Litmus! Litmus! Litmus!
I was in my teens when I noticed that the only time the phrase "litmus test" gets used is when a liberal/Democrat accuses a conservative/Republican of making a judge's abortion views the determining factor on whether or not he or she will vote to approve that judge's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today is the precise midway point between my 45th and 50th birthdays, and nothing has changed.
The amusing thing is that liberals/Democrats use litmus tests all the freakin' time, for every issue under the sun, and they absolutely use 'em the most when it comes to making a judge's abortion views the determining factor on whether or not he or she will vote to approve that judge's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Apparently their guiding "philosophy" is "litmus tests are fine for me but not for thee," if you don't mind me switching up Nat Hentoff's great book title.
Because Brett Kavanagh has been nominated to the Supreme Court seat vacated by Anthony Kennedy, and the president who did the nominating is a Republican, get ready to hear lots of shrieking by Democrat pols and liberal pundits about Kavanagh's views on abortion. Just don't forget that all that shrieking is one big fat litmus test in and of itself.
And the funny thing is...
...if a judge is a good judge, his or her views about abortion or any other issue are one hundred percent irrelevant, because judges, including Supreme Court justices, neither write laws nor pass them. They merely apply laws that have already been written by the legislative branch and signed off on by the executive. In so doing, judges are also supposed to rule on whether a particular law is allowed by the U.S. Constitution, assuming that a question regarding its constitutionality is why the case was brought to them.
Put another way, even if a judge thinks a particular law is bad or even evil, he must enforce it anyway unless it violates the Constitution. And good judges do enforce it anyway, because to do otherwise would violate their oath. In fact, history is filled with examples of so-called "conservative judges" doing exactly that, but history is not filled with examples ofso-called "liberal" judges liberal judges doing exactly that, or even doing anything similar to that.
Liberal judges mistake themselves for legislators, because like all liberals, they are liberals first and everything else twentieth. Liberal judges base their rulings on liberalism instead of the law; and they base their beliefs about the Constitution on liberalism instead of the actual, you know, Constitution.
In other words, they act not like judges but like legislators, and since federal judges are not elected, liberal federal judges function as the most dangerous kind of legislators -- the kind who do not have to face the voters, and have no reason to fear recrimination and no reason to think they should compromise. In other words, they act like dictators, which, at the end of the day, is what every leftist truly is in his or her heart.
The Constitution -- which separates federal power between three distinct branches and assigns law-making powers not to judges (the judicial branch) but to legislators (the legislative branch) -- does not give liberal judges license to do what they do, even though they do what they do regardless.
What liberals refuse to abide is the idea of judges doing their actual job instead of doing what liberals prefer that job to be. Which goes to show that the following headline to a recent David Harsanyi column is absolutely correct: "Democrats Don't Fear Brett Kavanagh; They Fear The Constitution."
Mueller? Mueller?
Maybe there is something... maybe... something... to yesterday's media-ballyhooed indictments of Russian interests by the morally upright and impeccably objective (yes, I'm jesting) Robert Shawn Mueller III. But color me skeptical not only of that, but a thousand times skeptical of the bullshit notion that liberals have a problem with Mother Russia.
Did "the Russians" try to influence our election? Of course they did. Like I wrote 18 months ago: "Those who control Russia's government have been a devious and manipulative bunch for at least one full century... Ever since, oh, let's say about November of 1917, American liberals (not all of whom are/were Democrats) have been deeply in love with Russian totalitarianism, so much so that they even thought ol' Adolf Hitler was the bee's knees until he stopped being an ally of their beloved Soviet Union... In 1983, the famous Democratic Senator Teddy Chappaquidick Kennedy flat out asked the Soviets tomeddle in America's 1984 election help Democrats in their efforts to defeat Ronald Reagan the following year."
I don't doubt that "the Russians" hacked members of the Clinton Campaign, Democratic National Committee, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But I also have a brain that possesses this handy dandy thing called a memory, and I remember it previously being reported that "the Russians" tried to hack Republicans -- but failed because the Republicans were responsible enough to use strong security protection that prevented the hacking from working (and also because Republicans weren't as careless and idiotic as Clinton confidante John Podesta, who used "password" as his password and stupidly gave it to phishers).
Donald Trump has been a thousand times tougher on Russia than Hillary Clinton was as Secretary of State, and than Barack Obama was as president, and than Bill Clinton was as president, and it's not at all clear that he has been softer on Russia than George W. Bush was. If you want to convince me that Putin preferred a Trump victory to a Hillary victory, you need to give a coherent reason why he would want that when Hillary had always bowed to his wishes (see "reset button") and she was susceptible to blackmail (he had her emails) and she belonged to a party that has always genuflected to the Kremlin and wished our government was more like Russia's.
Miscellany
This being Bastille Day -- the 229th anniversary of the event that triggered the French Revolution, which Margaret Thatcher rightly denigrated -- I feel compelled to refer you to the most definitive analysis ever written of that revolution, published 18 years ago today by Jonah Goldberg.
Speaking of Goldberg, I have to mention that he (who has been frequently tarred as a "Never Trumper") recently coined an awesome new term to describe particular people: "Always Trumpers." Believe it or not, people, some of us are able to consider each of our 45th president's actions on its own merits (and in the context of his overall body of work) and offer opinions that do not amount to leaping to conclusions and marching in lockstep with people we've never met. Goldberg is a shining example of such genuine thinking.
But I am getting tired of opining about politics, so let me switch to sports by saying I am sad that Belgium defeated England in the World Cup. Not that I give a crap about soccer, which I proudly and proactively dislike. I just wanted to see the symbolic power of Brexit-era England defeating a nation whose capitol city is the seat of the EU.
