Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Greens openly admit they have given up on winning voter support for their climate agenda.
Climate Change Warriors’ Latest Weapon of Choice Is Litigation
By Jeremy Hodges, Lauren Leatherby and Kartikay Mehrotra
May 24, 2018
In the global fight against climate change, one tool is proving increasingly popular: litigation.
From California to the Philippines, activists, governments and concerned citizens are suing the biggest polluters and national governments over the effects of climate change at a break-neck pace.
“The courts are our last, best hope at this moment of irreversible harm to our planet and life on it,” said Julia Olson, an attorney for Our Children’s Trust, a legal challenge center in the U.S. that is involved in climate change litigation across 13 countries, including the U.S., Pakistan and Uganda.
The wave of activity is about channeling the fervor of a social movement to drive change via the legal system. The arguments vary based on both culture and the law. In the U.S., home to more cases than anywhere else in the world, many recent suits involve plaintiffs seeking to protect climate-change rules passed under former President Barack Obama. In Europe, it’s largely governments being hammered over pollution-reduction plans that fall short of EU targets.
“The political branches of government have had decades to stop destroying our climate system; now only court-ordered mandates will stop the destruction our governments are perpetuating, and increasingly supporting,” said Olson, whose primary dispute is on behalf of a group of American teenagers suing the federal government to end U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. Both the Obama and Trump administrations have sought to end the case and been rebuffed.
…
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-climate-change-lawsuits/
The greens behind the climate litigation craze have no intention of letting voters get in the way of their nasty economic and political agenda.
Parasite lawyers trying to generate income for themselves which has to be paid for by people that actually do something useful.
Although there is some of that, I think it misses the bigger social picture of what’s going on here. The political left isn’t just trying to do that with climate actions; that is now the Left’s fallback position in almost *every* area they support, as they realize that they cannot build enough support to get what they want through legislatures and other democratic institutions.
Using the Legal System (as many have put it, “Lawfare”) is an overtly ANTI-democratic tactic. It is an attempt to do an end run around normal legislative procedures and empower various Judges to set themselves up as little Czars who can rule by decree, and we can see that happening in issue after issue. (remember the Hawaiian Judge?)
But it also is a very stupid long term play by the Left – they seem not to understand that an attempt to rule by decree, when you do not actually have politically broad based support to do that, is going to inevitably lead to a strong political backlash. Or, to put it more bluntly, This is how you get Trump.
They’ll soon run out of other people’s money.
A big part of the Green problem is that most of them honestly believe they are right and their cause is essential to maintaining life on Earth. I see this as a form of mental illness, especially when we see Greens doing illegal stunts like turning off pipelines. A Yale economist spoke at a Heartland Conference in March 2017; he started out quite soundly, presenting his argument in a calm fashion, but as he got into the talk, his voice became shrill and his eyes teared up. To be so emotionally invested in a fake issue is not healthy and he honestly believes that he is on the side of the angels. Fortunately, these self-deluded souls are in the minority, as show by all the polls and their failures at the voting booth.
Trump over Hillary any day.
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And they do “judge shopping” to find judges who will rule in their favor. That means that only a minimal number of unethical judges are needed to subvert democracy.
It seems to me the best defence is an assertive offense. Suing the likes of Greenpr!cks, Antifa et al or their members for damaged property, lost revenues when ever their protests involve trespass, forced entry or an impedement to doing a productive day’s work should discourage some of the useful idiots from joining the next protest. Drawing a longer bow, suing the MPs who approved subsidised unreliables and the opportunistic subsidy miners (‘clean’ energy companies) for the lost revenues from industry closures, deaths of consumers whose spiralling energy bills force them to chose whether to eat or heat over winter would also bring the whole boondoggle to a grinding halt.
‘A big part of the Green problem is that most of them honestly believe they are right and their cause is essential to maintaining life on Earth.’
These are the hardest to deal with. Not only are they not easily deterred, there’s a certain percentage of them that easily slide into the ‘by any means necessary’ category.
I’d rather deal with a crook than a zealot.
pameladragon
I think of this as emotional logic: what they feel about something should be true. The logic is, “I feel it so there has to be a reason for that, The Truth being the one I choose to accept.” It follows, logically (sort of) that anything else I feel others should feel, and that if some do not share these feelings, they are denying my feelings. They therefore deny the truth of what I feel, yet I have expressed my feelings truthfully. They have no right to deny my feelings which are real. What I feel is real, must be real.
Emotional logic is real. Conclusions drawn using it are a toss-up: might have no reality at all, might be spot-on.
Lawyers are not cheap. Do they have a tort claim that might pay up in the end? If not, who pays?
For lawsuits against the EPA, normally, it’s the EPA who pays legal fees. The EPA has been accused of deliberately pulling lawsuits from NGOs to get more authority to regulate things. Search for “Sue and Settle Regulation”.
Soros and his ilk. Front page article in the LA Times today openly reporting how the Progressives are targeting sympathetic prosecutors, courts, and judges for election and appointment by pouring $M into the effort. Their aim is open and obvious and you can see it happening today in Progressive states like California. Push the “States Rights” and the Constitution means nothing unless you can eventually get it to the SCOTUS. Subversion and nothing more and they are proud of it.
When it comes to pushing their Socialist and Malthist agendas, the Left has some very deep pockets indeed.
