Feinstein’s opening statement in Barrett hearings

[RickBomba]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Yes, I would also want a President faithful to the Constitution. That's why in the primaries I voted for Ted Cruz. He didn't win. So now my choice, knowing that only a Republican or a Democrat will win, my choice is between Trump or Biden. Between the two, Trump has shown his governing politics to be far more faithful to the Constitution than Biden's long history of becoming more and more Progressive and whose present position will be dictated by the Democrat Party which has actually become the Progressive Party trending heavily toward socialism and is being supported by the Communist Party and leftist organizations and movements.

I have no doubt, absolutely none, that the Progressive party, given enough power and a little more time, will gut the Constitution with novel interpretations making it absolutely moot, totally irrelevant, and finish replacing it with it's dream of some form of an unhampered Administrative State--or maybe with a whole new Constitution, or none at all.

If you don't know what the American version of the "administrative state" is, and what is the Progressive project of making it our functioning form of government while rejecting the Constitution, the following two articles give a clear picture.

The first, https://ballotpedia.org/Administrative_state is a concise neutral explanation of what it is.

The second and more interesting one details the Progressive project of rejecting the Constitution and basically replacing its functional powers with a centralized administrative government: https://federalistforum.com/the-admi...ed-government/

I think Pete F and Spence, if they read the articles, will agree with the notion of an administrative state, and prefer it over the Constitution and its separation of powers doctrine.

Oh Butchie,
I could put footnotes and hyperlinks around any of my kooky theories...it don’t make them any less tin-foil-hatless.

Hell, there might be hope for all of us..look at where Scott Atlas is now. Some people actually put a “Dr.” in front of his name.

Don’t stop believing, Murica.

We are a nation in the middle of a moron sandwich.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Oh Butchie,
I could put footnotes and hyperlinks around any of my kooky theories...it don’t make them any less tin-foil-hatless.

Hell, there might be hope for all of us..look at where Scott Atlas is now. Some people actually put a “Dr.” in front of his name.

Don’t stop believing, Murica.

We are a nation in the middle of a moron sandwich.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

He is a Dr., of radiology. That is almost the same as infectious diseases....

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Oh Butchie,
I could put footnotes and hyperlinks around any of my kooky theories...

Go ahead. And I will have the integrity to discuss them. That you or Pete F or Got Stripers or wdmso or Paul S refuse to discuss mine or my repeated request to discuss the ideological battle underlying this election says a ton about yall's integrity.

[Pete F.]

Good triumphs over evil

The Biden Town Hall on ABC drew 2.3 million more viewers than the Trump town hall on NBC. There is nothing Covita cares about more than ratings.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Good triumphs over evil

The Biden Town Hall on ABC drew 2.3 million more viewers than the Trump town hall on NBC. There is nothing Covita cares about more than ratings.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Is this an example of what you call critical thinking?

[Pete F.]

Meanwhile in court where people are looking for all the documents on the Russia investigation that Covita declassified in a tweet during his roid rage DOJ attorneys have a dilemma, you cannot treat Trump's tweets and utterances as valid and lawful orders on Monday, then claim he's Mad King George on Tuesday.

The man is either sane or he's not. Government attorneys cannot have it both ways.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Meanwhile in court where people are looking for all the documents on the Russia investigation that Covita declassified in a tweet during his roid rage DOJ attorneys have a dilemma, you cannot treat Trump's tweets and utterances as valid and lawful orders on Monday, then claim he's Mad King George on Tuesday.

The man is either sane or he's not. Government attorneys cannot have it both ways.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

He is sane. You are not.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

He is sane. You are not.

Here’s what our crazy uncle in the White House tweeted October 6th

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!

Waiting to see😷
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Here’s what our crazy uncle in the White House tweeted October 6th

I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!

Waiting to see😷
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Sounds good.

[Pete F.]

The DOJ is currently in court trying to block it
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[RickBomba]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Go ahead. And I will have the integrity to discuss them. That you or Pete F or Got Stripers or wdmso or Paul S refuse to discuss mine or my repeated request to discuss the ideological battle underlying this election says a ton about yall's integrity.

Pretty funny metaphor right there, Butchie.

I bet me, Pete, Wayne, Bob, and Paul sat at the lunch table that caught #^&#^&#^&#^& from all the IROC driving success stories from your high school. Now we’re some kind of elitist mob. I love it. Come roll some D&D dice with us some time...you’ll like it.

#DeplorablesDelusionDisorder
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Pretty funny metaphor right there, Butchie.

I bet me, Pete, Wayne, Bob, and Paul sat at the lunch table that caught #^&#^&#^&#^& from all the IROC driving success stories from your high school. Now we’re some kind of elitist mob. I love it. Come roll some D&D dice with us some time...you’ll like it.

#DeplorablesDelusionDisorder
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Is this an attempt at rational discussion? Oh, wait, I apologize. That was a foolish question. The answer is self evident.

[RickBomba]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Is this an attempt at rational discussion? Oh, wait, I apologize. That was a foolish question. The answer is self evident.

Nope,
That was just a straight-up diss to all the guys who acted like #^&#^&#^&#^&s in high school, and now think they can get back on the #^&#^&#^&#^&-wagon with Caveman Politics.

