Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

Playing Politics with the Constitution and the Law

6:07 pm

Playing politics with the Constitution and the law.

All of Obama’s appointments yesterday are illegal under the Constitution. And, in addition, as too little noted by the media, his appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is legally futile. Under the plain language of the Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB, Cordray will have no authority whatsoever.

The Dodd-Frank act explicitly requires Cordray’s confirmation by the Senate in order for his authority to go into effect. Prior to that confirmation he has no authority.

Once again, the issue here is what Obama’s actions tell us about him as an elected official, suggesting that he an arrogant man who is willing to trash the Constitution and create legal hell for business and the government all for the sake of election-year politics. Not a good recommendation at all.

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Nine of the top ten worst nations for religious persecution are Islamic, with North Korea being the only exception.

5:11 pm

The religion of peace: Nine of the top ten worst nations for religious persecution are Islamic.

North Korea tops a list of the world’s worst religious persecutors for the tenth consecutive year, but Islamic states dominate the rankings, accounting for nine of the top ten and 38 of the full 50-country list released Wednesday.

There is a pattern here, I think, though hard as I try it is hard to see it. Maybe it’s related to Islamophobia somehow?

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Contempt for Congress

2:18 pm

This editorial in the Wall Street Journal summarizes very well the facts of Obama’s attempt to circumvent the Constitution yesterday: Contempt for Congress.

A President has the power to make a recess appointment, and we’ve supported Mr. Obama’s right to do so. The Constitutional catch is that Congress must be in recess.

The last clause of Section 5 of Article 1 of the Constitution says that “Neither House” of Congress can adjourn for more than three days “without the Consent of the other” house. In this case, the House of Representatives had not formally consented to Senate adjournment. It’s true the House did this to block the President from making recess appointments, but it is following the Constitution in doing so. Let’s hear Mr. Obama’s legal justification.

Democrats had used a similar process to try to thwart Mr. Bush’s recess appointments late in his term when they controlled both the House and the Senate. Prodded by West Virginia’s Robert C. Byrd, who has since died, Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the Senate in pro forma session. Some advisers urged Mr. Bush to ignore the Senate and make recess appointments anyway, but he declined. Now Mr. Reid is supporting Mr. Obama’s decision to make an end run around a Senate practice that he pioneered. [emphasis in original]

In other words, the Constitution is plain and Obama is consciously ignoring it, unlike Bush or any previous President. You can make excuses for this arrogant and unprecedented abuse of power, but an abuse of power it is, nonetheless.

As for sitting back and waiting for the courts to settle this, that’s a cop-out. The courts will almost certainly bow out, noting that this is a political battle between two other branches of government. The article above does note who will sue:

Private parties will have standing to sue if they are affected by one of Mr. Cordray’s rule-makings, and that’s when the courts may get a say on Mr. Obama’s contempt for Congress.

Thus, Obama’s actions will make any actions by his appointee legally suspect. It will create chaos in government and business, while simultaneously eroding the rule of law.

Is this the kind of government representation we want?

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New research suggests that a body-snatching parasitic fly might be the culbrit in the decline of the honeybee population in the U.S.

1:21 pm

Alien on Earth: New research suggests that a body-snatching parasitic fly might be the culprit in the decline of the honeybee population in the U.S.

The parasitic fly lays eggs in a bee’s abdomen. Several days later, the parasitized bee bumbles out of the hives—often at night—on a solo mission to nowhere. These bees often fly toward light and wind up unable to control their own bodies. After a bee dies, as many as 13 fly larvae crawl out from the bee’s neck. The bees’ behavior seems similar to that of ants that are parasitized—and then decapitated from within—by other fly larvae from the Apocephalus genus.

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ArianeSpace will make a profit in 2011, the first time in three years

1:15 pm

ArianeSpace will make a profit in 2011, the first time in three years.

Helped by the two Soyuz campaigns, which occurred in October and December, Arianespace in 2011 apparently averted a third consecutive year of losses. Its financial accounts are not finalized until June, but Le Gall said the company expects to report a slight profit on about 985 million euros in revenue.

In other words, it was the addition of the Russian low-cost Soyuz rocket to their fleet that helped avoid another year’s loss. This doesn’t reflect well on the profitability of the Ariane 5 rocket.

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Is the Senate in recess? The Constitution says no.

4:37 pm

Is the Senate in recess? The Constitution says no.