~¿~
Ben,
One of the first things Pruitt did was to issue a directive to end sue and settle. It’s one of the reason that the greens hate him so much
‘One of the first things Pruitt did was to issue a directive to end sue and settle.’
Yeah, that was real shake-down operation they had going. I notice the press can’t seem to find time to report on that, what with that ultra-important issue of Pruitt flying first-class and all.
EPA: Extortion for Progressive Agenda.
Yet another example of the three branches of US Government forgetting their charters. First, the Legislative branch gives law-making authority – without oversight – to unelected bureaucrats. Second, the Judicial starts making laws via fiat, while ignoring the Constitution. Third, the Executive starts making treaties with other entities without Legislative approval, and threatens the Legislative Branch with indictment under the Logan Act (since they aren’t Government officials?). An of course, creates laws via EOs.
This is a lawyer’s paradise. Just find the right judge, and he will overrule Legislative and Executive authority.
Maybe I’m pessimistic. Their is a new sheriff in town, and a lot is changing – for the good. And he’s not even a Constitutional scholar.
“And he’s not even a Constitutional scholar”
No scholar would do it. It’s a high stakes poker game.
You need a player that can inspire fear. Donald I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters Trump inspires fear. It wasn’t just a joke, I see as a threat, almost a promise: really bad stuff may be coming, and at some point, people who insist on forgetting the basic principles of the Law, while insisting on applying to the “letter” the most obscure stupid statute, while misreading most of it and misapplying the rest… who knows what’s coming. At some point, the anti-never-Trump people (*) might go “all in” and push the referee out of the playing field.
(*) Anti-never-Trump people: the people who don’t support everything of Donald Trump is saying (or even most of it), but who will not tolerate the sabotage of an elected President by unelected unaccountable bureaucrats.
Trump’s conservative judicial appointments become much more important.
Full 3-hour John Galt speech from Atlas.Shrugged, for those who still don’t get it.
“…to be or not to be is really the question, ‘to think or not to think’…”
Rand had good ideas, but damn was she long winded once she got going!
@WWS – OMG she so needed an editor!
This was really the worst part of the book. She fell out of story-telling and into lecturer (in both the academic and condescending senses). Of course, there is always a note of truth in any great literature (and I consider Atlas Shrugged great). At the same time, her ignorance of the power of libertarian thought among specific Christian thinkers benighted her approach.
My ex was a Randite, so I ended up reading a great deal of what Rand wrote. She decidedly needed an editor.
My present wife read, understood and appreciated Atlas Shrugged at the age of 14 (kind of precocious). She still appreciates and to a great extent lives out the best of Randian principles while simultaneously being Christian. Rand could have learned a lot from her.
IIRC the closest thing she had to an editor was Alan Greenspan.
wws, Cube, Townsend, and Halla – well stated. I tire of preaching. If it had been spread out more through the story, it would have been easier reading. Seems to me, just one of her lectures in Atlas Shrugged went 45 pages in paperback.
But I still loved them all. All – I do mean all – of my friends have read her books. That says a lot about the power of her writing.
Yes, except that with judge shopping the activists will still find Obama appointed judges to do the work.
As expected from those who read 1984 as a manual rather than a warning.
Due to the three crises in the world, overpopulation, climate change and violent migration, the world is moving towards dictatorial systems. An example of this is Italy. Democracy is very important for everyone, but no more important than the mere survival of our successors.
There is a long history of people telling us that we are doomed. They tell us that we can only be saved if we do as they tell us. They are almost always wrong. Their solutions are usually worse than the problems they set out to solve.
The joy of democracy is that it provides a way to throw the bums out without bloodshed. Democracy does a lot to ensure the survival of our successors.
Commiebob, I would remind folks that National Socialism (Nazism) rose to power under a democratic system. Venezuela’s present government came to power originally under a democratic system. I believe it is far more important to be a republic, a country of laws, where our leaders while elected are also constrained by constitutions and law. One thing that enough Americans failed to comprehend was one of the most important things the President does is appoint judges. Judges are around a lot longer than any President. One of the problems we are having presently in the USA are Democrats continuing to do everything to block votes on confirmation.
But sometimes bloodshed is more effective because you make a more lasting impression on both the instigators and the populace in general!
“There is a long history of people telling us that we are doomed”
Were they wrong?
Is the civil landscape getting better?
Fully agree. Raw unmitigated democracy has many problems. The framers were brilliant.
@commieBob andEdwin: they are selling us doom and salvation in order to grab power.
Mihaly : I thought that you were just uninformed…….. but after repeated
postings I can see that you are not ! ……… You are a persistent purveyor
of ideological LEFTIST FALSEHOODS !
WRONG !….. WRONG! ……..WRONG!
There is NO CRISIS in any of the areas you cite !
Overpopulation: Evidence ? None. The standard of living is improving
everywhere and people are adapting with smaller families. It’s under control !
Climate Change : Yes…. but certainly no crisis ! It has and will ALWAYS change.
A bit of GRATITUDE from you that you now live in this age of a propitious interglacial
would be a welcome indication that a glimmer of understanding has crossed your mind !
Violent Migration: No. Resistance at borders is beginning to occur in Europe as they
rightly fear being overrun by members of an alien culture not amenable to co-existence
with their own. But violent-immigration indicates an armed invasion…and there’s NOT !