If you weren’t one of those guys in high school, then I’m sure you understand.

If you don’t get it, then I understand.

Savvy, chum?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Nope,
That was just a straight-up diss to all the guys who acted like #^&#^&#^&#^&s in high school, and now think they can get back on the #^&#^&#^&#^&-wagon with Caveman Politics.

If you weren’t one of those guys in high school, then I’m sure you understand.

If you don’t get it, then I understand.

Savvy, chum?
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I didn't act like a #^&#^&#^&#^& in high school. My action was solely to get through it and get the hell out of there. I mostly hated school.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Oh Butchie,
I could put footnotes and hyperlinks around any of my kooky theories...it don’t make them any less tin-foil-hatless.

Hell, there might be hope for all of us..look at where Scott Atlas is now. Some people actually put a “Dr.” in front of his name.

Don’t stop believing, Murica.

We are a nation in the middle of a moron sandwich.

My links were not a support of a kooky theory. They were links to what actually exists and how it came to be and why. They are fact and history. Saying they are about kooky theories is like saying that describing the Constitution is describing a kooky theory. The Constitution is not a kooky theory. The administrative state is not a theory. They both actually exist. And one opposes the other.

Remaining ignorant of that, not willing to discuss it, misses the essential political battle, and reduces us to bitching about personalities and concocting enough lies about them to make what insufficient truths that are available seem like the really important catastrophic differences that should decide the election. That leads to the totally hyped, kooky, conspiratorial BS that we've been fed.

The Constitution protects rights that we take for granted. The administrative state nullifies whatever right that stands in the way of implementing what a few deemed "experts" think is good for us. In effect, regulatory agencies within the administrative state have the power to tell us what we have a right to do within their sphere of supposed expertise. And there are well over a hundred such agencies within the American administrative state. Some say as many as 400. Apparently, the total number is not definitively known. The number has blossomed into enough, and wide enough scope, to regulate nearly every aspect of our lives.

But not to worry. They are peopled with politically neutral, honest, experts who don't impose any self-interest and are not susceptible to special interests and always are only trying to administer to the well being of the American people. The only problem with that assessment is that "people," "experts," are human, with all the self-serving flaws that humans are prone to. Even the heads of many agencies are "peopled" by those who came from the businesses they regulate. What could go wrong there?

Well, if degrading the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers is not enough, there is this thing called regulatory capture wherein those large corporations that the are supposed to be the object of regulation actually use the agencies for their own benefit--leading to the dreaded crony capitalist destruction of the middle class and the widening of the dreaded income inequality. Think that's my kooky theory? Here's a large list of quotes on that by "experts" on the subject of something that is not just a theory, but actually exists:

Woodrow Wilson: “If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don’t you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don’t you see that they must capture the government, in order not to be restrained too much by it? ”


Ronald Coase: “When rights, worth millions of dollars, are awarded to one businessman and denied to others, it is no wonder if some applicants [to a regulatory agency] become overanxious and attempt to use whatever influence they have (political and otherwise), particularly as they can never be sure what pressure the other applicants may be exerting.”

Milton Friedman: “the pressure on the legislature to license an occupation rarely comes from the members of the public . . . On the contrary, the pressure invariably comes from the occupation itself.”

Harold Demsetz: “…in utility industries, regulation has often been sought because of the inconvenience of competition.”

Richard Posner: “Because regulatory commissions are of necessity intimately involved in the affairs of a particular industry, the regulators and their staffs are exposed to strong interest group pressures. Their susceptibility to pressures that may distort economically sound judgments is enhanced by the tradition of regarding regulatory commissions as ‘arms of the legislature,’ where interest-group pressures naturally play a vitally important role.”

George Stigler: “…as a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefits.” And “Regulation and competition are rhetorical friends and deadly enemies: over the doorway of every regulatory agency save two should be carved: ‘Competition Not Admitted.’ The Federal Trade Commission’s doorway should announce , “Competition Admitted in Rear,” and that of the Antitrust Division, ‘Monopoly Only by Appointment.’”

Theodore J. Lowi, in The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States: “a considerable proportion of federal regulation, regardless of its own claim to consumer protection, has the systematic effect of constituting and maintaining a sector of the economy or the society. These are the policies of receivership by regulation.”

Alfred Kahn: “When a commission is responsible for the performance of an industry, it is under never completely escapable pressure to protect the health of the companies it regulates, to assure a desirable performance by relying on those monopolistic chosen instruments and its own controls rather than on the unplanned and unplannable forces of competition.” “Responsible for the continued provision and improvement of service, [the regulatory commission] comes increasingly and understandably to identify the interest of the public with that of the existing companies on whom it must rely to deliver goods.”

Mark Green and Ralph Nader: “a kind of regular personnel interchange between agency and industry blurs what should be a sharp line between regulator and regulatee, and can compromise independent regulatory judgment. In short, the regulated industries are often in clear control of the regulatory process.”

Richard B. McKenzie and Gordon Tullock: “although regulation is begun with the good intentions of those who promote and pass the laws, somewhere along the line regulators may become pawns of the regulated firms.”

Milton and Rose Friedman: “Every act of intervention establishes positions of power. How that power will be used and for what purposes depends far more on the people who are in the best position to get control of that power and what their purposes are than on the aims and objectives of the initial sponsors of the intervention.”

