ARE WE EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM? A ‘city-killer’ asteroid might hit Earth—how worried should we be?
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
February 2, 2025
YEAH, THE NORMS STUFF WENT OUT THE WINDOW IN 2008:
The week he left office, Joe Biden tried to unilaterally amend the constitution.
Fuck off about norms and laws. https://t.co/4hBBpLqtBm
— Amy Curtis 🇮🇱 (@RantyAmyCurtis) February 2, 2025
TARIFFS ARE ONLY STUPID AND DESTRUCTIVE WHEN AMERICA IMPOSES THEM.
Amusing to read the coverage of Trump's "sky-high" tariffs in Norwegian news.
Here's just a few of Norway's import tariffs:
Cheese: 277%
Beef: 344%
Lamb: 429%
Milk: 443%
Potatoes: 191%
Beets: 158%
Roses: 249%
Baker's yeast: 21%
Casein-based glue: 21.2%
Women's tops: 10.7%— Jon Lech Johansen (@jonlech) February 2, 2025
THEY’RE MEAN, FOR SURE: The Mean Girls of Liberal Media. “Notably, the article twice references a supposed lack of non-white guests at different pro-Trump parties. However, it has since transpired that the magazine cropped out several black party-goers from the cover photograph. Black Republican CJ Pearson posted on X that he actually hosted the event in the photo. He says that New York magazine ‘intentionally left me out of their story because it would have undermined [its] narrative that MAGA is some racist cult’.”
NOW OUT FROM ANDREW WAREHAM: A New Sort of War.
THIS SEEMS RIGHT TO ME: Judge Orders LSU To Reinstate Law Prof Removed From Teaching Due To Political Comments In Class. Though to be honest, his comments reported here seem rather self-dramatizing and puerile. But that’s not the point.
JONATHAN TURLEY: Spoiling for a fight: Why challenging birthright citizenship is a win-win for Trump.
This week, the Trump administration doubled down in its fight against birthright citizenship. The usual alliance of pundits, professors and press lined up to declare any challenge to birthright citizenship as absurd. Yet the administration seemed not only undeterred, but delighted.
There is a reason for that euphoria: They believe that they cannot lose this fight.
The legal case against birthright citizenship has always been tough to make, given the long-standing interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in federal courts and agencies. Many in academia and the media have shown unusual outrage toward anyone questioning the basis for birthright citizenship as a legal or policy matter.
This is perhaps best evinced by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe’s profane tirade the last time Trump raised this issue years ago: “This f—ing racist wants to reverse the outcome of the Civil War.”
Putting aside that the Civil War was fought over slavery, not immigration, many at the time would have disagreed that this was one of the outcomes of either the Civil War or the Fourteenth Amendment. . . .
Senator Jacob Howard, coauthor of the Fourteenth Amendment, said it was “simply declaratory” of the Civil Rights Act to protect freed slaves.
Howard assured senators, “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, or who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.” Likewise, Senator Lyman Trumbull, author of the 13th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act and a drafter of the Fourteenth Amendment, said that the six words included only those “not owing allegiance to anyone else.”
This debate has raged for decades. While Democrats today portray anyone supporting the narrower interpretation as a racist or nutty, it was not long ago that many Democratic leaders opposed birthright citizenship, including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). He later denounced his old position with the same passion.
Well, that’s our Harry. Plus:
So what makes this a win-win proposition for the Trump administration? The politics are stronger than the precedent.
Even if the administration loses before the Supreme Court, it will force Democrats again to fight against a tougher stance on immigration issues. Democrats maintained that position in the last election despite polling showing that 83 percent of Americans support deportations of immigrants with violent criminal records and almost half support mass deportation of all undocumented persons.
On birthright citizenship, roughly half of the country now opposes it, according to a recent Emerson poll. That is consistent with much of the world. The U.S. is actually in the minority on the issue.
Our closest allies in Europe reject birthright citizens and follow the common practice of “jus sanguinis,” or right of blood. We are part of a smaller number of countries following “jus soli,” or right of soil.
