Decoding the Tyranny of the Administrative State

 Purchasing Submission:  Conditions, Power, and Freedom, by Philip Hamburger, 336 pp Hardcover $35 Kindle $33.25,   ISBN-13 ‏‎ 978-0674258235, Harvard University Press, 2021.

Professor of Law Philip Hamburger of Columbia University has been campaigning for years to measure, define and condemn the growth of a powerful administrative state in America.     

The late, great Angelo Codevilla rang the alarm about the excesses of centralized oligarchic statism and an army of unelected bureaucrats eating away at liberty for citizens under the constitution in his essay, "Scientific Pretense and Democracy," followed on by another wellreceived  2010 essay "The Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution," about the growth of an unelected totalitarian ruling class, whose influence and power are derived from "expertise" that allowed them to exert power over and intimidate the citizenry as the self-anointed oligarchy.  

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Manchin rejects Build Back Better revival: 'There's been no conversations'

 Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told a gaggle of reporters Tuesday that there have been "no conversations" about negotiating with Democratic leadership and President Biden on the massive social spending bill known as the Build Back Better Act.

Asked whether negotiations or conversations about compromise have been ongoing, Manchin denied any knowledge of BBB discussions after his statement last month against the policy package.

"There's been no conversations after I made my statement. I was very clear, I feel as strongly today as I did then that the unknown with COVID – here we are. I've got an N-95, I see all of you do," Manchin told reporters. "So there's different concerns that we have right now that we haven't had for a while, so that's a concern. Inflation is still a concern. It's still over 6%."

One Year Later: Democrats’ Planned January 6 ‘Remembrance’ Exhibit Fails to Materialize

 Twenty-three House Democrats failed to build a “remembrance” exhibit by the first anniversary of the January 6 protests.

In the wake of the chaos that came from the January 6 protests, Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) proposed the Capitol Remembrance Act, which would require the Architect of the Capitol (A.O.C.) to create an “exhibit” that “depicts the attack on the Capitol that occurred on January 6, 2021.”

Biden again insists COVID a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ even as fast-moving omicron spreads widely

President Biden on Tuesday maintained that COVID-19 is an illness of those who refuse the vaccine, stating that people who have not gotten shots should be "alarmed" by the highly-transmissible Omicron variant even as it rampages through the vaccinated population.

"There is no excuse — no excuse for anyone being unvaccinated," Biden said during remarks from the White House following a briefing from his COVID-19 response team. "This continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated. So we got to make more progress."

But those who have been vaccinated are still getting sick.

Joe Biden declares war on 'Big Meat'

 Following in the footsteps of Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden has declared war on meat.  Democrats have this thing against meat, see, and it manifests itself in multiple ways.

Here's the addled old fool's declaration as of yesterday, as reported by Bloomberg and RedState:

So Big Meat's the bad guy in this inflation crisis, and Joe's here to solve the problem, calling it a matter of antitrust enforcement.  Never mind that the entire economy is shot through with inflation running out of control.  No, the problem here is Big Meat oligarchs conspiring to raise prices.  It's goofy stuff, given that Democrats want higher meat prices.  Bernie Sanders, for instance, was seen bruiting a meat tax back in 2019 to save the planet.

Apparently they like high meat prices only if they're done through naked taxes to beef up government coffers.  If it's done with stealth taxes (read: inflation), then meat-producers are somehow the bad guy, to be subject to Joe's federal regulators because they supposedly collude with each other to raise prices.

Via American Thinker

Ted Cruz Says Republicans Will Likely Impeach Biden Over Border Policy If They Win House Majority

 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is forecasting a Republican house takeover and a President Joe Biden impeachment in 2023.

“I’m very optimistic about 2022,” Cruz said on the latest episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast. “I put the odds of the Republicans winning the house at 90/10 and it may even be higher than that.”

Cruz was not as optimistic about Republicans taking the Senate.

“I put our odds at 50/50,” he added. “I think it’s going to be a really good year but it’s a bad map.”

