By Steve Milloy
What an actual threat to our democracy looks like. EPA has no statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants. Although the Supreme Court is taking up the question on Feb. 28, the Biden regime doesn’t care what the Court holds. It plans to aggressively regulate emissions from coal plants anyway. As reported by Politico’s “Morning Energy” report today:
Democracy is dead. Socialism rules. The people are powerless.
Not powerless, too many are too apathetic to take a stand, and persevere.
Powerless! Look at Canada.
They have been crushed.
We will see if the people’s anger is squeezed out into a different venue.
The truckers will be back they have left to regroup. If you watched the CBC then what you saw was staged. Justin Castro has to go.🤮
The truckers will be back. The police were releasing the the people they arrested outside the red zone. The truckers have gone just outside Ottawa to regroup. The arrests on the CBC were staged to show violence. The real truckers didn’t resist. Justin Castro has to go.🤮👎
Their wives have been told by bank managers that their accounts will be seized, credit cards cancelled…they can only scrounge some fuel and drive home at this point…way beyond 1984….
The truckers that were in Ottawa are no were near all of them. Make way for the second wave. They may not bring the trucks this time. The police can’t really charge you for standing on the sidewalk.👍😉
loitering
Not if you keep moving.🙄🤷♂️
tell it to the judge
What Judge? Under martial law, there’s no jurisdiction, and no fair trial.
Car and truck traffic doesn’t travel on the sidewalk. Walking on the sidewalk as a protest is quite different from parked in the street.
Governmental power works in the short term; politicians and the Deep State misinterpret that as a mandate to do as they please. Trud’oh will regret his hasty action at leisure.
Justin Castro only has a few days before the rest of the government removes his powers.
The real key will be when Parliament meets Monday, they have to confirm the invoking of the Emergency Powers Act.
My guess is they won’t, and the opposition may well try to force a vote of no confidence, if even a few liberals don’t back Trudeau he could be toast.
We can only hope.
The police pulling out the ARs and running down people with horses was more than a bit extreme considering they’ve already effectively disarmed the population and it was a peaceful demonstration.
Did the police shoot up the bouncy castles?
False, no one was run down or injured by the horses. One horse did stumble when a protestor threw a bicycle at the horse.
I’ve seen several videos, but none in which a bicycle was thrown. There was a woman with some wheeled walker device who WAS knocked to the ground by a horse, and there was a guy walking with a bicycle.
The fox news reporter with the false info tweeted her apology
https://twitter.com/SaraCarterDC/status/1495061330314907656
I would reserve judgement on that conclusion. As a Canadian, many of us will continue to oppose government tyranny and overreach. I believe 7 of our 10 Provincial Premiers indicated the they did not support or need the Emergency Act to deal with the situation. In the end we will seek legal recourse regarding the illegal imposition of Martial Law.
Canada is now, effectively, a dictatorship. The only question that remains is: how will the Canadian people react when Trudeau does not let go of the “emergency powers” he grabbed, citing on-going “threats” against the government? How many rights will have to be trampled? How many lives destroyed before the people realize their “leader” has embarked down a dark road that leads only to ruin?
There’s a chance to improve the situation on Nov. 8th. Let’s not waste it,
Hopefully fully staffed with poll watchers and lawyers… so that no cheating is possible.
Over 40 years in the Electric Utility Industry. Utilities rarely, if ever, even sue a contractor for failure to fulfill contract requirements. Worse, they would often even contract with that same contractor to fix what they F’d up. Worked at six different utilities as an Engineer through Engineering Manager position and each were the same. I believe part of it is that the Architect and Construction contracting corporation’s have more money and lawyers than the utilities.
Count the number of Utilities that sued the EPA on the illegal P2.5 rule. I know of none that did any more than complain about it. And they don’t even band together to fight the government. The EPA will usually win, then the illegal rule becomes the LAW – That is the problem with “Lawfare.” Envirowhacos know how to use it, Utilities do not.
Not at all. The people elect our governments – both Congress and President, who then appoint judges and justices. Democracy is totally alive. But because the American people are hopelessly divided, permanently, at a near 50-50 basis, we keep flip flopping our collective votes from one extreme government to the other extreme government. When one extreme takes over, the people react with horror and vote the bastards out. But unfortunately, the replacements also end up being extremists, so at he next election we the people vote the new bastards out, and so it goes, back and forth.
