Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

LinkSwarm for October 5, 2018

Friday, October 5th, 2018

Welcome to the season where ugly monsters in lurid costumes go running around shrieking at the sheer delight at scaring other people. And those are just the Democratic protestors on Capitol Hill!

The Brett Kavanaugh cloture vote today, and the Supreme Court confirmation vote is Saturday. And Kavanaugh links dominate the top of this LinkSwarm:

  • Republicans are fired up after the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, and the Democratic edge for the 2018 midterms has disappeared. Or so says that notorious Republican shill organization, NPR.
  • More on the same subject:

    Let’s say you’re Joe Manchin in West Virginia. What you needed was for this nomination to be uncontroversial, and a sure thing for confirmation. A party-line contested vote the whole country is watching is a nightmare. Why? Because in a red state like the one Manchin represents, the majority will favor confirmation and find it to be a decisive issue in their vote — so Manchin voting against Kavanaugh will set him up to reap the wrath of the voters in a state which went 65 percent for Trump in 2016.

    But it’s worse than that for Manchin, because he doesn’t have a good escape from the Kavanaugh confirmation. You’d say his easy way out is to vote yes, except what the Left has done is to so whip up their voters with the Ford allegations and the copycats who followed that Manchin will lose votes from his own side if he votes to confirm the judge.

    This isn’t a theory, by the way. It’s what the polls show.

  • A new poll finds that 58 percent of voters in West Virginia think Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the Supreme Court following his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
  • The Public Opinion strategies poll commissioned by the Judicial Crisis Network found an overwhelming majority of West Virginians (59 percent) thought Kavanaugh’s testimony was more believable than Christine Blasey Ford, who accused the federal judge of sexually assaulting her more than 35 years ago at a drunken high school party. Those who believe Kavanaugh include 81 percent of Republicans, 43 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Independent voters.

    • Manchin is locked in a dead-heat race against Patrick Morrissey, West Virginia’s Attorney General, and his vote is now going to be the defining issue in that race either way.

    Manchin’s conundrum isn’t unique. Claire McCaskill in Missouri is already a committed no on Kavanaugh, and her troubles have begun as well…

  • A new poll released by The Missouri Scout on Saturday shows that Republican challenger Josh Hawley has taken a two-point lead over Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in the Missouri Senate race just days after she announced she will be voting against the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
  • Hawley leads McCaskill by a margin of 48 percent to 46 percent in the poll conducted by Missouri Scout over two days, from Wednesday, September 26 to Thursday, September 27.
  • McCaskill announced her opposition to Kavanaugh on September 19. The second day of the poll was conducted on the same day Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of attempting to sexually assault her 36 years ago at a time and place she cannot recall and with no corroborating witnesses or evidence, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    The Missouri Scout poll had worse news for the incumbent Democrat — in that what’s driving down her numbers is unquestionably the Kavanaugh vote…

  • Significantly, the poll found that 49 percent of likely voters said the Supreme Court confirmation process for Brett Kavanaugh has made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while only 42 percent said it made them more likely to vote for her.…
  • Among female respondents, 47 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 42 percent said it made them more likely.
  • Among male respondents, 50 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 41 percent said it made them more likely.
  • Among Non-Partisan respondents, 46 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 39 percent said it made them more likely.
  • Among Republican respondents, 85 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 8 percent said it made them more likely.
  • Among Democrat respondents, 82 percent said the confirmation process made them more likely to vote for McCaskill, while 8 percent said it made them less likely.

    • Also, a new poll commissioned by NBC North Dakota News showed the race between Democrat incumbent Heidi Heitkamp and Republican challenger Kevin Cramer has the latter with a commanding 51-41 lead. That poll has the Kavanaugh nomination as the most important (with 21 percent) of nine named issues in the race, with 60 percent of North Dakota voters polled saying they support the judge’s confirmation against only 27 percent opposed. Heitkamp has publicly called herself a “no” vote, which amounts to more or less a surrender in the race. Without North Dakota, there is only a minuscule chance of the Democrats winning control of the Senate.

  • And still more:

    Of all the cohorts measured by the poll (including Independent men and women), Democratic women are the only group to display less enthusiasm for the midterms this week than they did in July. Meanwhile, Republican women seem invigorated. In July, 81 percent of Democratic women said the November elections were very important, compared to 71 percent of Republican women. Now, Republican women are 4 percentage points likelier to view the midterms that way (83 percent to 79 percent). That’s a 14-point swing in female voters’ interest in the midterms—after the hearings, and in Republicans’ favor.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “Will the ‘Brett Bounce’ Unseat Bob Menendez in New Jersey?” Let’s hope so. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Accused doxxer of GOP senators allegedly threatened to publish lawmakers’ children’s health info.” I just can’t imagine why Republicans are so upset with Democrats in congress…

  • And unless Kavanaugh is confirmed, things will get worse:

    There is no circumstance where everyone involved with those norm-breaking steps suddenly wakes up, has a crisis of conscience, and realizes that they were morally wrong. The only way they decide not to take similar steps in the future is if they conclude that those steps are not effective.

