The Right Coast

The Courts Are Behind Our Current Constitutional Crisis

“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law.” 

Those thirteen words, penned by Justice Samuel Alito on Holy Saturday, represent the first admission by the judiciary that courts too can wrongly flout the law. 

Justice Alito’s stark acknowledgement concluded his bullet-point evisceration of the Supreme Court’s “unprecedented” command that President Trump not remove a “putative class of detainees” under the Alien Enemies Act. The Supreme Court had entered that order shortly after midnight after the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) filed an emergency application asking alternatively for an emergency injunction, an immediate administrative injunction, a writ of mandamus, or a stay of removal, to prevent the Trump Administration from removing Venezuelans to El Salvador pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act.

via thefederalist.com

Margo Cleveland.

Congress has to act. If they won't or can't, it's on them, and us.

Supreme Court considers parents’ efforts to exempt children from books with LGBTQ themes - SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in the first of two cases in April involving religion and public schools. In Mahmoud v. Taylor a coalition of parents from Montgomery County, Md., contend that requiring their children to participate in instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes violates their religious beliefs and thus their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.

via www.scotusblog.com

The Passion of Pope Francis - by Francis X. Rocca

Outreach to Islam was a signature theme of Francis’s pontificate. He visited 13 Muslim-majority countries as pope and in 2019 issued a joint statement with a prominent Muslim cleric, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, in support of “human fraternity.” It included a renunciation of violence in the name of religion. He also enjoyed good relations with Jewish leaders, but angered many in Israel when he likened the Israel Defense Forces’ operation in Gaza to terrorism, and suggested that Israel should be investigated for genocide.

And so Francis was in many ways a highly polarizing and divisive leader. He was known for his conciliatory approach to LGBT issues, which won him much applause in the West. He famously signaled a new tolerance by asking, of gay priests, “Who am I to judge?” He also met with trans people on several occasions. But this liberalism put him at odds with socially conservative church leaders in Catholicism’s fastest-growing region, Africa. Bishops there openly protested Francis’s decision in December 2023 permitting priests to bless same-sex couples—and in an extraordinary reversal the next month, the pope agreed to exempt Africa from the practice.

He was also challenged by the Catholic Church’s long-running scandal over clerical sex abuse, a problem he addressed reluctantly at times. His prolonged support of a Chilean bishop accused of covering up abuse prompted fierce criticism by victims’ groups in 2018 and he ultimately took a harder line. But he was less severe than his predecessor about removing priests found guilty of abuse from ministry, and critics said that measures he instituted to make bishops more accountable were applied inconsistently and without transparency.

So, although the death of a pope is always a momentous and solemn event for his followers, some Catholics are doubtless mourning less deeply than others today. Yet at his most iconic, Francis could be a unifying, solitary presence. On March 27, 2020, at the nadir of the pandemic, he stood in an empty, dark, and rain-swept St. Peter’s Square and invoked Christ crucified to offer hope to a shaken world. “Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful,” he said. “But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: ‘Do not be afraid.’ ”

via www.thefp.com

Harvard Law School Professors Politicize the Rule of Law | RealClearPolitics

A camp counselor picks favorites by lauding some campers regardless of how ordinary or even counterproductive their conduct while ignoring or disparaging other campers’ valuable contributions. A referee takes sides by giving all benefits of the doubt to one team. And a human rights activist flouts the rights shared by all persons by expressing outrage at and even exaggerating or outright fabricating abuses perpetrated by one set of combatants while turning a blind eye to atrocities executed by the opposing combatants.

The same goes for the rule of law in America – that is, a system in which individuals are subject to well established, general, and publicly promulgated rules that are equally enforced and impartially adjudicated. A group that defends law’s integrity against threats from one party but remains silent while the rival party repeatedly abuses the law over the course of many years to consolidate power and harm political opponents politicizes an essential principle that transcends the differences between partisans.

In this way, 96 voting members of the Harvard Law School faculty (active or emeritus) have called attention to their dubious dedication to the rule of law.

via www.realclearpolitics.com

Peter Berkowitz.

All the laws having been knocked flat, the law professor is alarmed when the Devil turns on him/her/them.

Is David Brooks Imitating Lenin the Funniest New York Times Column Ever?

New York Times columnist David Brooks, calling for a “mass civic uprising” against Donald Trump:

We live in a country with catastrophically low levels of institutional trust. University presidents, big law firms, media organizations and corporate executives face a wall of skepticism and cynicism. If they are going to participate in a mass civic uprising against Trump, they have to show the rest of the country that they understand the establishment sins that gave rise to Trump in the first place… [that] this is not just defending the establishment; it’s moving somewhere new.

You don’t say!

It’s hard to convey the scale of the comedy in this article, which received a lot of attention. Brooks lifts the opening from Genesis (“In the beginning there was agony”) and the ending from the Communist Manifesto (see below). In between lay a call for “mass civic uprising” which spends much of its time trying to figure out where to find the “civic” part, after drafting corporate lawyers, university administrators, “corporate executives,” reporters, and — what other kinds of people live in America? It’s either the funniest revolutionary manifesto ever, or the most touching. You be the judge:

via www.racket.news

Matt Taibbi.

Trump Admin Should Unleash The False Claims Act To End Discrimination In Higher Education

To its credit, the Trump administration is employing a wide array of sanctions on such recalcitrant schools. Billions in federal funding are being frozen or withdrawn, revocation of schools’ tax exempt status is being considered, and even their eligibility to enroll foreign students may be yanked.