This IS democracy. it’s messy, chaotic, and unstable.
As Winston Churchhill was quoted as saying:
The people did not elect the current administration, our corrupt media did by falsely demonizing a rational and competent administration while glorifying the most incompetent, irrational and anti American administration the country has ever had to endure.
You are insane
I wouldn’t call Trump extreme, although the MSM did for years. The Ds will scream about all the things he did, but are usually perplexed if you ask for specifics (and are willing to walk them through how almost everything said about him in the press was a lie).
Not my experience. They cannot hear anything at odds with the narrative they are constantly fed by the media.
According to most members of the media, the political spectrum goes something like this.
Communist, socialist, extreme right.
Everyone who is not a Trumplican True Believer – ie a majority of Americans – agree that Trump is an extremist. Just as most everyone agrees that Biden is also an extremist. That’s why we centrists who are a majority of all Americans agree that both are extremists.
In what way, specifically, is Trump an extremist?
Well, he enforced the laws. /Sarc
That sound you hear is crickets.
I think it was the honesty of his tweets that was widely misinterpreted as extreme by the corrupt media that he righteously attacked.
Anything that improves the well-being of the United States and its people is judged extreme by the insane crowd now comprising the Democrat Party. Anarchy and poverty loom.
“we keep flip flopping our collective votes from one extreme government to the other extreme government.”
What, pray tell, do you consider extreme about government when Republicans are in charge?
Apparently, freedom and personal responsibility are now considered fringe right concepts.
Extreme right and white supremacist to boot.
Trump is proven an extremist. Extremists have dominated both parties for the last 22 years. Of course the extremists on the right think they are normal and everyone else is an extremist left winger. And the extremists on the left think they are normal and everyone else is an extremist right winger. The 60% majority in the middle knows that both sides are extremists.
In other words both sides left and right need to tone back some of their extremist ideas with a bit of compromise and meet somewhere in the middle where most voters would be more agreeable to .
This applies to most western democracies also, particularly with their climate change and energy policies , also education and socialist verses personal responsibilities .
Your responses prove Spetzer’s original point. People that label Trump an extremist don’t give a reason. It’s just a leftist tactic to sway actual moderates by claiming both sides are equally bad.
“It’s just a leftist tactic to sway actual moderates by claiming both sides are equally bad.”
Exactly.
Everything the Left says about Trump and the Right is a lie. Unfortunately, some people are easily duped.
“Trump is proven an extremist“
Funny, for something that is supposedly proven, you are having the hardest time given *any* examples and instead just repeating the same baseless accusations over and over again as if just making the accusation is proof.
Duane, your point is mostly correct but neglects a major factor. The free press is not doing their job. Instead of investigating for truth, they are colluding with the left. The center is a hard ideological line instead of a broad homogenous mix. The age of enlightenment is dim dead history. Defund corporate news.
There was a good reason that corporations could only own a limited number of Radio, TV and Newspapers. Strange, The Democrats did this. And now they are screaming Democracy is dying.
The back and forth is from one extreme and completely corrupt government to a government that is split between corruption and moderates. The second one doesn’t take the extremists to task because their afraid to lose the corrupt half of their members of Congress.
Depends on your zip code. But agreed, the producers are powerless and the masses in general stupid enough to think they can make a living for the rest of their lives simply by robbing their neighbors.
This!
Several observers including de Tocqueville noticed our unique form of government would only last until the populace realized their votes could be bought and they could be enriched with other people’s money.
Even an 8th grader could realize the tipping point would be reached when in order to buy votes the Legislature decided one half of the electorate no longer needed to have “skin in the game”.
The Deep State rules. For example, the FBI and CIA persecute individual citizens at whim.
When will the EPA understand that greenhouse gasses are not pollution ?
CO2 and methane
Sadly, we’ve seen what happens when government “follows the science.”
