WASHINGTON’S ROGUE ROYALTY: The Tyranny of the Administrative State.  The English fought civil wars to take away the king’s “royal prerogative,” but it has been unlawfully reclaimed by federal bureaucrats, says Philip Hamburger. In my Weekend Interview with him in the Wall Street Journal, he discusses the rogue beast known as the administrative state:

Sometimes called the regulatory state or the deep state, it is a government within the government, run by the president and the dozens of federal agencies that assume powers once claimed only by kings. In place of royal decrees, they issue rules and send out “guidance” letters like the one from an Education Department official in 2011 that stripped college students of due process when accused of sexual misconduct.

Unelected bureaucrats not only write their own laws, they also interpret these laws and enforce them in their own courts with their own judges. All this is in blatant violation of the Constitution, says Mr. Hamburger, 60, a constitutional scholar and winner of the Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Prize last year for his scholarly 2014 book, “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?” (Spoiler alert: Yes.)

“Essentially, much of the Bill of Rights has been gutted,” he says, sitting in his office at Columbia Law School. “The government can choose to proceed against you in a trial in court with constitutional processes, or it can use an administrative proceeding where you don’t have the right to be heard by a real judge or a jury and you don’t have the full due process of law. Our fundamental procedural freedoms, which once were guarantees, have become mere options.” ​

You can read more of his ideas in this excerpt from his new book, “The Administrative Threat.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Could Silicon Valley Re-Invent The Law School?

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION: Spinning American Food: Viande Americaine is definitely food, but it isn’t American.

Here we were in Saint Quentin, and it was 10 o’clock, and I hadn’t eaten for many many hours, and I confess, I had a certain curiosity as to how a provincial French restaurateur would interpret my native cuisine.

The answer, in case you’re wondering, is “oddly.” Not nearly as odd as the “Mexican” food you find in Europe, which has always reminded me of the plastic nigiri in the windows of sushi restaurants: It looks just as it should, but don’t try taking a bite…. In Saint Quentin’s Le Golden Pub, the American food was at least both food and American. Sort of.

Americans certainly do enjoy our bagels with cream cheese. But we do not enjoy them enough to put them on the dinner menu of our local pub.

Instead I settled on a meal as quintessentially American as the stars and stripes, or the Solo cup: a burger, a soda and a banana split.

The burger came with a local cheese called Maroilles that I’d never heard of. The canonical American burger cheeses are, like the ideal American, a simple, friendly lot. These cheeses are selected heavily for melting ability and unobtrusiveness, rather than complexity or dark charm. This cheese was assertive and pungent, and still quite solid. Atop that cheese sat aioli, and a profusion of cornichons rather than dill pickles. The bread was some sort of ciabatta, too big for the patty and rather more chewy than Americans expect from a hamburger bun. . . .

At least the burger could reasonably be recognized as a burger. My banana split, on the other hand, was an enormous confection, round rather than banana-shaped, and taking up a sizeable dinner plate. It contained a few paltry coins of banana, buried in approximately 1,700 calories of whipped cream. The fudge sauce was not hot, and had assumed a texture somewhere between those of Magic Shell and a gummy bear.

Someone should protest.

THUGGISH MANHATTAN MILLIONAIRE BITTERLY SMEARS WORKADAY JOURNALISTS. But this time around journalists yawn in response, because he’s one of their own: Bill De Blasio, media critic:

The mayor has made no secret of his disdain for the local press — in October last year, he attacked the New York Post as a “right wing rag,” and refused to call upon the paper’s reporters. He routinely rejects the premise of reporters’ questions, and has come under fire for limiting his availability to answer questions from the press corps that covers him.

But on Friday, he delivered one of his longest critiques of the media in general, and virtually none of New York City’s local media institutions were safe.

Rupert Murdoch, the owner of NewsCorp, which publishes the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, is “a right-wing media baron who is consistently trying to undermine progressive governments and progressive movements all over the world,” de Blasio said.

Of Newscorp’s media outlets, he had this to say: “Anyone who thinks that’s objective journalism is kidding themselves.”

He also criticized the Daily News’s owner, Mort Zuckerman, calling the paper, although more “balanced” than the Post, “corporate media owned by a major real estate baron.”

