Monthly Archives: January 2018

A Federal Judge Has Overstepped

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DACA was implemented by Department of Homeland Security memorandum—not even through Rule Making—and it can be removed by the same process or by Executive Order.  There is no legislation being ignored or abused here; this is purely and solely an internal Executive Branch affair.  Alsup is nakedly insinuating himself in what is only—can only be—a political matter and not a judicial one in a blatant violation of Constitutional separation of powers.

Even ex-Progressive-Democratic President Barack Obama (D) confessed he had no Constitutional authority to order the things DACA orders—before he had his DHS Secretary issue her memorandum.

Nevertheless, a Federal judge, William Alsup (from San Francisco and a Clinton appointee, but that has nothing to do with the illegitimacy of his ruling, only with the likelihood with which he’d issue such a thing) has barred President Donald Trump’s order rescinding it and which order also HIAed the rescission until March to give Congress time to handle the matter legislatively, which is how even Obama originally claimed he wanted it handled.

Alsup’s ruling ignores the law, ignores the supreme Law of the Land, and it creates “rights” that do not exist.  DACA may be good or bad policy, but its implementation or removal is a political decision; it has no place in the judiciary.  This is judicial activism at its worst.  Alsup’s ruling is a clear violation of his oath of office.  He needs to be dealt with accordingly.

A Presidential Library

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Ex-President Barack Obama (D) plans to build a Presidential library in Chicago, and he’s looking at a non-standard concept for his library.  The folks on the Left don’t like it, as exemplified by the Chicago Tribune‘s Ron Grossman.

It seems the proposed library has a test kitchen in it, in which FLOTUS’ views of proper nutrition can be explored.  There’s also supposedly room for a yoga center; although, that’s not defined in the architectural plans.  The horror.  How unpresidential.  How unlibraryish.  Grossman bleated

President Obama, is that how you want to be remembered? As the healthy-eating and meditation-advocating president?

Then Grossman spent the bulk of his missive laying out his Better Idea for the library.  As though it were Grossman’s library and not Obama’s.  Never mind that all of us will remember Obama for his legacy, however we characterize it (and none of those characterizations see Obama as a lotus-eating spinach and broccoli lover), or that Obama gets to set up his library as he sees fit—and kudos to him for not going with tradition for tradition’s sake.  Or taking seriously the morsels of a pressman’s fetid imagination.

Readers of this blog—all half-dozen of you—know that I’m not a real big fan of the Progressive-Democrat ex-President.  But, jeez—this just shows that the Left are a bunch of crybabies who’ll whine about anything.

Tax, Tax, Tax

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That’s the position of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.  With Great Britain going out from the European Union, Juncker says the remaining nations will have to pony up yet more money “if we are to pursue European policies and fund them adequately[.]”

Currently, the EU budget is capped at 1% of the total of the EU members’ aggregated GDP.  However, it’s not enough, though, that the remaining nations will have to fill the large-ish gap created by the British departure.  Juncker wants yet more.

Yet, even that “have to fill” bit remains unjustified in any concrete terms.

Some of those new [policy] demands include building a common European defense, the fight against terrorism and protecting borders as more and more refugees and migrants seek to enter Europe. There are also calls to increase spending on research and making the bloc’s economy more competitive in the digital age.

Never mind that these are individual, sovereign nation needs.  Nor is there need for any EU-level taxes—much less increased taxes—in order for the members to coordinate those programs among themselves.  Ordinary trade agreements could achieve most of those, were EU legal requirements not in the way.  Even the fight against terrorism and protecting borders: the US and Canada handle that between us, as do Mexico and us for the most part, and we don’t tax each other for the purpose.

Unspoken among those policies, too, is the demand for money to bail out individual member nations that have differing ideologies, for instance, about the purpose of money and of government.  This at bottom is a diversity demand that’s driven by a concomitant too-great diversity of national political and social philosophies.

Juncker has pointed out that his tax demands amount to the price of a daily cup of coffee for the average taxpayer, while eliding the fact that that average taxpayer has little to no say regarding whether he’d rather have that daily cup than send his money off to Brussels.

I am of the opinion that Europe is worth more than a cup of coffee a day[.]

Europe, certainly.  The EU, not so much.  (Notice, too, Juncker’s mindset regarding national sovereignty with his careful conflation of the EU with Europe.)

Leadership

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Maybe German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel is figuring a couple of things out.  Here are a couple of his remarks in an interview with Spiegel Online:

In the past, we could rely on the French, the British and, especially, the Americans, to assert our interests in the world. We have always criticized the US for being the global police, and it was often appropriate to do so. But we are now seeing what happens when the US pulls back. There is no such thing as a vacuum in international politics. If the US leaves the room, other powers immediately walk in. In Syria, it’s Russia and Iran. In trade policy, it’s China. These examples show that, ultimately, we are no longer achieving…the dissemination of our European values nor the advancement of our interests.

And

[Should Europe be feared?] No, not feared. On the contrary. Countries that work with us should feel safer than they would if they worked with non-democratic regimes. Why isn’t Europe building infrastructure in Africa instead of leaving it to the Chinese? Why haven’t we succeeded in promoting the economic development of our neighbors in the Balkans, instead conceding these countries to growing Russian influence? In an uncomfortable world, we Europeans can no longer sit back and wait for the USA.

Maybe the US being the world’s policeman wasn’t—isn’t—such a bad thing, after all.  For all that, maybe Europe—if it can reach actual and durable consensus—and in particular Germany, stepping up more and taking on more of their own global security responsibilities isn’t such a bad thing, either.

Censorship

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Three Leftist parties in Germany want to change—to “strengthen”—the nation’s online hate speech law: the Free Democratic Party, the Green Party, and the Left Party.  (FDP claims to be a libertarian-leaning, classical liberal party, but with this move, it exposes itself as being Modern Liberal.)

The current law requires social media companies to police themselves regarding posts someone—anyone—flags as offensive.  This is too much free speech, however.

[FDP General Secretary Nicola] Beer said Germany needed a law similar to the one the FDP proposed before Christmas that would give an “appropriately endowed authority” the right to enforce the rule of law online rather than give private companies the right to determine the illegality of flagged content.

“Appropriately endowed.”  Government, or a government sanctioned and guided facility, will “determine the illegality” of the speech.  Because Government Knows Better.

This is the Europe our own Left wants us to emulate.  This is the censorship college and university management, professors, and snowflakes want us to implement.

This is part of the Big Government that the Progressive-Democratic Party wants to inflict on us as part of their general Government intrusion into private lives push.