.
Only one of those is a crisis. Guess which one….
Mihaly Malzenicky May 24, 2018 at 4:05 am
Two out of three. Climate change is not a crisis.
One out of three. Overpopulation isn’t a crisis either. It wasn’t when “the population bomb” with all it’s failed predictions was published and it isn’t in the present day.
Migaly,
To be nice about it, check your assumptions.
Population is not a crisis.
Climate is not a crisis.
Do you actually care about immigration?
There is a solution that is reasonabke and humane.
He appears to be concerned with Italy, I suppose he is based there. It’s useful to look at why Italy is currently suffering from an immigration crisis (what he is calling “overpopulation”)
It’s coming about because Italy is bearing a lot of the consequences of the decision by Obama and the EU to turn Libya into MadMaxistan. Now everyone there wants to leave, and the easiest destination is a boat ride across the Med to Italy. That’s just chickens coming home to roost.
And a second factor – given what is happening, Italy just sits there and navel gazes, and laments the sorrowful situation it is in while being too gutless and leaderless to do anything about it. Well nobody is gonna fix your country for you – either you fix it, or live with the consequences of doing nothing.
It’s a hard problem to fix, while staying in the EU. EU judges will not permit Italy officials to do anything that might work.
On the other hand Italy can’t afford to leave the EU, they can’t afford to lose the handouts.
Italy can afford to leave the EU, Mark. They’ll just have to devalue their currency at the same time.
Italy was just fine doing that for decades after WWII. The Italians lived well, even with revolving-door prime ministers, and tourists could travel through a magnificent land pretty cheaply while leaving money in their wake.
The real problem with leaving the EU is revealed by the British experience. The EU will do their best to punish the apostates.
Devaluing your currency means imports get much more expensive, which results in a decline in living standards.
Would the voting Italians be willing to put up with that medicine?
How can you fix a country run by the Mafia?
It just means people buy locally, Mark. Italians lived like that for decades, and did just fine.
Everyone wants the sickness to be cured, and everyone also wants the medicine to not taste bad. They also want somebody else to pay for the doctor’s visit.
Pick two.
Climate Change is not a crisis.
Overpopulation and climate change are not crises, nor even a problem in most places.
Earth’s population will stabilize at ten to 11 billion, max. That’s well within our planet’s carrying capacity. Some countries haven’t yet undergone demographic transition, but with further economic development, they will.
“Climate change” is a non-issue. Nothing is happening with Earth’s climate the least bit out of the ordinary, nor will it be a problem in the future. More CO2 is a good thing.
In response to Mihaly.
MM, there is no overpopulation crisis: that’s a myth pushed by the 1%s slavering for total control. Read The Ultimate Resource 2, by economist Julian L. Simon who won a bet against Paul Ehrlich & John Holdren, two doomster useful idiots for the 1%s.1980 to 1990. The Ultimate Resource is human ingenuity. A truly heartening read.
The climate is ALWAYS changing: “for about 4.5 Billion years”, as Buzz Aldrin said, & Man’s burning of fossil fuels is greening the planet. We’re doing naff all harm.
Violent migration? Poor people fleeing poverty or the Western Jihadi mercenary wars on the Middle East & North Africa?
You have a truly twisted perspective, or you’re a flat out liar, one of the three.
John Doran.
I read Simon’s UR2 in the past year. Surprised it is not quoted more often by readers of this web site. A Magnificent source of data and analysis to counter gloom and doom arguments about resource shortage crises that the Left never tires of publicizing in cooperation with a willing MSM that cyclically reappear in various forms repeatedly over the years.
Using long term declining pricing trends interrupted by periodic spikes of multiple resources Simon makes the economic argument that shortages of a wide variety of resources when they appear are solved by human engineering skills to either reduce the amount of needed resources used in processes like manufacturing, recover-recycle waste, find substitutes that are cheaper of better or equal quality, or find new sources of old resources using new methods. The decreasing trend lines of resource and commodity prices over long time frames support his argument most eloquently.
My concern in reading this encyclopedic book, that affirmed my belief in the value and sustainability of human life itself, is that the creative response of free men to the price mechanism requires a free market and free society governed by the rule of law and property rights led first by Great Britain and then the US during the duration of his study of pricing data. The Middle Kingdom does not respect either Western economic rules or legal traditions. Red Chinese goals do not accommodate them nor seem to need them. Will the same results of UR2 occur as the rules of engagement change with the rise of the Red Communist Chinese authoritarian-dictatorial regime growing in both economic and military power? Will the Ultimate Resource 3 book record the same happy results in the future?
A fair summary of this great book, & a good question. Will China continue down the road of increasing prosperity by unleashing individual enterprise, moving away from its past of central control/communism? A thought that occurs to me as I wonder how deeply the Banksters have their claws into China. Interesting times ahead. I really enjoyed UR2, though I never thought I would be recommending a book by an economist.
Two other books I found enlightening & enjoyable: Pawns in the Game, by William Guy Carr, a WWII Canadian naval intelligence officer, & Our Occulted Past, by award-winning journalist Jim Marrs.
Do Banksters control history & wars & is mankind an alien/hominid hybrid, created as a slave/servant race?
