Author Archives: eehines

The FJC Has Become Unreliable

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Federal Judicial Center writes a manual that it alleges—and too many judges and Justices accept at face value—to be an unbiased source of information to help judges make unbiased assessments about scientific testimony.

It has ceased to be that. The Wall Street Journal has written before that the FJC‘s manual had a thoroughly biased chapter on so-called climate science, and that when that chapter was exposed for the disinformation section that it was, the FJC removed the chapter.

But wait—there’s more.

In the climate science chapter, footnote 77 says “discussion of attribution research has been adapted, and, in some cases, excerpted from the authors’ prior publications on this topic.” A review by American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Roger Pielke Jr noticed that one of those earlier publications was co-authored with a third person who wasn’t named as an author in the climate chapter.
Mr Pielke says the mystery author is Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center [of which the late chapter’s lead author is a Senior Fellow]. But here’s the shocker. He is also of counsel at Sher Edling, a plaintiff firm pushing climate-related lawsuits. The firm has promoted dubious legal theories, suing fossil-fuel companies for failure to warn about climate effects and public nuisance over the “cost of weather induced events.”

As nakedly biased as this chapter was, and which the FJC removed only when exposed, and whose authors defended the bias of their chapter with no correction of that disinformation, the obvious question becomes: what other nakedly biased “educational information” is included elsewhere in its manual that hasn’t been discovered yet?

The FJC, by rendering itself unreliable, has made itself irrelevant. Judges and Justices need to rely on their native intelligence and on better—or at least more and more varied—advisors.

Most of all, judges and Justices need to limit themselves to the evidence, scientific or otherwise, actually presented at trial. Outside sources of information are irrelevant and should be disregarded, even when disguised as “information” by sources like the FJC manual.

An EV Mandate Lawsuit

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California has enacted regulations restricting automobile emissions that are far stricter than national requirements. The Federal government is suing on the theory that Federal regulations, along with Federal law, preempt State regulations. If successful, this would render California’s regulations illegal and without force. The Federal government should win this suit easily, even if California drags it out and into the Supreme Court: our Constitution’s Supremacy Clause—this Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof…shall be the supreme Law of the Land—is pretty dispositive.

On the other hand, no one is forcing the companies to build cars for sale in California in the first place. It’s expensive to do so, and those increased costs get spread across customers nationwide, because the car makers build all their cars to meet California’s requirements. Those car makers could both reduce their costs of production and so their prices charged the rest of their customers, if they simply built cars according to national standards and stopped selling in California. That would result in a increase in ex-California national sales that would swamp the per-car price reduction, which in turn would produce large aggregate increases in revenue, and profit.

A Pause that Refreshes?

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Or that refits? Or that gives new and newly placed generals time to fit into their roles?

The People’s Republic of China has reduced its airborne threats and exercises against the Republic of China to nearly zero since just before the beginning of the US-Israeli war against Iran, even while keeping its naval operations relatively steady. This is causing some confusion among RoC and US military leadership.

I have some thoughts on the matter, admittedly with a measure of conspiracy theory involvement.

One thought: the pause—if that’s all it is—is a time for rest, refitting, and rearming the aircraft, this time with live munitions, preparatory for an assault on Taiwan, on which sits the RoC. This is inconsistent, though, with PLAN Taiwan-related activities continuing at their recently usual pace.

Another thought, related, is that in that aftermath of PRC President Xi Jinping’s purge of top level generals and top level leadership of his [sic] Communist Party of China, their replacements need time not just to learn their new duties, but to become utterly facile with them and capable of quick actions.

On the other hand, Ben Lewis, PLATracker Founder, has a different view. He suggested the lull could serve as an olive branch signaling a desire for stability ahead of Xi’s meeting with Trump.

Maybe. Xi has been toughening is stance vis-à-vis the US over the last year, or so. With US combat shipping and anti-missile units transferred away from the Western Pacific to support operations against Iran, Xi has little reason to soften up.

One last thought, more remotely possible, is that the PRC’s struggling economy needs more time to fund the PLAAF’s activities. If that’s the case, look for the pause to last a while longer. If Lewis is right, look for the pause to end with the end of Xi’s meeting with Trump, or not, depending on what concessions Trump yields to Xi.

Tax-Addicted Progressive-Democrats

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Party has never seen a tax or an increase in existing taxes they don’t like. Washington and New York present examples.

Washington demonstrates the desperation for ever more tax fixes that Party needs to feed its collective addiction for OPM. The State’s Party is determined to impose a 9.9% tax on household income over $1 million a year.