He also wasn’t happy with the New York Times.

“I’m greatly disappointed in the New York Times that they have greatly reduced their focus on New York City news,” he said.

“Bluntly, a lot of the media in this town spends a disproportionate time on all sorts of other things, that are not the things affecting people’s lives” de Blasio said.

“The thing that fascinates the mainstream media is not the substance,” he said. “It’s the spectacular, the scandalous, or the flavor of the moment.”

So De Blasio attacks the press on all sides of the aisle, and on Twitter today, virtually crickets. Just think of much of the media as being Democrat operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

BARACK WHO? Barack Obama’s Post-Presidential World Tour is Starting to Get Creepy.

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IN THE WASHINGTON POST, OF ALL PLACES: Trump committed no crime. Democrats need to get over it.

RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Joe Biden’s niece dodges jail after $100K credit card scam.

Biden was also in Manhattan Criminal Court in 2014, on charges of resisting arrest, obstruction of justice and harassment stemming from a dustup with her Tribeca roommate.

In that case, the silver-spoon Georgetown University graduate was accused of taking a swing at a female cop who responded in Sept. 2013 to a drag out fight over unpaid rent between Biden and her roommate.

“I shouldn’t be handcuffed!” cops said Biden railed at the time. “You don’t know who you’re doing this to!”

She was given another sweetheart deal in that case: a promise that the charges would be dismissed if she stayed out of trouble for six months.

The charges were eventually dismissed and sealed.

Biden didn’t even have to show up in court to get that deal — her then-lawyer James Liguori told another Manhattan judge that she was serving her second rehab stint at Caron Renaissance Ocean Drive, a posh inpatient facility in Delray Beach, Fla.

Our ruling class.

SECRETS ARE NOT WHAT THEY USED TO BE:

Other revelations from the Moscow archives revealed that the Soviets had already created schemes that were indeed stranger than fiction. These included a plan to move saboteurs from Nicaragua across the Mexican border and into the U.S. disguised as illegal aliens. Radar stations, pipelines and power towers were all targeted in great detail as were port facilities in places like New York City. Other archive documents, available to researchers for a few years in the early 1990s (when a fistful of hundred dollar bills could work wonders) delivered all manner of disturbing and now well documented proofs. The Rosenbergs were indeed Russian spies, Alger Hiss was mixed up in Russian espionage efforts and the American Communist Party was in the pay of the Soviet Union and served as a tool for espionage, subversion and propaganda. Many left wing writers and politicians were either on the Soviet payroll or eager to assist Soviet espionage activities.

Today they assist Kremlin chaos-creating activities.

SEEMS LIKE IT’S TIME: Defund Evergreen State College. It’s not so much the student thuggishness, horrible as it is. It’s the faculty and administration siding with the thugs that’s unforgivable.

THE DEATH OF BRICK AND MORTAR RETAIL: The death has been exaggerated — but a whole lot of shaking’s going on.

AUSTIN LEFTIES UNHAPPY WITH DIVERSITY: Austin Council Member Ora Houston Picks Gun Rights Activist For Bond Task Force.

Defending her choice to the bond advisory task force, Houston framed her selection as one rooted in the ideal of ideological diversity, positing her district as “…a large blended family” as outlined in correspondence obtained by Patch. She cited Cargill’s longtime Austin residency, homeowner status and proprietorship of a small business as among personal attributes informing her decision.

“Have you ever met Mr. Cargill?” Houston begins in her reply to Treiber. “It has always been my position that there is a place for different perspectives. This is one seat of eleven on the Bond Election Advisory Task Force. Mr. Cargill lives in the far northern section of the district; has lived in Austin for a long time; is a small business owner; a home owner and I am confident that he has the capacity to work within the rules and regulations of this particular Task Force.”

The councilwoman took issue with Treiber’s assessment of Cargill’s values as contrasting with those of the council in which he lives.

“There are 76,000 people in District #1,” Houston noted, “and after two years, six months, and one day, I am confident that there are no ‘defined’ values of District #1.”

Good for her.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Trump delivering biggest cut in regulations since Reagan.

