We're leaving Syria.  GOOD.  We're leaving Afghanistan.  GOOD.  The questions remain: what are US interests in either country?  We don't have any strategic need to be in either country.  Not any more.

And if the reason was "oil", that reason no longer exists.  The US is now a net exporter of oil (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-06/u-s-becomes-a-net-oil-exporter-for-the-first-time-in-75-years).  Unlike Europe, the US is no longer dependent on the Middle East for our petroleum products. We don't need to keep troops in the Middle East to "keep our oil flowing" over there.

If Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, and the rest of western Europe want to keep their oil coming, then it's time that they make the deals with the local governments in the Middle East.  If they don't want Russia to be able to turn off its spigot and run Europe dry, then they need to send their troops to keep the oil flow coming.  It's really simple: the US should militarily defend its interests without feeling obligated to militarily defend the interests of other countries.

That's "America First".  We don't "stand alone" - but it's long past time for other countries to stand up and defend their own interests.

Mattis talked about the need for positive engagement with other countries, and he's right.  Yes - the US should be a willing partner in mutual defense treaties.  But those treaties should only relate to military attack.  They shouldn't relate to economic issues.  Yes, oil is a strategic asset - but each country should be responsible for independently obtaining its own strategic assets.  The US shouldn't be solely responsible (or responsible in huge part) for defending access to other country's strategic assets.

But Mattis is a general, and a general wants an army.  Trump's decision to bring troops home from Syria and Afghanistan was the opposite of what Mattis wanted to do and what his advisers (and too many hawkish neocons) wanted to do: keep the war machine going.  It's too much like Vietnam: we can't really define the mission, but we know we need to keep fighting.

That's why I completely agree with and fully support Trump's decisions to reduce our troops in both Syria and Afghanistan, and possibly end our involvement in Syria.  There will always be Islamic terrorism in the Middle East.  It goes back centuries and won't end until Islamic leaders decide to end it.  ISIS may be defeated, but some other group will crop up.  Maybe a resurgent Al Qaeda.  The Taliban.  Whatever.

The mission in Afghanistan - capture or kill OBL - is over.  Bring the troops home instead of leaving them there as targets.  Enough have been killed already.

There was never a clearly-defined mission in Syria, other than to keep Assad from gassing his own people again and from invading Israel (again).  Pull our troops out and bring them home.  Leave Russia with the job of providing refuge to Syrian non-combatants who have been displaced by its (Russia's) actions.  Israel is more than capable of standing off an attack from Syrian forces, and Russia won't attack Israel on Syria's behalf (it would put the US and Russia into direct conflict).

Bring the boys back home.

Constitutional text must always supersede ideology

From "The Hill":

Kagan said at a conference for women at Princeton University that over the past three decades, starting with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and continuing with Justice Anthony Kennedy, that there was a figure on the bench "who found the center or people couldn't predict in that sort of way."

“It’s not so clear, that I think going forward, that sort of middle position — it's not so clear whether we’ll have it," Kagan said.

Let's analyze Kagan's words for a moment.

By stating that she thinks a Justice in the "middle position" might not exist on a future Supreme Court, she - Kagan herself - has admitted that she is incapable of being a justice in a "middle position".  This should, at the very least, disqualify her from service on the SCOTUS.  She has admitted that she cannot be impartial.  She has admitted that her bias will always color her decisions.  She has admitted that we cannot trust her judgement.

This is dangerous for the SCOTUS and for the US.

The job of a Supreme Court Justice is not to decide a case based on an ideology of any kind.  The job is to examine the brief presented by both sides and:

• To determine whether the case in question has a basis in law;
• To determine whether that law is in conformance with the Constitution - not some arbitrary definition of "Constitutional principles" determined by one's ideology, but the actual text of the Constitution; and
• To determine whether that law was correctly applied.

Here's why an adherence to the actual text of the Constitution is vitally important: if ideology is used to stretch "the meaning" of the Constitution to find new "rights", then the Constitution has been subordinated to that ideology -- and lower courts must now adhere to an ideology that is not defined in the law.

To put it simply: either the Constitution is the law... or it isn't.

This is not about Kavanaugh per se, but it is about whether Supreme Court precedent can be trusted to be Constitutionally valid.  Bad decisions result when ideology is a primary guiding principle.  And bad decisions are tearing this country apart.

A perfect example of the impropriety of ideology in SCOTUS decisions can be found in Justice O'Connor's comments on Roe.  In 1983 and again in 1986, O'Connor criticized the Roe decision.  In later years, when asked whether she would reaffirm Roe, she said she would.  The Constitution did not change.  The text remained exactly the same.  Nothing in the text of the Constitution speaks on any medical procedures or the validity of taking an unborn's life without due process.  The Constitution leaves those decisions to the States (the 10th Amendment).  Yet Justice O'Connor's personal ideology changed, and thus her opinion on Roe changed as well.

The question of Roe as "bad law" has been discussed for decades, but it was the Roe decision that inflated passions on both sides of the debate.  The reason?  Ideology guided a decision, not the text of the Constitution.  The Supreme Court should have decided that Roe was a state-level decision, and that it - the Supreme Court - does not exist to overturn 10th Amendment State-level decisions except when they violate the actual text of the Constitution.

Clearly, the actual text of the Constitution should be the guiding principle for cases that come to the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court should not be making new law in its decisions.  It should not co-opt the job of the legislatures, whether State or Federal.

It is often said that "the laboratory of the States" shows the genius of The Founders: those who had despised the monarchical control over the Colonies and designed a Constitution to prevent those abuses.  By designing independent States that operated under a common Federal code (the Constitution) that prevented those States from abusing each other's citizens, they designed a wondrous multi-layered system of government that encouraged freedom while simultaneously permitting State-level controls.

Our Republic requires that each State adhere to the Constitution, but that each State may decide - for itself and for its citizens - other laws and statutes that its citizens desire for themselves.  And when a State implements a law that violates the actual text of the Constitution, the Supreme Court's job is to strike down that law (e.g. Brown and, more recently, Janus).

We do not need a Supreme Court made up of conservatives, liberals, men, women or "smart Latinas".  We need a Supreme Court that examines each brief strictly according to the text of the Constitution, makes decisions solely based on the text of the Constitution, requires that States also adhere to the text of the Constitution, and will send a non-Constitutional case back to the State from where it originated.

One can only hope that a "conservative-leaning Supreme Court" will return to deciding cases on their merit according to the actual text of the Constitution, rather than becoming an engine that coerces all of the States to comply with a non-textual ideology.

Ideologies aren't inherently "evil".

There's an Internet meme that "liberalism is a mental illness". Another that says that "conservatives are evil."

No. Wrong. Stop it. You're not helping anything.

Liberalism is a political ideology, nothing more. Those who believe in progressivism/liberalism are not evil. Those who believe in conservatism aren't evil either.

The problem is that some - on both sides - find it easier to re-quote "talking points" than to spend time actually analyzing a specific policy in a rational manner. This isn't easy: it requires a deep understanding of historical and current affairs, examination of the full set of consequences of that policy (including "unintended" consequences), and measuring the policy's impact against human nature.

Human nature rules everything.

Not human nature as we would like it, but human nature as it has been throughout recorded history. Not geopolitical human nature, but individual human nature. The understanding of what makes people "tick": the various desires, foibles, and stubbornness that are all part of the human condition. The fact that, as we grow from children into adults, everything about us changes. That we form some behaviors as children that follow us into adulthood. That some "learned behaviors" stay with us, and others fall away over time. That it ALWAYS takes a deep trauma to force us to change - and sometimes even that isn't enough.

The "stubbornness" part of human nature means that, when faced with examples or evidence to the contrary, we very often "dig in our heels" and refuse to accept that evidence as valid. We dismiss that evidence immediately, or find some way to ignore the evidence. We don't want to admit to ourselves that we may not be perfect. That we may not have been absolutely correct.

That we may have been wrong.

