CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: The Long-Abused Commerce Clause Will Now Bullet-Proof Concealed Carry Reciprocity.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
February 14, 2017
FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS: Older Judges and Vacant Seats Give Trump Huge Power to Shape American Courts.
There are 870 Article III federal court judgeships, the vast majority on district courts or appeals courts like the one that recently upheld a halt on Mr. Trump’s immigration ban. These judges are appointed by the president and serve a lifetime term. (A few federal judges are appointed for limited terms.)
After Jimmy Carter took office, Congress established 152 new federal judgeships, expanding the federal judiciary by nearly 30 percent and allowing Mr. Carter to stack the federal courts despite a presidency that lasted only one term.
Mr. Trump, through a combination of demography and a growing number of vacancies, stands to enjoy a similar windfall. Democrats have long accused Republican Senate leaders of obstruction in not allowing many of the previous administration’s judicial nominees to come to a vote. The most prominent example was the refusal to vote on Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court, but the tactic extended to Mr. Obama’s lower court nominees as well.
“Right off the bat, Republicans refused to approve anyone,” said Nan Aron, president of the liberal group Alliance for Justice. “So you know how important this is to the Republican Party.” Currently, 112 of the 870 authorized judgeships with lifetime appointments remain vacant — 33 have been vacant for more than two years.
Damn right it’s important. And if the Gorsuch nomination is any indicator, the Constitution could be ripe for a big comeback.
I think Trump dodged a bullet with this one, even if he did originally fire it at himself. By most accounts, Flynn was a fine general, but was in over his head management-wise as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Whatever Flynn’s relations with Moscow might have been — and I suspect they were overblown — the President just can’t afford a bad manager as his National Security Advisor. Better that Trump take his lumps quickly and appoint someone better qualified for the job.
THE SOFTER SIDE OF TRUMP: Currency strategy would avoid singling out country in bid to avoid break in relations.
Under the plan, the commerce secretary would designate the practice of currency manipulation as an unfair subsidy when employed by any country, instead of singling out China, said people briefed on or involved in formulating the policy. U.S. companies would then be in a position to bring antisubsidy actions themselves to the U.S. Commerce Department against China or other countries.
The currency plans are part of a China strategy being assembled by the White House’s new National Trade Council, which seeks to balance the goals of challenging China while still keeping relations with the country on an even keel. To do that, measures taken against China would also apply to other nations.
The administration would avoid, at least for now, making confrontational claims about whether China is manipulating its currency for trade benefit, the people said.
On the other hand, China has been “playing a dangerous game” propping up the value of the yuan against the dollar, spending almost one trillion of its foreign reserve dollars since mid-2014 to do so.
February 13, 2017
ROBERT TRACINSKI INTERVIEWS BOOM TECHNOLOGY CEO BLAKE SCHOLL: “Ultimately, we would like the ability to go anywhere in the world in five hours for a hundred bucks.”
I bet you would, too — and you probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Virgin has optioned Boom’s first ten supersonic passenger jets.
I WAS HOPING HE’D ANNOUNCE UPGRADES TO THE THREE-YEAR-OLD MAC PRO, BUT WHATEVER. Apple CEO Tim Cook: Fake News is ‘Killing People’s Minds’
I LITERALLY CAN’T EVEN GET OUT OF PARK TODAY: Building emotionally aware cars on the path to full autonomy.
AND JUST LIKE THAT AMERICA IS GREAT AGAIN: Playboy is featuring naked women again.
MARS AIN’T THE KIND OF PLACE TO FEED YOUR KIDS: An algae that survived two years in outer space may hold the secret to growing food on Mars.
The BIOMEX lab was sent back to Earth in June 2016, and we are starting to get the results. Researchers are now analyzing the DNA of what survived to look for what kind of damage it may have suffered.
The surviving algae belonged to the Sphaerocystis species, found in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago, and the cyanobacteria to the Nostoc species, found in Antarctica. The species were selected because they are known to withstand extreme cold. The algae species protects itself by entering a dormant state, forming thick walls and orange cysts rich in cartenoids, which is the chemical that gives carrots its color and is known to be protective against radiation. These two species are now being added to the small but growing list of terrestrial organisms that can survive space, which include lichens, bacteria, and water bears (tardigrades).
