Ball Diamond Ball

Not one court has any power whatsoever to *change* the Constitution.  The Supreme Court may rule on particular cases regarding interpretation or expression of the Constitution in law or in practice, but they never change it.  This is why a judicial ruling, even from SCOTUS can never settle “once and for all” a Constitutional question.

It is a lawyerly construct, and a wise one, which assigns weight to precedent.  This stabilizes and renders predictable the working of justice, but it does not create new law.  Legislatures alone create law.

There is a way to change the Constitution, and it is exclusively a function of Congress to initiate, without the executive or the judicial branch having a single word to say about it.  “Initiate” is even more narrow than … Continue reading →

… aboard the Trump Train with cold hard facts and no shortage of enthusiasm for ransacking the feral government.

Just thought I’d cryptically plop this down.  Nothing to see here…

Nerdstalgic is one of those YouTube channels where at first it’s hard to tell if this is one of those AI content farms or just an annoying collection of things that you thought you would like but naaah.  Then the narrator/writer/bqhatevwr goes on to make mistakes that only a person would, such as saying that a thing was hotly “debated over” rather than “debated”, and referring to LOTR Trilogy director Peter Jackson’s colleagues as his “cohorts” rather than his cohort; a use which already stretches acceptability.  This sort of thing keeps up, and then he gets the topic all wrong as well, that being why Jackson infamously omitted the key chapter “The Scouring of The Shire” from the end of his movie trilogy.

Nevermind most of his bad … Continue reading →

I realize that every day is the most important day, and every election is the most important election and so forth, but I have two points.

• First, I’m still stuck into the claim I made in 2011/2012 that Obama’s re-election was for all the marbles — the fact that he won in 2012 meant that Americans had seen Marxism up close and personal and still voted for more of it.
• Second, I just cannot shake this feeling that this year is warming up economic, international, and political debacles in a foul combination not seen in decades.

I don’t know what, I don’t know where, and in general, I am out of the prediction business.  So allow me to scamper into the roadside weeds of “Gee, it … Continue reading →

Most folks here know me from the cafe across the street, and know that I am pro-Israel and pro-Jew.  You may not know that I got tossed out of there for (most proximally) calling the reprehensible anti-Semite lawyer from the southwest a “broken toilet of a man” for his continued dancing-with-the-rules harassment of this one lady over there whom we all like a lot.  Except that one jerk who didn’t like her at all — I helped get him chased out of there.

I broke the rules, and I’ll accept my fate.  I’m as proud of my enemies as I am of my friends — no need to thank me.

But comes now before us this awful law which proposes to protect Jews and will instead outlaw Christianity, … Continue reading →

I admit it. I occasionally listen to NPR. A quarter of a century ago, I even made contributions to the local outlets. No more, of course. There was an old joke about an elderly couple. It makes sense only if you can remember when automobiles came with three-in-the-tree and bench seats. The wife asks, “How come we don’t sit close together when we ride anymore?” To which the husband in his normal place behind the steering wheel replies, “I haven’t moved.” I sort of feel the same way about NPR and me.

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust

I just don’t understand.  Now Rep. Mike Gallagher is simply quitting, and has arranged his departure so that there can be no speedy replacement by Wisconsin — due to the date he has chosen, his replacement will have to wait until the next general election.

The title of the following Washington Examiner article seems apt:

There never was a Republican House majority

[…] Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and freeze the chamber for the second time this Congress in retaliation for the spending bill.

While Greene’s motion to vacate might draw the most headlines, the motion will not face a vote until she calls it up. It is really Gallagher’s retirement announcement that is the most consequential, because … Continue reading →

The basis of ‘woke’ is that nobody has standing except the government.  There’s a reason that the government seem to have arrogated royal prerogatives, for indeed it has.  The footsoldiers of this Marxist destruction of western civilization would not appreciate being called the loyal subjects of some monarch, but this is exactly what they are.  They are subjects not citizens, and insist that none of us have the rights of citizens.  Call it Leviathan, the divine right of kings, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the anarcho-whatever libertarian urge, and it’s all the same, yes even the an-caps.  All of these movements or desires, or worldviews, whenever the eschaton gets immanentized, have a couple of features in common, chief among them that no person may be represented in or … Continue reading →

It seems to me that the key thing in standing, and lacking in most discussions, is the fractional ownership, that is our share, of a property.  What used to be called the King’s Peace is now our peace of course, and the largely obsolete crime of disturbing the peace is not a victimless crime, but a crime against us all.  Without this general peace, you cannot take your child to the park, nor walk with your spouse, nor enjoy a meal at a restaurant.  Yet no individual has standing to claim injury unless they can demonstrate actual harm, it seems.  I don’t know; I have not researched this in depth, and I am speaking only of principles.  But I have spoken of these principles before.  Over at Ricochet, … Continue reading →

Just a quick link to a discussion of Colregs 2(b) as it pertains to vessels operating in conjuction, and how this may present the need for an addition to the rule.  I disagree, but I like the reasoning.  This is the sort of generally prudent logic which dominates in maritime law, and which seems absent in much of the law which runs our lives and this country into the ground.

General Prudential Rule (ColRegs/ Inland 2(b)

More on this later (and earlier), but I just wanted to drop this here to pick up when I need it.