Yet the Trump administration has yet to use one of the most potent weapons in its arsenal – one that, if deployed, could represent an existential economic threat to all but the wealthiest universities that insist on continuing their discriminatory practices.

This weapon is the federal False Claims Act, and it is time to unleash it on woke academia.

via legalinsurrection.com

Louis K. Bonham.

The Appalling Tunnels Beneath Our Universities - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics

The complaint — detailed and damning — accuses Masri’s firms, PADICO and Massar International, of knowingly facilitating Hamas’s military build-up. According to the suit, facilities developed by Masri — including the Gaza Industrial Estate and two luxury hotels — were used to conceal terror tunnels and rocket launch platforms. These developments, in part funded by Western aid, allegedly served as camouflage for the very operations that culminated in the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Over 1,200 people were killed, including more than 40 U.S. citizens.

Masri, a naturalized U.S. citizen, has long been celebrated as a model of Palestinian entrepreneurship. His flagship initiative, Rawabi — a gleaming master-planned city in the West Bank — earned praise from diplomats and business leaders alike. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair once hailed it as “the future of Palestine.” Masri was lauded in the West as the kind of Palestinian leader the peace process needed: urbane, ambitious, and committed to economic growth.

What now emerges is a deeply unsettling counter-narrative: that behind the façades of progress and statecraft may have been the concealed infrastructure of war.

Masri denies the allegations. His legal team insists he has spent decades promoting peaceful development and economic uplift, not violence. Yet what is not in dispute is that, until last week, he held an advisory role at one of the world’s most prestigious public policy schools. If even a portion of the plaintiffs’ claims are substantiated, then Harvard — and the broader elite academic ecosystem — must contend with the possibility that they conferred prestige and legitimacy on a man allegedly complicit in building the architecture of terrorism.

via spectator.org

I don't know whether it's true, but I don't doubt it.

Kevin Cohen.

Happy Easter!

Easter Greetings! As we celebrate the sacred time of renewal and hope, the House of Ukraine Board sends warm wishes to you and your loved ones at Easter. Christ is Risen!   Великодні вітнання! У цей благословенний час, прийміть найщиріші вітання з днем Христового Воскресіння. Нехай Великодні дзвони принесуть Вам мир та благодать, любов,радість і міцне здоров'я. Христос Воскрес! Надія Гайвас та Управа House of Ukraine

There Is a Growing Plot Against Dogs | The Epoch Times

You can see what is happening here. Some among the scientific elite have picked up on Fauci’s call and added new research to back a growing attack on dogs and probably every other pet, too. It’s really an extension of the germophobia that spread lockdown ideology, and the conviction that the fix for all that ails us is to live in constant fear and isolation from all other living things.

via www.theepochtimes.com

Of course they're coming for our dogs. Why wouldn't they?

Colorado’s Totalitarian Transgenderism Bill - WSJ

We are both mothers whose daughters went through a phase in which they believed they were boys. We never affirmed that belief, although their schools and much of the broader culture did. Eventually, our daughters recognized their true identities and ceased identifying themselves as “transgender.” A bill under consideration in Colorado (where Ms. Lee lives) would define parents like us as child abusers. The measure would harm vulnerable children and violate the U.S. Constitution in multiple ways.

Lawmakers including state Reps. Yara Zokaie and Javier Mabrey have likened parents like us to Klansmen, and their legislation is expected to pass the state Senate and proceed to Gov. Jared Polis’s desk. A similar bill in California (where Ms. Friday lives) was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2024. He noted that in custody disputes, his state’s family courts already favor the parent who affirms the child’s claim to be a different sex. Since at least 2016, California Child Protective Services has removed children from homes where parents refused to accede to their children’s social or medical “gender transition.” Colorado has adopted similar practices, and so have other states, including conservative ones like Indiana and Montana. Lawmakers in Sacramento just killed a bill written by Ms. Friday that would have defined child abuse to exclude such refusal.

The Colorado bill, designated HB25-1312, seeks to formalize these practices. Should it pass, parents who use a minor child’s legal name—a name that typically requires parental consent to be changed—could be deemed abusive. In custody disputes, the parent who declines to use the child’s chosen name and third-person pronouns—irrespective of age, mental-health status and the consistency of the identity—could be denied custody or even visitation.

If both parents reject the notion that their child is a different sex or “nonbinary,” asexual or another “gender identity,” they risk complete loss of custody. The bill would empower Colorado courts to disregard out-of-state custody decisions—a direct violation of the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause.

via www.wsj.com

Erin Friday and Erin Lee.

The Major Separation of Powers Problems with J.E.B. v. Trump

On Wednesday, I briefly wrote about Judge Boasberg's proposed criminal prosecution briefly. Here, I would like to highlight several of the significant separation of powers problems, many of which were raised in DOJ's latest mandamus petition to the D.C. Circuit. Specifically, this special prosecutor would truly be untethered, and would be burdened by none of the modest restrictions that Alexia Morrison confronted.

via reason.com

Josh Blackman.

Seems like this is personal to the judge.

Meet MAGA’s Favorite Communist - WSJ

Christopher Rufo is perhaps the most potent conservative activist in the U.S. Last year, he led the campaign that pressured Harvard University into replacing Claudine Gay as its president. His crusades against critical race theory and DEI in higher education have shaped President Trump’s aggressive policies toward elite universities like Harvard, which the administration targeted this week with a $2.26 billion funding freeze.