Cheers,
John Doran.
Sorry, the correct & full title of Jim Marrs’ book is: Our Occulted History, do the global elite conceal ancient aliens?
Cheers,
JD.
JD: The political bet of American foreign policy that started with Nixon-Kissinger to first triangulate against the power of the Soviet Union by normalizing relations with the People’s Republic which then expanded to a grander goal and implicit expectation to eventually democratize Red China through open bilateral trade, cultural exchange, admitting Chinese students into American colleges and universities, and foreign investment culminating in the admission of Red China into the WOrld Trade Association has been recognized by Henry Kissinger himself as a national security, economic, and military failure; the foggy thinkers in Foggy Bottom have been reluctant to admit this failure in policy now made apparent by the aggressive acts of Red China in the South China Sea; the financial investment and transfer of American and Western Intellectual Property and engineering and manufacturing know how to facilities in mainland China many now under control by the Communist Party has enabled the world’s largest country by population to become by now or in the near the world’s largest economy with astounding capabilities in basic manufacturing production across multiple industries that all have military implications in the near future. China’s goals are clearly nationalistic, militaristic, seeking to restore the natural order of the ranking of nations with the Middle Kingdom at the top, all other nations viewed as supplicants, bowing to the Emperor seeking his permission and license to do business there. It is a Nationalist goal to driven by the Chinese Military but supported by the majority of the Chinese people who seek to reverse the dishonor, humiliation and defeats imposed on China by Western countries during the Opium Wars in the 19th C and later by Japan in WWII. To say Their motivation is revenge may be an exaggeration but not by much. The Red China CP remains in absolute power and increasingly suppresses all political alternatives through their control and monitoring of Internet, the media, education, etc. the Internet was invented by Western science and technology. The West has not only lost the democratization bet with China it has lost much of its cultural, industrial, and economic dominance in the bargain. Two books inform this message: The 100 Year Marathon. China’s Secret Plan to Replace America as the Global Super Power by Michael Pillsbury and Everything Under the Heavens. How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power by Howard W. French.
Oh dear, my “To Read” list just keeps growing. 🙂
The ancient traditional Chinese view of itself as The Middle Kingdom (between Heaven & the rest of the lowlier countries on Earth) has taken a bit of a battering, I would say: invasions by Manchus, the state sanctioned Western pirates & Western states (UK) of the Opium Wars era, Japan in WWII & the ghastly tragedies of (Western Bankster funded) Communism.
I do wonder how much of the “Middle Kingdom” mentality remains? China seems to be concentrating on building “win-win” business & infastructure building relationships with many diverse nations, without interfering in their politics.
Good luck to them, I say.
Our Western Anglo/Zio/US/Rothschild/Saudi Empire is busy employing Wahhabist extremist mercenaries to destroy nations on the basis of lies while bombing infrastructure to smithereens, schools, hospitals, whatever. It’s a Satanic project, global hegemony, which has had a deserved punch on the nose in Syria.
God Bless Putin & the fortitude of the Syrian people & their allies, Iran & the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.
The Chinese would be foolish in the extreme if they did not prepare their military for possible future conflict(s). & prepare thoroughly I know they do. I have a niece in Olympic training for diving & her Chinese competitors train most rigorously indeed.
Is it at all realistic to expect China to abide by Western rules & regulations after centuries of Western abuse? From wars to impose Opium to solve a Brit balance of payments problem, through WWII & the Jap atrocities, to the Western Bankster funded Communist Revolution, famines & Totalitarianism (which they seem to be evolving away from by using individual enterprise coupled with state power), China has rather little to thank the West for, IMHO.
You are quite right to be wary of the Chinese: they are still a Totalitarian state & capable of imposing inhumane & draconian policies with frightening thoroughness. Their “One Child” policy was implemented with brutality because the stupid Communist rulers seized on the non problem of overpopulation as the reason for China’s lack of progress: after all the Communist dogma couldn’t be wrong, could it?
A Chinese bureaucrat had picked up the ludicrous “Environmentalist” publication The Limits To Growth at a European conference. This frantic scare porn, pushing fears of both resource scarcities & overpopulation was rejected by its sponsors, the UN Depopulation project, The Club Of Rome, but it formed the basis of China’s “One Child” policy for years, leading to atrocities such as “Dying rooms” for little girls, because Chinese favoured male children.
China is pulling away from this monstrous & unnecessary policy now & is cracking on with pulling its people out of poverty, building coal & even safe clean nuclear power stations. Making great progress IMHO.
The Western Elite’s Agenda 21 policies of depopulation, de-industrialisation & global domination through a Totalitarian govt based on The Club of Dictators, the UN is revealed in Robert Zubrin’s rather harrowing book: Merchants Of Despair. He details also how safe clean nuclear power is demonised by the fake news MSM. Zubrin is a PhD nuclear engineer with 9 patents to his name or pending, & a huge fan of Julian Simon.
Cheers,
John Doran.
“The political branches” of government? As if in what world are the courts not political?
There is a strategy called sue and settle.
Scott Pruitt is clamping down on sue-and-settle lawsuits. The EPA will now have to properly defend lawsuits.
The problem is, Trump will eventually be out of office, either after one term or two, and eventually a Dem will be elected. They will undo all that Trump has done.
We fight today’s battles today. We fight future battles when they come.
