The stories you may have missed this week:

  • Hey, Republicans, let’s have some fun! Here’s to having hearings on justifying the cost of college.
  • Defending Free Speech: Yes, you’re allowed to have bad thoughts.
  • Trump’s crazy executive order on Perkins Coie.
  • How Biden cooked the books on immigration.
  • Facts on the economy (now with sugar subsidies!)

It’s Justin Trudeau’s last day. A time to rejoice for the friends of liberty to our north. But the economic spat between the US and Canada has had the unwelcome consequence of restraining the latter’s Conservative Party momentum. Thankfully, Ezra Levant returns to the Ricochet Podcast with a solution, which he laid out in a recently published book with a title that shows he knows how to speak our language: Deal of the Century: The America First Plan for Canada’s Oil Sands. He explains his pitch to the president and brings us up to speed on the political scene of our dearest neighbor.

Plus, Steve and James talk taxes, the Columbia University crackdown, and Lee Zeldin’s big moves at the EPA.

Trump delivers unwanted “help“ to our friends

 

When Donald Trump assumed the presidency, two allies of the US—Israel and Ukraine—were mired in bloody wars with ancient enemies. Both desperately needed more military aid in the effort to defeat their heavily armed foes.

Biden had granted both only enough military aid to enable them to not lose but not enough to win. Moreover, the arms they received came with the condition that they not be used to inflict serious damage to their enemy. Trump could have helped turn the tide. Instead he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Panhandle Blizzard of 1957

 

Vehicles stranded near Cimarron, Kans., after the storm. Source: Dodge City Globe newspaper, via weather.gov

The month of March 1957 had been unseasonably warm in the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles and western Kansas. On March 10, the National Weather Service in Dodge City, Kans., recorded a record high of 79°. Most days were in the 60s and 70s. But the jet stream was interacting with a powerful low-pressure system to pull moisture from the Gulf of Mexico into a cold front coming down from the north. On March 23, a blizzard struck the High Plains.

Old Russia? Interrupted Russia? One Of Those.

 

From The Memoirs of Count Witte:

I was criticized by some blockheads for building up industry too rapidly. Also, I was criticized for using “artificial means” in promoting industry. What does this stupid phrase mean? By what means other than artificial can industry develop? Everything that man does is, to a certain degree, artificial. Only barbarians manage to live without artificial means. Industry has always been developed by artificial means; and the artificial measures I employed were far weaker than those employed for the same ends by other states. This, of course, our salon ignoramuses do not know.

China is an Existential Threat to this Country

 

Any person who follows news about China must believe that it is a significant threat to the future of the U.S. And yet it’s possible that most people don’t take that fact to heart because we don’t feel the impact of China directly in our everyday lives. After reading Senator Tom Cotton’s latest book, Seven Things You Can’t Say About China, I’m convinced that the threat is massive, dire and personal to all of us and the future of this country. We must stop talking about the threat; we must take immediate and critical action.

The points that Tom Cotton highlights are concerning, but until you read the details of what they actually mean in our lives, it’s easy to imagine that people think he’s not talking about them.

The Joys of Impounding Funds, or DOGE vs. Judge Ali

 

Impoundment has traditionally been considered a part of the executive power that the Constitution invests in the president. From Jefferson to Nixon, the president regularly impounded funds that he felt were unconstitutional or did not comport with Congress’s intent or infringed on the president’s national security and foreign policy powers.

Examples include Jefferson impounding funds for constructing navy yards that the previous congress had appropriated or funds for gunboats on the Mississippi at the time he was secretly negotiating with France to purchase Louisiana. In a 20th-century example, Truman asked for money for 48 Air Force groups, but Congress appropriated money for 58. Truman held the money for the extra 10 groups in reserve. Generally the president and Congress ironed out their differences, especially when changed circumstances proved one or the other correct. Unfortunately, we can’t count on such goodwill today.