For the past year, Rufo has been working on a book called “How the Regime Rules,” which he describes as a “manifesto for the New Right.” At its core is a surprising inspiration: the Italian Communist thinker Antonio Gramsci, a longtime boogeyman of American conservatives. “Gramsci, in a sense, provides the diagram of how politics works and the relationship between all of the various component parts: intellectuals, institutions, laws, culture, folklore,” said Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

via www.wsj.com

Kevin T. Dugan

U.S. Will Pause Ukraine Peace Efforts if No Progress, Rubio Warns - WSJ

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. would pause its efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine if progress isn’t made in the coming days, in an attempt to put pressure on Kyiv and Moscow to compromise.

“So we need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks,” Rubio said after talks Thursday with European and Ukrainian officials. “If it is, we’re in. If it’s not, then we have other priorities to focus on.”

Rubio said the U.S. has presented a framework for a deal to the two sides and to Europeans on how the war might be ended, including a cease-fire, but hasn’t said publicly what it entails. Separately late Thursday, Ukraine and the U.S. took a step toward a broader economic agreement that has proved a major source of contention in relations by signing a memorandum.

via www.wsj.com

Exclusive | Trump Demands Harvard’s Foreign Funding Records - WSJ

The Trump administration is pressing Harvard University to turn over records on the money it receives from foreign sources going back a decade, the latest in a growing pressure campaign against the nation’s most prominent university.

American universities get billions in grants, contracts or gifts from foreign sources, which they must report semiannually to the government. In a Thursday letter to Harvard President Alan Garber, the U.S. Department of Education’s office of the General Counsel wrote that Harvard made “incomplete and inaccurate” disclosures between 2014 and 2019.

“Today’s records request is the Trump administration’s first step to ensure Harvard is not being manipulated by, or doing the bidding of, foreign entities,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. The letter to Harvard presented no evidence that was occurring.

Federal law requires universities to report donations from foreign sources of more than $250,000.

In a written statement, Harvard said it has filed such reports for decades “as part of its ongoing compliance with the law. As is required, Harvard’s reports include information on gifts and contracts from foreign sources exceeding $250K annually. This includes contracts to provide executive education, other training, and academic publications.”

via www.wsj.com

We can say nothing would surprise us, yet still be shocked at what emerges.

Easter and Passover Lesson: It’s Never Too Late - WSJ

Always hits me like a punch. They’re minutes from death. One thief goes out the way he’d always likely been, insolent and mean. The other thief has a heart for justice—we deserve what’s happening to us, but he doesn’t—and asks for mercy. Christ tells him, essentially, you’re not forever alone, soon we’ll be together in Heaven.

The story, in Luke’s Gospel, is understood as a moment of grace and redemption, and it is those things, but it’s also a story involving the simple idea that it’s never too late. Famous words—we say it’s never too late to learn physics or go to Machu Picchu—but this story is about the infinitely more important idea that it’s never too late to become a better human being.

When I asked New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan why the story moves so many of us, his response sounded like a merry devotional poem. “I’m ecstatic at your interest / In my buddy St. Dismas.” (The good thief became known as Dismas, no one’s sure why, and has been called a saint from the first centuries.)

“I love him,” the cardinal said. “I’ve always had a deep devotion. When I was a kid at Catholic school, Sister called him ‘the thief who stole Heaven.’ ”

It isn’t just that Christ comforted the thief, the thief comforted him. “Here is Jesus at the most desolate moment of his life. He was alone, the apostles had run off. He thinks, ‘This thief professes faith in me. He’s asking me to perform a miracle and get him into Heaven.’ This is an immense consolation to Jesus.”

“Pope Benedict once said it’s the only time in the Gospels someone calls the Lord just by his first name—Jesus, not ‘Jesus, son of God’ or ‘Rabbi Jesus.’ This thief felt so close to him he uses his first name.” For Christians the story resonates because “we’re talking about all of us—if the thief got in, we could all get in; if he receives mercy, we all got a chance.”

via www.wsj.com

Peggy Noonan.

Looking forward to Easter.

Green Shoots in Manufacturing - by Peter St Onge

Green shoots matter because Trump just set off a race against time with tariffs, with domestic manufacturing getting hit for lack of cheap Chinese components even as tariffs themselves encourage domestic production.

The problem in the near-terms is you lose faster than you create. For the simple reason it takes years to start new factories -- you have to line up the money, choose the location and build the factories -- with environmental permits.

Only then do you hire hundreds of people, work out the suppliers and distribution to get it on the shelf at Walmart.

via www.profstonge.com

The timing seems to be perfect for the economy to hit bottom right before 2028. Dems spent like crazy now and lied about the future. Republicans cut and scramble now and say big benefits will come, but at an uncertain time in the future. Guess who wins in a democracy?

The Lesson of Trump vs. Powell - WSJ

“Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete ‘mess!’ Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB [European Central Bank], long ago, but he should certainly lower them now. Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

Mr. Trump was reacting to Mr. Powell’s remarks Wednesday that the President’s tariffs complicate the Fed’s job of maintaining stable prices with low unemployment. “The level of the tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated. The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth,” Mr. Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago.

The problem for Mr. Trump is that Mr. Powell spoke the truth. Tariffs are a tax, which means higher prices for tariffed goods. Mr. Trump has imposed a minimum tariff on the world of 10%, which is roughly four times the previous average U.S. tariff rate of 2.4%.

That will be at least a one-time increase in inflation for imported goods that will flow into the Labor Department’s consumer-price data. The hard decision for the Fed is whether to look past that one-time increase and assume it won’t become part of consumer inflation expectations.

