1. In his comment to last night’s post about the gutter-level bickering during the testimony of AG Pam Bondi before a House committee, Chris Marschner wrote in part,

” …the spectacle that occurred is a mere reflection of the electorate. We are rapidly devolving as a society into an literal Idiocracy. Our college students [arre] unable to read texts and must rely on videos to gain any limited understanding. We have others who only want to believe their lived truth which has been distorted by others who told them what to believe. It is no wonder that the spectacle in Congress will be viewed favorably by some factions on each side. We will not regain decorum until both sides are held to account. I don’t recommend anyone hold their breath for that to occur any time soon.”

My only cavil is that our elected officials are not supposed to reflect the worst impulses and habits for the electorate, but rather serve as role models for the public. Until very recently, members of Congress upheld that standard. We might disagree regarding who was the unethical member who decisively unraveled that tradition beyond repair: my nominee is former Speaker and lifetime Ethics Villain Nancy Pelosi, who crossed the line by ostentatiously tearing up her copy of President Trump’s State of the Union message in 2020. Today the House’s Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is the Ethics Villain. He could tell his minions to mind their manners and decorum, but he hasn’t, obviously.

2. Happy Birthday, Abe. Here’s a quote to remember:

“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

That was Abe in February 27, 1860 in his Cooper Union Address.

In a past Lincoln’s Birthday post, I wrote, “February 12 is the birthday of America’s most brilliant, bold and eloquent leader, Abraham Lincoln, born this day in 1809. You would hardly know it from the apathy of most of the news media, which is happy in its laziness to defer any honor of the man who saved the Union and ended slavery to “President’s Day,” which is still officially a celebration of George Washington’s birth. No slight against George, but Abe deserves better from us. So Happy Birthday, Abe. The nation can never repay its debt to you, but it can make itself better by striving to meet the aspirations you set for us.”

3. Speaking of civility and role models, J.D. Vance was criticized by George Will yesterday, as the NeverTrump scold wrote,” JD Vance vies for the gold medal in coarseness and flippancy” because Vance used the term “dipshit.” I’m tempted to say George needs to get out more, but I’m pretty sure this is just another example of his decade long tantrum over an unmannerly, low-class vulgarian being elected President who would never have been accepted by his elite classmates at Princeton and Oxford. “Dipshit” not only wouldn’t win a gold today, it wouldn’t get Vance into the semi-finals. Democrats were openly calling the President of the United States a “motherfucker” in his first term, and George didn’t seem to mind that. “Dipshit” seems almost quaint now. It’s unfortunate for the future of civil discourse, but that horse has not only left the barn, it has sired colts. Ann Althouse, who goes off on tangents even more often than I do, dredged up a list of insults from the 17th and 19th centuries to stand in for “dipshit,” among them nincompoop (which Ann notes also alludes to excrement, like “dipshit”), jack-daw, ninnihammer, coxcomb, slender-wit, shallowbrain, paper-skul, simpleton, wiseaker, blockhead, gump-head, mutton-head, blabber, and dogbane.

4. The Axis is gloating over the Justice Department’s failure to be able to prosecute the six dipshit Democrats who cleverly suggested that the military should defy President Trump by disobeying illegal orders when no illegal orders had been given. “Grand Jury Rebuffs Justice Dept. Attempt to Indict 6 Democrats in Congress The rejection was a remarkable rebuke, suggesting that ordinary citizens did not believe that the lawmakers had committed any crimes,” wrote the Times, as objective as usual. Ethics Alarms wrote about the despicable stunt here. Trying to prosecute the Democrats for the obnoxious video was, of course, an over-reaction, but the fact that the effort was rejected doesn’t prove anything, and it certainly doesn’t exonerate the six, especial Mark Kelley, who is still officially a military officer and whose sort-of effort to incite revolt in the ranks was especially revolting. That a civilian grand jury wouldn’t grasp exactly what the implications of the Democrats’ message in the video was is hardly surprising: the whole topic of disobeying illegal orders is infected with hypocrisy and dishonesty, as various “war crimes” trial have shown. So yeah, the stunt “worked,” and the Democrats got away with it by narrowly walking the line between deceit and incitement, and laying a trap that Trump rushed into. What an achievement.

5, Calling the Supreme Court! Calling the Supreme Court! A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld the administration’s interpretation of the government’s power to systematically detain illegal immigrants targeted for deportation whether they have criminal records or not and despite their successfully avoiding deportation for may years. Two federal district court judges in Texas, however, opine that the 2-1 decision may still leave grounds for granting immigrants’ release on a “common law citizenship” theory.

“This conclusion is not changed by the Fifth Circuit’s recent decision,” claimed Judge Kathleen Cardone, an El Paso based appointee of George W. Bush. Judge David Briones, a Clinton appointee, said. “The Court reiterates its original holding that noncitizens who have ‘established connections’ in the United States by virtue of living in the country for a substantial period acquire a liberty interest in being free from government detention without due process of law.” A Justice Department official reacted by saying that there are many rogue judges who continue to make results-oriented decisions to suit their personal agendas. Seeking to flush out such potential allies, lawyers for illegal immigrants have been filing habeas petitions to overturn what they say is illegal detention without the opportunity for bail….which would allow them to hide some more.

The “common law citizenship” concept is creative, but historical and legal fantasy. At the time of the common law there were no immigration laws. The analogy between marriage, where it makes legal and practical sense to regard as legally married a couple that has resided together and held themselves out to the community as married, and citizenship, where an individual has been in perpetual violation of the law since arriving here and derived benefits from doing so, is contrived at best. The sooner SCOTUS gets a case that raises the question and rejects it emphatically (with asinine, non-legal dissents from Justices Sotomayor and Jackson of course) the better.

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Post script: WordPress’s bot thinks I should tag this post “Food.”