RSS- The battle for Ocheretyne
- Supreme Court oral arguments to be heard on April 25 about presidential immunity for official acts
- Nasa’s Voyager-1 sends usable data from deep space
- The Wondrous Oak
- Three Seas Summit: Vilnius 2024
- Tit for tat until it all goes boom
- Deadly H5N1 avian influenza strain detected on mainland Antarctica
- “BYD is launching its next-gen Blade EV battery soon with more range and even lower cost”
- Iran launches air attacks on Israel
- ISW on the developing Ukrainian defense industrial base and Russias strikes on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure
West Virginia defeating the EPA is a great win for the US. I can’t wait to see AOC put the proposal of the ‘experts’ of the EPA into legislative language and submit them as a bill to make them law. As soon as she’s done with that bill to amend the constitution to create a federal right to an abortion.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
As Greta would have it; “How dare they”. The Supremes are on a roll.
Fred, the opinion link you shared ends with Kagan’s much quoted dissent. She said this:
No. It was not the Supreme Court who appointed itself as decision-maker here, it was Congress abdicating that role to ‘experts’ which resulted in a bad law – again. The Court has issued a timely reminder that the business of politicians is not to legislate on behalf of agencies like the EPA – that has it backwards, despite all appearances to the contrary.
The greatest question of our time is how in an ever more complex world we avoid a decent into Technocracy, where unconstrained ‘experts’ will, in the name of the Greater Good and of course the Science, eviscerate what is left of individual rights. It should not be this way, but with the legislative branch intent on abdicating responsibility for decision-making by leaving it to the ‘experts’, the judicial branch is the last line of defense.
Kagan’s thinking shows the real danger; that a SCOTUS packed with like-minded individuals would subordinate the Constitution to the cause du jour. If it weren’t climate change it would be something else, as the ‘pandemic’ has so clearly shown. Kagan’s views perfectly encapsulate what I find truly frightening – a Supreme Court packed with lawyers, who like politicians are willing to give way to the ‘experts’.
Barbara Ann,
“First, Members of Congress often don’t know enough— and know they don’t know enough—to regulate sensibly on an issue. ”
Elena Kagan.
She’s far more dangerous than an individual member of congress; and yes, she’s outraged that the new majority just stripped her of a lot of her power and returned it to the states, or Congress, where it belongs. She should resign and run for office.
As to the decent into Technocracy, you should take a look at what the technocrats in the EU and at the UN are doing with regulatory apparatus. (And not just the WHO).
I was about to say that this began as far back as Nixon’s administration but it was really w/FDR. He w/Wilson as his early model, began the long march away from elected officials making law and giving that awesome power to administrative agencies. Kagan is not the only intellectual light weight that abides this. Most in the socialist party agree w/her. The GOPe rinocrats just don’t give a sht – as long as they get “theirs”.
“Politics is an art and not a science, and what is required for its mastery is not the rationality of the engineer but the wisdom and the moral strength of the statesman” – Hans Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946)
Morgenthau was dismayed by our modern view of politics as somehow a corrupted profession operating on a lower moral plane to that which applies in one’s private life. He also said this:
“Paradoxically enough, the Western world has developed a political philosophy without a positive concept of politics.”
Our philosopher kings have abandoned philosophy in favor of scientism and passed the crown to the engineers.
Bill,
Kagan and the neo-bolshis only believe this because they are in charge, or believe they are, and their sacred cows haven’t been turned into BBQ by bureaucrats yet. When it does they howl loudest. Remember the eminent domain case in CT that outraged the left and the right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
June 30 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday imposed limits on the federal government’s authority to issue sweeping regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants…
The ruling is likely to have implications beyond the EPA as it raises new legal questions about any big decisions made by federal agencies. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has signaled ongoing skepticism toward expansive federal regulatory authority. Conservative legal activists have long advocated to reduce agency power in what has been dubbed a “war on the administrative state.”
…
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey called the ruling a “huge victory against federal overreach and the excesses of the administrative state.”
Some small-government conservatives have expressed hope that this legal precedent could be used to dismantle numerous bloated Federal agencies.
