Saturday's Final Word (Update) – HotAir
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I was cuttin’ the rug down at a place called The Jug with a tab linked to The View …

Ed: This is the Iranian answer to Trump’s trolling over the last couple of days. Big mistake, however. The IRGC deadenders still think they can buffalo Trump into backing down by threatening traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, when all this does is legitimize the next round of destruction that will further demolish the IRGC’s ability to prop itself up. Maybe the Iranian regime will still capitulate in Islamabad, but it looks more like they are trying to hold out to get revenues restarted first, and that just isn’t going to happen. 

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NY Post: The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps fired on at least two ships in the waters near Oman, after Tehran again moved to close the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, according to a report citing a US official — as President Donald Trump accused Iran of trying to “get cute” while warning the regime “can’t blackmail us.”

Two IRGC gunboats approached a tanker about 20 nautical miles northeast of the Gulf country around 1 p.m. local time — and opened fire unprovoked, the tanker’s master reported, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organization.

Audio recordings indicate that two Indian vessels were also forced back out of the strait following the gunfire. One of those ships was an Indian-flagged VLCC supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil, according to an X account that tracks maritime travels. 

The incident prompted India to summon the Iranian ambassador to express its “deep concern” and urge Tehran to immediately restore safe passage for its ship through the vital waterway.

Ed: The IRGC regime remnants apparently want to author a new book titled “How to Lose Friends and Alienate Clients in 60 Days.” India had been an important export partner for the IRGC until now. Meanwhile, Trump is making it clear that we will respond to escalations with more escalations until the regime complies with international law and the terms of the ceasefire. Don’t expect kinetic action until its Wednesday expiration, but if the Iranians don’t cut a deal by that time, look for incremental escalations to get the point across. 

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Ed: If the Iranians did give permission to transit, as the ship claimed, and then fired anyway, that’s perfidy on top of terrorism and piracy. The Indian government had better do more than express “deep concern” over that series of events. That’s a provocation that should result in a serious diplomatic penalty. 

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NY Times: By a 5-to-4 vote along partisan lines, the order halted President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, his signature environmental policy. They acted before any other court had addressed the plan’s lawfulness. The decision consisted of only legal boilerplate, without a word of reasoning.

At the time, the ruling seemed like a curious one-off. But that single paragraph turned out to be a sharp and lasting break. That night marks the birth, many legal experts believe, of the court’s modern “shadow docket,” the secretive track that the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including granting President Trump more than 20 key victories on issues from immigration to agency power.

Since that night a decade ago, the logic behind the Supreme Court’s pivotal 2016 order has remained a mystery. Why did a majority of the justices bypass time-tested procedures and opt for a new way of doing business?

Ed: The Supreme Court still has a left-wing leaker, four years after someone gave the drafts of the Dobbs decision to the media. Maybe that’s the bigger story than the justices adapting to the lawfare that all sides have conducted in relation to executive-branch regulation, and to the overreach of the executive branch as well. Besides …

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Ed: This is all part of the nonsensical claim that SCOTUS has become a right-wing rubber stamp for Trump. The “shadow docket” existed before Trump came along, and as Sarah notes, the Left didn’t complain about it when it benefited their agenda. 

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Brennan Center: Through the 1970s, when a controversial case emerged on the shadow docket, the individual justice assigned to that part of the country took oral argument and issued a signed order explaining his reasoning, usually without the involvement of the other justices.

This process, incidentally, gave rise to one of the Court’s more bizarre stories, when in 1970 two lawyers hiked six miles into the woods to request that Justice William O. Douglas temporarily restrain Portland, Oregon, police from using violent tactics to quell protests. Douglas held an impromptu oral argument and left his decision on a tree stump: application denied. Supreme Court rules now require that all shadow docket applications be submitted to the clerk’s office.

The Court’s treatment of the shadow docket began to evolve in the 1980s when the Court ceased to formally adjourn during the summer. With the Court technically in session at all times, even when the justices are not physically together, they can address sensitive shadow docket cases in unison, instead of in their individual capacities.

Two significant changes followed. First, once the justices began working collectively on the shadow docket, they stopped holding hearings. The reason for this is not altogether clear — there is nothing in law prohibiting oral argument in cases on the shadow docket, even when decided by all nine justices. Second — and this is a more recent change — the justices have begun to issue far more rulings, and more significant rulings, through the shadow docket.

