Afternoon Update

File under "It's even worse that that!"

• Good grief! I had no idea with this morning’s news roundup about the NEA rejecting any and all materials from the Anti-Defamation League that they also included a new plank declaring as a “fact” that Donald Trump is a fascist:

• Here’s a fun one. In an idle moment I was browsing through Thomas Molnar’s 1961 (keep that date in mind) book The Decline of the Intellectual when I came across this deliciously ironic sentence on page 8:

“Russell Kirk, the philosopher of American neoconservatism, rejects the term ‘intellectual’ as alien to the spirit of the English language (when used as a noun) and to the American political tradition, and as having an uncomfortable, ideological connotation.” [Emphasis added.]

Cue coronary attacks here for Dan McCarthy, Brad Birzer, paleocons of all stripes, etc.

• Several shrewd observers have noted that President Biden committed a huge blunder in our favor by appointing Kentanji Brown-Jackson to the Supreme Court, because she’s obviously offending the semi-conservative Justices that Justice Breyer and Justice Ginsberg used to be able to pick off by geniality and clever argument. Instead, in oral arguments Justice Jackson talks more than the other eight Justices by a wide margin, which likely doesn’t endear her to her colleagues. Here’s one look from her first eight arguments of her first year on the Court (typically the new Justice speaks the least):

We saw how Justice Barrett, whose relative moderation would make her a vote the liberal minority might want to cultivate, was put off by Jackson’s hysterical argument in the universal injunction case, and in today’s 8 - 1 decision upholding the Trump Administration’s directive to cabinet agencies to prepare reduction-in-force plans, Jackson has received a spanking from. . . Justice Sotomayor. How crazy do you have to be to get a spanking from Sotomayor?!?!

• While we’re on the subject of law, our occasional contributor John Yoo has a piece up today at Civitas disputing Richard Epstein on presidential war powers:

In his recent essay for Civitas Outlook, “Donald Trump’s War Against Iran,” Epstein argues that President Trump’s strike on Iran violated the Constitution. . . His argument relies on a narrow interpretation of the constitutional text and history, which claims an unjustified certainty in the Constitution’s original understanding…

The Constitution itself does not give the Declare War Clause the central authority for waging military hostilities. During the last two centuries, neither presidents nor Congress have ever acted under the belief that the Constitution requires a declaration of war before the U.S. can engage in military hostilities abroad. . .

Without declarations of war or any other congressional authorization, presidents have sent troops to oppose the Russian Revolution, intervene in Mexico, fight Chinese Communists in Korea, remove Manuel Noriega from power in Panama, and prevent human rights disasters in the Balkans. Other conflicts, such as the Persian Gulf War, and the war in Afghanistan, received “authorization” from Congress but not declarations of war.

More at the link. So now John has gotten on the wrong side of both Richard Epstein and Hadley Arkes in the space of 10 days. Quite an achievement!

• I used to say that I’d vote for the first candidate who promised to allow us to keep our shoes on when we went through TSA’s security theater. It finally happened today! No idea if Trump is behind this in any way, but I’ll counting it in the Not Tired of Winning file.