November 20, 2022

President Biden Takes To The World Stage

November 20, 2022/ Francis Menton

Right after the election, President Biden departed Washington on November 10 for a big round of international meetings.
First, he went to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where he spoke on November 11 at the UN “climate” conference known as COP-27. Then it was off to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for meetings on the 12th and 13th with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). And finally, to Bali, Indonesia, for a meeting with Xi Jinping of China on the 14th, followed by a big confab of the G20 on the 15th. Biden arrived back in Washington on the 16th.
In any sane world, the American President would use such a round of meetings to advance American interests, and also to extol, as a model for the world, the freedom-based economic system (often mis-named “capitalism”) that has made the U.S. the world’s wealthiest and most successful country. Indeed, when ex-President Trump traveled the world for meetings like these, some version of those were generally his main themes.
But now, we have a President who is a man of the Left, and it’s the opposite.

November 18, 2022

Among The Democratic Party Nobility

November 18, 2022/ Francis Menton

Crypto exchange FTX has now imploded, and it’s turning out to be nothing more than your classic Ponzi scheme — cash in, cash out, and essentially no underlying business.
The collapse came after the leader and face of the enterprise, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), had made himself the second largest donor to the Democratic Party in the just-ended election cycle. SBF’s donations totaled some $70 million or so, apparently consisting almost entirely of money stolen from unsuspecting clients.
Andrew Stiles, writing at the Washington Free Beacon on November 15, has some fun with the recent revelations in a piece titled “Sam Bankman-Fried Is Not Alone: Some of History’s Greatest Monsters Were Democratic Megadonors.” The sub-head is “Disgraced crypto guru continues a storied tradition.”
Stiles compiles a short list of some of the greatest names among the biggest donor/crook/predators in the Democratic Party firmament: Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Ed Buck, and Bernie Madoff.
I have only one quibble with Stiles: Why stop there?

November 16, 2022

November 16, 2022/ Francis Menton

As of tonight, a full eight days after the election, it finally looks like several sources (e.g., RealClearPolitics, New York Times) have “called” enough Congressional races to be (almost) sure that the Republicans will control the House starting in January.
When all the votes are finally counted (Christmas?), the margin of control is likely to be either 2 or 3 seats, and no more than 4.
America, you owe a deep debt of gratitude to my home state of New York.
Even after a Republican seat was eliminated by population loss, the Republicans picked up four seats among the remainder in New York Congressional races — as much or more than their entire incoming majority — thus going from 8 of 27 seats in the last Congress to 11 of 26 in the new Congress. In other words, America owes Republican control of Congress entirely to Republican gains in New York.

November 14, 2022

November 14, 2022/ Francis Menton

Two of my recent posts have looked at critiques from the left of the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA — the June 30 decision that held that the Clean Air Act did not clearly give EPA authority to order the phase-out of all fossil-fuel generated electricity in the U.S.
My July 5 post, “How To Think Like A Liberal Supreme Court Justice,” summarized Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent in the West Virginia case. My September 12 post, “How The Left Views Administrative Law,” discussed the presentation at the Federalist Society convention by Professor Sally Katzen of NYU Law School, where she stated her belief that EPA did have the authority in question, and criticized the Court for having taken “an extreme action to shut down rule-making.”
But the Kagan dissent and Katzen presentation are just critiques of the approach to this matter taken by our constitutionalist-dominated Supreme Court. A separate question is, what would the liberals do if they suddenly found themselves in control of the top court — say, if a new Democrat-controlled Congress decides to create six new justices to be appointed by President Biden?
At the lunch following the panel where Professor Katzen spoke, I found myself sitting next to two lawyers who had come from Germany to attend the convention. One of them said to me, in essence, you have no idea what a country’s top court might do when it feels that its powers are unconstrained.

November 12, 2022

November 12, 2022/ Francis Menton

You may have seen that the Federalist Society has been holding its annual convention in Washington. I was there on Thursday and Friday. They have recorded all the presentations. If you want to watch some, go to this link and see what interests you.
There was not a lot of moaning about the election results. Rather, the focus was on high-minded issues, mostly of constitutional and administrative law.
I have selected a highlight that you may find interesting. One of the lunchtime panels on Thursday was titled “Render Law Unto Congress and Execution Unto the Executive: The Supreme Court Rebalances Constitutional Power.” Here is the description of the subject of the panel:
The Roberts Court is recasting the administrative state according to its view of the separation of powers. It is giving the President more authority to fire his subordinates and creating a hierarchical executive where the President and his principal officers have more authority over appointments and decision making.

November 08, 2022

November 08, 2022/ Francis Menton

Today is Election Day. At the federal level, all seats in the House of Representatives and one third of the Senate are up for election.
Also up for election here in New York, as in most of the states, are all state-wide elective offices, as well as all seats in both houses of the State Legislature. Currently the Democrats hold all of the state-wide elective offices (Governor/Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and Comptroller), as well as super-majorities in both houses of the Legislature (106 of 150 seats in the Assembly and 43 of 63 seats in the State Senate).
Of the New York races, the only one that has been subject to extensive public polling is the race for Governor.