What could be better for the hound of the Hall than to grind bones by the fire as the evenings run toward Yule?
Grinding Bones
What could be better for the hound of the Hall than to grind bones by the fire as the evenings run toward Yule?
Gentlemen, we cannot afford a salt-shaker gap
Business Insider must be angling for a Pulitzer with its new expose on condiment equality in Trump's America.
Down the memory hole
Embedded in this South Carolina article is a video of a CNN
video of an interview Friday morning with House Majority Whip Clyburn saying he won't "whip" a vote on impeachment. Oddly enough, CNN has scrubbed both the Clyburn video and its transcript from its website. Links from other sites now show up as broken. A search on the CNN site turns up nothing for any Clyburn interview in the last few days or any article mentioning Clyburn and impeachment this month. The video link embedded above is a "share" from a Washington Examiner article, but I can't embed it because noting I can do will call it up from a YouTube search bar. I'll be interested to see if the link continues working.
Come to think of it, has anyone done a wellness check on Clyburn since Friday?
The interview suggests that Clyburn has recently noticed that impeachment might be divisive. Shoot, if the Ds had known that I'm sure they'd never have pursued it in the first place.
Come to think of it, has anyone done a wellness check on Clyburn since Friday?
The interview suggests that Clyburn has recently noticed that impeachment might be divisive. Shoot, if the Ds had known that I'm sure they'd never have pursued it in the first place.
SBR
Congress is nonfunctional so this probably has no chance of passage, but it's definitely correct on the merits.
The NFA is probably unconstitutional front-to-back, of course, but the courts aren't there yet. Getting there, maybe.
On Tuesday, Marshall introduced the Home Defense and Competitive Shooting Act of 2019. This would change provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) that put extra restrictions on the ownership of short-barreled rifles—that is, rifles* with a barrel shorter than 16″ in length or that have a total length of less than 26″.As the article points out, this law affects all sorts of rifles -- break action, lever action, and so on. This bit Steve McQueen at one point in his storied career, when his 'Mare's Leg' prop cost his studio a small fortune in ATF fees. Weirdly, as the Wiki article goes on to explain, it's perfectly legal to manufacture the same rifle as a pistol, rather than making a rifle and then cutting it down.
The NFA requires owners of short-barreled rifles to register them with the federal government; they must also pay a one-time $200 excise tax per gun. If Marshall's bill becomes law, these extra requirements would disappear; short-barreled rifles* would be regulated under the same rules as semiautomatic rifles....
Gun lobbying groups have praised Marshall's bill for, as Gun Owners of America (GOA) puts it, attempting to undo the "egregiously unconstitutional registration, taxation, and regulation of short-barreled rifles." GOA is joined by the National Rifle Association, which supported the NFA back in 1934 but now backs Marshall's bill.
The NFA is probably unconstitutional front-to-back, of course, but the courts aren't there yet. Getting there, maybe.
Eek part deux
As Glen Reynolds like to say, why is the Democratic primary system such a cesspool of racism and sexism? Apparently Kamala Harris never had a chance of winning the Democratic party presidential nomination in "Trump's America." I had no idea Trump had succeeded in co-opting the frantically partisan left wing of the Democratic party. The man is a legend. Speaking of which,
Pearl Harbor Day
Few are left now who were there to tell us what they remember. The Navy has people detailed to making sure the rest of us know the story.
The Mayflower Compact Goes West
Florida naval base shooting
We may never know the motive of this young man, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani.
Points of Disanalogy
All analogies always break. This is because they are comparisons of things that are not the same, and thus at some point the differences will emerge. This is true of even the best analogy. Nevertheless, analogies remain essential tools for reasoning because in life we generally have to make decisions about things that are not the same. Even standardized industrial products -- blue jeans, say, from a particular manufacturer and in a particular size and style -- will differ in slight ways, and certainly can differ in important properties (e.g., ownership: that one is yours, and this one is mine, and you are not free to dispose of mine as you are your own).
