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Trump does more consequential things in a day than most presidents do in a month, so we may need to measure his tenure in office in dog years. It must certainly seem like dog days for the left, which is lying prostrate on the ground much of the time, panting and out of breath, gnawing on a bare bone.
After ticking through a number of happy stories this week—the end of DEI at Berkeley; Greenpeace getting nicked for $667 million dollars, Columbia University capitulating to Trump—we get down to the week’s new frontiers of lawfare. Is this moment a “constitutional crisis,” as the left claims, or is it a long overdue moment of constitutional challenge, with the aim being the restoration of the proper dimensions and functions of our republic?
AI-Garbage In, Garbage Out
Artificial Intelligence is really nothing new. One only has to watch The View, MSNBC, or a Congressional hearing to see AI on full display. Any press conference that one or more Dems conduct provides all the daily artificial intelligence one could want or need.
Sometimes the use of AI infects decisions made by individuals who do have good intentions.
Immediately upon the president’s return to office, we discovered that stopping the flood of illegal immigrants across the border was as simple as turning off the spigot. While the crisis may be over, the mission has yet to be accomplished. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies and host of the Parsing Immigration Policy podcast returns to discuss what follows the end of the beginning efforts to correct the long-neglected immigration mess.
Plus, Rob, James and Steve look forward to the dismantling of the Department of Education; they do their best to ignore the psychopathic attention-seekers in the Middle East; and James finally turns the tables on Rob for a good old-fashioned troll.
The odometer clicks over
Bit of a milestone today. 
It’s actually a bit more than that, since ACX doesn’t track the couple of books I’ve done for a flat fee rather than a royalty share (including the splendid book by our Ricochet friend Mark J. Boone, Faith, Reason, and Beyond Reason). But it’s nice when the meter clicks over. As it says, my first (awful) Audible book was released in 2013. I can’t recommend it, because it was a self-published vanity title, but it did help me get attention from real publishers. I am now wrapping up my 91st title and have a contract waiting for #92. I need to feel like I’m doing something worthwhile, so what started out as a side hustle is now saving my life post-retirement.
Sauron Knows Elon Has the Ring: Will the Courts Take it Away?
The real battle has begun. In Does 1-26 v. Musk, Case 8:25-cv-00462-TDC in the District Court of Maryland (text here), a judge has ruled that Elon Musk has no authority to order cuts and that Trump has no authority to close an agency (USAID) created by Congress. The first point is largely legit and easily fixed—Musk’s status does need to be formalized in some way as an official exercise in Article II executive authority, or else all such orders have to come from POTUS and not DOGE.
The second one is a real issue that will inevitably get to SCOTUS.
A Simple Biblical Double-Entendre
There is a character in the Torah named Potiphar (G. 37:36). He purchases Joseph, who ends up running Potiphar’s household before Potiphar’s wife makes her #MeToo claim and gets Joseph imprisoned.
Joseph ends up marrying Potiphar’s daughter. But the text does something strange whenever it mentions her name. Instead of being “Osnot, the daughter of Potiphar” she is consistently (in all three cases – G. 41:45, 41:50, 46:20) referred to as “Osnot, the daughter of Poti Phera, priest of On.” Why create a space in the name “Potiphar?” And why refer to her father’s profession?
One hears of our constitutional crisis often enough nowadays that an observer of American politics might wonder what we’ll say if the event comes to pass. This week, Henry enlists AEI’s Yuval Levin to identify and account for the pent-up tensions in a system designed to restrain ambitious rulers. The duo hammer out the roles of independent agencies in a government limited to three branches; stress test the originally unanticipated dilemma of congressional pliancy; and consult the schematic on the executive’s authority over impoundment, rescission, tariffs and treaties.
Tune in for a commute-friendly masterclass on Constitutional authority in the era of DOGE and EOs.
Another childhood icon extirpated, by their own hand
Join Robert and Ericka as they welcome author, activist and former Executive Director of Christians United for Israel, David Brog, for a wide-ranging discussion about his current work at the Maccabee Task Force combating antisemitism on college campuses, and why Christian support is critical to winning the battle to preserving Western civilization.
Brash, irreverent, and mostly peaceful! Stay in contact with us!
One Easy Step To Stopping Campus Tentifadas
I know how to end the Tentifadas on American university campuses!!
Some background: The students say they are upset about Israeli Jews colonizing and settling on “Palestinian” land. They are so upset that they are taking over buildings and harassing their Jewish classmates. So how do we get these students to calm down and go back to normal? I think I know. All the Israeli government has to do is re-create that unique American innovation that protects every American university from the same unrest. And it will work! Here’s why:
In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Alisha Searcy interview Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice. Mr. Enlow discusses his decades of leadership in school choice advocacy, from his early work with the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation to spearheading policy reforms nationwide. He examines the persistent stagnation in U.S. K-12 education despite massive funding and highlights the rapid expansion of charter schools and education savings accounts (ESAs). Enlow also reflects on the legal victories school choice achieved in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Espinoza and Carson rulings, the rise of microschools and homeschooling post-COVID, and the evolving coalitions shaping school choice. Additionally, he previews upcoming legal and political battles as opponents push back against further reforms.
Autopens and Out to Lunch Presidents
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wants the Department of Justice to look into Biden’s autopen signed executive orders. It’s a powder keg lying about in an unruly political moment. Biden may not have been a full-time nullity, but we know the firefighters in the press kept things quiet, passed off doddering as a stutter, and when presented with evidence they were supplying questions ahead of time to administration officials and other enabling acts, stood very, very still. How often he was out wasn’t something we were worthy of being told.
