March 17, 2025

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is It Bad to Store Magazines Fully Loaded? “Spring steel is made of a very specific alloy called music wire, and it is designed to stay in a permanent state of stress. YES, you should leave your magazines loaded! The act of loading and unloading is actually worse for your magazine springs.”

Posted at 5:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds 63

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: The ‘Heroes’ of the Fourth Estate.

Other than Westerns, Courtroom Dramas and Cop Thrillers, this was one of Hollywood’s favorite go-to genres. They were so popular in the Biz that we used to have a joke that if you were serious about getting nominated for an Oscar, your best bet was to make a movie about the Holocaust or a Journalist. Many of the movies in that latter category, “All The President’s Men”, “The Insider”, “The Killing Fields” and “Absence of Malice” to name just a few, are among the finest films ever made and were indeed nominated for a slew of Oscars.

As the 2000’s turned into the 2020’s and Hollywood jettisoned one classic genre after another in the pursuit of cost savings and corporate billion dollar blockbuster-making, the heroic Journalist story remained one of the few classic adult drama genres that Hollywood seemed unable to quit. There is no doubt in my mind that this was because, in the character of the heroic journalist bravely speaking truth to power, Hollywood saw themselves… unafraid storytellers courageously pushing forbidden narratives out into a hopelessly troglodytic America that didn’t want to hear them.

There’s just one problem with that… here at the beginning of 2025, journalists occupy a space on the popularity spectrum somewhere between pond scum and crotch rot.

Hollywood, too — and do read the whole thing.

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green 68

THIS IS HOW DEMS GROOM LIFELONG POLITICIANS: Raúl Grijalva’s Leftist Legacy of Weaponized School Boards. “Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) died this past Thursday, succumbing to the cancer that he had been belatedly diagnosed with last year (my Townhall colleague Rebecca Downs covered that here). He was my congressman and a radical leftist. I’m not here to vent, however. That’s because Grijalva also taught me one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in forty-plus years of political activism.”

Posted at 4:19 pm by Stephen Green 17

IT WOULD TAKE HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH:

Yes, this is exactly what I voted for.

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green 78

IF YOUR SCHADENBONER LASTS MORE THAN FOUR HOURS, CONSULT A DOCTOR:

There’s been an awful lot of “Democrat hoisted by his own petard” stories lately, and it’s a good time to be alive.

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green 87

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll 38

SCOTT JENNINGS EXPOSES DEMS’ FILIBUSTER HYPOCRISY, BREAKS CNN PANEL:

Once again, CNN’s Scott Jennings says the one thing exposing leftist hypocrisy that causes a segment to go up in smoke. This time, he did it on CNN’s State of the Union.

Watch as Jennings “thanks” Chuck Schumer for defeating the “racist Jim Crow filibuster”, forcing host Jake Tapper to explain his joke to the viewing audience.

Exit quote: “Scott’s having a lot of fun today:”

Speaking of CNN:

I’m so old, I can remember when Bill Kristol was a conservative. Flashbacks: Emerald Robinson: I Confess — It Was I Who Mercy-Killed The Weekly Standard. As Ace of Spades writes, “This whole article is worth reading, but let me cut to the really juicy part. The revelation of secrets.”

Related: Bill Kristol and the political defector grift.

Seriously, how many times is the press going to re-run the story of a frustrated Kristol turning his back on the party? In 2017 he advocated replacing Republican voters with immigrants. That fall, he donated to Virginia governor Ralph Northam’s campaign. He literally announced just three months ago that he’s ‘not really’ a Republican, hadn’t voted for a Republican in years, and didn’t plan to vote for a Republican for several years to come at least. He even called for people to vote against good Republicans in the House and Senate, because it would risk raising the power of the party as a whole.

Since the days of Richard Nixon, you can make a very good living in the DNC-MSM media bubble by being a prominent Republican who never votes for Republicans.

UPDATE:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll 75

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 whole host of 80/20 issues.

(Typo fixed — thanks!)

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green 195

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.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll 31

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.

Posted at 1:10 pm by Glenn Reynolds 10

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.

Posted at 1:06 pm by Glenn Reynolds 57

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).

Posted at 1:03 pm by Glenn Reynolds 416