But there’s also mounting evidence that household and business uncertainty is mounting, which will weigh on the private investment Mr. Trump needs to spur growth. Consumer spending could ebb as falling stock prices cause the “wealth effect” underpinning consumer confidence to go into reverse. Many economists think a recession is on the horizon.

via www.wsj.com

I would much rather go to a MAGA party than a party of central bankers. The whole idea of a central bank is the ultimate piece of Progressive domination of government, which they can't carry off. But none of this makes tariffs a good idea.

Mike Lind: “The future Left and Right in America will both be children of Trump"

“In 1977, the Office of Management and Budget under orders from the Nixon and then Ford White House, [had] orders to get a bunch of anthropologists, bureaucrats, and sociologists together,” Lind explained. “‘We can't have a hundred ethnicities and set-asides,’” said their higher-ups. “‘So come up with a few races for official government affirmative action purposes.’”

What they came up with, explains Lind, is what another historian of race called the "ethno-racial pentagon": five broad categories: white, black, Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Native American.

"They lumped together Mexican Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, Cuban into this new Hispanic category,” said Lind, “which the Hispanics were not asking for."

At the time, Lind notes, organizations like LULAC (the League of United Latin American Citizens) and the GI Forum had demanded to be recognized as Americans of Mexican descent.

“Left-wing Hispanics, like the Chicanos in the Southwest, were Mexicans,” explains Lind. “They wanted to rebuild Aztlan, the Aztec Empire. They had nothing to do with Afro-Europeans, Cubans, or Puerto Ricans and didn't want to be lumped in with them." And yet that was what happened.

Then, once the racial categories were in place, they became the foundation for civil rights enforcement. A pivotal legal shift, Lind explains, was the Supreme Court's 1970 ruling in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., which established that employment practices could be found discriminatory based on statistical outcomes alone, even absent any intent. In other words, if 11 percent (in 1970) of your company’s employees weren’t black, you could be considered to be in violation of the Civil Rights Act.

via www.public.news

I have a nightmare in which historians of the future of poking through the intellectual rubble of the old American empire. Asking the natural question, What went wrong?, they settle on the crack pot theories of a few law professors and some dimwitted Supreme Court justices. Ah, they say, this must be it.

Exclusive | A Depleted Hamas Is So Low on Cash That It Can’t Pay Its Fighters - WSJ

Hamas is facing a new problem in Gaza: coming up with the cash it needs to pay its rank and file.

Israel last month cut off supplies of humanitarian goods to the enclave, some of which Hamas had been seizing and selling to raise funds, according to Arab, Israeli and Western officials. Its renewed offensive has targeted and killed Hamas officials who played important roles in distributing cash to cadres and sent others into hiding, Arab intelligence officials said.

In recent weeks, the Israeli military has said it killed a money changer who was key to what it called terrorist financing for Hamas as well as a number of top political officials in rapid succession.

The result for Hamas has been a debilitating squeeze.

via www.wsj.com

EXCLUSIVE: DHS Cuts Harvard Grants, Threatens Student Visas

President Donald Trump’s administration lashed back at Harvard University on Wednesday, with the Department of Homeland Security cutting over $2.7 million in grants and threatening to cancel all student visas, according to a press release obtained exclusively by The Free Press. The move comes two days after Harvard refused to agree to a series of demands by the administration, and Harvard’s president Alan Garber said that the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

The DHS release states that Harvard is “unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer dollars.”

The funding cuts announced Wednesday include slashing over $800,000 for the Implementation Science for Targeted Violence Prevention grant and over $1.9 million to the Blue Campaign Program Evaluation and Violence Advisement grant, a program aimed at training police officers to “increase detection and investigation of human trafficking.”

Far more significant, DHS is “demanding detailed records on Harvard’s foreign student visa holders’ illegal and violent activities by April 30, 2025,” according to a letter sent to Harvard’s International Office and reviewed exclusively by The Free Press. Specifically, the letter requests “each student visa holder’s known illegal activity” in addition to these students’ “known dangerous or violent activity,” including “threats,” “deprivation of rights of other classmates,” and any information regarding “obstruction of the school’s learning environment.”

“The department views this as a direct response to the response from Harvard,” a source within the DHS told The Free Press. It follows the administration’s decision on Monday to freeze $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts. “It’s very important that if they are receiving money from the federal government, they know that money is a privilege and not a right,” said the source. “Compliance with federal law and regulations is not an optional box they can check and uncheck at will.”

via www.thefp.com

I wasn't expecting the confrontation with the American elite be so direct or so soon.

‘None of these goals are illegal’: Universities struggle to respond to funding threats - POLITICO

Public universities are quickly backtracking on decades of diversity initiatives to avoid the ire of the Trump administration and protect billions in federal funding — even though there’s little evidence those moves will shield them.

President Donald Trump is seeking to punish universities that allowed pro-Palestinian student encampment protests and touted efforts to attract a more diverse student body. He’s launched dozens of investigations led by the Justice and Education departments and has frozen billions in federal funding to several schools.

In response, many flagship universities — which are often the largest and best-resourced public institutions in their states — have shuttered their campus diversity offices or restructured them to avoid drawing attention.

via www.politico.com

Trump seems to have stirred up a massive cloud of dust that is engulfing an already confusing nest of bureaucratic rules. Big opportunity for lawyers.