A practical lesson from these survivalists could help us farm on Mars. Algae produce proteins and oxygen, both key ingredients for surviving once humans leave the blue planet.
Even here on Earth, life can be found in the most hostile environments, but for our future explorers’ sakes, let’s hope these results scale up to items tastier than algae and lichens.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: 5 Reasons ‘Seinfeld’ Would Get Crushed by SJWs Today.
Don’t forget the sixth reason: It was funny.
YOU DON’T SAY: New York Governor’s donors did very well with healthcare grants.
The latest entry in this soap opera involves a healthcare operation which found itself in line for some very generous grants last year (courtesy of the state’s taxpayers) as they prepared to break ground on two new medical facilities. There’s one significant catch to the story however. Well before the grants had even been announced, the company seemed to be rather fat in the wallet and was already moving ahead with the aforementioned plans. (Albany Times Union)
When Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced $1.5 billion in grants last March to fund health care capital and infrastructure improvement projects, only eight of the 162 grants went to private businesses.
By far the biggest winner of the private firms was Crystal Run Healthcare LLP, a rapidly expanding company based in the Hudson Valley that seemed flush with cash even before $25.4 million in state subsidies arrived.
An April 2015 article based on an interview with the company’s CEO Hal Teitelbaum — published a month before applications for the $1.5 billion were first due — stated that Crystal Run was planning on imminently breaking ground on two 70,000-square-foot facilities.
As the local coverage indicates, recent shareholder reports showed that Crystal Run Healthcare had recorded significant profits and was sitting on a considerable pile of cash. In fact, they broke ground on one of the two facilities under discussion six months before the grants were even announced. There seems to be little or no question that they were moving ahead with these projects. With all of that information being publicly available, how is it that the company was handed a check for more than $25 million courtesy of the taxpayers?
You’ll be shocked, shocked at the answer.
AL FRANKEN: ‘A Few’ GOPs Have Expressed Concern About President’s Mental Health.
Trust him, he’s a comedian.
L.A. TIMES EXPLAINER: Where is Lake Oroville and the Oroville Dam?
California residents might want to forward this to their Assemblycritters in Sacramento.
REVENGE OF THE CRONIES? Trump rumored to be preparing to resurrect the Ex-Im Bank.
The word on the hill is that Donald Trump has been listening to some voices among the Democrats and has been “convinced” that the bank should resume operations. (Government Executive)
Long criticized by Republicans as an agency dispensing “corporate welfare,” the Export-Import Bank on Thursday got some good news after two senators reported that President Trump is abandoning his campaign-trail position that the bank must die.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., announced that Trump “agreed with her on the need to get the Export-Import Bank up and running and said he will soon nominate someone to serve on the Export-Import Bank Board.”
The five-member board has been below quorum for a year because former Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., had blocked consideration of all of President Obama’s nominees to the bank.
You may recall that on the campaign trail Donald Trump stated unequivocally that he was an opponent of the bank’s continued operation. And that wasn’t just a campaign promise made to win votes. As recently as December he was still saying that the banks days were probably numbered. So why the change now?
As you might have been able to guess, Boeing likely played a large part in the decision. Current reports indicate that Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp was whispering in Trump’s ear but he was also in talks with executives from Boeing. As we’ve long known, the airline giant is one of the largest beneficiaries of the bank’s peculiar form of corporate welfare. Coming from a big business background and being used to making deals of this magnitude, we probably shouldn’t be terribly surprised if Boeing found someone able to speak a common language with the president and convince him that the art of the deal should go their way this time.
Disappointing, if this pans out.
ANALYSIS: HALF-TRUE. DNC chair candidates say Clinton lost because she talked too much about Trump.
To be fair, she didn’t have much else to talk about.
ANDREW MALCOLM: Psst, here’s how political leaks really work.
Leaking in political capitals like Washington can be a sophisticated strategic game with trade-craft elements of a John LeCarre novel involving code words, secret rendezvous in person or by phone and fake messages to advance or defeat a cause and especially to detect a leaker’s identity. Remember during Watergate reporters convening with their secret source in an underground parking garage?
