Archive for 2025

March 23, 2025

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Mar 23rd, 2025

CHANGE?

The protests have been going on for a few days but haven’t gotten much press.

Posted at 8:38 pm by Stephen Green on Mar 23rd, 2025

LUTTIG IS JUST ANOTHER DEFECTIVE PRODUCT OF BOEING. Josh Blackman not impressed with former-judge Luttig’s latest offering in the NYT.

I think every sentence is demonstrably incorrect. First, the Court has no power to “assert” its own authority. The Court lacks the power of the sword or purse.

Second, I can say with a high degree of certainty that a “rebuke” from the Supreme Court would do little to “cripple Mr. Trump’s presidency and tarnish his legacy.” As for the “legacy,” if two impeachment trials, an alleged insurrection, and federal and state indictments didn’t keep him out of the White House, then a few pages in the U.S. Reports will hardly leave a mark. By contrast, I think such a feeble effort to control Trump very well could “cripple” the Supreme Court.

Third, Luttig tries to invoke Marbury, but in that case Chief Justice Marshall had the good sense to not assert any authority agains Jeffrson. The Court did not order the Jefferson Administration to deliver the commission, as such an order would likely be ignored. Likewise, Marshall never ordered President Jackson to do anything. Marbury teaches the judiciary to avoid unwinnable conflicts with the President.

The last time such a conflict occurred, FDR rolled the Court producing the Surrender Of 1937, when New Deal programs started getting upheld after the “switch in time that saved nine.”

Plus: “Let me try to put this conflict in perspective. Donald Trump was able to roll over Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and every other politician that stood in his path. Does anyone think John Roberts can do better? Does anyone think Roberts’s press statement to respond to Trump’s social media post even moved the needle? Op-eds like this from people like Luttig likely give the Chief some faint echoes of praise within his echo chamber, but will not register beyond the Capital District. (I think Texas would be considered District 12.)”

Related: Federal judges’ Trump hate is only harming the courts themselves. “Chief Justice John Roberts has frequently expressed concern with the ‘institutional legitimacy’ of the federal judiciary. At times that’s seemed limited to gaining the approval of the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times. But he may need to consider what the rest of America thinks, lest he wind up on the 20% side of an 80/20 issue — an awkward place to be when you’re concerned about legitimacy.”

Posted at 6:47 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Mar 23rd, 2025

IT’S WEIRD THAT PEOPLE DON’T TRUST THE PUBLIC HEALTH ESTABLISHMENT:

Posted at 6:21 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Mar 23rd, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM AL SHARPTON’S NETWORK: MSNBC: Segregationist Trump Has Ushered In A New Era Of Jim Crow.

Co-host Michael Steele also got into the act. He approvingly read a statement by a “real dear buddy” who wrote:

“Jim Crow has left the South and now roams the country as his grandson, James E. Crow, Esquire. The segregationists played the long game while we were asleep at the wheel.”

This is a stale echo of Biden’s ranting about the Republicans representing “Jim Crow 2.0.” If Trump is such a racist, why did he receive a higher percentage of the black vote than any Republican presidential candidate in 48 years?

How do things compare to 2009, when Steele — still describing himself as a Republican at the time — sat there and took it when a CNN host said that the 2008 Republican National Convention “literally look[ed] like Nazi Germany?”

CNN host D.L. Hughley turned to the standard left-wing tactic of playing the Nazi card against Republicans on his program on Saturday evening: “The tenets of the Republican Party are amazing and they seem warm and welcome. But when I watch it be applied — like you didn’t have to go much further than the Republican National Convention….It literally look[s] like Nazi Germany.” He went on to say that blacks weren’t welcome in the party: “It just does not seem — like not only are we not welcome — not only are we not welcome, but they don’t even care what we think.” He later described the GOP as “reactionary.”

Yes, I got John McCain confused with Hitler all the time back then, too – as did much of the left, until he magically became the good Republican to beat up Trump, even more so after his death. Writing up McCain’s funeral in his 2018 USA Today column, Glenn wrote that  McCain as Hitler comparisons were all the rage among the left in 2008:

The Atlantic ran a pre-election cover story on McCain, but the cover photo was taken by celebrity photographer Jill Greenberg. It made McCain look like Emperor Palpatine’s older, less-attractive brother. This was not by accident, but by design. On her blog, Greenberg actually bragged about her dirty trick of getting him to stand above a strobe placed on the floor to make him look old and scary.

Obama surrogate Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) invoked Alabama racist George Wallace in talking about McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Jonathan Martin noted in Politico that McCain was being called racist without basis, simply because it was helpful to the Democrats. The Nation weighed in on McCain’s wartime use of the term “gook” as evidence of his racism.

Then-famous music star Madonna opened her concert tour by calling McCain Hitler and encouraging people to vote for Obama. And the popular Democratic blog DailyKos, not to be outdone, published a comparison of McCain to both Hitler and Stalin.

And, of course, the treatment was repeated with a different target in 2012, when Mitt Romney was given the same Hitler treatment. It’s as if every Republican who is in power, or who might be, is Hitler — but only as a temporary condition. (I’m old enough to remember when George W. Bush was Hitler). As soon as a new Republican target appears, the old Hitler gets rehabilitated, and even employed, by way of comparison, as a way to criticize the new one.

How much was John McCain rehabilitated by the left, particularly after his death? This much: Cindy McCain appointed to Joe Biden’s transition team.

—The Washington Examiner, September 28th, 2020.

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 23rd, 2025

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Moment Bernie Sanders storms out of ‘nonsense’ interview leaving ABC reporter stunned after he asked simple question.

Sen. Bernie Sanders abruptly ended his sit-down interview with ABC News.

The Vermont independent left This Week host Jonathan Karl stunned when he refused to answer whether he thinks his progressive partner in the House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should run for the Senate.

Sanders said the interview was ‘nonsense’ after Karl pushed him if AOC should replace Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer after he voted for the Republicans budget to avert a government shutdown.

After trying to shut down the line of questioning, the firebrand senator stood up in the middle of the interview and stormed out of the room – a moment that was caught on camera as Karl urged Sanders not to cut it short.

No longer on-camera, Sanders called the discussion ‘inside the beltway stuff’ and suggested there are bigger fish to fry then speculating over the future of the leadership in the Democratic Party.

The senator then conceded and allowed Karl to get in one last, non-AOC-related question that centered around his political future.

Related: Oceania has always been in favor of border walls:

Curiously, on the eve of the Covid lockdowns, Bernie was suddenly fine with illegal immigrants after previously strongly opposing them: Bernie Sanders’s evolution on immigration, explained. Bernie Sanders was once wary of immigrant workers. Now he’s on their side.

—Vox.com, February 25th, 2020.

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 23rd, 2025

IMMIGRANTS CONTRIBUTE SO MUCH TO AMERICA. WHY DO DEMOCRATS HATE HIM?

Posted at 5:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Mar 23rd, 2025