BE CAREFUL OF GETTING WHAT YOU WISH FOR: Here’s the Dirty Little Secret Behind the Democrats’ Collapse (and it Isn’t Even a Secret).

DID EARLIER PRIMITIVE HUMANS COMMUNICATE WITH SPEECH? Genomic study indicates our capacity for language emerged 135,000 years ago.

PUBLIUS:

The most brilliant part of the Tren de Aragua deportation flight is that it forced Democrats to defend and uphold literal narco-terrorists who have murdered Americans and destroyed the neighborhoods of working class voters.

I am 100% sure that the Trump team did a careful mission analysis on the best way to get Dems to embarrass themselves more than usual, right down to the careful timing of having the judge impose his TRO while the plane was in international airspace.

This was a carefully planned operation that was executed to perfection.

Kudos to the entire Trump team.

Indeed.

Of course, it helps that the Democrats have a destructive addiction to the 20% side of a hole host of 80/20 issues.

FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY: The gyms and fitness chains closed during the coronavirus pandemic — and what some are offering instead.

There’s nothing like a good workout to combat coronavirus-related anxieties — but are trips to the gym safe amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic?

While there’s no need to throw down the dumbbell for good, some gyms are closing as a precautionary measure during the ongoing outbreak. Read on for a list of national chains and fitness studios that have shut their doors (for the time being) to fight the spread of the virus.

Most of the gyms announced “two week” closures, which in reality, often went on for months. 24-Hour Fitness, since reopened, declared bankruptcy on June 15th, 2020.

WE’RE GOING TO NEED THAT: Researchers astonished by tool’s apparent success at revealing AI’s “hidden objectives.”

MOLON LABE: France Demands America: ‘Give Us Back the Statue of Liberty!’

READ MELISSA OLTHOFF’S FORLORN HOPE after meeting her at a con a couple of weeks ago. Finished it last night: Quite good, and I found myself thinking about the characters and events at the gym today, which is always a good sign.

LEFTIES ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA ARE SAYING THE MEASLES OUTBREAK IN TEXAS IS TRUMP’S FAULT. Stupid anti-vaxx MAGA types!

Meanwhile: European Region reports highest number of measles cases in more than 25 years – UNICEF, WHO/Europe: 127,350 measles cases were reported in the European Region for 2024 – double the number reported for 2023 and the highest number seen in the Region since 1997.

Is there anything MAGA can’t do? Related: Ontario is having its worst measles outbreak in almost 30 years. Here’s what you need to know: Measles was rare in Ontario, with only 101 cases reported between 2013 and 2023 — until a surge in cases last year.

WELL: This Will Cause Some Heartburn: Trump Declares POTATUS Auto-Pen Pardons ‘Void.’ The fight over this will be interesting, and ugly, and I don’t see where Trump has anything to lose from it.

Meanwhile, although Congress lacks the power to limit the president’s discretion on granting pardons, as I’ve written years ago it possesses the power to regulate pardons procedurally in many ways — for example, to require that they be signed in person by the president (no autopen), and perhaps to require that they be witnessed by others whose names are recorded, and deposited with the National Archives. This is under its power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” That should be done.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that Trump may know more than we do about how the autopen was used, who was in charge, etc.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Lawprof Ann Althouse: “The NYT writer — Shawn McCreesh — observes ‘There is no power in the Constitution or case law to undo a pardon, and there is no exception to pardons signed by autopen,’ but to say that is to look past the question whether there was a pardon. Even if a pardon can’t be undone, how do we know it was ever done? We have a piece of writing, signed by autopen, and maybe it can be shown to have originated within the White House. The power that is in the Constitution is given to ‘The President,’ so, interpreting that clause, one might question whether his hand must do the signing… and whether his mind comprehended what he was doing.” Using the autopen at the direction of the President is one thing. Using the autopen without his knowledge or comprehension is another.

She doubts that courts will want to open that can of worms, and she’s probably right. But what if it can be established that the pardons were done entirely by staff without Biden’s knowledge? Judges’ clerks may write their opinions, but if they write and issue them while the judge is in a coma, that can’t be valid, right? There must be some point where it’s not a question of delegation, but simply fraud. Again, what does Trump know? What have permanent White House staff told him? (Bumped).

FROM THE BARELY-PARODY DEPARTMENT:

Federal Judge Orders Astronauts Be Returned To Space Station https://t.co/j8XQJbA3Cs pic.twitter.com/wEcVnLAJrb

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 17, 2025

Turn the rocket around!

HMM: Concussion damage lingers In athletes’ brains up to a year.

DECOUPLING: Apple’s India manufacturing efforts expands to AirPods. “According to sources of The Economic Times, Apple will be commencing manufacture of AirPods from April. The production will be taking place at a Foxconn plant located in Hyderabad, with AirPods produced at the facility intended for exports only.”

SUCKING IN THE SEVENTIES: Battle of the Bitty: Six 1971 Small Cars Compared. From the Car and Driver archive: We compare the AMC Gremlin, Chevrolet Vega, Ford Pinto, Simca 1204, Toyota Corolla, and Volkswagen Super Beetle to anoint the 1971 compact-car champ.

