Category Archives: Law

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Quantity Versus Quality

12 Comments

This is an old post, but it’s worth a repost with all of the nonsense this week about how Hillary should be president because she won (or is winning — I think they’re still counting) the popular vote:

It would be perfectly constitutional for the electors to be chosen by throwing darts at a phone book, by elimination from a reality show, or a mass tournament of pistols at dawn, as long as the legislature so stipulated. That was the degree to which the Founders thought that the states should have leeway in determining how they determined their electors. This is a very important point to make when arguing with modern democraphiles about ending the Electoral College and electing the president by popular vote.

Not also my broader point:

Many (in fact, many too many) in government imagine that their job is to create more government. As three examples, legislators think they’re supposed to pass legislation, diplomats think that (among other things) they’re supposed to get treaties signed and ratified, and regulators think that they’re supposed to create regulations. They are encouraged in this by many fools in the press who actually consider legislation sponsored and passed into law (particularly when it has a lawmaker’s name on it) to be a figure of merit to be touted as part of his record for reelection, or election to a higher office. Legislators who have passed lots of legislation, or secretaries of state who get lots of treaties ratified are lionized in the media, while those who do neither are denigrated as “do nothings.” All this, of course, despite whether or not the legislation passed, treaty ratified, or regulation created was actually a good idea.

But in fact, those are not their jobs. Their jobs are described in the Preamble. They are: “…to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [common spelling at the time], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Passing legislation, ratifying treaties, promulgating regulations are means to those ends but, despite the title, it is not a legislator’s job to legislate per se. It is not a diplomat’s job to ratify a treaty per se. It is not a regulator’s job to regulate per se. Those are simply tools granted them by the Constitution to carry out their true jobs, as defined above.

I’d also note that, contra the more-recent nonsense about how the Senate wasn’t “doing its job” with regard to Merrick Garland, it has no Constitutional “duty” to advise and consent. It only has the power.

Business, Economics, History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Post-Election Thoughts

153 Comments

In no particular order:

1) Despite his “approval rating,” this was an utter repudiation of the last eight years (and to a lesser degree, the previous eight years under Bush). Trump is Obama’s “legacy.”

2) I hope, and even expect, that Giuliani will be the next AG. He will take the handcuffs off the FBI, and finally get to the bottom of all of the Obama lawlessness as well as hers. In the spirit of reconciliation, Trump should offer her a pardon, on condition they shut down the foundation, and she exit our lives.

3) There will obviously be no post-election confirmation of Garland. Ginsburg and Breyer will probably be rethinking their retirement plans.

4) I assume that House Republicans have a repeal and replace plan to give to Trump in January.

5) Expect a flurry of executive orders undoing much of Obama’s lawlessness in the first week.

More anon.

[Update a few minutes later]

Will “liberals” finally discover the appeal of limited government?

[Update a few minutes later]

Predictably, embittered Democrats engage in racist outbursts. Well, this is nothing new; they have historically been the party of racism.

[Update a couple minutes later]

[Update a couple more minutes later]

Would’t accepting a last-minute pardon from Obama be a tacit admission that someone did something wrong? That’s why Nixon didn’t necessarily want one.

[Update a while later]

It occurs to me that now that the crime family has no favors to offer, the donations to the Clinton Crime Foundation will start to, or immediately dry up.

[Late-morning update]

Yes, a large part of Trump’s appeal is a backlash against the fascism of political correctness.

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The FBI Agents Who Stood Up For The Rule Of Law

98 Comments

You have to admit, it’s a pretty rare attribute in this administration.

[Update a while later]

There are five separate FBI investigations into the Clinton corruption?

I’m sure there are more than five instances of it, but you’d think they could combine them somehow. And of course, that’s just the ones we know about. There could easily be more.

Update a while later]

The Marc Rich pardon returns. As noted, the timing is interesting, but it’s certainly a useful reminder of the long-time corruption of the Clintons (not to mention Eric Holder, who should never have been confirmed as Attorney General). We may finally be seeing the leaks and drips that I expected earlier if Comey refused to recommend prosecution. I think we’re seeing a civil war both within the FBI and between FBI and the Department of Injustice. And it remains unclear which side Comey is on, other than his own.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Occam’s Weiner

25 Comments

Thoughts on the mess from Mark Steyn, who will soon have his own show.

[Update a while later]

“My guess is Weiner’s perversions were to some extent a cry for help. He wanted to be caught. At some point, he desperately wanted out of the Clinton nexus (who wouldn’t?).”

