LESSON #1: DON’T HOLD BACK. WIN DECISIVELY, NOT TENTATIVELY. MAKE THE RUBBLE BOUNCE AND LEAVE THE SURVIVORS TREMBLING AT THE THOUGHT OF THINGS STARTING UP AGAIN. Lessons for Western Militaries from the Gaza War: Israel’s experience in Gaza provides a sobering preview of what high-intensity urban warfare can entail, and how modern militaries must evolve to achieve decisive and ethical victories in any future conflict.
Curtis LeMay and Arthur Harris — and William Tecumseh Sherman — have thoughts.
INVESTIGATE COLUMBIA AND IF YOU FIND WHAT I EXPECT, PENALIZE COLUMBIA FURTHER: Columbia janitors claim they were illegally forced to scrub swastikas then were attacked, trapped by anti-Israel mob as civil rights probe launched.
DRESDEN RULES SHOULD APPLY, BUT I DON’T THINK ISRAEL IS QUITE THERE YET: Israel Unleashes ‘Gates of Hell’ on Hamas.
They need to realize that all of Gaza is Hamas, and Hamas is all of Gaza.
HAHA:
Legit LOL at "Batonya Harding" https://t.co/wRjHGiyLWH
— Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) March 17, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Space National Guard debate reignited with bipartisan legislation.
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Federal judges’ Trump hate is only harming the courts themselves.
HMM: Donating Blood Changes Your Genes. “Recent research from the Francis Crick Institute has revealed intriguing genetic adaptations in the blood stem cells of frequent blood donors, supporting the production of new, non-cancerous cells without increasing cancer risk, as reported in the journal Blood.” Plus:
“Regular blood donation has been associated with several functional advantages for donors, beyond the genetic adaptations observed in blood stem cells. These benefits include cardiovascular improvements and potential metabolic effects.”
I donate two or three times a year. The health benefits aren’t really why I do it, but they’re certainly a plus.
SHOCKER: “A new report is shedding more light on why UW-Madison’s director of Division of Diversity, Equity & Educational Achievement lost his job.” “The report, which was released Friday, details how former DDEEA chief LaVar Charleston spent millions of dollars, handed out bonuses and raises, and never fully communicated any of it to anyone else at the school…. But perhaps the most damning part of the report came from what Charleston spent on training, travel, and events. Which totals over $2.5 million last year alone…. The report does not detail where those trips or training took place, or who was allowed to go. UW-Madison removed Charleston from his job at the DDEEA in January, but did not fire him. He’s currently on leave from his $133,000 job as a professor. He made over $300,000 as DEI boss. The report also details how the university’s governance system allowed Charleston to spend so much money without anyone knowing until afterwards….”
THEY DO HAVE TO COME FROM THE PRESIDENT, THOUGH: Pardons and Autopen Signatures: A 2024 Appellate Decision Says Pardons Don’t Have to Be Signed (or Even Written) at All. “Of course, something is required, and that something is presumably a statement by the President that he is pardoning someone. If (and this is a very big if) a President actually didn’t make such a statement, and an assistant just affixed the President’s signature to a document purporting to be a pardon without the President’s authorization, then I don’t see how that would be a valid pardon (at least unless it’s somehow ratified by the relevant President). But that turns on a factual question about whether the President was actually involved in the creation of the pardons, not on a legal question about whether an autopen signature renders the pardon invalid.”
As I said below, it’s possible that Trump knows something about how things happened.
MINE, BABY, MINE: $8.4 Billion: Enormous Cache of Rare Earth Elements Discovered in America. We need legislation that will override burdensome environmental laws where necessary for self-sufficiency in strategic materials and energy.
HMM: Is This the Aide Behind Biden’s Controversial Autopen Signings? “Reports suggest Neera Tanden, Biden’s former White House Staff Secretary, may have used the autopen to sign pardons while President Biden was golfing in St. Croix in December 2022. The Oversight Project pointed out that six individuals received pardons during Biden’s vacation on December 30, 2022, raising concerns that the president may not have been present or fully aware that the pardons were being signed.”
If it happened once it could have happened again. And 2024 Biden was much farther gone mentally even than 2022 Biden.
Flashback to 2021 (From Ed): The Moral Equivalent of the War Room:
Every morning this week at 8:45, a newly established “war room” has convened at the White House, with about 20 staffers logging onto a Zoom call to coordinate messaging and deployment of critical resources.
The operation has nothing to do with the crisis in Afghanistan — it’s about keeping President Biden’s big infrastructure push on track. Even amid the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the frantic, last-minute military operation to rescue thousands of Americans and vulnerable Afghans, the White House has maintained its overarching focus on the domestic matters it has prioritized for the last eight months.
