Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
July 4, 2024
THE NOMENKLATURA TAKE CARE OF THE NOMENKLATURA:
No one is above the law.
Except Democrats… https://t.co/PdldOUCNfE
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) July 3, 2024
WAR ON FIREWORKS: A response to the New York Times.
The LAPD had promised to send up drones to monitor the city, threatening to arrest anyone putting on a pyrotechnic display. They would have had to arrest 50,000 or more. The radical left and the libertarian right have both claimed the slogan “Become Ungovernable” as their own. Conservatives like to mock Californians for their willingness to submit to government micromanagement, but there was no acquiescence to authority on this night. There was only cacophony, and it was good and glorious.
As I drove the kids about, I put on a playlist of patriotic songs: plenty of John Philip Sousa and various traditional anthems. (“Columbia, Gem of the Ocean” is underrated. Mine is probably the last generation to learn it in school.) I played two different versions of “This Land is Your Land” as we drove along Slauson and Crenshaw. Heloise and David sang along.
I kept thinking of a famous line from another song I wasn’t playing. “I’m gonna kick the darkness until it bleeds daylight,” the Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn sang decades ago. I saw my city kicking darkness in joy and in fury. To see it put a lump in my throat.
As a kid I was a big fan of Henry Reed’s Journey, one theme of which was the annoying spread of anti-fireworks laws.
Has the uniparty changed its song about Joe Biden? There are signs that it has. In the immediate aftermath of Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump last week, the narrative broke in two, or at least seemed to break in two. On one side there was horror and — word of the moment — “panic” among the Dems. The New York Times led the way in calling for Biden — for the good of the country — to resign. At the same time, there was considerable push back, encapsulated comically in the observation that dementia Joe “had a cold,” hence his gibbering incoherence. St. Barack weighed in with what appeared to be a supportive post of X: everyone has bad debate nights, he said, but “this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary people his entire life [Obama meant Biden, in case you were wondering] and someone who only cares about himself [the bad orange man].”
Was Obama serious in his support? A day or two later Tucker Carlson cast doubt on that. “From an unusually good source,” he wrote. “Obama’s tweet supporting Joe Biden was disingenuous. In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention.”
I am not sure what that would mean. In particular, I am not sure that the Dems have taken account of their outstanding black sheep, Vice President Kamala Harris. There is a lot of blithe talk about Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or even, God help us, Hillary Clinton stepping into the breach. In my view, none would be a plausible candidate. More to the point, I am not sure I see how we get to any other candidate than either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.
Be certain that some people are thinking hard on that.
A BURNING QUESTION:
Biden being in charge is pretty scary pic.twitter.com/grUwmjKv1s
— 👉M-Û-R-Č-H👈 (@TheEXECUTlONER_) July 2, 2024
July 3, 2024
OPEN THREAD: Hump day.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA assessment suggests potential additional delays for Artemis 3 lunar lander.
HOW DID WE DO THAT BEFORE SUVs WERE INVENTED? Humans to Blame For Megafauna Extinctions, New Study Suggests.
HMM: Form of B12 deficiency in cerebral spinal fluid found to negatively affect the central nervous system. “In 2014, a team of doctors found themselves having difficulty diagnosing a 67-year-old female patient with symptoms typically associated with B12 deficiency—she had difficulty speaking, tremors and ataxia. Blood tests showed no B12 deficiency. . . . The team conducted a spinal tap to analyze the patients’ cerebral spinal fluid. What came back was a surprise—the patient had almost no B12 in the fluid that bathes the brain and central nervous system, suggesting something was preventing it from crossing the blood brain barrier.”
THE EV BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Our Fisker Ocean Just Arrived For a Yearlong Test. Then Its Maker Went Bankrupt. “Hanging above all other questions, though, is what happens now that the company is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Will services be interrupted? Will features stop working? Will we be able to get it serviced if we need to, and what will that process look like? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions. We’ve never had a company fall into bankruptcy during a long-term evaluation, but we’ll share whatever happens with you.”
LOL, JEN RUBIN:
Aw, Hindenburg is too old said some Germans before electing a monster
— Jen "I dissent " Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) July 2, 2024
In making historical references, it’s helpful to know some actual history.
EXCLUSIVE WHITE HOUSE VIDEO, MUST CREDIT INSTAPUNDIT!
This just won the internet for today. Hands down. 😭😂👏👏
The current scene at the White House:pic.twitter.com/fp9DQ0quSS
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 2, 2024
EMBRACING THE RED DOT SIGHT.
COLOR ME UNDERWHELMED: FDA approves new drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease. “In clinical trials, donanemab (Kisunla) modestly slowed the pace of thinking declines among patients in the early stages of the memory-robbing disease. But it also carried significant safety risks, including swelling and bleeding in the brain.”