Someone is paying a political price for the quest to curb government spending and so far that someone is Elon Musk. This week there were cyber attacks on X and physical attacks on Tesla dealerships and property.

So we welcome back former Wall Street Journal reporter Jon Hilsenrath (“The Fed Whisperer”) to talk about Musk’s attempts to slash the deficit and debate his characterization of Musk as a “crony capitalist.”

Tragedy hit the once-marginalized psephological community last week when FiveThirtyEight closed shop. Henry hosts a celebration of life with two of its top contributors, Nathaniel Rakich and Geoffrey Skelley, to discuss the former outfit’s inconceivable achievement of mainstreaming political data journalism. The trio digs into the explosive history of innovative election modeling and explores the lingering unknowns while looking to the future for a field tasked with telling the human story behind complicated quantifications.

DC is Removing “BLM Plaza”!!

 

More winning.  DC is removing the giant yellow “Black Lives Matter” lettering on 16th street to make friends with Congress with respect to highway funds.

In 2020, at the same time the founders of BLM were absconding with enormous sums of money to buy expensive real estate, the District of Columbia decided to spend $8 million to convert the three blocks of 16th Street leading to Lafayette Square in front of the White House to Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Gráinne Ní Mháille, Playing Soccer in Heaven

 

It was about fourteen years ago in late summer when a small visitor appeared on our balcony. We live in an apartment complex. The neighbors above had somehow dropped a heel of bread down through the cracks between the floorboards of their balcony, and it landed on our balcony. We did not go out on our balcony much, so I let that heel of bread sit there. I figured birds or squirrels would make off with it.

A few days later, my wife looked out on the world and asked, “Is that a kitten?”

What is it like to be a rabbi during a time of rising antisemitism and threats to Israel? Join Robert Chernin and Ericka Redic as they welcome Rabbi Pinchas Allouche to Of The People for an eye-opening conversation about faith, leadership, and the challenges facing the Jewish community today.

Rabbi Allouche shares his perspective on the challenges of leading a Jewish community during turbulent times, the importance of unity in the face of adversity, and how faith can be a guiding force in an increasingly divided world.

In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Alisha Searcy interview Trish Schreiber, senior fellow in education at the Frontier Institute in Montana. Schreiber shares her journey from Silicon Valley to Montana and her passion for expanding educational opportunities. She discusses the impact of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the state’s growing education tax credit program, and the recent passage of Montana’s charter school law. Ms. Schreiber also examines challenges posed by entrenched special interests in K-12 education and highlights key resources that inform her work in advancing school choice and education reform.

Trump’s New World Order

 

Wikimedia Commons

It seems like a new world order might be emerging, and Donald Trump has some influence over it.  I thought it would be interesting to discuss whether a new world order is emerging or perhaps the old order is just evolving a bit.  And if there is a new order, what will it look like?

Daylight Savings Time: nobody seems to enjoy switching their clocks twice a year, and recently there has been another push to eliminate it altogether. But as a policy issue it’s far more complicated than it might seem at first glance. Dr. Cara Rogers Stevens is joined by columnist Rachel Lu, Associate Editor at Law & Liberty, to discuss the many layers of what seems like a simple question.

Read her article here: https://lawliberty.org/sleep-training-the-american-people/

Three Dot Lounge: How I Empty the “Boneyard”

 

A fixture of San Francisco in the last half of the Twentieth Century was columnist Herb Caen. He became famous for his “Three Dot Lounge” of trenchant news/gossip items. He was the West Coast’s answer to Walter Winchell. It was Twitter before anyone could bang on about something in 240 characters and publish it to the world.

In this post I am adopting something close to that approach, ridding myself of items in my “boneyard” — draft posts that never went anywhere. The reason they didn’t often was because I started with what I regarded as a bang-up idea but soon got lost in the weeds trying to make it all hold together logically and consistently. And there was always something new that kept me from going back and doing the post justice.