The Texas senator believes that if the GOP does indeed gain the majority in the House, impeachment would soon be on the table.

“If we take the House, which I said is overwhelmingly likely, then I think we will see serious investigations of the Biden administration,” he added.

“I do think there’s a chance of that,” Cruz said in reference to a Republican House impeaching President Biden. “Whether it’s justified or not, the Democrats weaponized impeachment. They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. One of the real disadvantages of doing that is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Biden Hides Arrest Records, Terrorism Ties of Afghans Brought to U.S.

 

President Joe Biden is hiding a myriad of information on the more than 75,000 Afghans his administration has brought to the United States since August 2021, Breitbart News has learned.

On December 16, 2021, Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Josh Hawley (R-MO), and Rick Scott (R-FL) sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken inquiring about information related to the thousands of Afghans whom Biden has flown to the U.S. over the last five months. The Senators wrote:

Supreme Court Can and Should Resolve ‘Waters of the United States’ Issue

 For decades, there has been major confusion regarding what waters are regulated under the Clean Water Act.

The United States Supreme Court can change this by agreeing to hear a case brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation. In its petition asking the court to hear the case, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Pacific Legal Foundation presents a simple question: Should Rapanos v. United States be revisited to adopt the plurality opinion’s standard for regulated wetlands?

In 2006, the late Justice Antonin Scalia in Rapanos provided much-needed clarity on what waters are covered under the Clean Water Act, and specifically what waters, including wetlands, should be considered “waters of the United States” (informally known as WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act. This definition is extremely important because it clarifies what waters the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have jurisdiction over under the law.

Manhattan DA closes probe into nursing home deaths without charging Cuomo: attorney

 The Manhattan district attorney's office is closing its investigation into former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's handling of nursing home COVID-19 deaths without bringing charges against Cuomo, according to the former governor's attorney.

"I was contacted today by the head of the Elder Care Unit from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who informed me they have closed its investigation involving the Executive Chamber and nursing homes," Elkan Abramowitz, a former federal prosecutor who had been hired to represent Cuomo, said Monday. "I was told that after a thorough investigation — as we have said all along — there was no evidence to suggest that any laws were broken."

Should Donald Trump run in 2024?

 With the turn of the calendar to 2022, Republicans are not only looking to the 2022 midterm elections but to the prospect of Donald Trump running in 2024. Trump is hugely popular with the party’s base and that popularity freezes the plans of other possible candidates for the 2024 nomination. Trump’s hold on that nomination is brittle, however, because of his age. On election day in 2024 Donald Trump will be 78 years old. That is one year older than Ronald Reagan’s age when he left office in 1988.

Florida Mayor-Elect Cancels Inauguration Ceremony After Catching COVID

 ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Mayor-elect of St. Petersburg has tested positive for COVID-19, prompting him to cancel his inauguration ceremony Thursday.

“Let this serve as a reminder to all of us to get vaccinated and follow CDC guidelines to minimize the spread of COVID-19,” Mayor-elect Ken Welch (D) said. “While this is disappointing, I am incredibly thankful that my current symptoms are not serious, and I keep in my thoughts and prayers all the families who have lost so much more to this pandemic. Though we will not be able to celebrate in person, let us keep front of mind the significance of the day – the day that we begin a journey together, as one community in one city, toward inclusive progress. We will have much more to celebrate together in the years to come.”

Welch, who will become the first black mayor of St. Petersburg, is fully vaccinated and boosted. He will be sworn in virtually on Thursday, Jan. 6.

2022 Midterms: Will a red wave overcome a blue wall?

 The chairs of the two GOP congressional reelection committees sound very confident that Republicans will win back majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate in the 2022 midterms.

"We’re going to take back the Senate, absolutely," Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, vowed in an interview with Fox News two months ago.

And National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota told Fox News a couple months ago, "Mark my words: Republicans will enter the 118th Congress with a majority and a record-breaking class of diverse members."