It's hard to mentally admit - to yourself - that you were wrong. It takes courage to admit to others that you were wrong. Sometimes it takes more courage than some people have. Sometimes, rather than admit error, some people will lash out at those who have presented evidence that they are wrong.

Sometimes we attack the messenger because we don't like the message. Or because the message holds truths that we don't want to acknowledge.

Some find it easier to re-quote political "talking points" that they have "heard everyone say" than to stop and think about the true meaning behind those "talking points". And to question where those "talking points" are coming from. And who has been saying them. And what those people have to gain from saying them. Yes: some folks will twist the meaning of words to gain sympathy from those who don't pay full attention to what is really being said.

It isn't easy to spend the time to analyze all of the political ideological crap making its way to us through various forms of media. But it's important to think about it rather than making a knee-jerk reaction. If you think the message is wrong, make your case against the ideology you oppose. Explain why you think it is misguided, and present evidence.

But to dismiss an opposing viewpoint by calling it "evil" is disingenuous... and somewhat childish.

Is America Great... or Not?

The greatness of America is not defined by the multiple wars, both here and abroad, that it has survived in over 300 years.

Nor is it defined by the number of racial, religious, or political incidents, both good and bad, that have both improved or plagued it over that time.

Nor is it defined by its economic or financial prowess.  Nor by its military strength.  Nor by its willingness to assist others when asked - and sometimes when not asked.

The greatness of America is defined by its ability to recover from disasters both natural and man-made, recognize and reward those who have improved the American condition while ostracizing and punishing those who have reveled in hate, always working toward Constitutionally-based justice no matter the opposition, opposing those who would taint the American electoral process by attempts at falsifying votes, and by providing a legal basis for the core rights defined in the Declaration of Independence:

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

America is great when it provides the most amount of freedom to the greatest number of The People, where "freedom" is defined as "being allowed to do what you want to do as long as it does not directly interfere with what others want to do".

The greatness of America is its self-corrective nature: situations that cause inequality are always eliminated, even though it may take time to identify both the situation and the remedial action necessary.

The greatness of America is in its justice system, especially when the system acts only according to Constitutionally-defined "rules of the road" and not when any of the three branches exercises powers that are not in its provenance.

The greatness of America is in its use of time-limited democratically-elected representatives to the central government, and the ability of The People to either re-elect those representatives or elect different representatives as they so choose.

The greatness of America is that it allows anyone to achieve anything they wish to achieve on their own merit.  The only limits on your success in the American capitalist system are those limits you place on yourself.

The greatness of America is that it has and will continue to withstand attacks on its political system by those who would try to destroy that system and replace it with another by using the freedoms that America provides in an attempt to undermine those same freedoms... and who may not realize that they are attacking a system that allows such attacks *without revenge*.

America has been hurt in the past by those whose personal agendas did not overlap with American values as defined in both the Declaration of Independence, which delineates those values, and in the Constitution of the United States, which provides a legislative basis for those values.

America will survive as long as The People continue to refer back to the Founder's reasons for designing the only truly democratic form of government that has survived in the Modern Age.

The Founders gave us a Republic.  Our job, as defined by Ben Franklin, is to "keep it".

What wins in the "style vs substance" debate?

If you listen closely, there's a meme forming: "I really don't like Trump the person, but I like a lot of what he's doing."

The Left loved Obama because he (seemingly) had style.  A smooth operator.  His oral delivery made everything sound like the truth.  Was thin and well-dressed.  Stayed on teleprompter and rarely went off-speech (when he did, he was a bit... lost).  Seemed sooooo sincere because he was sooooo smoooooooooth.  A polished politician, to be sure.

Trump, OTOH, is gruff and unkempt and a somewhat overweight.  He eats McDonalds.  He doesn't have "smooth moves": he jerks around and constantly uses a lot of hand gestures.  He tweets way too often, and his tweets are sometimes quite rude (and insulting).  He almost always wanders off-teleprompter and off-script, and sometimes blurts things out in a speech that would have been better left unsaid.  The least "polished" politician we've had since... well, since I've been alive anyway.

Style.

But as far as substance, Obama managed to do very little in office other than tread water.  I'll skip over the multiple foreign policy faux pas that occurred under his watch (Iraq, Iran, NORK, Russia, Benghazi, et al), the multiple political scandals and missteps (IRS, Fast and Furious, etc), his use of "czars" in an effort to rework the American ideal, and his "phone and pen" pseudo-royalty commands (some of which were denied by the SCOTUS - at least one unanimously).  Here at home, he supported the PPACA and drove millions off their health care plans while forcing them, and the rest of America, to pay for lavish plans for millions of others (many of whom were willingly unemployed).  He attacked the 1st and 2nd Amendments and implemented oppressive and impossibly complicated financial rules that constricted bank and corporation operations.  He supported an increase in taxes while also increasing the food stamp rolls and welfare payouts (aka "wealth redistribution").  Unemployment rose, manufacturers temporarily or permanently shuttered, and economic growth was stagnant.

Then, after steering the country in the wrong direction because he had no effective understanding of economics, he claimed that the economic doldrums he presided over were the "new normal".

Trump has managed, in just under 2 years, to do what Obama said was undoable: improve the economy, decrease unemployment, reduce regulations, and pass a tax cut/reform bill.  Unemployment is dropping, manufacturers are moving money back onshore (something the revered Thomas Friedman said wouldn't happen) and using it to build new facilities and hire American workers, and regulation reform is allowing construction to move forward at speeds not seen in decades.  By opening ANWR and the two pipelines, he has made the US a net exporter of oil - something that the "experts" said could not happen (remember "peak oil"?)  He hasn't been able to repeal the PPACA but he has changed its regulations ("The Secretary shall determine") to permit new plans to be put in place, some of which will allow health insurance purchase across state lines.

This might be because Trump is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, so he has a deep understanding of business economics (“The chief business of the American people is business.” - Coolidge).  And because Trump understands how deal making is done (he wrote the book on it), he's using those same techniques to show other countries that "doing business with the US is better than doing business against the US".

The left believes that Friedman, a columnist for the NYT, is wiser than Trump when it comes to economics.  But it was Friedman who claimed that Trump's election would almost immediately "tank" the market and drive the economy into the dirt.  He still writes that it's "about to happen".  Any. Day. Now.

Yes, the economy will eventually cool off again.  Economies are cyclical.  But it was Friedman who agreed with Obama about the "new normal".  It seems that he was wrong - for now.

The fact that Trump has managed to disprove Obama's "new normal" is at the heart of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Obama was style over substance.

Trump is substance over style (heck, Trump has very little style at all).

And it's making the left crazy.

A Proposal for Reduction of Sinusoidal Depleneration

The Turboencabulator

Bernard Salwen

For a number of years now, work has been proceeding to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a machine that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such a machine is the "Turboencabulator."

Basically, the only new principle involved is that instead of power being generated by the relative motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the medial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive directance.

The original machine had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing.

That way the 2 spurving bearings were in direct line with the pentametric fan. The latter consisted simply of 6 hydrocoptic marzel vanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-0-delta type, placed in panendermic semiboloid slots in the stator, every 7th conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential gridle-spring on the "up" end of the grammeters.

41 manestically spaced grouting brushes were arranged to feed into the rotor slipstream a mixture of high S-value phenyl-hydro-benzamine and 5% remanative tetryl-iodo-hexamine.

Both of these liquids have specific pericosities given by P = 2.5Cn6.7, where n is the diathetical evolute of retrograde temperature phase disposition, and C is Cholmondeley's annular grillage coefficient.

Initially, n was measured with the aid of a metapolar refractive pilfrometer, but up to the present, nothing has been found to equal the transcendental hopper dadoscope.

Electrical engineers will appreciate the difficulty of nubing together a regurgitative purwell and a supramitive wennel-sprock. Indeed, this proved to be a stumbling block until it was found that the use of anhydrous nangling pins enabled a kryptonastic boiling shim to be tankered.