Barry M. Mitnick: “Much relatively recent research has argued that regulation was often sought by industries for their own protection, rather than being imposed in some ‘public interest.’ Although the distinction is not always made clear in this recent literature, we may add that regulation which is not directly sought at the outset is generally ‘captured’ later on so it behaves with consistency to the industry’s major interests”

Barry Weingast: “Often . . . Agency heads and commission members, anxious to further their careers and goals (including large budgets) as well as completing their own of power and prestige pet projects and policy initiatives, depend upon service to interest their success groups and key committee members for their success.”

George Gilder: “One reason for government resistance to change is that the process of creative destruction can attack not only an existing industry, but also the regulatory apparatus that subsists on it; and it is much more difficult to retrench a bureaucracy than it is to bankrupt a company. A regulatory apparatus is a parasite that can grow larger than its host industry and become in turn a host itself, with the industry reduced to parasitism, dependent on the subsidies and protections of the very government body that initially sapped its strength.”

Bruce Yandle:“what do industry and labor want from the regulators? They want protection from competition, from technological change, and from losses that threaten profits and jobs. A carefully constructed regulation can accomplish all kinds of anticompetitive goals of this sort, while giving the citizenry the impression that the only goal is to serve the public interest.”

Thomas K. McCraw: “Clearly, in passing the Civil Aeronautics Act [of 1938], Congress intended to bring stability to airlines. What is not clear is whether the legislature intended to cartelize the industry. Yet this did happen . . . In fact, over the entire history of the CAB, no new trunkline carrier had been permitted to join the sixteen that existed in 1938. And those sixteen, later reduced to ten by a series of mergers, still dominated the industry in the 1970s. All these companies… developed into large companies under the protective wing of the CAB. None wanted deregulation.”

Robert Higgs: “The government’s regulatory agencies have created or sustained private monopoly power more often than they have precluded or reduced it. This result was exactly what many interested parties desired from government regulation, though they would have been impolitic to have said so in public.”

Jeffrey M. Berry:“The ties between interest groups and [regulatory] agencies can become too close. A persistent criticism by political scientists is that agencies that regulate businesses are overly sympathetic to the industries they are responsible for regulating. Critics charge that regulators often come from the businesses they regulate and thus naturally see things from an industry point of view. Even if regulators weren’t previously involved in the industry, they have been seen as eager to please powerful clientele groups rather than have them complain to the White House or to the agency’s overseeing committees in Congress.”

Jonathan Emord:.“The minutes of the First National Radio Conference in 1922 reveal that even at this early date, industry leaders clamored for government limits on the number of licenses issued; they sought protection against entry by new licenses. For its part, the government desired control over the industry’s structure and programming content . . .The classic rent/content control quid pro quo soon developed: in exchange for regulatory controls on industry structure and programming content, industry leaders would be granted restrictions on market entry that they wanted. These restrictions would ensure monopoly rents for licensees and would provide the government with assurance that the broadcast industry would not oppose regulatory controls.”

David Schoenbrod: Effective participation in agency lawmaking usually requires expensive legal representation as well as close connections to members of Congress who will pressure the agency on one’s behalf. The agency itself is often closely linked with the industry it regulates. Not only large corporations, but also labor unions, cause-based groups, and other cohesive minority interests sometimes can use delegation to triumph over the interests of the larger part of the general public, which lacks the organization, finances, and know-how to participate as effectively in the administrative process.”

Douglass North: “The more successful the interest group becomes the greater the probability that it will be in a position to impact on the policy making process of successive governments. … Aspiring monopolists will retain lobbyists to assure a favourable outcome and devote resources to the acquisition of the monopoly right. A government will more than likely grant monopoly privileges to various groups of politically influential people. Cartels and anti-competitive behaviour will be maintained and politicians will react to the demands of the more vociferous and well organised interest groups.”

Andrew Odlyzko: “It is now widely accepted that the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was not a pure triumph of the populist movement and its allies in the anti-railroad camp. The railway industry largely decided that regulation was in its best interests and acquiesced in and even encouraged government involvement. This is often portrayed as the insidious capture of the regulators by the industry they regulate.”

Lawrence Lessig: “Built into the DNA of the most important agencies created to protect innovation, is an almost irresistible urge to protect the most powerful instead.

The FCC is a perfect example. … With so much in its reach, the FCC has become the target of enormous campaigns for influence. Its commissioners are meant to be “expert” and “independent,” but they’ve never really been expert, and are now openly embracing the political role they play. Commissioners issue press releases touting their own personal policies. And lobbyists spend years getting close to members of this junior varsity Congress.”

Thomas Frank: “The first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was set up to regulate railroad freight rates in the 1880s. Soon thereafter, Richard Olney, a prominent railroad lawyer, came to Washington to serve as Grover Cleveland’s attorney general. Olney’s former boss asked him if he would help kill off the hated ICC. Olney’s reply, handed down at the very dawn of Big Government, should be regarded as an urtext of the regulatory state: ‘The Commission… is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of the railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal. Further, the older such a commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be found to take the business and railroad view of things. … The part of wisdom is not to destroy the Commission, but to utilize it.'”

