HUGO GURDON: For Democrats, the weakness of Bragg’s case against Trump is the point.

I think he’s too focused on tactics, and not enough on strategy, here. Part of this is sending a message to anyone else who might challenge the Establishment, that all rules and norms will be cast aside to punish you in every way possible, even if — as with Trump — it involves perverting and discrediting the entire system, as it has done here. In fact the willingness to openly pervert and discredit the entire system is itself a declaration of power. “We don’t care about what you and the voting public think, because we don’t have to care.”

READER FAVORITE: Crocs Unisex-Adult Classic Clogs. #CommmissionEarned

FINALLY, SPACE LASERS: Pentagon Space Mission Aims to Test Laser Power Beaming in Space.

NOT SO MUCH: Do they Teach Law at Yale Anymore? When I was there they never offered a full blown UCC course, or Secured Transactions. I learned negotiable instruments and documents of title from Charlie Black in Admiralty.

Graduates from the elite law schools are mighty good activists, but lawyers? Not so much. The law students shouting down free speech at Stanford today are the leftist activists of tomorrow.

It may be that clients would be better off hiring lawyers from a Southeastern Conference law school like University of Tennessee, University of Alabama, or a more mainstream program like Pitt, Arizona, or Miami.

Contributing to the rot are the large law firms who think filling their ranks with graduates from these elite schools justifies their staggering client billing rates. In truth, their clients are often paying top dollar for poorly prepared lawyers. They are learning the law on the client’s dime, not in law school. Clients often pay for lawyers who studied useless ideologically-saturated topics like the ones we will detail in these forthcoming articles.

Simply, lawyers from so-called “lesser” law schools are likely to be better trained to practice law in court and represent clients than the ones graduating from elite law schools.

This is basically true. And when I visited at UVA many years ago, Bill Stuntz, the chair of the hiring committee that year, told me that he didn’t like to hire people fresh out of Yale Law because “they don’t know any law.” It’s a fair cop. The excuse that the Yale professors used was that Yale Law students are so smart, they don’t need professors to teach them the law. This was appealingly flattering as a student, but as a law professor now I recognize it for the copout it was.

YES, LEFTISM IS A RELIGION: University Gives Greta Thunberg an Honorary Doctorate in Theology.

WELL, THAT’S NOT THE NARRATIVE: Almost all countries around the world criminalize abortion in some circumstances, finds global review. “Some 134 countries penalize those seeking an abortion, while 181 penalize providers, and 159 also punish those who assist in the procedure, the review shows.”

Seldom mentioned in the U.S. abortion debate is that Roe-era U.S. abortion law was among the very most generous in the world. The European countries generally held up as leftist beacons, like Sweden and France, were much less generous. In fact, the Mississippi law upheld in Dobbs, which allowed abortion on demand up to 15 weeks, would have been among the most liberal in Europe. More liberal than, say, France’s, which is amusing since French President Emmanuel Macron denounced Mississippi’s law as barbaric and repressive.

SPACE: NASA just revealed revolutionary new spacesuit astronauts will wear on the next Moon mission. “The xEMU suits are designed to be adaptable to different body sizes, which means that they can be worn by both male and female astronauts. They are also modular, which means that different parts of the suit can be replaced or upgraded as needed, reducing the cost of maintenance and allowing for more extended use.”

BOB GRABOYES: Medical Heretics from Rome to COVID. “From Roman times to today, Western medicine has had a self-destructive tendency to stifle dissent and vilify those who question medical orthodoxy. In the 20th century, this tendency wreaked havoc on medicine’s understanding of genetics, autism, ulcers, and degenerative brain diseases—causing individual suffering and violations of civil liberties. In recent years, and particularly since the arrival of COVID, this destructive tendency has been on a sharp upswing. Medical education, the practice of medicine, and public health are becoming drenched in politics and ideology. These trends threaten the quality of medical care and norms of civil society.”

Much more at the link.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Jazz Jennings, the boy who tried to grow up to be a girl and is now a very unhappy man who will never “feel like myself” is the big crazy on today’s Insanity Wrap — an entire week’s worth of lefty nuttiness wrapped up in one easy-to-swallow medicated news capsule.