Trump’s mode so far is regulating bureaucrats rather than regulating the private sector, with rules to limit their rules. Even more importantly, more unswervingly than any other, the administration has incorporated regulatory dark matter into reforming the administrative state in both his freeze and the two-out requirement. This material consists of all the memoranda, guidance, notices, bulletins and other proclamations (including threats and bad publicity) with which bureaucrats create or influence policy, but that escape the (already inadequate) discipline of the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act.

All this seems significant in terms of history of the regulatory state. The drop between Clinton and Bush was dramatic, but otherwise last time we saw anything comparable to today’s reduction was when both regulations and Federal Register page counts dropped over a third under Reagan.

A good start.

JONATHAN TURLEY IN THE HILL: The Damaging Case Against James Comey.

The testimony of James Comey proved long on atmospherics and sort on ethics. While many were riveted by Comey’s discussion of his discomfort in meetings with President Trump, most seemed to miss the fact that Comey was describing his own conduct in strikingly unethical terms. The greatest irony is that Trump succeeded in baiting Comey to a degree that even Trump could not have imagined. After calling Comey a “showboat” and poor director, Comey proceeded to commit an unethical and unprofessional act in leaking damaging memos against Trump.

Comey described a series of ethical challenges during his term as FBI director. Yet, he almost uniformly avoided taking a firm stand in support of the professional standards of the FBI. During the Obama administration, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch gave Comey a direct order to mislead the public by calling the ongoing investigation a mere “matter.” Rather than standing firm on the integrity of his department and refusing to adopt such a meaningless and misleading term, Comey yielded to Lynch while now claiming discomfort over carrying out the order.

When Trump allegedly asked for Comey to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn or pledge loyalty, Comey did not tell the president that he was engaging in wildly inappropriate conduct. He instead wrote a memo to file and told close aides. He now says that he wishes he had the courage or foresight to have taken a stand with the president.

However, the clearest violation came in the days following his termination. Comey admits that he gave the damaging memos to a friend at Columbia Law School with the full knowledge that the information would be given to the media. It was a particularly curious moment for a former director who was asked by the president to fight the leakers in the government. He proceeded in becoming one of the most consequential leakers against Trump.

Comey said that he took these actions days after his termination, when he said that he woke up in the middle of the night and realized suddenly that the memos could be used to contradict Trump. It was a bizarrely casual treatment of material that would be viewed by many as clearly FBI information. He did not confer with the FBI or the Justice Department. He did not ask for any classification review despite one of the parties described being the president of the United States. He simply sent the memos to a law professor to serve as a conduit to the media.

Trump has done a lot to expose just how petty and inept most of our governing class is.

INVESTORS’ BUSINESS DAILY: On Display In Russia Hearings, Democrats’ Trump-Hatred Is Worthy Of Captain Ahab.

If there’s one thing Congress’ Russia hearings have shown, it’s that President Trump has driven the Democratic Party and far-left media to near insanity. How else can you explain their unhealthy fixation on all things Trump and nonstop efforts to end his presidency?

No, we’re not joking. Listening to the hearings on Wednesday and Thursday, when National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, National Security Director Adm. Michael Rogers, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI Director James Comey testified, was a revelation.

In their questioning, Democrats were plainly not interested in the truth. They merely hoped for something, anything, that would be damning or damaging to Trump. In particular, they hoped for evidence of “obstruction of justice” to impeach Trump.

But they didn’t get it. Under persistent questioning Wednesday, Coats, Rogers and McCabe all emphatically denied that Trump had brought improper pressure to bear on the Russia investigation. None.

Again, on Thursday, Comey drove that point home, saying that he did not perceive anything that Trump said to him as an attempt to obstruct “the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign.”

So in the end, as the current saying goes, it was a big nothing-burger, with cheese. And instead of a grand inquisition, it turned into rather pathetic political theater.

Is this how the Democrats hope to regain power?

Seemingly.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Eight Of The Twelve Law Schools With The Highest Unemployment Rates Are In California.

HEH: CNN To Launch Real News Spinoff Site.

THEODORE DALRYMPLE ON BRITAIN’S ELECTION DISASTER:

Theresa May has proved an apt pupil of the David Cameron school of political incompetence. Lacking principle, she is not even good at being unprincipled: a Machiavellian, it turns out, minus the cunning.

