Deregulator: Alive since '85!

Shutterstock image I was going to write a full post on the impeachment trial, but I can’t. It’s too dispiriting and infuriating. Besides, other people who know more stuff than me have smarter things to say. Recommendations at the end of this post. I’ll delve into a question I got: Is the impeachment trial constitutional? Short answer: yes, because a majority of senators said it is. They set the rules. Longer answer: yes, because, as these constitutional scholars explain in a Jan. 21  letter , the Constitution doesn’t give public officials a free pass if they commit impeachable offenses on their way out the door.  From the letter: If an official could only be disqualified while he or she still held office, then an official who betrayed the public trust and was impeached could avoid accountability simply by resigning one minute before the Senate’s final conviction vote,” they noted. “The Framers did not design the Constitution’s checks and balances to be so easily undermine...

It’s no longer the  hidden gem  among California winemaking regions, but the Paso Robles area by the Central Coast is my favorite place to visit for reasonably priced big red wines,* outstanding food (tri-tip!!), and stunning scenery. (Some of the best cycling territory anywhere.) For the better part of a decade, before the “ Sideways ” craze spilled north to San Luis Obispo County, I lived only a few hours from Paso. I had the good fortune to have amazing friends who invited my SO at the time and me to crash at their awesome pad in Cambria, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Not far from   Hearst Castle and Big Sur . Good times.  Now the libruls had to ruin it. Well, not Paso Robles, which remains glorious though more congested than it was in the 1990s, but PASO, the acronym for speech that Promotes, Attacks, Supports, or Opposes political candidates. It’s embedded in H.R.1, “For the People,” the 780-plus page election regulation bill that’s a Democratic priority. Democ...

Shutterstock image The Biden administration wants to get people working again. The president and his team are hammering home the argument for more jobs — along with direct payments to people — as they pitch the $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus plan.  While making the Sunday chat show rounds, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen  said  the U.S. economy could reach “full employment” sometime next year if Congress passed the COVID package. Without some government goosing, she said, the Congressional Budget Office  predicts  it’ll be 2024 before “number of people employed returns to its pre-pandemic level.” Biden  made a case  for moving ahead, with or without Republican support, in a Friday meeting. “The best anti-poverty program is a job” may be a cliché, but it’s on point. The challenge Biden and Democrats face is their insistence on imposing new regulations on workers and employers that would impede job growth rather than enable it. One of those obstacles was i...