When the election for President lurches way left, like Carter, Obama, and now Biden, the various Federal Agencies are Weaponized to advance socialist agendas. I have had personal experience with mineral exploration permitting attempts on federal lands, administered by the Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service, and both kept the EPA Guidelines in their back pockets, ready for use when all else failed to prevent lawful (and beneficial) activities. Another favorite of mine was applying for a BLM drilling permit for northern Elko County, Nevada, and being told that there “might be Sage Grouse” in the area so permit denied. I pointed out that it was legal to shoot and eat Sage Grouse and that I would soon guarantee there would not be any Sage Grouse in the area (there weren’t any). Permit approved.
The depressing thing is that Carter would be unacceptably conservative to 99% of Democrat voters today. Just think, replacing Brandon with Jimmuh Cahtuh would result in a more robust, less senile person in the Oval Office.
Even more depressing is that when the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress & the White House they do nothing to reduce the size, scope, and power of the bureaucracy.
That thought keeps my wallet in my pocket when the repugs come asking for donations to further their “cause”. Which last time they had complete control of both houses and White House they did squat. Oh, except resist pretty much anything Pres. Trump’s and the people’s agenda to save this nation.
+1
Nobody is going to shrink DC.
Maybe a Russian ICBM
Maybe when trucks stop delivering to DC. In a city, anything and everything was on a truck at least once and usually several times.
Truckers are powerful and they know it. A good portion of the U.S.’s future is going to hinge on what truckers decide to do.
The Rs certainly didn’t impress the last couple of times they had any power, but hopefully that was the old gang. However, I’m not getting my hopes up. They’d be going head on into everything that held Trump up.
Trump did in fact cut back employee numbers, and regulations, in a number of Federal agencies. Just one of the many reasons the swamp people, some of whom self-identify as Republicans, hated him.
Trumps 2018 budget (according to The Hill) cut 66 Federal Programs. Did it actually cut any Government Bureaus? Probably not.
Until McConnell is gone, the rule of law will not prevail.
They’ve, i.e. the Repub’s, have been bought just like the Dems. As one ex congressman said on Fox News, he was glad to be out of Washington. When you had that many people throwing money at you and telling you your poop don’t stink, pretty soon you begin to believe ’em.
As long as politicians think they are celebrities, they will continue to act like celebrities.
What we need in government are more statesmen. Unfortunately, statesmen may not always have the best hair and teeth for the TV set and are therefore unelectable.
Both sides follow the same game plan, they just have different speaking roles. Their hatred of Trump is that he was not completely on board with the game plan. Very threatening to so many parasites.
Jimmy Carter is an honorable and honest man, imho, but was ill advised when he was President. During that era, the US govt policy was the belief that we had virtually run out of natural gas yet to be discovered.
Therefore, a natural gas owner was not allowed to charge a market price. For that purpose, the price of “old” gas, the natural gas already discovered, was capped by federal law, thereby limiting the cash flow of producers and explorers and curtailing the ability to explore for more gas.
A self-fulfilling prophesy! Also, at that time, it became illegal to use natural gas to generate electricity – hard to imagine given the fact that nat gas is now the key source for regional and national energy systems like California, Great Britain, …
When price controls were relaxed, the industry had the motive and ability to make energy history, over and over continuing to this day.
In fact, the USA natural gas industry has discovered plus produced orders of magnitude more natural gas than was officially asserted to exist by the USA government during the Carter era.
An error of epic proportions. Intended CAGW fixes are following along this path but with potentially far greater and deadly impacts.
The problem with President Jimmy Carter was that he is an intellectual dilatant, he believed everyone could be engaged in philosophical discussion and change their behavior. The Iranians kept the embassy hostages until Regan was elected and then released them. Why? Because Reagan did not offer discussions he offered the military destruction of Iran.
Carter believed that the US was too powerful and for the sake of world peace (that utopian dream) it should be weakened to create a level playing field with the other superpowers, Russia and China. Detente symbolized that policy decision. He was way ahead of Obama and Biden on that score. Just to be clear: Nice doesn’t cut it with communists and thugs of any ilk. Peace through strength is the best policy, along with some ability to play “Risk”!
Agree.
Given this behaviour, a Second American Civil War is not an impossibility.
It’s time for the Clean Air Act to be amended to explicitly exclude claims of harm from warming due to GHGs. Congress can do that and override a presidential veto. I realize folks will say, “It will never happen.” Nevertheless, the people can make this happen if they want to.
