The Outsider Perspective Issue 479 | The Beltway Outsiders

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Good Friday Morning! Except to turkeys. These birds have one object in mind: attack anything in front of them, or that they believe is in their way. I’m fine eating them for Thanksgiving, or any other time of the year, purely out of spite.

These feelings came up this week as I watched a viral story about a poor UPS driver who was chased through an entire neighborhood while trying to deliver packages, with turkeys threatening to attack him, enter his truck, and more. You have to feel for the guy, as the story reports:

The driver runs back to his truck to grab another package, yelling at the turkeys to “back up.”

“Jesus Christ. I’m 40-years-old, I can’t be dealing with this,” the driver says, before running off to make his delivery — with the turkeys in hot pursuit.

Jaffee said the turkeys are known to be neighborhood annoyances, often chasing cars and blocking traffic. She said it was the first time she has seen the birds chase after a person on foot.

The video itself is hilarious. But I do feel for the guy, having been chased by a few turkeys in my day. Fry them up or smoke them, that’s the purpose of a turkey.

Speaking of cooked turkeys, I’m going to cover the arrest of the disgraced Prince Andrew and how the inherent failures of the British system, especially when compared to the U.S. system, stand out in this moment – links to follow.

Quick Hits:

Is Justice Alito going to retire? Over the last few days, there’s been a flurry of reports that he will retire at the end of this term, which would allow Trump to replace him before the midterms. The thinking goes that this is the last shot for a few years before Democrats retake the House, and possibly the Senate (TBD on estimates here – we don’t have candidates set). Damon Root at Reason wrote a good piece sifting through the rumors and stories. I tend to believe he will retire, but I also thought this would happen last year, with Alito walking, and this year with Thomas. I was wrong on both counts. In purely political terms, it makes sense. But it’s also up to him.
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Where you can find me this week

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California Dem Ruins Innocent Men’s Lives With No Accountability – Conservative Institute

The Democrats Flew to Munich to Rescue American Foreign Policy. They Needed Rescuing Themselves. – Conservative Institute

The Democrats Who Champion Black Women Just Tried to Sideline One – Conservative Institute

Britain Arrested a Prince. America Built a System So It Wouldn’t Have To.

The last time Britain put its hands on its own royalty, the year was 1646. Charles I was in custody. Three years later, he was dead. Now comes Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, arrested on February 19, 2026, on suspicion of misconduct in public office — and we’re getting a real-time comparison between the U.S. and U.K. systems.

A system built to avoid rupture is a system built to avoid accountability. America went a different direction: elections, term limits, impeachment, and criminal liability for the powerful. It’s noisier. It’s also better.

The disgraced Andrew — stripped of his HRH title, no longer a working royal — was arrested at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, held, and released “under investigation.” The probe is tied to claims that Andrew shared confidential materials from his public role with Jeffrey Epstein. Like most things with Epstein, we’ll see what sticks, but there’s enough smoke with Andrew to make some broad assumptions.

Misconduct in public office is a common-law offense in England and Wales — no statute of limitations applies. The Crown Prosecution Service lists a maximum of life imprisonment, though long sentences in such cases are rare. What will keep him up at night is that alleged conduct from decades ago can still land someone in a courtroom.

The U.S. answer to “how do you restrain the executive?” starts with turnover. The 22nd Amendment caps a president at two terms. You don’t have to depose an overstaying monarch. You wait four years. Even before the 22nd Amendment, the political process and elections provided cover.

But when waiting isn’t enough, there’s impeachment. We’ve had a few presidents impeached. None of this required a civil war.

Nixon is a clean example. A formal inquiry, a public record, a resignation — and then criminal exposure afterward, because the Constitution is explicit: impeachment penalties are limited, but they don’t bar criminal charges. The system created a lawful exit and kept the chance of prosecution alive. Nobody in the American system carries a permanent legal exemption.

Strip out the churn — the term limits, the impeachment mechanism, the equal criminal exposure — and you don’t get a calmer republic. You likely get a class of people who learn that the rules don’t apply to them. Looking at Andrew’s behavior over the decades, there’s little reason to believe he’d ever be touched.

The problem in Britain runs deeper than one arrest. Prosecutions are brought in the name of the Crown. The reigning monarch, by longstanding doctrine, cannot be sued or prosecuted. That’s baked into the system’s design.

Similar protections have crept into royal finances, royal estates, and the oversight bodies meant to police them. The public sees a different rulebook for the titled.

So when the machinery actually turned on a royal, it is big news.

For Americans picturing a polite talk in a palace drawing room: that’s not what happened. According to The Sun, Andrew was photographed, swabbed for DNA, and run through standard custody steps — treated like any other suspect. Shockingly, he was treated somewhat like a commoner. It’s hard to tell what the U.K. would have done because one arrest in four centuries isn’t a track record.

Something I didn’t know: Andrew is still in the line of succession — behind William and his children, but not removed. Only an Act of Parliament can change that. Britain has no set procedure for removal, outside abdication, because it was never designed to face it.

The U.K.’s track record for holding the top accountable isn’t prosecution. Its removal is often dramatic. James II didn’t stand trial for his abuses; he fled the country in 1688 during the Glorious Revolution, the crisis that produced the English Bill of Rights. Parliament wrote the rules after the fact. That’s not a country that prevents abuse, but one that cleans up after it.

Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 — but that wasn’t legal accountability. It was elite consensus enforced through family, theChurch, and political pressure. He sailed off to the Bahamas: no courtroom, no charges, no public record of what happened and why. Accountability by social deal is a managed exit.

Britain changes the person or rewrites the settlement. America disciplines the official and keeps the structure intact. We’re going to learn, for the first time in centuries, exactly how the U.K. will deal with this. I get that the expectations are for a straightforward investigation process, but that’s an American expectation – not a British reality.

When the Founders built the American system, they built something. The British system, through common law and the rest, is like a living organism that morphs over time. That’s why the U.K.’s rights are collapsing; people don’t have written rights. The British Constitution is a theory, not a reality.

Andrew isn’t guilty of anything yet. He may never be charged. The case may go nowhere. But Britain is treating it as a landmark for a reason — it’s the first arrest like this since the age of regicide.

Britain learned the wrong lesson from 1646 if “never again” meant “never accountable.” Whatever the result for Andrew is here, that’s the lesson he had from his family and history. America’s founders learned a better one: build exits before you need them, or the exit will look like a guillotine.

Furthermore, the American system is written and defined. I can’t tell you how this will go for Andrew, because there’s no precedent. Sure, there are laws and such. But this is also a literal royal – part of the monarchy. And the U.K. is on the edge of collapse these days, with everyone questioning the sustainability of a system that is little defined or written down.

Be thankful for a written, defined, and planned American system. Having a process is better than whatever is about to go down in England. We’re not perfect, but we’re better than the Andrew mess.

Quick Hits:

Where you can find me this week

Britain Arrested a Prince. America Built a System So It Wouldn’t Have To.

Links of the week

X/Twitter Thread(s) of the week

Satire of the week

Thanks for reading!