Tim Wu:“Again and again in the histories I have recounted, the state has shown itself an inferior arbiter of what is good for the information industries. The federal government’s role in radio and television from the 1920s through the 1960s, for instance, was nothing short of a disgrace…. Government’s tendency to protect large market players amounts to an illegitimate complicity … [particularly its] sense of obligation to protect big industries irrespective of their having become uncompetitive.”

David J. Farber: “When the FCC asserts regulatory jurisdiction over an area of telecommunications, the dynamic of the industry changes. No longer are customer needs and desires at the forefront of firms’ competitive strategies; rather firms take their competitive battles to the FCC, hoping for a favorable ruling that will translate into a marketplace advantage. Customer needs take second place; regulatory “rent-seeking” becomes the rule of the day, and a previously innovative and vibrant industry becomes a creature of government rule-making.”

Holman Jenkins: “When some hear the word ‘regulation,’ they imagine government rushing to the defense of consumers. In the real world, government serves up regulation to those who ask for it, which usually means organized interests seeking to block a competitive threat . . . We should also notice that an astonishingly large part of the world has experienced an astonishing degree of stagnation for an astonishingly long time for exactly such reasons.”

Bruce Schneier: “unless there’s some other career path, pretty much everyone with the expertise necessary to become a regulator will be either a former or future employee of the industry with the obvious implicit and explicit conflicts. As a result, there is a tendency for institutions delegated with regulating a particular industry to start advocating the commercial and special interests of that industry. This is known as regulatory capture, and there are many examples both in the U.S. and in other countries.”

Bruce Owen: “It is rather legislative oversight and budget committees and their chairs that are (willingly) captured by special interests in the first instance. One could equally say that legislators capture the special interests, seeking campaign funding The behavior of regulatory agencies simply reflect the preferences of their congressional masters. Regulators generally seek to please their committees, not to defy them.”


Yes, the administrative state is real, not a kooky theory, and both parties are guilty of supporting what is essentially this fourth and rather independent branch of government. Few Presidents have done much to curb the administrative state--Coolidge, Reagan, Carter a little bit, Trump with deregulation efforts including eliminating business strangling regulations and jumping over the regulatory process to engage private business in manufacturing medical equipment to fight covid and speed up the manufacture of vaccines. But the real fight against it is within conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover institute (which is ironically named since Hoover was a Progressive proponent of government regulation) and the Federalist Society and others. And these institutions hold some influence over the more conservative wing of the Republican Party. The Progressives, in both parties, use the regulators to do what they don't want to be accused of.

And the Progressive left Dems want to replace the constitutional separation of powers with a centralized administrative form of government. They have told us many times in many ways that is their goal.

So that's one of the reasons I will vote Republican, not because Republicans are a paragon of virtue and strict defenders of the Constitution. Between the two parties, they're the one to slow down the Progressive juggernaut and offer any chance to roll back the power of the regulatory agencies and move back power to the people.

[Got Stripers]

I know Pete will read and engage, but I can’t imagine how slow your life is to expend this amount of time attempting to prove to Biden supporters they are electing the wrong guy. You have zero chance of moving that needle, I think you need a hobby, hey quick thought everyone else is writing a book about Trump being a monster you could defend him on a national stage.

[RickBomba]

Originally Posted by detbuch

My links were not a support of a kooky theory. They were links to what actually exists and how it came to be and why. They are fact and history. Saying they are about kooky theories is like saying that describing the Constitution is describing a kooky theory. The Constitution is not a kooky theory. The administrative state is not a theory. They both actually exist. And one opposes the other.

Remaining ignorant of that, not willing to discuss it, misses the essential political battle, and reduces us to bitching about personalities and concocting enough lies about them to make what insufficient truths that are available seem like the really important catastrophic differences that should decide the election. That leads to the totally hyped, kooky, conspiratorial BS that we've been fed.

The Constitution protects rights that we take for granted. The administrative state nullifies whatever right that stands in the way of implementing what a few deemed "experts" think is good for us. In effect, regulatory agencies within the administrative state have the power to tell us what we have a right to do within their sphere of supposed expertise. And there are well over a hundred such agencies within the American administrative state. Some say as many as 400. Apparently, the total number is not definitively known. The number has blossomed into enough, and wide enough scope, to regulate nearly every aspect of our lives.

But not to worry. They are peopled with politically neutral, honest, experts who don't impose any self-interest and are not susceptible to special interests and always are only trying to administer to the well being of the American people. The only problem with that assessment is that "people," "experts," are human, with all the self-serving flaws that humans are prone to. Even the heads of many agencies are "peopled" by those who came from the businesses they regulate. What could go wrong there?

Well, if degrading the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers is not enough, there is this thing called regulatory capture wherein those large corporations that the are supposed to be the object of regulation actually use the agencies for their own benefit--leading to the dreaded crony capitalist destruction of the middle class and the widening of the dreaded income inequality. Think that's my kooky theory? Here's a large list of quotes on that by "experts" on the subject of something that is not just a theory, but actually exists:

Woodrow Wilson: “If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don’t you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don’t you see that they must capture the government, in order not to be restrained too much by it? ”


Ronald Coase: “When rights, worth millions of dollars, are awarded to one businessman and denied to others, it is no wonder if some applicants [to a regulatory agency] become overanxious and attempt to use whatever influence they have (political and otherwise), particularly as they can never be sure what pressure the other applicants may be exerting.”