A smart strategist lays the ground work for future battles today.
A smart strategist also wins the battles they can win. Unfortunately Trump is limited in what battles he can win by the lack of support from members of his own party – IE too many swamp dwelling RINOs..
Jeff, that’s a yes and a no. If Trump is a one termer and is followed up by a Democratic president then the likely you are right. If Trump does two terms then followed up by another two term Republican president (Pence?) then likely no.
Cultures have momentum and it takes time to shift with just the buy in of leadership. If you want a culture to shift fast it takes getting rid of a lot of people from top to bottom. Many of the people in charge before Trumps election were hired during Clinton’s presidency and have had years to implement their desired culture. One of my many disappointments with Bush is elections have consequences and to the victor goes the spoils. Bush didn’t do a damn thing shift the direction of agencies and left a great number of Clintons people in their jobs. Given the number of higher ups that quit or replaced with Trumps election and 16 years of a more conservative approach to running these agencies, culture will have time to shift the other way.
It’s almost comical to see how the NYT and the WaPo have been running almost daily articles shrieking about how HORRIBLE! TERRIBLE! NO GOOD! BAD! BAD! Pruitt is. And how enraged they are that no one is paying attention to them. They know that Pruitt has shut off the money spigot to the activists, and they are desperate to do anything they can to destroy him – but they are failing!
GOOD !
WWS, the media is attacking Pruitt because he is effective. The more effective he is the more vicious the attacks will become.
The more flak you get the closer to the target you are.
When they can’t win in the court of public opinion or by legislation, they always turn to litigation. Just following the standard play book of progressive socialists.
And this is part of the reason why they hate and fear Trump so much. He will set their agenda back with his court appointments for a far longer period than any executive changes can.
Regressive is the word you are searching for. Back to Stalinist origins.
The only difference between them is how much red is in their stripe. Since the US were founded as a Constitutional Republic and before that were a colonies under a Monarchy, we can’t “regress” to socialism because we have never been there as a nation.
On the other hand socialism certainly isn’t progress either. But they selected that tag and thus are identified by it.
Repressive socialists !
Nikolai Ivanovitch Bukharin was the “Constitutional Expert” and socialist economic theoretician who wrote the constitution of the USSR after the 1918 revolution. He wrote The Soviet Constitution in language describing the rights of Soviet citizens almost indistinguishable from that of the West. Hoping to curtail the power of the Dictator, Bukharin over played a weak hand. The Soviet Criminal Code and the code of Criminal Procedures were quite different of course from the Constitution. Code Article 58 had 14 sections detailing Treason or Crimes against the Soviet State or Counter Revolution. A General Secretary of Comintern, member of the Politburo, Editor-in- Chief of Izvestia, Bukharin was eventually expelled from the Party in 1929; in the mid 30’s, he was imprisoned, under house arrest; his last role was to be the star player in the Stalin show trials of Party leaders. He was willing to do anything, say anything, renounce anything, sign anything to remain in the Communist Party. He wrote numerous letters to Dear Koba. No replies. Denounced by other Party members on trial he was told that that he was accused of opposition to the Party for acts that may not actually have happened but could have happened. Executed after a show trial of his own in 1938. The Central Committee released the Soviet Constitution prior to the Bukharin trial as the Stalin Constitution to great fanfare. Nice touch of adding insult to injury.
Alex Solzhenitsyn. Gulag Archipelago.
RAH :
AFTER the astounding success of the FUND-ME CAMPAIGN for Peter Ridd
PERHAPS “we” should commence a FUND-ME CAMPAIGN to sue a prominent
“Catastrophic Climate-Change Advocate” AND THE “SCIENCE”
that “he” is promulgating ????????????????????
IF LITIGATION IS THE WAY TO GO……….
Let’s NOT be “LEFT” out of it !!
Perhaps ANTHONY WATTS or ERIC WORRALL know a GOOD LAWYER
and would be prepared to EXERT THE EFFORT and EXPEND THE TIME
if “we” met the FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS ????????????
Trevor, you really should switch to decaf.
Thanks Jeff……………..I tried DECAF but regrettably
I kept falling asleep whilst I was reading your postinzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
A “Constitutional Republic” can be socialist, communist, democratic or even autocratic.
“REY LENSMAN May 24, 2018 at 7:51 am
A “Constitutional Republic” can be socialist, communist, democratic or even autocratic.”
Those in power can label their form of government whatever they want but that does not make it what they say it is.
Was the DDR a Democratic Republic?
Is the PRC a Republic?
NO!
Since we now live in the World of Oz, I am predicting that the Wizard of Oz will have Michael Mann institute a lawsuit against Dorothy for the damage that Toto did to the curtain when he pulled back the curtain with his teeth.
The problem is that litigation is a losing cause if you don’t have popular support because politicians simply change the law. This goes nowhere even if they have small victories the politicians will be forced to act or face voter backlash.
They’ve managed far more through litigation than they ever did at the ballot box, even if you are confident that it is a losing strategy in the long run.
Abortion did not have popular support but has remained the law of the land for decades after the SCOTUS made it so.
At a political level, all they need is a sizeable majority that is willing to be vocal and destructive, as well as a couple of individuals with deep pockets.
With that you can prevent the majority from reversing your judicial gains.
