STARVATION AS A WEAPON IN WAR: Starvation is a consequence of war. But sometimes it also serves as a weapon of mass destruction.
Archive for 2017
June 14, 2017
MEGAN MCARDLE: Get Congress Back To Legislating, Not Just Budgeting.
Megan McArdle: You told me recently that many of our current problems in the legislative process stem from the budget process enacted in the early 1970s, which is now breaking down under a new political reality. What happened to the budget process in the 1970s?
Yuval Levin: I think that’s the right place to start, because it will help us see what isn’t working. I’m a believer in the Chesterton’s Fence approach to public problems. When something isn’t working, don’t just think about how it needs to change but think about why it is the way it is.
The 1974 budget process was developed in response to a specific set of problems, basically revolving around the frustration of a Democratic Congress at being constantly outmaneuvered by a Republican president in the budget process
The main problem was the practice of “impoundment” by which the Nixon administration just refused to spend money on things it disagreed with even after Congress appropriated money. The ’74 act ended that practice. But Congress decided to also rebalance the budget process in general to empower Congress. Their sense was that the president won budget battles because he had a disciplined, organized, professional budget bureaucracy serving him, while Congress was disorganized and undisciplined. They wanted a process that would make Congress function a little more like an executive when it came to budgeting.
So the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act created a new budget process. It was a huge step forward for Congress, which had always been in a position of disadvantage against the president — who since the 1920s had had professional economists running a budget agency. When Congress needed budget projections, it had to ask the White House, and could never really trust the White House, especially with a president of the opposite party. The ’74 Act changed that.
And then things went south.
HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? Oil Falls as U.S. Stockpiles Rise and IEA Sees 2018 Supply Surge.
The American Petroleum Institute signaled U.S. crude inventories probably climbed a second week, ahead of data from the Energy Information Administration forecast to show a decline. New supplies from OPEC’s rivals will be more than enough to meet growth in demand next year, the IEA said in a report Wednesday.
Oil is extending its slump below $50 a barrel amid speculation increasing U.S. supplies will counter production curbs by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including non-OPEC member Russia. Output at major American shale fields will reach a record in July, according to the EIA.
“The market tightening intended by OPEC has thus failed to materialize,” Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commmerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said in a report. “OPEC will therefore have to cut production further next year to ensure that the oil market is not oversupplied.”
Well. We seem to have drilled our way out of that problem.
WINNING: ISIS Captures Tora Bora, Once bin Laden’s Afghan Fortress.
Taliban fighters who had previously controlled the extensive cave and tunnel complex fled overnight after a determined, weeklong assault by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, according to villagers fleeing the area on Wednesday.
A local Afghan police official confirmed that the fortress had fallen. “ISIS has captured Tora Bora and areas around it,” he said. “The tribal elders are here in my office. They all escaped the area last night.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
Related: Mattis Under Pressure to Deliver “Winning” War Plan.
TOO MANY MACHINE DEMOCRATS? How Illinois Became America’s Failed State. I think it’s too much political power concentrated in Chicago. Another reason to overturn Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims.
CHARLIE MARTIN, ADDICT: Intellectual Crack for Information Junkies.
BERNIE SANDERS: How Democrats Can Stop Losing Elections.
For the sake of our country and the world, the Democratic Party, in a very fundamental way, must change direction. It has got to open its doors wide to working people and young people. It must become less dependent on wealthy contributors, and it must make clear to the working families of this country that, in these difficult times, it is prepared to stand up and fight for their rights. Without hesitation, it must take on the powerful corporate interests that dominate the economic and political life of the country.
Sanders has never won an election as a Democrat, and his message is unlikely to be heeded by a Democratic Party which is rigged against outsiders like himself.
SMOKE BUT NO FIRE? SOMEBODY WAS SMOKING SOMETHING. The ugly question: What if the Russia Russia Russia story was nothing?
BECAUSE A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL STINK? Dem Congresswoman to Activists: Don’t Say ‘Control’ When Talking Gun Laws.
MORE ON THE SHOOTING OF REP. STEVE SCALISE AND OTHERS, here. “We blame the liberal climate of hate.”
AT AMAZON, 70% off or More on Men’s T-Shirts & Tanks.
THE HILL: Former FAA officials endorse air traffic control spinoff plan.
Several former officials for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are throwing their weight behind a contentious effort to separate air traffic control from the federal government.
The last three chief operating officers for the FAA called on Congress to create a “reliable, robust 21st century system” by putting a nonprofit corporation in charge of the nation’s air navigation system, according to a letter released by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Tuesday.
President Trump has also endorsed the spinoff proposal, which has been championed by most of the House Republicans on the Transportation panel.
The letter is signed by Russell G. Chew, Henry Krakowski and David Grizzle.
“This is not about politics, it is about policy,” the officials wrote. “The U.S. no longer has the most modern equipment, the most efficient airplane routings, or the best technology of any of the world’s air traffic control providers.”