Milton Friedman: “the pressure on the legislature to license an occupation rarely comes from the members of the public . . . On the contrary, the pressure invariably comes from the occupation itself.”

Harold Demsetz: “…in utility industries, regulation has often been sought because of the inconvenience of competition.”

Richard Posner: “Because regulatory commissions are of necessity intimately involved in the affairs of a particular industry, the regulators and their staffs are exposed to strong interest group pressures. Their susceptibility to pressures that may distort economically sound judgments is enhanced by the tradition of regarding regulatory commissions as ‘arms of the legislature,’ where interest-group pressures naturally play a vitally important role.”

George Stigler: “…as a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefits.” And “Regulation and competition are rhetorical friends and deadly enemies: over the doorway of every regulatory agency save two should be carved: ‘Competition Not Admitted.’ The Federal Trade Commission’s doorway should announce , “Competition Admitted in Rear,” and that of the Antitrust Division, ‘Monopoly Only by Appointment.’”

Theodore J. Lowi, in The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States: “a considerable proportion of federal regulation, regardless of its own claim to consumer protection, has the systematic effect of constituting and maintaining a sector of the economy or the society. These are the policies of receivership by regulation.”

Alfred Kahn: “When a commission is responsible for the performance of an industry, it is under never completely escapable pressure to protect the health of the companies it regulates, to assure a desirable performance by relying on those monopolistic chosen instruments and its own controls rather than on the unplanned and unplannable forces of competition.” “Responsible for the continued provision and improvement of service, [the regulatory commission] comes increasingly and understandably to identify the interest of the public with that of the existing companies on whom it must rely to deliver goods.”

Mark Green and Ralph Nader: “a kind of regular personnel interchange between agency and industry blurs what should be a sharp line between regulator and regulatee, and can compromise independent regulatory judgment. In short, the regulated industries are often in clear control of the regulatory process.”

Richard B. McKenzie and Gordon Tullock: “although regulation is begun with the good intentions of those who promote and pass the laws, somewhere along the line regulators may become pawns of the regulated firms.”

Milton and Rose Friedman: “Every act of intervention establishes positions of power. How that power will be used and for what purposes depends far more on the people who are in the best position to get control of that power and what their purposes are than on the aims and objectives of the initial sponsors of the intervention.”

Barry M. Mitnick: “Much relatively recent research has argued that regulation was often sought by industries for their own protection, rather than being imposed in some ‘public interest.’ Although the distinction is not always made clear in this recent literature, we may add that regulation which is not directly sought at the outset is generally ‘captured’ later on so it behaves with consistency to the industry’s major interests”

Barry Weingast: “Often . . . Agency heads and commission members, anxious to further their careers and goals (including large budgets) as well as completing their own of power and prestige pet projects and policy initiatives, depend upon service to interest their success groups and key committee members for their success.”

George Gilder: “One reason for government resistance to change is that the process of creative destruction can attack not only an existing industry, but also the regulatory apparatus that subsists on it; and it is much more difficult to retrench a bureaucracy than it is to bankrupt a company. A regulatory apparatus is a parasite that can grow larger than its host industry and become in turn a host itself, with the industry reduced to parasitism, dependent on the subsidies and protections of the very government body that initially sapped its strength.”

Bruce Yandle:“what do industry and labor want from the regulators? They want protection from competition, from technological change, and from losses that threaten profits and jobs. A carefully constructed regulation can accomplish all kinds of anticompetitive goals of this sort, while giving the citizenry the impression that the only goal is to serve the public interest.”

Thomas K. McCraw: “Clearly, in passing the Civil Aeronautics Act [of 1938], Congress intended to bring stability to airlines. What is not clear is whether the legislature intended to cartelize the industry. Yet this did happen . . . In fact, over the entire history of the CAB, no new trunkline carrier had been permitted to join the sixteen that existed in 1938. And those sixteen, later reduced to ten by a series of mergers, still dominated the industry in the 1970s. All these companies… developed into large companies under the protective wing of the CAB. None wanted deregulation.”

Robert Higgs: “The government’s regulatory agencies have created or sustained private monopoly power more often than they have precluded or reduced it. This result was exactly what many interested parties desired from government regulation, though they would have been impolitic to have said so in public.”

Jeffrey M. Berry:“The ties between interest groups and [regulatory] agencies can become too close. A persistent criticism by political scientists is that agencies that regulate businesses are overly sympathetic to the industries they are responsible for regulating. Critics charge that regulators often come from the businesses they regulate and thus naturally see things from an industry point of view. Even if regulators weren’t previously involved in the industry, they have been seen as eager to please powerful clientele groups rather than have them complain to the White House or to the agency’s overseeing committees in Congress.”

Jonathan Emord:.“The minutes of the First National Radio Conference in 1922 reveal that even at this early date, industry leaders clamored for government limits on the number of licenses issued; they sought protection against entry by new licenses. For its part, the government desired control over the industry’s structure and programming content . . .The classic rent/content control quid pro quo soon developed: in exchange for regulatory controls on industry structure and programming content, industry leaders would be granted restrictions on market entry that they wanted. These restrictions would ensure monopoly rents for licensees and would provide the government with assurance that the broadcast industry would not oppose regulatory controls.”

