Review previously indicated this mission may involve the third flight of a booster.
What a ride.
OBAMA: “YOU WOULDN’T LET YOUR GRANDPARENTS PICK YOUR PLAYLIST, WHY WOULD YOU LET THEM PICK YOUR REPRESENTATIVE WHO’S GOING TO DETERMINE YOUR FUTURE?”
James Lileks: “Youth is already besotted by its certainties — and simultaneously insecure about itself and its abilities and stature, for which they compensate by fervent embrace of Causes. (It’s been my experience that people on the left are more likely to extend this condition into adulthood, but I could be wrong.) Grandma probably saw a few of those in her time, and might have something to say about the ephemeral passions of the day and the odd way they end up burning underneath society like a coal seam fire.”
Read the whole thing.
ISN’T IGNORING MEN A TITLE IX VIOLATION? Hundreds of sex toys doled out to coeds as university hosts ‘Free Vibrator Day.’
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