Coyote Blog

Why so few posts?  Because the current political environment is exhausting.  On many issues the major players are half right and half wrong, but no one wants to hear that.  The crowds are either all-in on Trump or all-in on the opposition and trying to point out nuance is both unwelcome and more time-consuming than the news cycle allows.  A few examples:

• On immigration, I think the sane majority would like to see bad actors and gang-bangers sent back to their home countries, but have little stomach for uprooting the 10-year resident construction laborer and his family in the middle of the night and sending them away.  Trump wants to send them all away, even the peaceful and productive.  Sanctuary cities like LA want to protect everyone, even the violent gang-bangers.
• With universities like Harvard, it is long past time to enforce some discipline on spending and stop knuckling under the the "its all science, go away peons" elitism.  But institutions like Harvard still contribute a lot to this country and Trump's actions often smack of vendetta rather than thoughtful policy.
• Everyone with a uniform opinion that court injunctions of the Trump administration are universally correct or universally wrong are all misguided.  It is a total mixed bag.  Trump, as with tariffs, has grossly overstepped his statutory authority and IMO it was correct to stop him.  In other areas, like laying off administration employees, it is astounding to me that the judiciary can be of the opinion he can't fire anyone.

A few other thoughts before I likely join the ostrich party and stick my head in the sand and ignore this all:

• I have written for years that I do not understand why well-meaning folks on the Left do not devote more time to government efficiency and spending issues.  For a couple of reasons.  First, every bit of waste is money that could have been spent towards policy goals.  Second, waste undermines public support for the type of programs (eg SNAP) that they support. For years the grandfather of DOGE was William Proxmire, a Democrat from the Wisconsin progressive tradition.  But there seems to be zero interest on the Left in spending accountability, as demonstrated by the huge opposition to DOGE.
• Both parties are violating coyote's law, establishing precedents the WILL NOT LIKE when the other party uses them.  R's played the find-a-judge game a bit in the Biden administration but you can be sure they will be all-in on the game next D administration.  And of course Trump is establishing Presidential power precedents that the next D president will LOVE to use.
• National injunctions are generally ridiculous and need to be reformed.  I say this having benefitted from several in my business life.  I am out of my business but for years under Obama and Biden the Administrations kept imposing minimum wages on recreation concessionaires that ended up being enjoined for years and years, only to be allowed when they finally had their day in court (and overturned a few months later by a Trump EO).
• In my mind there is no nuance -- Trump is all wrong on tariffs.  They are bad even if other countries have high tariffs on us.

The whole Guantanamo issue has to be one of the great bait and switches of our time.  The fundamental human rights abuse was always the notion that civilians could be seized by the US Government and held, as they say in Britain, at the President's pleasure  (ie as long as the Administration wants, up to and including forever).

Somehow, this whole issue got perverted into a debate about Gitmo, rather than detentions per se.  I warned any number of times that if we kept focusing on merely the location of detention, rather than detention itself, it would give the government cover to close the facility and declare victory, while continuing the abusive practice of indefinite detention.

Unfortunately, I was right, both in this fear and my fear that Obama, once give presidential power, would be reluctant to eschew it.

Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

Unsurprisingly, after talking about various approaches for Congressional or Judicial oversight of Administration detention decisions, the Administration has apparently dropped plans for this.  Even the "security courts" of which I have always been suspicious (I always picture a jury full of TSA airport security screeners) have been ruled out by Obama.  We are back to the Bush doctrine of detention at the President's pleasure.

While I find the torture recommendations in John Yoo's memos awful, they worry me less than the general assumptions embodied in them about presidential power.  After all, the issue of allowable tortures is a narrow issue that can be dealt with efficiently through Congressional legislation, and is almost certainly something to be disavowed by the next administration.

Based on historical precedent, what is less likely to be disavowed by the next administration are the broader definitions of presidential power adopted by GWB.  It is in this enhanced theory of presidential power where the real risk to the nation exists, and, unfortunately, there are all too few examples since George Washington's declining to run for office a third time of president's eschewing power.  Already, folks on the left are crafting theories around using the imperial presidency to address their favored issues, such as the University of Colorado's proposal for implementing greenhouse gas controls by executive fiat.

From Megan McArdle:

People are so wrapped up in their own irrational bundles of ideas that they seem unable to conceive of any bundle that isn't

a)  theirs

b)  the exact opposite of theirs

It just floors me when people want to argue that the current conservative/liberal or Democrat/Republican positions are internally consistent and the logical (or even only) way to parse the world of ideas.  Particularly when I can start naming so many issues where the two sides have swapped positions over the last few years.  For example, left/right opinions on unchecked presidential power tend to have a lot to do with whose guy is in office.  Bill Clinton proposed most of the Patriot act  as his anti-terrorism bill way back in the mid-nineties, and was opposed in Congress by Republicans led by John Ashcroft.