David Schoenbrod: Effective participation in agency lawmaking usually requires expensive legal representation as well as close connections to members of Congress who will pressure the agency on one’s behalf. The agency itself is often closely linked with the industry it regulates. Not only large corporations, but also labor unions, cause-based groups, and other cohesive minority interests sometimes can use delegation to triumph over the interests of the larger part of the general public, which lacks the organization, finances, and know-how to participate as effectively in the administrative process.”

Douglass North: “The more successful the interest group becomes the greater the probability that it will be in a position to impact on the policy making process of successive governments. … Aspiring monopolists will retain lobbyists to assure a favourable outcome and devote resources to the acquisition of the monopoly right. A government will more than likely grant monopoly privileges to various groups of politically influential people. Cartels and anti-competitive behaviour will be maintained and politicians will react to the demands of the more vociferous and well organised interest groups.”

Andrew Odlyzko: “It is now widely accepted that the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was not a pure triumph of the populist movement and its allies in the anti-railroad camp. The railway industry largely decided that regulation was in its best interests and acquiesced in and even encouraged government involvement. This is often portrayed as the insidious capture of the regulators by the industry they regulate.”

Lawrence Lessig: “Built into the DNA of the most important agencies created to protect innovation, is an almost irresistible urge to protect the most powerful instead.

The FCC is a perfect example. … With so much in its reach, the FCC has become the target of enormous campaigns for influence. Its commissioners are meant to be “expert” and “independent,” but they’ve never really been expert, and are now openly embracing the political role they play. Commissioners issue press releases touting their own personal policies. And lobbyists spend years getting close to members of this junior varsity Congress.”

Thomas Frank: “The first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was set up to regulate railroad freight rates in the 1880s. Soon thereafter, Richard Olney, a prominent railroad lawyer, came to Washington to serve as Grover Cleveland’s attorney general. Olney’s former boss asked him if he would help kill off the hated ICC. Olney’s reply, handed down at the very dawn of Big Government, should be regarded as an urtext of the regulatory state: ‘The Commission… is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of the railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal. Further, the older such a commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be found to take the business and railroad view of things. … The part of wisdom is not to destroy the Commission, but to utilize it.'”

Tim Wu:“Again and again in the histories I have recounted, the state has shown itself an inferior arbiter of what is good for the information industries. The federal government’s role in radio and television from the 1920s through the 1960s, for instance, was nothing short of a disgrace…. Government’s tendency to protect large market players amounts to an illegitimate complicity … [particularly its] sense of obligation to protect big industries irrespective of their having become uncompetitive.”

David J. Farber: “When the FCC asserts regulatory jurisdiction over an area of telecommunications, the dynamic of the industry changes. No longer are customer needs and desires at the forefront of firms’ competitive strategies; rather firms take their competitive battles to the FCC, hoping for a favorable ruling that will translate into a marketplace advantage. Customer needs take second place; regulatory “rent-seeking” becomes the rule of the day, and a previously innovative and vibrant industry becomes a creature of government rule-making.”

Holman Jenkins: “When some hear the word ‘regulation,’ they imagine government rushing to the defense of consumers. In the real world, government serves up regulation to those who ask for it, which usually means organized interests seeking to block a competitive threat . . . We should also notice that an astonishingly large part of the world has experienced an astonishing degree of stagnation for an astonishingly long time for exactly such reasons.”

Bruce Schneier: “unless there’s some other career path, pretty much everyone with the expertise necessary to become a regulator will be either a former or future employee of the industry with the obvious implicit and explicit conflicts. As a result, there is a tendency for institutions delegated with regulating a particular industry to start advocating the commercial and special interests of that industry. This is known as regulatory capture, and there are many examples both in the U.S. and in other countries.”

Bruce Owen: “It is rather legislative oversight and budget committees and their chairs that are (willingly) captured by special interests in the first instance. One could equally say that legislators capture the special interests, seeking campaign funding The behavior of regulatory agencies simply reflect the preferences of their congressional masters. Regulators generally seek to please their committees, not to defy them.”


Yes, the administrative state is real, not a kooky theory, and both parties are guilty of supporting what is essentially this fourth and rather independent branch of government. Few Presidents have done much to curb the administrative state--Coolidge, Reagan, Carter a little bit, Trump with deregulation efforts including eliminating business strangling regulations and jumping over the regulatory process to engage private business in manufacturing medical equipment to fight covid and speed up the manufacture of vaccines. But the real fight against it is within conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover institute (which is ironically named since Hoover was a Progressive proponent of government regulation) and the Federalist Society and others. And these institutions hold some influence over the more conservative wing of the Republican Party. The Progressives, in both parties, use the regulators to do what they don't want to be accused of.

And the Progressive left Dems want to replace the constitutional separation of powers with a centralized administrative form of government. They have told us many times in many ways that is their goal.

So that's one of the reasons I will vote Republican, not because Republicans are a paragon of virtue and strict defenders of the Constitution. Between the two parties, they're the one to slow down the Progressive juggernaut and offer any chance to roll back the power of the regulatory agencies and move back power to the people.

