Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
April 18, 2024
WELL, THAT’S UNIVERSITIES’ RESPONSE TO EVERYTHING NOWADAYS, USUALLY CLOAKED — AS HERE — IN UNPERSUASIVE TALK OF “SAFETY.” “USC Canceling Valedictorian’s Commencement Speech Looks Like Calculated Censorship.” “To elaborate on the heckler’s veto point, behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated: If all it takes to cancel an event is that ‘discussion relating to [the event] has taken on an alarming tenor,’ that just encourages people with all sorts of views on all sorts of issues to try to shut down speakers simply by producing more ‘alarming’ chatter. And if there really were such serious threats that USC felt it had to shut down the event despite this risk, then USC should have at least expressly said that there were such serious threats, and stressed that it had called in law enforcement so that the threateners could be caught and punished.”
LOW ENERGY JOE:
Trump at an NYC bodega: Pandemonium.
Biden at a Sheetz gas station: Crickets. pic.twitter.com/iFRV6g22rd— Suburban Black Man 🇺🇸 (@niceblackdude) April 18, 2024
Compare Trump at the Bodega:
President Trump will put New York in play this November!
It is only Day 2 of this show trial, and President Trump is already breaking the internet by visiting Jose Alba's bodega.
Alba was shipped to Rikers Island by Bragg after acting in self-defense.
— Lee Zeldin (@LeeMZeldin) April 16, 2024
TRUMP DOESN’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING. HE’S A VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION JUST BY EXISTING AND THREATENING THEIR SELF-IMPORTANCE.
"Donald Trump is enjoying the same guarantees of fairness and due process before the law that he sought to deny to others during his term." [blurb] @NYTopinion gives zero (0) examples of Trump denying due process to others during his term. https://t.co/epZzR0FhK5
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) April 18, 2024
Ann Althouse: “I don’t like how the Board is conflating the prosecution and the court and the rule of law. The rule of law is an abstraction. Rights exist within the abstraction, but rights can be violated. The abstraction doesn’t guarantee the rights. People exercising power must ensure that those rights are protected, and they may deviously hide behind the abstraction… perhaps with the help of elite onlookers who make abstract pronouncements in print. Trump’s assertion that the prosecution is “unfair and politically motivated” is may be true even if the court carries out its duties perfectly. Trump may be “fortunate to live in a country” that has some dedication to the rule of law, but that doesn’t deprive him of the reason to complain that the prosecution seems politically motivated. Again, even if the court perfectly carries out its obligation to the rule of law, Trump is motivated to cry out about the onerous prosecutions, which are undercutting his ability to campaign for the presidency.”
Which is the point.
LOL: She’s the loony left establishment in a nutshell.
While she is a small scale donor, her second biggest donation was to Stacey Abrams PAC — you remember her? She's the election-denying failed gubernatorial candidate from Georgia.
— David Mastio (@DavidMastio) April 17, 2024
KEEP THE BUREAUCRATS OUT: Why the White House and Congress can’t see eye-to-eye on regulating commercial space. And this is at best a stretch: “The FAA, Department of Transportation, has been doing human spaceflight safety for many years.” The FAA has done a great job with human spaceflight by not regulating it. The “learning period” law has prevented anyone from doing so. And that’s how it should stay for the foreseable future.
YOU COULD MAKE A MUCH BETTER CIVIL WAR MOVIE OUT OF HIS BOOKS: That Civil War Movie Is a Symptom of Hollywood’s Problems.
The problem with “Civil War” isn’t its point of view, to the extent it has one. Now, you can tell that, beneath the surface, it has a generic left-wing orientation. The bad guy president is vaguely Trumpy. He’s a straight white male, of course. In fact, every single villain is a straight, white male. None of the major heroes is a straight, white male. You can make movies where the villains are straight, white males, and where none of the heroes are straight, white males, but it’s now a woke Hollywood cliche to make all the villains straight, white males, and none of the heroes straight, white males. You can’t unsee it. Rural white guy? Definitely a villain. Black woman? Hero!
But the mandatory pseudo-diversity of Hollywood is not the main problem with “Civil War.”
Plus: “This was a missed opportunity. We’re at a very dangerous time in our country.” Read on.
THE INFLATION CAFE: 2% Inflation, My Ass!
