Ted Cruz hinted the other day that he might be open to a Supreme Court nomination from Donald Trump, saying: “What I will say is that history is long and can take unexpected paths.” Today, some reports are making Cruz’s positive position sound even more definitive, although folks close to Cruz say nothing has changed. The Washington Examiner today reports:

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has informed Trump transition insiders that he would accept the nomination to take the place of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, potentially cementing the power of the court’s conservative wing for decades, according to sources.

But another source close to Cruz said that while he is eager to help the new administration, he hasn’t committed to any new position.

Cruz hinted at his openness to joining the court Friday at a legal conference.

“Ted Cruz would absolutely accept it if offered a seat on the court,” said a transition insider.

What gives me slightly more confidence than the word of a “transition insider” are these tweets from Phil Kerpen and Sean Davis, two people I consider reliable:

Cruz world source tells me Cruz has told Trump he will accept Supreme Court seat if offered.

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 20, 2016

same https://t.co/MftHNiEjWg

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 20, 2016

Those tweets have me willing to believe Cruz would accept it if offered. But as to whether Trump would offer it, let’s just say I am still . . . skeptical. Trump has so far sought to select loyalists, in keeping with his longstanding rule of rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies. While he has had aides give lip service to the idea of considering his critics for this post or that one, these appear to be nothing more than empty (if not entirely unwelcome) gestures towards reconciliation.

Still, Trump should consider actually offering the spot to Cruz. Perhaps no other single move could do as much to heal the rift in the Republican Party. I feel confident that I speak for many other admirers of Ted Cruz — people who supported Cruz during the primary, and strongly opposed Trump — that nominating Cruz would be a gesture that might actually bring the party together.

And it would be a fantastic move for fans of the Constitution and limited government. Cruz is 45 years old and absolutely unwavering. He would be there for decades, and could help shape the Court’s jurisprudence in ways that would benefit the country in countless ways.

Yeah, I’m still pretty sure it will never happen. But I’ve given up predicting when it comes to Trump — and man, I’d love to be proved wrong on this one.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

I always assumed the next President would not be sleeping in the same bed with the President’s spouse. But this is not exactly what I had in mind.

Future First Lady Melania Trump and son Barron will not be moving to the White House after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, The Post has learned.

The president-elect’s 46-year-old wife and their 10-year-old son are staying put at the family’s glitzy Trump Tower penthouse so that Barron can continue attending his Upper West Side private school, sources told The Post.

“Melania is extremely close to Barron, and they have become closer during the campaign,” said a source close to Trump’s transition team. “The campaign has been difficult for Barron, and she is really hoping to keep disruption to a minimum.”

Another source said Melania Trump will travel to the White House as needed, but that her primary focus is on Barron.

First, the always-important caveat: anonymous “sources” could be wrong.

If they’re right, then I’m not sure what to make of this — but it’s pretty odd to imagine a President living in the White House while his wife and son live in New York City.

I’m not going to offer any criticism of this. I tend to think people’s family lives are their own business — even if it’s the President of the United States. I assume Melania is doing what she thinks is best for her son.

But I’ll admit to being surprised. The story does say the situation could change at the end of the school year, but it might not.

It also means that the disruption to residents and tourists in the area of Trump Tower will continue for the foreseeable future.

“That building is going to become the White House of New York,” said Jim Reese, a former Delta Force commander and president of TigerSwan, a global security company based in North Carolina.

“The Secret Service is going to have to keep that whole area cordoned off so that some wacko can’t get close and detonate a car bomb.”

Strict security measures around Trump Tower will remain in place, with two of the five lanes on Fifth Avenue between West 56th and 57th streets closed because of barriers, said officials at a joint NYPD, Secret Service and City Hall news conference Friday.

Following the presidential election, the area around Trump Tower has turned into a traffic nightmare, with West 56th Street closed to traffic between Fifth and Madison avenues, and shoppers having to go through a security cordon and subject to bag checks.

Well, there you have it.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

[guest post by Dana]

This is pretty good from SNL:

I read a telling comment about the skit which shows why there can never be any honest examination by bubble-dwellers about their perceptions of reality. After all, in their smug and blinkered bubble, they always get their way, they are always right about issues, they are always righteous in their causes, and most importantly, they are always better than everyone else:

Idiot politicians make for the best comedy . . .
Obama was far too intelligent , measured and composed .

Keep it up, silly people, this willful ignorance and denial is precisely why Trump is now the President-elect.

–Dana

My life changed for the better about three years ago, when I first ran across Tom Woods. I have read and enjoyed several of his books, including Meltdown (which explained that the 2008 financial crisis resulted from too much regulation), The Politically Incorrect Guide to History (the title speaks for itself), and my favorite: Rollback (a detailed broadside against big government).

My very favorite Tom Woods video is Interview With a Zombie, in which Tom discusses the concept of state nullification of federal laws with a zombie who repeatedly calls him a racist and a Neoconfederate for advocating this concept, which was pushed by such founding fathers as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The video is very funny as well as informative, and if you have not seen it before, it’s worth your time.

I love that video, and so did my kids. When I got a signed copy of Nullification in the mail, my son held it up and said “BOOOOK.” Watch the video and it will make sense.

Tom has an educational project called Liberty Classroom, which I first told you about in this post in April 2014. The site teaches real history and economics from a liberty perspective, taught by Tom and his colleagues. Here is a sample of one of the classes on Constitutional Law taught by Brion McClanahan, author of such books as The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution and 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America: And Four Who Tried to Save Her.

During Black Friday, Tom is running a huge discount at Liberty Classroom. After almost two years of paying for an annual subscription, I took the leap last November during the 2015 Black Friday sale, and became a lifetime member with Tom’s “Master Membership.” I have listened to hundreds and hundreds of the lectures available under such a membership. I counted them up and I have listened to some 450 lectures by Woods and his colleagues. No joke.

If you’re interested in joining Liberty Classroom, don’t do it yet. Steep, steep discounts are available for the four days beginning Black Friday, November 29. On that day, and throughout the Black Friday weekend, I’ll also be offering incentives and discounts to people who join Liberty Classroom through my affiliate link. That’s in addition to the discounts offered by Tom. You can get the chance to write guest posts here, or commission posts by me on a topic of your choice. And if you get a membership, you’ll be entered in a contest to win a free year of Amazon Prime from me.

I’ll have much more to say about Liberty Classroom in coming days. One of my favorite classes is a History of Economic Thought course taught by Bob Murphy, who regular readers will recognize as the author of a book about Mises’s Human Action that I started to summarize in several posts here.

He is also the zombie in the video above.

Full details concerning the incentives I am offering and the Amazon Prime contest can be read at this page.