[Update a few minutes later]

Hillary didn’t see Carlos Danger coming:

Carlos Danger (Anthony Weiner) once held high political office. He talked smart trash. He sassed Republicans and snickered. The liberal media loved it. Can’t catch me, I’m Carlos Danger.

Carlos Danger is also a pervert who sends naked pictures of himself to underage females.

Thanks to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s criminal deceit and his wife’s (Huma Abedin) complicity, after Carlos left office in disgrace he still had access to classified national security information.

Let’s review key incidents in The Lowest Cesspool. The pervert digitally exposes himself to 15-year-old girl. How vile. The cops investigate. Good. But oh the irony. The perv’s exposure incidentally exposes the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate as a crook and serial liar. The pervert’s estranged wife may face perjury charges. The pervert is cooperating with the FBI because he’s a coward and a punk and he’ll cop a plea to save his arse.

Unlikely plot twists? Not all that surprising, given the crooked characters. No need for Greek gods to dispense justice. Crooked characters do crooked things. At some point they take a crooked step and fall. Even crooks who think they can design a centralized and cost-effective national healthcare program, the kind of megalomaniacal crook who thinks she can foresee every contingency, a crook who thinks she can control the narrative just because she has ABC and NBC and CNN and The New York Times in her pocket—even a crook with that kind of power eventually trips up.

He certainly chose an appropriate name for himself.

[Update a couple minutes later]

The Democrats asked for this.

Yes. It’s what happens when you ignore all of the klaxons and flashing lights and nominate a corrupt incompetent serial felon.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

It’s Obviously Sexism

18 Comments

“No man who violated classification rules, used an illegal server to cover up influence-peddling, and then tried to destroy the evidence would be treated this way.”

Heh.

Though seriously, this is one of the reasons he could be impeached and removed, and she could not:

…here is the worst thing about her, and what makes her worse than Trump. Even if the Republicans, in the wake of their disastrous candidate, somehow manage to retain control of both houses of Congress, they will be just as powerless against her as they have been against Barack Obama. Because there is nothing a Democrat, and particularly a Clinton, can do that Democrats will ever accept as beyond the pale. And if she were to be impeached, it will simply be evidence this time that the Republicans are sexist, in addition to being racist.

They’re both terrible, but he is a correctable mistake; she is not. As Glenn says, vote for the one least likely to get away with things.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A President Clinton

9 Comments

…would be out of control:

Someone somewhere should have told her no. But if the president wasn’t going to tell her no, who would? Staff at the State Department? They might have been willing to tell some other secretary of state no, but Clinton? Too risky, it seems. They certainly went along without visible objection, and without even leaks.

The press? When The New York Times reported Clinton’s secret, illegal server, Politico’s Glenn Thrush, far from condemning it, called it “badass.”

Congress? Clinton has stonewalled and run rings around numerous committees investigating her. Besides, Congress had already told her no, in the form of statutes governing the treatment of government communications and classified information. She just ignored those rules and did what she wanted. Hotel magnate Leona Helmsley famously said that “only little people pay taxes.” Clinton seems to feel the same way about obeying laws.

Yes. This is a variation my continuing theme, he can be impeached and removed, she cannot. The Republicans will rein him in, the Democrats will give her free rein, as they have with Obama. And amazingly, even Chris Matthews agrees. Are the Democrats, at long last, realizing what a monster they’ve created?

Related: Hillary has only herself to blame for the mess she’s in. Yup. But why wouldn’t she have done it. The media and her party have enabled her for decades. Why wouldn’t she think she could continue to get away with it?

[Update a couple minutes later]

The FBI has an intense ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation. As well they should be, but it’s getting to be kind of late. What happens once she’s president elect? Does Obama pre-emptively pardon her? Not sure that’s Constitutional.

[Update a while later]

Former FBI official: The Clintons are a crime family:

“The Clintons, that’s a crime family, basically,” Kallstrom said. “It’s like organized crime. I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool.”
Kallstrom, best known for leading the investigation into the explosion of TWA flight 800 in the late ’90s, said that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, was a “pathological liar.”

He also blasted Attorney General Loretta Lynch, claiming that she impeded the investigation into Clinton’s private server.

“The problem here is this investigation was never a real investigation,” he said. “That’s the problem. They never had a grand jury empanelled, and the reason they never had a grand jury empanelled, I’m sure, is Loretta Lynch would not go along with that.”

Because the fish rots from the head.