And while we’re at it, ice cream appreciation:
Gorsuch does not ♥ nationwide injunctions from district judges
Here’s a good discussion of a recent SCOTUS decision, and in particular some remarks by Justice Gorsuch in a concurring opinion. The Court voted 5-4 to lift a nationwide injunction placed by a district court judge on Trump’s new rule preventing people who are on the public dole (or likely to be) from getting green cards:
District court judges — the lowest judges in the federal system, ruling alone, rather than part of a panel of judges, from the bench — have, as usual, claimed to have the power to issue nationwide or even “universal” or indeed “cosmic” injunctions against enforcement of the rule.
Neil Gorsuch concurred with the judgement setting aside this claimed “universal” injunction, and then — finally! — ripped the Hawaiian judges presuming the authority to dictate the entire nation’s laws from their dinky little bench.
Gorsuch wrote, among other things:
It has become increasingly apparent that this Court must, at some point, confront these important objections to this increasingly widespread practice. As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates, the routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.
Rather than spending their time methodically developing arguments and evidence in cases limited to the parties at hand, both sides have been forced to rush from one preliminary injunction hearing to another, leaping from one emergency stay application to the next, each with potentially nationwide stakes, and all based on expedited briefing and little opportunity for the adversarial testing of evidence.
This is not normal. Universal injunctions have little basis in traditional equitable practice. [Citation omitted.] Their use has proliferated only in very recent years.
That is so obvious that one would think it would have been stated long before this. But we’ve been waiting for a long time, while the practice continued apace.
Nor will this resolve it for good; as Gorsuch says, the Court must rule definitively on the issue. This is just the warmup act.
And the decision should have been 9-0. But it wasn’t.
Impeachment trial: it’s possible…
…that it won’t just be a few RINO Republicans who defect from the party line on calling more witnesses. The Democrats may harbor some defectors as well: Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey are saying they are contemplating voting against calling more witnesses, or at the very least they might support calling witnesses for both sides.
Usually these rumors come to nothing, though, and it’s the Republicans who defect while the Democrats stick together. But one never knows. This is an unusual situation, and these Democrats know that the public has tired of this mess.
I certainly know that I’ve tired of this mess. But what’s happening is both repulsive and important.
If you want to follow more closely, you can watch it live here:
The peace deal: falling on deaf ears
At this point, unfortunately, Israel/Palestine peace plans are not enormous news for the simple reason that there’s no reason to believe that any such plan, however brilliant, could succeed.
But Trump has tried to devise one, as have many presidents before him:
The Jerusalem Post summarized the main of the deal:
“The Trump plan would allow Israel to retain about 20% of the West Bank. Israel would be called upon to cede some land in the south near Egypt’s border with Gaza. The plan also leaves open the possibility that Israel could cede the Triangle — three Arab cities in the Galilee — to a future Palestinian state, subject to negotiations between the parties.”
Israel will be allowed to keep 15 communities as “enclaves” within the future Palestinian state. Israel would be responsible for their security.
Under the plan there could be a Palestinian state in four years if the Palestinians meet certain conditions. The total area of the state would encompass about 70% of the West Bank, including what is termed Areas A and B.
More at the link.
The Palestinian response? A thousand “no’s”.
Which was to be expected:
The original Israeli-Palestinian peace accord was signed by Israel and the PLO. The P.A. was created as a function of the 1993 agreement, a later agreement in 1994 and finally the 1995 interim agreement. These agreements are together known as the “Oslo Accords.”
In those agreements a number of issues were left to “permanent status negotiations,” including “Jerusalem, settlements, specified military locations, Palestinian refugees, borders, foreign relations and Israelis.”
Despite having agreed to negotiate on these subjects, over the last 25 years, on repeated occasions, the PLO/PA have made clear that while they were happy to assume the control and jurisdiction afforded to them by the accords, they had no intention whatsoever to negotiate any settlement regarding the other issues…
The PLO/PA stance on Jerusalem is unequivocal. According to them, Jerusalem, especially but not limited to the Temple Mount, is holy Islamic territory that no terrestrial body has the right to forfeit to non-Islamic rule…
Any peace deal that suggests leaving any part of Jerusalem, including but not limited to the Western Wall Plaza, under non-P.A./Islamic jurisdiction will be rejected…
According to the PLO/PA, any peace accord that does not ensure the dismantling of every “settlement,” including multiple neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and the expulsion of every Israeli from those areas…will be rejected…
In its definition of “Palestinian refugees,” UNRWA includes all descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, regardless of whether they have been granted citizenship elsewhere. Based on this definition, there are 5,545,540 Palestinian “refugees” registered with UNRWA.