Harvard Says No | Power Line

I don’t blame Harvard for turning down the Trump administration’s offer, but nor do I blame the administration for cutting off (or at least scrutinizing) funding of Harvard. Harvard has an endowment of around $53 billion, so it isn’t easy to see why it should be operating on the taxpayer’s dime. (But see this Axios story suggesting that it will not be easy for the university to make up for the loss of federal funds, largely because most of its endowment is subject to donor restrictions on its use.) Of course Harvard’s complaints about the impact of federal support focus on medical research. But how much of the federal money actually goes to support medical research, or other defensible causes, I don’t know.

So far, this drama has played out in a wholly predictable way. The administration’s demands on Harvard and other institutions are an opening shot in what promises to be a long war.

via www.powerlineblog.com

John Hinderaker.

Trump, Abrego Garcia and the Courts - WSJ

Last week the Court tried to split the baby in a standoff between a federal judge and the Justice Department over the El Salvadoran who was deported with some 200 gang members. Judge Paula Xinis had instructed the White House to “facilitate” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return, and the Supreme Court agreed.

But the Court also specified that the judge’s oversight had to be done with “due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” This ambiguity was an invitation to the judge and White House to work things out without making it a constitutional crisis.

Invitation not taken. The judge on Friday demanded an immediate Administration report, and now the White House seems to have decided it can do a legal dance to claim it doesn’t need to facilitate anything.

That was clear from the Kabuki theater Monday when Mr. Trump appeared in the Oval Office with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. Asked if he could return Mr. Abrego Garcia, Mr. Bukele said, “How can I return him to the United States? . . . I smuggle him into the United States or what do I do? . . . The question is preposterous.”

Mr. Trump sat there smiling as if he knew he’d been handed a way to duck the command of the federal courts. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Administration understands Judge Xinis’s instruction to “facilitate” to mean merely that “if El Salvador wants to return him . . . we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.”

Since Mr. Bukele says he won’t cooperate, the U.S. can say it can’t deliver. The federal courts lack authority to direct the President’s foreign policy under Article II of the Constitution, let alone the actions of El Salvador.

The question is what the courts do next. Judge Xinis held a hearing Tuesday, and by our deadline she had warned the Administration about “gamesmanship” but said she wouldn’t hold anyone in contempt for now. She also said she will require “two weeks of intense discovery” from Justice attorneys.

via www.wsj.com

Gary Shapley: Trump to name Hunter Biden whistleblower as acting IRS commissioner, sources say | CNN Politics

CNN  — 

President Donald Trump is set to name Gary Shapley, the former IRS criminal investigator who alleged that the Justice Department slow-walked the investigation of Hunter Biden, as acting commissioner of the IRS, three people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Shapley provided whistleblower testimony to Congress, as Republicans claimed partisan bias by Justice officials had hindered the investigation of the son of President Joe Biden.

via www.cnn.com

Ho ho ho! Ha ha ha! Whistler blower makes good and men bite dogs across the country.

Bad News for Man’s Best Friend: Dogs Are Environmental Villains – Mother Jones

Dogs have “extensive and multifarious” environmental impacts, disturbing wildlife, polluting waterways and contributing to carbon emissions, new research has found.

An Australian review of existing studies has argued that “the environmental impact of owned dogs is far greater, more insidious, and more concerning than is generally recognised”.

While the environmental impact of cats is well known, the comparative effect of pet dogs has been poorly acknowledged, the researchers said.

The review, published in the journal Pacific Conservation Biology, highlighted the impacts of the world’s “commonest large carnivore” in killing and disturbing native wildlife, particularly shore birds.

In Australia, attacks by unrestrained dogs on little penguins in Tasmania may contribute to colony collapse, modelling suggests, while a study of animals taken to the Australia Zoo wildlife hospital found that mortality was highest after dog attacks, which was the second most common reason for admission after car strikes.

In the US, studies have found that deer, foxes and bobcats were less active in or avoid wilderness areas where dogs were allowed, while other research shows that insecticides from flea and tick medications kill aquatic invertebrates when they wash off into waterways. Dog feces can also leave scent traces and affect soil chemistry and plant growth.

via www.motherjones.com

They have our dogs when they pry them from our cold, dead fingers. Or they could over them treats. That would also probably work.

Time for Accountability on the Covid Lab-Leak Coverup - WSJ

After the 2020 pandemic, our scientific elite—personified by Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022—should have come clean about the pandemic’s laboratory origin, admitted the Wuhan lab’s risky gain-of-function research was a giant mistake that cost millions of lives, canceled funding and partnerships with China, and rallied global health authorities to drive higher safety standards and a worldwide ban on suicidal virus experimentation.

None of that happened. Instead, the Chinese Communist Party was permitted to bleach the crime scene, as Dr. Fauci—along with a cabal of Wuhan Institute collaborators and National Institutes of Health grantees—whitewashed history by insisting for years that the most likely origin of the virus was natural. Dr. Fauci reiterated this claim in a paper published this past November.

Millions dead, billions in economic value lost, and the West can claim zero lessons learned. Dr. Fauci and his supporters, with help from Joe Biden and blue-state Covid tyrants, so sabotaged Americans’ faith in public health and academic and civic institutions that we are less prepared to confront the next virus than the last one.

Only once we know in detail what happened and who was at fault can we take steps to prevent the next crisis, restore faith in American institutions, and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable. Here’s a plan for doing so.

via www.wsj.com

Mike Gallagher.

Exclusive: Trump Admin Plans Overhaul of Endangered Species Act | RealClearPolitics

Trump has slashed and burned his way through much of the regulatory regime of his predecessor already, rescinding nearly 80 Biden-era climate-related orders during his first day in office alone. Overhauling the ESA would easily eclipse those efforts, changing the regulatory, and perhaps natural, landscape forever.

