Last fall, I lamented the sad state of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. The concierge lounge was closed, and there was no room service. As I arrived for the 2022 Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention, I had hoped that the pandemic cuts would be restored. No such luck. The concierge lounge is still closed. I’m […]

Magnus was told on Wednesday by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that he should either resign or be dismissed and, so far, the CBP chief has refused to step down, according to the four people. Some executive assistant commissioners at CBP have indicated they would leave the agency if Magnus does not resign, according to […]

Michigan voters voted 56.7% to 43.3% (with >95% of votes in, see N.Y. Times) to enact a state constitutional right to reproductive freedom, which would cover abortion rights; California and Vermont voters supported the same, but those states already broadly allow abortions. Voters in Kentucky (where abortion is generally illegal) appear to have rejected (52.4% […]

As many have pointed out, Ron DeSantis won the Florida Governor’s race in 2018 in a squeaker, 49.6%-49.2%, and in 2022 in a blowout, 59.4%-40%. What’s your sense, based on your knowledge of your fellow Floridians, of why this happened? Note that I’m not asking here whether DeSantis is in reality a good governor, or […]

We’re happy with our Twitter feed, so we have no plans to switch to Mastodon. At the same time, if some readers are moving there, we’d be happy to set up a Mastodon feed as well. The more ways people can read us, the better. Our Twitter and Facebook feeds, however, are automatically delivered from […]

The word comes from “mastodont,” which the Oxford English Dictionary tells us comes from French mastodonte (Cuvier 1806, in Ann. du muséum d’hist. nat. de Paris8 270) < masto- + -odonte, with reference to the nipple-like tubercles present in pairs on the crowns of the molar teeth. Perhaps those nipple-like objects came from Amazons, < Latin Amazon, < Greek Ἀμαζών, -όνα; explained by the […]

From Paul Mirengoff (Ringside at the Reckoning): What would Donald Trump say about a party leader who led his party to two successive electoral defeats and, in a third election cycle, caused his party to suffer more disappointment? We don’t have to guess. Trump accused Mitt Romney of “choking” his bid for the presidency. Romney […]

The Des Moines Register reports that the state constitutional amendment is winning 66%-34% with about 87% of the vote counted. The text will read, The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any […]