Drugs for clearing amyloid plaques seem iffy, given the shaky foundation for amyloid plaques as a cause.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: New ‘Anarchy U’ film showcases violence, secrecy at pro-Palestinian UCLA encampment.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Lawsuit: Northwestern Law School Is Biased Against White Men In Faculty Hiring. “The suit argues that racial and gender preferences at Northwestern’s law school are widespread and constitute wholesale discrimination against better qualified White men.”
THEY’RE CONSTANTLY HAVING “COME TO JESUS” MOMENTS, BUT THEY NEVER ACTUALLY COME TO JESUS:
My profession having a “come to Jesus moment” about the decision many made to not try to get the story of Biden’s decline because they were afraid of being accused of helping to elect President Trump.
Team Biden played many of you easily because they knew your weak spot. https://t.co/R8jMvStsHm— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) July 2, 2024
ELIZABETH PRICE FOLEY & DAVID RIVKIN: America Depends on Presidential Immunity: Rejecting Trump’s claim would have meant a weaker government and a more politicized justice system.
n Federalist No. 70, Alexander Hamilton explained that the executive branch is embodied in a single person, the president, to avoid the “habitual feebleness and dilatoriness” inherent in multimember bodies like Congress. A unitary president ensures vigor in the exercise of executive power for the benefit of the nation. “A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.”
The Trump opinion acknowledged these truths and built on Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982), which recognized presidential immunity from civil lawsuits predicated on official acts. In that case, Justice Lewis Powell wrote that such immunity is mandated by the president’s “unique position” and “rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers.” Lawsuits “could distract a President from his public duties, to the detriment of not only the President and his office but also the Nation that the Presidency was designed to serve.”
As Chief Justice John Roberts noted in Trump, that’s even more true of criminal charges. Given “the peculiar public opprobrium that attaches to criminal proceedings,” they “are plainly more likely to distort Presidential decisionmaking than the potential payment of civil damages.” Without immunity, “a President inclined to take one course of action based on the public interest may instead opt for another, apprehensive that criminal penalties may befall him upon his departure from office.” Immunity is therefore crucial to protect the independence of the executive branch. But the immunity the court recognized isn’t without limit.
The president enjoys absolute immunity for acts undertaken within his exclusive power, as granted by the Constitution. “Once it is determined that the President acted within the scope of his exclusive authority,” the court declared, “his discretion in exercising such authority cannot be subject to further judicial examination.” One of the allegations against Mr. Trump is that he attempted to convince the Justice Department to investigate election fraud. Because the president has ultimate authority over the Justice Department, the high court held that Mr. Trump is absolutely immune from charges relating to his interactions with it.
For acts “within the outer perimeter” of the president’s official responsibility, the justices held, there is “at least a presumptive immunity.” The president has a broad array of “discretionary responsibilities” that aren’t exclusively his. “At a minimum,” the court held, “the President must . . . be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose ‘no dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.’ ” . . .
At the same time, the justices made clear that the president has no immunity from prosecution for private acts. That’s consistent with Clinton v. Jones (1997), which denied Bill Clinton’s claim of immunity in a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment during his time as Arkansas governor. Presidents aren’t “above the law”; they are immune from civil lawsuit or criminal prosecution only for actions undertaken pursuant to the highest law, the Constitution.
The court also wisely rejected special counsel Jack Smith’s argument that determining whether acts are official and therefore immune can wait until after the trial. Presidential immunity “must be addressed at the outset of a proceeding,” the court held, because the mere “possibility of an extended proceeding” may reduce the presidency’s vigor. The justices observed that “we do not ordinarily decline to decide significant constitutional questions based on the Government’s promises of good faith.”
Without immunity and prompt pretrial determination thereof, former presidents could face years of court proceedings fighting novel charges predicated on public speeches; negotiations with state, foreign or congressional leaders; or executive orders lacking clear statutory authorization such as vaccine mandates, eviction moratoriums or actions opening the border. Clever prosecutors could conjure up indictments based on opaque criminal statutes such as conspiracy against rights, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., obstruction of justice, mail or wire fraud, racketeering, and false statements or misrepresentations.
If you don’t like this decision, amend the Constitution. Personally, I think any official immunities should come from legislation, not from judicial decisions. But that’s not the world we live in.
HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE DO RUNNING MATES MAKE IN GENERAL? Oh: Nobody cares who Trump picks for running mate. “Republicans and Democrats were nearly identical in telling Rasmussen Reports that Trump’s pick won’t make ‘much of a difference’ on Election Day.”