    If these sorts of tactics work, we will get more of them. Right now, Kavanaugh could be a squish who wimps out on Roe vs. Wade and I’d still want him on that court, because this isn’t really about him anymore. This is about what kind of proof is needed before you believe a man is a monster. This is about whether decades of respected public and private life can be wiped away by an allegation without supporting witnesses. This is about whether anyone who ever knew you at any chapter of your life can suddenly come forward and paint you as a malevolent deviant of every kind . . . or whether people who never knew you at any chapter of your life can suddenly come forward and paint you as a malevolent deviant of every kind.

  • The Democrats’ war against the presumption of innocence:

    Social justice presumes the guilt of certain people because of their politics, their positions, their races and their genders. It creates different rules for different classes of people with some entitled to an absolute presumption of innocence, even in the face of indisputable guilt, and others forced into an equally absolute presumption of guilt, even in the absence of any indisputable proof of their guilt.

    America cannot operate under two systems of guilt and innocence, one public and one private. If the majority of Americans are to be judged by a system that presumes their guilt, that attitude will inevitably go on to permeate the courtroom. By eroding the presumption of innocence in public life, the left is eroding it as a legal right. Lynch mobs and kangaroo courts can’t be expected to stop at the courthouse door when they are celebrated and operate freely throughout the rest of the land.

    Kavanaugh’s case is about more than the malicious exploitation of the #MeToo movement to destroy a political opponent. It’s the latest assault on the social presumption of innocence by shadowy forces whose ‘scoops’ dominate the media through cut-outs while their sources remain silently invisible.

    If kangaroo courts and media lynch mobs succeed in overturning a Supreme Court appointment, they will have proven that their war on the presumption of innocence extends even to the highest court in the land. If a Supreme Court justice can’t be presumed innocent, what hope do the rest of us have?

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Let’s not put too fine a point on it: Christine Blasey Ford is a liar.

  • China used it’s supply chain to implant a spy chip in many of America’s top companies, including Apple and Amazon. This is why outsourcing so much of your technological infrastructure is a national security issue.
  • Apple and Amazon issue strenuous denials. I’m not sure they could do otherwise, even if the allegation is true, especially since Amazon currently derives the lion’s share of its profits from AWS. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • President Donald Trump’s approval rating hits 50%.
  • Including 35% of blacks. That’s disasterous for Democratic electoral chances. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Theresa May will change her Brexit policy, or the Tories will change their leader.

    Worse than Remain? Well, yes. May’s Brexit proposals — now known as “Chequers,” after the PM’s country house, where they were imposed on a surprised cabinet days after May had personally assured the secretary of state for exiting the EU that she had no such intentions — would effectively keep Britain inside the EU’s single market (i.e., by accepting its current and future regulations) and its customs union, and keep it subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice while forfeiting its votes in all EU institutions.

    Not enough for you? Then ponder this: The London Times has reported that the government is now prepared to cut a deal with the EU that would prevent a post-Brexit U.K. from reaching free-trade deals with other countries such as Australia, Canada, and . . . the United States. Such a deal would breach the reddest of red lines laid down by Theresa May and the Tory party since the 2016 referendum. Yet no one thinks the report is mistaken. And May has continued to say in interviews that final agreement with the EU will require concessions from both sides. But what has May left to concede?

  • More pushback on the Linux SJW-inspired CoC change. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Saudi solar project flops. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • 96 sheriffs endorse Ted Cruz.
  • Austin government needs an independent audit. Naturally the the city power structure is opposed…
  • “Kamala Harris: ‘We Would Apply The Same Fair Standards To Any SCOTUS Nominee Whose Life We Were Trying To Destroy.'”
  • A typeface to help retain memory? There’s just one tiny problem…

  • First edition of The Wealth of Nations to be auctioned.
  • “Bottle of whisky sold for world record £848,000.”
  • “Swedish road covered in herring after elk accident.”
  • Happy birthday, Wallace Stevens.

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas | No Comments »

    Kavanaugh Kavanaugh Kavanaugh Kavanaugh

    Monday, October 1st, 2018

    So the already prolonged Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings are going to drag out through Friday thanks to Republican Senator Jeff Flake demanding it.

    I have two competing theories for the reason behind the delay:

    1. We’ve all died and gone to Hell, and for our sins we’re required to witness the ever-more-rage-inducing hearings FOR ALL ETERNITY!
    2. Sen. Majority leader Mitch McConnell realizes that every week the senate has to stay in session is a week vulnerable Democrats can’t concentrate on fundraising and campaigning back home.

