Archive for 2016

HEH: Chevron In The Circuit Courts. “Based on prior empirical studies of judicial deference at the Supreme Court, however, our findings suggest that there may be a Chevron Supreme and a Chevron Regular: Whereas Chevron may not have much of an effect on agency outcomes at the Supreme Court, Chevron deference seems to matter in the circuit courts.”

DIPLOMACY: The World According to Boris, New Foreign Secretary of Britain.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph in 2007 Johnson questioned whether he could back her candidacy. Clinton, who today is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, was at the time seen as a favorite to win the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

“She’s got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital; and as I snap out of my trance I slap my forehead in astonishment.
How can I possibly want Hillary? I mean, she represents, on the face of it, everything I came into politics to oppose: not just a general desire to raise taxes and nationalise things, but an all-round purse-lipped political correctness.”

Can’t there be a job for Boris in a Trump Administration?

RED LINE: Obama’s Syria plan teams up American and Russian forces.

The Obama administration’s new proposal to Russia on Syria is more extensive than previously known. It would open the way for deep cooperation between U.S. and Russian military and intelligence agencies and coordinated air attacks by American and Russian planes on Syrian rebels deemed to be terrorists, according to the text of the proposal I obtained.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry plans to discuss the plan with top Russian officials in a visit to Moscow on Thursday. As I first reported last month, the administration is proposing joining with Russia in a ramped-up bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syria branch, which is also known as the Nusrah Front. What hasn’t been previously reported is that the United States is suggesting a new military command-and-control headquarters to coordinate the air campaign that would house U.S. and Russian military officers, intelligence officials and subject-matter experts.

Ordinarily I’d say that joining forces with Moscow might be a good way to combat ISIS and to reduce NATO-Russian tensions. But given the Obama Administration’s history of incompetent diplomacy with Russia — starting with Hillary Clinton’s comically failed “reset” button — you have to wonder not if but how Putin will play Obama and Kerry for suckers.

TWO LONDON DAILY MAILS IN ONE!

Shot: ‘Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions’: Moving quote by George W. Bush at Dallas police memorial inspires America.

Chaser: ‘Even Biden knows better!’: George W. Bush is mocked for DANCING to Battle Hymn of the Republic during solemn memorial service for Dallas cops.

Ahh you screaming Fleet Street dumpster fire, don’t ever change; these two quotes appeared last night literally side by side:

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As Ann Althouse wrote last night, “The reason George Bush swayed and smiled during ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ is that he actually believes his religion.

I’d like to think that’s a more powerful religion than praying to the god of clickbait, but I’m sure most working at the Daily Mail would disagree.

QUESTION ASKED: Will Mike Lee Blow Up Trump’s Convention?

One influential delegate in particular could swing the vote to secure a minority report. Sen. Mike Lee, who sits on the rules committee along with his wife, Sharon, has remained mum on his plans for the vote. But advocates for the conscience clause are optimistic that he will side with them.

The Utah lawmaker “is definitely there in mind, body and spirit,” said one Republican involved in discussions on unbinding delegates, and Lee could be a “deciding factor” if the vote is close by empowering others to follow his lead.

“What he gives people is permission,” the source said. If Lee were to vote in the affirmative, the source added, delegates would have more cover to vote the same without fear of retribution: “If a U.S. senator can do this, so can I.”

Hmm.

YEP: Dems tap K Street candidate Evan Bayh and embrace the revolving door.

When Evan Bayh left the U.S. Senate six years ago, he penned a righteous essay in the Washington Post about how broken the U.S. Senate is. He also sat down for an interview about Washington’s brokenness with a Post blogger in which Bayh expressed his desire “to be engaged in an honorable line of work.”

Then Bayh went to K Street to work for a lobbying firm and a hedge fund.

This summer, when revolving-door Democratic congressman-turned-K Street lobbyist Baron Hill was polling badly in the race to replace Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind. (the Republican senator-turned-lobbyist-turned-senator who is retiring this year), the Democratic leadership worked overtime to convince Bayh to swing back through the revolving door and run again.

If Trump’s smart he’ll highlight this and call for enacting my revolving-door surtax. Remember, it already has bipartisan support!

JOURNOLISM:

I think this Denis Slattery/Adam Edelman report is supposed to be straight news rather than a lame op-ed hit piece, but these days how does one tell at the New York Daily News?

WHY IS CALIFORNIA SUFFERING SUCH “BAD LUCK?” San Jose Mercury ponders How The Golden State Lost Its Luster:

Last month’s $167 billion dollar budget deal forged by Gov. Jerry Brown and California lawmakers is four times as large in per capita terms as it was in the early 1960s under Brown’s father, Gov. Pat Brown. But despite spending less, the budgets of yesteryear contributed considerably more to economic growth.

* * * * * * *

California also made remarkable transportation and water infrastructure investments in the 1960s, but those investments are not being adequately maintained nor expanded. The Reason Foundation ranks California roads as the second worst in the country. The Road Information Program estimates that bad roads cost state drivers $44 billion per year, despite the fact that California gasoline taxes are 40 percent higher than the national average.

California’s water infrastructure situation is no better. The last major water infrastructure was the 1960 California Water Project. But as state capital spending declined, the California Water Project never realized the capacity that its planners envisioned. Most of the project was completed by the early 1970s, but California’s population has grown by 18 million since then.

The failure to expand water infrastructure is not because voters were unwilling to pay. Since 1970, voters approved 15 of 16 state water bonds, yet this did not deliver major new water storage or canals nor maintain existing infrastructure.

This was not by accident.

THIS IS WHAT FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION LOOKS LIKE: Editor of the magazine whose found once dubbed the 20th century “The American Century” now says “Enough Already With ‘All Lives Matter.’”

But given that millions of Americans disgusted with the magazine’s decades of leftwing bias after the death of its center-right founder have replied “Enough already with Time magazine,” perhaps we should view their shock clickbait headlines more out of pity than anger.

HOPE: In Advanced Economies, Two-Thirds of Population Have Seen Incomes Stagnate, Study Shows.

Between 540 million and 580 million people in 2014 had lower or stagnant incomes than similarly situated people in 2005, according to a new study from the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. The finding presents a break from the trend in advanced economies during the post-World War II era when, throughout twists and turns, most families ended up improving on the standard of living of their predecessors.

“Prior to the financial crisis, all but 2% of people in the Western world ended up better off than people like them 10 years ago,” said Richard Dobbs, a McKinsey senior partner and one of the report’s authors. “But the world changes when you get a cohort of people who are no longer advancing.”

The American economy alone would be more than two trillion dollars richer than it is, had the Obama “recovery” been merely average.