The Mental and Moral Health of "Royalty"

Weird about royalty now - they need not do a single thing to be alive. Their lives are never in their own hands. They live an entire celebrity life without having to do a thing to earn it, or be worth it. How can the Brits stand to be associated with these people? Powers corrupts etcetera.

https://spectator.us/prince-andrew-bbc-interview-jeffrey-epstein/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/17/the-guardian-view-on-prince-andrew-entitled-obtuse-and-shamefully-silent-over-epstein-victims

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/17/prince-andrew-abuse-emily-maitlis-queen

Rule of Law. Not.

It’s not just Clinton at risk here: Top aides such as Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were also clearly involved in the improper handling of the nation’s secrets. Indeed, the FBI’s reportedly looking into whether aides traded passwords to illegally move info from classified servers to the private system.

We already know that more than 2,000 Clinton emails contained classified information, including dozens with the most confidential stuff. At issue is who’ll take the fall for improper handling of the secrets.

Be glad the FBI’s on the case. The State Department has announced that its investigation won’t wrap up ’til after Election Day.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/03/the-fbis-hillary-probe-closes-in-on-a-political-crisis/

Controlling the Past | National Review Online

What is the law? What is the relationship between law and good intentions?

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/383780/controlling-past-charles-c-w-cooke

'He who controls the past controls the future," observed George Orwell. "He who controls the present controls the past." This, in one pithy, symmetrical little maxim, has been the story of Obamacare from its conception to the present day.

Watergate and the Abuse of Power: A Lesson Unlearned | The Fiscal Times

In this case, I think it's Obama's desire to show his own, and big government's, competency that is driving his willing to act in ways that corrupt the office.

"The New York Times' Ross Douthat called it "Caesarism," but most call it an abuse of presidential authority. In our constitutional system, Congress passes laws and the executive branch enforces them.  Even in agency law, where those powers are shared to a certain degree, the executive cannot exceed the grant of authority from Congress, as the Supreme Court just reminded the EPA in June. A stalemated Congress "doesn't grant the President license to tear up the Constitution," The Washington Post editorial board warned this week. 

"Taxes are another area in which Obama supporters are urging "Caesarism," and sometimes worse. The byzantine and burdensome US corporate tax system has prompted a wave of "inversions," where corporations relocate overseas in acquisitions and mergers to avoid paying taxes in America. Obama began warning that this violated his sense of "economic patriotism," saying, "I don't care if it's legal" – which is exactly what the executive in the constitutional model should care about. 

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2014/08/07/Watergate-and-Abuse-Power-Lesson-Unlearned

JFK, a presidency on a pedestal - latimes.com

Still, it's remarkable that Kennedy's iconic stature in the eyes of most Americans has weathered half a century of assaults, some of them from his own archives, as the less savory side of Camelot has slowly come to light.

We've learned the details of his relentless womanizing, which extended to plying a 19-year-old White House intern with daiquiris and then having sex with her.

We've learned more about the perilous health of a man who in 1960 declared himself "the healthiest candidate for president," including that he had Addison's disease, a serious disorder of the adrenal gland, and that he relied on cocktails of painkillers injected by his physicians.

And we've learned that historians don't think Kennedy was such a great president. As early as 1973, Harvard's Richard Neustadt, who was not only a Kennedy fan but an occasional advisor, concluded sadly that JFK's tenure had been undistinguished.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mcmanus-column-kennedy-legacy-20131117,0,7425100.column#axzz2kobu2eda

Dan Walters: Activist government spawns corruption opportunities - Dan Walters - The Sacramento Bee

The situation was encapsulated in a memo that a coastal land lobbyist wrote to a group of Southern California landowners, describing the increase in value that their holdings would enjoy from a coastal zone exemption and itemizing how much money it would take in lobbying fees and campaign checks to get such a bill through the Legislature.

What happened on coastal land regulation was a perfect illustration of what one might call the dark side of governmental activism. A new regulatory mechanism, a new tax break, or a new subsidy – all with supposedly benign motives – also create new incentives for those affected to employ lobbyists, campaign contributions and other forms of political persuasion.

We have seen it not only with coastal regulation, but with "enterprise zones," with "redevelopment," and with countless tax breaks of various kinds.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/17/5919451/dan-walters-activist-government.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/17/5919451/dan-walters-activist-government.html

Dr. Williams on the Blue Model

"Detroit's social pathology is seen in other cities with large black populations such as Philadelphia, Newark, Baltimore and Chicago. These are cities where blacks have for years dominated the political machinery in the forms of mayors, police chiefs, superintendents of schools and city councilmen, plus they've been Democrats. It's safe to conclude that the focus on political power doesn't do much for ordinary blacks."
http://washingtonexaminer.com/walter-williams-one-hundred-percent-of-not
hing/article/2516328

It's easy to see how a minority group that suffered at the hands of the government might conclude that the secret to success to gain power over the same government that was the agent of oppression. However, the same corrupting effect that led the majority to use government to do evil has corrupted those minority leaders who seized power with the idea of helping those like them. Power corrupts.

Inequality Of POWER

"The other big feature of the egalitarian left is promotion of a huge inequality of power, while deploring economic inequality.
"It is no coincidence that those who are going ballistic over the economic inequality between the top one or two percent and the rest of us are promoting a far more dangerous concentration of political power in Washington-- where far less than one percent of the population increasingly tell 300 million Americans what they can and cannot do, on everything from their light bulbs and toilets to their medical care."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/12/18/forward_to_the_past
___116450.html

Never Fails to Interest

Never fails to interest those of us on the outside when we see folks doing monumentally stupid things and getting the hammer for it.  This is the "Bathsheba Syndrome" - leaders gain so much confidence in their ability to control events that they think they can do whatever they want.  It's happened to a lot of talented folks.  The first clue should be - "how come I have to lie to the most important people in my life to feel the way I want to feel?"  If you can't catch yourself by asking that question you won't be able to control what happens after that, either. 

Rob Roy's memorable quote in the movie by that name was "honor is a man's gift to himself.  Kings cannot give it and king's cannot take it away."  To guard your own honor, on should follow that thought with "Humility is a man's gift to himself.  It gives us a chance to not throw away what is invaluable for those bright shiny things that we already know won't make us happy." 

I'm no genius. I have made that very clear over the years, usually by accident. And I had no idea that Bobby Petrino may have been sleeping with a young Arkansas fundraiser named Jessica Dorrell. Nor do I really care.
But if we were playing a game, and you asked me to guess which major-college coach hired his mistress to work with his football program, got in a motorcycle accident with her on board, then lied to his bosses about the relationship, I could have guessed "Bobby Petrino" faster than it takes him to print out his resume, and I probably could have gone for the bonus points and guessed the woman was a blonde.


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/michael_rosenberg/04/10/guillen.petrino/index.html#ixzz1rkkAq6ql