    So this week, like last week, is going to sound an awful lot like the “Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich” scene of Being John Malkovich, only with “Kavanaugh” instead of “Malkovich.”

    Some links:

  • Andrew Sullivan weighed in on the unfairness of the whole thing:

    At first, I was shocked by what seemed to me to be his shouting and belligerence. But then he drew me in. Of course he was angry. Wouldn’t you be if you were innocent or had no idea where this allegation suddenly came from? He wasn’t being accused of sexual harassment, or sexual abuse as an adult in a way he could have refuted or challenged. His long-lost teenage years as a hard-drinking jock were now under the microscope. Even his yearbook was being dissected. Stupid cruelties and brags from teenage boys were now being used to define his character, dismiss his record as a judge, his sterling references, his respected scholarship, his devoted family, his relationship with women in every capacity. He had to fend off new accusations, ever more grave and ever more vague.

    And there were times, it seems to me, that he simply couldn’t win. If he hadn’t hired and mentored many women, it would be proof he was a misogynist and rapist. But the fact that he did hire and mentor many of them was also proof he was a misogynist and a rapist, who only picked the pretty ones. If he hadn’t shown anger, he would have been obviously inhuman. When he did express rage … well, that was a disqualifying temperament for a judge. It didn’t help that the Democrats made no pretense of having an open mind, or that any glimpse at mainstream media — let alone media Twitter — revealed that it had already picked a side. This was, for the major papers, especially the New York Times, a righteous battle against another white straight male, and the smug, snarky virtue-signaling on Twitter was in overdrive. Even Kavanaugh’s choking-up was mocked — just another contemptible “bro-crier.”

    And so when Lindsey Graham suddenly unloaded on the Democrats, I felt a wave of euphoria. “Yes,” I said to myself. “Go get ’em, Butters!” When Senator Blumenthal got all self-righteous about a single lie destroying someone’s credibility, I actually LOL-ed. Then I remembered all those op-eds and essays that decided to judge one moment in one man’s teens as somehow deeply revealing about … white privilege, toxic masculinity, white supremacy, toxic homosociality, bro culture, alcoholism, patriarchy … you name it, Kavanaugh was suddenly its foul epitome. He was an instant symbol of all the groups of people the left now hates, by virtue of their race or gender or orientation. And maybe he is. But did any of that necessarily make him guilty of anything, except by association?

    Snip.

    To the extent that the hearing went beyond the specifics of Ford’s allegations and sought to humiliate and discredit Kavanaugh for who he was as a teenager nearly four decades ago (a dynamic that was quite pronounced in some Democratic questioning of the nominee), it was deeply concerning. When public life means the ransacking of people’s private lives even when they were in high school, we are circling a deeply illiberal drain. A civilized society observes a distinction between public and private, and this distinction is integral to individual freedom. Such a distinction was anathema in old-school monarchies when the king could arbitrarily arrest, jail, or execute you at will, for private behavior or thoughts. These lines are also blurred in authoritarian regimes, where the power of the government knows few limits in monitoring a person’s home or private affairs or correspondence or tax returns or texts. These boundaries definitionally can’t exist in theocracies, where the state is interested as much in punishing and exposing sin, as in preventing crime. The Iranian and Saudi governments — like the early modern monarchies — seek not only to control your body, but also to look into your soul. They know that everyone has a dark side, and this dark side can be exposed in order to destroy people. All you need is an accusation.

    The Founders were obsessed with this. They realized how precious privacy is, how it protects you not just from the government but from your neighbors and your peers. They carved out a private space that was sacrosanct and a public space which insisted on a strict presumption of innocence, until a speedy and fair trial. Whether you were a good husband or son or wife or daughter, whether you had a temper, or could be cruel, or had various sexual fantasies, whether you were a believer, or a sinner: this kind of thing was rendered off-limits in the public world. The family, the home, and the bedroom were, yes, safe places. If everything were fair game in public life, the logic ran, none of us would survive.

    And it is the distinguishing mark of specifically totalitarian societies that this safety is eradicated altogether by design. There, the private is always emphatically public, everything is political, and ideology trumps love, family, friendship or any refuge from the glare of the party and its public. Spies are everywhere, monitoring the slightest of offenses. Friends betray you, as do lovers. Family members denounce their own mothers and fathers and siblings and sons and daughters. The cause, which is usually a permanently revolutionary one, always matters more than any individual’s possible innocence. You are, in fact, always guilty before being proven innocent. You always have to prove a negative. And no offense at any point in your life is ever forgotten or off the table.

