Clippings

Perusing the news this morning — a bad habit I just can’t kick — a couple of items caught my attention. Both are — dare I say it? — hopeful.

Business Progressivism Redux?

Writing in the Financial Times, Mr. James Fontella-Khan discusses New York Mayor Mamdani’s “pro-business push.” No, you are not hallucinating, nor am I. The businesses His Honor seeks to help, through the good offices of Lina Khan, leader of the NYC Economic Development Corporation, are small ones — mom and pop operations. Under a new program called Open, the objective is to “slash red tape and increase support for small business.” My law school classmate Phil Howard, who has been banging the overregulation drum for over 30 years, must have fainted when he heard the news. Whatever other bones you or I may have to pick with Mayor Mamdami, this looks for all the world like progress. With a little more time and experience, His Honor may move into “business progressive” territory. I can dream, can’t I?

Justice Gorsuch Restates the Obvious — Thank God!

In a recent interview, Justice Neil Gorsuch expressed the obvious truth that the United States was not founded on “one race or one religion.” Obvious, that is, to anyone who has read and understands our history and Constitution. This is, sad to say, a higher bar than it should be. His Honor’s remarks were in response to the recent writings of Monsignor J. D. Vance, who does not appear to have done the reading. Maybe he skipped Con Law at Yale.

Justice Gorsuch made further blinding statements of the obvious in the interview:

We have a First Amendment for crying out loud. No established religion, everybody has a freedom of religion, everybody has the freedom of speech, we are all equal under law…Now, you can not agree with those ideas, fair enough…Then we have a problem. But those three ideas are something all of us can unite behind.

Amen to that. A saving grace of the Federalist Society remake of the federal courts is that many of those placed in judicial office under the You Know Who administration were well educated and principled, at least enough to prevent the worst excesses of the clown show. I know before hitting the publish button that I will get flamed for impliedly including Gorsuch among them but, according to Coke’s treatise, you gotta work with what you got.

I am hoping against hope that this interview is a penitential act by His Honor for the Presidential immunity decision. The test of contrition will come when Vance refuses to certify his own defeat in the 2028 Presidential election (we know Al Gore and he’s no Al Gore). Until then, I remain thankful for small blessings and hoping against hope.

Coda

That’s all for now dear reader. I will now return to thinking about third phase of life, AI, and the structure of government after You Know Who. You are spared for now. Count your blessings.