The proposed reform must still make its way through the federal rule-making process. Legal challenges are almost certain to follow, although a conservative Supreme Court may not be sympathetic.

Sweeping change would follow from redefining a single word: harm.

via www.realclearpolitics.com

I can't wait for all of the fuzzy baby seals begging for mercy. It's a war against all of the critter puppies!

Trump Misunderstands the ‘China Shock’ - WSJ

Antagonizing our friends around the world is a poor strategy for solving the heart of our trade problem—our asymmetrical relationship with China. Xi Jinping suppresses purchasing power and social benefits for his country’s citizens while subsidizing exports, allowing Chinese products to undercut those produced in other industrialized countries. China then uses the proceeds from artificially elevated export sales to direct investment to favored industries and new technologies while funding a massive military buildup.

In response to prior U.S. efforts to stem this flood, Chinese manufacturers have relocated significant production to countries such as Vietnam, whose cooperation the U.S. will need if it hopes to shut off this Chinese escape valve. Any way you look at it, imposing huge tariffs on every country with which the U.S. has a bilateral trade deficit makes no sense. We’re left hoping that during the 90-day tariff “pause” business leaders can persuade Mr. Trump that his current course risks a punishing recession and weakening confidence in U.S. government debt.

Advertisement

via www.wsj.com

William Galston.

I usually disagree with every word Bill says. But not this.

The Right Is Winning the Battle Over Higher Education

After mounting a successful fight against DEI, the political Right has come to accept that if there must be a civil-rights regime, it should be one of its own making. Rather than continue to defer to left-wing interpretations of civil-rights law, the Right can now advance a framework grounded in colorblind equality, not racialist ideology.

The first field of battle is higher education. The Trump administration has set its sights on the Ivy League universities, which have not only advanced the ideologies of left-wing racialism but made them administrative policy.

Many Ivy League presidents see themselves as heirs to the civil-rights movement. In fact, they are among the most active practitioners of racial discrimination, stereotyping, and segregation in America today. Shielded by a virtuous public image, elite universities have institutionalized discrimination against disfavored racial groups, implemented DEI policies based on racial rewards and penalties, hired and promoted faculty according to skin color rather than merit, and overseen racially segregated student programs, dormitories, and graduation ceremonies.

The Trump administration has ruptured this illusion. In a series of letters to Ivy League presidents, it has threatened to withhold billions in federal funding, citing violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other non-discrimination policies.

The argument is straightforward: racial discrimination is wrong whether it targets whites, Asians, and Jews or blacks and Hispanics. Any institution that continues to discriminate based on race is ineligible for federal support.

via www.city-journal.org

Christopher Rufo.

Trump Threatens to Revoke Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status - WSJ

“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Harvard President Alan Garber said Monday in a letter to the school’s community.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Harvard hadn’t taken Trump’s concerns seriously. 

“All the President is asking, don’t break federal law, and then you can have your federal funding,” she said. “I think the President is also begging a good question…why are the American taxpayers subsidizing a university that has billions of dollars in the bank already?”

Harvard’s resistance to the administration’s demands is the most significant pushback against the government since it began pressuring universities earlier this year.

The Trump administration task force on antisemitism wrote the school earlier this month asking it to take nine actions that “we regard as necessary for Harvard University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.”

Most of the demands concern how the university operates. The government is asking for a comprehensive mask ban as well as changes to governance, leadership and admissions and an end to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.

Notably, the government also is seeking to reach into the classroom, demanding “necessary changes” be made “to address bias, improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture,” which fuel antisemitic harassment, the task force’s letter said. 

via www.wsj.com

Harvard has to be hoping Trump will not be followed by another Republican. Surely they can stall for the next 3 plus years. If it is another Trumpian Republican, they have a problem.

The Little-Known Bureaucrats Tearing Through American Universities - WSJ

Columbia University’s president had already been hounded out of office, but her ordeal wasn’t over.

Four days after she stepped down under government pressure during fraught federal funding negotiations, Katrina Armstrong spent three hours being deposed by a government attorney in Washington, D.C. The lawyer grilled Armstrong over whether she had done enough to protect Jewish students against antisemitism. 

As she dodged specifics under questioning, the lawyer said her answer “makes absolutely no sense” and that he was “baffled” by her leadership style. 

“I’m just trying to understand how you have such a terrible memory of specific incidents of antisemitism when you’re clearly an intelligent doctor,” he said.

The attorney in the room during the April 1 deposition, a senior Health and Human Services official named Sean Keveney, is part of a little-known government task force that has shaken elite American universities to their core in recent weeks. It has targeted billions of dollars in federal funding at premiere institutions such as Columbia and Harvard, with cascading effects on campuses nationwide. Now it is pressing to put Columbia under a form of federal oversight known as a consent decree. 

via www.wsj.com

Golly.

The Tao of AOC and Space Vixens – HotAir

Today seems as good a time as any for reflecting upon the inanities that have been raised above we mere mortal knuckle-draggers, both in a literal and figurative sense.

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Space cadets springs to mind, thanks to fawning coverage of Jeff Bezos spending God knows how much money to send his plastic squeeze and some other chicas into space for a joyride since his rocket company can't seem to get any press otherwise.

 Normally, taking some women in skin tight spandex, pretending they're 'astronauts' going into 'space' as a 'rocket ship crew' would make for a laughably entertaining movie. Schmaybe shades of Galaxy Quest if any of the chicas were as adept at humor as Sigourney Weaver and the writers anywhere near as polished.