    Naturally, the mob made him issue a partial mea culpa for daring to say rational things about their designated hate object…

  • “When Brett Kavanaugh admitted that he’d been a virgin in high school and the mob took it as corroboration that he was a rape-gang impresario, that’s when I knew we were looking at the madness of crowds.”
  • Step 1: Determine if something is true. Democrats just aren’t interested in that.
  • The Democratic Media Complex is going after Kavanaugh’s kids.
  • This American Thinker piece contends the Kavanaugh fight isn’t over Roe vs. Wade, it’s over the future of gun control.
  • “This may be a watershed moment in Identity Politics.”

    This was a great example of how identity has been weaponized for political gain. Don’t think this is the end of Identity Politics, though. The Democrats need identity to survive. Mao’s Cultural Revolution relied on hearsay and Identity, and was implemented shortly after the Great Leap Forward had failed to propel the nation forward economically. The Democrats are failing massively. They are launching their own Cultural Revolution. I’ve warned friends of mine who are sympathetic to the ’cause’ to be careful. Movements like this eat their young.

    • Last week was a crazy, stupid week in politics. Chance are, this week will be even crazier and stupider…

    Tags:, , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for September 28, 2018

    Friday, September 28th, 2018

    We have survived Kavanaugh Week and made it to fall. On to the LinkSwarm:

  • Republican senate insiders are saying they have the votes to confirm Kavanaugh.
  • Alan Dershowitz: Kavanaugh has “more corroboration on his side”:

  • Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office gets respectful messages opposing Kavanaugh. Ha! Just kidding! “I hope you get raped.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “Why are Democrats so violent?” (With examples.)
  • The Kavanaugh attacks were so vile they turned Lindsey Graham into Phil Gramm.
  • Entire nail salon full of women agree: “I’m disgusted at the whole thing. It’s totally political.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
    ​

  • Russian collusion theory: sad as a wrinkled little balloon.
  • Tweet:

  • “Dem Rep Brings Convicted Money Launderer onto Full-Time Staff.”

    Democratic representative Alcee Hastings (Fla.) has officially brought a convicted money launderer onto his full-time staff after paying the individual for “part-time” work over the past several years.

    Dona Nichols Jones, who has received compensation from Hastings since April 2014 for what was listed as “part-time” employment as an aide and community liaison out of his Palm Beach County office, is now listed as a “staff assistant” in his office, Legistorm filingsshow.

    Dona Nichols Jones is married to Mikel Jones, who worked for Rep. Hastings from 1993 to 2011 as a district administrator. The couple was convicted of money laundering, conspiracy, and fraud in 2011 after they had used hundreds of thousands of dollars from a business loan for personal use.

  • Multi-deported illegal alien arrested for multiple baseball bat murders.
  • More on Linus Torvalds caving to Social Justice Warrior demands.
  • Online voting: Why you should be terrified:

    Online voting is a persistently bad idea, one that is only liked by people who are completely ignorant of the security issues, and yet one that seemingly will not go away. If you are suspicious that Stalin’s dictum of it’s not who cast the vote that matters, what’s important is who counts the vote is in play here, you’re not the only one.

  • Did three unnamed UT officials just pull a dirty sex smear on Republican State Senator Charles Schwertner? (Schwertner​ is my state senator, though I do not know him personally.)
  • Cop: “Pull over!” Driver: “No! I drive a Prius!.”
  • A San Antonio Baptismal Book from 1703.
  • “Denton, Denton! You’ve got (clap) baby punching!” (Hat tip: Dwight. You’ll just have to figure out the obscure tagline reference on your own…)
  • “Delay Tactics: The Democrats Just Demanded The Senate Watch All 639 Episodes Of ‘The Simpsons’ Before Kavanaugh Vote.”
  • The Finalists for the Wildlife Comedy Photo Awards.

    (Hat tip: Amy Alkon on Twitter.)

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Republicans, Supreme Court, Texas, video | No Comments »

    Kavanaugh Smear Twitter Roundup

    Thursday, September 27th, 2018

    The idea of writing yet another article on why the Kavanaugh smears are transparent garbage is mind-numbing, so here’s a tweet roundup to accomplish the same thing:

    Tags:, , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    A Smear Too Far

    Wednesday, September 26th, 2018

    There is a growing sense that the Democratic Media Smear Machine Complex has finally overreached with the latest unsubstantiated smear against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Far from demoralizing Republicans our getting Kavanaugh to withdraw, instead it’s stiffened senate spines and galvanized Republican voters heading into midterms.

    Describing earlier calls with other conservative leaders, [Family Research Council president Tony​] Perkins said there is growing dissatisfaction with the manner in which the GOP has treated the accusations, while cautioning that in his own view McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley have handled the situation as best they could.

    “There’s a sense that the Republicans have bent over backwards to accommodate only to be kicked in the process,” he told TheDCNF.

