May 17, 2025

TRUMP IS SUCH A DUMMY: Trump Just Made a Huge Move on Tariffs.

There’s a useful rule: any time you think Trump is doing something dumb, ask yourself “But what if he’s actually smarter than me?”

Posted at 9:48 am by Charlie Martin 41

THIS NEEDS TO BE STOPPED, IN A WAY THAT SETS AN EXAMPLE THAT WILL PREVENT FUTURE ELECTION CANCELING:

Posted at 8:57 am by Glenn Reynolds 81

MAKE AMERICA FLORIDA:

“Surplus,” Washington, did you see that part?

Posted at 8:27 am by Stephen Green 106

THEY GAVE HIM THE NUCLEAR BUTTONS AND THEY KEPT SECRET HOW BAD HE WAS:

Posted at 7:09 am by Glenn Reynolds 83

THERE’S A LOT OF THAT STUFF GOING AROUND: Matching Teens to “Groomers” Was Once Part of This Company’s Business: A major antitrust trial takes an “ancillary” detour to a chilling tour of online life.

The idea that FB/IG had “work to do” on “grooming,” and that certain kinds of underfunding were “deliberate,” became more explicit when an exhibit was introduced, an internal study from the next year, 2019, titled “Inappropriate Interactions with Children on Instagram.”

Hmm.

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds 20

WHAT’S REALLY AT STAKE IN TRUMP’S CIVIL SERVICE REFORMS: Dr. Donald Devine was “Reagan’s Terrible Swift Sword” back in the 1980s and he accomplished more to make government work more efficiently in five years as Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director than all the rest of the individuals who ever held the position.

All of which is a round-about way of saying Devine gets what President Donald Trump’s federal civil service reforms are all about. As Devine explains in this American Spectator piece, Trump is not at “war” with the federal bureaucracy (as incessantly claimed by the Left media, especially the Washington Post), he’s working to make it much more responsive and accountable to the American people.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I was privileged to work with Devine as Assistant Director of OPM for Public Affairs for three great years (1982-1985), so I may be just a teeny, tiny bit biased.

Posted at 6:47 am by Mark Tapscott 21

May 16, 2025

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Newly Released Biden-Hur Audio Captures Former President’s Stumbles from Special Counsel Interview.

Newly released audio from then-President Joe Biden’s lengthy interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur captures Biden’s diminished mental acuity in his failure to recall the year his son Beau passed away, the year his vice presidency ended, the year President Donald Trump was first elected, and why he possessed certain classified documents.

Biden’s long pauses and incoherent ramblings in response to light questioning from Hur are apparent in over four minutes of audio first reported by Axios on Friday night. The partial release fulfills expectations that the Trump administration would finally disclose the long-anticipated interview tape after Biden’s administration obstructed its disclosure at every turn.

Mistakenly, Biden said in the interview that his son Beau died in 2017 and had to be reminded that he passed away in 2015. Biden also said Trump was first elected in 2017 and had to be corrected that Trump won the presidency in 2016.

“OK, yeah. In 2017, Beau had passed and — this is personal — the genesis of the book and the title Promise Me, Dad, was a — I know you’re all close with your sons and daughters, but Beau was like my right arm and Hunt was my left,” Biden said at one point in the interview audio, with lengthy pauses peppered throughout.

Biden also can be heard stumbling over his words and whispering throughout the audio, two aspects of the interview the transcripts fail to fully capture. Biden struggled to explain why he possessed classified documents, and he veered into rambling, storytelling territory about his decision not to run for president in 2016. Hur interviewed Biden over the course of two three-hour-long sessions on October 8 and 9, 2023.

Every journalist in DC knew Biden was mentally gone by the beginning of 2024, but nobody wanted to be the first to say it. Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

UPDATE:

More:

Posted at 10:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 245

OPEN THREAD: AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there’ll be some great open threads.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Ed Driscoll 1435

JUSTICE:

Posted at 7:49 pm by Glenn Reynolds 346

“JUSTICE:” SCOTUS to CASA to A.A.R.P.: In Case Of (Perceived) Emergency, Ignore The Rules, And Make Stuff Up: None of the usual rules will apply when the ACLU says there is an emergency.. The ACLU sees itself as part of the judicial system, not as a party. Some of the courts see it the same way.

The past 24 hours have been something of a Rorschach Test for the Supreme Court. In the birthright citizenship case, the Court made clear that in emergencies, the judiciary must retain the power to enter universal injunctions, even if Article III does not otherwise permit such injunctions. And in A.A.R.P. v. Trump, the Court made clear that in emergencies, the court should certify a class without going through Rule 23, and grant an ex parte tro without considering any of the usual TRO factors.

What lesson should lower court judges take away? In cases of perceived emergencies, forget all the rules and make stuff up. When the executive branch takes such actions we call it an autocracy. When the courts do it, they call it the “rule of law.”

Krytocracy is not stable.

Posted at 7:38 pm by Glenn Reynolds 152

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Real Reason Yale Professors Are Leaving Trump’s America.

“We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the U.S.,” a Wednesday New York Times headline read.

* * * * * * * * *

At the heart of the issue is a redefinition of the word “fascism” in such a way as to make it sound like it means the same thing as “patriotism.” These Yale professors — and a good many people who think like them — find the American assertion that this country, with its quasi-sacred founding and its insistence on the rights of man given him by God, is an exceptional one a troubling concept. They seem to equate “Make America Great Again” with Adolf Hitler’s “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.”

But to do so ignores the very close association between fascism and racism, specifically antisemitism. Hitler, as you will remember, was virulently opposed to any race other than his Aryan one. He imagined a world in which blue-eyed, blond-haired giants ruled the earth, and Jews, Roma, and his detractors no longer existed. It’s this connection with racism that Snyder, at least, hasn’t quite fit into the picture.

In a recent piece with the Free Press, Peter Savodnik noted that Snyder’s depiction of Yale as a cloister of free speech and acceptance simply defies the reality that has unfolded at Yale after October 7, where pro-Hamas demonstrators antagonized Jewish students and even poked one woman in the face with a Palestinian flag. As a progressive, Snyder, according to one of his colleagues at Yale, may find it hard or even impossible to “imagine that those on the left could hate Jews.”

To the historian, Trump’s decision to investigate antisemitism on campus is merely an excuse to bully universities. “Nobody ever goes after universities in order to help Jews,” he told Savodnik.

The result is that fascism has become a cheapened term that, at least in popular progressive parlance, has become confused with patriotism. The love of one’s country is a duty, Cicero affirms. That’s not to say that the country should become a god in the popular imagination, but that we should be proud of it, work for its benefit, and wish it well.

Flashback: The Left’s fear of fascism under Trump is the ultimate example of projection.

UPDATE: NYT’s ‘Fascism’ Narrative Is So Tiresome It Has Become Self-Parody.

As George Orwell famously wrote, “The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’”

Posted at 5:35 pm by Ed Driscoll 249