“The No. 1 priority for our cabinet overall, from our perspective here, is to build support throughout the [August] recess process for the legislative agenda,” said Neera Tanden*, a senior advisor to the president who oversees the war room. Tasked with building support for a $1.2-trillion bipartisan infrastructure measure and the Democrats’ $3.5-trillion budget proposal, Tanden is dispatching cabinet members to key states, monitoring lawmakers’ town halls and arranging hundreds of local TV interviews with administration officials.
As I wrote back then:
Not surprisingly, the party whose organizing method is “the moral equivalent of war” views American politics as the continuation of warfare by other means, to flip von Clausewitz’s axiom on its head. And as the last week has illustrated, they’re far more focused on fighting against the American people, rather than Middle Eastern terrorists.
* Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time — a long time: Neera Tanden lands in the White House, after all. “The White House confirmed on Friday that Biden had appointed Tanden to be a senior adviser. She will start on Monday. The move came two months after the veteran Democratic policy adviser, known for her combative Twitter feed and in-your-face politics, withdrew her bid to become Biden’s budget director — Biden’s first, and, to this point, only failed nominee and one of his few political setbacks thus far.”
Earlier:
● Biden’s OMB Pick, Neera Tanden, Is a Conspiracy Theorist Who Pushed False and Disputed Election Information on Twitter.
● Neera Tanden’s unremorseful bullying should disqualify her from Biden’s cabinet.
● Democratic Infighting over Biden’s Nomination of Neera Tanden.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is It Bad to Store Magazines Fully Loaded? “Spring steel is made of a very specific alloy called music wire, and it is designed to stay in a permanent state of stress. YES, you should leave your magazines loaded! The act of loading and unloading is actually worse for your magazine springs.”
DOMESTIC TERRORISM: Swatting Of Conservative Media and Online Figures Continues Across the Country.
TERRORISTIC THREATS:
Democrats say there will be violence unless Trump is removed from office. pic.twitter.com/BU27D9KF7V
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 17, 2025
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to use ChatGPT as a personal AI research assistant.
DID EARLIER PRIMITIVE HUMANS COMMUNICATE WITH SPEECH? Genomic study indicates our capacity for language emerged 135,000 years ago.
WE’RE GOING TO NEED THAT: Researchers astonished by tool’s apparent success at revealing AI’s “hidden objectives.”
READ MELISSA OLTHOFF’S FORLORN HOPE after meeting her at a con a couple of weeks ago. Finished it last night: Quite good, and I found myself thinking about the characters and events at the gym today, which is always a good sign.
LEFTIES ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA ARE SAYING THE MEASLES OUTBREAK IN TEXAS IS TRUMP’S FAULT. Stupid anti-vaxx MAGA types!
Is there anything MAGA can’t do? Related: Ontario is having its worst measles outbreak in almost 30 years. Here’s what you need to know: Measles was rare in Ontario, with only 101 cases reported between 2013 and 2023 — until a surge in cases last year.
WELL: This Will Cause Some Heartburn: Trump Declares POTATUS Auto-Pen Pardons ‘Void.’ The fight over this will be interesting, and ugly, and I don’t see where Trump has anything to lose from it.
Meanwhile, although Congress lacks the power to limit the president’s discretion on granting pardons, as I’ve written years ago it possesses the power to regulate pardons procedurally in many ways — for example, to require that they be signed in person by the president (no autopen), and perhaps to require that they be witnessed by others whose names are recorded, and deposited with the National Archives. This is under its power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” That should be done.
UPDATE: It occurs to me that Trump may know more than we do about how the autopen was used, who was in charge, etc.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Lawprof Ann Althouse: “The NYT writer — Shawn McCreesh — observes ‘There is no power in the Constitution or case law to undo a pardon, and there is no exception to pardons signed by autopen,’ but to say that is to look past the question whether there was a pardon. Even if a pardon can’t be undone, how do we know it was ever done? We have a piece of writing, signed by autopen, and maybe it can be shown to have originated within the White House. The power that is in the Constitution is given to ‘The President,’ so, interpreting that clause, one might question whether his hand must do the signing… and whether his mind comprehended what he was doing.” Using the autopen at the direction of the President is one thing. Using the autopen without his knowledge or comprehension is another.
She doubts that courts will want to open that can of worms, and she’s probably right. But what if it can be established that the pardons were done entirely by staff without Biden’s knowledge? Judges’ clerks may write their opinions, but if they write and issue them while the judge is in a coma, that can’t be valid, right? There must be some point where it’s not a question of delegation, but simply fraud. Again, what does Trump know? What have permanent White House staff told him? (Bumped).
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