All we need is 17 Democrats to be replaced by Republicans in the Senate plus probably another 10 RINOs that lose primary elections to conservatives. Oh and then 78 Democrats need to be replaced with Republicans in the House plus maybe 40 RINOs losing primaries. So altogether we’re only about 145 short—mathematically possible! And I am overly pessimistic because I forgot all those DINOs! Maybe we’re only 144 short.
Well at least you said you knew someone would say this. So I guess you know that overriding a Presidential veto requires a two thirds majority in both houses of Congress. Maybe fantasizing helps you cope with the bitter reality?
No, we need 100 Senators replaced. Every last one of them is corrupt, though there are a few only modestly tainted.
All it would have taken is one, just one, Senator to call for a recess, and President Trump could have appointed the people he actually wanted in various positions.
Not one Senator stepped up. Four years without a recess.
The human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is about 1/476 of one percent of the atmosphere. It isn’t a significant cause of anything. We need legislators who know this.
This is not the only gateway they have. When the mercury and air toxics (MATs) rule was implemented, the “co-benefits” of reducing particulates was used in the economic justification because it was NOT justified based on the reduction in mercury alone. This rule was put out under the Clean Air Act. So even if EPA’s CO2 regulations are blocked by the SCOTUS, they will figure out a way to reduce CO2 by regulating other emissions and then wait for it to get through the courts. That will take years and the rule will in effect until then. That is what happened with the MATs Rule that was ultimately overturned. Gina McCarthy gloated that the aims of the MATs rule had been obtained in spite of it being overturned.
No disagreement with your point. Still, better for Congress to eventually rule out warming as a cause for rulemaking under the Act.
My impromptu and unofficial studies of Alzheimer’s’ Dementia lead me onto the subject of Lyme Disease.
It really has been an education. I thought it was just to do with picking up a tick from walking in the woods but it truly is an epidemic of something really really horrible.
(What connected the 2 was that Lyme can very often manifest as dementia = an auto-immune attack on the brain (inflammation)) ###
Lyme being, my description, a variation on malaria that you can catch from ‘most anywhere. Your pets cat/dog, getting ‘close’ to other people, from your mother during birth etc
And you are never rid of it
Seemingly 80% of the population of New England have it and 400,000 new cases are diagnosed annually in the US. Some of those folks have carried it for 30 and 40 years without realising
### Is that One More Reason, apart from sugar poisoning, for the ongoing insanity in the world. And it REALLY is, insanity.
But anyway, back on topic and more than one of the doctors & practitioners teaching Lyme, have commented upon ‘China’
What they especially noticed was from the really really horribly polluted cities/regions was how so many hordes of perfectly healthy children were running around and playing amidst all that pollution.
What also dawned on them was how many centenarians there were in the population of those ‘polluted places’
What gives?
As children might say while taunting each other “Liar liar pants on fire”
So whose pants really are on fire?
The childish bit is nice innit – is that what you get if you ‘take an adult’ and then switch off everything it has ever learned?
Simultaneously and in cahoots with alcohol, truly epic capacities for buck passing and mendacity. Is the Lyme epidemic also a factor?
Lots to think about innit – better crack on while you still can ‘think’
How many of The Big Climate Schools are based in New England?
Lyme is a spirochete, like syphilis, not a protozoan, like malaria. But acting like tertiary syphilis might explain His Senility’s cognitive problems.
Thanks for your educational comments like the one above. Cheers.
So you’re saying I have a 20% chance of not being demented? But then there’s the alcohol and the “sugar”. I’m doomed!
Me too, Rich, but I forget why.
😜
Sounds like we need a Lymes lockdown.
Canada and the US aren’t quite so different.
You can smell the authoritarianism in both.
This is the age of the liberal despot.
I agree. It’s also becoming clear that liberal “philanthropist” billionaires use their foundation’s money to promote a cause or policy and low and behold their balance sheet grows as a result.
How is it philanthropy when “donation” leads to profit?
The Golden Rule of course.
(Those who have the gold make the rules)
If only the Carnegies, Rockefellers & J.P. Morgans lived in the current era… then they would have gone into conservation first, to make all of their money and afterwards built rail roads, oil wells and steel mills during their retirement years. (lol)
One doesn’t have to look far for philanthropy leading to profit.
