How to Humble the Kritarchy

In 2021, when Trump wins re-election and Republicans re-take the House, they need to bring the Federal judiciary to heel.

The Kritarchy has been grossly overreaching its authority for decades, but ever since Trump was elected, it has gone completely out of control. Neil Gorsuch has mildly criticized the practice of nationwide injunctions, but he did not go far enough. And as much as I would like to see these "Hawaiian" judges impeached, there is an even better way.

You see, there is a very basic problem, which is that sub-SCOTUS Federal judges are pretending to be co-equal with Congress and the Preisdent. They are not. It is an evil lie.

In the Federal judiciary, only the SCOTUS was created by the U.S. Constitution; the rest was created by Congressional statute, and what Congress has made, it can unmake. Even setting aside the possibility of impeachment, all non-SCOTUS Federal judges serve purely at the pleasure of Congress.

Therefore, they are beneath Congress. Therefore, they are also beneath the Executive, which is co-equal with Congress. They are logically at about the same level as Cabinet officials, whose appointments are also confirmed by the Senate.

Thus, there is a very simple way for us to start bring the out-of-control Kritarchy to heel. All we have to do is elect a President and Congress that have the wit and will to unmake a Federal judgeship whenever the holder of that post gets too big for his britches and steps out of bounds.

In 2021, Trump and a simple majority in the House and Senate can pass legislation that does a targeted elimination of all of the posts held by non-SCOTUS judges that have issued nationwide injuctions, then pass a new law creating even more posts (since it is commonly believed that they are overworked and we need more anyway).

This would, I believe, put an end to the evil practice for good.

When 75 Cents Was Worth a Dollar

This is a story from roughly a quarter of a century ago, back when I was in college and living in the dorms. The washers and driers were coin-operated, specifically three quarters apiece. Now I was there on academic scholarships, but surrounded by lots of scions of the UMC. So I was careful to save up my quarters, and they were not so much.

Eventually it became known that I always had quarters, and people started coming to me for them. This started to impact my ability to have enough quarters for myself, so -- having taken Intro to Economics -- I did the logical thing to discourage a behavior and started charging more for it; to be precise, I began charging a dollar per three quarters.

This went on for awhile until I was suckered by a sob story and sold a guy some quarters at face value. Then the next time he wanted to buy quarters, I naturally wasn't going to believe that he couldn't manage to scrape six quarters together in all that time. I wasn't going to fall for his con again.

But he wouldn't take no for an answer, He argued and argued and argued and ar- ar- ARRGH!! I finally blew my top and vowed no more quarters for anyone. And I made sure to let all of my disappointed regulars know exactly who to blame.

So that is my story about when 75 cents was worth a dollar, until eventually the aggravation of dealing with assholes made even a 33.3% surcharge not enough to make it worth my while. And all the people who had loudly declared that I was ripping them off? Yeah, they were mad as heck that I wouldn't do it anymore. Go figure.

What was the point of the Richmond 2A protest?

I keep saying that there is nothing interesting in politics lately, but then I consider that technically, there was a massive protest in the Virginia capitol yesterday. Thousands of people, many of them heavily armed. But what was the point?

They were appealing to an unamenable authority. From where I’m standing, it looked like a silly and pointless LARP. A cargo cult of the Civil Rights Movement. Boomers and Millenials all caught up in the theater and pageantry, without any understanding of how things actually work.

Am I wrong? Did they actually accomplish something beyond good feelz?

I Love a Good Hate-Review

There still isn’t really anything very interesting going on in politics. The most interesting thing is what didn’t happen, due to how the DNC has shut out all of their most interesting presidential candidates from the joint press conferences that they call “debates”. Active military chick, successful entrepreneur guy, devout New Age chick, and fiercely heterosexual guy are all out. But I find it hard to care about a counter-factual.

So! Let’s talk about hate-reviews. The apotheosis of the genre is, of course, Willamette Week’s 2012 review of “The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best.” Sample paragraph:

Through a series of serendipitous events, Alex finds himself on tour with Jim (Michael Weston), a songwriter with a fetish for toy instruments. On the car ride to its first gig, the duo hatches its sound, later described as "the Shins meet Sesame Street." The movie treats this as a novel creation, ignoring that half the indie-pop bands of the past few years could be described the same way. Nevertheless, wherever the group performs—a bar, a rooftop, a Revenge of the Nerds-style frat house—the crowds sway in approving unison. One woman, a pouty blonde named Cassidy (actress-model Arielle Kebbel, unconvincing as a Pennsylvania club promoter despite her totally rock-'n'-roll nose ring), is so impressed she joins them on the road. She and O'Nan eventually fuck, because everyone knows morose losers who can't get over their girlfriends are irresistible to Maxim pinups.

Seriously, read the whole thing. They gave it a D when they normalized all the ratings to an A-to-F scale, but as I recall it was originally something like 10 out of 100. It's really an F.

Please share your own favorite hate-reviews in the comments!