I think we need two special prosecutors, one for the IRS harassment of Tea Party nonprofit groups and one for the Clinton email and Clinton Foundation pay to play scandal. However, I think the focus should be different from usual on both investigations. I think that the special prosecutors ought to offer Hill and Bill immunity in return for testimony against their underlings. I think we don't need to go any higher than IRS Department Head Lois Lerner and IRS Commissioner John Koskinen at the IRS. Anybody higher than that I think should be offerred immunity for testimony against Lerner and Koskinen. I think the targets in both investigations should be the underlings. The idea is to put as many as possible in jail. This has a lot of advantages. It doesn't look political at all. These people broke the law, so they get convicted and go to jail. We don't need to bag any high fliers here. What we want is the G-d awful truth. We also want to send a message to the next set of underlings. Your masters will go free. You will go to jail. They can't protect you. You can't protect yourself by testifying against them. It will tend to discourage underlings from following unlawful orders. The current orientation of taking out the hard targets at the top is bad strategy. It looks like a political vendetta, as the article says. However, doing nothing encourages a feeling of impunity, that being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry. That doesn't work either. Plus, right now, the Democrats are winning every news cycle with their leaks of inuendo and fabrication, signifying nothing. A number of public trials and convictions will reballance the news cycles and remind people that the Obama Administration and the Clintons were outlaws.
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A Call for Healing
Democrats Call for Healing the Country
May 29, 2017
Unlimited Government Makes Everything Political
Progressives have gotten pretty far along in getting the government to take care of everything. If government is taking care of everything, then everything is political. Politics becomes more and more personal, because the government decisions involve more and more personal decisions. The scope of government is the scope of politics. If we want less politics in our lives, we need the government to take care of less.
Today's malaise is a function of modern communication and transportation, which allows government to be more intrusive in more places than ever before. In 1917, a picture of the President, Queen or King might have been on the wall, but you didn't have to listen to them every day, explaining how great they were. In 1917, bureaucrats could not travel 3,000 miles in 4 or 5 hours and make sure their orders were being carried out to the letter. Officials couldn't coordinate new rules daily, even if they wanted to. The communications systems of 1917 didn't give officials the illusion that they knew everything. Governments have always aspired to total control, but now they think technology gives them a chance to achieve it. In times past, it wasn't realistic because of the physical limts imposed by transportation and communications technology.
Progressives believe that the world should be run by experts who will make better decisions because they are better informed about what the choices entail. The internet and other Information Technology has led progressives to believe experts have all the tools they need to run almost everything better than people can run it themselves.
Actual experience shows that governments are not good at taking care of everything. They gererally fail at it and go bankrupt. Venezuela used to be a prosperous member of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In 1998, Hugo Chavez was elected President on a platform of taking care of everything, including helping the poor and free medical care for all. We'll call his program socialism for short. Chavez continued in office until his death in 2013. His hand picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, took over after Chavez died. Now, Venezuelans don't have enough to eat and are short of medical supplies like antibiotics and the poor have nothing to eat.
Government can't take care of everything, because the experts are a relatively small group making decisions when the government runs things. Being human, even super human as progressives believe they are, they can't beat an entire country of individuals evaluating all the information available and making their own decisions based on what they want for themselves and their families. Government experts, or bureaucrats as some people call them, have to oversimplify to set up government programs because otherwise they face information overload. So they set things up with a limited number of options. People have to fit themselves into the limited options. If they don't fit, they are forced to fit. If bureaucrats don't like certain groups, like traditional Catholics and Evangelical Protestants, then the options for them don't fit very well at all. With power comes the temptation to abuse it.
Today's malaise is a function of modern communication and transportation, which allows government to be more intrusive in more places than ever before. In 1917, a picture of the President, Queen or King might have been on the wall, but you didn't have to listen to them every day, explaining how great they were. In 1917, bureaucrats could not travel 3,000 miles in 4 or 5 hours and make sure their orders were being carried out to the letter. Officials couldn't coordinate new rules daily, even if they wanted to. The communications systems of 1917 didn't give officials the illusion that they knew everything. Governments have always aspired to total control, but now they think technology gives them a chance to achieve it. In times past, it wasn't realistic because of the physical limts imposed by transportation and communications technology.