Warren Buffet donated to groups opposing the Keystone XL pipeline including politicians and “indigenous” groups. BNSF railroad (that Warren Buffet has a majority stake in) transports oil instead of the safer and more economical pipeline.
That’s not philanthropy, that was an investment.
I agree with your assessment but disagree with your terminology.
These despots are not liberal.
They are leftist, statist, evil tyrants. They are trying to bring back the authoritarian rule that has been the most common throughout human history where a group of elite have the power of life or death over the peons.
They suffer under the delusion that they are endowed with superior intellect and have a mandate to force everyone else to follow their dictates for the betterment of mankind.
The term you are looking for is oligarchy
Who watches the watchers? Now we unregulated bureaucrats.
The EPA and its supporters posit the BIG LIE that CO2, or as they like to call it, “carbon” is pollution, and thus is “dirty”, which then gives them the power (they think) to regulate it.
That’s a pet peeve of mine also that scientists and politicians call it “carbon” when they really mean CO2. We all understand that it might be appropriate and useful to consider an element, like carbon, in calculating mass balance in a chemical engineering sense. However, their use is deceptive.
Science advances through the process of becoming more precise and more accurate and the use of the term “carbon,” like “climate change” is actually antithetical to the advancement of science.
Au contraire, the adoption of a legitimate scientific term, precisely because it is anticipated to be misunderstood, is an extremely advanced and sophisticated application of political science.
I hear that she matriculates with thespians. There she is now masticating with them in the cafeteria.
George W. Bush could have expectorated such a comment.
Dubya’s been totally misunderestimated. I hear he has a Presidential Liberry with books and everything. I guess we’re the ones coughing up the money for that.
Might he absquatulate with Hunter’s crack?
Wouldn’t that be more of a Cocaine Mitch thing?
Akin to the actual meaning of “organic”. Last shopping trip revealed that “organic” apples displayed along side apparently “inorganic” apples were 1 1/2 time the cost.
My favorite example from several years ago was the marketing of “organic” sugar.
Fun is fun but you do know, do you not, that the organic label is not about the content but about the (supposed) means of production.
Of course they say carbon instead of CO2. Most people associate carbon with solid black residue instead of a colorless, odorous gas.
Just like they say ocean “acidification” instead of less alkaline. Most people associate acid with the noxious solutions meant to dissolve food in our gut.
Since a battery is just a cache of electrons waiting to be emitted, and a fully discharged battery is simply depleted of emitable electrons, I’m thinking of copying that ocean acidification ploy. I’m going to call a discharged battery “posified”, the process of discharging a battery I’m calling “posification”.
Of course any administration will attempt to use the regulatory powers they have to carry out their agenda, whatever it is. Whenever we have a change in administrations that flip flops from one extreme to the other, which has been the norm for the last 50 years, the rules also flip flop back and forth. Who do we blame? The people, of course, who alternately elect presidents like Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, and Nixon.
It’s baked into the cake.
Congresses rarely enact big game changing legislation, because of the constant flip flopping, including divided Congresses, or split party control of White House and Congress, and the filibuster which mostly prevents big game changing legislation.
If the people were to wise up and steady themselves, voting in consistent middle of the road governments in Congress and the White House, we could actually address real problems.
But this is the government and political system we have, so we have to muddle along, which means constant conflict between all the branches of government in determining what the law is to be, and how it is to be administered.
“…voting in consistent middle of the road governments in Congress and the White House…”
What do you mean by “middle or the road”?
Governments are either limited or they eventually expand towards despotism. Because we’ve become sloppy in our political discourse, too many people have come to accept ‘fascism’ as a middle of the road compromise between laissez faire free market ‘capitalism’ and state ‘collectivism’.
The press elected most of those guys and certainly give the people no middle o the road choices to choose from, MSM calls them the mushy middle. The press has too much power and the people have no voice and that’s not going to change. Meanwhile nothing but snow being jabbered about on TWC and not one peep about GW for a couple days…but just wait for a little warm spring weather to come along…it will be the end of the world again.
Which “real problems” do you see that Republicans don’t support solving, Duane? Inflation, Illegal Immigration, Violent Crime?
And you seriously think that Nixon, Bush the Elder, Clinton, and W were not all middle-of-the-roaders?
