A court can be a beautiful thing. There, mere assertion must stop, and the question is asked, “Where’s the proof?” On Fox News and elsewhere, Rudy Giuliani can say all he wants about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — the mother and daughter who were election workers in Fulton County, Ga. He can defame them six ways to Sunday. He said, for example, that the women were “passing around USB ports like they were vials of heroin or cocaine.” But when he has to face the women in court: He’s got nothing. He is exposed. Fox News can broadcast all sorts of nonsense about Dominion Voting Systems. But when the Fox folk have to go to court: Whaddathey got? They gotta pay up — settle before trial ($787.5 million).

Here is an Associated Press report from last Wednesday: “Conservative group tells judge it has no evidence to back its claims of Georgia ballot stuffing.” Well, blow me down. The report says that “True the Vote’s assertions were relied upon heavily for ‘2000 Mules,’ a widely debunked film by conservative pundit and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza.” And so on and so forth.

President Trump and his people filed more than 60 lawsuits after the 2020 election, alleging fraud. They got nowhere — because they had no evidence whatsoever.

A courtroom can be a great and clarifying thing. It’s where the rubber hits the road. Bluster and lies can get you only so far.

Last month, Walter Olson, of the Cato Institute, had an observation:

I am grateful for our system of checks and balances — for the separation of powers. For an independent judiciary. That is the main point of conservatism, in America: to preserve the Founding, to defend our system.

(I have a whole speech on this subject, if you’re interested. I have it even if you’re not.)

• According to some people, freedom is indivisible. It is not meant merely for Smith; it’s meant for Jones, too. Oleksandra Matviichuk has a lot to do. She is Ukrainian. She is a human-rights lawyer who is the executive director of the Center for Civil Liberties, in Kyiv. The center was a co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. I spoke to Matviichuk days before the prize was announced. For that interview, go here.

A few weeks ago, she posted this:

Oleksandra Matviichuk is one of the most impressive and admirable people I have met.

• “What happened to her husband?” Donald Trump asked. He was speaking to one of his rallies in South Carolina. And he was referring to Nikki Haley’s husband, Michael. “Where is he? He’s gone. He knew. He knew.” Knew what? Who knows?

In point of fact, as Nikki Haley later pointed out, Michael is deployed to Djibouti, serving in the South Carolina National Guard. Trump subsequently wrote on his “Truth Social” platform, “I think he should come back home to help save her dying campaign.” I think that Republican voters should decline to nominate this man for president — for a third time.

You know how Trumpers and anti-anti-Trumpers like to say “binary choice”? “It’s a binary choice!” they yelled at some of us, during the 2016 and 2020 general elections. Well, Republicans have a binary choice now: Trump or Haley. They are very different people — especially on the issue of Ukraine, NATO, and world affairs at large.

Republicans don’t have to nominate Trump for a third time, you know. They have a choice — a choice, not an echo (as someone said 60 years ago) (exactly 60 years ago).

• Speaking of the mid 20th century — guess who’s back? Those with a sense of conservative-movement history will marvel:

And you have to love that “Patriots” bit at the end. “See you there, Patriots!” There is almost no concept more abused than patriotism.

• Above, I quoted Walter Olson, of the Cato Institute. Scott Lincicome works there as well. The other day, he said,

Unless, let me point out, you’re yelling.

(Donald Trump did not invent all-caps social-media posts. Well, I don’t know about social media. But I once worked with a guy in the ’90s who would do all-caps e-mails, or at least all-caps sentences, in e-mails. It meant he was yelling. Which he was prone to.)

• A little sports?

I’m with the Iowa guy. I had never heard that word either.

• I want to tip every hat I can find to Parker Byrd, of East Carolina University:

• Madeline Grant is a funny, funny writer. She is a columnist and parliamentary sketchwriter for the Telegraph (in London). I loved this:

• Did you see this ad? I thought it was very skillfully made.

• The other day, I was looking at tweets and thought of something that Mike Potemra said. (He was a friend and colleague. We met when we were in grad school.) About ten years ago, when “comments sections” were fairly new, he said, “I have come up with a new definition of depression: a thousand commenters in your head.”

I say to one and all (including me): Look after your health!

• Wilhelmenia Fernandez, the American soprano, has died. The subheading of her obit in the New York Times reads, “A soprano who rose from South Philadelphia to the opera houses of Europe, she was memorably seen and heard in a 1981 film considered a paragon of cinematic style.” That film was Diva, directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. A lot of people in my little university town saw it — especially those interested in French culture, and in music. I suppose I was a junior in high school at the time. For me, Diva marks an era.

“Memory Lane is my least favorite street,” I often say. Still, there are some pleasant houses and such on it.

• My fellow Michiganders, in particular, will get a kick out of this — well, not out of the news that William Post has died. But bear with me. He “helped create Pop-Tarts,” as the Times obit says. He was “a bakery manager in Michigan” who “worked with Kellogg’s to create the snack in 1964.”

A man named Post worked for Kellogg’s. Get it? The irony? (Kellogg’s and the Post company were great rivals in Battle Creek, the Cereal Capital of the World.)

• Look at this big ol’ pigeon, y’all — huge. See the man walking on the right, for contrast?

It may be a dove of peace. What the difference is between a dove and a pigeon, I’m not sure. I was absent that day, as my grandmother would say. In any case, that impressive ornithological artwork is found on the Montgomery campus of Troy University, in Alabama.

And where there’s a Troy, you need a Trojan — which you got:

See these wonderful blooms? The picture is lousy — but I was heartened by the blooms:

Last, I want to show you some hats, in a gift shop:

The Montgomery Biscuits are the Double-A team of the Tampa Bay Rays. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the sports nickname “Biscuits.” And I am hungry.

Thank you for joining me, everyone — Alabamians and non-Alabamians, Michiganders and non-Michiganders, alike.

If you would like to receive Impromptus by e-mail — links to new columns — write to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com.