Progressives believe that the world should be run by experts who will make better decisions because they are better informed about what the choices entail. The internet and other Information Technology has led progressives to believe experts have all the tools they need to run almost everything better than people can run it themselves.
Actual experience shows that governments are not good at taking care of everything. They gererally fail at it and go bankrupt. Venezuela used to be a prosperous member of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In 1998, Hugo Chavez was elected President on a platform of taking care of everything, including helping the poor and free medical care for all. We'll call his program socialism for short. Chavez continued in office until his death in 2013. His hand picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, took over after Chavez died. Now, Venezuelans don't have enough to eat and are short of medical supplies like antibiotics and the poor have nothing to eat.
Government can't take care of everything, because the experts are a relatively small group making decisions when the government runs things. Being human, even super human as progressives believe they are, they can't beat an entire country of individuals evaluating all the information available and making their own decisions based on what they want for themselves and their families. Government experts, or bureaucrats as some people call them, have to oversimplify to set up government programs because otherwise they face information overload. So they set things up with a limited number of options. People have to fit themselves into the limited options. If they don't fit, they are forced to fit. If bureaucrats don't like certain groups, like traditional Catholics and Evangelical Protestants, then the options for them don't fit very well at all. With power comes the temptation to abuse it.
Feb 24, 2017
Voters Revolt as Governments Make Decisions For Them
The discontent in Western
democracies is due to their becoming less and less democratic. The
problem is increasingly arbitrary decisions governments are making supposedly
to take care of their people. Progressives world-wide seem to believe that
large segments of the population are too ignorant and stupid to make their own
decisions. This runs counter to John Locke’s basic principle that
government requires the consent of the governed.
In the US, consent of the governed is the basic principle the country was built on. John Locke first coined the phrase as part of his “Two Treatises on Government,” published in 1690 to justify replacing King James II of England with William and Mary in 1688. So it’s important in Britain as well. Consent of the governed is what allowed Parliament to legislate the Act of Settlement in 1701, which set the rule of Succession for the British Monarchy that’s still in force today.
Locke thought that government exists to preserve the life, liberty and property of each person it governs. This phrase, edited to make it more user friendly, was used in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The chief purpose of government in Western democracies today is to regulate life, constrict liberty and redistribute property, usually without the consent of the governed.
Current US government practice is that almost all new laws that pass Congress are passed as shells, which are filled in later by regulatory agencies, executive orders and court rulings. The problem with regulations, executive orders and court decisions is that none of the processes used to make these things is designed to get the consent of the governed. Conversely, the voters can’t hold the regulatory agencies, executive departments and judges responsible for their actions. In the US, regulatory boards are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, to fixed terms of office. Judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for life terms.
While I’m not quite as clear about how things work in Europe, it appears to me that the European Union does business the same way. Most of their important policies seem to be the result of regulatory agencies or court decisions. Voters don’t get to hold the decision makers accountable.
Bypassing legislatures makes the flow of new regulations arbitrary and largely unpredictable. What are, in effect, laws come out of murky processes in back rooms at regulatory agencies or government executive departments. Then they are subject to review in the courts where the decisions are also hard to predict. The process is like a ping pong match, and the ball bounces around with almost no attempt to gain the consent of the people who will bear the burden of the new rules. The chaotic nature of regulatory processes inhibits long term private sector investment. You’re not going to invest in something which takes 5 or 10 years to pay off if it could be regulated out of existence in 3 to 6 months.
In the US, we have an especially virulent form of this chaos called the “Living Constitution.” Most people probably think that the Constitution is like a contract. The meaning of a contract is fixed when the contract is signed. So logically, the meaning of the Constitution or a Constitutional Amendment should be fixed at the time it’s ratified. The “Living Constitution” doctrine says that the meaning of the Constitution changes over time, based on changing modern conditions. This works out as an excuse to alter the Constitution in the Supreme Court by finding new meaning in the Constitution to suit progressive fashion. In the past, Justices had to decide based on what the law or the Constitution said, whether they like it or not. Now Justices can decide cases based on what they would like the law to be.
