WHY DO THEIR OPINIONS MATTER? ‘Manifest Destiny’ on Mars: Trump’s remark stirs up disagreements in astronomy community.
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
February 17, 2025
CENSORSHIP ON THE GOVERNMENT’S DIME: National Science Foundation granted George Washington University $5 million to stop ‘misinformation.’
JOHN KASS: Boss Madigan Goes Down. “I opposed the Combine, the insular corruption of Illinois, the crooked lawyers, and especially the corrupt journalism of Springfield and Chicago that fawned over Boss Madigan and other political leaders over the decades, all those Combine jackals and hyenas laughing. It fed hopelessness and profound cynicism of the people.”
Plus: “States like Illinois, California, New York, and Michigan are political cesspools. Yet, they contribute quite a bit to the gross domestic product of the United States. Imagine what the US GDP would be if those states weren’t corrupt cesspools and were trying to empower businesses.”
TRUMP’S SO COLD-HEARTED, FIRING ALL THOSE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES:
WATCH: Former President Obama once spoke about cutting wasteful spending through sweeping executive action, using tactics similar to those President Trump and DOGE boss @elonmusk are employing today to save taxpayers billions. The difference? This time, Democrats are freaking out pic.twitter.com/6tHsTO5Vjx
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 16, 2025
REMINDER:
Never ever forget that CA Gov. Gavin Newsom locked down the entire state of 40M Californians for 3 years; he arrested people taking a run outside, and paddle boarding, while he dined in Napa, vacationed in Cabo and Costa Rica, and ordered K-12 school kids and babies to take the… https://t.co/mVlhN312SU
— Katy Grimes (@KATYSaccitizen) February 17, 2025
YES:
What’s happening in DC right now is what an actual transfer of power looks like. The political right hasn’t engaged in exercising real authority over the exec branch in so long (eg: we elect GOP presidents who sit atop a thoroughly Democratic infrastructure that undermines them… https://t.co/YBQB79NgCV
— Rachel Bovard (@rachelbovard) February 15, 2025
ICYMI: Roger Kimball: Trump, Musk, and the Deep State: The Battle Over Transparency Begins. “Trump and Musk are unraveling the deep state’s secrets at record speed, and the left is panicking—wielding emergency orders, judicial overreach, and legal theatrics to stop the exposure.”
ESPECIALLY WHEN TRUMP’S LAWYERING IS SO MUCH BETTER: Sometimes The Battle Is Well Worth The Fight — The Upside To The TRO’s Coming With The Imperial Judiciary.
This isn’t 2017. The nascent Trump Administration isn’t unprepared on both a policy and personnel basis to fight back against the onslaught of lawfare that has been unleashed as was the case 8 years ago.
There has always been a plan this time around.
The Executive Orders (EOs) that are the source of the lawfare now being waged by the Democrats’ Marxist/Progressive allies were carefully written — unlike in 2017 when the new Trump Administration was largely unprepared for the surprising upset of Hillary Clinton.
The EOs that led the way in 2017 — the Travel Ban, Expediting Environmental Review for Critical Infrastructure Projects, etc., — were scattershot, written on the fly, and without having a clear understanding how they would be challenged in courts across the country. . . .
In 2025, the Trump Transition Team had a plan. Dozens of EOs were carefully drafted with a coherent theme — directly attacking the Administrative bureaucracy — the “Resistance” — that strangled his first term in its cradle. There was never any question that the Democrats and the Administrative bureaucracy would rerun the same playbook — charge into federal courts where they knew they would find politically sympathetic judges (GOP did the same to Biden in Texas in 2021) and seek TROs and Injunctions to grind all the new reform efforts to a halt.
But I don’t think the Democrats/Progressives anticipated Elon Musk and his engineer boy-geniuses, nor did they expect that the first target that would take multiple incoming torpedos from DOGE would be the federal programs that have funneled huge sums of money to the left-wing NGOs through a variety of slush funds.
Read the whole thing.