When one includes the spouses and children of the female refugees (who inherited their refugee status from their fathers but cannot pass it down to their children unless they married a male Palestinian refugee), it is reasonable to assume that the PLO/PA is demanding that Israel agree to absorb a Palestinian refugee population comprising no fewer than 7.5 million people.
Needless to say, absorbing this number of Palestinians would fundamentally change Israel’s demographics—there are just over 6 million Jews in Israel today. The PLO/PA understand that the influx of these refugees would signal the end of the democratic Jewish state.
Any peace plan that requires the PLO/PA to compromise on the subject of the Palestinian refugees will be rejected.
There’s much much more at the link, but you get the idea.
In fact, you probably got the idea many years ago, as did I.
With Trump, though, the outline of any deal is usually just the tip of the iceberg. There is almost certainly other pressure being applied, although not necessarily directly to the Palestinians; perhaps to their all-important alllies.
And speaking of allies of the Palestinians:
“So many other countries are willing, ready and able to work with us. I’ve spoken to many of them. I cannot believe the amount of support this morning has,” President Trump said. “I have been called by leaders – Boris called – and they’re all saying whatever we can do to help, we all want to see it happen.”
The deal also found surprising backers in the Middle East, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates coming out in support. Turkey and Iran were among the leading opponents of the deal among the Muslim countries.
Actually, the backing of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Ara Emirates is not surprising at all; in recent years they have taken this stance. And with the election of Boris Johnson, Trump has a much stronger ally in Britain than before.
That said, I just don’t think this plan has a chance no matter what it says. What happened at Camp David two decades ago revealed for all to see that the Palestinians want nothing but the destruction of Israel and no concessions but that will ever be enough. As long as they are being supported in this holdout – and especially, as long as they are propped up financially by the UN and their other sponsors (although the US is no longer among those sponsors) – they will continue to say a thousand no’s. Perhaps they would even continue without that financial support, because the Palestinian leaders do not care about the well-being of their people.
But this is one of the things on which I’d like to be proven wrong.
Democrats make the closing arguments for Trump’s side
What am I talking about? This [hat tip: Scott Johnson at Powerline]:
Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day
I’m a bit late with this, but I thought that for yesterday’s Remembrance Day I’d link to a two-part series of mine. I’ve written many posts on the subject of the Holocaust, some of which you can find by doing a search on this blog for the word “Holocaust.” But today I’ll suggest these two: Part I and Part II of “Holocaust stories: temperament and trauma.”
At least Bernie Sanders is being honest
Bernie admits he hasn’t a clue:
“Your agenda has promised free health care for everybody, free college tuition, and to pay off peoples’ college loans. The price tag for that is estimated to be $60 trillion dollars over ten years. Is that correct?” asked Norah O’Donnell of CBS Evening News.
“Well look, we have political opponents…” Sanders began before being cut off and pressed on the question.
“You don’t know how much your plan costs?” O’Donnell responded.
“You don’t know. Nobody knows. This is impossible to predict,” Sanders conceded, leaving O’Donnell stunned.
“You’re going to propose a plan to the American people and you’re not going to tell them how much it costs?” O’Donnell exclaimed.
This differs in only one way from the usual: Bernie isn’t lying. I give him points for honesty, and I’m not being all that sarcastic here. The only way he differs from most leftist politicians (and most Democrats, and many politicians in general) is that he’s admitting to what none other than Donald Rumsfeld called the “known unknowns.”
Of course, leftists – even the somewhat honest ones like Bernie – are nevertheless usually more than willing to stick their necks out and propose sweeping revisions that will redistribute resources in such a way that even if the costs are unknown, it is certainly known that they will be extraordinarily massive. So it suits them to either not even attempt to pin down what those costs might be (the Bernie option) or to simply lie about them or get some other agency to lie for them, and grossly underestimate the cost (and overestimate the benefits, but that’s a separate issue).
And much of the public doesn’t seem to care, because the promises sound so good to them.
ADDENDUM:
Here’s the Rumsfeld quote, one of my favorites:
Impeachment: to call witnesses or not to call witnesses?
Now that the NY Times has come out with another perfectly-timed “bombshell” based on “I heard it through the grapevine,” it seems that enough RINO senators are leaning towards voting to hear witnesses that the gambit of supposed Bolton revelations has worked.