Trump Moves to Control the FBI

 

In case you are wondering, the title of this post is as distorted as the relationship reported between President Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel. Many people are disturbed because these two men are not following the patterns of previous presidents and FBI directors—which, of course, makes them suspect. Trump is accused of developing an overly close relationship with Patel, which the legacy media dislikes. But this arrangement works well for both Patel and Trump.

The first annoying fact is that Trump is being accused of violating the chain of command. Gosh, I guess presidents get to do that:

Today’s Gospel Message

 

“When I was hungry you gave me food. When I was thirsty you gave me drink. When I was naked you gave me clothes. When I was imprisoned you visited me.”

Notice that Jesus broke the parallel symmetric responses there. The expected counter to imprisonment is freedom. The admonition could have been, “When I was imprisoned, you freed me.” He doesn’t ask us to do that. He asks us to visit. That difference speaks volumes about our relationship with God and our fellow man. Overturn hunger, thirst and the vulnerability of nakedness if you can, but most of all, visit those who are imprisoned.

Mom Wars welcomes our first guest, Ali Carine D.O. who practices pediatric medicine in Columbus (OH). We talk about “high anxiety” parents, nightmare patients, vaccine schedules, measles and, more importantly, how the medical profession needs to regain the trust they lost in the Covid pandemic.

Film/TV Fame: Yes, It Fades

 

Near the end of his life, Kirk Douglas had a Twitter account. He modestly introduced himself to this new medium as someone who used to be a movie star, as if it were hard to believe. But even the memory of Spartacus can fade.

We know the legend of Ozymandias, a mighty tyrant, confident that his reign and his fame would last forever. Now, all that remains of his memory are his boastful words on the ruined base of a vanished statue. Glory is fleeting, even for today’s movie star pretenders to the throne of Ozymandias, and the eternal illusion of permanent fame that only Hollywood can provide. The public confers fame. The Academy confers immortality.

A Dozen Things to Do with All Your Extra Energy

 

Wait, you mean to say that you don’t have much bonus energy after addressing your basic tasks for the day? You don’t come home after school and jump on the trampoline?  Well, my just-turned-twelve niece has barrels of potential productivity 24/7, and I’ve learned these strategies from watching her. On the off-chance you’ll need this, here are twelve things you can do with that explosive extra fuel that you might be grappling with someday:

