THE THRESHOLD IS HIGH FOR POLITIFACT TO CALL A DEMOCRAT STAR A LIAR: PolitiFact: O’Rourke Falsely Claimed He Doesn’t Want to Confiscate Guns. Then again, Beto’s no longer much of a star.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Artificial Intelligence Will Detect Hidden Targets In 2020 Wargame.

ILYA SHAPIRO: The Supreme Court Is Poised to Strike Down a Major Obama-Era Agency.

The CFPB is the most independent of independent agencies, with power to make rules, enforce them, adjudicate violations in its own administrative hearings, and punish wrongdoers. And yet a single director heads the agency, one who can be removed only “for cause” — malfeasance rather than, say, a change in presidential policy priorities. The CFPB doesn’t even need Congress to approve its budget, because its funding requests are rubber-stamped by another agency insulated from political control: the Federal Reserve. The CFPB has regulatory authority over 19 federal consumer-protection laws. This concentration of power in the hands of a single, unelected, unaccountable official is unprecedented and cannot be squared with the Constitution’s structure, or with its purpose of protecting individual liberty from government overreach.

The Constitution created three co-equal branches keeping one another in check to promote liberty and prevent any single person or entity from growing too powerful. During the 20th century, however, the federal government began creating “independent agencies,” typically headed by multiple commissioners appointed by the president; think of the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Communications Commission.

The Supreme Court has held such multi-member commissions to be constitutional, but most of these agencies include various other mechanisms to check their powers, such as staggered terms (meaning that a new president cannot replace the whole commission at once, but can fill some seats on it); limitations on how many members of a given political party may sit on the commission at a time; and a multi-member structure through which the commission discusses potential actions and moves forward only with a majority or consensus decision.

Then Congress created the new type of agency that is the CFPB. Without multiple leaders to appoint, there can be no staggered terms, no partisanship restriction, and no discussion among commissioners.

Woodrow Wilson would have smiled, but hopefully the Supreme Court won’t.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF NAILS IT:

The media and the left (but I repeat myself) have spent the past three years ridiculing the concept of the “Deep State” and those who subscribe to its existence. We have been told it’s a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory to believe that some public servants, mostly in the fields of intelligence, law enforcement and diplomacy, might cooperate in informal cabals to pursue their preferred policies regardless of who is in power and to protect their fiefdoms from oversight, interference and the executive, legislative and judicial control. To wonder whether some influential people in the federal bureaucracy, connected through a revolving door with the progressive establishment, might have contemplated preventing the election of their bete noire and his removal from office once their initial efforts proved unsuccessful invited accusation of delusion and paranoia.

This narrative is now officially old and busted. The new and hot one: the Deep State exists and it’s good. . . .

The problem is that for all the left’s constant drumbeat the last three years about “this corrupt and corrupting administration”, Trump’s “excesses”, the “war on science, expertise and facts”, collusion, treason, and so on, the sound and fury signify pretty much nothing. There are no smoking guns, or even non-smoking guns, no evidence, no proof that would stand up anywhere outside the court of the left-wing opinion. And now after three years of baselessly accusing the President of being a Russian agent we have impeachment proceedings without an official vote to commence and without identifying which laws Trump is meant to have broken.

You could believe the whole “protect[ing] the interests… of the American people” shtick if after all this time and the incalculable amount of energy and effort expended on bringing down the President, all those patriotic public servants have been able to show something – anything – for it. So instead of disinterested paragons of civic virtue, it increasingly looks like the federal bureaucracy is full of hard core progressives and liberals who can’t stomach a non-Democrat usurper who doesn’t share their values, ideas and objectives.

Yeah, pretty much. But read the whole thing.

Related (From Ed): NYT Columnist Tells the Today Show the Deep State Exists…To Protect Us From Trump.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Words Can Hurt Wednesday Edition. “We are supposed to be scandalized by all of this because OMG RAAAAACISM and stuff but the outrage falls flat when you find out that it was the Democrats who got the ‘impeachment as political lynching’ narrative going over twenty years ago.”

That was different because shut up.

FLASHBACK: Trump is FDR with the fireside tweet.