We can only hope.
Has anyone read this book. I picked it up at a used bookstore. It’s fascinating, I wonder how reliable this work is considered to be with the passing of decades. https://www.amazon.com/Spies-traitors-World-War-II/dp/B0007DZ7YY
Some critics belittled Trump as a clueless bumbler; some true believers praised Trump as 5-D chess player. The true believers may yet hold faith that Trump’s “Schedule F” gambit was part of some masterful plan. Even those who disparage Trump may believe that “Schedule F” points the way toward a new set of tactics for reducing government bloat.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/astonishing-implications-schedule-f
longarch,
The idea of turning government bloat into a massive political patronage system is a horrible idea. Between low level bureaucrats slowing down the plans of political appointees and the replacement of those bureaucrats with more rabidly ideological political appointees, the bureaucrats are the lesser evil. They serve as a check on the excesses of the rabidly ideological political appointees.
TTG,
“They serve as a check on the excesses of the rabidly ideological political appointees.”
remind us all who elected the bureaucrats? How do you overturn their decisions? Or is this just a case of the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must?
Fred,
I can ask you the same thing about the rabidly ideological political appointees that you want to replace the bureucrats. Who elects them and how do you overturn their decisions? The idea of a vanguard Trumpist party controlling all levers of government is an abomination. That seems to be the goal. I don’t want them or the rabidly progressive wing of the Democratic party replacing all government bureaucrats with nothing but their own.
TTG,
I don’t want ‘rabidly ideological political appointees’ to replace these people. I want the majority of those position permanently abolished.
“Who elects them and how do you overturn their decisions? ”
Those remaining can be replaced with an election of the President. Their decisions should have little influence without getting enacted into law by Congress.
“The idea of a vanguard Trumpist party controlling all levers of government is an abomination.”
Thanks for the clarification.
Fred,
All those unelected bureaucrats are approved and budgeted by Congress. No one can be hired and not a dime can be spent until Congress enacts it into law, at least for the federal agencies. Congress can also abolish those positions and defund those agencies by law. The President can’t do it. He can only propose to Congress, then veto or sign what legislation Congress sends him. I made GG-14 in DIA as a direct result of Congress legislating 10 intelligence operations billets specifically to respond to the Khobar Towers bombing. Without that legislation and Clinton’s signature, I wouldn’t have had that position. Agencies don’t do this stuff on their own.
TTG,
“All those unelected bureaucrats are approved and budgeted by Congress.”
The budgets are approved, a position in an org chart may be approved, by Congress, but the actual people doing the work, and removing them under current civil service regulations, isn’t done by legislation. Firing any such people is much harder to do in government than corporate America.
Fred,
I agree with you on that, but what happens to those civil service employees, who are tougher to remove than barnacles, when Congress abolishes the billets and ends the funding? It’s like Milton in Office Space.
Democrats reach into the bottom of their well-scarped barrel and look what they found: Michelle Obama 2024.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/michelle_obama_is_running_for_president_in_2024.html
Except, I suspect she won’t actually run. She will graciously acceptor party’s nomination by acclimation, after working in the background pushing all the other Democrat wannabes into the gutter. Does Barry Soetoro still carry his underdog 2008 magic touch, compliments of SEIU thuggery against any and all opposition?
Or does America still reject the idea of family political dynasties. No more Bushes, no more Clintons and no more Obamas.
Don’t be surprised if the DemParty nominates Hillary for President and either Harris or Obama for Vice President.
( Andy ” Ratface” Cuomo will fight very hard for a place on the ticket, but he won’t get one).
TTG,
did you watch Lithuania’s basketball team in the 90s? Besides the humble star Arvydas Sabonis, I remember a player called Marchulonis. What a 3 point player he was.
Jovan P,
I don’t follow any team sport besides hockey, but I do vividly remember the 1992 Lithuanian men’s basketball team. They couldn’t afford to go to the Olympics until the Grateful Dead funded their expenses and sent them skeleton emblazoned tie-dyed uniforms in their national colors. The team wore them as they accepted their bronze medals, a remarkable sight and a remarkable moment. I followed that on German TV and in German papers at the time. I do find the Lithuanian obsession with and skill at basketball fascinating.