    Elsewhere in the interview, Perkins warned that Republican lawmakers would pay an electoral price in the November election should Kavanaugh’s nomination fail. (RELATED: Kavanaugh Addresses His Encounter With Parkland Dad In Written Supplement To Testimony)

    “Conservatives want the Republicans to fight for this,” he said. “This is what the election in 2016 was about and that’s what I believe the midterm election will be about as well.”

    Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network, detected similar enthusiasm in her own conversations with conservative groups and Kavanaugh allies following the appearance of the Ramirez allegations.

    “Conservatives have been galvanized by the coordinated smears of the Democrats and especially outraged at the publication of discredited allegations.”

    Not only has it galvanized conservatives in general, but some who were resolutely #NeverTrump in 2016 are now falling in line:

    The last-minute ambush validates key assumptions of Trump’s supporters that fueled his rise and buttress him in office, no matter how rocky the ride has been or will become. At least three key premises have been underlined by tawdry events of the last couple of weeks.

    First, that good character is no defense. If you are John McCain, who genuinely tried to do the right thing and carefully cultivated a relationship with the media over decades, they will still call you a racist when you run against Barack Obama.

    If you are Mitt Romney, an exceptionally earnest and decent man, they will make you into a heartless and despicable vulture capitalist, also for the offense of campaigning against Obama.

    If you are Brett Kavanaugh, a respected member of the legal establishment who doesn’t have a flyspeck on his record across decades of public service in Washington, they will come up with dubious accusations of wrongdoing from decades ago when you were a teenager.

    Second, that the media is an unremitting political and cultural adversary. In the Kavanaugh controversy, the press has been wholly on the other side, presuming his guilt and valorizing his accusers and their supporters, including Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, whose most famous contribution to the debate was telling men to “shut up.” The advocacy isn’t limited to cable networks or the Twitter feeds of journalists. It reaches all the way up the food chain.

    The New Yorker, which imagines itself an upholder of the finest standards of American journalism, which sports a refined monocle-wearing dandy as its mascot, which was once edited by that famous paragon of editorial care, William Shawn, happily published a new accusation against Kavanaugh even though the accuser herself had doubts about it (she only became convinced of it after days of consideration and talks with her lawyer).

    The New York Times passed on the story when it couldn’t find any first-hand corroboration of it. The New Yorker didn’t allow that to become an obstacle.

    Third, that politics isn’t just rough-and-tumble; it’s red in tooth and claw. Process and norms are nice, but they go out the window as soon as something important is at stake, like a potential fifth vote on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    Senate Democrats may delicately talk about the importance of norms and civility on Sunday shows, but watch how they act. They sat on an accusation throughout an extensive process of vetting and questioning a nominee, then declared it dispositive evidence against his confirmation when it leaked at the 11th hour. They delayed a hearing with Christine Blasey Ford long enough to allow time for the second accuser to be persuaded to come forward.

    All of this plays into Trump’s support. Surely, a reason that the president appealed to many Republicans in the first place, despite his extravagant personal failings, was that they had decided that virtuous men would get smeared and chewed up by the opposition’s meat grinder, so why be a stickler for standards?

    Widespread disgust over the sheer nastiness of Democratic tactics may be (along with a booming economy) why Republicans have passed Democrats in generic favorability polls, the GOP’s highest ratings since 2010, a year that was not notably kind to Democrats at the ballot box.

    Republican lawmakers have a stark choice: confirm Kavanaugh or get slaughtered out in November:

    The rubber is about to meet the road for Senate Republicans. They have a simple choice: they can vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, thereby ending the baseless and unsubstantiated Democrat- and media-fueled smear campaign against him, or they can kiss House and Senate majorities goodbye for the next decade, if not longer.

    In case the election of one Donald J. Trump was not enough to compel the D.C. Republican establishment swamp creatures to wipe the muck from their eyes and see what’s happening with their own constituents, Republican voters have had enough of feckless do-nothings whose careers consist of little more than not doing everything they promised to do.

    Give us the House, the Senate, and the White House, they said, and we’ll repeal Obamacare. Give us power across the major elected branches, and we’ll secure the border, they promised. With a Republican president in the White House and a Republican majority in the Senate, we’ll confirm the most conservative Supreme Court nominees you can imagine, they claimed.

    Snip.

    Republican lawmakers have to understand that their voters have zero patience for their excuses for not doing what they promised. It’s why they elected Trump in the first place. Republican senators failed to repeal Obamacare after promising to do so for years. That was strike one. They’ve steadfastly refused to secure the border, let alone build a barrier along the most porous sections of the nation’s border with Mexico. That was strike two.

    A refusal to vote to confirm Kavanaugh in the face of a blatantly obvious Democrat smear campaign, orchestrated in concert with a compliant and obscenely partisan national media, will be strike three, and there will be no more at-bats. I have spent a career working in and covering politics, and I have never witnessed the kind of anger among rank-and-file GOP voters generated from a combination of the unsubstantiated Democrat attacks on Kavanaugh and the flaccid response of emasculated Republicans.