Plus:

• Is your pantry racist and/or pr0nographic?
• Eggs are too expensive for Dollar Tree.
• A North Korean defector learns about race and has everyone laughing

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

IF YOU’RE A TWITTER USER, PLEASE CONSIDER RE-TWEETING THIS:

Why hasn’t Arkansas passed a ban on preferential treatment based on race or sex? Why is the bill stalled in the legislature? In 2020, even deep-blue Calif. voted overwhelmingly to keep such a ban. @SarahHuckabee @AGTimGriffin https://t.co/eTtXEvI5cf

— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) March 21, 2023

If Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders endorses the bill, which is modeled after California’s Proposition 209, it stands a good chance of passing.  This can’t hurt and maybe it will help get her attention.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: More Caught Illegally Crossing Southern Border in 1 Year of Biden Than Entire Trump Presidency.

THIS IS TRUE: The Changing of the Guard: From Educators to Ideologues.

AND THEY DIDN’T GET SHADOW-BANNED OR BOOTED FOR DOING IT: Twitter Users Fact-Check Biden’s Billionaire Tax Lies.

IF “WHITE SUPREMACY” IS A THING, WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE PRETENDING TO BE NONWHITE? University president ‘steps back’ from duties after dubious indigenous ancestry claims.

FEAR, BURNOUT, INSUBORDINATION: Insiders spill details about life at the highest levels of FBI.

The FBI is no stranger to criticisms, both internal and external. For years, they’ve been piling up. A series of withering federal watchdog reports have faulted the bureau for slipshod compliance with everything from national-security surveillance procedures to its own rules limiting contacts with the media. A bipartisan assemblage of members of Congress excoriated the FBI for badly botching complaints of sexual abuse of teenage gymnasts. Trials spearheaded by a special counsel have exposed rivalries within the bureau and loose ends that investigators failed to run down.

Many of those issues have been compounded and thrust into public consciousness by Trump, who spent his entire presidency accusing the bureau of deep-seated political bias for pursuing cases against him or his allies — claims underscored by his abrupt and dramatic firing of Comey in 2017. To this day, Republicans in Congress are pushing charges that the bureau was “weaponized” by Trump’s opponents.

But unlike the blunt attacks by outsiders, which often go unrebutted by the bureau, the trial provided a forum for FBI insiders themselves to describe their own views of what has plagued the sprawling crime-fighting and intelligence agency. And their answers exposed fissures among factions of the FBI that have long been viewed in the Trump era as monolithic — divisions that FBI insiders said were more palpable during the handoff of the bureau from Robert Mueller to Comey.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Joe Biden Lies a Lot Even for a Democrat. “Boilerplate socialist ravings aren’t going to be a soothing balm on the wounds that this lying, doddering fool has inflicted upon the country. We are in desperate need of regime change and maybe an exorcism.”

FALLOUT: Russia’s Space Program Is in Big Trouble.

Crippled by war and sanctions, Russia now faces evidence that its already-struggling space program is falling apart. In the past three months alone, Roscosmos has scrambled to resolve two alarming incidents. First, one of its formerly dependable Soyuz spacecraft sprang a coolant leak. Then the same thing happened on one of its Progress cargo ships. The civil space program’s Soviet predecessor launched the first person into orbit, but with the International Space Station (ISS) nearing the end of its life, Russia’s space agency is staring into the abyss.

“What we’re seeing is the continuing demise of the Russian civil space program,” says Bruce McClintock, a former defense attaché at the US embassy in Moscow and current head of the Space Enterprise Initiative of the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization. Around 10 years ago, Russian leaders chose to prioritize the country’s military space program—which focuses on satellite and anti-satellite technologies—over its civilian one, McClintock says, and it shows.

Russia’s space fleet is largely designed to be expendable. The history of its series of Soyuz rockets and crew capsules (they both have the same name) dates back to the Soviet era, though they’ve gone through upgrades since. Its Progress cargo vessels also launch atop Soyuz rockets. The cargo ships, crewed ships, and rockets are all single-use spacecraft. Anatoly Zak, creator and publisher of the independent publication RussianSpaceWeb, estimates that Roscosmos launches about two Soyuz vehicles per year, takes about 1.5 to 2 years to build each one, and doesn’t keep a substantial standing fleet.

