Archive for 2022

WHOOPS!  I MISSED THIS WHEN IT CAME OUT LAST WEEK:  Inclusive Exclusion.

LEE LIBERMAN OTIS:  In Memoriam Orrin Hatch.  Among his many good works, Hatch was an early champion of the Federalist Society.

I SAVED UP SCHEDULED POSTS FOR TODAY, but I’ll be as close to entirely offline as I can manage for the coming week. I’m sure the hardy Insta-Crew will keep this place hopping in my absence. Enjoy!

WELL, OKAY THEN: Judge Shelley Joseph takes on Trump, ICE as Rachael Rollins recused from case.

Judge Shelley Joseph is gunning for ICE and former President Donald Trump in her no-holds-barred bid to stay out of jail.

In a federal court filing, prosecutors say Joseph “is on a fishing expedition” in demanding communications during the Trump administration.

The jurist — in line for a 12% pay hike as she collects $184,000 while on suspension — faces a federal obstruction of justice charge after being accused of aiding an illegal immigrant’s escape from an immigraiton agent in her Newton district courtroom in 2018.

“Joseph’s allegation that the requested communications will show political bias is misplaced,” wrote Zachary Cunha, U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island. . . .

In his response, Cunha is fighting to keep Joseph from getting any communication between the Trump administration and former U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling, who was in charge in Massachusetts at the time of the judge’s indictment.

“Defendant Shelley Joseph has moved to compel the Government to produce evidence of ‘institutional bias’ at ICE against persons who oppose the immigration policies ICE is charged with enforcing,” Cunha writes. “She has not even tried to explain how evidence of alleged political bias by some ICE officials could possibly affect the credibility of a witness’s testimony. The Court should reject Joseph’s request.”

Stay tuned.

GEORGE KORDA: Will Knoxville Mayor Kincannon’s property tax plan be a calamity or a non-event? “The first three words that appear from a Google search of ‘What is the tax most hated by Americans?’ are these: “The property tax,” quoting from a 2017 article titled ‘7 Things You Should Know About America’s Most-Hated Tax’ on the financial advice website The Motley Fool.'”

EXPOSING THE COVID CON: Won’t Get Fooled Again. How can Americans be convinced they were conned into believing that lockdowns and mask mandates were “the science?” It won’t be easy, because they’ve been through a two-year-long version of Hell Week, with Anthony Fauci and Democratic governors playing the role of fraternity presidents humiliating the pledges — and once people endure a painful hazing ritual, they’re loath to admit it was all pointless.

In theory, a federal Covid Commission could reveal the futility of lockdowns and mandates, but the public-health establishment and the mainstream media would keep doing its best to suppress the facts, as I write in City Journal. The best hope for a public airing could be a presidential campaign by Ron DeSantis, who could run on his success fighting Covid while sparing citizens, students and businesses from lockdowns and mask mandates. Florida’s cumulative rate of age-adjusted Covid mortality is below the national average, and its overall death toll — the rate of “excess mortality” from all causes — is lower than that of California, which imposed singularly strict measures and suffered one of the nation’s worst surges of unemployment.

The rate of excess mortality among young adults has been consistently lower in Florida than in California, where the strict lockdowns presumably contributed to deaths from other causes. If California’s cumulative rate of excess mortality equaled Florida’s, about 5,000 fewer Californians would have died during the pandemic. And if California’s unemployment rate equaled Florida’s last year, 500,000 fewer Californians would have been out of work.

Those are the hard truths that Americans need to hear.

 

 

MEANWHILE AT PRINCETON:  “A faculty committee won its appeal against the appalling treatment of a classics professor by DEI administrators, but President Christopher Eisgruber has so far remained loyal to the commissars.”

CAN SOROS TURN ARKANSAS INTO LOS ANGELES? Apparently, Andrew Kerr reports, he’s decided to try, pouring nearly half a million dollars into a PAC — Arkansas Justice and Public Safety PAC — he alone funds and the campaign of Alicia Walton to become Prosecuting Attorney for Pulaski and Perry counties. The former includes Little Rock, which makes it Arkansas’ most populous, while the latter is a growing adjoining suburban/exurban area.

WHY IS HIGHER EDUCATION SUCH A CESSPIT OF HATE AND BIGOTRY? Georgia TA: ‘Some white people may have to die…’ “Despite the TA’s history with controversial racial rhetoric, UGA has chosen not to take any action.” I doubt their free-speech attitude would hold regarding racist remarks of a different slant, but maybe I’m too hard on them.

SHOCKER: Meghan McCain’s Bad Republican book flops too.

Two new books featuring Washington political royalty debuted as huge flops, suggesting there is limited interest in anything beyond a focus on presidential politics.

The latest failure is Meghan McCain’s memoir, Bad Republican, released April 26. According to an NPD BookScan provided to Secrets, it sold just 244 copies in the first few days.

A book agent said the low sales were a surprise considering the celebrity status of the former View star and outspoken daughter of former Sen. John McCain.

And then, there was the equally disappointing first-week sales of just 250 copies of the biography of Jill Biden, Jill: A Biography of the First Lady, by two Associated Press reporters.

A publishing industry insider said that there remains a healthy appetite for books about the presidency, especially those on former President Donald Trump.

Trump is interesting. Meghan & Jill are not.

ABORTION CAPITAL OF THE U.S.: Will it be California or New York in the post-Dobbs era of state regulation of abortion? The Golden State already has five pro-abortion measures teed up, according to Tristan Justice.