FROM THE BARELY-PARODY DEPARTMENT:
Federal Judge Orders Astronauts Be Returned To Space Station https://t.co/j8XQJbA3Cs pic.twitter.com/wEcVnLAJrb
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 17, 2025
Turn the rocket around!
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
March 17, 2025
WELL, THAT’S THE OBAMA STYLE: Michelle Obama podcasts for the rich.
COVID COVERUP: Ed Morrissey is Unsparing.
Now that the cat has come out of the bag, suddenly the New York Times feels the need to get out in front of the backlash. For years, the NYT ran story after story, scathing column after column, about anyone who dared to challenge The Science®. How dare people suggest that a novel coronavirus might have emerged from the nearby lab being run under questionable practices doing exactly the kind of research intended to produce novel coronaviruses! Those dissenters were all raaaaaacists, remember?
Now, the NYT — and not even in its own editorial voice — wants to play victim of The Science®. . . .
Ahem. “Has since emerged” is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting here. As early as April 2020, those “terrifyingly lax” protocols had already come to light. We also knew at that same time that the State Department had flagged the Wuhan Institute of Virology for violating safety protocols required for the kind of gain-of-function research it was conducting as far back as 2018. We also knew that The Science® still had zero evidence for a natural zoonotic leap to humans to explain the outbreak epicentered in the same town as the lab . . .
And yet, the New York Times went out of its way — as did the rest of the Protection Racket Media — to spend years treating anyone who questioned the “consensus” around a natural zoonotic leap as either a crank, a racist, or worse. Even when hints that the intel community had its doubts about the “consensus,” the media rushed to defend The Science® from any scrutiny whatsoever. . . . Why did the media circle the wagons around The Science®? Because The Science® helped cause the pandemic and didn’t want to get held accountable for it. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins funded gain-of-function research even after several warnings about its dangers. They funded the WIV even after all the red flags went up about their “terrifyingly lax” protocols in pursuing that research. Had the media exposed that at the time, Fauci and Collins (and others) would have been hauled in front of a jury rather than allowed to set policies to deal with the pandemic to which they greatly contributed.
Read the whole thing. Despite President Autopen’s dodgy pardons, this needs to be looked into, deeply and unrelentingly.
Related:
Knowingly lying to prevent icky people from discussing icky facts that, oops! are true, is why people don't listen to public health officials now. Lying was bad and persisting in calling their opponents icky to justify it is more of the same five years later. https://t.co/E0HkYURCF3
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) March 17, 2025
THE HIGHER EDUCATION CLOWN SHOW CONTINUES: Professors: Elon Musk’s Cybertruck reminiscent of apartheid-enforcing vehicle in South Africa.
LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE THEY DO, IT’S ALL BASED ON DIFFERENTIATING THEMSELVES FROM AMERICA: Canada’s false new nationalism: Mark Carney is the quintessential Davos Man.
CDR SALAMANDER: Breaking the Bad Houthi Habit.
Related:
I think when third world barbarians fire on our shipping, we should kill them https://t.co/AaXKsPKy91
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) March 17, 2025
IT’S AN AMAZING CHANGE. WEIRDLY, HE EVEN LOOKS BETTER. 47 is better than 45: This time he is a politician who dodged a bullet. Literally. “Democrats were correct when they said re-electing Donald Trump president would lead to a civil war. There is one—among Democrats. . . . The 45th president was not a politician. The 47th president is a politician, sharpened by the most knives used against a leader since Julius Caesar. A bullet hitting you has to clarify matters.”
BILLS COMING DUE: Trump Administration Slashes Millions More in Grants to Columbia.
YES.
“There is no constitutional crisis other than the Democrats lost. They are trying to create a constitutional crisis by having the judiciary and the federal district courts assume control of the executive branch.”https://t.co/dsPaxkBrkC https://t.co/Zhh2X4LLUH
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) March 17, 2025
Related:
A constitutional crisis over whether violent criminal aliens who are members of foreign terror orgs can be removed from the country expeditiously — the left sure knows how to pick their battles.
— Just Loki (@LokiJulianus) March 16, 2025
IT WAS LIES ALL THE WAY DOWN. LIES BACKED BY CENSORSHIP.
This is so fucking enraging.
The New York Post — America’s oldest daily newspaper, founded by Alexander Hamilton — was censored by Facebook for publishing an op-ed suggesting that lab leak could’ve been the cause.
Now the establishment is saying, “With regrets, you were right.” https://t.co/wmXqOdKndt
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) March 16, 2025
THIS:
Correct. @HannahDCox pic.twitter.com/OoN3pmGFbr
— Rothmus 🏴 (@Rothmus) March 14, 2025
This is theologically and historically illiterate.