  1. Spend hours making intricate Lego designs. Request a mind-numbing-looking kit for your birthday where you can build a majestic eagle in an afternoon. Then put a chunk of your birthday money toward a set where you can build a fox, dismantle it, and make another animal. This will all be exciting for you and something you look forward to resuming after school. And when that’s all done, make up something from your little bricks–a wolf, perhaps.
  2. Have adventures in the canyon with your friends. And then draw a map of the canyon to show your aunt when she comes to visit around your tenth birthday. Don’t forget the fort this spring. You erect one of those by carefully choosing a neighbor’s tree overlooking the canyon. Next, create a framework surrounding part of the trunk using lots of sticks you and your buddies find in the vicinity. The resulting apartment will be just big enough for two smallish people to huddle inside. Or maybe one and a half people. Third, go ask the neighbor for permission to build your fort there. Finally, gather up pine needles and other organic debris and arrange it over the framework. It holds up so well, you can even create a window over the door that gives the illusion of a tiny loft space.
  3. Roast in front of the fireplace. You heard that right. When there’s a fireplace log crackling with a comforting flame, lie curled on the hearth. Announce that you will first cook on this side, then the other side. And when you’re done with the process, you tell your aunt, you’ll end up “a nice medium rare.”
  4. Celebrate your birthday gifts. No, I mean like really celebrate. Jump up and down making a joyful noise, if you have to.  And if a grandma surprises you with a hundred bucks, make sure the whole neighborhood is informed that you are now “RICH–RICH–RICH!!” Include that “HA, HA, HA!” just to add a fun miserly vibe to your jubilance. Then order Legos online.
  5. Provide a Motivational Blast as requested. When your work-from-home aunt isn’t getting anything done and asks to be ordered to buckle down, you can do the following for free, and it has proven effective at times: tell her “GET TO WOORRK!” at a volume that could fell a brick wall. Even if that’s not quite the intensity your aunt wanted or expected, she’ll cringe and meekly start pecking at her keyboard. Meanwhile, you’ll say, “That felt so good. I’ve always wanted to yell at an adult.”
  6. Get in a fight at the little free library. When you and your younger buddy approach the small cupboard of books across the street from a canyon exit, immediately start bickering as your aunt waits near the canyon. The child, having picked up a thriller novel, has to be told, “NO, that is not a kids’ book!” repeatedly in tones that carry over the neighborhood, impressing a passing jogger enough to smile at your aunt. The child continues to insist upon his selection, though, making observers wonder whether he presses his point on purpose.
  7. Create dramatic scenes with your realistic plastic figurines. I mean, how else are you supposed to play with these items that keep showing up on your Amazon wish list? After an evening by the fireplace, your aunt might come upon a startling tableau. On one end of the hearth, wolves encircle a recumbent horse. Oh, dear! What happened to the poor thing? Worse, the wolves appear to be in various poses suggesting that our equine friend is providing dinner for them. One of the animals has his head turned to scan behind him in lifelike lupine-ish vigilance. But what’s this?  A few feet away, a man approaches on horseback with his faithful dog trotting beside him. Will the rescuers arrive on time to save the surrounded victim?
  8. Show your hand occasionally. If Dad gives you permission to do something, say, “I asked you on purpose, because I knew Mom would say no.”  Follow me for more ways to make things interesting at home. For a whole collection of ways, actually.
  9. Crank out paintings and drawings of your favorite subjects. Amongst your other crafts, paint and draw regularly so that you can start producing frequent pictures of wolves who seem to have expressions on their faces, a page sprinkled with dogs sniffing the ground and engaging in other doggy interests, and the start of a graphic novel with wolves in dialogue. You can even make paintings you can give away as gifts. For example, if you’re stumped for a gift to take to a friend’s duck-themed party, just paint a duck in any spare forty-five minutes. First, sketch the duckling out with a pencil on your canvas, referencing a picture your mom finds online. Then just start painting. Your friend will love the result.
  10. Send your mom long, indignant texts that sound hilarious when read by AI. If you have a watch your parents want you to use exclusively for texting them in times of need, use it to express your irritation with your buddies. Your aunt will laugh as the auto text reader in your mom’s car says brightly, ” . . . And they are going to that place in the canyon that I’m not allowed to go . . . And they are such big jerks.”  “Reply?”
  11. Help adults gain better insight into neighborhood dynamics. Your aunt might not quite understand about the local bully, leading her to respond to your aspersions with a comment like, “Well, maybe deep inside, he really wants a friend.”  She might grasp the state of things better if you say, “No, he’s just a jerk. This is not like the movies, where the villain has a sad backstory, but he’s actually really nice. It’s not like that. This guy is just a jerk.”
  12. Help the dog hone his wits. If a prolonged period of skittering sounds followed by the patter of feverish Frenchie claws across the wood floor starts to pull your aunt out of her task at the computer (especially if the pattern is punctuated by low-pitched giggles from you), demonstrate to her what you’re doing. Show how you’re taking one nugget of dog food at a time and hurling it across the dining room so that the little dog scrambles for each piece. Your aunt may initially show some interest in the stunt, but soon ask you to stop. Not even she can take that for very long. But no worries! There’s always another project that will burn off calories, if you look. Meanwhile, it’s a good time to go read a book of your favorite comic strip.

Coming later: Photographic evidence of the benefits of being a live wire.

On Trump (of course), the Democrats, Eric Adams, Mark’s new show, “2 Way” and more!