Category Archives: 2016 presidential campaign
Christie and The Donald
New Jersey tough guy Governor Chris Christie was once smitten with President Obama. But now that’s all water under the bridge. He left the president’s warm embrace for Donald Trump.
Christie and The Donald appeared on stage together last night at Trump’s victory press conference. The governor introduced his new boss as “Mr. Trump“.
Siri Spy
Apple doesn’t want to let Siri spy on you.
The Guardian reports, “When Apple announced in 2014 that it would no longer be able to break into its iPhones even under a court order, law enforcement agencies reacted with rage.”
The government is citing the All Writs Act of 1789 to force Apple to write code to open the iPhone of a dead San Bernardino terrorist.
Wired quotes Nate Cardozo of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation saying,”The FBI “chose this case very carefully”. The feds want backdoors built into devices so they can access information. He thinks this is the “perfect case” to push for “backdoor” legislation.
Siri Spy
Apple says that courts recognize computer code as a form of speech. Compelling the company to make speech against its will could be a first amendment violation.
Apple asks, “what’s to prevent the government from forcing a computer company to write code to turn on the microphone, or the camera to spy on a suspect?”
Nilay Patel explains the legal case in The Verge. He thinks it will go to the Supreme Court.
Cruz Anger Management
The anger vote is yuuuge and Ted Cruz wanted to own it. He’s smart. He knew that voters hate Washington so he decided to make everyone in Washington hate him. It worked.
Cruz sowed the seeds of rage when he gave a 21 hour speech on the Senate floor September 2013. He demanded that Obamacare be defunded. Obama refused to defund Obamacare and the government shut down. The Republican “establishment” got blamed.
Cruz planned to ride the anger vote to the nomination. It was a brilliant plan until, as Henninger says, “Trump stole the whole thing.”
Senator Cruz, the self-designed outsider, is getting killed by the outsider form hell.
Living Breathing Constitution
Scalia once said, “The constitution is not an organism. It’s a legal text.” He didn’t believe in a living breathing constitution. Obama does.
Alive or dead, the constitution gives Obama the right to appoint a successor to Scalia. It also gives the Senate the right to ignore him or turn him down. Obama agreed with that back when he was opposed to executive overreach. As a senator, he called Alito un-American and filibustered Bush’s appointment of him.
At the time, Obama told ABC News that he supported the filibuster”because I think Judge Alito, in fact, is somebody who is contrary to core American values, not just liberal values.” Obama said the court needed to “provide some check on the executive branch, and he has not shown himself willing to do that repeatedly.”
Could be a campaign theme. Here’s Joe Biden with the 2012 campaign theme.
High Stakes Supreme Court Seats
The next president could fill three Supreme Court seats. Daniel Henninger in the WSJ says Scalia’s death has raised the stakes of the election. He expects it to “concentrate the mind”. “The great sobering up has begun,” he says.