FRANK J. OF iMAO.US INFAMY FAME HAS NOT THREATENED TO REVEAL THE RECIPE FOR THE PUPPY SHAKE THAT KEEPS US HERE IN THE INSTY LAIR LOOKING SO YOUTHFUL. HE HAS NOT SAID HE’LL NUKE THE MOON IF I DON’T DO THIS. HE HASN’T TAKEN HAVEY-CAT HOSTAGE. WHAT HE’S DONE IS WRITE A VERY FUNNY POST FOR MY BLOG:   Book Marketing and a Contest – by Frank J. Fleming!

PS- Frank, remember Havey likes his gooshy food, and do not nibble on his little ears. No matter how nibblable they are.  We’ll exchange him at the agreed place in half an hour, right?

PESTILENCE APPEARS TO BE IN PLAY. THE OTHER THREE NOT FAR BEHIND:  Newly discovered virus disturbs scientists who have no idea how it infects hosts.

MORE SIGNS OF MENTAL HEALTH THIS TIME IN CANADA’S JUSTICE SYSTEM:  I, Napoleon.

SIGNS OF MENTAL HEALTH IN OUR LEGAL SYSTEM:  Federal Judge Refuses to Dismiss Chicago Lawsuit Against Jussie Smollett.

GOOD:  Director Quentin Tarantino Refuses to Recut His Newest Film for Chinese Release.

HEY, THROW HER AND HILLARY CLINTON INTO A ROOM. THE WINNER CAN RUN:  Michelle Obama floated as savior of Democrats from radical left general election disaster.

IT’S VIRTUE SIGNALING ALL THE WAY UP:  Air Canada to Its Passengers: ‘Screw You’.

WHAT IT MEANS IS THAT AS STRANGE AS IT MIGHT SEEM AMERICA JUST MIGHT HAVE DODGED A BULLET IN 2012:  On the delights of Delecto.

THAT OR THE REPUBLIC WILL:  Impeachment Will Fail.

OH DEAR LORD:  Leftist heroes of the Week? Hillary, Schiff, and Mitt.

WELL, HIS MOM SAID… OH, WAIT, THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU MEANT?  Justin Trudeau—Illegitimate Premier?

DOES THE NEW YORK TIMES REALIZE THEY’RE NOT ONLY AT WAR WITH REALITY, BUT ALSO AT WAR WITH THEMSELVES?  NY Times: Those Patriotic Deep State Folks Are Causing A Crisis In The GOP.

TAPPER IS BOGARTING THE SOMA AGAIN: Jake Tapper Throws Anti-Semitism Grenade On Twitter.

TRUMP USES PROVOCATIVE TERMS BECAUSE HE WANTS TO PROVOKE:

Today’s doozy: Trump compared the Democratic attempts to impeach him over Ukraine to a ‘lynching’.

Sure enough, the media explainers did their job. Lynching, we are told by every wired copy monkey who has to file 600 words to their line editor, is a ‘racially charged/loaded term’ that refers to — here I quote the BBC — ‘historic extrajudicial executions by white mobs mainly against African Americans.’

The inevitable ‘backlash’ follows.  Cue pundits and politicos all agreeing that this sort of language from a president is ‘unprecedented’.

Yes, all the people who spent the last four years calling Trump a Nazi are suddenly getting the vapors over this “unprecedented” violation of civility.

UPDATE: Apparently Every Democrat In Existence Used the Term “Lynching” To Defend The Clintons.

Why, it’s as if Trump and staffers researched this stuff before he dropped the L-word.

QED:

(Updated and bumped.)

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: If Trump Were Playing Hardball.

AT AMAZON, Fall Savings in Patio, Lawn, and Garden.

Plus, deals in Sports Collectibles.

FLASHBACK: Hillary Clinton so far ahead in polls that she ‘doesn’t even think about’ Donald Trump anymore. “Buoyed by a double digit lead in some national polls, Mrs Clinton has said she is now looking past Mr Trump entirely, and will no longer counter allegations made by her rival.” And now she thinks about him 24/7/365.

Related: Asylum Orderlies Return Hillary Clinton To Padded Cell Disguised As Oval Office.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. No, The Deep State Isn’t A Bunch Of Unbiased Patriots Who Deserve Our Gratitude: The idea that unelected anti-Trump bureaucrats are just selflessly looking out for the interests of the American people is laughable.