Gun Violence Hits 15-Year High In L.A., Taking Lives And Erasing Hard-Fought Gains

 The 17-year-old high school senior had arranged to sell his gaming console through the app OfferUp, and agreed to meet the buyer — another teenager — near a public housing complex in Watts. He intended to save the cash he earned for college expenses that fall.

Instead, one of two teens who met Reynolds at his car that hot day in May pulled out a gun and shot him, the bullet ricocheting off his hip and fragmenting through his abdomen. As he lay on the ground bleeding, he said, the second teen urged the first to fire again.

“Finish him off,” he heard the boy say

“I was in shock,” Reynolds, now 18, recalled in a recent interview with The Times. “It was a lot to process.”

The United States In 2040

 I do not write this article for the typical American Thinker reader. Like me, the typical reader already recoils in revulsion and fear about the direction this country and world are heading. I write instead for the Leftist sappers and monitors who watch what comes out in American Thinker either to pounce on it in trolling comments or simply report back to their overseers.

I want us all to engage in a New Year’s Day mental exercise and extrapolate where we will be—not as a country but as a culture—in 20 years. In that span, patriot conservatives may win a midterm election or two, and perhaps even a presidential election, but the culture will continue its 70-year trend.

DONALD J. TRUMP 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATESWASHIN

DONALD J TRUMP WHO WORKED HIS HEART OUT FOR THE LAST 19 MONTHS FOOLED ALL THE CRITICS, WAS  SWORN IN AS THE 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Obama Regime Pays $342M To 10 Sanctuary Cities To Subvert Federal Requests For Illegal Aliens

File - In this Sept. 1, 2015 file photo, from left, Brad Steinle, Liz Sullivan and Jim Steinle, the brother, mother and father of Kate Steinle who was shot to death on a pier, listen to their attorneys speak during a news conference on the steps of City Hall in San Francisco. The parents of a woman killed on a San Francisco pier by a man in the country illegally is suing the city and two federal agencies that they say contributed to her death. Kate Steinle's parents filed the wrongful-death lawsuit Friday, May 27, 2016. It accuses the San Francisco Sheriff's Department of failing to notify federal immigration officials that it was releasing Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez from jail. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

President Obama's Justice Department has coughed up hundreds of millions of dollars to so-called "sanctuary cities" that refuse federal demands for criminal illegal immigrants sought for deportation, according to a new inspector general memo.

In just 10 of 155 jurisdictions reviewed, taxpayers handed over $342.1 million in Justice grants to the law-breaking cities and states that have policies barring jails and police from cooperating with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The IG said that is 63 percent of the funds available to all American cities.

The memo is likely to stir up the issue of illegal immigration and sanctuary cities in the presidential campaign.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton has voiced support for the sanctuary effort in which state and local officials in mostly urban areas choose to harbor illegals with criminal records rather than comply with ICE requests to turn them over or even identify their immigration status. Donald Trump has called for an end to the practice.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Hillary Says Trump Can’t Handle “Rough And Tumble”… So Donald IMMEDIATELY Does This

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump just gave the greatest comeback of all time to Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

At the Democrat National Convention in Philadelphia, Clinton said that Donald Trump can’t “handle the rough and tumble of a political campaign.”

“You really think Donald Trump has the temperament to be commander in chief? Donald Trump can’t even handle the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign!” she exclaimed. “He loses his cool at the slightest provocation.”

But Trump would not sit by and watch his rival tear him apart. Instead, the business mogul turned politician took to Twitter to defend himself. Here’s what he said:

 Follow

Donald J. Trump 

✔

@realDonaldTrump

Crooked Hillary said that I "couldn't handle the rough and tumble of a political campaign." Really,I just beat 16 people and am beating her!

7:14 AM - 29 Jul 2016

 
•  13,93113,931 Retweets
 
•  41,94341,943 likes

Just last week, Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination, and surprised even those within his own party by beating out countless other GOP candidates for the coveted presidential bid.