The early attempts to construct a sufficiently robust spiral decommutator failed, largely because of a lack of appreciation of the large quasipiestic stresses in the gremlin studs.

The latter were specially designed to hold the roffit bars to the spam-shaft.

When, however, it was discovered that wending could be prevented by a simple addition to the living sockets, almost perfect running was secured.

The operating point is maintained as near as possible to the HF rem peak by constantly fromaging the bitumogenous spandrels.

This is a distinct advance on the standard nivel-sheave.

No dramcock oil is required after the phase detractors have been remissed.

Undoubtedly, the Turboencabulator has now reached a very high level of technical development.

It has been successfully used for operating nofer trunnions. In addition, whenever a barescent skor motion is required, it may be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocating dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration.

Reprinted from:
©The Journal of Irreproducible Results, v9 #2 p20, December 1960

Simple remedies

We continue to see federal employees past and present act unethically and unprofessionally, and we yawn.  Probably because there isn't much that anyone can do about it.  Congressional impeachment is a toothless punishment: it is meaningless beyond the federal government, and the threat of Congressional impeachment only makes dishonest men laugh.

So, here's a proposition: let's pass a law that provides accountability for the bad acts of federal employees past and present, and give it some teeth.  Give it a punishment worthy of a crime.  A punishment requiring no arrest, no indictment, no trial - no court.  In fact, let's keep it completely out of the courts.

Pass a law something like this:

"Any current or former federal employee who has been impeached by either House of Congress, who has knowingly and/or purposefully lied multiple times under oath in front of either Congress or in Federal Court, or who refuses to testify under oath either in front of Congress or a Federal court, shall be terminated as soon as convenient to the Government, and shall lose all current or back pay, all financial or in-kind pension, and any and all other government-provided benefits as of the date of the violation causing such termination."

Of the above three situations - impeachment, perjury, or "taking the 5th" - only perjury is an actual crime.  The other two are lapses in behavior and more than likely violate existing rules.

The loss of pay, pension, and benefits are each a non-judicial administrative action that are essentially the same as being terminated "for cause".  No jail time, no adjudicated fine, no restriction of liberty.  No charges are required, and no appearance before a judge.  Since these are all actions that can be taken without the need for due process, they can be executed without the involvement of a court.

You're terminated.  Get out.  We'll pack your desk things and send them to you.  Turn in your badge at the front desk on your way out.

Aside from the aforementioned penalties, no other actions should be contemplated or taken as a result of the violation of professional rules.  If a crime is involved, it should be prosecuted separately from these administrative actions.  After termination, if the person wants to take a job in the private sector, so be it.  Goodbye - have a nice life.

This would not be a partisan political action.  It is a sensible action taken by private sector companies every day, and an action that would protect administrations of both parties.

It comes down to this: you made a promise to do your job in an ethical manner.  If you didn't perform ethically, you broke your promise - why should the government be obligated to keep its promise when you didn't keep yours?

Expectations go both ways.

The enemy of my enemy... is... whom?

Perhaps it's time to rip the MSM, Dems, and a lot of Republicans for their comments about Trump's trip and his news conference comments.  Perhaps it's time to rip everyone for their memory loss about past Russia summits and their aftermath, including a past summit between Eisenhower and Khrushchev that almost caused a nuclear war.  Perhaps it's time to rip everyone for their immediate condemnation of Reagan's summit.

Perhaps a bit of revisiting is due here.

And before I get started, don't get the wrong idea: I'm not an apologist for Russia.  I think Putin is dangerous.  But...

Even before Trump corrected his misstatement, pundits were suggesting that Russia's hacking of the DNC emails was actually worse than China's hacking of the OPM.  I would suggest that Russia's hacking is relatively benign when you consider China, NORK, Iran, Pakistan (the Irwan family), and other bad actors around the world - and what they have done, hack-wise.  Short-term memory loss seems rampant among the political class.

I would note that American fear of Russia appears to be pathological, not logical or reasonable.  And that the reaction to Trump's visit and comments is based on Trump's not bowing to the existing orthodoxy of Russia being our worst enemy, regardless of how Romney feels about them.

Even I know that China has been dumping money into the coffers of members of Congress by hiring family members of representatives, investing in their companies, overspending on services provided by "friends", etc.  China has been buying influence - this is provable.  Heck, even the relatives of McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, have done well.  And Chao has been good-speaking China to McConnell forever.

China uses plenty of money to swing opinion.  Russia doesn't.  Therefore, Russia is the "bad guy" and China - our economic enemy, and the scourge of the South China Sea - is the "good guy"?  Seriously??

Neither China nor Russia is our close friend.  But China can destroy the US economically.  Russia can't.

So... why is Russia the "bad guy"?

I think Trump has recognized these concepts.  He has accused China of being a money manipulator, stealing our tech and our intellectual property, "dumping" products on American shores, and maintaining a trade surplus by heavy tariffs on American imports.  He knows that China is at economic war with the US and knows that China has publicly declared that it wants to be the world's biggest economy - even if it means destroying the American economy.

Meanwhile, we do very little trade with Russia.  Russia's biggest export right now is energy, and they're selling it to Europe.  I dare anyone to show me other Russian exports that would make Russia an economic threat to the US.

Russia shouldn't be our enemy.  In fact, Russia doesn't want to be our enemy.  Yes, Russia still has hegemonic ambitions on the European continent, but look at the past invasions.  Both were meant to give Russia access to the world through areas it lost when the USSR broke up.  Since the illegal and warlike invasions of Crimea and Ukraine, Russia has threatened other areas... but it hasn't taken any action.  It may be that, regardless of Putin's "dreams of reconstituting the USSR", Russian expansionism may be over for now.

And anyone with half a brain and knowledge of the current state of governments in the European Continent knows that countries from Estonia to (the rest of) Ukraine have no desire to return to rule by Russia.  Many of them joined NATO specifically to gain protection from the West.  Putin's dreams of Russian expansionism, at least in Eastern Europe, are essentially over - for now.

That's why I think Trump was right, both when he misspoke and when he issued a correction.  Both statements remain correct.  Our intelligence services deserve our full support - but the reports they generated have been fatally flawed and biased.  Trusting Comey, Brennan, and Clapper was a mistake because all three lied, misled the public, and acted against American democracy.  Trump's comments were meant for them: it was they who used baseless and unverified/unverifiable "documents" to begin an investigation into Trump's "collusion" with Russians.

Um... isn't that exactly what they accuse Putin of doing?

If anyone is working to undermine the American democratic process, it is the anti-Trump MSM, Dems, and others who are single-minded in their desire to destroy Trump, seemingly for pushing back against the !!!1!!RUSSIAENEMYRUSSIAENEMYRUSSIA!@@!!! dialogue in an attempt to - yes, yet again - push the reset button.

Only time will tell... but I also think time will show that Trump was correct: our enemy isn't Russia.

Our true enemy is China.

Head-fake?

So, Trump says he "misspoke". I don't believe him for a minute.

BUT...

Either way, the question of "interference" has been answered. Putin admitted it during the interview. His view is different, tho: he doesn't see Russian meddling as interference 'cuz it uncovered a lot of political corruption.

Putin makes a valid point, but only from the way he views the "meddling". Americans are so wrapped up in Russia hate and in Trump hate that they might - might - be missing the big picture. There was corruption and it was uncovered. But it wasn't uncovered by American intelligence services or the MSM.

It was uncovered by their supposed arch-enemy, the Russians.

IMO, that's why the MSM and the Dems hate this so much: corruption in the American political system could no longer be hidden from the public by the MSM and the Dems.

But I think there's something much larger at work here, and I think it has to do with the Middle East. Russia knows that alignment with Syria has put them into a bind, and their support for Assad means that they tacitly support Assad's chemical attacks. They want a way out of this situation, but without giving the US a way back in. Trump wants out too - is it possible that Trump and Putin are working on a mutual withdrawal from the Middle East?

