In Iowahawk’s deathless phrase regarding the establishment press, “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.” Here it is a weekend and a couple of working days after the release of the notorious and long-awaited FISA memo, and the relatively conservative side of the blogosphere is still happily chewing it over. Doubtless the professional national media wishes the whole matter would just go away already, just because. Frankly, the whole matter reminds me of the swiftboat veterans and the matter of John Kerry’s service in Vietnam.
Quote of the Day
But censorship by language reform is not a matter of logic, it is a matter of power. As Humpty Dumpty said, it is a question of who is to be master (if one may still be allowed the word), that’s all.
Like many things.
Josh Blackman and Seth Barrett Tillman: The Emoluments Clauses Litigation, Part 6: Are the Claims Against the President in his Official or Individual Capacity?
Arguments progress:
On January 25, 2018, Judge Messitte held oral arguments in Greenbelt, Maryland. Blackman attended. The very first question from the bench referenced our amicus briefs, and asked the parties to address whether the Maryland Complaint concerns actions taken in the President’s official or individual capacity. Over the course of nearly five hours of argument time, counsel for the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia maintained that Trump’s receipt of (purported) emoluments concerned his official capacity. But once confronted by skeptical questions from the bench, Plaintiffs volunteered to amend their complaint to bring claims against the President in his individual capacity.
Judge Messitte did not order the Plaintiffs to amend their complaint, but during the hearing, counsel for Plaintiffs represented that they would do so in due course, presumably through a Rule 15 motion. At the hearing, the Justice Department did not indicate that it would oppose such a motion—rather, the Government suggested that it would file a new motion to dismiss. In short, the Maryland action, which had been set either to be dismissed or to proceed onto discovery, now sits in limbo awaiting a Rule 15 motion to amend, a new round of briefing on a motion to dismiss (and possibly in regard to the Rule 15 motion too), and, presumably, a new oral argument on the revised motion to dismiss (and, perhaps, also in regard to the Rule 15 motion). Moreover, all Plaintiffs have to do, to move the litigation into its new “path,” the obvious direction it should always have been in, is to change the Complaint’s caption and the 1-page prayer for relief; yet, it is now more than a week later, and still no amended complaint has been filed.
The Details of Work and the Realities of Automation
An interesting piece on the automation of trucking, with an extensive comment thread. Many of the commenters have practical experience in the trucking industry and in automation work in other industries such as sawmills.
Trump’s “American Heritage Pheromone Fumigation” of The Federal Gov’t and The Coming Defenestration of The Deep State
So what did you all think of Pres Trump’s SOTU “American Heritage Pheromone Fumigation” of the Congress? Trump’s systemic use of American symbols and American success stories, in short American Patriotism, had political and media elites melting down. The videos of the Democrats during and after Trump’s speech certainly showed a lot of people who were acting like they were smelling week old road kill.
So what was Pres. Trump up too and what does the Nunes Memo have to do with it?
On the surface, Trump mentioned nothing about the FBI and Department of Justice civil rights abuses of his campaign and the spying on him during the first six months of his Administration, detailed in the Nunes Memo. Despite the President reading and vetting it during his preparation for the State of The Union Address and executing plans against these scoff law internal security thugs.
Huge hint — It was part and parcel of Trump’s long term political strategy tree in setting up the Nunes Memo release last Friday (2 Feb 2018). So far only Daniel Greenfield over at Frontpage understands anything at all of what Trump was doing.
See:
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269181/trump-divides-americans-and-un-americans-daniel-greenfield