Category Archives: Political Commentary

Obama’s Climate Legacy

Looks like SCOTUS just wrecked it, 5-4. Couldn’t happen to a nicer dictator.

The stay implies that they think the administration is likely to lose on the merits when the case is argued. But this points out the stakes of the election, given that the next president is likely to appoint more than one justice.

[Wednesday-morning update]

Jonathan Adler explains the ruling. (Note: He is more concerned about climate change than I am.)

Washington’s Culture Of Corruption

rots on:

“Anything that gets done by Washington must be done by the civil service. These folks are lifers. You can’t fire them. Because of the abovementioned legislative compromises required, you also can’t push a bill through that will let you fire them. And they — not the president, and not the cabinet secretaries — are the folks who do most of what government does. The president can wave his hands like Jean-Luc Picard and say, ‘Make it so.’ But if they don’t wanna, they ain’t gonna.”

This should be infuriating to anyone who actually believes in democratic governance, but on the other hand, since most political ideas are half-baked, anything that slows them down is probably a good idea.

But what happened in the IRS scandal wasn’t a case of bureaucrats slow-walking ideas they think are dumb. It was, instead, a case of bureaucrats targeting people because of their political views.

Yup.

BTW, it’s not totally impossible to rein in the bureaucracy. The next president would end federal public-employee unions wiht the stroke of a pen.