July 5, 2023 — Scott Johnson

After action review: Biden’s response

Featured image Last week the State Department released a heavily redacted public version of its After Action Review on Afghanistan. I noted the report here. It was released on the Friday afternoon preceding the long holiday weekend — it can’t have been good news for our senescent president. A reporter asked Biden about the report as he exited from his remarks condemning the Supreme Court for its decision holding him to have »
July 5, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Enjoining Mr. Joe

Featured imageIt doesn’t quite have the ring of driving Miss Daisy, but on Independence Day a federal judge enjoined the Biden administration’s communications with social media companies. You can tell this is good news by the dyspepsia of the New York Times: A federal judge in Louisiana on Tuesday restricted the Biden administration from communicating with social media platforms about broad swaths of content online, a ruling that could curtail efforts »
July 4, 2023 — John Hinderaker

It’s Cocaine

Featured imageA Secret Service agent discovered a white powder in the library of the residential portion of the White House. The White House was briefly evacuated and people in hazmat suits removed the powder. It could have been anthrax, after all. But it turned out to be cocaine. And it was in the president’s residence, not the public areas of the White House. I don’t have any idea how many people »
July 4, 2023 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Who Loves America?

Featured imageRonald Reagan liked to quip that Republicans’ favorite day of the year is July 4, while Democrats’ favorite day of the year is April 15. There’s more to this quip than you might think. Gallup is out with a new survey of national pride, and it finds a large gap between the two parties: A two-to-one ratio! Gallup comments: Party identification remains the greatest demographic differentiator in expressions of national »
July 4, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Mid-Week in Pictures: Special July 4 Edition

Featured imageWhy not celebrate today with a special TWiP since there are so many good July 4 memes that will be stale by Saturday? I’m still not sure just what I’m going to grill this afternoon, but it won’t involve any B– L—- beer. And finally. . . Chaser—J.P. Sears with tips on how to celebrate July 4: »
July 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Celebrating Justice Thomas (3)

Featured imageJustice Thomas is the greatest Supreme Court justice of the modern era. His concurrence in SFFA v. Harvard is a kind of capstone, but it represents only one area in which Justice Thomas has sought to rectify and deepen the Court’s constitutional jurisprudence. William Wolfe’s tweet below expresses my feeling perfectly. Thank you, Justice Thomas. »
July 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Celebrating Justice Thomas

Featured imageWith his glorious concurrence in SFFA v. Harvard, today has become a day to salute Justice Clarence Thomas, or so it seems to me. Here is a man who has thought his own way through to a true understanding of the principle of equality that we celebrate today. Justice Thomas’s concurrence in part smacks down Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent. Justice Jackson’s dissent faithfully represents the groupthink denying the equality »
July 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson

The eternal meaning of Independence Day

Featured imageOn July 9, 1858, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas gave a campaign speech to a raucous throng from the balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln was in the audience as Douglas prepared to speak. Douglas graciously invited Lincoln to join him on the balcony to listen to the speech. In his speech Douglas sounded the themes of the momentous campaign that Lincoln and Douglas waged that summer and »
July 3, 2023 — John Hinderaker

She Can’t Do Arithmetic, Either

Featured imageIn the post just below, Steve notes that the liberal media are trying to make some kind of hero out of new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Good luck with that: based on what we have seen so far, I would assess her as incompetent. Her dissent in the UNC race discrimination case was awful. It was one long political screed, devoid of legal argument and oblivious to the standards (the »
July 3, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Loose Ends (227)

Featured imageLot of stories and quick news items to catch up on starting out the week. • The left is outraged about the Supreme Court’s student loan decision, but kudos to the Washington Post for an especially clueless take: That’s what the Supreme Court said—Congress, not the president, can authorize student debt relief. You’d think this would be easier. • The latest from Operation Dump Biden, from Walter Shapiro in The »
July 3, 2023 — Scott Johnson

The lid on the coverup

Featured imageIn her New York Post column today — “Blowing the lid off the coverup of Hunter Biden’s cushy plea deal” — Miranda Devine takes up the nature of United States Attorney David Weiss’s authority to bring charges against Hunter Biden and the resulting plea deal to which the parties have agreed. Devine covers some of the same material I attempted to parse in “Weiss wobbles by it.” However, Devine attends »
July 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Celebrating Justice Thomas (2)

Featured imageWe continue our celebration of Justice Thomas today with a video clip from Michael Pack’s 2020 documentary Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words. In this clip Justice Thomas recalls his confrontation with then Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden. Biden wasn’t smart then, but this clip makes Biden’s senescent decline manifest. It also gives us a glimpse of Justice Thomas’s wit and wisdom. Quotable quote (Justice Thomas reflecting »
July 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson

The eternal meaning of Independence Day (2)

Featured imagePresident Calvin Coolidge celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926, with a speech providing a magisterial review of the history and thought underlying the Declaration. His speech on the occasion deserves to be read and studied in its entirety. The following paragraph, however, is particularly relevant to the challenge that confronts us in the variants of the progressive dogma that pass themselves off today »
July 3, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Will the Supreme Court Dismantle the Administrative State?

Featured imageAs I have written more than once, the government we live under is not the one described in the Constitution. The ubiquitous and powerful arm of our government, found nowhere in the Constitution, is the Fourth Branch, the plethora of federal agencies, the administrative state. The administrative state has assumed much of the power that the Constitution assigns to the legislative and executive branches, a development that has progressed now »
July 3, 2023 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: The Making of Notorious KBJ

Featured imageThe mainstream media made a super-celebrity out of Ruth Bader Ginsberg (remember the rap handle, “Notorious RBG?), and that ended up inflating her ego so much that she stubbornly held on to her Supreme Court seat so long that Donald Trump got to replace her. Now the media is trying to make Ketanji Brown-Jackson the next RBG. The Washington Post gushes about her today: Jackson on Friday completed her rookie »
July 3, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Impeach Justices? Sure, Go Ahead

Featured imageAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Democrats should take action so they can get back to getting Supreme Court decisions they approve of. How might they do that? Investigate justices (conservative only) for bogus “conflicts of interest,” for one. Impeachment for another: “There also must be impeachment on the table.” Not sure how that is going to happen with Republicans controlling the House, but practicality has never been a concern for AOC. The »
July 2, 2023 — John Hinderaker

There Is No Transition

Featured imageWe are told constantly that the world is in the midst of a transition from fossil fuels to “green” energy. “News” outlets commonly report this as fact. But in reality, no such transition is underway, nor will it ever be. Robert Bryce, one of the country’s top energy experts, explains; see original for links: [T]he hard truth is this: the energy transition isn’t. The numbers from the just-released Statistical Review »