I’m afraid that we have reached a “tipping point”. There are enough people who actually believe that they are entitled to be supported by others that we can’t reverse it.
The only way out is through the bottom.
In almost all countries, politicians are completely isolated from the people on most issues.
Republicans even tried to push the strategy of allowing Hillary Clinton to win the election, allegedly to win next time!
In Canada they are winning at the ballot box. We have a Prime Minister Trudeau that compares climate skeptics ( he calls us deniers) to people that practice genital mutilation.
litigation is the last refuge of the incompetent
apologies to Asimov
Make it known to the lawyers, or should I say shysters?, that when the green edifice comes crashing down because it will be blatantly obvious that the scare is based on nonsense, that then, they as facilitators of malicious lawsuits will be held liable for the damage caused.
Democracy is a tool. It’s a perfectly good tool, maybe even the tool of first resort, but it’s just a tool. If it doesn’t get us what we want, there are other tools.
“only court-ordered mandates will stop the destruction our governments are perpetuating”
I guess I missed it where we gave the courts the power to make policy?
apparently it’s found in the penumbra of Judges arses.
We didn’t give it too them. They took it and we have allowed them to keep it. The only peaceful ways to take it back away from them is to either start impeaching justices that try to set policy or a Constitutional Convention.
The best strategy to limit the powers of the Federal Government and the abuses of its various bodies, departments, agencies, etc is a call for an Article V Convention of the States (COS) to propose new amendments and preserve our existing Constitution. Article V of the Constitution was written with this express purpose to deal with a corrupt all powerful central government sometime in future. How would a corrupt central Federal government reform itself? Short answer- it can’t, and it won’t reform itself. Only the States can limit Federal abuses of power. The framers wrote Article V to not only Institute changes in the Constitution but to limit the powers of the Federal Government too corrupt to reform itself. An Article V Convention of the States to propose amendments to the Constitution requires 2/3 of State Legislatures to pass a proposal to convene an Article V COS to propose new amendments. For proposed amendments to become a valid part of the Constitution, the Law of the Land, the amendments would then have to be ratified by 3/4 of State Legislatures or by 3/4 of State Conventions as one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress. That we should avoid a Constitutional Concention to rewrite our existing Constitution, but instead how to pursue the amendment process using the Constitutional power of State Legislatures to improve governance under that Document is described in detail in The Liberty Amendments by Mark Levin, which describes not only the Amendment process by COS but also a bevy of new amendments to curb the abuses of an out of control central Government and Judiciary.
Only SCOTUS has a constitutional right to exist independently of the other branches. All lower federal courts exist solely at the pleasure of Congress. Legislation established them and legislation can reorganize or dissolve them. Proposing such a nuclear option, of course, would require immense political will, and following through on it would require dominant majorities in both houses.
There is no specific provision for a Supreme Court or the power it current holds to be found in the Constitution of the United States.
Article III, Section 1:
“The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court….”
Your right Tom, I was wrong. Sorry for the misinformation.
Still I will argue that the court has far over stepped it bounds as intended and is driven more by politics than the law.
There is no disagreement about that.
The extremists always promise up front to overturn democratic rule.
The Communists, fascists, Islamic theocrats and Islamic radicals, PolPot, Chavez, and of course many greens and climate creeps are all on record that democracy is not enough or is just an expendable tool to get the power they seek.
The results are always the same:
Suppression, censorship, and violence against those unworthues who dare to disagree.
And utter failure of their alleged plans.
Socialism for any meaningful time is impossible and has never existed except for an extremely short time. It always turns to communism or dictatorship. So that is why I never call them socialists. From now on I refer to them as Communists. The green left are actually communists hiding as progressives. They hate capitalism and everything it stands for. Capitalism and democracy go together. If you get rid of one the other will disappear. The Chinese system is not capitalism. 2/3 of China’s GDP is owned by the CCP. There is no democracy in China and there is no capitalism because at any time your wealth can be taken away by the CCP and that frequently happens.
Socialists are fashionably late Communists.
The left has been using judges to overturn the will of the people for decades.
But not for decisions that ostensibly will directly affect the everyday life of everybody.
Using the commerce clause to give the federal government to regulate everything in the US.
If you read the federalist papers, the purpose of the commerce clause was to give federal government the power to settle trade disputes between the states. Nothing more. Under the current “interpretation” there is no limit to the federals government ability to regulate and dictate.
@MarkW;
Yes, it was mostly to prevent the various states from trying to impede commerce. Such as New York trying to put a tariff on goods coming in from New Jersey.
What they don’t realize is that courts only have power when there is respect for their decisions or a ghost of past respect that lingers around ectoplasmically. Most people prefer to behave as if the courts were not a bunch of mental asylums and the police goes along with it. Bad justice is considered preferable to chaos (and then there is arbitration, the private justice system for serious matters).
But then there is the fact “the people” go along with the police.
Which is not a given, esp. in the US, as seen in the occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and following judicial embarrassment.
There may be a tipping point not far.
If the idiotic ‘left’ wing could see reality rather than live in their memes, they would all be talking about the problem of chaos in specific countries and fake science.
Chaos occurs when governments are so corrupt and dysfunctional that problems (balanced budgets, road repair, sewage, electricity, policing, unbiased legal system, health care, schools) are not solved as all of the money is stolen or misused.
