Schumer Puts Judicial Supremacy On The Table

Not that it has any chance of passing in the current Congress, but if there is a major shift following the next election, who knows? Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has proposed what he delightfully calls the No Kings Act, the putative purpose of which is to reverse the Supreme Court’s presidential criminal immunity ruling in Trump v. US and strip the president (and vice president, although the Court never mentioned the Veep) of any immunity from prosecution whatsoever.

(1) NO IMMUNITY.—A President, former President, Vice President, or former Vice President shall not be entitled to any form of immunity (whether absolute, presumptive, or otherwise) from criminal prosecution for alleged violations of the criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.

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Essential But Deadly: Free Speech On Campus

For all the cries about free speech when it serves their purpose, 70% of students on campus believe that “speech can be as damaging as physical violence” according to a new Knight Founndation campus survey.

Sixty percent believe that “[t]he climate at my school or on my campus prevents some people from saying things they believe, because others might find it offensive,” which is down from 65% in 2021, but still substantial. At the same time, students believe it has become more difficult to express themselves, with black students feeling it most. Continue reading →

Tuesday Talk*: Why Raise Term Limits Now, Joe?

At the LBJ Presidential Library in Saigon Austin, Texas, President Joe Biden made a major proposal to change the Supreme Court.

President Biden, warning that the country’s courts were being weaponized as part of an “extreme and unchecked” conservative agenda, said on Monday that he would push for legislation that would bring major changes to the Supreme Court, including term limits and an enforceable code of ethics on the justices.

Of course, what Biden means by “extreme and unchecked” might have something to do with the other tribe having greater control than his, and it would be less weaponized if it was the Warren court. But I digress. Continue reading →

Is Masculinity On The Ballot?

When Hulk Hogan spoke at the Republican National Convention, it never occurred to me that he might be anything more than one of a handful of has-been celebrities who would show up for Trump. After all, it was Trump backer Peter Thiel who financed his suit against Gawker, and if nothing else, he owed Thiel a huge debt. Did anyone even know if Hulk Hogan, who no doubt deeply regrets turning down a chance at Dancing with the Stars as his tiny star faded to black, was still alive?

But David French suggests that he was on the dais as an exemplar of the Trumpian exemplar of masculinity. Continue reading →

Karens Defining Kamala

Elizabeth Nolan Brown at Reason was on the call so you (and I) didn’t have to be, not that we were invited.

“Karens for Kamala?” actress Connie Britton joked.

Britton was one of two celebrities, several politicians, and, reportedly, more than 100,000 others on a Zoom call advertised as a way for white women to “show up for Kamala Harris.”

Good white women showed up for this call. Continue reading →

Did The NYT Sanitize Illegal Pro-Hamas Protest? (Update)

To read the New York Times, protests against Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu were not only peaceful, but protesters were the victims of needless police force and abuse. For this reason, one might be hard-pressed to question why people who read the paper of record might believe that this was a lawful exercise of First Amendment rights in support of Palestinians.

But how did the New York Times manage to miss the rest of it?

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The Beatification of Biden

It has the same vibe as not speaking ill of the dead. Immediately upon Joe Biden’s announcement that he was withdrawing his candidacy for president, gushing praise was ubiquitous.

Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern posted on X that he was “feeling overwhelmed with gratitude toward Joe Biden for making this sacrifice.”

“An actual hero,” wrote New York Times columnist Ezra Klein.

Biden “has placed the national interest above his own pride and ambition,” wrote the Times editorial board. Continue reading →

Tuesday Talk*: Is Kamala The Savior Of The Democrats?

It took about a day for Kamala Harris to lock up enough delegate support to nail the nomination. The money spigot that turned off after Biden’s cognitive decline could no longer be denied has been turned back on. Her history as a prosecutor, despite the great many abhorrent things she did (remember Celeste Guap, as Chris Seaton reminds us), is being touted as a strength this time around in order to set up “the prosecutor v. the criminal” campaign against Trump.

Whether Harris is the candidate Democrats want seems besides the point. What they want even less is a chaotic floor fight that will leave everyone bloody. What they want is to pretend Harris is suddenly a desirable candidate where she was a failure of massive proportions before. What they want is to see the first woman of color elected president. What they want is to bring back the pro-Hamas fringe who hated Genocide Joe for what was happening in Gaza, but didn’t connect Harris to the policy, as she declined to be present for Israeli President Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to the House and her and has spoken of the pro-Hamas protesters as “showing exactly what the human emotion should be.” Continue reading →