That is why the Trump administration may win either way. It will either secure a new interpretation from the high court or it could spur a campaign for a constitutional amendment. All of this could unfold around the time of the midterm elections, when incumbents of the president’s party are generally disfavored. This is a wedge issue that many in the Republican Party might welcome.
Indeed.
CLASSIC IN EVERY WAY:
This really does deserve to be cast in solid platinum and hung in the Smithsonian. pic.twitter.com/gi59BbqEId
— Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 (@pmarca) February 2, 2025
Oft evil will shall evil mar.
TRUMP’S POLICIES ARE POPULAR:
BREAKING: 79% of Americans say that biological men should not compete in women’s sports, according to an NYT/Ipsos survey.
— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) February 2, 2025
Wokeness was always an elite preference only, rejected by the masses and maintained only through bullying and shaming tactics that no longer work.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:
This is the split of administrators vs. teaching staff at the top 25 endowed universities.
We are investing in bureaucracy over actual education.
Source:https://t.co/eqJ1hyyM5M pic.twitter.com/VlD7hwsW5V
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) December 19, 2024
THINK YOU HATE THE MEDIA? NOT ENOUGH, YOU DON’T:
Winging it for the Super Bowl? Broccoli might be a cheaper party snack this year https://t.co/TMSlAs46oJ
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 1, 2025
EVERYONE KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN: Quelle Surprise: Arab Nations Are a ‘HELL, NO’ on Accepting Palestinians From Gaza.
So why did we go through this charade? To shut them up when Israel, with U.S. support, does whatever it’s going to do about Gaza.
ROGER SIMON: Taking Counter Terrorism Lessons in Samaria.
I don’t think “counter terrorism” works long-term, no matter how good you are, when the entire population supports terrorists. It then requires a much less surgical approach designed to break the will to fight, a la World War II.
INTERESTING THREAD:
Ah. Why are European-Americans suddenly so inferior at math since like 1998? Why are the people of Newton, Einstein, Dirac, Crick, Feynman, Heisenberg etc suddenly no longer able to do first rate science? Excellent question!
Do you want the brutal answer? Those "white kids" are… https://t.co/uqOTshloPO
— Eric Weinstein (@EricRWeinstein) February 1, 2025
I can say that as a child I considered going into science or engineering, but by the time I was in high school I had figured out that people who actually did STEM were all too often powerless drones in their organizations a la Dilbert.
GOOD MORNING!
February 1, 2025
WHERE WE ARE TODAY:
But those huge interlocking networks have become metastatic tumors, and through bureaucratic angiogenesis, it is paralyzing and killing the Deep State itself, enabling the rebel alliance, despite its smaller size to outflank it.
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) February 1, 2025
Related:
There was always an agreement that no one would pick up the gun in the middle of the room. But they picked up the gun, we wrestled it away so now they are fearful and want us to put the gun back in the middle of the room. No. Because we know that they cannot be trusted with the…
— ❤Auntie Doodles❤ (@Queen0fcups) February 1, 2025
Plus:
Trump: let’s shrink the government, enforce our laws to protect our citizens, shrink the bureaucracy and guarantee free speech for all.
Communists: this is fascism! https://t.co/q9RlXNLON9
— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) February 1, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Party like it’s Saturday Night.
NOW OUT FROM ANDREW WAREHAM: A New Sort of War.
IT’S NOT JUST DOGE WHERE ELON IS REPLACING OBSOLETE COMPONENTS: Mass Retirement? SpaceX Spotted Deorbiting Dozens of Starlink Satellites. “SpaceX didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the company might be retiring large batches of older Starlink satellites, which are designed to orbit the Earth for around five years. Once deorbited, SpaceX can then replace them with newer models through future space launches.”
YES, YES I DO:
"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." – Donald J. Trump
"We're going to fight it in the streets." – Hakeem Jeffries
See the difference?
— TMK (@TheMagaKing2_0) January 31, 2025