“American political parties have an enduring and deeply cynical love/hate relationship with federalism. When the opposing party occupies the White House, the Founders’ vision of sovereign states and a limited federal government suddenly has an alluring appeal. Retake the White House, and it becomes time for the states to fall into line.
California progressives have been loving federalism lately.While they’ve pushed through a number of policies specifically designed to fight the Trump administration, few have garnered more headlines than the state’s comprehensive statutory scheme to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The statutes don’t block the federal government from enforcing federal law. They do, however, limit the extent to which federal authorities can depend on California citizens and state officials to affirmatively assist in executing the federal mission.
So that’s federalism, right? While it’s clear that states can’t nullify federal laws, in the absence of conflicting federal statutes, can’t California enact immigration policies that advance its own, unique state interests?
It appears not.Ironically enough, thanks to a determined litigation effort by Obama’s Department of Justice, progressives handed the Trump administration a legal club that will likely beat down California’s attempt to go its own way: A Supreme Court precedent.And yesterday, the Trump DOJ picked up that club, suing California to block its new statutes.
You see, way back in 2012 the two parties had very different views of federalism.The GOP wanted to dissent from Obama’s immigration policies, and the Obama administration very much wanted to impose its own version of uniform, national rule. The state of Arizona, facing multiple challenges from a swelling illegal-immigrant population, enacted a statute that essentially created enhanced penalties for illegal immigration and granted state officials new powers to enforce existing federal law.
In other words, it was the mirror image of the California effort. Arizona’s statute didn’t conflict with federal law; it was just different from federal law, reflecting the state’s sovereign priorities. The Obama administration sued, taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court.On June 25, 2012, the Court struck down the key provisions of the Arizona law.Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion, and it wassweeping in its language and scope…”
All of which means…
Speaking of towering bags of douche, according to the outgoing…
“The FBI this week detailed to Congress a series of mistakes and missed opportunities to intervene before a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida — including a revelation that staffers knew two warnings about suspect Nikolas Cruz were related, but still closed the case. FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich made the comments in a closed briefing Tuesday with members of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.
In a summary released Wednesday to Fox News, Bowdich cited two tips that the FBI received about Cruz in September 2017 and January 2018 that were mishandled. The 2017 tip alerted the FBI to a threatening YouTube comment, made by user Nikolas Cruz, which stated: “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”
According to the summary, a FBI call taker “did not ask any standard investigative probing questions” about the 2018 tip. The 2018 call taker was able to connect Cruz to the earlier call about the YouTube comment, but after discussing it with a supervisor, they decided not to pursue the matter and the case was closed…”
Yet these people are still employed!!! And Progressives seriously expect us to trust the safety of our home and loved ones to such bumbling, bureaucratic imbeciles?!?
Next up, writing at AEI, Michael Rubin rightly urges America to…
“Could peace be about to break out on the Korean Peninsula?
On Tuesday, South Korean envoys reported a breakthrough after returning from the North. “The North Korean side clearly stated its willingness to denuclearize,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s office announced, adding, “It made it clear that it would have no reason to keep nuclear weapons if the military threat to the North was eliminated and its security guaranteed.” (That’s an “if” we could drive Obama’s ears or Oprah’s hindquarters through!)
Taking to Twitter, President Trump cautiously welcomed the “possible progress” but also noted it could be “false hope.”
Make no mistake: North Korea’s offer warrants not hope but caution. Dictator Kim Jong-un’s move comes straight out of the rogue-regime playbook: Offer peace to distract from preparations for war.That itrepeatedly works reflects the naiveté of Western officials for whom history begins anew with every administration.
The simple fact is this: While Americans (and South Koreans) often view engagement as a tool of conflict resolution, North Korea’s regime and its Chinese sponsors see diplomacy as an asymmetric warfare strategy with which to tie opponents’ hands while they seize strategic advantage.
It’s a pattern that dates back 65 years.For Americans, the Korean War is ancient history, but for North Korea, it never ended. After all, the 1953 armistice was only a cease-fire, and not always an effective one.
Over the decades, North Korea has staged hundreds of attacks across the DMZ.In 1968, its commandos seized the USS Pueblo, a US naval vessel operating in international waters.When the Johnson administration dispatched a carrier strike group offshore, North Korea agreed to discuss the Pueblo’s return.After the White House took force off the table, talks stalled.
Since we’re on the subject of tyrannical Socialist states, the WSJ records another problem which is purely the product of counterproductive Progressive policies:
California’s Water Hole
Regulators resist storage that would save for a non-rainy day.
“Storms like the one that have doused arid California in recent days are cause for celebration, but also for better conservation. The Sierra Nevada mountains received nearly six feet of snow, which was especially welcome in a dry winter. Snowpack in the Sierras had measured a quarter of its historical average.
But precipitation that falls fast and furious is often wasted. Reservoirs in the north can’t store the excess runoff, which flows too rapidly into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to pump to the Central Valley and southern California. Regulatory protections for smelt and salmon also limit pumping. Hundreds of billions of gallons get flushed out to the ocean—rinse and repeat each winter.
Golden State voters in 2014 approved a $7.5 billion bond to expand water storage and improve flood control. Yet the California Water Commission, which doles out the cash, has tried to scuttle 11 water-storage projects. It says the projects would provide negligible public benefits as required by the law.
Seriously?The proposed Sites Reservoir, which would be located west of Colusa in Northern California, could store up to 1.8 million acre-feet of water. According to Republican state assemblyman Frank Bigelow, Sites could have captured more than 586 billion gallons of runoff between last October and February—enough to supply 13.3 million Californians for a year.
Then there’s the Temperance Flat reservoir northeast of Fresno, which would provide a more stable water supply for farmers in the Central Valley. The reservoir as envisioned could capture an additional 53 billion gallons of water each year. Commission staff deemed Temperance Flat ineligible for funding and offered the $5 billion Sites Reservoir only $660 million. Both projects scored low on public benefits, which the staff defined narrowly as improvements in the ecosystem, water quality, flood control, emergency response and recreation.
Yet the staff appears to have applied even these narrow criteria too conservatively. For instance, the Sites Reservoir would help California’s endangered Chinook salmon by increasing the amount of cold water in rivers available during droughts. Increasing surface storage could also reduce groundwater pumping in the Central Valley, which has resulted in land subsidence.
The real political problem, as always, is that environmentalists oppose dams as an article of faith. Meanwhile, the state Water Resources Control Board—in California, the more regulators, the merrier—recently proposed permanent restrictions on water use.But every storm that sweeps the state wastes more water than do millions of faucets left turned on.”
Further proof, as if any were needed, Liberalism is not only a mental disorder, but results from a state of…
…complete and utter ignorance.
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side…
Then there’s this string of pointed memes forwarded by Brenda Berry:
“…Sue Spector, who spoke with FOX 13, said she needed stitches as a result of the attack. “It was very pristine and very nice and I heard someone make a comment that, ‘Oh, there’s an otter!’” Spector told FOX 13. “And then all of a sudden he jumped on the kayak and two seconds later he jumped on me.”
…Initial reports said the otter was chasing boats and acting aggressively, some even reported seeing the otter come into contact with an alligator. It was not known if the otter survived the interaction with the alligator, Kilborn said.
…“I took my paddle and I tried to get him off of me and he wouldn’t let go and I kept screaming, I kept beating him with a paddle,” Spector told FOX 13. “When you’re (in the middle of) it you don’t have a lot of thought except you hope you survive.”…”
Mrs. Spector’s fears notwithstanding, we were unable to discover a single otter attack which proved fatal, at least to a human. So, absent evidence to the contrary, we’ll chalk this one up as just another case of life…
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