The President’s Speech. We’re Back in Space! Also in Space: KBJ Outdoes Herself. What’s Missing from Presidential Libraries? VDH Calls NATO ‘Foolish’ And More
While it was very far from a “mission accomplished” speech, President Trump’s 19-minute address to the nation last night emphasized that U.S. goals have been substantially achieved. The Federalist’s Eddie Scarry sums it up:
There are another two or three weeks of fighting the war in Iran, President Trump said Wednesday in a nationally televised address.
Trump said Iran is “really no longer a threat” after more than a month of combat. Trump also stated that in a short time the U.S. would withdraw from the conflict and leave the still-imperiled Strait of Hormuz in the hands of other countries to “take it” and “cherish it” on their own.
The Hormuz Strait, a key passage for global energy shipment, is currently choked off as Iran threatens to target cargo ships attempting to flow through.
The imperiled Strait of Hormuz is a gift that other nations really did not want. The Editors of National Review question whether leaving Hormuz to be sorted out by other nations is in U.S. interests. Unlike many other countries, the U.S. gets only a small portion of its energy through the Strait. Interestingly, Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal suggested before the speech that Hormuz would “solve itself when the shooting stops” in a column headlined “Hormuz, Shmormuz.”
Meanwhile, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal praises the president for finally making his case for war (I guess 47 years of Iran’s bloody regime wasn’t persuasive enough?) and saying that the U.S. won’t end the war until our goals are accomplished.
The Free Press’ Eli Lake also observes that the U.S. isn’t folding its tents. “Trump’s Speech: No TACO This Time,” is Lake’s headline. Lake argues, “The pundits thought the president would declare that he was winding down the war. Instead, he said it was still full speed ahead.” Eye of the Beholder: Susan Page of USA TODAY, meanwhile, saw in the speech “a head for the exits in Iran [that] leaves complications behind.”
The market wanted a speedier exit with Hormuz open. Oil prices are up, and stocks tumbled. Iran issued threats. Survivor Derangement Syndrome: Fans of the CBS show were outraged that the president’s speech cut into their favorite show. Before we leave Iran, there’s NATO to be considered. In an editorial headlined “Bomb Iran but Blow Up NATO?” the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board is sympathetic to the president’s frustration with European allies but counseled that the end of NATO would be a boon to Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing.
Victor Davis Hanson is blunter in “A Foolish NATO Was a Big Loser in the Iran War.”
We’re Back in Space! “Artemis II Completes First Day of Its NASA Lunar Mission” is a New York Times headline:
A towering orange-and-white NASA rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday evening, lifting four astronauts toward space and transporting spectators’ imaginations to a future in which Americans may again set foot on the moon.
As they did during the heyday of the Apollo program, which first put men on the lunar surface, spectators squeezed onto the beaches along Central Florida’s Space Coast. The crowds cheered when the powerful rocket launched into the clear sky at 6:35 p.m. Eastern time. It traveled eastward, over the Atlantic Ocean, on a journey that will take astronauts around the moon but not land there.
Going to the Moon Is Cool. There are strategic reasons to go to the Moon. Boots on the Moon: Axios sums up the dazzling achievement:
Artemis II’s planned crewed lunar flyby is set to mark the closest humanity has come to the Moon since the Apollo days.
It’s also a key step towards NASA’s grand ambition to return human boots to lunar soil, and the Trump administration’s dreams of a permanent Moon base.
In a way, going to the Moon is Back to the Future.
The Supreme Court, the press seems to think, is leaning towards birthright citizenship, even for children born to transient people in the U.S. illegally. “It turns out that the Constitution is a suicide pact, after all,” Powerline’s Bill Glahn writes in a post headlined “Birth Tourism.” Glahn does the math and observes:
And the birth tourists don’t even have to live here. They can vote absentee for life from overseas. And they get to pick which state to vote “from.” And I can guarantee you, given the nations of origin, none of those absentee votes are coming back marked “Republican.”
The Washington Post suggests in an editorial that the Court could take a middle path on birthright citizenship:
The first path is a sweeping constitutional ruling that the 14th Amendment of 1868 requires automatic citizenship for anyone born to immigrants in the country illegally, for now and all time. The second is a narrower ruling that blocks Trump’s unilateral effort to rewrite U.S. citizenship rules but leaves the door cracked for Congress to legislate on the subject in the future.
The Manhattan Institute’s Ilya Shapiro writes in the New York Post that the issue is not going to go away:
But we could end up with a splintered decision, with plenty of concurrences on the finer points of ratification debates, precedent — especially Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case granting citizenship to the children of noncitizen permanent residents — and statutory interpretation.
President Trump won’t like that at all, but it could be a winning issue for Republicans in the midterms, energizing not just the base but those many independents for whom immigration is a decisive issue.
Guess which Justice stood out yesterday? Of course, it was KBJ. I positively pant for her dazzling obiter dicta. What other Justice would compare birthright citizenship to losing your wallet in Japan? Brilliant! PJ Media’s Matt Margolis spotlights the Justice in a post subtly headlined “This Might Be the DUMBEST Argument Justice Jackson Has Ever Made.”
Meanwhile, Hot Air’s David Strom steps into the arena with a post headlined “Ketanji Brown Jackson Is Not the Idiot You Think She Is.” Well, you just don’t get KBJ:
A lot of people have been noticing that even her liberal colleagues are exasperated with Jackson, who speaks by far the most in oral arguments, and often seems to make absurd and self-contradictory arguments. …
Given how stupid this LOOKS, how could I argue that it is not stupid in fact?
Insert Critical Theory, or Critical Legal Theory in this case, which is a subset of CT, just like Queer Theory and CRT. All of them assert that words and, in particular, the law, are all about power structures. The current legal system is designed to preserve the power of the ruling elite, or white supremacy, or colonialism, or some form of oppression or another.
George Washington University Law Professor and Fox Contributor Jonathan Turley addresses Justice Jackson’s “narrow view” of the First Amendment.
I’ll Believe It When I See It. The Senate passed by voice a bill to fund most of DHS. The House will vote when it returns from the Easter holiday.
No Trouble Believing This. James Carville says that after midterms, the Dems will “go after” President Trump and his “stupid, jack— kids.” Karl Rove tips us to the midterm races to watch—the ones that will guide Dem presidential hopefuls as to how far left to go.
There’s one country the International Criminal Court isn’t messing with. It’s Iran. “The ICC’s silence reveals its politicization and the urgent need for tougher American sanctions,” says a WSJ op-ed.
“Anti-Trump catastrophism is the real menace to the West,” writes Brendan O’Neill in Spiked Online. O’Neill finds the elite’s dream of an American defeat in Iran scares me far more than Trump’s premature claims of victory.
Teflon Hair Gel? “Gavin Newsom’s Empire of Fraud” in City Journal reports that California has lost at least $180 billion to fraud, according to officials and experts.
What’s missing in the presidential libraries of former President Obama and President Trump? Books.
Be good. It’s Maundy Thursday!