In Jesus’ time citizens had no say in their government. They lived under a monarchy. Jesus’ command was to be law-abiding and a peaceful person – blameless – so that you did not hurt your witness.
It doesn’t mean you should… https://t.co/refRKJr4MT
— Hannah Cox (@HannahDCox) March 15, 2025
A HARSH, BUT FAIR, CHARACTERIZATION:
Gavin Newsom is the male version of Meghan Markle.
He wants so badly to be loved, but he’s so disingenuous and gives me weird, creepy vibes.
pic.twitter.com/VYthU2TFHv— Sher❤ (@TheFabBookLover) March 14, 2025
The male Meghan Markle indeed.
March 16, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.
IF THERE’S SO MUCH GOVERNMENT AIR TRAVEL THAT IT’S ALL THAT’S PROPPING UP THE AIRLINES, THERE’S TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT AIR TRAVEL: The government is employing fewer people and they’re traveling less. United Airlines could lose millions of dollars. It says in the story, though, that it’s 2% of total air travel so I think the airlines can weather it.
I HOPE IT WORKS: SpaceX to send Starship to Mars next year, Elon Musk confirms.
CURRENT POLITICS IN A NUTSHELL:
Gotta love that while Mark Kelly was trading in his Tesla, Elon Musk was flying into space to save Kelly’s fellow astronauts who were abandoned by Joe Biden’s autopen.
— Kate Hyde (@KateHydeNY) March 16, 2025
ANTI-ASIAN RACISM, STRAIGHT UP: Why was a brilliant kid rejected by the University of California? “Despite a 4.2 high school grade-point average, near-perfect SATs, and the fact that he founded a software company while still a high school sophomore, Stanley Zhong was rejected by admissions officers at UC Berkeley, UCLA, Davis, San Diego and Santa Barbara – every University of California campus he applied to. Just 18 at the time, the Palo Alto, California, native shook off the disappointment and immediately earned a prestigious job as a Google programmer. A year later, he hasn’t given up on his dream: he’d still like to go back to school and eventually earn a doctorate in computer science. To level the path to admissions, he’s suing the University of California system because, he says, race factored into his UC rejections.”
PRESIDENTIAL NONACQUIESCENCE IS ITSELF A CHECK ON JUDICIAL OVERREACH, ALBEIT ONE THAT SHOULD BE USED RARELY:
“No! You can’t just defy judges. It’s unprecedented!”
The precedent: pic.twitter.com/pieT2zjOQg
— Still Boneless (@still_boneless) March 16, 2025
👏👏👏”Non-acquiescence” is on the table (or in the air) for the first time in 160 years —since Merryman— pushed by a radical district court judge ruling, one that the D.C. Circuit can reject out of hand. Or the circuit can send up to SCOTUS stat. I hope the planes can be… https://t.co/3qtjtO6f7F
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) March 16, 2025
When Ex Parte Quirin was before the Court, President Franklin Roosevelt warned them that he would not turn over the captured German saboteurs to some U.S. Marshal with a habeas order. The Court then declined to issue one.
I do think that if John Roberts is as concerned about the institutional future of the federal judiciary as he says he is, something needs to be done to rein in these rogue district judges.
It’s pretty clear at this point rogue judges, not the Trump admin, are posing a threat to rule of law.
SCOTUS needs to acknowledge this and reassert the judiciary’s role—best way to do that IMO is require TROs to be done by a three judge panel w/ expedited SCOTUS review.
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) March 16, 2025
DO TELL: Colleges Are in Trouble and Suddenly Realizing They Have Few Allies.
If only there had been some sort of warning.
Related:
Faced with falling revenues, universities are announcing across-the-board spending freezes. Instead, they should differentiate between sane departments and those that have lost their way. Departments captured by post-modernists should be cut, to allow adequate funding for others.
— Timur Kuran (@timurkuran) March 16, 2025
AN ELECTRIC PICKUP TRUCK MAKES A LOT OF SENSE FOR THOSE WHO ACTUALLY USE IT FOR PICKUPS: Toyota Confirms an Electric Pickup Truck Is Coming Soon. But how many pickup owners do?
IT’S HARDER TO ARGUE FOR POLICIES THAT ARE STUPID AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Blue State AGs Having Trouble Making the Case for Their States’ Unconstitutional Anti-Gun Limits on Second Amendment Rights.
GLOBAL WARMING: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Earth’s orbit is filling up with junk. Greenhouse gases are making the problem worse.