Crooks and Liars want Garland

This is a followup to my last post, with more evidence that to be a leftie is to be a Sociopath.

Crooks and Liars wants Senate Democrats and VP Biden to hijack the Senate and confirm Garland to the US Supreme Court.  Their fantasy:

On January 3, 2017, Democrats will hold the majority in the Senate for a few minutes, until the newly-elected Senators are sworn in. Biden could convene the Senate in those few minutes and call for a vote. The majority could then suspend the rules and vote in Merrick Garland.

The key here is that VP Biden would have to be willing to convene the Senate and recognize Senator Dick Durbin instead of Mitch McConnell. Durbin moves to re-nominate Garland, and Senate Democrats then vote to confirm him. They will have a quorum for those few minutes.

My response:

Please, please do this!

Because the Republican response will be for Trump to nominate, and the Senate to confirm, 4 good, decent Justices who honor the written US Constitution.

No more “swing Justice Kennedy”.

Let me make it simple for you: “if you prick us, we will make you bleed.”

A history lesson:

The Senate Democrat majority Borked in 1987. So when there was a Senate Republican majority under Clinton, they blocked Clinton appointed Judges at will.

Senate Democrats filibustered Judges like Miguel Estrada under Bush. So Senate Republicans filibustered a lot of Obama appointees once they had the numbers to make it stick.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.

Waldman … was one of the first to call for passage of the ACA via reconciliation in the Senate after Scott Brown was elected.

ObamaCare has cost the Democrats the Presidency, 12 Senate seats, ~60 House seats, ~1000 of State Legislature seats, and IIRC > 15 governorships. Oh, and through the loss of the Presidency, you lost the chance to take control of the Supreme Court.

And in 2017 it will be repealed.

By all means, PLEASE double down on that history of failure.

Neoliberalism and technocratic managerial competence

Was reading this at SlateStarCodex, and came across the following, wich needed a response:

Sam Bowman’s neoliberal manifesto aims to carve out “neoliberalism” as a particular policy position (instead of just a vague smear) based around belief in markets, technocratic managerial competence, and interest in helping the poor through evidence-based programs.

It needed a response.  Here it is:

Sam Bowman’s neoliberal manifesto aims to carve out “neoliberalism” as a particular policy position (instead of just a vague smear) based around belief in markets, technocratic managerial competence, and the tooth fairy, right?

Because, frankly, believing in the tooth fairy’s a lot more reasonable than believing in “technocratic managerial competence” WRT anything involving the government.

See: the VA killing people, see the NSA getting hacked, see the quality of American Public Education, hell, take a look at ObamaCare Exchanges.

The Insurance companies were at the table as active partners during the writing of ObamaCare. And now they’re taking a major bath on the “Exchanges”.

Then there’s Solyendra, “clean energy”, the Obama 2009 porkulus. For real fun we could discuss US Military procurement.

There is no “technocratic managerial competence” when government is involved. Belief in it is delusional.

Immigration and political reform

Megan McArdle has noticed that the “EU refugees” are bringing a serious problem:

But here’s a piece of information that is not so much interesting as disturbing: Only 27 percent of those refugees are female. In every age group, from nearly every country of origin, women are greatly outnumbered. And the difference is even more pronounced for immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Gambia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, for example, sent virtually no women at all. Over all, refugee men outnumber refugee women nearly two to one.

(Bolding mine) Side point: I’d be interested to see the correlation between “law allows polygamous marriages” and “% of women among the invaders ‘refugees'”

After going over why this is a problem, Megan says this:

Unfortunately, at this point there aren’t any good options left. … It could deny the bulk of those applications and send most of those men back where they came from. But that’s unlikely; both EU refugee policy and a lot of the political class are publicly committed to sheltering a lot of these people. It would be difficult indeed to suddenly backpedal on those commitments.

1st thought: I think that pretty much every single problem we’re facing today is made worse by the fact that MeMegan can use the phrase “the political class” non-ironically.  The “singular” political class, that has a set of beliefs distinct from “the people of country ‘X'”.  The fact that the well being and beliefs of “the political class” are inimical to the well being of the rest of “their” societies is almost beside the point.  The major point is that there is no human group that has a monopoly on correct ideas.  But right now their is a set of ideas that have a near-monopoly on political power.

2nd thought: Let me clean up that “explanation”:

The political classes of almost every single EU country would rather see their societies destroyed, than admit they made a mistake by demanding that the EU countries take in those “refugees.”

Do we have any more questions as to why people are rejecting the political classes, and everything they say? To have a functional system, you MUST have a way of recovering from mistakes, In politics, the normal way this is done is to have opposition parties that disagree with each other on fundamental issues, so that when one side fails the other can get elected and fix up the first side’s mistakes. In the EU, this option is not available, as ALL “right thinking people” agree on everything important. Which means that EU is eventually going to end up with “lamp posts” as their corrective measure.

In the US, we’re currently stuck with “Donald Trump” as our corrective measure.

Personally, I’m voting for the lamp posts.

Immigration reform, a response to Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle writes:

How many people should we let in, of what education and skill level? How should we handle marital visas? What tradeoffs are we willing to make between national unity and the humanitarian and practical benefits of migration?

Oh, hear those crickets! No one wants to ask those questions, much less provide answers.

I don’t have numbers.  I’d say: cut current total legal immigration levels in half, and see if we get more “melting pot”, and less “multiculturalism.”  Keep cutting levels until we’re pretty solidly on the “melting pot” side.

But here’s my immigration reform principles:

1: End “family reunion” as an immigration priority and terminate “chain migration”. The ONLY people who get to bring in family members are people who legally immigrated here on their own merit (i.e. didn’t come in as a family member).

Whatever the legality of “birthright naturalization”, no one who gets their citizenship by birth gets to sponsor anyone else. So mommy and daddy are leaving the US, and can either take their child with them, or lose it. In any event non-US Citizens, and legal children US Citizens who do not have legal US Citizen guardians, are not eligible for any sort of welfare payments.

2: All H1B visa recipients must be paid in the US 80th percentile or higher for their field. Companies pay 10x penalty for any pay below that. If an incorrect study is used to establish the 80th percentile level, the company is on the hook for anything 75th percentile and over. Below that, the corporate officers who signed off on the study, and on the pay, are personally responsible, with NO “corporate veil” protection. Accusations of fraud on this front can be made by any private individual, can be carried out as a private action. If successful, the private individual gets 1/2 the fine (instead of the gov’t). In all cases the visa holder gets the other half.

IOW: H1B is for hiring expertise you absolutely can’t get in the US, NOT for hiring cheap workers. If you’re not paying top dollar, then H1B isn’t the right visa.

3: The standard for immigration is “brings benefit to the US.” “Changing the culture of the US” is inherently defined as “harming the US.”  We are not running an immigration system to help the immigrants.  If they think it will help them to come here, they’ll apply.  But acceptance is based on our assessment that letting them in will help us.

4: Positive assessments are “useful job skills” (merely having a college degree doesn’t count) and “brings lots of money to invest in the US.”

5: “Unwillingness to assimilate to US cultural norms” (think “go Red Tribe!” here, not SF / LA / NY cultural “norms”) is a major down check.  If you want to keep your old culture, stay in your old country.

6: No “sanctuary cities” may receive any Federal funds.  For anything.  Education, law enforcement, grants, health care, doesn’t matter.  If you’re not willing to help arrest and deport every single person here illegally, no Federal $$$ for you.

That seems like a good start.  And I bet we would get 70%+ support for just about every one of those.