It stems from Ruby Ridge. Which happened during the first Bush administration, but it set the stage for a lot of misconduct in the coming years, from Waco, all the way through the corruption in the Clinton email scandal.
Category Archives: Law
The “Collusion” Narrative
The Fusion GPS testimony shows where it came from.
California
They’re not “misguided” — in fact, they’re doing exactly what the progressives designed them to do. Higher housing prices means more money in the pockets of Angelenos and San Franciscans when they go to sell, high energy prices have a disproportionate impact on the poor, generous welfare “benefits” mean an endless supply of new Democrats and permanent employment for the public-employee unions who actually run the state.
It’s a perfect racket, and one that will continue unless and until the California Republicans get their act together and begin vigorously contesting what has become a one-party state designed to enrich those at the top, beggar the middle class, and keep those on the bottom in permanent penury.
Not clear to me there’s anything that California Republicans (such as they are) can do about it. It will continue until they run out of other peoples’ money. Though perhaps the new inability to deduct all of the state taxes will give them a campaign issue.
The FBI
…did everything but drive Hillary’s getaway car.
They should have helped her with that, too. It’s been years since she’s driven I’d bet.
The Seditious Democrats
It started in South Carolina over a century and a half ago, but now it’s in California.
[Sunday-morning update]
Someone asked in comments what gave the federal government authority to outlaw a plant. It was two awful SCOTUS decisions.
The Steele Dossier
The Democrats are beating a hasty retreat from it:
Which brings us to a remarkable aspect of the op-ed: If Simpson and Fritsch have evidence of criminal or otherwise corrupt Trump-Russia contacts, why don’t they just tell us what it is. Why do they write a lengthy column caterwauling about how the Republican-controlled committees are supposedly withholding the information they’ve provided? We are not talking about classified information here; we are talking about Fusion’s own investigation. They say the Republicans refuse to release their testimony. Why wait for the Republicans? There’s nothing stopping Simpson and Fritsch from fully disclosing what their testimony was. Why don’t they tell the story instead of complaining about its not being told?
Could it be that the story is not what they purport it to be?
That would be the way to bet.
[Update a while later]
The FBI wasn’t worried about the tarmac meeting, they were worried about the whistleblower who refused to cover it up.
For College Administrators
Five New Year’s resolutions for 2018.
Long overdue. Of course, the problem is that many administrators’ jobs are dependent on this nonsense.
Polar From The Cape
A few weeks ago, the commander of Vandenberg said that he was facing competition from Florida. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but apparently, they’ve found a southerly corridor that will allow them to get to high inclination from the Cape.
Also, though no one is talking about this yet, reusable first stages will probably allow inland spaceports with a high range of azimuths at some point.
Law Clerks
I like this idea. Let’s get rid of them. It could be part of the swamp draining.
[Afternoon update]
Related: Yes, let’s reform the civil service. It’s long overdue.
The Budget “Reform” Act
Now that they’ve started to tackle taxes, it’s time for the Republicans to fix this as well:
As any student of political behavior might have predicted, both parties have learned to game these systems. Obamacare and the tax bill provide many examples.
Democrats got the CBO to count the revenue generated by Obamacare’s Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, or CLASS, Act taxes, fully aware that program’s postponed and unsustainable costs would never be incurred. Republicans likewise took some $300 billion of savings, suddenly available when CBO revised its clearly mistaken estimates of costs of repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate, to pay for tax cuts it couldn’t otherwise get.
This is not a criticism of CBO, which has remained properly nonpartisan and which was designed to estimate revenue flows, not personal choices — such as how many young people would rather pay small individual mandate penalties rather than expensive Obamacare health insurance premiums.
It’s a criticism of the notion that you can create neutral rules that will guide elected politicians to desired results. Politicians and the voters they represent have policy goals they believe important and they have their own ways — fallible, but subject to criticism and debate — to estimate the likely effects of particular policies.
My observation over the years is that systems intended to be failsafe are sure to fail. Forty years of the Budget Control Act regime and 30 years of the opaque Byrd Rule (which allows some Senate measures to pass with 50 votes while others require 60) have shown that both parties have figured out how to game the rules enough to foil those the intended purposes.
The notion that anyone, let alone the CBO, can with any accuracy predict the effects of changes in tax rates and other incentives over a decade is absurd.