Monday roundup

National security advisor H.R. McMaster had a terse response when asked why the USS Carl Vinson airstrike carrier group had been suddenly pulled from what it had been doing to head to the waters near the Korean Peninsula, but it spoke volumes:

Then, almost as an afterthought, final question, McMaster was asked [by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday] why the president was sending the entire Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group to waters off the Korean Peninsula. Taylor Millard wrote of the announcement here.

“Well,” said McMaster, “It’s prudent to do it, isn’t it?”

45 killed and over 100 injured in ISIS bombings of Christian churches in Fanta and Alexandria in Egypt.

The can of worms opened by the Obergefell v. Hodges SCOTUS decision is exactly why that living-Constitution hooey is so dangerous, as explained by Howard Slugh at NRO:

Does the Constitution grant individuals a judicially enforceable right to order the government to combat climate change? Does it contain a right to engage in “BDSM sexual activity”? What about a right to assisted suicide? Unfortunately, these are no longer fanciful hypotheticals. Thanks to Justice Kennedy, cases alleging such rights are currently being litigated and are coming soon to a courthouse near you.

The names of the cases to which Slugh refers are, respectively, Juliana v. Unites States,  Doe v. Rector & Visitors of George Mason University, and Morris v. Brandenburg. Keep an eye on them. There's a good chance they will be treated differently than they would have been in the days when Washington v. Glucksberg (in which a decision written by then-Chief Justice Rehnquist found that assisted suicide was not covered by the equal-protection clause of the 14th amendment) held sway:

In Obergfell, Justice Kennedy did far more than merely discover a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. He wrote that judges have an ongoing “duty” to identify and protect new “fundamental rights.” He maintained that judges should institute new rights whenever their “reasoned judgment” suggests that it is appropriate to do so.

Previously, a Supreme Court precedent titled Washington v. Glucksberg held that judges could recognize constitutional rights only if they were “deeply rooted in” American “history and tradition.” Justice Kennedy dismissed this standard as unduly constraining judges’ power. 

Mulvaney is set to rock and roll:

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is reportedly slated to send a letter to federal agencies later this week warning them to prep for substantial budget cuts.

The guidance letter falls in line with President Donald Trump’s March 13 executive order aimed at making the government leaner and more efficient, Axios first reported.

The order called on Mulvaney, a staunch fiscal conservative and former member of the House Freedom Caucus, to “propose a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies (as defined in section 551(1) of title 5, United States Code), components of agencies, and agency programs.”

Trump’s budget called for historic cuts to a number of agencies — including a 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency, a 28 percent cut to the State Department and a 17.9 percent cut to the Department of Health and Human Services. While a number of the departments’ budgets would be slashed, the Department of Defense would see a 10 percent boost in spending.

As I always say, if it ain't in Mr. Madison's document, the federal government should not be involved in it.

Campus jackboots are at it again, shutting down a speech by the Manhattan Institute's Heather MacDonald at Claremont Colleges.