In chaos countries (almost all of Africa) GDP growth does not match population growth.
Chaos countries go deeper and deeper in debt.
https://qz.com/1016790/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-population-growth-will-be-in-africa-by-2050/
Chaos also occurs when science is fake, agenda based.
The entire scientific basis for CAGW is incorrect.
The resident time for CO2 in the atmosphere is 4 years not 1000s of years as per the phoney Bern model.
Based on the fact that the resident time of anthropogenic CO2 emissions is only 4 years, anthropogenic CO2 emissions only contributed 17% of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2. 83% of the rise in atmospheric CO2 was due to the increase in temperature.
Obviously if the rise in CO2 was natural, then the rise in temperature was also natural, not caused by the rise in atmospheric CO2.
The key idea is that CO2 NEVER accumulates in the Earth’s atmosphere, from any source, on any timescale.
All CO2 in the atmosphere has flowing inputs from and outputs to much larger surface pools.
Just the same as a river. Add 4 percent to the water flow of a river. All of the added flow is removed with the remaining 96 percent. Since the anthro-CO2 is now 4 percent of CO2 flux, the amount of anthro-CO2 in the atmosphere is 4 percent. 400 times .04 is 16 ppm. The “natural” CO2 is therefore 384 ppm.
The 14-CO2 decay curve from 1964 to 1974 also shows this conclusively, so the actual measured flow of all atmospheric CO2 takes 10 years to decline by 1/2.
If it were possible, permanently stop all addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. The 400 ppm will drop to 200 ppm in 10 years.
Hypothetically, stop all anthro-CO2 addition to the atmosphere, the 16 ppm would drop to 8 ppm in 10 years. Of course, the natural source/sink fluxes may remain as unbalanced in 10 years as they are now.
Alaska has a case filed by 16 children who filed in state court demanding the State of Alaska do something about climate change, failing to protect future generations from climate change. The greens are as usual hiding behind children. The whole effort is bankrolled by an outfit that calls itself Our Children’s Trust which is doing similar lawsuits in other states. Because it is a public interest lawsuit, their legal fees will be covered by the taxpayers, turning it into a money-making proposition. Cheers –
I just don’t get how blatantly disconnected from their own dependence on fossil fuels these people seem to be, and how they seem oblivious to the fact that the very existence of a fossil-fuel-powered civilization enables them to achieve such a level of comfort that they are sufficiently unoccupied with survival needs to complain.
How are these teenagers fed, clothed, housed, cared for, pampered, protected, and guided to complain about fossil fuels? ANSWER: A comfortable lifestyle ENABLED by fossil fuels! How can you sue to end the very means that enables your comfort and freedom to complain about it? What are THEY doing to find alternative technologies and plans for alternative infrastructures NOT dependent on fossil fuel? Do they think that this is magic? — that some clear replacement for the means of their comfort is readily possible? They are DELUDED by fantasy and science fiction, as they continue to use the very thing they complain about replacing?
Wake up! Look at your life. See how comfortable yo are. Realize WHY.
Yes, and how did mere teens, just kids, with no experience of life almost at all, get this brain-washed, this irrationally afraid of the future, this ignorant of all the sides of the debate, and so litigation-enabled?
How did that even happen? Warped parents and teachers, plus devious media had a great deal to do with this, wouldn’t have occurred without their pushing it.
Because teenagers should not be doing this, we don’t petmit their legal responsibility and voting capacity for good reason, namely, they are to inexperienced in life plus to immature, foolush, risk-taking and impulsive to be trusted or responsible for their actions.
Even moreso in 2018, than in the past, because many of them don’t mature until they get to about age 30, as they are constantly shielded from the things that cause you to wake-up and grow-up.
So why are we allowing people to politically interfere with school children and teenagers, to destabilise them, radicalise them, and make the afraid of mearureably next to nothing?
Worth a read for the way the Canadian Press and the CBC peddle their climate alarmism:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-b-c-n-b-river-flooding-1.4676032
Notice the opinion of the meat cutter who could not imagine a million years that living near a river, protected by a dike would risk flooding…
Notice how Blair Feltmate just like Pomeroy are using the situation to further their agenda and how journalists are ready to forget about flooding history to peddle that agenda.
That’s the Canadian media for you.
TomRude May 24, 2018 at 9:26 am
Amazing as he actually says “I never thought this would happen in a million years,”. How have we got to this point where individuals can hold such completely unrealistic expectations? A million years for crying out loud.
…Further more looking at the surrounding area there are large blocks of clear felling of trees. In the UK a study done back in the early 80s found that upland tree management was causing flooding downstream because of various upland drainage and clear felling; increased run-off with silt. There have been attempts in the UK to manage forestry differently to either re-instate areas that flood or manage clear cutting differently. This is not dissimilar to the US Corp of Engineers reinstating meandering rivers in the Everglades to reduce flooding downstream and hold water back to try and stop the land subsidence that was happening because of excessive drainage.
If I have got it right, the hearing on the motion to dismiss in the Exxon case is today, in California. Looking forward to the reports. From reading the filings, I do think dismissal is a real possibility.
Anyone not familiar with the country wide effort in the US to convene a Constitutional Convention should educate themselves on the process now. It’s well on its’ way and adding more states as it progresses. Judge appointments, term limits, and powers are just a few of the things a Constitutional Convention will address.
