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Afternoon Links: Space Junk, Tom Price’s Plane Problem, and a Tweeting Justice

By Jim Swift

Space comes to Wisconsin. I‘m a huge fan of the website Atlas Obscura. Every neat place I’ve wanted to visit (especially abandoned things) is on there, and many places I’ve visited have been because of their site. Part of my bucket list is derived from there, too. Their newsletter is a welcome daily break from the voluntary hell that is political Twitter. This week, they have a look at what happened when remnants of the Sputnik IV satellite came back to earth. It landed in the land of cheese, the Packers, Steve Hayes, and John McCormack: Wisconsin. Manitowoc, to be precise:

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What Gintner said about the cops and the garbage truck is what happened. Two police officers, Marvin Bauch and Ronald Rusboldt, found the object in the middle of the street and ignored it at first. When they came back later, they noticed it was too hot to touch and kicked it aside. As news reports of the craft’s re-entry came about, the police went back to the fragment. Eventually, that fragment made its way into the hands of the Smithsonian, which later returned it to the Russians (somewhat against the will of the Russians, “who called it a circus trick” according to Wisconsin Public Radio.) A replica of the fragment sits in Rahr-West today.

If you’re into these sorts of… obscure stories, go sign up for their newsletters. And thank me later.

I believe . . . At the New York Times, Bret Stephens has a fantastic column on the Valerie Plame kerfuffle, styled as an homage to the late Michael Kelly’s 1998 Washington Post essay. It’s biting:

I believed then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he said, at a New York breakfast I attended in 2010, that anti-Semitism is mostly unknown in his country. I believe that the Islamic Republic is welcoming toward its Jews, as evidenced by the one seat it reserves in its Parliament for a Jew. I believe there’s nothing anti-Semitic in calling for Israel to be wiped off the map. I believe Iranian leaders are only interested in historical scholarship and artistic freedom when they hosted a conference for Holocaust deniers or supported Holocaust cartoon contests. I believe a Jewish community in Iran that has experienced mass emigration since the Iranian revolution is happy with its political masters. I believed there was nothing amiss with former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel remarking in 2006 that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people” on Capitol Hill. I believe the Jewish lobby must be uniquely intimidating to American lawmakers, unlike, say, the National Rifle Association or the agriculture lobby.

This time tomorrow . . . What will we know? Will Tom Price be watching an in-flight movie show on a non-commercial flight? President Trump is “not happy” with the reports of the HHS secretary’s private plane use, and, the critics aren’t wrong . . . It does look pretty bad. Over at HotAir, Allahpundit questions whether Trump is ready to throw Price under the bus. And it has been a while since we’ve had a good Friday night news dump. And with the death of Graham-Cassady, the window to repeal & replace Obamacare will nearly be shut (since zero Democrats are going to help McConnell get the 60 votes he’ll need when reconciliation is no longer an option.)

Earlier this week, Allah writes, Rep. Trey Gowdy “sent Price a letter asking him to account for all jet travel by HHS employees as part of the Oversight Committee’s wider probe into the administration’s transportation habits.” If tomorrow is Tom Price’s reality television firing, the question is: who’d replace him? Who’d want to?

Trump to tap Twitter’s favorite judge for appellate court spot. Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett is reportedly going to be appointed by President Trump to the fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the San Antonio Express News reports. Willett is popular on Twitter, and entertaining to boot. Here’s a bit about Willett’s life story:

Willett often praises his mother, who supported the family by waiting tables at a truck stop after his father died when Willett was 6 years old. The widow waited tables at a truck struck. Willett graduated from Baylor University, then received his law degree and a master’s degree in political science from Duke.

It’s unclear whether the confirmation of appointment would mean an end to the good justice’s Twitter habit.

Kill the Jones Act, cont’d. Frequent TWS contributor Ike Brannon has a strong post at CATO’s blog on the dubious defenses of the Jones Act, that’s well worth your time. The Jones Act hasn’t been in the public eye very much at all over the years, and perhaps the one good thing to come of Trump’s delayed announcement of the Jones Act waiver for Puerto Rico is that it got people I know back home in Cleveland who aren’t political obsessives asking: why do we have this law? Here’s Ike:

The Jones Act survives because it’s hard for people to see what it costs them. As long as constituents aren’t complaining, politicians are happy with the status quo—especially since shipbuilders will write big checks to anyone willing to protect the Act. The recent relaxation of the Jones Act for Puerto Rico has the potential (albeit slight) to change this calculus, but since it is scheduled to only last for ten days, the residents of this island won’t see how much they could potentially save from not having this burden. And those savings would be immense: In a study I recently did with Russ Kashian, we estimated that U.S. consumers would save billions of dollars if we got rid of the Jones Act. And places like Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska would benefit most of all, since they are overly dependent upon shipping prices. However, as those are only two low population states and a territory with no voting representation, their inconveniences won’t resonate much with Congress.

Puerto Rican statehood is a separate debate entirely, but if Trump’s delay in waiving the Jones Act has my old high school principal talking about the Jones Act on Facebook, perhaps now is the time to act: Kill the Jones Act.

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