It did not help that she had the charisma of a carrot and the sparkle of a spade. As she presented herself to the public, no one would have wanted her as a dinner guest, except under the deepest social obligation. Technically, she won the election, in the sense that she received more votes than anyone else, but few voted for her with enthusiasm rather than from fear of the alternative. Her disastrous campaign included repeated genuflections in the direction of social democracy. Even after her defeat, moral if not quite literal, she burbled about a society in which no one was left behind—never mind that it would entail a society in which no one would be out in front, that is to say, a society resting in the stagnant pool of its own mediocrity.

Unfortunately, egalitarianism is a little like Islam in that, just as a moderate Muslim can always be outflanked by someone more Islamic than he, so an egalitarian can usually be outflanked by someone more egalitarian than he: and in the contest between the Conservatives and the Labour Party, no one will ever believe that the Conservatives are more devoted to equality of outcome than the Labour Party. May therefore chose her battleground with a perfect eye for defeat.

Read the whole thing.

AN IMPORTANT CIVIL RIGHTS DECISION: The Second Amendment protects some bladed weapons, and not just firearms.

The New Jersey machete decision is important because it rejects a “spontaneity” requirement for arming yourself at home (the state’s theory that you could pick up a weapon against an imminent attack, but you can’t come to the door with the weapon just in case). But it’s also important because it reaffirms that the Second Amendment protects not just guns but other weapons as well. This should be obvious, I think: The Second Amendment protects “arms,” and the D.C. v. Heller opinion discusses bows and knives as examples of such arms; opinions in the 1800s and 1900s dealing with state constitutional rights to bear arms also mention bladed weapons; and post-Heller opinions, such as from courts in Connecticut, Michigan, and Wisconsin agree.

Nonetheless, we should all be grateful when courts are not deliberately stupid. More here. And it’s notable that this case is from New Jersey, where “deliberately stupid” has often seemed to be a hallmark in right-to-arms cases.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Sharon Green, Come Back for Me.

KURT SCHLICHTER: From Russia With Stupidity. “That towering doofus James Comey crushed the spirits of millions of democracy-hating geebos when, trapped by his own prior testimony, he was forced to admit the truth on national television. And that truth, as those of us not caught up in the whirlpool of Menschian insanity and liberal wishcasting all know, is that the whole Russia thing is a wheelbarrow of fresh Schumer squeezed out by Hillary and her minions in order to create a narrative – any narrative – that would hide the bitter truth. We rejected her, and now we’re rejecting the Russia idiocy too.”

Read the whole thing.

THE OBAMAS’ BRIEF LOVE AFFAIR WITH AMERICA CONCLUDES:

Shot: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

—Michelle Obama, February, 2008.

Chaser:

“So I think it signals to the world that the United States is not serious about protecting our planet. Now, I don’t know what other way to interpret a decision that I think could be as dramatically negatively impactful as that decision. And what it means is the rest of the world will move forward without us and the United States has always been that beacon of hope, the leader, the world leader, that’s why we’re called the world leader and we’re basically abdicating that role, so that’s disappointing to me,” she added.

— Valerie Jarrett, as quoted by PJM’s Nicholas Ballasy today.

Hangover:

In the speech that made his name in 2004, Illinois state senator Barack Obama jubilantly told the Democratic National Convention in Boston, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there’s the United States of America.” On April 24, 2017, reflecting on the earlier speech, Obama said, “That was aspirational,” to widespread laughs. He added, “Honestly it’s not true when it comes to our politics.”

—Kyle Smith, “Obama’s Book of Balderdash,” his review of We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama, edited by Obama sycophants E. J. Dionne Jr. and Joy-Ann Reid, National Review, June 12th issue. (Subscription required.)

COMEY CLOWN SHOW CONTINUES:

Interestingly, Dan Richman, who was a year ahead of me at Yale Law, lived down the hall from me my second year. I liked him fine, though as I recall he didn’t get along with everyone on the floor. But he was on the ill-fated Vol. 93 board of the Yale Law Journal, which had to publish not only its own volumes, but the volumes of the do-nothing board from the year before, so he wasn’t around much.