    Snip.

    If Kavanaugh is not safe from reputation- and career-destroying smears, no one is. Not you. Not your husband. Not your son, father, or brother. If they can destroy Kavanaugh, they can do it to anyone you love and trust, regardless of any mountains of facts or evidence to the contrary.

    Snip.

    if GOP lawmakers show that they do have a spine and are no longer willing to let the other side get away with reputation murder, they might actually keep both their House and Senate majorities in November. As Trump has shown, even discouraged Republican voters are willing to stand behind somebody who’s willing to stand up for them.

    Even the famously calm/embalmed majority leader Mitch McConnell was showing signs of irritation at the sheer dishonest on display from Democrats

    Early on it looked like McConnell was letting Democrats walk all over him by bending over backwards to accommodate their “witnesses” and ever-changing demands. Now it appears he may just have been playing possum while Democrats reeled out enough rope to hang themselves.

    Tags:, , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Republicans, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    CNN Asks Five Republican Women If They Believe Kavanaugh; All Five Say Yes

    Saturday, September 22nd, 2018

    Here’s another case where CNN asked a focus group a question and didn’t expect the response they got…

    Tags:, , , ,
    Posted in Media Watch, Supreme Court, video | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for September 21, 2018

    Friday, September 21st, 2018

    And you may ask yourself how did I get here why I didn’t do any blog posts about the “bombshell” Brett Kavanaugh allegations earlier this week? Simple: They were as obviously stupid as they were predictable. Thanks to my sloth foresight, I managed to avoid writing about the mess before the Democrats’ unpopular ploy collapsed into the stinking pile of garbage it always was!

  • More on the Democrats’ Kavanaugh stupidity:

    The tactics they’re now employing against Kavanaugh, while extreme, are nothing new for them. They’ve always shot from the hip and aimed for the heart, hoping to sway public opinion by means of passion rather than reason. The more convinced they are of the righteousness of their cause—call it their “higher loyalty” to the arc of history—the more antic they get, like chimps in the zoo at feeding time, moving from whingeing servility to outright viciousness the hungrier they get. Left unchecked, even the cuddliest Cheetah eventually will rip off your face.

    ​

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • There should be a big difference between vague accusations of sexual assault 35 years ago and documented instances of assault from last year, as in the case of Keith Ellison. But the media seem strangely incurious about the congressman and DNC vice-chair…
  • Do all-girl preppie high schools typically approve of blackout drinking and teenage sex? I can’t even imagine anyone even trying to document such antics in my own high school yearbook.
  • “Trump Hit Iran With Oil Sanctions. So Far, They’re Working.” Or so says those notorious pro-Trump shills at the New York Times…
  • “Foreign money bankrolls climate change lawsuits against US oil companies.” (Hat tip: Steve Malloy on Twitter.)
  • Japan issues warning to China by conducting military exercises in the South China Sea.
  • “Donald Trump’s race against death.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • This seems worrisome:

    The real news is that Linux, the project, adopted the “Contributor’s Covenant” code of conduct and thereby acknowledged SJW ideological supremacy. The CC is an SJW vehicle promulgated by Coraline Ada and a related group of activist malcontents. While the CC appears on the surface to be a call of civility, it’s actually the tip of a very long and exsanguatory anti-meritocracy spear, one that ultimately seeks to elevate high-verbal-IQ non-technical politics-playing San-Francisco-residing cliques of social justice advocates into positions of recognition and authority in the free software world and beyond. If you write code and you’re good at it, these people are a direct threat to your status, your hobby, and your livelihood, because if these people get their way, your technical excellence becomes secondary to their wokeness.​

  • #MeTooFar:

  • Republican congressmen demonstrates provable sexual misconduct. GOP: “Resign, sleazeball.” Democratic state senator demonstrates sleazy, felonious personal conduct. Democrats: “We shall defend him to our last breath! Or, you know, until he’s actually convicted.” Result: Republicans now hold all those seats.
  • Beto O’Rourke says we need an illegal alien amnesty so Mexicans can work cotton gins. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Want a healthier heart? Eat a steak.
  • Bert and Ernie are not gay. So says their actual creator.
  • Solar Observatory closed by the FBI. Old and Busted explanation: Aliens! The New Hotness: Child porn server.
  • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Wait, Solzhenitsyn wasn’t already awarded the Medal of Freedom? (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • “A US tech company was found guilty of abusing the H-1B visa.” That’s People Tech Group, for those of you playing along on the home game…
  • Apple-1 computer for sale. 1 MHz processor, 4K of memory. Current bid: $175,000.
  • Suge Knight pleads guilty to manslaughter, to spend 28 years in the big house. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Oh Florida Man, don’t ever change:

    The operator of a Florida-based animal sanctuary says she was the target of an Oklahoma zookeeper who was indicted last week on federal murder-for-hire charges.