Via: Conservative Tribune

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Whew: Hillary’s convention speech (probably) drew a smaller TV audience than Trump’s

Thank God. I think Trump can handle losing the election, but losing a ratings battle to a dial tone like Hillary Clinton might have broken the guy. He’ll be okay now.

The downside: He’ll be mentioning his ratings win not just every day until Election Day but likely every day for the rest of his life.

Clinton’s Thursday night acceptance speech at the DNC averaged 28 million viewers across the six biggest cable and broadcast channels.

Trump’s speech at the RNC one week earlier averaged 30 million viewers across the same channels…

CNN was by far the highest-rated channel on Thursday, averaging 7.5 million viewers during Clinton’s speech. MSNBC was #2 with 5.3 million viewers. NBC was #3 with 4.5 million.

These are the early numbers. The final figures later today will be slightly better, but probably not enough to erase Trump’s advantage. All three previous nights of the Democratic convention outdrew their Republican counterparts, by the way, and Hillary outdrew Trump last night on CNN and MSNBC. Trump’s margin of ratings victory comes entirely from Fox News, which blew the roof off last Thursday for his speech with 9.3 million viewers but clocked just three million yesterday for Clinton. Did Fox get a big jump for Trump because right-wingers who were already voting for him decided to tune into their favorite network to watch his speech? Or was it a more politically mixed audience that gravitated to Fox last week on the assumption that the Republican news channel is naturally the place to watch the Republican nominee speak? The answer to that question would give us a clue about Trump’s crossover appeal in November.

Obama’s 2012 speech outdrew both Trump and Clinton, but if you missed last week’s postabout convention ratings over time, read that for all of the caveats about shrinking ratings in an age with multifarious media options. Given Trump’s celebrity and the curiosity factor surrounding him, it’s arguably no surprise that he’d draw more of an audience than a ho-hum Democratic nominee. But Hillary’s no ordinary nominee: She’s the first woman major-party nominee in history. The fact that she couldn’t bring out enough viewers to top him despite having a historic storyline to help boost interest is a comment on how “meh” she is to the public. Apart from her husband she’s the biggest known quantity in American politics, the ultimate rerun. And like I said in last night’s convention thread, who wants to watch a rerun when there’s so much else on TV — even when that rerun is a Very Special Episode?

Via: Hot Air

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[VIDEO] Donald Trump stumps in Colorado, promises “No more Mr. Nice Guy”

The Republican nominee plans speech in Denver Friday evening

COLORADO SPRINGS — Donald Trump began his speech here Friday afternoon playing his greatest hits, hammering  “Crooked Hillary Clinton” and bashing the media during an appearance at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

VIDEO

The morning after Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination, Trump called her speech “average,” and said he had better TV ratings.

“After watching that performance last night, such lies, I don’t have to be so nice anymore,” Trump said to thunderous applause. “I’m taking the gloves off. Trump is gonna be ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy.”

He added, “If Hillary gets in, it’ll be four more years of Obama, and nobody wants that.”

Trump said Clinton was not classy for not congratulating Trump during her speech Thursday night.

“We’re going to get a lot of Bernie (Sanders) supporters, I think,” Trump said, adding “Bernie sold his soul to the Devil,” for endorsing Clinton.

And Trump promised multiple visits to Colorado, a state he said he thinks he can win.

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t win Colorado. These are great people. Heavy military presence, respect fof their police. Law and order, that’s me,” he said.

Via: The Denver Post

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[VIDEO] Did Donald Trump high jack the News Cycle during DNC??

Via: You Tube

[IMAGE] Hillary for Prison 2016

Via: Twitter

[CARTOON] Crooked Hillary NYET!!!

Via: Google Images

Something very weird about Hillary’s face at the convention

Ann Althouse writes a perceptive commentary (hat tip: Instapundit) on an aspect of Hillary Clinton that bothers me a lot, too: that wide-open-mouth/insane-elation thing with her face.