But it’s not at all clear to me that the Democrats will win much if anything by pressing for more witnesses and calling Bolton. Yes, the Democrats’ plan is most definitely to “Kavanaugh” the proceedings. But how did that work out on the end for the Democrats? Yes, it may yield some further grist for the Democrats’ mills. But I doubt it will deflect a single one of Trump’s supporters, and it will open the door for the GOP to call more witnesses, too. That might lead to the GOP’s own bombshells.
After all, we know a lot about what the Democrats’ witnesses might say. Some of it actually exonerates the president. We don’t know what Hunter Biden or the-whistleblower-who-must-not-be-named would say, and it could definitely open up several cans of worms for the Democrats. When last I checked, it’s McConnell who’s in control of who to call if the majority votes to call more witnesses. And even Mitt Romney has now come out in favor of the Republicans getting some witnesses of their own:
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah who wants former national security adviser John Bolton to testify in the president’s impeachment trial, said he supports Republican witnesses being called too.
When the Washington Examiner asked on Tuesday if former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter should be called as well, Romney responded, “I think if you heard from one side, you probably ought to have the chance to hear from a witness from the other side.”…
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, told reporters Tuesday he is confident that 51 votes exist in the conference to call witnesses on the GOP list if necessary.
“I’ll make a prediction. There’ll be 51 Republican votes to call Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, the whistleblower, and the DNC staffer [Alexandra Chalupa],” he said.
Senate Republicans said Monday that any deal to call for witnesses will include Hunter Biden.
“If we need to hear from more people, it’s going to be a group of individuals,” said Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, on Monday.
This entire push could boomerang and hit the Democrats squarely in the face.
Trump’s defenders
I’ve only seen the briefest of clips, but I hear that yesterday Dershowitz and company were restrained, particularly compared to the feverish Democrats who preceded them. Of course, the president’s defenders can afford to give a more relaxed presentation because they don’t have to make stuff up.
But I’ve also heard that they were boring. Well, I guess legal speeches have a tendency to be boring unless you’re Clarence Darrow, or unless you’re a fabulist like Schiff. I’m curious, though, what readers who actually watched a lot of it thought about it.
Here’s a little clip to whet – or extinguish – whatever appetite for the proceedings you may retain:
And Pam Bondi finally was able to bring the Hunter Biden issue into view, despite Democrat and MSM efforts to suppress it. That’s the price the Democrats pay for starting this whole theatrical production in the first place; the Republicans get to have input into some of the script. Of course, one wonders whether the news will trickle down, since a lot of people are neither watching it (that includes me) nor following it.
“The age of impeachment”
Coverage of today’s presentations from the Trump defense can be found here.
And see this about the role of John Bolton, his book, and his “bombshell.”
And this is related.
All providing cover to allow “the Eternal Turncoats to turn coat.”
The best laid schemes: Kobe Bryant
I’m not a basketball fan; I stopped watching back in the 1970s. But I’d heard of Kobe Bryant even beore yesterday’s helicopter crash that killed him. He was that big a sports star, and the mourning is widespread.
But although the crash has gotten attention because of the 41-year-old Bryant, he was far from its only victim. One of his four daughters, Gianna (13), died too as well as seven others, including John Altobelli, head baseball coach at Orange Coast College, his wife Keri, and their daughter Alyssa; Christina Mauser (38), the assistant coach for Gianna Bryant’s basketball team and mother of three young children; pilot Ara Zobayan; and Payton Chester, another teen who was on Gianna’s team, as well as her mother Sarah Chester.
The family nature and the youth of the victims lends a special horror and a special poignancy to these deaths. Occurring in adults in the prime of life as well as their children on the cusp of adult lives with a great deal of promise, the deaths twist a knife in most of us because they show how vulnerable we all are, how even the best of luck can run out, and how tragedy can strike with a swiftness and sharpness that can feel unendurable.
As it says in one of my favorite poems
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
May they RIP, and may their families find love, comfort, and strength to endure this and recover some joy in life.
I’ve not yet written a post about the new coronavirus…
…worrying the world. The reason is quite simple: much of what we know so far is fragmentary and suspect. The media loves to fan the flames of panic, anyway. But some is just lack of basic understanding as the authorities try to track its spread, plus skepticism about whether Chinese authorities have been forthcoming on this topic.
Out-of-control pandemics are the stuff of scary movies, but there are many times in human history when they have occurred. The 20th Century’s most enormous and out-of-control pandemic occurred right at the end of World War I and involved flu (I wrote about it here), the scope of which is difficult to comprehend even now. It is a terrifying prospect.
But each time a new flu comes along – and they come along with great frequency, often in China because of the vast urban populations and the close contact with animal vectors – it is hyped as the next enormous pandemic. Some day that may become true. But so far the flu pandemics of recent years, although they can do great damage (I had a friend who nearly died of H1N1, for example), have never reached anywhere near the scope of the 1918 pandemic. Fortunately.
