The left brought it on itself by insisting on the politicization of judges. For a leftist, nothing can be outside politics, and political power takes precedence over the law. Fortunately, we may still have a chance to restore originalism, and the Constitution.
[Update early afternoon]
If judges want to make laws and bypass the legislature, let them be elected, not appointed for life.
Why “liberals” should be concerned about it.
They’re not concerned about it because they’re not liberals — they’re leftists who are perfectly fine with the government having a monopoly on firearms (as long as they’re in charge of the government).
[Update a couple minutes later]
Nice to see that some commenters at Glenn’s site are making similar comments to mine. Stop calling leftists liberals.
It’s not about criminality, it’s about abuse of power.
Yes. But I’ll bet she committed some crimes, too.
Did it start before Trump?
In a December 29, 2015 article, The Wall Street Journal described how the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on Israeli officials to understand how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, like Ambassador Ron Dermer, intended to fight the Iran Deal. The Journal reported that the targeting “also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups.”
Despite this reporting, it seemed inconceivable at the time that—given myriad legal, ethical, political, and historical concerns, as well as strict National Security Agency protocols that protect the identity of American names caught in intercepts—the Obama White House would have actually spied on American citizens. In a December 31, 2016, Tablet article on the controversy, “Why the White House Wanted Congress to Think It Was Being Spied on By the NSA,” I argued that the Obama administration had merely used the appearance of spying on American lawmakers to corner opponents of the Iran Deal. Spying on U.S. citizens would be a clear abuse of the foreign-intelligence surveillance system. It would be a felony offense to leak the names of U.S. citizens to the press.
Increasingly, I believe that my conclusion in that piece was wrong. I believe the spying was real and that it was done not in an effort to keep the country safe from threats—but in order to help the White House fight their domestic political opponents.
It would be perfectly in character.
No, “the pony in the manure is the corruption of our intelligence officials.”
It’s both appalling and amusing to watch the Democrat operatives with bylines in the media attempt to “cover” this story (as in, in the immortal words of Iowahawk, hold a pillow over it until it stops moving).
[Update a couple minutes later]
It’s worth reading the Victor Davis Hanson piece that Clarice cites. Sure, after all the lies about Benghazi and the deserter, I totally believe Susan Rice now. As noted, if Obama was Nixon, she’d be one of his “plumbers.”
[Update a couple minutes later]
Rice, Obama’s hatchet woman, proves Lord Acton right again.
[Update a while later]
Why is CNN trying to refute a story it refuses to cover?
[Update another while later]
Susan Rice’s unmasking: A Watergate-style scandal:
Understand: There would have been no intelligence need for Susan Rice to ask for identities to be unmasked. If there had been a real need to reveal the identities — an intelligence need based on American interests — the unmasking would have been done by the investigating agencies.
The national-security adviser is not an investigator. She is a White House staffer. The president’s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it.
If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic-party interests.
Oopsie. What did the president know, and when did he know it? Will Susan Rice wear orange to protect him?
[Update late morning]
More links and thoughts from Glenn Reynolds.
[Update early afternoon]
Susan Rice has no defense. Only one I can think of is “I was ordered by the president,” but that one doesn’t pass the Nuremberg test.
[Update a while later]
A Watergate-level scandal? Looks like it to me, particularly if they can find a link to Obama. Of course, the IRS scandal should have been as well. Obama did what Nixon could only dream of doing.
Thoughts on the duty of the courts to enforce the Constitution and the law, from Glenn Reynolds. It’s based on new book by Randy Barnett
[Late-morning update]
Actually, Neil Gorsuch is for the little guy:
It’s hard to see what Hirono, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer and all the other Democrats are talking about when they say Gorsuch doesn’t stick up for the little guy. But if you look more closely at his cases and the Democrats’ charges, you realize what the Democrats mean.
First, in Yellowbear, Little Sisters, Makkar, Carloss and the burping case, Gorsuch was ruling against government overreach. In Kelo, he praised the ruling against the government. And there’s the issue. When Democrats talk about being for the little guy, they often mean being for government power. The two concepts are inseparable in the liberal mind-set.
And when they conflict, they go for the government power every time. That’s why they shouldn’t be called “liberals.”
No one concerned about traditions of the Senate would be advocating a party-line filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. #CrocodileTears
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) April 4, 2017
Don't give them an easy out. Make them actually filibuster from the well. Show the public what real obstructionism looks like. https://t.co/8RswBd3iIB
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) April 4, 2017
Ths hysteria on this from the Left has been some combination of frightening and hilarious.
"Trump’s Executive Order Threatens to Wreck Earth as a Livable Planet for Humans" https://t.co/0NrN1CDdMo
— hockey schtick (@hockeyschtick1) March 29, 2017
But in fact, as Roy Spencer points out, the (illegal) “Clean Power Plan” was literally going to increase poverty and kill people, while almost certainly having no discernible effect on climate.
A handy primer:
CO2 levels were steady during these wild swings and throughout the Holocene at roughly 280 parts per million (ppm) until 130 years ago when a stuttering increase to 400 ppm today began. In other words, Holocene temperature changes, and the wild variations that preceded them, were not linked to CO2 changes. This prompts the question: if CO2 changes did not drive these temperature shifts, why all the fuss about CO2 emissions?
The answer owes much to the complexity of the climate system and the wish for simple explanations to explain its variability and with which to make predictions. But climate is not simple. There are many interacting parts that make it a ‘coupled non-linear chaotic system’ in which small variations of any part can create big, unpredictable changes. In the search for something simple to blame, like increasing CO2 levels, this ‘coupled non-linear, chaotic’ nature of climate is often played-down, overlooked or ignored. Things like solar variations, ocean heat transfers, cloud cover and the like – things that may well be the main drivers of climate – seldom get the respect they deserve.
The effect of the sun, the sea and clouds on climate is known and accepted – the Gulf Stream being a well known example – but more precise knowledge suitable for computer models is a different thing altogether. But what can be said for sure, is that the sun, the sea and the clouds are all very important and CO2 is only one player in a big game, not the control knob on the Earth’s thermostat. It is true that CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect, but its heating effect is small (when compared with water vapour, the main contributor) and drops off logarithmically as its concentration increases. The more there is, the less additional heating effect it has.
It’s almost as though there’s some sort of political agenda that has nothing to do with science or reality.
[Update a while later]
This is interesting: Pruitt doesn’t want to attempt to overturn the endangerment finding:
Pruitt, with the backing of several White House aides, argued in closed-door meetings that the legal hurdles to overturning the finding were massive, and the administration would be setting itself up for a lengthy court battle.
A cadre of conservative climate skeptics are fuming about the decision — expressing their concern to Trump administration officials and arguing Pruitt is setting himself up to run for governor or the Senate. They hope the White House, perhaps senior adviser Stephen Bannon, will intervene and encourage the president to overturn the endangerment finding.
Trump administration officials have not totally ruled out eventually targeting the endangerment finding. Conservative groups have petitioned the EPA to look at reopening it, one source said, and the agency may eventually be compelled to respond to the petition. Axios first reported the news of the petition.
“Getting rid of the Clean Power Plan is just not enough,” said Myron Ebell, the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the former leader of Trump’s EPA transition team.
I agree. It was based on junk science. In fact, they should be trying to get a rehearing of Massachusetts versus EPA when they get Gorsuch on the court.
Trump plans to undo Obama’s wealth-destroying “Clean” Power Plan this week.
And no, this has nothing to do with asthma.
They should. This was a crime, and if there are no consequences, it will continue. But they got away with so much other criminality over the past eight years they just figured they were immune.