Russia has declared support for Israel, and Israel - Netanyahu - has declared support for Russia. Israel and Syria are practically at war again, and if the war goes live then Israel will win - again. Russia doesn't want to target the only democracy in the Middle East... so is it looking for a way to tell Israel "we won't respond to Israeli attacks" while it slowly backs away from supporting Assad?

The MSM and Dems will go nuts if Trump pulls out of the Middle East... but if Putin pulls out too, what will the MSM and Dems say? Will they demand Trump go back into the Middle East after demanding he pull out of the Middle East?

I think Trump is about to head-fake the MSM and the Dems again.

Plus, there's nothing that can be done about Crimea or the Ukraine at this point. That ship sailed when Obama refused to do anything after the invasions. Asking Trump to invade either Crimea or the Ukraine is pretty stupid.

Trump can't isolate Russia, especially with Germany (and much of Europe) buying Russian energy.  Our "allies" will be pumping money into Russia rather than buying energy from us.  Think on that for a moment: our "allies" are supporting our "sworn enemy".  Is the enemy of our enemy, our friend?  Or yet another enemy?  And being heavily dependent on Russian energy, will Russia be able to push Europe away from the US by threatening that energy supply?  If things go south, will Europe side with the US... or will it side with Russia?

So, unless the MSM and the Dems want Trump to go to war with Russia, the best thing to do is to fully investigate why our intelligence agencies failed to provide Obama with intelligence so he could counter Russia's meddling.  Or, if they provided that information to Obama, let's find out why Obama didn't use that information to protect the upcoming election.

There's a pretty rotten smell coming from DC.

Also: Let's take Putin up on his offer. Let Mueller interview Russians on Russian soil (with supervisors present), and let Putin's representatives interview Americans on American soil (with supervisors present). Make the transcripts public. If there's something there, let the American and Russian people see all of it uncensored. If there's corruption, show it. If there's incompetence, show it. If there's perjury, show it. Let both the American and Russian people see exactly who did what.

No Americans will vanish or commit suicide (a la Rich, e.g. 2 shots to the back of the head). But there may be some Russians who will vanish or commit suicide (a la agents in England who "accidentally" ingested nerve agents).

But at least the public will know.

Let's get real. The majority of Americans either don't pay attention to the news at all, or get their news from late night "comedy" shows. If they can be easily swayed by a comedian and believe hard-core AntiFA / BAMN / BLM activists without "checking their sources", then yes: Russian meddling might have influenced them. But they would have voted Dem anyway...

The case for party affiliation of "none"

It is time to eliminate laws that require registered voters to declare political party affiliation. A voter should not have to tell the state - or anyone - which political party they prefer.

As someone who ran for office 3 times, I know that those running for office can get copies of voter registration rolls to they can contact possible constituents. That means that the data is publicly available, and it means that data can then be used by unscrupulous political party operatives to intimidate or embarrass those who don't support their candidate.

Don't fool yourself into thinking this intimidation doesn't happen.  It does, and far more often than anyone realizes.

Voting booths are supposed to ensure privacy so individuals can feel free to choose whom to support. It is long past time to remove party affiliation from voter registration cards as well.  This would encourage candidates of all political stripes to address all voters without "cherry picking" only a select few prospects.

Some states allow a voter to remain undeclared on their voter registration. But a significant number of states still require party declaration in order to vote, and some even will invalidate a vote by those who "cross party lines".

States should not be forcing voters to declare who they will vote for before an election. That's plainly un-American and is a probable violation of 1A (right of association).  I look forward to a lawsuit by someone in a forced-affiliation state to sue the state to permit them to choose "none" on their voting registration form.

It's long past time for this to change. It's long past time for states to stop coercing voters into telling the state which political party they support and provide a way for a voter to register to vote without declaring which party they want to vote for.

Yes, this could screw up the primary system... if you believe that political parties should only allow certain voters to support a candidate. I prefer to think that voters want to support a candidate of their choice in secrecy, without coercion, and with a free conscience.

Party loyalists will always exist, as will those who donate to a political party in support of its candidates and its platform.  But states should play no part in coercing voters to indicate which party they support before they cast their vote anonymously and in secret.

Legal, but not ethical

Watching the Strzok hearings, something is becoming very clear: Strzok is using legal technicalities to put up a defense for his actions. Those legal technicalities are meant to generate "reasonable doubt" whether his actions were based on bias or not. He indicates that his texts contained "political speech" and they are hence protected under the First Amendment.

In fact, he's correct. His political speech is protected and he cannot be fired or otherwise discipllined based on his political speech. If this was a situation where pure legalities were being used to make a determination of legal responsibility, he'd be able to make a case for "not guilty".

However, he's not writing a computer program where a mathematical test is either true or false. Nor is he taking a test where his answers will be graded solely on their correctness.

He's testifying in front of Congress, where human beings are assessing the totality of his testimony against the totality of a situation that involves both him, his girlfriend, multiple others in the FBI, non-business texts, extremely powerful political figures, and a record of involvement in multiple investigations.

If this was a stand-alone situation and he was the only one involved, his defense would fly.

But in front of Congress, he's displaying arrogance, "holier-than-thou", and acting as someone who thinks most of the elected Congressional representatives are complete idiots. (Whether they are, or not, isn't the point.) He's forgotten something rather important: you never directly insult those who will be making decisions that will affect you for the rest of your life.

Human beings are involved here. He's pissing off (by pissing on) the members of the committee. His body language and his anger at some questions is proving that he may be incapable of separating his emotional feelings from his job assignment. The transcript won't indicate this anger, but the video does indicate his anger - and the video testimony will permanently damage his reputation for fairness.  He's proving that he may understand the legal issues involved, he doesn't understand or recognize the ethical violations he has committed.

And if he can't demonstrate the ability to act in an ethical manner in front of the Congressional committee, then he's giving strength to the argument that he did not act in an ethical manner in the past.

He's claiming his anger is based on his "passion" to defend the Constitution -- but his anger only rises up when he's being asked about the texts that seemingly reveal significant bias against Trump and toward Clinton, or when he's asked to explain his behavior with regard to the investigations he was involved in, or when he's asked some very direct questions that would require some very embarrassing answers.

Strzok's legal defense holds.  His defense of his conduct as "ethical", fails miserably.

His attempts to build "context" around the texts is a complete failure, demonstrated by his multiple explanations to their meaning and, in one case, saying that he doesn't remember the text but he remembers being angry when he sent it.

The more he talks, the less believable he becomes.

There's a concept in politics: "When you're explaining, you're losing." Strzok's explanations ring false.  There's a simple reason why:

His behavior was legal, but it was not ethical.  The IG said so.  Case closed.

Moreover, Strzok was working on some counter-intelligence operations as part of his job. He was married and had a girl friend (Page). These facts would have made him a target for a foreign intelligence agency: he was already violating his oath to his wife and making himself possibly subject to blackmail and worse, and he had access to information that a foreign intelligence agency could use.

In every security briefing I've ever received, we are told to watch for - and report - behaviors by other employees that could be used to coerce them into actions that could threaten national security. Strzok is exactly the kind of person that we are told to watch for.  The report is made anonymously. The investigating agencies do their work in total secrecy. If there is nothing to it, nothing is done and the report is filed as "no action necessary".

BUT if an action is required, the individual is interviewed by someone higher in the chain than the FSO (facility security officer) - and that interview is also done in complete secrecy.

Then, if an action needs to be taken, the appropriate action is taken.

These investigations happen fairly often.  The reason you never hear about them is that you should never hear about them.  And until there is something to reveal, you don't know about them.

Strzok was married and had a girlfriend. Unless they were a willing threesome - and even if they were - this was a situation that could have been used to put Strzok (and Page) into an embarrassing situation and thus push them toward complying with demands made by a foreign power.

Strzok thinks he's smarter than anyone who he works for. He's arrogant, and believes that he is serving a higher purpose.  We're lucky that he wasn't working directly with the Russians.

Like Robert Hanssen did.