So when we are reasoning analogically, the thing to look for is the place (or places) where the analogy fails to hold. Then we have to see if the conclusion being drawn comes before, or after, the point of disanalogy.
For example, in today's impeachment hearings, Professor Karlan made an analogy to explain why she thought the President's conduct was impeachable.
1) She is analogizing to a 'quid pro quo' situation of exactly the kind that the last months of inquiry have not shown to have taken place. The closest we got to that was Amb. Sondland testifying that he had kind of understood that to be the situation, but that no one in the administration -- indeed, not on the whole planet -- had told him that it was the case. This is somewhat like a prosecutor who has failed to prove that a wrongful killing has happened trying to convince the jury with an analogy to a murder. "Wouldn't it be wrong if it had been murder? Wouldn't you know in your gut that was wrong?"
2) A President of the United States has a formal duty to provide disaster relief to Texas or Louisiana that is much stronger than the analog case, treating a foreign country. Even if you want to argue that the President had a particular duty to provide this aid, since Congress had apportioned it, the duty is of a different kind. To refuse to help Americans in need would be a basic betrayal of loyalty in a way that pressuring a foreign government is not.
3) Her 'brand him a criminal' is disanalogous to 'open a formal investigation on this apparently corrupt action, working with the Attorney General as is in accord with our formal treaty governing such investigations.' It's not the same thing at all. The one thing is slanderous, perhaps; the other, given the strong appearance of corruption in the Hunter Biden matter, is a perfectly reasonable exercise of constitutional power by the duly elected officer charged with exercising that power.
It's a pretty sad spectacle. I hope she's a better professor about matters where she is less passionate. Passion is the enemy of reason as we all know, and as Professor Turley rightly pointed out in a far better set of testimony.
So when we are reasoning analogically, the thing to look for is the place (or places) where the analogy fails to hold. Then we have to see if the conclusion being drawn comes before, or after, the point of disanalogy.
For example, in today's impeachment hearings, Professor Karlan made an analogy to explain why she thought the President's conduct was impeachable.
Imagine living in a part of Louisiana or Texas that’s prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding. What would you think if you lived there and your governor asked for a meeting with the president to discuss getting disaster aid that Congress has provided for? What would you think if that president said, “I would like you to do us a favor? I’ll meet with you, and send the disaster relief, once you brand my opponent a criminal.”There are three points of disanalogy that leap out at me. Unfortunately for Dr. Karlan, all of the breaking points occur before the analogy could bear the weight she is trying to put on it.
Wouldn’t you know in your gut that such a president has abused his office? That he’d betrayed the national interest, and that he was trying to corrupt the electoral process?
1) She is analogizing to a 'quid pro quo' situation of exactly the kind that the last months of inquiry have not shown to have taken place. The closest we got to that was Amb. Sondland testifying that he had kind of understood that to be the situation, but that no one in the administration -- indeed, not on the whole planet -- had told him that it was the case. This is somewhat like a prosecutor who has failed to prove that a wrongful killing has happened trying to convince the jury with an analogy to a murder. "Wouldn't it be wrong if it had been murder? Wouldn't you know in your gut that was wrong?"
2) A President of the United States has a formal duty to provide disaster relief to Texas or Louisiana that is much stronger than the analog case, treating a foreign country. Even if you want to argue that the President had a particular duty to provide this aid, since Congress had apportioned it, the duty is of a different kind. To refuse to help Americans in need would be a basic betrayal of loyalty in a way that pressuring a foreign government is not.
3) Her 'brand him a criminal' is disanalogous to 'open a formal investigation on this apparently corrupt action, working with the Attorney General as is in accord with our formal treaty governing such investigations.' It's not the same thing at all. The one thing is slanderous, perhaps; the other, given the strong appearance of corruption in the Hunter Biden matter, is a perfectly reasonable exercise of constitutional power by the duly elected officer charged with exercising that power.