The Trump White House is said to be concerned about leaks involving the president’s recent telephone calls with world leaders. Thursday Sean Spicer asserted, “We’re looking into the situation, yes, and it’s very concerning.” Spicer said the leaks, not all accurate or complimentary, were of “personal concern” to Trump.
True, unplanned leaks drive some politicians crazy. President Lyndon Johnson would get apoplectic over them as personal betrayals, which they are in a way. Some officials, such as George W. Bush, minimize unplanned leaks by building strong two-way personal loyalties with senior staff.
OK, here’s the deal: We’ll never know the truth about these Trump leaks. All news consumers can do each time is evaluate the credibility of known details and the likely motives of participants.
Good advice.
Want more good advice? Read the whole thing.
SPLITTERS: Libertarians split with Trump over controversial police tactic.
The White House has riled the country’s civil libertarian wing after President Trump enthusiastically voiced support for a controversial law enforcement tool that allows an individual’s property or assets to be seized without a guilty verdict.
The president weighed in on what’s known as “civil asset forfeiture” during an Oval Office meeting last week with sheriffs. The president, who ran on a law-and-order message, said he shared their desire to strengthen the practice and even said he would “destroy” the career of a Texas politician trying to end it.
The comments revived tensions with libertarians who have been fighting the practice under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Already piqued by the selection of former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a vocal supporter of asset forfeiture, to lead the Justice Department, the Libertarian Party itself condemned the comments.
To be fair, Big-L Libertarians have been trending more leftwards since at least the run-up to the Iraq War, and I still get a bitter chuckle out of the short-lived “liberaltarian” movement of 2009-2010.
But asset forfeiture is an unconstitutional sham, and I’m still hoping to see better out of the Trump Administration.
SHOT: Grammys Get Political Fast With Jennifer Lopez & Michael Jackson’s Daughter.
CHASER: “SNL” local rating soars, Grammys stumble.
SNL is supposed to be political.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Drone Attack Swarms Take Off From F-16.
Using fast-developing computer algorithms for autonomous flight engineered to prevent mini-drones from crashing into one-another, the swarms are intended to perform a wide-range of strategically relevant missions.
The Pentagon’s once-secret Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), aimed at harnessing promising technologies for nearer-term development than most acquisition programs, has already launched these drones from F-16 and F-18s numerous times in testing.
The mini-drones, called Perdix, are government designed yet built with commercial off-the-shelf elements. William Roper, who reports to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter as the Director of the Strategic Capabilities Office, said the effort was showing promise for possible near-term combat advantage.
“They are expendable and fly low as a surveillance asset. You can have a lot of them for a saturation approach. Saturating has an advantage over the thing it has to defend against. Its defender has to take more time and money to defend against it,” Roper told a small group of reporters.
The prospect of facing 21st Century precision combined with mid-20th Century mass ought to give anyone pause.
DAVID FRUM: What Effective Protest Could Look Like.
You want to scare Trump? Be orderly, polite, and visibly patriotic.
In other words, be the Tea party. But [EDIT FOR CLARITY] copying the Tea Party has been tried already, repeatedly, without success.
More:
Trump wants to identify all opposition to him with the black-masked crowbar thugs who smashed windows and burned a limo on his inauguration day. Remember Trump’s tweet about stripping citizenship from flag burners? It’s beyond audacious that a candidate who publicly requested help from Russian espionage services against his opponent would claim the flag as his own. But Trump is trying. Don’t let him get away with it. Carry the flag. Open with the Pledge of Allegiance. Close by singing the Star Spangled Banner––like these protesters at LAX, in video posted by The Atlantic’s own Conor Friedersdorf. Trump’s presidency is itself one long flag-burning, an attack on the principles and institutions of the American republic. That republic’s symbols are your symbols. You should cherish them and brandish them.
Don’t get sucked into the futile squabbling cul-de-sac of intersectionality and grievance politics. Look at this roster of speakers from the January 21 march. What is Angela Davis doing there? Where are the military women, the women police officers, the officeholders? If Planned Parenthood is on the stage, pro-life women should stand there, too. If you want somebody to speak for immigrants, invite somebody who’s in the country lawfully.
By and large, those are the people the Left has already lost — or has driven away, or actively despises.