It is to weep

And now we see that mere political ideological differences may result in more than just words.

Yesterday, Maxine Waters said, in part, "Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up.  If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere."  And then, "We want history to record that we stood up, that we pushed back, that we fought and that we did not consider ourselves victims of this president."

In any other universe, Maxine Waters would be guilty of incitement to riot.

But in the current political environment, where falsehoods and overexaggeration are reported as fact, where pictures are taken out of context or cropped to inflame passions, and where the tactics of bullying and intimidation have been normalized and are now expected, it is hard to find truth.

Where facts are absent, truth is hidden.  When those charged with reporting fact report falsehood instead, truth is impossible to find.

And when those trusted with leading this nation peacefully begin speaking in terms of violence, the worst is about to happen.

I once posited that this nation would not survive in its current form past 2050.  I still believe that - only now I worry whether my prediction was too far in the future.

When law is ignored because it is "inconvenient", lawlessness reigns.  And what we are seeing is the beginning of lawlessness on a grand scale - and the call to lawlessness is coming from elected representatives to Congress.

This is madness.  The same people who were elected to debate the merit of new bills, pass bills into law, and examine whether existing law should be repealed, are now proposing that "inconvenient" laws should be ignored rather than changed.  They have abdicated their offices, given up, surrendered, and are leading this nation to ruin.

Congress has the power to change law.  It should do so, rather than using a crisis merely to inflame.

But we all know why Congress will not act.  It will not act because it would be "inconvenient" to act.  It will not act because the same representatives who passed the original laws might have to admit that they may have been wrong.  It will not act because action would require courage, and our elected representatives to Congress have revealed themselves to be cowards.

And now, political shaming has led to calls to insurrection.

This cannot end well.  The genie has been let out of the bottle.  Those who oppose current policy have been given license to act in violent ways ("...we fought...").

No, that's not merely political hyperbole.  As Ms. Waters continued to speak, her speech became more and more reflective of a demand for civil disobedience of a physical nature.

Someone will be hurt.  The response will include firearms.  And the worst will begin.

Hey NFL, QuitCherBitchin

Received via email from a friend.  Yes, it's a "chain letter".  But as a 10 year Navy vet, I completely agree.  I won't change the text or address, but - in my opinion - this goes for the NBA as well.

===

To the NFL and its players,

If I have brain cancer, I don’t ask my dentist what I should do. If my car has a problem, I don’t seek help from a plumber! Why do you think the public cares what a football player thinks about politics? If we want to know about football, then depending on the information we seek, we might consult with you, but even a quarterback doesn’t seek advice on playing his position from a defensive tackle!

You seem to have this over inflated view of yourselves, thinking because you enjoy working on such a large scale stage, that somehow your opinion about everything matters. The NFL realizes the importance of its “image” so it has rules that specify the clothes and insignia you can wear, the language you use, and your “antics” after a touchdown or other “great” play. But somehow you and your employer don’t seem to care that you disgrace the entire nation and its 320 million people in the eyes of the world by publicly disrespecting this country, its flag, and its anthem! The taxpaying citizens of this country subsidize your plush work environments, yet you choose to use those venues to openly offend those very citizens.

Do you even understand what the flag of this country means to so many of its citizens before you choose to “take a knee” in protest of this “country" during our national anthem?

You may think because you are paid so much that your job is tough, but you are clueless when it comes to tough.  Let me show you those whose job is really tough.

You are spoiled babies who stand around and have staff squirt GatorAid in your mouths, sit in front of misting cooling fans when it’s warm, and sit on heated benches when it's cold. That’s not “tough” that's pampered.

You think that you deserve to be paid excessively high salaries, because you play a “dangerous" game where you can incur career ending injuries. Let me show you career ending injuries!

You think you that you deserve immediate medical attention and the best medical facilities and doctors when injured. Let me show you what it’s like for those who really need and deserve medical attention.

You think you have the right to disrespect the flag of the United States, the one our veterans fought for, risked limbs and mental stability to defend, in many cases died for. Let me show you what our flag means to them, their families, and their friends.

You believe you are our heroes, when in reality you are nothing but overpaid entertainers, who exist solely for our enjoyment! Well, your current antics are neither entertaining nor enjoyable, but rather a disgrace to this country, its citizens, all our veterans and their families, and the sacrifices they have made to ensure this country remains free. You choose to openly disgrace this country in the eyes of the rest of the world, yet with all your money, still choose to live here rather than in any other country. People with even the slightest amount of “class” will stand and respect our flag.. Where does that put you? You want to see heroes… here are this country's heroes!

You can protest policies, the current government, or anything else you choose, that is your right. But when you “protest” our flag and anthem, you are insulting the nation we all live in and love, and all those who have served, been injured, or died to keep it free. There is nothing you can do or say that can make your actions anything more than the arrogance of classless people, who care about themselves more than our country or the freedoms for which our veterans and their families have sacrificed so much, to ensure you have the “right” to speak freely. Our country is far from perfect, but if you can point to any other country where your freedom and opportunities are better than they are here, then you just might want to go there and show respect for their flag!

Unfriendly Persuasion (yes, a cinema reference)

Roseanne is Roseanne.  Her shtick hasn't changed in forever.  She's been rude, crude, offensive, and intentionally provocative over her entire career.  One wonders whether she was like that before beginning her career, but it doesn't matter: we knew exactly what to expect when Roseanne was in the spotlight.  This is neither to condone nor condemn her recent tweets.  It is merely to note that, with Roseanne, "you get what you pay for".

Samantha Bee is Samantha Bee.  Although relatively new on the scene, her shtick hasn't changed either.  She clothes her insults in the vestment of political "satire".  Just like Roseanne, it's hard to separate Bee's political policy ridicule from personal insult.

America has always had "insult comics".  My personal hero is Don Rickles, whose act was all about making gentle fun of members of his audience.  But gentle fun: people loved being a target of Mr. Rickles because they knew that he wasn't being personal.  He was being funny.  He never used profanity, he never broke the wall separating "public" from "private", and he always ended his show by thanking his audience for being "in on the joke".  Always funny - but never truly insulting.

Joan Rivers, Rodney Dangerfield - even Groucho Marx, whose ad-libs were both clever and hilarious - made us laugh without feeling uncomfortable.  Insult comics all, and all were funny.  How many of us walked away laughing after hearing their routines, and repeating some of the funniest lines to each other?

But over time, the separation between "political" and "personal" became blurred, and today we have people like Barr and Bee who intentionally offend in order to make a point.  It's instructive to watch their audiences.  There are a lot of uncomfortable laughs ("Should I find this funny?  Should I laugh?"), but not much else.  And those laughs are mostly the result of an inventive way of using some form of profanity.  Neither Barr nor Bee is truly funny.

I have a theory about that.

It goes something like this: "You're not listening to me and you won't agree with me, so I'm going to embarrass you in public to force you to agree with me and to force you to do what I say."

The problem is that the person who is being attacked is often not the person being embarrassed.  In point of fact, the person making the attack ends up apologizing.  Any political point of the attack has been lost in the meanness of the words being used.  It has been both hidden and erased by the ferocity of the words used.

And that, I think, is the point: to destroy any reasonable political discussion by poisoning it with personal animus.  The political becomes personal - and the personal becomes the point of the attack.

This is nothing new.  The use of "forcing the political to become personal" has been going on forever in American politics... or has everyone forgotten about Hamilton's duel with Burr?  Personal disgust between two political opponents ended up with one of them dead and the other's career destroyed.

(Heh - it's a good thing that dueling was outlawed hundreds of years ago. I can think of dozens of political opponents who would willingly face each other with single-shot flintlocks at 30 paces!)

One can make the argument that the election of Trump has changed the face of political discourse, but I prefer to think otherwise.  I think the election of Trump has uncovered the cross-party and cross-ideology hatred that has been simmering all along, and Trump's use of non-traditional media to bypass the left-controlled traditional media "wall" has only uncovered the pot.

It has been said that Trump is not the disease: he is a symptom.  In that, I somewhat agree.  But I think Trump is less a symptom than a result: after being ignored by those who espouse ideologies that play well in coastal liberal enclaves but not in "flyover country", and after a compliant media that assisted a leftist ideology while hindering a conservative ideology, the reaction was the election of someone who had no history in the political "swamp" (unfortunate term, but DC was built on a swamp after all) and who could not be easily "controlled" by either side.

Trump's election is not a rejection but an acknowledgement of the coarsening of political discourse, of which Barr and Bee are partly responsible.  But they are only two.  There are dozens of others who have been provided media platforms and encouraged to insult their ideological opposites, and who only make themselves seem silly and childish when doing so - while also failing to convert anyone on the other side of the aisle.

Barr and Bee are both the result of the "if you don't listen to me, I'll get personal" school of politics.  They both probably know that they probably won't convince anyone, as their form of persuasion is anything but gentle.  But they continue in the hope that "somebody will listen".

A word to both: to convince, cajole.

Teddy Roosevelt's Realpolitik

3 prisoners came home from North Korea with Pompeo.  NPR and the other MSM outlets were totally incapable of saying "congratulations" to Trump and Pompeo.  Instead, they've been trying to find ways to "suspect NORK of bad intentions": maybe this is all Trump will get, etc.

Amazing.

Well, not really.

Meanwhile, the MSM's "NUCLEAR WAR WITH IRAN!!!!PANIC!!!OMG!!!" drumbeat is getting louder and louder.

What the MSM doesn't understand is that Iran came to the table because of sanctions, not because they were being browbeaten by Obama (um... heh...).  They left the table because they were paid (off) by Obama - whose envoy, Kerry, sent pallets of cash (yes, really, pallets of cash) and came home empty-handed.  At least 3 Americans were left behind as hostages in Iran.

A hostage situation with a multi-billion dollar payoff - and Obama didn't even get the hostages back.

Once upon a time, there was a TV show named Star Trek.  Don't laugh: some of the writers had already "made their bones" as bonafide published authors in fiction & science fiction.  In one episode, Kirk is being held hostage by a government that wants to, er, put Kirk "out to stud", so to speak.  In a brilliant bit of script writing, Nimoy (as Spock) makes the following observation:

"We must acknowledge once and for all that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis."

Sometimes you have to stop trying to speak softly... and start swinging TDR's "big stick".

Trump, whose reputation as a "disruptor" is well earned, has been using his disruptive influence and (not really) unpredictable nature to put America's opponents off-balance.  As a partial result, Kim sent home 3 hostages without anything more than a promise for a possible meeting.  That's a foreign-policy success, no matter how you cut it.

Iran is a different situation.

I think that the Iranian regime might fall by the end of this year,.  It already has serious domestic problems and significant internal unrest.  Iran's economy has become so resource-stretched with its attempts to "change the face of the Middle East" that its financial footings are upside-down: it can't sell enough oil to support all of its anti-peace initiatives.  There is widespread unemployment, modern goods are becoming impossible to get, and inflation is in (at least) double-digits per quarter.

And now, with Trump pulling out of Iran's blackmail scheme - aka the JCPOA - Iran is looking straight at another set of sanctions.  And the power of those sanctions is strong because they threaten to end business relationships between the US and any country or corporation that does business with Iran.  It's a chain reaction: if a company in Germany sells to Iran, they will be banned from selling to the US.

If you think that's not a threat, think about this: between the US and Iran, which country has a strong economy capable of paying its bills?  And which country do you really want to do business with on a long-term basis?

Exactly.

The US spent the USSR into bankruptcy.  The USSR fell because it had no financial or political support from member countries, and internal disharmony was tearing it apart.  Reagan and Gorbachev were "there at the end": Reagan pushed the last domino over and the USSR fell.  Gorbachev allowed a "soft landing" rather than starting a nuclear war.  Together, they both realized the futility of continuing the cold war.  The time had come to "move on" - they both realized it and ran with it.

The difference between the USSR and Iran is that Iranian Mullahs look forward to being martyrs to the cause of Islam.  But they and their hard-core supporters are the only ones looking forward to the end of the world and a reward in paradise.  If you look beyond Iran, you find that the Iranian Mullahs are widely despised and hated for spreading terrorism and endangering everyone - Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

Yes, there are pockets of Muslims whose core belief is to "be a martyr to Islam!",but they are being depleted through their own suicidal activities.  Rather than building up huge armies of new followers, they're becoming outcasts and are being abandoned - by Muslims and no-Muslims alike.

Islam may still be an actively anti-modern religion, but so was Christianity - in the Middle Ages.  Christianity went through The Reformation, and the "murder all the pagans everywhere" ethic was abandoned in favor of teachings that mostly concentrated on living in peace (the exceptions prove the rule - again).

Islam has not yet undergone its own Reformation, but there are true Islamic moderates who actively seek a way to put aside the Qu'ran's demands to "kill the unbelievers" and concentrate on teachings about peace.

There's a reason that G-D made the Hebrew slaves wander in the desert for 40 years.  He wanted the generation who had grown up as slaves, and who could only think of themselves as slaves, to die off.  In the movie "Look Who's Coming To Dinner", Sidney Poitier tells his father "You think of yourself as a black man.  I think of myself as a man".  Look at Sharpton and the other black activists of his generation, most of whom are incapable and/or unwilling to acknowledge that they are the ones keeping race hatred alive.

It takes time for things to change.  But, change will happen.  It's inevitable.  It's the primary process of life.  Change is unstoppable.

There are very few American Muslims who came here legally, became citizens, and want to commit Jihad.  The overwhelming majority came here to get away from the requirement to "kill thy neighbor" and just want to live peaceful and quiet lives (once again, the exceptions prove the rule).  Yes, there are organizations - such as CAIR - that aim to promote Islamic-based hatred of nonbelievers, just as there are Sharptons who want to keep race hatred alive.  But they are the exceptions - there are far more American Mullahs who love America and preach a quiet and peaceful life.

Just as with Christianity, Islam needs a Reformation.  It will happen to American Muslims.  It's already happening to them.  I have met some local Muslims (mostly at cultural events) and I have politely asked questions.  They all universally answer that they just want to be left in peace - to live quiet lives where they believe they are safe from the secret police and the incredibly evil "if you are a true Muslim" demands from fundamentalists.  Talk to some of the Somali immigrants (I've met many at cultural events).  They're some of the nicest folks you'll meet, and most will make amazing American citizens.

It is the average American Muslim who most fears what Iran is teaching the world about Islam, and who would be the first to beg the Iranian Muslims to stop preaching hatred and war.

The day of the Iranian Reformation is coming.  And when it does, the average Iranian will be glad to rid Iran of nukes, terrorist activities, and the evils of Muslim fundamentalists.

Persecution of the Law-Abiding

I'm sure you heard about Kyle Kashuv, one of the "Parkland" students, being interrogated by school administrators after posting a picture of himself at a gun range with his father (and being called a Nazi by one of his teachers).  Now, another school in the US (Lacey, NJ) may have disciplined two student for posting pictures of safe gun use at a range during non-school hours.  The circumstances of the NJ students is unclear, but it appears that they were suspended and, after legal threats, the suspension was wiped from their records.

The term I'm going to use for both of these incidents is "malicious persecution".

It's one thing for schools to be upset about wrongful or illegal student actions on school property, whether those actions were taken during school hours or not.  And a second thing for schools to be upset about students committing crimes during non-school hours.  In both cases, I would require definitive proof that the students did indeed commit the offenses.  And if the proof existed, I would have no problem with disciplinary action.

But when a student is safely and properly exercising a Constitutional right during non-school hours, in the proper venue, and with competent adult supervision, the school administrators need to FOAD learn to live with it.  I understand that guns are a hot topic right now, and that the overwhelmingly liberal teachers' unions are vehemently anti-gun.  Too many ideologically-driven grade school teachers are willing to preach against Constitutional rights and spend classroom time ranting about how evil guns are.  The result is the intentional miseducation of their students.