Ed: The “shadow docket” is not new. It did not get created in 2016. It has been around for a long time. And its biggest change came decades ago. The Brennan Center – not exactly a bastion of conservative thought nor judicial restraint – does argue that the nature of the shadow docket changed when Trump’s nominees joined the court, but that may be because Trump’s political opponents ramped up their lawfare against his policies, too. 

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That indicates that this year, with the midterms on the horizon, Trump will not be making his 4th nomination to SCOTUS.

Ed: Both Alito and Thomas are in their seventies, which for SCOTUS justices and senators is basically middle age. I’m not surprised by this, nor would I be all that happy to see justices play politics around their retirement decisions. 

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WSJ: Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, facing potential investigations pushed by President Trump and House Republicans, said she isn’t as wealthy as documents she previously submitted to Congress suggest because there were major accounting errors in her filing. …

An amended filing reviewed by The Wall Street Journal shows the couple’s assets to be just $18,004 to $95,000. The forms don’t require exact values, only broad ranges.

Omar’s husband, former political consultant Tim Mynett, is involved with a variety of businesses. Those include a venture-capital management firm in Washington, D.C., and a winery in Santa Rosa, Calif., her disclosure forms show.

Those businesses had previously been listed as worth between $6 million and $30 million. In the amended filing, they are shown as having no value once liabilities are factored in.

Ed: Does anyone buy this explanation? I don’t care how much I’d trust an accountant; I’d know whether my net worth is in the eight-figure range as opposed to a five-figure range. And with all of the shady business in the Twin Cities and the connections to power that Omar and Mynett have, it seems extremely unlikely that they have less than $100K in assets. This smells badly, and the House Ethics Committee had better take a serious look at this. And maybe the FBI, too. 

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Ed: This claim from Amanpour was stupidity on stilts even without the stolen-valor aspect. Chuck Hagel served as Obama’s Secretary of Defense despite never having been an officer at all; Hagel was a decorated combat veteran –as is Hegseth – who mustered out as a sergeant. Did Amanpour sneer at Hagel’s nomination and confirmation? Did she spend her time with her press badge expecting salutes? Amanpour is an absolute crank, and has always been a crank. This is CNN, though. 

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Scott Johnson at Power Line: I’m marking time until the Star Tribune shares the details of the assault on TPUSA reporter Savanah Hernandez at the Whipple Federal Building this past weekend. … Whipple houses ICE in the Twin Cities. The Ostroushko family — suburban dad Chris, suburban mom DeYanna, and suburban daughter Paige — turned up at Whipple this past weekend to join a protest opposing ICE. They apparently turned on Ms. Hernandez when they detected she was not on their team. …

Now the Ostroushkos contend they were just defending themselves from the fearsome Savanah. “We are absolutely not violent people. In fact, we tend to shy away from it,” Chris Ostroushko told podcast host Brian Shapiro in an interview this week.

Ed: Scott has a video analysis of the assault by the Ostroushkos on Savanah Hernandez, so click through to watch it. There are two main parts to this story, which Scott is covering with his usual tenacity. The first is the assault itself and whether the Ostroushkos get prosecuted for it at some level. Harmeet Dhillon has apparently taken an interest in it as a federal civil-rights case, while radical-Left Hennepin County DA Mary Moriarty will almost certainly drop the charges at some point. The second part is the absolute determination of the Strib to paint the Ostroushkos with sympathy to the point of lying by omission about what they did. Stay tuned on both. Speaking of Harmeet Dhillon …

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Ed: How much of a hit piece is this on Patel? Mark Judge remembers … 

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Ed: Yes, Sarah Fitzpatrick helped spread the Julie Swetnick hoax in 2018 that Michael Avenatti launched as a way to prevent Brett Kavanaugh from getting confirmed to the Supreme Court. Even NBC later backpedaled fast when the hoax got too obvious to pretend otherwise.  Looks like The Atlantic has begun scraping the bottom of the barrel for content these days. 

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Update: Here’s a late entry that we should include …

Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day. The President–and the entire administration–work to apply those moral principles in a messy world.

He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we’ll be in his.

Ed: Amen. 

Editor’s note: If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight. If you’re digging these Final Word posts and want to join the conversation in the comments — and support independent platforms — why not join our VIP Membership program? Choose VIP to support Hot Air and access our premium content, VIP Gold to extend your access to all Townhall Media platforms and participate in this show, or VIP Platinum to get access to even more content and discounts on merchandise. Use the promo code FIGHT to join or to upgrade your existing membership level today, and get 60% off!

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