    Carole Baskin of Big Cat Rescue said she’s clashed in the past with Joseph Maldonado-Passage, who goes by the nickname “Joe Exotic.”

    “He’s been threatening me for many, many years,” Baskin told The Oklahoman after Maldonado-Passage’s arrest last week.

    Prosecutors allege that Maldonado-Passage tried to hire two separate people to kill an unnamed woman, who wasn’t harmed. One of the unidentified people he sought to hire connected him with an undercover FBI agent, who met with Maldonado-Passage in December 2017. The indictment was unsealed Friday and Maldonado-Passage remains jailed in Florida. He didn’t reply to an email seeking comment and court records don’t list an attorney for him.

    Is there a mugshot? Why yes. Yes there is.

  • “Facebook Adjusts Algorithm To Show You Even More Terrible Content.” I’m glad they mentioned that super-annoying Ray-Ban tag spam. Also this:

    Content will also appear in a completely jumbled, totally incoherent order, even more so than before. “Something that was posted a few minutes ago you’ll probably never see, even if you try. But stuff that got posted three weeks ago, we’ll plaster your screen with it to no end.”

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Military, Republicans, Supreme Court, Texas | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for September 14, 2018

    Friday, September 14th, 2018

    While Florence pounds the Carolinas, enjoy a complimentary LinkSwarm:

  • Leftwing callers opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court are making rape threats against Sen. Susan Collins staffers.
  • Why the International Criminal Court sucks.
  • Texas minority voters do not seem enthused with “Beto” O’Rourke.
  • Speaking of O’Rourke, he’s ducking a second debate with Ted Cruz. Did anyone bother to tell him that he’s not, in fact, the incumbent?
  • Video of Google leadership post-2016 election shows them freaking out over Donald Trump’s victory.
  • Funny how a whole lot of economic indicators mysteriously (unexpectedly!) started heading upwards right about November 2016. What could be the cause? It’s inexplicable! (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • The United States is now the largest global oil producer. (Hat tip: Ted Cruz’s Twitter feed.)
  • New Port Arthur LNG facility to export natural gas to Poland.
  • EU: “Bad Hungary! We are going to sanction you for thought crimes against the European elite!” Poland: “Hey EU! Get stuffed!” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Bureaucrats try to strip the title of heroes from the defenders of the Alamo, and the elected state board of education stops them cold. (By the way, I recently watched John Wayne’s version of The Alamo, and it’s a much better film than its reputation.)
  • Andrew Cuomo squashes Cynthia Nixon like a bug.
  • Maxine Waters can’t sleep because of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
  • And it’s not just missed sleep: Trump Derangement Syndrome made a Democrat attempt to get all stabby on a Republican congressional candidate in California.
  • R.S. McCain on modern dating: “Guys, when women say they want you to ‘share your feelings’? Don’t believe it. All that stuff you read about how women want men who are ‘sensitive’ and ‘vulnerable’? This is a gigantic load of crap. Don’t fall for it.”
  • “Author of ‘How to Murder Your Husband’ Charged With Murdering Her Husband.” What are the odds?
  • College professor shoots self to protest Trump. That’s some mighty fine protesting, Lou… (Hat tip: Michael Sumbera.)
  • Texas’ partisan system of judicial elections upheld as constitutional.
  • Another case of illegal alien voter fraud in Houston. (Hat tip: Governor Greg Abbott’s Twitter feed.)
  • AP airbrushes out the Soviet Union’s alliance with Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II. Insert your own Ministry of Truth reference here.
  • Describe multiculturalism as a scam and watch your college fire you despite being tenured. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Facebook has banned Brandon Straka, the former Democrat who founded the ‘Walk Away’ campaign and its viral hashtag #WalkAway, after he linked to Infowars.com – which has been banned from the platform.” Evidently even linking or mentioning an official “unperson” can get you banned…
  • Via Borepatch:

  • Twitter tried to ban the phrase illegal alien and had to back down.
  • Norm Macdonald makes senior Tonight Show producers cry. Because it’s so stressful to have a comedian express #WrongThink…
  • Related Tweets:

  • Via Ann Althouse comes this dramatic depiction of just what a 6′ and 9′ storm surge looks like:

  • “Google Rep Issues Heartfelt Apology For Anti-Conservative Bias While Wearing ‘Kill All Republicans‘ T-Shirt.” “We want Google to be completely free from bias, even against Republicans who need to die violent deaths for disagreeing with us. That’s what inclusivity is all about.”
  • I saw this over at Say Uncle and I may have to pick some up:

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Texas, video | No Comments »

    Cruz and the Kavanaugh Circus

    Wednesday, September 5th, 2018

    I’m not going to detail the Democrat’s lunatic circus at the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation periods, except to marvel at how they’ve adopted the same crazy screaming strategies that didn’t work for the Wisconsin recall.