Punishing students for exercising their Constitutional rights is wrong - and, if I had anything to do with it, I would censure, suspend, or fire any school administrators who are overstepping their bounds in order to make a political point.  In loco parentis does not mean usurping and, in the case of Kyle Kashuv, completely ignoring the will of the real parents while insulting both the children and the parents.

The overwhelming number of grade school teachers do the job they were hired to do: they teach.  But there are "bad apples" in that barrel too.

So, a word to those "bad apples":  stop forcing your personal political views on students.  Your job is not indoctrination: it is education.  These two concepts do not belong together in a grade-school classroom.

And here's a thought for you:

If you don't think anyone under 21 is mature enough to own a rifle, how can you then say that those same under-21 individuals have "something valuable to say"?  Is it possible that they're merely repeating what you have been saying, and doing it without understanding why you're saying it?

And, for that matter, is it possible that you're merely repeating what others have been saying, and - as an adult capable of mature and logical reasoning - you're doing it without understanding what you're talking about?

Exceptions should not become the rule

A federal judge wants Trump to justify the cancellation of the unconstitutionally implemented DACA program.

The backward logic is astounding: Obama signs an EO to keep the parents of illegal aliens from being deported (DAPA), a lower court places an injunction on DAPA thus permitting those here illegally to be deported,  and the case goes to the SCOTUS where a 4-4 decision allows the lower court decision (they may be deported) to stand - thus invalidating DAPA.

But:

Trump wrote an EO canceling DACA, another program established by an Obama EO meant to grant non-deportation, permanent residency, and job permits to children who were brought here illegally when their parents entered illegally.  However, this time, a federal judge won't let Trump cancel DACA without justification.  Hence, this federal judge is forcing the federal government to not deport those here illegally if they are "protected" by DACA

A federal judge is forcing the DOJ to walk away from the enforcement of immigration law.

[This isn't the time or place to get into whether Trump's "travel ban" is legal or not.  That's not even remotely germane to this issue, and I reject and joyfully burn down any such straw man arguments meant as a distraction.  Sorry, but you lose.  Back to the subject at hand.]

The justification for canceling DACA is based in the text of the Constitution itself.  Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 charges Congress with the power "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization..."

There's nothing in the Constitution that just as clearly gives the President the ability to create new immigration policies on-the-fly (there are references to specific issues regarding foreign policy).  No text providing a plenary or executive power to exclude a class of individuals from prosecution - as Obama did when he created DAPA and DACA.  Only a law passed by Congress and signed by the President can create and then protect an entire class of immigrants.  An EO can't do that - hence Obama's entirely correct at-the-time declaration that he couldn't do what he did (but he did it anyway - and that's why we're in this mess).

The President is charged to "...take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed...".  By canceling an EO that usurped the power of Congress to make immigration law, Trump is executing his job as President.  He is ensuring that the laws are "faithfully executed".

The old adage goes, "if you don't like the law, change it".

In fact, Trump tried to change it.  He tried to work with the Democrats to pass a law protecting those eligible under DACA.  In return, Trump wanted to make (to borrow the anti-gun activist term) "common sense reforms" to immigration law as well as build a barrier to (mostly) prevent future illegal entries into the United States.

The Democrats told Trump to go pound sand (appropriate, considering much of the land on the southern border of the US).

Having been rebuffed after trying to do what he felt was right, Trump decided to obey the law - and now a judge has told him to violate his oath of office by not enforcing the laws of the United States.

The President can make the easy case that excusing an entire class of lawbreakers from being charged - regardless of the crime - is beyond "prosecutorial discretion".  Let's be clear here: illegally entering the United States is a crime.  Hence, even though DACA and DAPA selectees may be good people and may make good citizens, they are here illegally.  In some cases ("job permits" - remember?), they're taking up the spot of someone who wants to come here legally and has been waiting in line for their chance to enter the United States and eventually become a citizen.

Rewarding lawbreakers sets a bad precedent: if we do not enforce a law, then why should we enforce any laws?  Telling Trump and the DOJ that they may not enforce this law is tantamount to saying that there are no laws that may be enforced.

I fully support the prerogative of prosecutorial discretion.  However, it must be taken on a case-by-case basis and not because someone has been declared to be a member of a "class".  Otherwise the precedent "why me and not that person" can become a nightmarish but legitimate defense.

If the White House legal staff can't make an argument that "Congress passes law - the Executive enforces it" in front of the judge, then they all should resign and go home.

And the judge who directed the administration to violate the law should be censured.

Anthropomorphizing the inanimate

I hate to say this, but it is impossible to "stop school shootings".  The progressives' dream - eliminating all guns - will never happen in the US - and the hate-driven, panic-spouting progressives know it.  Hence, it is progressives who do not want to face reality and implement realistic measures to protect students.

We can reduce the number of in-school incidents committed with weapons such as guns and knives.  But the first step is to stop memorializing past incidents in an obviously politically-motivated attempt to drum up blind anger merely to "do something".

If we're going to "do something", then let's spend time analyzing previous shootings, determine exactly what could have been done to prevent those previous shootings, and use that analysis to drive policy in a realistic manner.

And if we look at previous shootings, we already know that there are some common factors that stare us right in the face.  I don't need to review them here.

When we're ready - really ready - to do something about school shootings, it is those common factors that will lead us to the first steps we should take.

Let's not blame an inanimate object for its misuse by a human being.  That way lies tyranny.  We've been there before.  Let's not go there again.

Please.

Because blaming the first inanimate object for its misuse will lead to blaming the next inanimate object for its misuse.  And then the next.  And the next.  It's human nature: when we can blame something or someone else instead of ourselves... we do.

One of my favorite movies is the 1960 production of "Inherit the Wind" (Spencer Tracy, Frederick March, screenplay by Young and Smith, from a play by Lawrence and Lee), a fictionalized dramatization of the Scopes "Monkey Trial".  During a scene in that movie, Tracy (playing Henry Drummond, the defense attorney), has been questioning March (playing Brady, a religious zealot) about the law that forbids teaching evolution in public schools.

This short excerpt says EVERYTHING about religious zealotry in the public arena, whether that religious belief is about religion itself, or "manmade climate change", or gay rights, or... gun rights:

==

(Emphasis mine.)

Henry Drummond: I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy, you can only punish. And I warn you, that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys every one it touches. Its upholders as well as its defiers.

Judge: Colonel Drummond...

Henry Drummond: Can't you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!

Water, electricity, and information all "flow"

(I wrote a post on this subject before the "recent unpleasantness" and well before I started this blog.  As the post's original author, I have decided to repost it here and update it accordingly.)

Throughout American history, people with great (and not so great) ideas have formed companies to make products available to the masses. Some of those products became so widely used that they became indispensable to the American lifestyle: electric lighting, telephone, and water systems come immediately to mind.  As they became ingrained into American life, and as Americans became dependent on them, access to these products were regulated to ensure their fair distribution.

But communication systems - devices and interconnections that have a direct effect on society and play a part in the political life of America - have always been treated differently.

Because radio, television, and other forms of telephony play a part in spreading information, and since the spread of information is protected by the 1st Amendment, companies that are responsible for "speech that influences" have often come under regulation to ensure that their "product" is fair and factual (although, to be sure, it doesn't always work out that way).

The Federal Communications Commission was formed to regulate and coordinate international use of the electronic airwaves,  Over time, it was charged with the responsibility for regulating "speech that influences".  It has sometimes unfairly regulated "speech that influences", but has (for the most part) managed to find a balance between allowing the free exercise of speech while enforcing some rules to keep the speech from becoming offensive (e.g. regulations against profanity and so on).

Today, "speech that influences" is communicated over a medium that was never considered at the time the FCC was instituted: the Internet. Originally created for military use, and designed to withstand both widespread natural disasters and nuclear war, the Internet has become indispensable as the primary method for information flow. Today's Internet has the reach and the influence that radio had in the 1930s and TV had in the 1960s.