We knew there was an issue from watching the basement campaign and all of its lids. Now most of the Lawrence O’Donnells are pretending they had suspicions, but didn’t know-know, y’know. (Tread lightly, implications, national interests, unless we were absolutely certain.) In the last few months, I’ve been told “some” suspected in the weeks leading up to the debate. After a time, “some” didn’t argue when the Hur Report was referenced without pushback. Water testing was underway, recollections of meetings from 2021 were talked about openly, then meetings from 2020 where it was understood how the campaign would handle their guy to keep the world from noticing the stutter. The smart set bravely bread-crumbing that they were oblivious to the obvious, or that others — better if it’s others — in their industry conspired to maintain the biggest con. A “since” comparison doesn’t spring to mind.
Lindsay Chervinsky, Director of the George Washington Presidential Library, joins Cara Rogers Stevens this week to discuss Abigail Adams and her impact on John’s public life.
Learn more about Lindsay: https://www.lindsaychervinsky.com/
Israel Re-Starts the Bombing of Gaza: Blame Trump
A new, bizarre accusation against President Trump has appeared in the news. One Israeli thinks it’s Trump’s fault that the fighting has re-started:
A former Israeli hostage negotiator who once acted as a channel to Hamas said Israel’s renewed strikes on Gaza show US President Donald Trump’s failure to live up to his promise to end the war there.
Conflict: Niall Ferguson on Ukraine, Taiwan, and His War of Words with V. P. Vance
Niall Ferguson, preeminent historian and Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, joins this episode of Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson to discuss the war and ongoing stalemate in Ukraine; the Trump administration’s foreign policy and negotiations with Russia; and the broader geopolitical landscape, including the shift in Europe’s defense posture as the US signals a reduced commitment to NATO.
Lawfare: What Would Harry Callahan Do?
A half-century ago, moviegoers flocked to see Inspector Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry) and Paul Kersey (Death Wish) fight wrongdoing in a world where sclerotic legal processes were worse than useless. The system had become unduly solicitous to the rights of villains who had nothing but contempt for the rights of others and for the system itself.
Like some smug, obviously guilty killer going free on some evidentiary or procedural issue in the first 30 minutes of a Death Wish or Dirty Harry movie, the current crop of plaintiffs defending waste, fraud, abuse, grift, gangsterism and/or terrorism supporters are strolling out of well-selected federal courthouses with an injunction or order in hand and a big smile on their faces.
Pangolin Vindicated!
Good news for an unnamed pangolin accused of starting the Covid-19 pandemic. It turns out that the CIA, MI6 and Germany’s BND have all revealed that they believe the source of the pandemic was the Wuhan Immunology Laboratory. Not only that, but they have high confidence and made their conclusions way back in the spring of 2020.
Five years is a long time to wait when you only live 20 years. FYI, a pangolin can eat about 600 pounds of insects with its 16-inch long tongue in five years. The pangolin looks like an armadillo, but it is not related. Pangolin are under threat because their meat is considered a delicacy and its scales (which are like fingernails) are thought to have medicinal properties. But the most threatening feature for this creature is that they can carry coronaviruses, and that made them the perfect scapegoat for whoever was funding gain-of-function research at the biosecurity level 2 lab in Wuhan. It was none other than the recently pardoned Dr. Fauci who put the blame on the innocent pangolin.
New York v. Trump — Amicus Brief
Astronomy Update
As I’ve posted about in the past, I was interested in astronomy in my early years and even was involved in a Boys’ Club in Oregon for building your own telescope. We worked on making our own mirrors; first grinding and polishing the glass, then sending them out for “silvering.” Mine was the only one that didn’t come back from that, so I didn’t finish it. I think the Men in Black took it because it was so good — I would have seen their Lunar Max prison facility on the Moon where they were holding Boris the Animal.
In more recent years, I’ve been accumulating a variety of telescope brands, types, and sizes, mostly from thrift stores, etc. For these prices, I’ve been able to gather a pretty large variety and enjoy their different advantages versus what I could have afforded to buy at retail.
Five Years Later, They’ve Learned Nothing
An article in today’s East Bay Times reflects on the fifth anniversary of the historic news conference held in San Jose on March 16, 2020. Health officers from six Bay Area counties (standing six feet apart from each other, naturally) announced the nation’s first and strictest stay-at-home order. It was supposed to last for 3 weeks — we all know how that turned out.
So looking back now, with the full benefit of hindsight, would Dr. Sara Cody steer a different course?
Severance Is Darn Good Scifilosophy
Severance dazzles. Who would have expected a horror/sci-fi/philosophy gem from Ben Stiller? This is the best sci-fi TV dealing with the topic of personal identity since Travelers; and Travelers may have been the best ever, and Severance might be better still.
No, you shouldn’t actually watch it–most of you. There are endless F-words, a couple of fornication scenes to fast-forward through, and . . . horror. This show is dark, not least because of the awful bright dystopian fluorescent lighting on the Severed Floor of the Lumon building. It’s lighting that only highlights the horrific handling of the employees on that floor. This is 1984-level stuff. And something even worse is happening on the mysterious floor below it.
Republicans Must Continue Holding Town Halls
Republicans who have been holding town halls have found it to be a controversial and unpleasant experience. One of the most recent town halls was held by Republican Representative Chuck Edwards of North Carolina. And in spite of the speculations that Democrats were organizing protests, and the difficulties of holding these meetings, Edwards is not giving up:
Some Republicans have faced nearly relentless heckling at recent town halls as constituents berate lawmakers over federal agency and budget cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an unofficial agency created through executive order and nominally led by Elon Musk.