REFRESHING: So a Cabinet Official Just Went on a Sunday Show to… TELL THE TRUTH???

COVID COVERUP: Ed Morrissey is Unsparing.

Now that the cat has come out of the bag, suddenly the New York Times feels the need to get out in front of the backlash. For years, the NYT ran story after story, scathing column after column, about anyone who dared to challenge The Science®. How dare people suggest that a novel coronavirus might have emerged from the nearby lab being run under questionable practices doing exactly the kind of research intended to produce novel coronaviruses! Those dissenters were all raaaaaacists, remember?

Now, the NYT — and not even in its own editorial voice — wants to play victim of The Science®. . . .

Ahem. “Has since emerged” is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting here. As early as April 2020, those “terrifyingly lax” protocols had already come to light. We also knew at that same time that the State Department had flagged the Wuhan Institute of Virology for violating safety protocols required for the kind of gain-of-function research it was conducting as far back as 2018. We also knew that The Science® still had zero evidence for a natural zoonotic leap to humans to explain the outbreak epicentered in the same town as the lab . . .

And yet, the New York Times went out of its way — as did the rest of the Protection Racket Media — to spend years treating anyone who questioned the “consensus” around a natural zoonotic leap as either a crank, a racist, or worse. Even when hints that the intel community had its doubts about the “consensus,” the media rushed to defend The Science® from any scrutiny whatsoever. . . . Why did the media circle the wagons around The Science®? Because The Science® helped cause the pandemic and didn’t want to get held accountable for it. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins funded gain-of-function research even after several warnings about its dangers. They funded the WIV even after all the red flags went up about their “terrifyingly lax” protocols in pursuing that research. Had the media exposed that at the time, Fauci and Collins (and others) would have been hauled in front of a jury rather than allowed to set policies to deal with the pandemic to which they greatly contributed.

Read the whole thing. Despite President Autopen’s dodgy pardons, this needs to be looked into, deeply and unrelentingly.

Related:

Knowingly lying to prevent icky people from discussing icky facts that, oops! are true, is why people don't listen to public health officials now. Lying was bad and persisting in calling their opponents icky to justify it is more of the same five years later. https://t.co/E0HkYURCF3

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) March 17, 2025

CORN, POPPED: Trump Declares Biden’s Last-Minute Pardons ‘Void’ over Autopen Signature.

READER FAVORITE: Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Moisturizer, for Easy Daily Hydration. #CommissionEarned

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Treasury Secretary Bessent says White House is heading off a ‘guaranteed’ financial crisis.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday the Trump administration is focused on preventing a financial crisis that could be the result of massive government spending over the past few years.

“What I could guarantee is we would have had a financial crisis. I’ve studied it, I’ve taught it, and if we had kept up at these spending levels that — everything was unsustainable,” Bessent said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We are resetting, and we are putting things on a sustainable path.”

President Donald Trump has made getting the government’s fiscal house in order a priority since taking office. He created the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, to spearhead job cuts and early retirement incentives across multiple federal agencies.

Still, the U.S. debt and deficit problem worsened during Trump’s first month in office, as the budget shortfall for February passed the $1 trillion mark.

Yes, we all saw it coming: Biden leaves Trump with deteriorating deficit. “Part of it is a last-minute spending spree by Mr. Biden, who is trying to push money for his big projects out the door before Mr. Trump can jerk the reins.”

COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Woman Wearing MAGA Hat Denied Service, Threatened with Baseball Bat at Indianapolis Jazz Club.

TEXAS, MAN: Dade Phelan Wants To Ban Memes.

The bill reeks of the sort of censorious rules against insulting a member of the ruling party you see in communist countries like China or Venezuela. Hell, even the traditionally prickly French repealed their law against insulting the dignity of the French president. The “published, distributed, or broadcast” clause alone is too broad to be constitutional. Even forwarding or reposting a meme is theoretically a crime.

It’s so poorly written and unenforceable bill that Babylon Bee piece “Media Scrambles To Fact-Check Image Of Trump Riding Hero Dog Into Massive Space Battle” could quickly result in actual government prosecutions, at least if Dade Phelan’s fragile ego has anything to say about it.

Meme-makers, have at it.

HEY, WHEN DID JEFF BEZOS BUY THE CARTOON NETWORK?

If you missed it yesterday: ‘We Were Badly Misled’ Says the New York Times As They Admit COVID Lab-Leak Theory Was True.

Speaking of which:

THE HIGHER EDUCATION CLOWN SHOW CONTINUES: Professors: Elon Musk’s Cybertruck reminiscent of apartheid-enforcing vehicle in South Africa.

LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE THEY DO, IT’S ALL BASED ON DIFFERENTIATING THEMSELVES FROM AMERICA: Canada’s false new nationalism: Mark Carney is the quintessential Davos Man.

YOU MEAN, ASIDE FROM PRETTY MUCH EVERYBODY? You’ll Never Guess Who Else Thinks Newsom’s Podcast Is Totally Cringe.