Hey Bossman,
Just an FYI, if you put character limits on posts, then you’ll prolly save a lot on your hosting data limits.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[RIROCKHOUND]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Hey Bossman,
Just an FYI, if you put character limits on posts, then you’ll prolly save a lot on your hosting data limits.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Russian bots get paid by the character....

🤫😂😂
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Got Stripers]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Hey Bossman,
Just an FYI, if you put character limits on posts, then you’ll prolly save a lot on your hosting data limits.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

The great pontificator loves to hear himself speak in print, frankly I find it sad that a retired crappie fisherman is so obsessed with defending Trump and his political views on an obscure striped bass fishing board a thousand miles away.

[spence]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

The great pontificator loves to hear himself speak in print, frankly I find it sad that a retired crappie fisherman is so obsessed with defending Trump and his political views on an obscure striped bass fishing board a thousand miles away.

It’s his job, full time troll. He’s even more famous than we thought

https://www.buzztwang.com/2011/04/ho...party-racists/


Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Got Stripers]

I just love poking fun at him it’s amusing to watch him ramble on thinking we (well I’m not anyway) reading any of his bullcrap.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Hey Bossman,
Just an FYI, if you put character limits on posts, then you’ll prolly save a lot on your hosting data limits.

He has put character limits on posts. My first attempt was blocked because of that. I actually had more examples in case the ones posted might not be enough to put to rest your kooky idea that what I was saying was a "kooky theory" or a "tin foil hat." Savvy, chum?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

It’s his job, full time troll. He’s even more famous than we thought

https://www.buzztwang.com/2011/04/ho...party-racists/

I remember that. I mentioned in another post that there could be a large number of non-members who find this site by accident while browsing a topic with their search engine. And that's how I did. Buzztwang apparently did also. I forget how I knew of his bit on me, whether his original post was posted here, or if I accidentally found it on the web. I was not, am not, a member of his site. Nor have I posted anything else there. I am not a "full time troll." If accidently finding his remarks makes me one, then I guess you are as well.

So I replied in his comment section. BTW, did you read my reply to him in the comments? It's the first one under Danny. It pretty effectively demolished his rant on me. I checked back a few times to see if he replied. But he never did. Don't think he could have made a convincing rebuttle. In case you missed it, here it is:

Hi Buzz Twang. I’m Detbuch. Everyone on the fishing forum uses what you refer to as an “anonymous moniker.” It’s not an underhanded attempt to hide. It’s just the convention of the forum. Sorry if I came off as an uncompassionate racist “teabagger” in the bit that you discovered in trackback to the forum. I am not a member of the Tea Party, and I don’t have compassion for any race.

The “straw man argument” you refer to was a response to “Zimmy” (his anonymous moniker)–another member of the forum who claimed that he knew “at least 12 people who are active w/tea party rallies” who are all unashamedly bigoted, specifically pointing to one who “does not hide his feelings . . . in private” and is the reason “many of us would never associate with the Tea Party” even though they don’t represent everyone in the party.

My response to him was not “apologizing for racism via the ‘we’re all racists’ approach” as you put it–nowhere did I defend, approve of, or apologize for racism in that response. If you had included the comment by Zimmy, it would be clear that I was responding to his reason why “many of us would never associate with the Tea Party.” In view of Zimmy’s remarks, it should be evident that I was making parallel comparisons to the blacks that I know who are overtly racist in “private situations,” or the “great Americans” who were racists pointing out the silliness of Zimmy’s reason why “many of us would never associate with the Tea Party .

So it doesn’t “miss the point entirely” as you put it. It is directly on point to Zimmy’s anecdotal account of why we, or he, or they, would never associate with the Tea Party. Nor do I find that it is “difficult for the Tea Party faithful to simply admit . . . they do have racists among them.” As you say, “every party does”. Which is what I was pointing out to Zimmy, and why it would be ridiculous to not associate with a party because it had racists.

As for my observation that all but one of your photos are other than racist in theme, and your claim that each sign “has a unique view that is blatantly racist, and I gloss over it with the nonchalance of one completely desensitized to racist jargon and imagery”, here is my thinking.

Sign #1: You claim that I glossed the blatant racism and claimed that it referred to religion not racism. The text is “Obama my forefathers were Christian yours were from Kenya that explains a lot about you.” You say that I miss the “obvious ” racism which is “implied.” Implications are a level removed from actuality. If racism is implied, it is not obvious. Many things can be implied by the sign. There are a lot of reasons why a “good” Christian might see being Kenyan is a threat. Most of the reasons are ignorant or exaggerated. The implication which I see in the sign is the silly idea that Obama is a Muslim because his Kenyan Father was. That is why I see this as referring to religion not race. I don’t see a racist “imagery” or racist “jargon” to which I’m desensitized in the sign. Perhaps, you’re glossing over it with the nonchalance of one who is over-sensitized to racist jargon and imagery so that you see it “implied” in something that doesn’t speak of race.

