Archive for 2011

CONLAW PROF ANN ALTHOUSE ON THE DEBT LIMIT AND THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT:

Isn’t it funny how this “tea party” philosophy just sounds like a fair reading of the text? But only Clarence Thomas is crackpot enough to do that! I added the boldface to highlight what to me seems like the obvious interpretation: No one is talking about questioning the validity of the debt! When you fail to pay debts, you’re not claiming they aren’t valid. Why wouldn’t all the Justices say that? Why would that inapt clause take precedence over the specific and clear clause in Article I, listing among Congress’s powers the power “To borrow Money on the credit of the United States”?

We can’t follow the plain language of the Constitution. Doing that would unacceptably constrain the behavior of elites. Instead, the Constitution must be interpreted by an elite priesthood that will insure it means whatever the elites want it to mean.

THE END OF HARRY REID AS WE KNOW IT? “We don’t know all the details of the negotiations between Mitch McConnell and the White House which apparently are closing in on an agreement, but one thing is clear, Harry Reid has become a sideshow.” I feel fine.

CITIES VS. COUNTRIES: “San Francisco’s metropolitan area contains an economy the size of Thailand. Chicago’s GDP rivals Switzerland.”

ATF GUNRUNNING SCANDAL UPDATE: Associated Press covers Gunwalker. “The article needs to be read in its entirety to get the full impact, but one notable point is that firearms dealers made sales of AK-47 type weapons that they normally would not have, because they were encouraged to do so by ATF. . . . The Obama administration’s cover-up continues to this day, as Eric Holder’s Department of Justice stonewalls Congress, seemingly in order to prevent the investigation from reaching into the highest levels of the administration. If the media’s need to protect the fast-sinking Obama administration were not so acute, this would be quite a scandal.”

YOU ELECT AN APPARATCHIK, you get apparatchiks appointed. And favors for the nomenklatura. No surprise.

ANDREW BREITBART WILL SKIP CPAC over its GOProud ban.

Roger Simon is boycotting too. And I won’t be there either. Of course, I don’t usually go anyway.

UPDATE: Breitbart link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

FAILING TO SAVE THE SPOTTED OWL: “This is a pattern we see all too often with the Endangered Species Act — regulatory measures are imposed with uncertain if any ecological benefit. The ESA has sometimes kept species from falling over the brink of extinction, but has done precious little to achieve its stated goal of species recovery. Residents of depressed timber communities may want ESA reform because of the Act’s tremendous costs, but there’s also ample reason to want ESA reform because of its environmental ineffectiveness.”