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Over 40% Of Full-Time Faculty Depart West Virginia Law School.
REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: Impeachment ‘Whistleblower’ Was in the Loop of Biden-Ukraine Affairs That Trump Wanted Probed.
But here’s the thing. They don’t hate Trump voters because of Trump. They hate Trump because they hate his voters. Contempt for middle- and working-class Americans is the glue binding our ruling class together.
NO RELATION, BUT GOOD FOR HER: Governor Reynolds Signs Texas-Style Immigration Law. “Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds is following the path forward on illegal immigration blazed by the Republican governor of Texas. She signed a law that she said would allow Iowa to enforce immigration laws that already exist. Senate File 2340 passed in the state Senate by a vote of 34-16. It passed in the state House by 64-30 last month. It is now a crime for a person to be in Iowa illegally or as an illegal immigrant who previously has been deported. . . . If Biden and Mayorkas continue to refuse to do their jobs, states should not be penalized for doing Biden’s job for him. What are the governors supposed to do? Just as Biden’s top job is to protect the homeland and American citizens, it is the top job of governors to protect their states and their residents.”
MATT TAIBBI: On Uri Berliner’s Resignation from NPR.
IT’S TRUE, YOU KNOW:
People Angry About Low WNBA Salaries Prepared To Do Anything Except Watch WNBA https://t.co/YFKR8aseHf pic.twitter.com/TKHyFjS7es
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 17, 2024
SKYNET SMILES:
Nuke agency's pulsing 'neuromorphic' brain could be future of AI, smart soldiers https://t.co/TWKt7pYhTE #holyshit #intel #AI #future #stop #artificialintelligence
— David Mastio (@DavidMastio) April 17, 2024
April 17, 2024
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The “disinformation” game.
They need to make the right choices, yet these three billion people could be led astray by the purveyors of conspiracy theories, the WEF implies, thus destroying any hope of saving the global system unless responsible authorities intervene. Yet in the two most high profile examples of authorities suppressing ‘disinformation’, the cases of Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes versus Twitter’s Elon Musk and the government of Scotland versus renowned writer J.K. Rowling, do not involve information but authority.
In the former case nobody is actually citing lies that Twitter is alleged to have spread in Brazil. Neither is Rowling, by refusing to accept transgender ‘women’ as identical to biological women being challenged on factual grounds. Her offense is that her remarks are ‘hateful.’ Elon’s offense is ‘obstruction of justice’ for allowing Morae’s foes a platform to attack him. Both cases have nothing to do with information and everything to do with authority.
It’s all about power, and making sure that the populace doesn’t understand what’s being done to it. Because if it did, “leaders” would be hanging from lampposts en masse. The leaders aren’t afraid of lies. They fear the truth.
OPEN THREAD: Speak for yourself.
“THAT’S THE SECOND HIGHEST-RATED COMMENT on the NYT article, ‘NPR Editor Who Accused Broadcaster of Liberal Bias Resigns/Uri Berliner, who has worked at NPR for 25 years, said in an essay last week that the nonprofit had allowed progressive bias to taint its coverage.'”
The comment: “Having rarely missed a Morning Edition or All Things Considered every day every week for every year between 1984 and 2013, by 2014 NPR became less and less tolerable to this centrist… until by 2020 I just stopped caring and certainly stopped listening. I doubt I am alone in having concluded NPR had become something of a joke. And a really sad one.”
Plus: “Highest rated: ‘Kudos to Berliner for having the backbone to write the essay he did. Weren’t we all thinking it anyway and he just voiced the reason many of us stopped listening to NPR on a regular basis?'”
And: “Third-highest: ‘Mr. Berliner was on suspension not for working for outside organizations but for truthfully criticizing NPR’s bias.”
Fourth: “I’ve been listening to NPR my entire life. Things took wild turn after 2016. And now I am finding myself disjoint from almost all conversation happening on NPR.”
Plus: “Remember, these are NYT readers. These are most likely liberals who are put off by the left-wing slant. I was going to write What happened in 2016? I had to laugh at myself.”
OH, THAT’S JUST TOO APPROPRIATE: Columbia Protesters Said They Were Sprayed With a Chemical Weapon. A New Lawsuit Says It Was Fart Spray.