But this was a Bezos production, starring his trashy, over-bosomed bosom-buddy Lauren Sanchez, who doubled as costume - sorry. 'Crew' uniform designer, accompanied by an odd little coffee klatch of middle-aged trinkets, one actual astro-physicist, and Oprah's buddy Gayle King thrown in for some reason.

The uniforms the delightful Ms Sanchez designed were certainly first rate hootchie and very blue, which suits the company's name. And I'd bet good money she's been told it's her best color.

They also had the advantage of being probably the least amount of her cleavage anyone has ever seen in public. That was refreshing. 

Now, I'm sure there were safety considerations in the cabin for the other passengers dealing with the lack of gravity for a minute here and there during the joyride. Had her enormous, questionably natural endowments escaped their earthly restraints, there might well have been injuries sustained and lawsuits to follow.

via hotair.com

Beege Welborn

Taylor Lorenz is Cretinous and Deranged - by Matt Taibbi

I know Lorenz is a human bug-zapper whose purpose is luring people to doom by drawing them to the glow of the impossibly stupid online utterance, but even by her standards this is nuts. For one thing, Lorenz is a leading advocate for dumbed-all-the-way-down media like her “beloved” Vine, which featured six-second-max videos. If someone handed her a hardcover book, she’d be a serious threat to bite it. Her invoking Flannery O’Connor and A Good Man is Hard to Find in the context of Luigi Mangione is high comedy. Regarding America “stanning” murderers because “we give them Netflix shows,” which does she mean? Americans may be fascinated by O.J. and Bundy and Phil Spector, but we don’t gush cartoon hearts at them over cable, we watch them in lurid docudramas.

via www.racket.news

Cruel but fair.

Gates Foundation Gives In and Stops Discriminating by Race - WSJ

The Gates Foundation says it will end racial exclusion in its flagship college-aid initiative, the Gates Scholarship. As of Sunday afternoon, the foundation’s website still describes the program as being limited to high-school seniors who are “from at least one of the following ethnicities: African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian & Pacific Islander American, and/or Hispanic American.” But in a statement to the Journal late Friday afternoon, a spokesperson said “it has been decided to expand eligibility to all Pell Grant-eligible students”—i.e., those with low incomes, regardless of race.

via www.wsj.com

SCOTUS' Timidity Triggers Constitutional Crisis

The Supreme Court has interceded six times in less than three months to rein in federal judges who improperly exceeded their Article III authority and infringed on the Article II authority of President Donald Trump. Yet the high court continues to issue mealy-mouthed opinions which serve only to exacerbate the ongoing battle between the Executive and Judicial branches of government. And now there is a constitutional crisis primed to explode this week in a federal court in Maryland over the removal of an El Salvadoran — courtesy of the justices’ latest baby-splitting foray on Thursday.

via thefederalist.com

Margot Cleveland.

Mark Carney Revives Liberal Push to Regulate Online Speech

It was supposed to be a routine campaign pit stop, the kind of low-stakes political affair where candidates smile like used car salesmen and dish out platitudes thicker than Ontario maple syrup. Instead, Mark Carney found himself dodging verbal bricks in a Hamilton hall, facing hecklers who lobbed Jeffrey Epstein references like Molotovs. No rebuttal, no denial. Just a pivot worthy of an Olympic gymnast, straight to the perils of digital discourse.

“There are many serious issues that we’re dealing with,” he said, ignoring the criticism that had just lobbed his way. “One of them is the sea of misogyny, antisemitism, hatred, and conspiracy theories — this sort of pollution online that washes over our virtual borders from the United States.”

Ah yes, the dreaded digital tide. Forget inflation or the fact that owning a home now requires a GoFundMe. According to Carney, the real catastrophe is memes from Buffalo.

via reclaimthenet.org

NYPD Seeks Suspect Accused Of Having Sex With A Homeless Man's Corpse On Subway | ZeroHedge

Just another day in New York City, another man wanted by New York City police for allegedly committing a disturbing act in a subway car.

How much more disturbing can things get in New York? 

Try this one on for size: authorities say the suspect engaged in sexual misconduct with the corpse of a homeless man on a southbound R train near the Whitehall Street station around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to ABC 7.

Investigators believe the victim died of natural causes prior to the incident and that the suspect did not know him. The suspect was last seen wearing a blue baseball cap, black hooded jacket, yellow hoodie, jeans, red and white sneakers, and carrying a backpack.

via www.zerohedge.com

As a loyal reader pointed out, the perp is evidently a Dodgers fan. Just sayin . . .

Trump’s Tariffs Are Unique in History - WSJ

Watching from the sidelines at Dartmouth College is Douglas Irwin, an economics professor. He knows more about U.S. trade policy than anyone alive, having written “Clashing Over Commerce” (2017), the first definitive economic history of trade since Frank Taussig’s “A Tariff History of the United States” (1931). In a Zoom interview, I ask what governments and businesses around the globe should make of Mr. Trump’s mercurial approach to trade and tariffs.

“It is incredible,” he says, but he doesn’t seem disbelieving. “Well, Trump twice said that the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico would take effect and twice pulled them back, so perhaps we should have expected this. I think his heart is with this reciprocal tariff plan, and to walk that back because of pressure from the markets must be a big disappointment.”

But Mr. Irwin, 62, like most mainstream economists and business leaders, is unhappy. “To whipsaw the markets like this amounts to grossly irresponsible economic management.” On April 4 Mr. Trump asserted on social media that “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.” “And yet, after pausing the tariffs, he said, ‘You have to be flexible,’ ” Mr. Irwin notes.