The Legislative and Executive branches are in the business of expanding government control.
People have to wise up and stop voting in politicians that are of the mindset that government can solve all the problems of the world.
Governments are the biggest wastes of resources that a country can have since they generally cannot do anything with alacrity and efficiency. Governments are a necessary evil, a parasite of the populace and work best when kept small enough to only do a few necessary functions.
The game is fixed from the beginning. The options presented to “the people” are always only a tiny slice of the possibilities. All public participants keep their faces fixedly pointed towards the game’s goals, which are always the benefits of some limited group at the expense of “the people”. Other options are almost never acknowledged and heavily denigrated by all if they happen to be pointed out.
Obama got ObamaCare passed. Do you call that inconsequential?
Biden came within one vote of completely rewriting voting rules throughout the country in order to make cheating easier. Do you call that inconsequential?
Biden came within one vote of creating a dozen major new welfare programs. Do you call that inconsequential?
One lasting benefit of Trump Derangement Syndrome is the garbage elite dropping its pretense of rule of law and showing its true colors: total distain for non-leftist people and spitting on consent of the governed.
People working at the EPA should understand that their actions helped elect Trump. Obvious overreach like this and Obama’s clean power plan is an invitation for an outsider to come clean up the swamp.
Unelected officials at the FED and CDC are also doing the same now.
Moderates increasingly see that these systems are doing everything they can to support the liberal ideology of the individual employees, rather than doing their jobs.
An arrogant, complacent msm headed by an incompetent queen resulted in Trump getting elected, he beat them fair and square. And he was going to beat them again so rulers did away with freedom of assembly…that on top of previously disposed of “innocent until proven guilty” and “freedom of speech”. Most people depend on gov for income and are accustomed to living off of other people’s money but sending the jobs to china will lead to the eventual failure of that scam as there will not be any producers to tax..but maybe the chens will “send money?”…if not, the leaches will then get desperate…what will they do then? Some form of slavery well beyond what they already push?
What should have been a victory lap for democracy and capitalism with the fall of the Soviet Union was instead the birth of Globalism and Corporatism. Companies prospered by transferring technology and wealth from developed to undeveloped countries, taking a cut off the top. Having fought to defeat socialism, people in developed nations woke up to find their jobs gone and lives ruined, wondering if socialism had truly been the enemy.
This comment will get to the point of this blog post in due course. Be patient and I hope you enjoy the read.
The history of the Roman Empire is fascinating — and we do not get enough of it in high school (or college) at the depth it deserves. We learn about how Romans were great engineers and how Roman Legions expanded the Roman Empire and then how it all dissolved — somewhat mysteriously given what typical HS texts provide as explanation. We learn it was a Republic until the Caesars took control and became Emperors. But do we really learn how this happened?
My take is that Julius Caesar felt the Roman Senate was doing a terrible job leading the Roman Empire. I honestly don’t know the issues Caesar felt were being managed badly, but obviously he thought his expertise, if imposed throughout Rome, would lead to a far superior outcome for Rome and Romans. Don’t forget, Julius Caesar was known for being willing to pardon enemies (who would normally be executed), which some claim allowed them to plot against him and kill him.
Julius Caesar was beloved by his soldiers. He paid them, in effect, by putting them in control of the territories they conquered and allowing them to manage the tax system, from whence everyone got wealthy. The Roman Legions were the basis for Caesar’s power. They would do anything he told them needed to be done because he was so brilliant in his interpersonal relations with the leaders of the Legions and benevolent to all the troops and because he was brilliant in how he directed them in their efforts to take over territory (France and Spain) with politics not requiring warfare, but then how he directed them in battle when needed. In short, he was a brilliant leader.
OK, so what’s my point? Today, the power in government is not in the Legions (the military), but in the bureaucracy (Federal Cabinet and sub-Cabinet Departments). The bureaucracy is what makes people both within it and outside it wealthy (current vaccination push is a prime example). To the extent one person can shape, support, and direct the bureaucracy and have the bureaucracy wield unfettered power, the more that person is, in effect, an Emperor.