It's a pretty sad spectacle. I hope she's a better professor about matters where she is less passionate. Passion is the enemy of reason as we all know, and as Professor Turley rightly pointed out in a far better set of testimony.
Judiciary Pseudo-Impeachment
So far--the Nadler show has adjourned for some House votes after the first 45-minute rounds of questionings--this is what I've seen.
Karlan is astounding in her manufactured dudgeon or her hysteria, you pick 'em. That's all she has, even in her answers to questions.
It seems clear the Nadler lawyer and the three Progressive-Democrat law professors--each of whom have proclaimed the impeachable guilt of Trump for most of his term--coordinated their questions and answers ahead of time. The professors' answers are too rehearsed and glib. Nadler's lawyer also took a Turley remark in an op-ed out of context and refused to let Turley provide that context.
Gerhart asserted that there is no right to go to court to contest a subpoena. King Congress has spoken; kneel and obey (my phrasing in the last clause of the sentence).
Gerhardt says further that there's no need of an actual crime in order to impeach, only an appearance. This is an instantiation of the Ford view of "high crime and misdemeanor:" it's whatever the Congress says it is. And that's what the Nadler TV show is doing. Making up a convenient beef.
The Progressive-Democrats carefully avoided directing questions to Turley, except for a single one wherein Nadler's lawyer asked if Turley had written a single sentence in a WSJ op-ed (the above comment), carefully excising the context--the caveat, in Turley's terms. When Turley tried to supply the clarifying caveat, Nadler's lawyer told him to shut up and just answer the question about the sentence, "Yes, or no."
When Turley was allowed to testify, in response to Collins and Collins' lawyer, he dismantled the Progressive-Democrats' and their law professor witnesses' case virtually point by point.
It's disappointing that actual lawyers could so misunderstand the law.
If the prior was a Schiff show, this is a Nadler burlesque.
Eric Hines
Karlan is astounding in her manufactured dudgeon or her hysteria, you pick 'em. That's all she has, even in her answers to questions.
It seems clear the Nadler lawyer and the three Progressive-Democrat law professors--each of whom have proclaimed the impeachable guilt of Trump for most of his term--coordinated their questions and answers ahead of time. The professors' answers are too rehearsed and glib. Nadler's lawyer also took a Turley remark in an op-ed out of context and refused to let Turley provide that context.
Gerhart asserted that there is no right to go to court to contest a subpoena. King Congress has spoken; kneel and obey (my phrasing in the last clause of the sentence).
Gerhardt says further that there's no need of an actual crime in order to impeach, only an appearance. This is an instantiation of the Ford view of "high crime and misdemeanor:" it's whatever the Congress says it is. And that's what the Nadler TV show is doing. Making up a convenient beef.
The Progressive-Democrats carefully avoided directing questions to Turley, except for a single one wherein Nadler's lawyer asked if Turley had written a single sentence in a WSJ op-ed (the above comment), carefully excising the context--the caveat, in Turley's terms. When Turley tried to supply the clarifying caveat, Nadler's lawyer told him to shut up and just answer the question about the sentence, "Yes, or no."
When Turley was allowed to testify, in response to Collins and Collins' lawyer, he dismantled the Progressive-Democrats' and their law professor witnesses' case virtually point by point.
It's disappointing that actual lawyers could so misunderstand the law.
If the prior was a Schiff show, this is a Nadler burlesque.
Eric Hines
A Plan for 2020
Angelo Codevilla has suggested one.
He had this admonition: Our temptation to focus on fights regarding Trump has obscured the fact that their [the ruling class'] objection is to us.
Indeed.
This bit, Were Donald Trump to be reelected in 2020, as is likely, there is no reason to think his second administration would loosen the ruling class’s tightening grip on our lives any more than the first did, leads me to my own, somewhat more concrete suggestion of what Trump ought to do:
Demand the resignations of all White House staffers including the staffs of every agency and facility in the White House right down to the cooks and janitors, firing those who, like a lawyer in DoJ, refuse to resign. Put in place the heads of those staff agencies the people whom Trump can trust, and have them as their first order of business go through those resignations and retain those whom the new heads deem worthy. Then hire some (not many), if necessary, to flesh out the staffs.