    Instead, I want to focues on Ted Cruz’s rational, reasonable arguments for Kavanaugh:

    First Cruz talks about “what this hearing is about and what it is not about,” proving that the Democrats have offered no substantive objections to Kavanaugh, as no such objections can plausibly exist, and so turn to “pounding the table” and making beef over silly procedural objections about how many documents they’ve received.

    Snip.

    When he asks, “So what is this hearing all about?” He says it’s all about the Democrats being unhappy about the voters’ considered choice in 2016, and wanting to overturn that. But he notes that this was the first election since Eisenhower which occurred with an open Supreme Court seat in play, and thus the next Supreme Court nominee indirectly on the ballot. And he notes that the issue of judicial appointments was vigorously contested by both Trump and Hillary Clinton, the issue being asked about in every single debate, and with both candidates stating the type of judge they would nominate.

    Cruz points out that Trump took the “unprecedented” step of publishing a list of his likely Supreme Court picks. He implies without directly stating that Kavanaugh was on this list. (Kavanaugh was in fact on the short list.)

    Therefore, Cruz concludes, Kavanaugh has something he calls “super-legitimacy” as a Supreme Court nominee, as the voters were already told that he might well be a Supreme Court choice by Trump and chose to elect Trump. Cruz calls this a de facto “referendum” on the acceptability of Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice.

    Finally, Cruz points out that progressives use the courts to win policy fights they cannot win at the ballot, and points out that America has been debating big policy issues that the left would like to win via the courts. And in the face of that, they chose Trump, who promised to appoint constitutionalists. He specifically notes that every Democrat Senator voted to gut the First Amendment, and that many Democrat Senators voted to repeal the Religious Freedom Act signed into law by Bill Clinton, and that almost every Democrat wants to effectively repeal the Second Amendment.

    Watch for yourself:

    Tags:, , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Supreme Court, video | No Comments »

    Brett Kavanaugh for SCOTUS Roundup

    Tuesday, July 10th, 2018

    Lots of reactions this morning to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

    First up, Jonathan Adler of The Volokh Conspiracy offers up an overview of Kavanaugh’s career (including links to his decisions):

    Judge Kavanaugh is widely respected on the Supreme Court. Many of his clerks go on to clerk at One First Street. More importantly, his opinions attract notice from the justices. Several of his dissents have been vindicated by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. His dissents showed the way for the Court in Michigan v. EPA (White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA concerning mercury emissions), UARG v. EPA (CRR v. EPA concerning GHG emissions), Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (concerning separation of powers), and D.C. v. Wesby (concerning qualified immunity). And even when certiorari was granted, Judge Kavanaugh’s dissents have been noted in subsequent Supreme Court cases (as in Lexmark International v. Static Control Components which favorably cited Kavanaugh’s dissent in Grocery Manufacturers Association v. EPA). This suggests other justices will take the new junior justice’s opinions quite seriously, especially on administrative law.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

    Second, Kavanaugh is also a strong believer in the Second Amendment. From his 2011 Heller v. District of Columbia (the follow-up lawsuit to the original Heller decision) dissent:

    In Heller, the Supreme Court held that handguns – the vast majority of which today are semi-automatic – are constitutionally protected because they have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens. There is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction between semi-automatic handguns and semiautomatic rifles. Semi-automatic rifles, like semi-automatic handguns, have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens for self-defense in the home, hunting, and other lawful uses. Moreover, semiautomatic handguns are used in connection with violent crimes far more than semi-automatic rifles are. It follows from Heller’s protection of semi-automatic handguns that semi-automatic rifles are also constitutionally protected and that D.C.’s ban on them is unconstitutional.

    (Hat tip: J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ.)

    Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut gave Kavanaugh what amounts to a strong endorsement on that very subject:

    Respectable liberal Alan Dershowitz endorsed Kavanaugh as well: “He has a lot of support from centrist academics. He is regarded as a very scholarly, very smart person. I probably will disagree with many of his opinions, but it’s hard to question his qualifications for the job.” (Hat tip: BigGator5.)

    Via Stephen Green at Instapundit comes this list of top six unhinged reactions to the Kavanaugh nomination. I especially liked the Women’s March drafting their blurb on what an extremist whoever Trump picked for the court was, then just leaving “XX” instead of inserting Kavanaugh’s name when they sent out the press release…

    Finally, liberals want you to know that the Federalist Society and Opus Dei are evidently the same thing. Maybe somebody should explain to them the difference between real life and a Dan Brown novel…

    Tags:, , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Guns, Media Watch, Supreme Court | No Comments »

    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »