Archive for 2022
June 28, 2022
SHOW TRIALS AREN’T ABOUT THE TRUTH: Exclusive: Former White House Staffer Confirms Jan. 6 Committee Lied About DOJ Attorney.
RAND SIMBERG reviews Lori Garver’s new book on developing space. “The book is an autobiography but it contains significant detail about the inner workings of the space agency, the interplay between it and Congress and the White House, and the culture during her tenure at NASA. Those space-policy analysts (such as myself) who were following the topic could infer much of what was happening behind the scenes at the time, but in her book Garver makes the political machinations quite explicit.” (Bumped.)
THE FACTS ABOUT DOBBS: Issues & Insights lays it out in such straightforward, easy-to-grasp terms that even a crazed far-Left graduate of Harvard Law can understand what Dobbs actually held and why. Well, maybe not that effectively, but even so, along the way, this revealing point is made:
“Contrast the left’s vicious behavior today with the reaction of pro-lifers when the Roe decision came down in 1973. They didn’t torch buildings or call for killing Supreme Court justices. Instead, they immediately put together a “Human Life Amendment” in an attempt to counteract the court’s decision.
“They launched a massive – and always peaceful – March for Life each year on the anniversary of the Roe ruling. They worked tirelessly with state legislators to pass laws restricting abortion where they could. For nearly 50 years, they advocated for constitutional conservatives to be appointed to the Supreme Court, those who would admit that Roe was an outrageous example of legislating from the bench.
“Yes, they sometimes got arrested, for praying in front of an abortion clinic. When some crazed person targeted an abortion provider, the pro-life movement immediately denounced such acts.”
The Left’s reaction today to hearing the truth about Roe and abortion is the very opposite. The intensity of that reaction — the furious gnashing of pro-abort teeth — reminds of the deadly fury directed against Stephen, the first Christian martyr, for speaking the truth to the Sanhedrin.
REMINDER: Never Forget How Vicious And Violent Was The Left’s Top-To-Bottom Anti-Court Campaign.
“This is not normal.”
That was a phrase bandied about with some frequency during the Donald Trump years. You can still see it from time to time on the bumpers of cars, next to the fading “I’m With Her” sticker.
The left has weaponized the word “normal” to the point of farce. A secure border, fair trade, and fair defense deals were abnormal, we were told. Meanwhile, the administration that campaigned for normalcy instead ushered inflation into our economy, kicked nicotine out of cigarettes, and invited transvestite strippers into elementary school classrooms.
It becomes difficult to sort reality when words lose their meaning, which is why it’s easy to miss just how insane the unsuccessful campaign against the Supreme Court truly was.
While sure, a sitting chief executive lashing out at any and all critics on social media is a real departure from the modern presidency, the campaign of judicial espionage, targeted terror attacks and planned street violence — all either ignored or tacitly sanctioned by the leaders of the House, Senate and executive — was so far outside of normalcy that we haven’t seen it since the eve of the Civil War. The problem is that in politics, words now mean so little we sometimes struggle to categorize how abnormal our situation is.
Related: The leak, the threats, the violence — reaction to Roe is a dark day for the nation.
JUSTICE THOMAS: When oh when will we finally revisit Sullivan?
Today, however, a denial of cert in a defamation case brought a brief but pointed dissent from Thomas. In Coral Ridge v Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a Christian ministry sued over the SPLC designation of their organization as a “hate group,” which denied them access to donations through Amazon’s charitable designation program, AmazonSmile. The SPLC rebutted the lawsuit on two main points: first, their designation is a First Amendment-protected expression of opinion, and two, Coral Ridge is a “public” entity under the NYT v Sullivan precedent. Coral Ridge conceded the latter in this case but still claimed it could meet the “actual malice” standard.
The court declined to take up the case, but Thomas disagreed, wanting an opportunity to finally address Sullivan.
For what the Court could do short of overturning Sullivan, see my Rethinking Libel for the Twenty-First Century.
AND SO IT BEGAN: On this day in 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Four justices took the position that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act meant exactly what it says—that federally funded universities are forbidden to discriminate in admissions by race. Four justices seemed happy to tolerate any amount of race discrimination so long as it favored under-represented minorities. One justice—Lewis Powell, the man in the middle—apparently thought he could open the door to discrimination just a crack. Colleges and universities promptly blew that door off its hinges. We’re still paying for Powell’s error in judgment.
THE FRENCH ARE OFTEN WRONG, BUT NOT SO MUCH ON ENERGY POLICY: Embarrassing: Biden’s Grand Energy Plan Just Got Blown Up…By the French President. “Biden’s energy plan is toast. It got blown up. It shows Biden being outmaneuvered by our allies. The way it was done also shows that Europe knows this presidency needs to be pushed along—a lot. It was the clearest sign of the weakness exhibited by Biden. The gross incompetence is pervasive.”