The president wields almost all of the power of the modern regulatory state in the US. He or she issues executive orders, in effect controls all regulatory agencies and appoints all judges, including Supreme Court Justices. The appointment of “Living Constitution” Justices was extremely important to the left. Because of Antonin Scalia’s death and the age and ill health of 2 or 3 other Justices, whoever won 2016 was going to be decisive in deciding whether the “Living Constitution” doctrine prevailed or not. The normal ways to change the Constitution require 3/4ths of the States to ratify an amendment. Since Republicans control both legislative chambers in 32 states, that isn’t going to happen for progressives. Their only shot at big changes was cheating with a “Living Constitution” in the Supreme Court. That’s why Trump published a list of 21 judges he would consider appointing to the Supreme Court. All of them were original meaning judges, not “Living Constitution” judges. This list gave conservative Republicans, like me, the confidence to vote for Trump no matter how bad his manners were. Voting for Hillary would have erased the Constitution by allowing it to be completely redefined.
President Obama was especially energetic in concentrating as much power as possible into the Oval Office. Obama used his pen and phone without restraint in his second term to avoid having to deal with Republicans in Congress. He created precedents that were safe only if Hillary Clinton succeeded him. The Democrats went all in, betting that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016 and secure Obama’s legacy.
What happened was a Trump victory. All of the pen and phone power Obama concentrated in the Oval Office will be used to undo the entire hope and change of the last 8 years. Trump will make at least two Supreme Court appointments. The Justices Trump appoints will be deciding cases for about 20 years.
This sudden disastrous outcome has completely unhinged the American left, and even some of the Republican establishment. Instead of permanently remaking the country, the left lost everything to a loud mouthed reality TV star with a lower class accent and abrasive manners, who insults the press constantly with tweets at 3 AM. The Us mainstream media dreams of ways to bring down Trump because they have no other way to fundamentally remake America the way they planned. They have even gotten as far as speculating about a CIA mutiny or a military coup in the US. The Pravda Press is in complete denial, looking for any way to roll the dice again for even a small chance to undo the damage.. The left's desperation measures the magnitude of their reversal.
In the US, consent of the governed is the basic principle the country was built on. John Locke first coined the phrase as part of his “Two Treatises on Government,” published in 1690 to justify replacing King James II of England with William and Mary in 1688. So it’s important in Britain as well. Consent of the governed is what allowed Parliament to legislate the Act of Settlement in 1701, which set the rule of Succession for the British Monarchy that’s still in force today.
Locke thought that government exists to preserve the life, liberty and property of each person it governs. This phrase, edited to make it more user friendly, was used in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The chief purpose of government in Western democracies today is to regulate life, constrict liberty and redistribute property, usually without the consent of the governed.
Current US government practice is that almost all new laws that pass Congress are passed as shells, which are filled in later by regulatory agencies, executive orders and court rulings. The problem with regulations, executive orders and court decisions is that none of the processes used to make these things is designed to get the consent of the governed. Conversely, the voters can’t hold the regulatory agencies, executive departments and judges responsible for their actions. In the US, regulatory boards are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, to fixed terms of office. Judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for life terms.
While I’m not quite as clear about how things work in Europe, it appears to me that the European Union does business the same way. Most of their important policies seem to be the result of regulatory agencies or court decisions. Voters don’t get to hold the decision makers accountable.
Bypassing legislatures makes the flow of new regulations arbitrary and largely unpredictable. What are, in effect, laws come out of murky processes in back rooms at regulatory agencies or government executive departments. Then they are subject to review in the courts where the decisions are also hard to predict. The process is like a ping pong match, and the ball bounces around with almost no attempt to gain the consent of the people who will bear the burden of the new rules. The chaotic nature of regulatory processes inhibits long term private sector investment. You’re not going to invest in something which takes 5 or 10 years to pay off if it could be regulated out of existence in 3 to 6 months.
