A Federal judge in Washington State today issued an injunction preventing the enforcement of President Trump’s Executive Order (EO)halting immigration and entry programs from seven nations for 90 and 120 days respectively. I have already written about my own response to the EO as a policy matter and also said something about a Christian response […]
Archives
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Executive Order in the Court
04 Feb 2017
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Executive Orders and “Extreme Vetting”
29 Jan 2017
President Trump issued a very broad executive order yesterday, banning immigration for up to 120 days, and including so-called “Green Card” holders, holders of permanent visas. This order was effective immediately and almost immediately protests erupted. Moreover, several Federal judges have issued temporary injunctions against the order’s application to certain individuals. Political types on roughly […]
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A Real-Life Story of Bureaucratic Dysfunction
21 Dec 2016
If you want to read a classic insider narrative of the degeneration and dysfunction of a large and powerful (and unlimited) federal bureaucracy, read here: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443227/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-tragic-failures. The article chronicles the work of one highly placed lawyer in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before it was slapped hard by the Federal courts. I have frequently written about […]
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Bureaucracy and the New President
20 Dec 2016
I was reading an interesting article in Reason today that directly addressed one of the major issues I have raised before and frequently alluded to (see http://reason.com/archives/2016/12/19/trump-versus-the-we-bes, December 20, 2016). It has to do with the theme of “Trump versus the bureaucracy.” One could substitute any president’s name in that slogan since the 1930s at […]
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A Really Bad Legacy, and How to Reverse It
17 Nov 2016
President Obama and his executive agencies set a new record for the number of pages of new regulations in one day: 527 pages (in a single day!). For the year the number of pages so far is also a record, at 81,640 pages. It is also worth noting that seven of the the top eight […]
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Earmarks, Pork and the Meat Axe: Time for Action
17 Nov 2016
Today Representative John Culbertson (R-Texas) pulled (that is, withdrew) a bill that would have made changes to the earmark ban the House imposed earlier. An earmark is basically an addition to a bill that includes some kind of project or spending for the congressman’s home district. It is a rider. And normally, it constitutes “pork […]
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California Dreamin….of secession?
15 Nov 2016
Progressives are continuing their refusal to recognize reality, as protests continued yesterday in major cities. To be fair, both sides enjoy pointing out they hypocrisy of their opponent’s ideological views. Yet I can’t help but smile in sadness at the almost infantilization of our progressive youths today. It was just 8 days ago that we […]
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Why? And What Now?
09 Nov 2016
At about 3 AM last night we were informed that Donald Trump would be our 45th president. My daughter photographed the screen and we all went to bed. But now the next phase in all this process begins: governance–which is very different from winning a campaign. Before I get to that, let me say a […]
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“God save the…Country”: The Courts and Brexit
04 Nov 2016
I just felt the need to make a quick comment on the recent ruling by a Court holding that the Brexit vote was not valid without a vote by Parliament. This was a very odd ruling for several reasons, the most interesting being that the British government is not at all structured like ours. Despite […]
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What Not to Do on November 8
18 Oct 2016
Another post on the election would almost seem to be cruel. Aren’t we all exhausted by the rhetoric over the past two (yes, two) years? But there is something we still need to bear in mind as we go to the polls. I was reminded of this by an article today by Yuval Levin (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441149/protest-vote-congress-yuval-levin) […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
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