Related: France’s Emmanuel Macron Drops Truth on Joe Biden About His Insane Energy Policies.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Auto Joe Handheld Cordless Vacuum Cleaner. #CommissionEarned
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Victoria Taft: Are We Finally Done With the Abortion Litmus Tests for SCOTUS Nominees?
Matt Margolis: Psst… Americans Actually Agree With the Principles of the Dobbs Decision.
Yours Truly: 29-Year-Old Transgender Dude Celebrates Big Skateboarding Win Over 13-Year-Old Girl. “In the woke world of men-on-women’s sports, women only get paid half as much as men do, I guess. That 77-cents-to-the-dollar myth from the Old Patriarchy is looking pretty good.”
#JOURNALISM: Important Questions the White House Press Corps Will Never Ask Joe Biden.
The topic of Hunter Biden is streng verboten for so-called “mainstream” journalists, and so Our Alleged President will never face tough questioning about this subject. . . .
Hey, did you ever hear anyone — anyone — from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Associated Press mention this Senate report about Hunter Biden’s involvement with Eastern European human trafficking rings? Or did any journalist from any of these organizations ever engage in real reporting about the sources of Hunter Biden’s income and possible connections with Hunter’s father? No, of course not. They are determined to ignore this story, because it wouldn’t help Democrats win elections, and helping Democrats win elections is the only thing “mainstream” journalists really care about. “Operatives with bylines,” indeed.
Indeed.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Arizona legislature approves school voucher program for all K-12 students. “The voucher program or empowerment scholarship accounts, originally began about 10 years ago to help students with special needs enroll in the right schools. Superintendent of Pima County Schools Dustin Williams said now any student in Arizona can apply and use the money to go to private or charter schools.”
MONDAY: US is already in a ‘soft’ recession: Economist Stephen Moore.
Moore, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, provided the insight on “Varney & Co.” Monday, reacting to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers contradicting President Biden on Sunday by saying that a recession was “almost inevitable” in the next two years.
Summers provided the insight speaking on Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” noting that there was a risk a recession could come sooner.
However, last Monday, President Biden said that there was “nothing inevitable about a recession,” and that he talked to Summers that morning.
Moore noted on Monday that he didn’t agree with Biden nor Summers and that he believed the U.S. was already in a mild recession.
VodkaPundit, two weeks ago: U.S. Economy Technically Enters Recession. “It’s recession time — a mild one, so far — as the U.S. economy grew at a zero-point-zero annual rate this quarter after shrinking slightly during the first three months of the year.”
JONATHAN ADLER: The Next Abortion Battlegrounds:
One consequence of the Dobbs decision is that much abortion litigation will shift from federal to state court. Just because there is no right to abortion in the federal constitution does not mean there is no such right to be found under state constitutions. Just as (to take one example) the Ohio Supreme Court has concluded that the Ohio Constitution provides greater protection for private property against eminent domain than does the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, state supreme courts may conclude that state constitutional provisions protect abortion rights through state-level rights to privacy (as in Montana) or other liberty-protecting provisions. Of course, such claims will not always be successful. The Iowa Supreme Court recently issued a state-level Dobbs decision, rejecting prior decisions that had recognized a state-level abortion right.
Some years ago, the Tennessee Supreme Court found a right to abortion under the Tennessee Constitution’s right of privacy. In a very rare exercise of amending Tennessee’s very hard to amend state constitution, voters overruled that opinion with an amendment providing that no right to abortion exists in the Tennessee Constitution, though leaving the right of privacy otherwise intact.
IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN THEY DO IT. THEY’RE WITH THE ARROW OF HISTORY: Where Are the Abortion Insurrection Hearings?
In your place, peasant! How dare you question your liberal betters?
ONLY NOW, AT THE END, DOES SHE UNDERSTAND: Liz Cheney Gets a Rude Awakening. “It turns out that her left-wing supporters learned that Cheney wasn’t actually becoming one of them and turned on her without batting an eye.”
Cheney never had any left-wing supporters, she was just a willing tool for a while.
JOSH BLACKMAN: The Constitutionality of “Shall Issue” Regimes After Bruen.
OH FOR GOODNESS SAKE: Eye-rolling is a harmful practice rooted in white supremacy.
SO, COULD WE BRING IT BACK? New research suggests flowing water existed intermittently on Mars from 2.5 to 3.6 billion years ago.
RICH VEDDER: “In Princeton’s Contempt for Justice, Shades of Duke Lacrosse.”
BEFORE CANDLES WATERMELONS USED ELECTRICITY: Germany Green Energy Crisis: Warning of “Lehman Like” Contagion.
IT’S GOT A LOT OF COMPETITORS: Is the US Forest Service our most inept federal agency?