Bureaucracy
January 12, 2018 — Steven Hayward
We had a lively discussion last night on the Power Line VIP video chat about the “permanent government,” or “the swamp” as Trump and others call it, and how difficult it is to conquer. It reminded me that I’ve been thinking for years about teaching an entire course based on episodes of the great “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” BBC series, which holds up astoundingly well after 30 years
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December 6, 2017 — John Hinderaker
That is a question I never thought I would need to ask. But, via InstaPundit, law professor Randy Barnett makes an alarming point: Democrats’ #Resistance is creating a genuine constitutional crisis in which governmental power is not allowed by them to be peacefully transferred after a lawful election. The potential for escalation is very very dangerous. https://t.co/vPRjzbhwPI — Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) December 6, 2017 Barnett was responding to this tweet:
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September 1, 2017 — John Hinderaker
This is one of many similar stories we have seen over the past seven months, which cause one to question the judgment of those who claim to be conservatives, but who favored Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. The Free Beacon reports: “Trump Rolls Back Onerous Diversity Regs.” The Trump administration blocked Obama-era rules that would have saddled employers with hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs and increased paperwork
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August 1, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, an Obama holdover, recently authored one of the most pernicious columns within memory in the New York Times. Her column was titled, “Protect the Justice Department From President Trump.” Yates argued, in essence, that there exists an Executive Branch that is independent of, and superior to, the President–at least as long as that Executive Branch is staffed pretty much exclusively by Democrats. This is,
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June 20, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Unfortunately, it isn’t the federal government. It’s Apple, Inc.: A recording of an internal briefing at Apple earlier this month obtained by The Outline sheds new light on how far the most valuable company in the world will go to prevent leaks about new products. The briefing, titled “Stopping Leakers – Keeping Confidential at Apple,” was led by Director of Global Security David Rice, Director of Worldwide Investigations Lee Freedman,
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May 18, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Reading the news stories that have created the consuming controversies of the past few days, this is what I see. Hostile officials inside the executive branch of the government seek the removal of Donald Trump from office. They are powerful. They lack any qualms about abusing their positions. And they are determined. With malicious intent, “current officials” inside the intelligence agencies with access to top secret information, for example, have
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February 1, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that some federal workers are “in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can to to push back against the new president’s initiatives.” In addition, “180 federal employees have signed up for a workshop next weekend where experts will offer advice on workers’ rights and how they can express civil disobedience.” One Justice Department employee told the Post that “through leaks to
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January 8, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Who knows just how the clash between the Trump Administration and career bureaucrats will play out, but for the time being we have the great Dan Mitchell to thank for bringing our attention to this splendid video from someone in Latin America, where bureaucracy is a fine art (just 3:30 long):
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September 11, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Donald Trump’s comeback in the polls has the Washington Post rattled. Yesterday, its editorial board basically called, Bernie Sanders like, for a moratorium on discussing Hillary Clinton’s emails so that the focus can be on Donald Trump’s “manifest unfitness for office.” But Clinton’s willingness to put her personal interests ahead of the national security and her unwillingness to discuss the matter honestly after she was found out are good grounds
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August 13, 2016 — Scott Johnson
John Fund reports that congressional Republicans increased the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights with a very generous budget increase last year. Fund takes up the matter in the NR column “How Republicans feed the beast of political correctness.” OCR is perhaps the most left-wing office in the federal bureaucracy. Bankrolling it that way Congress did was an egregious error (for which they were rewarded with the transgender guidance).
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September 30, 2015 — Steven Hayward
I’m on airplanes all day today, making my way to Michigan where, it turns out, I’ll be meeting John in a bar late tonight. (This is how conspiracy rumors get started. Stand by for some clandestine video.) Meanwhile, I note a great letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal this morning from Laura Hirschman making the same point I did here last week (“Bush League De-Regulation?“) about Jeb
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July 12, 2015 — Steven Hayward
I think it might have been George Will who coined the term “lemon socialism,” but it is time once again to turn our attention to what I call “lemonade socialism.” I’ve written here before about how the culture of bureaucracy—which I and others alternatively call the “administrative state”—extends all the way down to local government, sometimes in forms even worse and more stupid that what you find in Washington DC,
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May 6, 2015 — Steven Hayward
In the course of doing some research for a longer writing project I had occasion this morning to re-read Lionel Trilling’s famous preface to The Liberal Imagination (1949), in which he observed: It is one of the tendencies of liberalism to simplify, and this tendency is natural in view of the effort which liberalism makes to organize the elements of life in a rational way. And when we approach liberalism
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March 12, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Apparently the FAA has FCC-envy over Net Neutrality, and wants to regulate even amateur drone flyers like me. Now they’re saying you can’t post drone video footage to YouTube because YouTube has ads, dontchaknow, and that makes drone footage a commercial use. From Motherboard: If you fly a drone and post footage on YouTube, you could end up with a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration. Earlier this week, the
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January 4, 2015 — Steven Hayward
I had missed this wonderful bit from the comedy duo Key and Peele, which skewers both the TSA bureaucracy and Islamic terrorists all at once. I can hardly believe this got by Comedy Central censors. (Sharp-eyed viewers may note Wood Harris, aka “Avon Barksdale,” playing a key role here.) Just four minutes long. (Hat tip: PC.)
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August 8, 2014 — Steven Hayward
So the Transportation Security Administration thinks airport checkpoint lines are too slow, and has announced a contest offering up to $15,000 in prizes for ideas to speed up the lines. (I can suggest one word: “Profiling.” You can send the check to me courtesy Power Line, thank you.) But the TSA should have known this was coming, from our pal Remy Munasifi:
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July 5, 2014 — John Hinderaker
As we often do, we spent the 4th of July with our relatives in South Dakota. Independence Day is a good time to be in South Dakota, as the spirit of liberty shines a little brighter there than in some other precincts. This is manifested, in a small way, in the lavish fireworks displays that South Dakotans mount–not just towns, but individuals. People are not trusted with such dangerous explosives
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