On Monday lawmakers in Olympia pulled an all-nighter to push through the legislation, which [Progressive-]Democratic Governor Bob Ferguson has said he will sign. The bill passed the House 51-46 and goes back to the state Senate.

Never mind that the State’s citizens have repeatedly rejected income taxes in referendum after referendum. What do Party politicians care about the wishes of the small people of their State.

Never mind, either, that the State’s constitution forbids any form of income tax. What do Party politicians care about laws, however foundational, that get in their way?

And never mind that the State’s Senate Majority Leader, Manka Dhingra (D), campaigned for office on her opposition to income taxes, and now in office, actively supports this one. What do Party politicians care about truth or honesty?

Next is New York.

Democratic senators want to increase the state’s top income tax rate by 0.5 percentage points on households making more than $5 million. That would raise the top state-and-local rate in New York City to 15.3%. They also propose to raise the state’s corporate tax to 9% from 7.25% on businesses with more than $5 million income and let New York City raise its corporate tax rate to 10.62% from 8.85%. All told, large businesses would pay a nearly 20% tax rate in New York City.

And this one:

Governor Kathy Hochul, Democratic legislators, and union leaders held a rally over the weekend in support of rolling back the state’s 2012 pension reforms that raised the retirement age to 63 and requires workers to contribute between 3% and 6% of their paychecks to their pensions. “I’m fighting for a fair pension plan,” the Governor declared.

I’m not sure France is a useful model to emulate in the areas of work and retirement.

Taxes are a far more powerful addiction for Party politicians than are nicotine, or sugar, or opioids for us average Americans. Worse, Party’s addiction is severely damaging to our nation, whereas nicotine, sugar, and opioid addictions do their primary damage to the users.

Talking Filibuster

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It’s complicated, claims Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R, SD), and it’s a mirage claim the editors at The Wall Street Journal.

Thune:

The talking filibuster idea “is much more complicated and risky than people are assuming,” Majority Leader John Thune told reporters this week. He said Tuesday that Republicans lack the votes to get to a talking filibuster or sustain one if they did.

The editors:

The reality is that Democratic Senators could take turns giving interminable speeches. Cory Booker last year went 25 hours all by himself. Meantime, Republicans would have to keep most of their Senators handy at all times, ready to answer a quorum call, meaning it would turn into an endless GOP campout. Bring your pajamas, toothbrush, and CPAP machine.

And

Democrats could offer amendments that either undermine the bill’s intent or put swing-state Republicans on the spot. Raise the minimum wage? Extend ObamaCare subsidies? What else?

The editors are straight up wrong with their claims, though. Look past this poster’s over-the-top polemics, and look at the facts presented. Under existing Senate rules, Senators are limited to two speeches per day on a particular piece of legislation. A Senate day, though, isn’t 24 hours; it runs from Senate adjournment to Senate adjournment. Recesses don’t count. And recesses could be had for hygiene breaks, grabbing a drink of water, eating something, etc. All Thune would have to do is not adjourn the Senate once the SAVE Act is brought to the floor until it’s voted on.

Endless amendment proffers? The Majority Leader controls the amendment process, including being first to offer amendments. Just as Reid did routinely (and other Majority Leaders of either party), Thune could fill the amendment tree with his own amendments, preventing the Progressive-Democratic Party, and Precious Republicans, from offering their own amendments. That imposes a small and finite number of amendments and votes on them.

Do the “camping,” but it would be only for a week or two. The limiting factor is those Republicans themselves. Republicans lack the votes to get to a talking filibuster or sustain one if they did? As recently as mid-February, the Republicans had 50 votes for the Act, which with the Vice President’s vote, is all he majority they need. Is Thune really saying he can’t hold his caucus together in the face of Progressive-Democrat intransigence? If so, that, in the eventuality, would be the end of the Republican Party for a long sequence of election cycles, as they would be exposing themselves as not having the stomach for serious struggle.

The editors rationalized their position with this cover excuse for those Reluctant Republicans’ timidity:

Democrats would have done it [used the talking filibuster] already—and they’d certainly copy the maneuver next time to pass far more transformational bills than the SAVE America Act.

That’s not an excuse for timidity; it’s simply stating a fact. The Progressive-Democrats most assuredly will use it, whether or not they eliminate the cloture vote filibuster when next they get a Senate majority. Republicans using it now is irrelevant to that.

General George Patton:

Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time.

That appears to be not the case with today’s crop of Republicans, if Thune is right.