But the Internet doesn't use the airwaves, so there are no rules permitting the FCC to regulate Internet traffic.  Hence, the Internet is entirely unregulated. The FCC's attempt at "net neutrality" was based on cost of access to content, not the content itself.  But the content itself?  Whatever anyone wants, regardless of how biased, factual, or profane.  The FCC isn't involved.

In many ways, the Internet is the ideal model for the 1st Amendment: free and unfettered speech.

BUT, with the recent hubbub over Facebook, is it time for the FCC to begin to examine whether some Internet content should be regulated? Is it time for the FCC to examine whether companies like Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, Comcast, and other "providers" are using their power to decide who has access to the Internet and whether that access is being fairly and equitably provided by those companies?

And whether, both as Internet access providers and purveyors of "speech that influences", whether they should at least follow some ethical standards regarding that speech?

Facebook, which has a reach far exceeding that of the yellow papers of the early 1900s, has decided to be an arbiter of what its subscribers see.  As a private company, it certainly has the right to do so.  And people have the right to not use Facebook if they don't want to.  But, for the moment, it is the means to share information between users on the Internet.  It is the equivalent of the "alphabet networks" of the 20th century: it is the equivalent of one of the "big three", but for Internet users.  And it has become the "town square", the place where people congregate to talk among themselves and to be heard by others.

When Google or Facebook, which have become so powerful as to be considered utilities, decide which content they will allow and which they will deny, they enter the realm where they exercise control over political discussion. And by entering this realm and deciding which information they will and won't permit on their services, they exercise control over the political process.  In fact, one of the subjects of the recent Facebook hearings was exactly that question: was Facebook used to influence the 2016 election?

Is it time for the FCC to step in and determine how the Internet should be regulated?  They stepped in to determine how the original Bell Telephone needed to be regulated and how radio and TV were regulated.  Is it now the Internet's turn?

Google and Facebook are not public utilities. They are privately owned.  But they have shown that they will use their own influence over hundreds of millions of users to guide the political discussion by making decisions on what their users see and what they don't see.

As much as it pains me to say this, they need to be declared "common carriers" to force them to stop making decisions about who may or may not use their services, and to force them to stop "filtering" information according to the whims of those who manage those services.  Just as utilities cannot arbitrarily turn off one person's electricity for no reason, Google and Facebook have become too powerful to be able to arbitrarily ban someone's political ideas merely because someone in the company disagrees with them..

Does this mean that ISIS might have a free hand on Facebook? Yes... and no. Facebook may not like what ISIS posts, but it should not be in the business of blocking it. The same with neo-Nazis and alt-right extremists. And the same with antiFA, BLM, BAMN, and other alt-left extremists.  Facebook should remain neutral on content - but should be free to contact authorities when it feels that content presents an immediate danger to others.

The same with "fake news": Neither Google nor Facebook should not be in the business of deciding which news is "fake" and which news is "real". It must become a "common carrier", and needs to stop choosing what is seen on its network.

Yes, it sucks to build a tool that is adopted by thousands, then millions, then hundreds of millions around the world - and then be told that "you have too much influence to be allowed to continue to operate according to your personal agenda." But that's where we are today: hundreds of millions of people around the world getting their information "filtered" through the minds of a select few who determine "what's best" for their subscribers.

The time has come for Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other highly-influential organizations to be told that they need to get out of the "regulating and choosing content" business. They have become too big and too influential, and need to be operate as "utilities".  If this means that they need to be subjected to regulation, then so be it.

Sometimes there is a place for government. And when it comes to ensuring that all people have the same right to have their political speech be heard, the 1st Amendment must be the guiding principle. In this country, your right to free speech must be protected. And when companies (are you listening, Facebook?) or city governments trample on those rights (are you listening, Berkeley?) it is time for the federal government to step in and restore those rights.

Highly recommended

https://borepatch.blogspot.com/

Go read BP's historical posts, and you'll find a wealth of information - his analysis of the "debate" over global warming climate destruction climate change naturally-occurring and ecologically-based global temperatures is both eye opening and damning.

Hockey sticks belong on the ice.  Real ice - and, in most cases, manmade ice.  Ya can't play that pucking game anywhere but on ice.... which is why I've always found the term "hockey stick chart", when used to describe an uptick in temperatures, to be both hypocritical and ironic.

Iustitia's missing blindfold

Mueller pushed the NY district court investigators to invade the offices of one of Trump's lawyers (Cohen).  They did so because of a claim that the lawyer was "not acting as a lawyer" and may have been violating tax laws.  The investigators took everything: every piece of paper, every record, every computer.  Everything.  They treated the lawyer as if he was a drug dealer or someone suspected of being a serial murderer - not as a lawyer with clients other than Trump (yes, he does have other clients).

Ok, so he was Trump's lawyer.  I get it.

But he was also someone else's lawyer (a name has already been floated).  A person who may be a truly uninvolved someone.  A person who has nothing to do with Trump.  Someone who lives an honest life.  And someone who was a client of the same lawyer.  The reason that someone chose Cohen as his lawyer is immaterial.  Unless that someone has been charged with a crime, and even if he had, busting into a lawyer's office and confiscating all of the lawyer's records, including that uninvolved someone's records... Just. Isn't. Done.

The legal records of that someone are now held in a district court and will be viewed by investigators as they search for (ahem) "wrongdoing".  That person - the uninvolved person - has had their right to the lawer-client privilege destroyed.  That person was not served with a warrant.  That person was not told that they were under suspicion.  That person has now been dragged into a wholly-unrelated situation.  And that person's records, and any deep, dark, legal, intentionally-hidden secrets, have now been exposed.

Because Trump.

This is why Dershowitz is so angry and why the ACLU's silence is so loud.  If this warrantless and unconstitutional action is allowed to stand unquestioned, then the lawyer-client privilege is dead.  A precedent has been set that "the state is all powerful" and gets to decide who may (and may not) use the 5th Amendment's prohibition to protect themselves from self-incrimination via the use of the lawyer-client privilege. The doctor-client privilege could be next... and, if some overzealous judge decides to get involved, the sanctity of the confessional could vanish as well.

Because... Trump.

Regardless of how you feel about her, there was an expectation of privacy of Clinton's records on Clinton's private server.  The same was not true of Abedin's laptop.  Abedin's laptop didn't belong to her.  It belonged to the government.  Thus, there was no expectation of privacy for any information on it: it was a government-owned system and the assumption is that anything on it was owned by the government (that's one of the reasons I rarely use company systems for anything other than emails that I don't mind if other people read).  The reason that her government-issued phone and other government-issued phones were physically destroyed with hammers was to prevent the extraction of information from those phones.  It doesn't matter whether it was government information or personal information.  The devices were destroyed against government rules.

Clinton's personally-owned and maintained email server did not belong to the government, was not located on government property, was not maintained via government funds, and was thus private.  Her use of that private server for sending and receiving government emails was obviously meant to defeat government rules regarding government information.  But because the server was privately owed and operated, there was an expectation of privacy - which was respected.  Hence, a subpoena was issued to get the contents of the server.  It was not until the refusal to turn over that server's records that the subpoena demanded the physical hardware itself.  But in any event, Clinton claimed to turn over all of the government emails and was not compelled to turn over anything she claimed was private.

And that's the difference: Clinton was given the opportunity to decide which emails to turn over.  Trump's lawyer was given no such opportunity.  Clinton was directly violating State Dept rules.  Trump's lawyer may have violated campaign laws but there is no direct evidence he had.

So we are left with a problem that has caused the scales of justice to become seriously unbalanced: the personal feelings and opinions of a few have overcome the obligation to administrate the law fairly and without bias for everyone.

And the people that exemplify this problem, who have put their thumbs on the scale, and who have destroyed any belief that "justice is blind" are the same people in whom we put our trust: the highest level bureaucrats in the Department of Justice and in the FBI.

Because... Trump.