Article One, section Five of the Constitution states: “Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days.”

The House has refused to adjourn. The Congress is therefore in session. This kind of gamesmanship has been done many times in the past, but never until now has a President made believe he could simply ignore the plain words of the Constitution.

I know my liberal readers like to make excuses for Democrats when they ignore the law, but the law remains the law. Just because you happen to like what Obama is doing is a bad reason to let this pass. Just remember that if we ignore the law when you’ve got your guy in office, the other side will then have a free pass to ignore the law when they are in office. Sooner or later, we will all pay for that evil.

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A NASA inquiry into the ownership of a variety of space artifacts, including Jim Lovell’s Apollo 13 checklist, has halted their sale at auction.

10:56 am

Power grab: A NASA inquiry into the ownership of a variety of space artifacts, including Jim Lovell’s Apollo 13 checklist, has halted their sale at auction.

In other words, it appears that NASA management has decided that everything ever built by NASA belongs to NASA, forever, even if NASA would have thrown it away at some point.

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Democrats regulating the dead

1:35 am

Democrats regulating the dead.

Democrats believe their personal preferences are so noteworthy and have such a significant bearing on the future of society that it’s only fair these indispensible preferences be imposed on the public by force of law.

Which brings us to Democrat Alvin Tillman, a third–term member of the council in Terrebonne Parish, LA, who evidently does not have enough to occupy his time. Tillman is personally offended by the chroma culprits who paint their family tombs anything but white, which is Tillman’s preferred color. “We want to stop this before it gets out of hand,” Tillman was quoted by the Associated Press. “Before you know it you’ll go out there and the cemetery will look like Mardi Gras.”

Since this is Louisiana — where being dead is no bar to exercising the franchise in favor of Democrats on election day — it could be that Tillman is simply responding to the wishes of his electoral base.

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The National Science Foundation has declined until 2020 to commit to funding a giant American-built ground-based telescope

9:28 pm

Bad news for American astronomy: The National Science Foundation has declined until 2020 to commit to any funding for either one of the two giant American-built ground-based telescopes.

For nearly a decade now, two university consortia in the United States have been in a race to build two ground-based telescopes that would be several times bigger than today’s biggest optical telescope. One group—led by the University of California—plans to build the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii. The other team—led by Carnegie Observatories, the University of Arizona, and other institutions—is developing a 28-meter behemoth named the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), which would be built in Chile. Over the past few years, both teams have raised tens of millions of dollars toward the billion-dollar-plus projects in the hope that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) would come up with the balance.

But now, it turns out, neither project has a chance of receiving any significant funding from NSF for at least another decade. In a solicitation posted by NSF last week, the agency indicated that it does not expect to fund the building of any giant segmented mirror telescopes—that is, TMT or GMT—until the beginning of the 2020s. According to the solicitation, all that NSF can provide right now is $1.25 million over 5 years for the development of a public-private partnership plan that could eventually lead to the building of a large telescope, should NSF be in a position to fund such a telescope sometime in the next decade.

I suspect the NSF’s unwillingness to fund this project at this time is directly related to the budget crisis in Washington. Though the NSF got slightly more money in 2012 than in 2011, that money is all accounted for by other projects. There is no margin for anything new that will be as expensive (in the billions) as these giant telescopes will be.

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How to deal with the leftwing press

8:31 pm

Rick Perry demonstrates how to deal with the leftwing press. With video.

Politico reporter: “These are members of your staff.”
Rick Perry: “You got a name?”
Politico reporter: “Who say –”
Rick Perry: “You got a name?”
[pause]
Politico reporter: “You won’t listen to –”
Rick Perry: “You got a name?”
Politico reporter: “Uh.”
Rick Perry: “If you don’t have a name to tell me this individual said this, then I don’t take that as a corroborating source.”

Politico is the same outfit that destroyed Herman Cain based on unnamed sources and undescribed charges. They are also the same outfit that has had plagiarism problems recently. Perry shows us how this kind of shoddy reporting deserves to be treated.

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Top 10 Ways Hollywood Can Win Its Audience Back

7:54 pm

The top ten ways Hollywood can win its audience back.

As someone who spent almost twenty years in the movie business, I think Nolte hits the nail on the head. I also think Hollywood will not do any of the things he suggests, mostly because it would require them to abandon their elite, leftwing ideology that for the past thirty years has become the only thing too many Hollywood people care about.

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