You won’t hear me say “I’m proud” over something very often. But I’m proud to be a geezer today.
David Brooks, Trump’s Single Stroke of Brilliance. Lots of food for thought. (Shared link)
… the third largest North American export is the U.S. idealist … … If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell.
Ivan Illich via L. M. Sacasas, on “development” projects.
I knew this, but not quite so vividly.
I channel some thoughts, mostly about Velveeta Voldemort, but some other things as well. I even add a bit of my own thought.
So people were making a fuss about how good Larry David’s New York Times column My Dinner with Adolph was. So I went back and read it and thought it was weird.
Now I find it was a parody of Bill Maher’s dinner with Trump. I won’t even facepalm. Why should I have known that? IYKYK?
Episode 3 of The David Frum Show, with Peter Keisler and on The Crisis of Due Process, is outstanding in its analysis. On this topic, Keisler feels to me like Yuval Levin does on other political matters, and that’s “near-total mastery.”
I tend to forget the expression “FAFO.” The current regime is at the “find out” phase of its game-playing with federal courts on deportation matters.
They've made their bed …
My take-away from today’s Advisory Opinions podcast: by jerking around with the federal courts on the Salvadorian gulag and summary deportations thereto, especially the smirky-faced White House sitdown with strongman Bukele (where they mocked the courts), the Trump administration has forfeited the “presumption of regularity,” akin to a presumption of good faith, in the area of deportation, probably immigration, and possibly in everything.
It’s all uphill from here. The courts will not be cutting them any breaks, and when a federal judge is cutting you no breaks, treating you like other sleazy litigants, life can get pretty hard.
They’ve earned a presumption of bad faith in fewer than three months.
A first draft of legal history: In the Trump 2.0 Era, The Courts Are Listening—And Not Just to Lawyers.
Really fascinating for a guy who’s spent time in appellate courts as a practitioner.
Jack Golsmith’s Executive Function Substack has an important article today: Solicitor General John Sauer’s Predicament.
What happens when the Executive Branch is is so obnoxious and pugilistic that the court cannot presume regularity but must presume irregularity?
Note to the U.S. Department of Justice: send this woman a job application. She has mastered your lower-court stylesheet already.
Leave Harvard alone! They’ve suffered enough by being lumped in with Bob Jones University!
I’m still an AI Newbie, but I’ve found it useful for things like rough-and-ready distinguishing narcissism from sociopathy.
Mark this down: FEMA Isn’t Ready for Disaster Season, Workers Say | WIRED.
Of course, when neo-Katrina comes, Mafia Don will blame something other than his clown-car cabinet and chainsaw DOGE for the bungled response. I suspect DEI will be the scapegoat.
Final stretch of Holy Week. This morning, I get to sing the only Orthodox hymn I knew and loved as a low-ish Protestant: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence from the Liturgy of St. James.
And we’ll receive three catechumens on this traditional date (in addition to those received through the year).
And now for something rather different than Godric, I’m reading Charles Krauthammer, Things That Matter. 📚
I really, really despise legal gambling and especially State-sponsored gambling (a tax on stupid people). Would that a secretive gambler known as the Joker had actually taken down the Texas lottery! All he did was embarrass it; it’s upgrading software to resume the grift more profitably.
The [Maga] warriors tend to think people like me are soft and naive. I tend to think they are catastrophizing narcissists. When I look at Trump acolytes, I see a swarm of Neville Chamberlains who think they’re Winston Churchill.
David Brooks again.