We are getting close to that point in the US. We were once a Republic where Congress actually determined how the government affects our lives and the Supreme Court worked diligently to restrain Congress from overstepping. But in the last 25 years (some would say 100 years — the Federal Reserve Bank and Income Tax being the beginning of the end) we have moved closer and closer to a dictatorship in that what drives our government’s ability to control what we can and cannot do and to extract whatever taxes they want from us and do whatever they want with that tax money without Congress really having any say in the specifics of what’s going on or without the Supreme Court having an ability to restrain the bureaucracy’s control of what’s going on, is in the hands of whomever controls the bureaucracy. And, of course, that’s the President.
Caesar controlled the Legions — the power — which allowed him to dictate how the Roman Empire would operate. Control of the Legions passed to the next Emperor by whomever thought he would be more respected by the Legions than the current Emperor by assassinating him. If he turned out to be wrong, the next person thinking the Legions supported him would assassinate…and so on. By the way, this transition methodology was considered quite legitimate at the time. It was not considered “wrong” or “bad.” It was how everyone involved expected things should work. If someone believed they could do a better job, they had the right to kill whoever was considered the current Emperor.
Back to the United States. Technically, we elect the President, but that’s only the mechanism for transitioning power from one dictator to another. In Rome’s time it was assassinations. But the mechanism for transitioning power is not the important factor in how our government affects our lives or our ability to control how our government affects our lives. Because Congress gives such wide-ranging power to the bureaucracy by writing laws that are so general and vague that anything can be done in their name (e.g., the CO2 endangerment finding), they have ceded power to the President and his bureaucracy — which has its own agenda, it’s not a puppet for the President by any means. Because the Supreme Court has been very unwilling to restrain Congress from writing such vague, general laws that give wide ranging power to the bureaucracy, it has, in effect, ceded its own power to that bureaucracy. If the Supreme Court does limit some law — i.e., the bureaucracy’s mandate — in some way, the generality of the plethora of laws allows the bureaucracy to find ways around the Supreme Court’s limitations.
And there you have it. Caesar took control of the power in the Roman Empire (the Legions) just as the President has taken control of the power in the US (the Federal bureaucracy). The Caesars then had to constantly be on watch to take action to avoid being assassinated. The President (and those wanting to be President) has to take action to get elected, be re-elected, and then help engineer the election of a confederate to be the next President.
And, so you see how the Federal bureaucracy has become so powerful that its leaders can publicly say they will easily work around any Supreme Court effort to limit their power, which is almost limitless given the general, vague laws Congress passes. For this point I refer to Kisor v. Wilkie (2019) in which a slim majority declined to overrule Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co. (1945), Auer v. Robbins (1997) and related cases, which created a body of law instructing federal courts to defer to a Federal agency’s interpretation of its own regulation if that regulation is ambiguous and the interpretation is reasonable. This doctrine, known as “Auer deference,” constitutes a set of rules specifying how and when a judicial court must defer to an administrative agency’s interpretation of the law.
If that’s not a dictatorship, then what is?
Thank for your explanation of the similarities between the Roman Republic and the US Republic, I have read as much as I can about that time in history, they truly did set up a remarkable system.
I agree with your overall point that the elected leaders (Senate & Reps) slowly lost their power to control the governments through legislation. But I think Augustus had far more to do with Rome becoming a dictatorship than Caesar, but it was a longer process over the last 75 years of the republic that led to Caesar and Augustus. Corruption, appeasing the masses, buying votes, violence between factions. All the things we see today.
If you don’t learn from history, …
Because the Supreme Court has been very unwilling to restrain Congress from writing such vague, general laws that give wide ranging power to the bureaucracy
This is due, in no small part to the unconstitutionally installed 14th Amendment, which says not a word about liberty or rights and responsibilities for the freed slaves but does give a grant of unlimited powers to Congress, essentially overthrowing and rewriting the Constitution, and made the freed slaves wards of Congress. The courts have since explicitly positioned that any legislation, however unconstitutional on its face, is allowed if any way can be seen to accept it without consideration of Constitutional limitations.
How about “The Social Cost of Supply”
Given current supply chain woes, what is the social cost of just in time inventories and offshore manufacturing?
Why does safety of supply never seem to figure into any discussion about power plants?
Millions of lives depend on uninterrupted supply of power. The social cost of carbon logic (excess deaths) thus must also apply to security of supply.