Move us into the wide-open, free-market world of countries like . . . Canada.
The tweet has been confirmed, but so far no news outlets have revealed any more details.
Good lord.
MORE FROM CHAD PERGRAM: “#BREAKING Shooting at Congressional baseball practice. Scalise hit. Other staffers hit. Gunmen with rifle.”
Gunmen?
FROM FOX NEWS: Claim that single gunman shot dead by Scalise security team.
RICHARD EPSTEIN: The Cagey Mr. Comey.
For Trump to hope that Comey would see it fit to back off sounds like he said what he meant and meant what he said. And Trump was right to be unhappy with Comey for refusing, without explanation, to make the simple, truthful statement that Trump was not personally under investigation in the Russia probe. Instead, Comey slow-walked that issue, which doubtless contributed to Trump’s legitimate concern that Comey was not loyal to him. Indeed, Comey offers no evidence to support his “instincts” of a grander plan, namely, that their “dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship.” His ostensible conclusion is all innuendo, cleverly used to set up the charge that he had been ordered to drop the investigation of Flynn.
In a sense, the situation is even worse. One of the striking moments in the Senate hearing was Comey’s account of his odd response to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s request that he speak of the Department of Justice’s investigation of the Clinton corruption charges as a “matter,” and not an “investigation.” In this instance, Comey himself was at risk, so he did not let the matter lie silent. He flat out asked her whether her request was an order and only made the requested statement when he was assured that it was. His own explanation was that “this isn’t a hill worth dying” for. But, in fact, Comey’s conduct was more damning than his flip remark lets on. Lynch ordered Comey to make a false statement about a matter of intense public interest and concern. Lynch’s foolish request “endeavored,” to use the statutory term, to tamp down the FBI investigation in order to create some political breathing room for the Clinton campaign. Comey should have told Lynch that he was not going to participate in a transparent ruse, period. Perhaps both he and Lynch were guilty of obstruction of justice.
His unwillingness to do so casts a harsher light on Comey’s effort to go slow on, and then abort, the Clinton e-mail investigation, when her destruction of government emails received on her unauthorized server constituted a textbook form of obstruction.
Yeah, it’s almost like he’s a political hack with an agenda or something.
OH: Obama Had His Own ‘Back Channel’ To Moscow.
The news comes after Trump White House aide Jared Kushner was criticized for allegedly trying to open a back channel line of communications with Russian officials during the transition last year.
Former intelligence officials called Kushner’s alleged back channel “dangerous,” but now Bloomberg reports the Obama administration had its own back channel to Moscow.
The White House contacted the Kremlin on what Bloomberg described as a “modern-day red phone” after Russian operatives tried to infiltrate software and databases used by state election officials.
It’s different when they do it, because unlike a naif such as Kushner, Obama knew exactly how to handle the Russians.
JOHN HINDERAKER: An Investigation Of Nothing. “Sessions must have wondered, at times, why in the world he was there. He testified that he knew nothing about the alleged Russian spear phishing of the RNC’s and DNC’s email accounts. That being the case, what questions did the Democratic senators have for him? None of any significance, it turned out.”
ACCOUNTABILITY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Hillary Clinton keeps security clearance, a year after FBI concluded she was reckless with secrets.
CHIACAGO’S WAR ON THE POOR: Poor Neighborhoods Hit Hardest by Asset Forfeiture in Chicago, Data Shows.
Law enforcement in Cook County, which includes Chicago, seized items from residents ranging from a cashier’s check for 34 cents to a 2010 Rolls Royce Ghost with an estimated value of more than $200,000. They also seized Xbox controllers, televisions, nunchucks, 12 cans of peas, a pair of rhinestone cufflinks, and a bayonet.
Altogether, police in Cook County performed 23,065 seizures between 2012 and 2017 using asset forfeiture, including 5,939 vehicles. Chevrolet Impalas, among the most popular rental cars in the U.S., were the model most often seized. About three-quarters of all seizures occurred in Chicago. The average estimated value of a seizure was $4,553, while the median value was $1,049. About three-quarters of all seizures were cash, not property.
Lucy Parsons Labs, a police accountability nonprofit in Chicago, obtained the data from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO) through a public records request and provided them to Reason. The data are unique because they include not just when and what police seized, but addresses of where those seizures occurred.
Civil liberties groups have often claimed asset forfeiture disproportionately impacts poor and minority communities.
Why are Democrat-run cities such cesspits of predation against those who are least able to fight back?
IT’S ALWAYS NICE to make Twitchy.
JOHN HINDERAKER: Civil War on the Left, Part 40: Too Much Pride?
BREAKING: HORRIFIC FIRE ENGULFS 27-STORY LONDON APARTMENT BUILDING. “London Fire Brigade said that 200 firefighters and 40 firetrucks are on the scene of a massive conflagration that encompasses nearly every floor, from the second through the twenty-seventh.”
June 13, 2017
BILL OTIS: Mueller Is Conflicted Out.