Specifically, she analyzes a still photo of President Obama onstage with her at the Wednesday night session of the DNC:

She explains the really weird facial expression this way:

… my theory was that she's stuck making the best of doing appearances where she needs to look like the person who is intensely loved but she does not believe she is loved.

The specific reference here is standing next to Obama, who is well liked at a personal level by a majority of Americans.  But remember that ever since she graduated from law school, she has been standing next to her husband, who is even more than Obama a charming fellow – so charismatic that he was able to charm even Newt Gingrich right after the GOP won control of Congress in 1994.  From Hillary’s perspective, her adult life has been one long lesson in being the unlikable one in a very prominent couple.

There has to be a lot of resentment.  The stories of screaming matches, thrown lamps, and the rest are credible to me because Hillary has endured a level of private humiliation at her husband’s hands, in ways overt as in all the extracurricular sex, but also in ways completely unintended, the product of her negative charisma.

The result of all this is a burning desire to surpass Bill, to occupy the Oval Office, and get revenge for his casual ease at being liked.

And the facial expression?  I think it is a window into the intensity of Hillary’s desire, buried deep within her soul, and rarely allowed out.

Via: American Thinker

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RNC Statement On The DNC’s Final Night

PHILADELPHIA - Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus released the following statement on the final night of the Democrat National Convention:

“Time and again, Hillary Clinton’s dishonesty and cronyism have proved she is the wrong person to lead our country as president. The American people have had enough of the corruption, the deceit, and the stonewalling which have been the hallmarks of her entire career. After decades of lying to the public, politically-motivated flip flops, a family foundation that took millions from foreign governments while she was Secretary of State, and repeated and blatant lies over her reckless mishandling of classified information, the only sure thing about Hillary Clinton is that she puts her own political interests above the rest of us.  Tonight’s speech was merely a litany of platitudes which dodged a serious discussion of our slumping economy and our diminished standing in the world under President Obama, topics which should be well-known to her after spending years in his cabinet. Hillary Clinton is the ultimate Washington insider at a time when Americans are eager to break with eight years of a Democrat status quo, and there’s no doubt her longtime pattern of shady conduct and double standards will continue if she is elected president.

“Americans can no longer afford a system which takes care of the well-connected at the expense of everyone else, and a Clinton presidency only means a third term of President Obama’s failed policies, just with more corruption and secrecy. Now is the time to break from a left-wing agenda which has shrank paychecks, left America more ripe for terrorist attacks, and reduced our freedoms. With Donald Trump and Mike Pence, Americans can look forward to being prosperous at home, respected abroad, and having their voices heard once again.”

Via: GOP.com

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Exclusive: Clinton campaign also hacked in attacks on Democrats - sources

By Mark Hosenball, Joseph Menn and John Walcott

WASHINGTON/SANFRANCISCO (Reuters) - The computer network used by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows reports of two other hacks on the Democratic National Committee and the party’s fundraising committee for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.

The U.S. Department of Justice national security division is investigating whether cyber hacking attacks on Democratic political organizations threatened U.S. security, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The involvement of the Justice Department’s national security division is a sign that the Obama administration has concluded that the hacking was state sponsored, individuals with knowledge of the investigation said.

The Clinton campaign, based in Brooklyn, had no immediate comment and referred Reuters to a comment from earlier this week by campaign senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan criticizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and calling the hacking "a national security issue."

The Department of Justice had no comment.

It was not immediately clear what information on the Clinton campaign’s computer system hackers would have been able to access.

Hackers, whom U.S. intelligence officials have concluded were Russian, gained access to the entire network of the fundraising Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, of DCCC, said people familiar with the matter, detailing the extent of the breach to Reuters for the first time.

Access to the full DCCC network would have given the hackers access to everything from emails to strategy memos and opposition research prepared to support Democratic candidates in campaigns for the House.

The hack of the DCCC, which is based in Washington, was reported first by Reuters on Thursday, ahead of Clinton’s speech in Philadelphia accepting the Democratic party’s nomination.

Via: Yahoo

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