INSANE PEOPLE GOT TO INSANE: Dems: We Unearthed Evil Plot with Nomination of Kavanaugh!
Archive for 2018
July 11, 2018
READING TEA LEAVES: Kavanaugh’s Obamacare ruling: Part I.
UPTOWN NORFOLK: A Virginia police department wins the Internet with ‘Uptown Funk’ lip sync video.
July 10, 2018
AT AMAZON, save in Arts, Crafts, and Sewing.
THE DEMOCRATS’ CLIMATE OF HATE: 14 Times Republican Officials Were Viciously Harassed, Threatened With Death: In the past couple of months, Republicans and government officials who work for President Trump have received death threats, been run out of restaurants and stores, and followed to their cars.
THE DEMOCRATS’ PROBLEM: Freakout Fatigue.
Related: Now the Washington Post is running pieces on Dems packing the court to save democracy.
Hey, they’re just moving the Overton Window in support of my proposal. Thanks, guys!
SLIGHT UPDATE ON THE YALEBABIES: So I’ve been locked away in depositions for the past two days, and catching up, I read The Professor’s post about the frazzled letter of protest against the nomination of ̶H̶i̶t̶l̶e̶r̶ Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Not a very impressive list of signatories, except for one in particular: “Charles U. Farley, YLS ‘04”. Now that’s a lawyer’s lawyer.
OPEN THREAD: Don’t hold back. Touch the sky with your mind’s eye.
VIDEO: How Feminism Fails Boys.
Don’t get cocky, kids. And if you care about what happens, find a close race and donate or volunteer.
PAUL HSIEH: Doctors Need To Shut Up More. “I’m going to put on my Grumpy Old Man hat (some would ask if I ever take it off) and say that doctors need to shut up more about things outside their field of expertise. . . . For example, I can understand the American Medical Association speaking out on, say, the opioid crisis or vaccination policy. But I get annoyed when they start taking positions on climate change or immigration, even if I might agree with them on some of their specifics.”
AN EMBARRASSING PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM YALE LAW STUDENTS AND GRADS, AND A FEW EVEN MORE EMBARRASSING FACULTY: Open Letter from Yale Law Students, Alumni, and Educators Regarding Brett Kavanaugh.
As Damon Linker notes: “Kids will be kids. But I don’t think it bodes well for the future that so many appear to think the nomination to SCOTUS of a perfectly mainstream member of a party supported by roughly half the country’s voters constitutes an ’emergency.'” These people aren’t “kids,” though.
This new lefty technique where people’s classmates and fellow grads come out to criticize them en masse is just another way to discredit elite institutions as shallow cesspits of intellectual mediocrity and conformity. So keep it up folks! But there’s really nothing new here: Yale Law has treated Clarence Thomas awfully for over 20 years, while sucking up to his moral and intellectual inferiors, Bill and Hillary Clinton.
I DOUBT A CIVILIAN WITH A CARRY PERMIT WOULD RECEIVE SIMILAR CONSIDERATION: FBI agent who shot a man while showing dance moves at Denver nightclub allowed to carry weapon again. “Chase Bishop, 29, shot to nationwide fame on June 2 during a dance battle at the Mile High Spirits club in Denver, Colorado where his federally assigned pistol fell out the holster as he was doing the backflip to impress the audience. Trying to be slick about it, the off-duty FBI agent tried to pick up his gun, which discharged and wounded 24-year Thomas Reddington in his leg. While the man was treated and released from the hospital, the FBI officer was charged with a second-degree assault felony charge after turning himself in when an arrest warrant was issued. Bishop appeared before the court on Tuesday, where Judge Fran Simonet approved a change to Bishop’s release conditions. After the agent’s lawyer, David Goddard, told the court that the FBI strongly encourages its agents to carry weapons when off-assignment, the Denver judge allowed Bishop to carry his gun on and off duty, as long as he follows the agency’s guidelines. The dancing agent will still not be allowed to drink while his case is pending. The change to Bishop’s conditions for release from jail came as a result of the plea bargain Goddard and Denver District Attorney Office noted, refusing to disclose the details of the deal. The prosecution also did not disclose the result of the FBI agent’s blood test, which would have revealed the level of Bishop’s intoxication during the shooting but said that the test did not warrant additional charges against the man.”
ED MORRISSEY: Kavanaugh pick: Who expected a conventional choice from the most unconventional president?
So why go the conventional route? This might be a long-term strategy meant to shore up his 2020 re-election bid and head off any significant primary challenges. The next term in office may well present even more opportunities for Supreme Court appointments, and Trump may want to impress on conservatives his reliability and predictability on this key issue.
Seems plausible. I would have preferred Randy Barnett, but you can’t have everything.
IT’S BASICALLY JUST A RELIGIOUS RITUAL: Environmentally minded Californians love to recycle — but it’s no longer doing any good.
FROM JOSH BLACKMAN, A HUGE RIGHT-TO-ARMS VICTORY: DOJ, Second Amendment Foundation Reach Settlement In Defense Distributed Lawsuit. “Under terms of the settlement, the government has agreed to waive its prior restraint against the plaintiffs, allowing them to freely publish the 3-D files and other information at issue. The government has also agreed to pay a significant portion of the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees, and to return $10,000 in State Department registration dues paid by Defense Distributed as a result of the prior restraint. Significantly, the government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber – including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms – are not inherently military.”
UPDATE: More here.
Plus, this all started at a 2014 Tennessee Law Review symposium on the Second Amendment. (Bumped).
IDENTITY POLITICS CLAIMS ANOTHER NEWSROOM: Conservative columnist has her article deleted at Business Insider after her defense of casting Scarlett Johnansson as a trans man.
But there’s an inescapable irony here: the initial column was deemed objectionable and removed, according to testimony gathered by the Daily Beast, because employees were offended by it and because it didn’t meet BI’s “editorial standards.” BI’s editors, though, in the view of the offended staff, don’t meet their own standards—they’re not diverse enough or from enough marginalized communities to make decisions about potentially sensitive content. The menace of identity politics appears to have claimed another newsroom.
Beyond the hate crime of casting Johansson as a trans man, there’s also her long-running role as Natasha Romanova, aka Black Widow in the Marvel Avengers movies. As Sonny Bunch of the Washington Free Beacon joked when the former story first broke, “It has come to my attention that Scarlett Johansson has been playing a Russian-born spy for years despite not having been born in Russia. Will update as more info comes to light.”
Heh™. Read the whole thing.
Related: Identity Politics Totalitarianism.
Update: At Hot Air, John Sexton notes that as part of their new “editorial standards,” The social justice warriors at the newly Uber-woke and utterly non-self-aware Business Insider also banned the use of the phrase “social justice warriors.”
BUT THE POSTURING AND VIRTUE-SIGNALING ARE SO IMPORTANT: Patients, advocates raise concern about opioid guidance at FDA hearing.
YES, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HOLLYWOOD NEEDS — MORE REBOOTS AND SEQUELS! Top Five Sci-Fi and Fantasy Films Begging for a Sequel.
UNEXPECTEDLY: In shocking twist, IHOP acknowledges it faked IHOb name change to promote burgers. “That will come to no surprise to some Internet sleuths, who combed through federal records, finding no proof of the restaurant officially changing its name.”
WE’RE PUTTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER: Star Wars: Billy Dee Williams Reprising Role as Lando Calrissian.
DEBRA HEINE: Anatomy of a Fake News Story, Kavanaugh Edition.