So I will bide my time and see what happens before I hit the panic button that lies close at hand.
In the meantime, to learn about flu origins and China, see this from 2017:
Many Chinese people, even city dwellers, insist that freshly slaughtered poultry is tastier and more healthful than refrigerated or frozen meat. This is one of the major reasons China has been such a hot spot for new influenza viruses: Nowhere else on earth do so many people have such close contact with so many birds.
At least two flu pandemics in the past century—in 1957 and 1968—originated in the Middle Kingdom and were triggered by avian viruses that evolved to become easily transmissible between humans. Although health authorities have increasingly tried to ban the practice, millions of live birds are still kept, sold and slaughtered in crowded markets each year. In a study published in January, researchers in China concluded that these markets were a “main source of H7N9 transmission by way of human-poultry contact and avian-related environmental exposures.”…
These areas—often poorly ventilated, with multiple species jammed together—create ideal conditions for spreading disease through shared water utensils or airborne droplets of blood and other secretions. “That provides opportunities for viruses to spread in closely packed quarters, allowing ‘amplification’ of the viruses,” says Benjamin John Cowling, a specialist in medical statistics at the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health. “The risk to humans becomes so much higher.”
All flu viruses probably originate in birds, and the best environment for making the jump to humans is one where densely packed people live closely with birds and animals.
“In Asia we have a huge animal population, a huge bird population and two-thirds of the world’s people living there,” said Klaus Stohr, chief influenza scientist at the World Health Organization.
The population of China alone is bigger than that of the whole of Africa, and 80 percent of the new human flu strains the last few decades appeared in China first.
Did the new coronavirus originate in birds? We don’t know:
On 31 December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, officially designated as 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization, was reported in Wuhan, China, as responsible for the 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. By 24 January 2020, 25 deaths have been reported and 547 confirmed cases. The Wuhan strain has been identified as a new strain of Betacoronavirus from group 2B with an ~70% genetic similarity to the SARS-CoV. The virus was suspected to have originated in snakes, but many leading researchers disagree with this conclusion.
More on the disease’s origins:
The initial cluster of pneumonia-like cases showed up in the city of Wuhan mid-December, and most of those patients had some tie to a wet market there—a place where people sell both live and dead animals, including exotic species, from snugly-abutting stalls.
Though nothing has been confirmed, epidemiologists suspect that the novel coronavirus crossed over into humans somewhere inside the market, which has been shuttered since January 1. Tracking down the right viral culprit is paramount to preventing future interspecies spillover. In 2003, when SARS ipped through the same area of China, the outbreak was fully contained only when civet cats, which had passed the virus along to humans, were removed from the region’s markets.
A national task force of Chinese researchers working swiftly to isolate and sequence the virus shared a draft of its genome in a public database earlier this month.
The article goes on to say that a theory based on the DNA evidence indicated that the virus may have originated in snakes, but there’s been tremendous disagreement with that idea:
“It’s complete garbage,” says Edward Holmes, a zoologist at the University of Sydney’s Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, who specializes in emerging RNA viruses, a class that includes coronaviruses like 2019-nCoV. Holmes, who also holds appointments at the Chinese CDC and Fudan University in Shanghai, is among a number of scientists who are pointing out—in virology forums, science Slacks, and on Twitter—what they deem to be major flaws in the paper, and calling on the journal to have it retracted. “It’s great that viral sequence data is getting shared openly in real time,” says Holmes. “The downside is then you get people using that data to make conclusions they really shouldn’t. The result is just a really unhelpful distraction that smacks of opportunism.”
Preliminary analyses of the genetic data released by Chinese authorities suggest that 2019-nCoV is most closely related to a group of coronaviruses that typically infect bats. But for a variety of reasons—including that it’s winter and bats are hibernating—many scientists suspect that some other animal moved the virus from bats to humans.
We don’t know. And the other thing we don’t is how many humans will be infected, and what the death rates will be. Flu tends to kill a not-insignificant percentage of its victims, but usually the vast majority survive. In 1918, the flu was especially deadly not only because it infected huge numbers of people worldwide, but because it killed a higher percentage of those sickened, it often killed them very quickly, and it seemed to focus on an unusual group: 20- to 40-year-olds.
Let’s hope this one is much tamer, although the behavior of Chinese authorities doesn’t indicate business as usual for the flu. Then again, maybe they are just especially determined not to let this one get out of hand. Let’s very much hope it does not.