A power plant with a few seconds reserve of power has a much higher social cost of supply as compared to a power plans with months or years of fuel reserves.
It should be possible to put a number on this. How long could New York or Chicago survive without electrical power before people started to die? In what numbers. Consider also if all transport and heating was also electric.
According to the GEBs**, there are too many of us serfs. So, that’s the plan – for a lot of people to die – and thus the rush to unreliables.
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**Globalist Evil Bastards or Greedy Evil Bastards or Government Evil Bastards. Depending on context, one or two or all three may apply.
State legislators, where election fraud decided the election, have the responsibility to recall electors and so far they have not. The January 6 protest was used by the congress to certify the election without debate. And the results are obvious.
Michael Reagan’s statement that the EPA may still use its powers to levy “enormous pressure” on various parties “whatever the outcome “ of the SCOTUS decision is incorrect.
See- yaleclimateconnections.org
“Update:Supreme Court to weigh EPA authority on greenhouse pollutants “ by Levi Smith, February 9, 2022.
Put simply, if SCOTUS finds for the ‘non-delegation by Congress’ argument by the Plaintiffs then the various other regulatory powers of EPA may be toast.
That may include the notorious endangerment finding by EPA of December 2009.
It all hangs on whether the Court accepts the “ major question “argument, the “non-delegation” argument or neither.
Important decision due in West Virginia v. EPA, to put it mildly,
Correction: Regan not Reagan.
But weasels words can get around essentially any legal limitations. That is the job of many lawyers.
Herbert-
You are certainly correct that this is an important case regarding stationary sources of greenhouse gases. The EPA is on shaking ground claiming it has congressional authority to regulate greenhouses from stationary sources.
However, what Michael Regan is saying is there are plenty of other pollution regulations they can use to shut down coal fired power plants- mercury being one of them.
Another way by which, in effect, this administration’s reducing 3 branches of our Republic to one. Biden doesn’t respect the wishes of the people, doesn’t uphold the rule of law & doesn’t care about our constitutional protections from such a runaway government.
Republicans already have a rock solid case for impeachment next January for Biden’s dereliction in enforcing immigration law; not just dereliction but openly refusing to enforce immigration law passed ny Congress. This attempt to make regulations and enforce them without approval from the legislature is impeachment article two. By next January there may be a long list of articles of impeachment. But I doubt Republican leadership has the cojones or the sense of how perilous this President is to our continued constitutional order.
What is the point of impeaching Brandon, though?
It is an absolute certainty that there would not be a two thirds majority in the Senate to convict, unless perversely the Demonrats joined in for the express purpose of installing Cacklin Kamala Commie Harris. And in my mind, a corrupt, incompetent, demented, superannuated, and thoroughly discredited Brandon is better than installing Harris and giving the Propaganda Ministry (msm) the opportunity to prop her up and get her re-elected.
So tired of the political theater.
If it restrains him from other damaging acts, its well worth the time invested.
We’d need to impeach both of them. the VP first, if she’s removed than Brandon (before a new VP can be nominated and installed). That would make the speaker of the house (presumably a Republican in this “next January” scenario) the next president.
Of course, like you say, it’s unlikely there’d be enough Senate votes to convict, However, as long as the charges were sober, real, soundly based, and undertaken with all due seriousness (unlike the political nonsense that was used against Trump), Brandon and Harris were give full due process (unlike the lack of same that Trump was given) and the contrast between it and the sham impeachments of Trump highlighted at every opportunity, it would serve to show the country (and future generations) how impeachments should be handled vs how they shouldn’t be handled and show a real difference between the two parties. In short, it could be a teachable moment (that would hopefully reflect well in the following election) rather than just more political theater.
Also serious, sober, real and soundly based charges with all due process would make it politically difficult for the battle ground state Dems to not vote to convict (IE the court you need to convince of the seriousness of the charges is the public, not specifically the politicians who will be voting on conviction). The problem is, I don’t think there are many politicians left these days, in either party, capable of choosing the sober, serious route over the cheap and easy political theater route.
The EPA is not even a legally existing entity. As our Constitution was understood by all the signers, the Federal government is only permitted the powers specifically listed for it. An EPA is not one of those. Sadly, for many decades, people have accepted that the “general welfare” clause permits the Federal government to have nearly unlimited power.