Wait a minute? Did I just stick with politics while pretending to switch to sports? Damn it!
I really do want to stop opining about politics, however, so I guess I'll just stop opining altogether.
Until next time, time care!
The amusing thing is that liberals/Democrats use litmus tests all the freakin' time, for every issue under the sun, and they absolutely use 'em the most when it comes to making a judge's abortion views the determining factor on whether or not he or she will vote to approve that judge's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Apparently their guiding "philosophy" is "litmus tests are fine for me but not for thee," if you don't mind me switching up Nat Hentoff's great book title.
Because Brett Kavanagh has been nominated to the Supreme Court seat vacated by Anthony Kennedy, and the president who did the nominating is a Republican, get ready to hear lots of shrieking by Democrat pols and liberal pundits about Kavanagh's views on abortion. Just don't forget that all that shrieking is one big fat litmus test in and of itself.
And the funny thing is...
...if a judge is a good judge, his or her views about abortion or any other issue are one hundred percent irrelevant, because judges, including Supreme Court justices, neither write laws nor pass them. They merely apply laws that have already been written by the legislative branch and signed off on by the executive. In so doing, judges are also supposed to rule on whether a particular law is allowed by the U.S. Constitution, assuming that a question regarding its constitutionality is why the case was brought to them.
Put another way, even if a judge thinks a particular law is bad or even evil, he must enforce it anyway unless it violates the Constitution. And good judges do enforce it anyway, because to do otherwise would violate their oath. In fact, history is filled with examples of so-called "conservative judges" doing exactly that, but history is not filled with examples of
Liberal judges mistake themselves for legislators, because like all liberals, they are liberals first and everything else twentieth. Liberal judges base their rulings on liberalism instead of the law; and they base their beliefs about the Constitution on liberalism instead of the actual, you know, Constitution.
In other words, they act not like judges but like legislators, and since federal judges are not elected, liberal federal judges function as the most dangerous kind of legislators -- the kind who do not have to face the voters, and have no reason to fear recrimination and no reason to think they should compromise. In other words, they act like dictators, which, at the end of the day, is what every leftist truly is in his or her heart.
The Constitution -- which separates federal power between three distinct branches and assigns law-making powers not to judges (the judicial branch) but to legislators (the legislative branch) -- does not give liberal judges license to do what they do, even though they do what they do regardless.
What liberals refuse to abide is the idea of judges doing their actual job instead of doing what liberals prefer that job to be. Which goes to show that the following headline to a recent David Harsanyi column is absolutely correct: "Democrats Don't Fear Brett Kavanagh; They Fear The Constitution."
Mueller? Mueller?
Maybe there is something... maybe... something... to yesterday's media-ballyhooed indictments of Russian interests by the morally upright and impeccably objective (yes, I'm jesting) Robert Shawn Mueller III. But color me skeptical not only of that, but a thousand times skeptical of the bullshit notion that liberals have a problem with Mother Russia.
Did "the Russians" try to influence our election? Of course they did. Like I wrote 18 months ago: "Those who control Russia's government have been a devious and manipulative bunch for at least one full century... Ever since, oh, let's say about November of 1917, American liberals (not all of whom are/were Democrats) have been deeply in love with Russian totalitarianism, so much so that they even thought ol' Adolf Hitler was the bee's knees until he stopped being an ally of their beloved Soviet Union... In 1983, the famous Democratic Senator Teddy Chappaquidick Kennedy flat out asked the Soviets to
I don't doubt that "the Russians" hacked members of the Clinton Campaign, Democratic National Committee, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But I also have a brain that possesses this handy dandy thing called a memory, and I remember it previously being reported that "the Russians" tried to hack Republicans -- but failed because the Republicans were responsible enough to use strong security protection that prevented the hacking from working (and also because Republicans weren't as careless and idiotic as Clinton confidante John Podesta, who used "password" as his password and stupidly gave it to phishers).
Donald Trump has been a thousand times tougher on Russia than Hillary Clinton was as Secretary of State, and than Barack Obama was as president, and than Bill Clinton was as president, and it's not at all clear that he has been softer on Russia than George W. Bush was. If you want to convince me that Putin preferred a Trump victory to a Hillary victory, you need to give a coherent reason why he would want that when Hillary had always bowed to his wishes (see "reset button") and she was susceptible to blackmail (he had her emails) and she belonged to a party that has always genuflected to the Kremlin and wished our government was more like Russia's.
Miscellany
This being Bastille Day -- the 229th anniversary of the event that triggered the French Revolution, which Margaret Thatcher rightly denigrated -- I feel compelled to refer you to the most definitive analysis ever written of that revolution, published 18 years ago today by Jonah Goldberg.
Speaking of Goldberg, I have to mention that he (who has been frequently tarred as a "Never Trumper") recently coined an awesome new term to describe particular people: "Always Trumpers." Believe it or not, people, some of us are able to consider each of our 45th president's actions on its own merits (and in the context of his overall body of work) and offer opinions that do not amount to leaping to conclusions and marching in lockstep with people we've never met. Goldberg is a shining example of such genuine thinking.
But I am getting tired of opining about politics, so let me switch to sports by saying I am sad that Belgium defeated England in the World Cup. Not that I give a crap about soccer, which I proudly and proactively dislike. I just wanted to see the symbolic power of Brexit-era England defeating a nation whose capitol city is the seat of the EU.
Wait a minute? Did I just stick with politics while pretending to switch to sports? Damn it!
I really do want to stop opining about politics, however, so I guess I'll just stop opining altogether.
Until next time, time care!
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