President Biden’s press conference

 

I got this one wrong. I didn’t think there would ever be a Biden press conference. But it did indeed take place earlier today, and if you want to watch it, livestream links are here.  As soon as I saw that Stephen Green (a/k/a Vodkapundit) and his colleagues were live-blogging the whole thing, I went to the PJ Media link here.  Start at the bottom and gradually scroll up.  Takes less time and it’s bearable.

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That’s a wrap: RNC

 

Most of you probably watched most or all of the conventions.  Over at PJ Media, several contributors were live-blogging, and Bryan Preston’s closing comments were spot-on:

President Trump closed out the greatest speech of his career and the strongest political convention either party has produced since I have been watching political conventions. 

Both parties faced numerous logistical and structural problems thanks to the COVID pandemic. The Democrats allowed COVID to confine them to crummy Zoom calls, empty speeches in dark and empty rooms, cloying and shaming rhetoric, and a depressing spirit.

The Republicans tore up the script and came up with a better one, that had no time for hacks and grifters. It brought real Americans with real stories forward. It showcased American history and pride. It showed us Fort McHenry. It unabashedly supported citizens, public safety, the possibility and joy of redemption, the agony of loss, the power of unity, and our nation's role in the world. 

The RNC convention could have been blighted by COVID as the Democrats' was. But the parties have a different character. The Democrats sank into the mire because that's who they are. The Republicans rose above it because that's who we are. Democrats want Americans as victims. Republicans want Americans as victors. 

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Census citizenship question

image credit: wprl.org

The Trump administration’s proposed question asks, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” That’s it. 

It’s an important question. In his report “The Census Should Ask About Citizenship to Keep House Representation of Citizens Fair,” Bryan Preston at PJ Media concludes:

The census is at the heart of representation in our republic. The Constitution explicitly connects the census to representation of citizens. Citizenship has been a routine part of the census for most of our national existence, and resuming capturing this data ought not be controversial. Objections to the citizenship question are speculative at best, disingenuous at worst. The citizenship question is only controversial because like nearly everything else in American life, some want to use the census to serve their own political power plays.

I’m no lawyer, but I don't understand why President Trump would need to issue an Executive Order to restore the citizenship question to the census form. The Supreme Court lobbed the issue back to the Commerce Dept. Doesn’t that put the question back on the desk of the Secretary of Commerce? And Trump's administration has precedence on its side.

Here's Amy Howe at the SCOTUS blog:

Although the Trump administration had hoped that the Supreme Court would clear the way for it to include such a question, the justices instead sent the issue back to the Department of Commerce. In a deeply fractured opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices in ruling that the justification that the government offered at the time for including the citizenship question was just a pretext. The decision left open the possibility that the Trump administration could try again to add the citizenship question, but the clock is ticking. . . 

“Pretext” doesn’t seem to square with the history of the census citizenship question that dates back to Thomas Jefferson (see Preston’s full article here). But in any event, if the issue is now back at the Commerce Dept., why doesn’t Secy. Wilbur Ross just restore the question on the census form? Just asking . . .

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