Category Archives: Law

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Government By Executive

9 Comments

The dangers of it.

I’m as unhappy about it as I am with all the other “national emergencies” that have been declared by other presidents (many of which are still in effect). I notice, though, that (as usual), many people are only about things that all presidents do when Trump does them.

As for why the next D president couldn’t do that, I fully expect (s)he will (and would regardless of the faux “precedent” that Trump is supposedly setting). The only legal way to rein in a president (as opposed to what Obama’s Justice Department was illegally doing to Trump prior to the election, in what the guy who was fired for lying to the FBI is now admitting was an attempted coup) is impeachment. It has been used far too seldom, which is why the president has accumulated too much power.

…constitutional structure aside, why is presidential unilateralism bad? Because our system was designed to make major shifts in government policy difficult, and that’s a good thing because it lowers the stakes of politics. We had experience in 1861 with what happens when a significant part of the country believes that the national government has become arrayed against it, and it’s not an experience we should want to repeat on any scale.

But the Left seems determined to do that, even though we have the guns.

General Science, Law, Science And Society, Space, Space Science, Technology and Society

Save The Far Side!

13 Comments

This seems a little overblown to me, certainly currently.

I agree that it’s a special place in terms of radio silence, and would be a great location for very large radiotelescopes. But I don’t know many people who would want to live there, and never see the home planet. And they could do comm via lasers — no need to pollute the local “air” waves with spurious RF communications.

Business, Economics, Education, Law, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The “Green” “New” Deal

35 Comments

As I noted on Twitter, it’s neither new, or green, and you know these morons aren’t serious about CO2 reduction when they try to shut down nuclear as fast as possible. Mike Shellenberger relates the history of this insanity in Vermont:

[Update a few minutes later]

The ten most insane requirements of it:

It is not hyperbole to contend that GND is likely the most ridiculous and un-American plan that’s ever been presented by an elected official to voters. Not merely because it would necessitate a communist strongman to institute, but also because the societal cost are unfathomable. The risible historic analogies Markey and Ocasio-Cortez rely on, the building of the interstate highway system or moon landing, are nothing are but trifling projects compared to a plan [that] overhauls modernity by voluntarily destroying massive amounts of wealth and technology. That is the GND.

These people are out of their minds. And Markey has always demonstrably been an idiot.

[Update a while later]

[Update a few minutes later]

Pelosi to AOC and Markey: It’s a “suggestion,” of which they’ll receive many. Translation: She’s not as stupid as they are. It’s DOA.

[Late-morning update]

More from Tyler O’Neil.

[Update early afternoon]

The “Green New Deal” represents everything that is wrong with “progressive” environmentalism.

[Update a while later]

[Late-afternoon update]

This is hilarious. It’s OK, Occasional Cortex, we’re laughing at you, not with you.

[Evening update]

The “Green New Deal” FAQ is now available for download, despite the fact that it was “taken down.”

I’m thinking I should come up with some other ideas left on the cutting-room floor. It could be fun. And these people are now officially unable to be parodied.

Education, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Kamala Harris

11 Comments

Roger Simon: I was too easy on her. She’s an awful human being. And yes:

After all all this–although, as most readers know, I favor Trump–I still very much want Schultz to run, and not just for the benefit of Donald. Call me an old timer who is sentimental about the two-party system, but I don’t want to see the Democrats turn into an American version of the Labor Party of Albania with a soupçon of anti-Semitism thrown in, as they now seem hellbent on doing. Even if they careen off a cliff from their left-wing lurch, it’s bad for all of us. And if they don’t, it’s worse.

The one thing we don’t need (nobody does) is socialism–quasi or otherwise. How many more lessons do we have to have? Weren’t the tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of deaths ascribed to that system in China, the Soviet Union and Cambodia enough? There’s nothing remotely like it in human history. But no. Students–indoctrinated in socialism by their professors who pay no attention to what’s happening in front of their noses in Venezuela–are being turned out of our schools by the millions. What that’s going to do to our society in the future, no one knows. But it doesn’t look good.

It’s frightening.

[Update a couple minutes later]

How far left will the Democrats lurch next year?

I hope far enough that they get blown out. Make it 1972 again.