In the US, we have an especially virulent form of this chaos called the “Living Constitution.” Most people probably think that the Constitution is like a contract. The meaning of a contract is fixed when the contract is signed. So logically, the meaning of the Constitution or a Constitutional Amendment should be fixed at the time it’s ratified. The “Living Constitution” doctrine says that the meaning of the Constitution changes over time, based on changing modern conditions. This works out as an excuse to alter the Constitution in the Supreme Court by finding new meaning in the Constitution to suit progressive fashion. In the past, Justices had to decide based on what the law or the Constitution said, whether they like it or not. Now Justices can decide cases based on what they would like the law to be.
The president wields almost all of the power of the modern regulatory state in the US. He or she issues executive orders, in effect controls all regulatory agencies and appoints all judges, including Supreme Court Justices. The appointment of “Living Constitution” Justices was extremely important to the left. Because of Antonin Scalia’s death and the age and ill health of 2 or 3 other Justices, whoever won 2016 was going to be decisive in deciding whether the “Living Constitution” doctrine prevailed or not. The normal ways to change the Constitution require 3/4ths of the States to ratify an amendment. Since Republicans control both legislative chambers in 32 states, that isn’t going to happen for progressives. Their only shot at big changes was cheating with a “Living Constitution” in the Supreme Court. That’s why Trump published a list of 21 judges he would consider appointing to the Supreme Court. All of them were original meaning judges, not “Living Constitution” judges. This list gave conservative Republicans, like me, the confidence to vote for Trump no matter how bad his manners were. Voting for Hillary would have erased the Constitution by allowing it to be completely redefined.
President Obama was especially energetic in concentrating as much power as possible into the Oval Office. Obama used his pen and phone without restraint in his second term to avoid having to deal with Republicans in Congress. He created precedents that were safe only if Hillary Clinton succeeded him. The Democrats went all in, betting that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016 and secure Obama’s legacy.
What happened was a Trump victory. All of the pen and phone power Obama concentrated in the Oval Office will be used to undo the entire hope and change of the last 8 years. Trump will make at least two Supreme Court appointments. The Justices Trump appoints will be deciding cases for about 20 years.
This sudden disastrous outcome has completely unhinged the American left, and even some of the Republican establishment. Instead of permanently remaking the country, the left lost everything to a loud mouthed reality TV star with a lower class accent and abrasive manners, who insults the press constantly with tweets at 3 AM. The Us mainstream media dreams of ways to bring down Trump because they have no other way to fundamentally remake America the way they planned. They have even gotten as far as speculating about a CIA mutiny or a military coup in the US. The Pravda Press is in complete denial, looking for any way to roll the dice again for even a small chance to undo the damage.. The left's desperation measures the magnitude of their reversal.
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The reaction of the former gate keepers to their loss of power has been pretty poor. It could be characterized as "more cowbell," from the Saturday Night Live Christopher Walken skit. They have tried to bend the news even further than they used to, so they can prove to themselves that they still have the power, and so that they can push political outcomes in the direction they prefer. It didn't work in 2016.
After the election, when their scam was known to have failed, the TV networks and big daily newspapers started talking about the unreliability of "fake news" in order to reclaim some of their lost market share and lost political influence. It backfired when they all started reporting on a dossier that contained demonstrably false "facts." My favorite was that the dossier said Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, had met Russian agents in Prague. That fell apart when Michael Cohen showed he had never been to Prague in his life.
The traditional mainstream media, or what I call the Pravda Press, is struggling with a loss of influence and a failing business model at the same time. I think the two are interrelated. There's only one network, FOX and only one national daily newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, that take a more or less Republican editorial position on news. Everyone else is competing for the progressive half of the country. It's really crowded on the left, and there just aren't enough chairs over there when the music stops for all of the Pravda Press to take a seat.
The internet is providing free news on demand. The expense of offering an internet news article or editorial is very low. Services like Al Monitor that use local people to report foreign news are beating out competitors that have to pay for foreign news bureaus or traveling reporters. Competition from low overhead internet sites is killing the high overhead broadcast TV and radio networks and the national daily newspapers. Their behavior is likely to get more erratic as their death throes continue.