Any relief that foreign governments might have over the tariff pause “will be accompanied by utter dismay over the shambolic nature of U.S. policymaking.” He calls Mr. Trump’s actions “cavalier” and says there is “no strategy. And this uncertainty is a tax on the economy, undermining consumer confidence and freezing up investment spending.” It could bring a recession.

via www.wsj.com

I share enthusiasm for the apparent demise of woke insanity and the support (so far) of free speech, as well as a more common sense energy policy, and efforts of DOGE -- but this tariff stuff . . . it looks like Trump is setting off a big bomb and just hoping the pieces fall into place. I don't think the world works that way.

How a Secretive Gambler Called ‘The Joker’ Took Down the Texas Lottery - WSJ

In the spring of 2023, a London banker-turned-bookmaker reached out to a few contacts with an audacious request: Can you help me take down the Texas lottery?

Bernard Marantelli had a plan in mind. He and his partners would buy nearly every possible number in a coming drawing. There were 25.8 million potential number combinations. The tickets were $1 apiece. The jackpot was heading to $95 million. If nobody else also picked the winning numbers, the profit would be nearly $60 million.

Marantelli flew to the U.S. with a few trusted lieutenants. They set up shop in a defunct dentist’s office, a warehouse and two other spots in Texas. The crew worked out a way to get official ticket-printing terminals. Trucks hauled in dozens of them and reams of paper.

Over three days, the machines—manned by a disparate bunch of associates and some of their children—screeched away nearly around the clock, spitting out 100 or more tickets every second. Texas politicians later likened the operation to a sweatshop.

Trying to pull off the gambit required deep pockets and a knack for staying under the radar—both hallmarks of the secretive Tasmanian gambler who bankrolled the operation. Born Zeljko Ranogajec, he was nicknamed “the Joker” for his ability to pull off capers at far-flung casinos and racetracks. Adding to his mystique, he changed his name to John Wilson several decades ago. Among some associates, though, he still goes by Zeljko, or Z.

via www.wsj.com

The Slow Disintegration of Canada - 19FortyFive

The country isn’t collapsing under the weight of competing separatist projects. Rather, it’s quietly dissolving under the acids of institutional unraveling, political incoherence, and a growing sense that regional interests and identities are more important than any sense of “Canadianness.” The problem, therefore, is not one of a dramatic crisis. It’s more one of incremental balkanization. Provinces aren’t formally breaking away from the Canadian confederation. Rather, they’re just increasingly doing their own thing – irrespective of Ottawa and the national vision that that city represents.

via www.19fortyfive.com

Sounds kinda familiar.

The great tariff debate -- All-in podcast

The trouble is Summers comes across as a total elitist indifferent to the plight of the working class, which he undoubtedly is. But this doesn't stop him from being right about the economics, even if he is rather taken aback by David Sack's vigorous response. Ezra Klein you can just ignore.

Opinion | ‘I Hope I Am Wrong, but I Am Pretty Pessimistic’: Four Economists Dissect Trump’s Tariffs - The New York Times

Rose: Jason, in your own guest essay on tariffs, you described the reasoning behind reciprocal tariffs as “obviously absurd.” Where do you part ways with Oren?

Jason Furman: If you combine all the remaining tariffs, you’re still talking about an overall rate in the 20s, well above anything seen in the United States for over a century, or in any other major country in the world today. This has been unleashed by a misunderstanding of basic economics, which starts with imports. They’re good, not bad. They’re good for consumers who buy products we barely produce, like bananas. They’re good for industries that rely on imported parts to make their products. Any attempt to curb imports also reduces exports. And exports are also good because they let Americans work in higher-paid, more productive jobs.

One place I agree with Oren is the implementation has been a disaster. But let’s not make tariffs like communism, something people argued was good in theory but bad in practice. If you have a policy with an extremely narrow path to perfect implementation that goes awry, maybe blame the idea, not the implementer.

via www.nytimes.com

Pretty good mooting of the issues about tariffs.

I find this all depressing as I think tariffs are on balance a terrible idea and likely to lead to much economic distress in the future. That our current trade regime is a mess I have no trouble believing, and that China is taking advantage of our relative openness I also have little doubt. But Trump's response to this seems grandiose and perhaps even unhinged. I'm also not happy how he seems to be imposing this on our nation's economy by executive decree.

I like cheap goods from China and other developing countries. My shop is full of knock off tools I got on Temu and similar sites. They're not half as good as American, Canadian or German (the best!) tools, but they're a fifth the price. I wish we could buy Chinese cars as well. Americans don't want to work for the wages the Chinese work for and don't blame us for that. Much of the rest Trump supports I do as well, but tariffs are apparently where he wants to hang his hat and I fear we'll all rue this day. Tariffs also present a perfect opportunity for cronyism and corruption which will set in soon enough if we go down this road.

A Writ of “Facilitation”? Court Issues Curious Order in the Garcia Case – JONATHAN TURLEY

The Court disagrees with many, including the Fourth Circuit, that President Trump had no inherent executive powers to countermand the district court’s order. He clearly does have countervailing powers that have to be weighed more heavily in the matter. The district court is expressly ordered to show “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

What is left is a legal pushmi-pullyu that seems to be going in both directions at once. What if the Trump Administration says that inquiries were made, but the matter has proven intractable or unresolvable? Crickets.

No one would seriously believe that, but what right does the district court have to manage the relations or communications with a foreign country?

The problem with this shadow docket decision is that there is more shadow than sunlight in its meaning.

via jonathanturley.org

Strange times and strange rulings.