Like in many cases, the Lithuanian basketball players did more for the popularization of their country than all the politicians and ambassadors together. The mentioned Sabonis looked like a giant teddy bear, but made it to the NBA and played very smart during his carrier.
The Russians made a pretty nice movie called Going vertical (Движение вверх), about the Soviet basketball team which beat the USA in the famous 1972 OG final in Munich. One of the side stories in the movie is the demur of the Lithuanian player in the Soviet team to run away with his Lithuanian compatriots or stay and play for the team. He stayed and they took gold.
Jovan P,
There’s a documentary film called “The Other Dream Team” directed by Marius A. Markevičius about the 1992 Lithuanian team. I haven’t watched it. Maybe I will soon.
Concerning my love of hockey, I was in traction in ward 44 of Tripler AMC in Hawaii during the miracle on ice. The entire ward was watching the final US-USSR game. When we won, the ward broke out in wild yelling and cheering. It was a memorable way to watch the game.
Memories, memories… wife and I traveled to Far Hills Canada (north of St. Jovite) for xcntry skiing during ’92 Olympics. Its impossible to tell a Canadian from an American so on the big night of the Woman’s hockey match we shared a huge couch w/a bunch of Kanuks and of course fit right in … eeh? Me and the Missus, the only Americans. Don’t ever believe the myth that Canadians are all fair minded good sports, and wouldn’t say slit if they had a mouthful. Among themselves, they are brutal. Even a little bit mean? I don’t remember who won, only the fun watching the game “as Canadians”. I’ve never been able to see our northern neighbors the same way after that night.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell now blames the unvaccinated for the current supply chain problems.
If you recall, back in Aug 20121 VP Kamala Harris threatened supply chain problems would affect Christmas shopping as she was leaving Singapore, but back then the supply chain problems were going to be due to “climate change” affecting cargo ship traffic.
However, since the government still recommends vaccinations as an arbitrary gate keeper for employment, the workplace cannot yet return to normal due to too many people who still refuse to take this unapproved and experimental-use injection. Let alone those refuse to take the third, fourth or fifth booster shot.
Hence, the work slow downs that have created the supply chain problems – not the government’s arbitrary vaccination recommendations.
Do we file this under -Inflation Blame du jour?
https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2022/07/01/watch-team-biden-stoops-to-new-low-blames-unvaccinated-americans-for-inflation-n587328
The Helsinki Commission
Black Sea Security Summit: A Roundtable Dialogue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZskl6-k6No
Following on the heels of the NATO Summit, there seems to be real movement forward, together – wow
Exactly my opinion:
“In actuality, what this boils down to is that Nato – or its component members – have just pledged to offer maximum assistance to Ukraine’s military, short of doing anything that will help them defeat the Russians.”
As written by Dr. Richard North in his Turbulent Times blog.
https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/ukraine-killing-it-slowly/
North is an old hand at UK-centric political-military issues. He is also a multi-topic polygrapher. Not gospel but worth reading.
Dr. North used to run a blog called ‘EuReferendum’ before Brexit. North is a thorough thinker and clear writer and lecturer. I read him for quite a while until Brexit was done.
All: This is the conflict that matters to the U.S.
Not who controls Ukraine.
Not who controls various Muslim-dominated countries.
The defense that was needed was defense of traditional values in America
(and fighting wars abroad did nothing to preserve those.)
This WWII veteran, born in 1922, is exactly right.
100-year-old WWII vet breaks down, says
this isn’t the ‘country we fought for’:
‘I am so upset’
While I do not agree with every POV in it,
this book does point out some of the tactics that have been used to attack traditional America, and other Western countries:
The War on the West by Douglas Murray.
It is noteworthy that, AFAIK, it seems to have been totally ignored by the various American periodicals (NYT, WaPo, etc.) that usually review significant and worthwhile new books.
Their way of keeping out-of-sight anything that might challenge their agenda.
(E.g., like not putting Col. Lang on Op-Ed pages or as a commentator on TV shows,
a counter to all the neocons that infest those venues.)