Sign #2: which I said reversed the slavery cliche did exactly that. It “obviously” points out very crudely that Obama’s reign, rather than a kumbaya get along is regarded by the carrier as slavery. He/she even sees the irony of a black man being the slave master. It is unavoidable to harken to American slavery without “racist loaded imagery,” but to point out the irony of a black man adhering to slavery-like big government power over individuals, which is a Tea Party theme, is not racism. Of course, if you want it to be, then you can gloss into that mode.

Sign #3: compared Obamacare to voodoo. The picture clearly refers to Obamacare and relates it to a lower standard of health care exaggerated by depicting Obama as a witch doctor. If showing pictures of witch doctors is racist, than let’s ban pictures of witch doctors. If comparing a “health plan” to voodoo practice is racist, then let us never again compare anything to voodoo or witch doctors (unless they are shown to be superior, of course.) So are we to enter an era of racial thought control. Politics is usually practiced crudely. Insults are common, exaggeration and lies are as well. Why must we find racism “implied” if it is not overtly expressed. We demean that which is perceived to be lesser. Witch doctors are a political shorthand term to refer to lesser health care. Do you think blacks don’t make fun of witch doctors or bones in the nose or primitivism? I don’t know, by the way, what your phrase “essential compassion for blacks” is other than a superior attitude toward an entire race–which is the actual definition of racism.

Sign #4: does emphasize the Islamic stuff (Hussein), and the go back to Kenya is “obviously” a stupid concern of many that he is not qualified to be POTUS because his citizenship is, in their mind, Kenyon (you’d think you’d brush up on this stuff and not always see “implied” racism rather than “blatant” stupidity that rampages in the news.) You gloss a bit here as well by saying that telling people to go back to their native land “is a long time cry of Nativists and racists.” So which is it, nativism or racism? It could in no way refer to the controversy of his birth certificate and his right to be POTUS? You also gloss absolutely by ignoring the “dixie chickin” our nation part of the sign. Hard to impute racism to that, so skip it.

Sign #5: I supposedly missed the “racism of the back to Kenya part. You think that “odd.” And that maybe I didn’t read it all. Yeah, I did. Didn’t miss a thing. You say I probably focused on the cap and trade part but not the actual “racist” part. I have explained that back to Kenya for most Tea Partiers refers to the citizenship controversy. Does it evoke a hidden “implied” racism for some Tea Partiers (and non-tea partiers for that matter)–sure, as we both have said: there are racists in all parties. Perhaps you focused on your agenda to find racism “implied” in this sign and didn’t focus on the cap and trade part and the play on the word trade.

That Tea Partiers originally used Tea Baggers before they knew it had another meaning (most Americans were not aware of this other meaning) is no reason to rub salt in the wound. Call people what they wish to be called: Afro-American, Black, People of Color, but not NEGRO. That is now derogatory. It is apparently an insult to say homo-sexual rather than gay. But Tea Bagger is fair game? You used Tea Party and Tea Bagger and nonchalantly claim the latter is not an insult. Is it an insult to use the “N” word if you are not Black? By the way, your characterization that the Tea Bagger was stolen rather than invented would imply that Tea Partiers knew of the double meaning and stole it. Perhaps you are so into the implication mode that you don’t know you’re doing it in a silly way.

Where do you get that its “a historical fact that the modern Tea party are the philosophical and political heir to the Know Nothing party of the 1800s.” That’s a sweeping statement with no analysis of actual Tea Party concerns. Were Know Nothings concerned with national health care plans and the national debt? Are the Tea Party doctrines secret? Do Tea Partiers reply “I don’t know” when asked questions about the party, or are they more than glad to expound what they are about? Are they anti-Catholic? Concerning racism, wasn’t much of the northern faction of the Know Nothings anti-slavery (so strange to emphasize racism in the Tea Party then compare it to Know Nothings)? Are Tea Partiers predominantly anti-immigration as were the Know Nothings, or are they against illegal immigration as are most Americans? Does the Tea Party want repeal of the naturalization laws?

I ran across your post accidentally–was surprised it filtered out into web-space. Amazing world we live in. I can see how you can read racism into the signs, or just about anything else in our social and political sphere. Doesn’t mean that what you see is what was intended. I prefer to stick to what is provable, “obvious” rather than what I might consider to be implied.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

I just love poking fun at him it’s amusing to watch him ramble on thinking we (well I’m not anyway) reading any of his bullcrap.

So then you won't be replying to this (yay!!), as you've replied with bullcrap to many of my other posts that you didn't read.

[Got Stripers]

Tell him what he has won Vanna!

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

Tell him what he has won Vanna!

A bull crap post by Got Stripers! Yay!!

[Pete F.]

Look at what the con man is saying now

Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution - Title 18 US Code 1073: Trump suggests he'd leave the country if he loses to Biden
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Look at what the con man is saying now

Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution - Title 18 US Code 1073: Trump suggests he'd leave the country if he loses to Biden
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Still waiting for all those people to leave who said they would if Trump won.

[RickBomba]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

Tell him what he has won Vanna!

Ooh, I know...it’s a My Little Pony crappie rod.

Aren’t there panfish sites you should be “trolling” instead of this one.

Some people just don’t belong...
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by RickBomba

Ooh, I know...it’s a My Little Pony crappie rod.

Aren’t there panfish sites you should be “trolling” instead of this one.

Some people just don’t belong...
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

The ignore button is a very effective way of erasing me.