David McElroy

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is outraged that his minions closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge in order to cause problems in the city of one of his political enemies. That’s what he’s saying right now, and we all know that a politician wouldn’t lie.

I’d like to remind you that this is nothing but politics as usual. Whether Christie knew about it or not — and I’m betting he did — this is just the way the game of politics is played.

Christie is facing political heat because of disclosure by the Bergen Record that his underlings — including a man who went to high school with him — participated in a plan to cause traffic problems for Fort Lee, N.J., purely because of political differences with the city’s mayor. The newspaper obtained a cache of emails and text messages exchanged between the various people involved in the plan.

On Aug. 13, Bridget Anne Kelly, who is one of three deputy chiefs of staff for Christie, sent an email to David Wildstein, who is considered Christie’s “eyes and ears at the Port Authority.” In that message, Kelly said, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Wildstein clearly understood the message, as he simply responded with, “Got it.” Wildstein is a longtime political operative in New Jersey and went to high school with Christie.

On a subsequent morning, the Port Authority closed certain lanes on the George Washington Bridge without announcement or explanation during morning rush-hour for four days.

Keep Reading

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I’m sure they’re useful for some people, but they don’t make any difference to me. I think I’ve finally figured out why.

Resolutions seem to focus on a desired outcome or behavior rather than the reason behind the behavior. Just wanting to change your outcomes isn’t enough. You have to change your decisions that have produced the outcomes you’re trying to eliminate.

I find it really easy to list the obvious things I’d like to change about myself. I’d like to drop the weight that I’ve gained in the last five years. I’d like to move to a home I like better and is more suited to me. I’d like to make more money and do work that’s fulfilling. I’d like to keep my house cleaner. I’d like to have a romantic relationship that I’m happy with and is emotionally healthy. I’d like to find the motivation to complete the film projects I’ve been working on.

This isn’t rocket science. I can make a nice list of them. I can even promise that I’m going to do them all. But that doesn’t work for me. That approach also doesn’t seem to work for others. Why not?

I think it’s because we fail to look at the reasons we do the things we do.

It doesn’t do me a bit of good to swear I’m going to use willpower to force myself to quit eating sweets and exercise more unless I look at why I’ve made the behavioral decisions that led me to gain weight. It doesn’t do me any good to resolve to make more money unless I ask myself why I’ve done the things I’ve done in the last decade that have led me to squander my talent and opportunities. And so forth.

Keep Reading

How many times have people told us that we should put our faith in the Constitution, because it’s there to protect our rights? Originalists tell us that the document is sacred. Progressives say it’s a “living document,” whatever they think that means this week. They both claim the Constitution protects us.

But time after time, we’ve seen that the Constitution can’t do the job it’s supposed to do — that of limiting the politicians who claim power over us. The document was carefully constructed to grant very narrow power to the federal government. And if anybody missed the intent, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were added to make is clear that the government has no powers which aren’t specifically granted in it. Those amendments make it clear that the states and the people themselves retain any powers not given to the federal government.

How much more clear could that have been?

Has that stopped politicians from controlling both states and individuals? No. Congress invents whatever law it wants, justifying those laws in ways that would have confused and angered the men who wrote the document. The people of the executive branch routinely make up their own versions of laws, claiming vague power that Congress has theoretically given to them, but which violate the text and intent of the Constitution.

And the judges of the judicial branch routinely give us rulings that ignore the text and intent of the document — and which pander to the political need of the day.

The latest example of this is the ruling by a New York federal judge Friday that the NSA is perfectly free to collect pretty much any information that it wants to collect about Americans. Even though the NSA’s snooping is a clear violation of the intent of the Constitution, the judge says it’s fine because the government needs to fight terrorism. (A different judge issued an entirely different ruling earlier this month.)

Keep Reading