More correctly the process is called an Article V Convention of States (COS) to propose amendments to the existing Constitution of the United States.
The judicial system is broken in many ways. A person’s house keeps getting broken into, the police are too busy or don’t care, then the Judge lets the person off because of “issues” with the criminal. The home owner then defends himself, ending the problem, but is the one going to jail.
“…stop destroying our climate system;”
How on earth does anyone destroy a climate system? Assuming it’s possible to destroy our ‘climate system’ then we must end up with no climate system?
http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/
All of this points to why the Left is so intent on blocking Trump court nominations, most especially the Supreme Court vacancies. The Left, knowing it can’t get the laws it wants passed through Congress, it has now focused on using judicial activism to implement its agenda. (Congress is the People’s voice in our Federal government per Framer’s design and intent, and the Left actually hates the People having a voice over their “betters”, i.e. the Elites and the bureaucrats making regulations and rules that they control.)
To be sure, both the Left and the Right jurisdiction shop the case in hopes the case gets assigned to a known partisan jurist. The 9th Circuit, which covers all of the Western US and Hawaii and Alaska, has also the most Liberals on its bench and a larger number of Left-leaning Federal judges. That is why they like to file these cases out there. But the most contentious of cases are likely to get to the Supreme Court for final say.
The Supreme Court is now slightly conservative with constitutional originalists, with Kennedy the swing vote that shifts the 4-4 split among 4 (mostly) constitutional originalists and 4 (intellectually dishonest) living constitutionalists.
The Liberals were giddy with joy when Justice Antonin Scalia “went to go sleep with the fish” in February 2016. Fortunately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used the Biden Rule to tell Obama his nominee would not be considered for advice and consent by the Senate majority. Thus today we have Gorsuch on the high court. The Libs have been gnashing teeth and spewing spittle laced rants ever since.
The reports/rumors of Justice Kennedy now retiring and Trump filling his seat with another originalist really has the Left animated like no other issue. It is what drives their push to take back the Senate, to stop Trump from seating ANY more conservatives to the bench, not just the Supreme Court.
But wait! There’s more!
It’s worse than they thought! If not indeed unprecedented!
If Trump runs for reelection and wins, not just the USSC but the whole federal judiciary will be revolutionized, ie Americanized.
Justice Ginsburg was born in 1933; Breyer in 1938. Sotomayor was born in 1954, but suffers from diabetes and other health problems. Besides Kennedy, arch-originalist Thomas reportedly wants to retire as well.
Should they survive that long, in 2023, the next to last year of a second Trump term, Ginsburg would turn ninety and Breyer 85. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. retired just two months before his 91st birthday, so there is no precedent for a USSC justice older than 90.
Constitutionalized.
No longer will judges imagine that they’re free to do a little legislating, as Ginsburg believes.
Joel: joelobryan
May 24, 2018 at 11:24 am
“Congress is the People’s voice in our Federal government per Framer’s design and intent…”
More correctly, the House of Representatives is the People’s voice and the Senate is the individual States voice in the Federal government per the Framer’s design and intent but the 17th Amendment changed that and it needs to be repealed.
Judge shopping is fine for the climate activists, but they ignore that reality that there is civil disobedience available to the populace at large. If we the people decide that the rulings aren’t good, we can simply not comply. Where are they going to find a way to force 300M Americans to do something? See how effective speed limit signs are on the highways…
“Where are they going to find a way to force 300M Americans to do something?”
Well, given that according to http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states
…I guess they won’t!
I think were getting closer to what has been their primary motivation all along.
Don’t tell the snowflakes – it’ll ruin their self-image.
When they do get what they want, will they realize it is higher prices, lower standard of living, and shortages due to not using high energy output per volume of energy sources?
Nope. Not the rank and file.
Update: May 24, 6:00 p.m.
by Amy Westervelt
The lawsuit brought by Oakland and San Francisco against large oil companies will move forward. But not because Judge William Alsup ruled on the oil companies’ motions to dismiss the case at today’s hearing.
Alsup is asking both sides to prepare additional written arguments by next week. He’s also given them two months to collect new documents and interviews.
A final ruling on the motions to dismiss is expected in August. If the case does move forward, it could be the first of its kind to go to trial.
https://www.kqed.org/science/1923458/youve-heard-of-a-murder-of-crows-how-about-a-crow-funeral
Sorry
https://www.kqed.org/science/1924401/cities-vs-big-oil-climate-case-reaches-turning-point-in-federal-court
See also here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-24/climate-change-judge-s-homework-was-industrialization-worth-it
The scientific evaluation of glyphosate, and the exaggeration by IARC(*) of the risk (or simply making up toxicity where none exists) was discussed previously:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/30/agitators-regulators-and-predators-on-the-prowl/
(*) “IARC” is “CIRC” in French, pronounced “cirque” which means circus
This is OLD stuff that I just found, I don’t know if that was specifically discussed:
http://www.pan-germany.org/download/presse/Press_release_PAN_Europe_020315.pdf
It might help the defense to present the spurious correlation problem to the judge.
I put it into plain language here:
https://chaamjamal.wordpress.com/2018/05/27/spurious-correlations-in-climate-science-2/