While Roscosmos officials did not respond to interview requests, the agency has been public about its recent technical issues.

Plus this, which failed to make headlines here: “For crewed launches, Russia has long depended on its Baikonur spaceport in neighboring Kazakhstan. But the nation has charged costly annual fees, and in March Kazakhstan seized Russian spaceport assets, reportedly due to Roscosmos’ debt.”

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: House Republicans Launch Probe Into Manhattan DA’s ‘Unprecedented Abuse’ Of Office To Target Trump.

THE WOKE RELIGION: University of Helsinki gives Greta Thunberg a Doctorate of Theology.

EUGENE VOLOKH: Cert. Petition on the First Amendment and Coercive Government Threats in NRA v. Vullo. “This case arises from a series of actions—including press releases, official regulatory guidance, and contemporaneous investigations and penalties—issued by or on behalf of New York’s powerful Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) against financial institutions doing business with the NRA. Among other things, the Complaint states that Superintendent Maria Vullo: (1) warned regulated institutions that doing business with Second Amendment advocacy groups posed “reputational risk” of concern to DFS; (2) secretly offered leniency to insurers for unrelated infractions if they dropped the NRA; and (3) extracted highly-publicized and over-reaching consent orders, and multi-million dollar penalties, from firms that formerly served the NRA. Citing private telephone calls, internal insurer documents, and statements by an anonymous banking executive to industry press, the Complaint alleges that numerous financial institutions perceived Vullo’s actions as threatening and, therefore, ceased business arrangements with the NRA or refused new ones.”

PROF. JACOBSON: Charles Negy, in many ways, is the poster child for what goes wrong when DEI takes over a campus. “This is really one of the worst examples I’ve seen where a university, to placate the mob and also because they don’t like his opinions, really used the entire machinery of a major public university and taxpayer funding to go get this professor.”

WATCH: ‘Disinformation Czar’ Nina Jankowicz Emerges From Hiding to Celebrate Herself on Cable News.

IS THE JUICE WORTH THE SQUEEZE? Stanford Dean Who Berated Federal Judge Draws Six-Figure Salary.

Higher ed is full of six-figure drones who make things worse for everyone. They’re not all in DEI, but . . . .

LIGHTNING DEAL: Genuine Leather Weight Lifting Belt for Men. #CommissionEarned

THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I’D BEEN HOPING FOR: HustleGPT is a hilarious and scary AI experiment in capitalism.

The internet is overflowing with examples of what GPT-4’s advanced intelligence can accomplish. It can write usable lawsuits, build websites from text prompts, automate online dating, and is generally freaking people out about all the jobs it can replace. Hall has taken this a step further by harnessing its capabilities into an age-old ambition that’s the backbone of capitalist society: making money with as little effort as possible. At a time when people are wondering whether AI will work for us or against us, this experiment is showing in real time how get-rich-quick schemes will look in the future.

The business plan proposed by GPT-4 was to set up an affiliate marketing site for content about eco-friendly products. It found a cheap domain name called greengadgetguru.com(Opens in a new tab) that Hall promptly bought for $8.16. Next, Hall asked it to generate prompts for DALL-E-2 to make a logo.

Then, Hall asked it to design a full site layout in detail. With some help from Midjourney, GPT-4 wrote an article listing ten eco-friendly kitchen gadgets, finding actual sustainable products. Hall shelled out another $29 for hosting, and with that, the website was live.

Hall had $62.84 leftover over so he asked GPT-4 what he should do with it. Like any good hustler, GPT-4 knew that its product needed visibility so it suggested allocating $40 for Facebook and Instagram ads. All of this Twitter hype had investors drooling over getting in early on the next great affiliate marketing site viral GPT-4 experiment. By the end of day one, Green Gadget Guru had $100 in investment from an undisclosed party.

A few hours later:

“After four days, Green Gadget Guru has $7,812.84 in investment, a growing team, and content in the pipeline. But it still hasn’t made any revenue.”

Getting investors without a product has a very dot-com era feel to it.