That at least will give the President a measure of control over his White House staff and should hold leaks to a dull roar.
Eric Hines
He had this admonition: Our temptation to focus on fights regarding Trump has obscured the fact that their [the ruling class'] objection is to us.
Indeed.
This bit, Were Donald Trump to be reelected in 2020, as is likely, there is no reason to think his second administration would loosen the ruling class’s tightening grip on our lives any more than the first did, leads me to my own, somewhat more concrete suggestion of what Trump ought to do:
Demand the resignations of all White House staffers including the staffs of every agency and facility in the White House right down to the cooks and janitors, firing those who, like a lawyer in DoJ, refuse to resign. Put in place the heads of those staff agencies the people whom Trump can trust, and have them as their first order of business go through those resignations and retain those whom the new heads deem worthy. Then hire some (not many), if necessary, to flesh out the staffs.
That at least will give the President a measure of control over his White House staff and should hold leaks to a dull roar.
Eric Hines
Coincidences
There are a surprising number of them in the tortuous explanation of the Steele Dossier in a book recently published by GPS Fusion's co-owners.
Going off-script
Not only is the President's "high crime" turning out to refuse to follow the impeachment script, the whole thing started with a President who had the gall to go off-script in a telephone meeting with a foreign leader. The smart people gave him his talking points, and he acted like he was an elected chief executive with his own ideas.
Burn the witch.
Burn the witch.
Sentence first, verdict afterwards
When even Slate has given up on impeachment, you know it's dire. This article jams in just about every stale metaphor we have to describe a boring exercise: clown car, muddying the question, summer rerun season, miring in a sloppy fight, confusing mishmash, food fight, circus, boxes checked, hoops jumped through.
My favorite line, though, is
I take it back. My real favorite is the Republican complaint that Nadler plans to give the jury instructions before the evidence. That one's actually good, like the Red Queen declaring "Sentence first--verdict afterwards."
The article also bemoans Nadler's probable unwillingness to improve matters by simply gaveling Republicans into silence. And maybe his stated intention of wearing a big red clown nose with a kangaroo suit.
Compared with the staid and productive fact-finding work conducted by the House Intelligence Committee over the past few weeks, this hearing will almost certainly be a disaster."Staid and productive fact-finding work." The author is being kind, but it's also damning with faint praise.
I take it back. My real favorite is the Republican complaint that Nadler plans to give the jury instructions before the evidence. That one's actually good, like the Red Queen declaring "Sentence first--verdict afterwards."
The article also bemoans Nadler's probable unwillingness to improve matters by simply gaveling Republicans into silence. And maybe his stated intention of wearing a big red clown nose with a kangaroo suit.
Guidestones
Ymar mentioned the Georgia Guidestones in the comments below. There's a bit of a secret about who put them up, although it's almost certainly a collection of university professors -- most of the guidelines are ordinary parts of the sensus communis of the sort of folk who used to teach at major Southern universities. It's a little bit liberal, a little bit anti-government, a lot of 'peace and love and beauty.'
It's a nice motorcycle ride through flat country from Athens, Georgia. There's nowhere to eat and nothing to do anywhere near them, but if the ride is the point -- as it was for me -- it's not the worst way to spend an afternoon, riding out to see them.
Top Tier
This may be the highlight of the 2020 campaign, so it's worth noticing: Kamala Harris is out. Whatever eventuates now, at least we will not have a President who has already proven her eagerness to prosecute people while withholding exculpatory evidence.
Many thanks to Tulsi Gabbard, who helped this moment come about. In spite of all the reasons why I can't in good conscience vote for her, she has done a service to her country in bringing this day about.
Many thanks to Tulsi Gabbard, who helped this moment come about. In spite of all the reasons why I can't in good conscience vote for her, she has done a service to her country in bringing this day about.
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