FEAR AND LOATHING ON KALORAMA HEIGHTS:
In a town with only one industry, reducing government is a sacrilegious act. It is one thing to run on reducing government and quite another thing to actually mean it…https://t.co/jYQLE1uhQI
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 16, 2025
The idea of a transfer of power—especially one resulting from (gasp) an election—is terrifying to The Deep State™️ and to The Uniparty™️
Unrivaled, unreviewable, unchecked power is their whole game
And they’re about to lose https://t.co/ClxitjWgaX
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) February 16, 2025
Worth watching. Klobuchar appears genuinely uncomfortable, even nervous. Also pretty scattered narrative attempt.
Panic from Dems. https://t.co/cRkstlg5zT
— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) February 16, 2025
They’re terrified of the money spigot closing and the accountability spigot opening.
Meanwhile, election-deniers are calling this peaceful transfer of power a “coup,” and declaring today a “national day of action” to oppose it. Sounds insurrection-y to me.
MAKING AMERICANS’ LIVES BETTER INSTEAD OF WORSE: Trump Officially Ends Biden-Era War On American Appliances.
LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND OBSCURE:
The impossibly rich lifestyle of DC liberals, funded by YOU the taxpayer, without your consent or approval. This is how they live, and the receipts prove it.
USAID, the NEA, and other taxpayer-funded programs issue billions of dollars in grants. John and Jane, or Pete and Pete,… pic.twitter.com/qwq2o2GusA
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 15, 2025
February 16, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: What Abolishing the Income Tax Would Mean.. Plus an AI experiment.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China invites bids for lunar satellite to support crewed moon landing missions.
AVERSION TO FIRING EMPLOYEES: A Cross-Cultural Study.
THIS WOULD NOT ONLY SAVE PEOPLE MONEY, BUT ELIMINATE HUGE AMOUNTS OF HASSLE, AND GOVERNMENT CONTROL: DOGE and Military Cuts Could Enable Eliminating Individual Income Tax.
All those people complaining about DOGE as a threat to privacy — why is it okay for the government to know how much money you make and what you spend it on?
WELL, THAT’S GOTTA HURT HIM TO SAY:
ABC’s Jon Karl: Trump’s favorability is now HIGHER than it ever was in his first term.
– 63% want the government to recognize only two sexes
– 60% support deporting illegal aliens
– 60% favor expanding oil & gas productionpic.twitter.com/9fUNRCY0Yp— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 16, 2025
BEEGE WELBORN: The Dems’ P-Word Problem And Its Historical Parallels. “I saw that and I was like, ‘I am so writing this post. This is history come to life.’”
Related:
You can have a volunteer military made up of dudes like the one on the left or the one on the right.
One will repel the other.
You have to choose. https://t.co/bsGYjiZA8r pic.twitter.com/2deus1THt3
— The Deseret Stone (@DeseretStone) February 14, 2025
BREAKING AUTOMOTIVE NEWS: The Best Floor Mats of 2025, Tested.
ABOLISH THE ATF: How a Replica Submachine Gun Landed a Sailor in Jail for 20 Years.
MGS: MACHINE-GENERATED SMUT. ChatGPT can now write erotica as OpenAI eases up on AI paternalism: ChatGPT relaxes rules on sex and “gore” generations while prohibiting illegal content. There’s not really any such thing as “illegal content” here; they mean depictions of illegal behavior. “The Model Spec outlines formalized rules for restricting or generating potentially harmful content while staying within guidelines. OpenAI has divided this kind of restricted or iffy content into three categories of declining severity: prohibited content (‘only applies to sexual content involving minors’), restricted content (‘includes informational hazards and sensitive personal data’), and sensitive content in appropriate contexts (‘includes erotica and gore’).”
STARSHIP IS SEXY, BUT FALCON IS STILL DELIVERING THE MAIL: SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 booster launches 21 Starlink satellites from Florida.
AN AMERICA MOST LEFTISTS AND JOURNALISTS — BUT I REPEAT MYSELF — DON’T KNOW:
🚨 WATCH: President Trump just did an EPIC flyover at the Daytona 500
The crowd went absolutely WILD! 🔥
It’s like one big MAGA rally!
pic.twitter.com/VujMEBZpZo— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 16, 2025