Category Archives: Law

UPDATED (10/14): No Notes, No Nonsense: The Genius Of Amy Coney Barrett

Argument, Constitution, Democracy, Federalism, Intelligence, Law, Reason, The Courts

Leave a reply

After hysterical preludes, Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota, questioned Amy Coney Barrett. I feared Barret’s tart tones—the American woman’s gravelly, vocal fry of a voice—would drive one to distraction, but she’s brilliant. Barrett looks disarmingly sweet and girly, but her replies are gloriously pointed and cerebral.

Advisory opinions are prohibited on the Court, Judge Coney Barrett teaches, as she explains a “concrete” as opposed to a “procedural” or “abstract” injury to the plaintiff. Her duty, as she sees it, is to address “concrete” wrongs, only, and in accordance with democratically-enacted law.

To the question of, “Why fight the Affordable Care Act, Amy Coney Barrett answered: “Ask the litigants. I don’t know.” Genius, because her replies are meta: They nail down the role of the SCOTUS in the federal scheme.

No doubt, Amy Coney Barrett will be the best mind on the SCOTUS! Her analytical reasoning—construction of an argument, the way she seals it logically, her preference for higher-order, principle- and process-oriented thinking, makes Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, Alito and Breyer pale by comparison. (Roberts is oriented toward administrative thinking; he has the mind of a functionary of the managerial State. As I pointed out in 2005, “Roberts is flummoxed by first-principle quandaries,” whereas first principles is Coney Barrett’s thing.)

For obvious reasons, Sonia Sotomayor was left off my just-cited list of SCOTUS justices whom Amy Coney Barrett easily usurps. An affirmative action baby (her term for herself), Sotomayor was advised to read children’s classics and basic grammar books during her summers, to get up to speed on her English skills at Princeton University. READ.

UPDATE (10/14):

Lots of cringe-worthy cliches and schmaltz came with the “quizzing” by Joni Ernst of Amy Coney Barrett. On being a mom, advice to young girls, exercise, role models. There is not daylight between Republican and liberal women, when it comes to this mushy drivel.

American Justices Should Be Less Notorious, Even Anonymous

America, Celebrity, Federalism, Justice, Law, Pop-Culture, The Courts

1 Reply

About the stardom Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a quiet, reclusive and rather thoughtful jurist, achieved, the Economist writes:

AT THE TIME of her death, Ruth Bader Ginsburg featured on more than 3,000 pieces of memorabilia which were for sale on Amazon.com. Fans of “Notorious RBG” could buy earrings, mugs, babygrows, fitness manuals and Christmas decorations (“Merry Resistmas!”), all bearing her face.
something has gone wrong with America’s system of checks and balances. The United States is the only democracy in the world where judges enjoy such celebrity, or where their medical updates are a topic of national importance. This fascination is not healthy.

The Supreme Court is not elected. Yet its power is ultimately founded on the trust and consent of Americans who believe that its decisions are impartial and grounded in law, not party. The more brazenly parties attempt to capture it as the choicest political prize, the less legitimate it will be. Imagine that a court judgment determines who wins November’s election. …

There is a better way. America is the only democracy where judges on the highest court have unlimited terms. In Germany constitutional-court judges sit for 12 years. If America had 18-year non-renewable terms, each four-year presidency would yield two new justices. It would end the spectacle of judges trying to game the ideology of their successor by choosing when they retire. And it would help make the court a bit less central to American politics—and thus more central to American law. Justice Ginsburg was a great jurist. A fitting tribute to this notorious judge would be to make her the court’s last superstar. ?

The problem is that the entire federal system is broken, in tatters. It’s now down to brute-force tactics, to winning. Bader Ginburg knew it. “In her dissents she sometimes appealed to Congress to correct the law.” She didn’t necessarily think it was SCOTUS’ role.  (See: Obituary.)

At heart she was still what she had always been, a judicial minimalist. She was stunned by the lack of caution in the Roe v Wade ruling of 1973 that legalised abortion; though she certainly approved of the outcome, reform should have come through state legislatures, where it was slowly starting to appear. She was shocked too when the court, while upholding Obamacare, found it illegal under the commerce clause of the constitution; that had been Congress’s domain since the 1930s. In her dissents she sometimes appealed to Congress to correct the law and occasionally, to her delight, it did.

SEE: “How to make American judges less notorious: Supreme Court judges should be term-limited

UPDATE III (11/10): What About Deep Tech’s Infractions Will Change If We Vote Republican?

Business, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Law, Media, Outsourcing, Republicans, Technology

1 Reply

UPDATED (11/1): In their weak case against Deep Tech, conservatives are still defending only some speech on the “merits,” rather than all speech, no matter how meritless. Libertarians: Deep Tech is not private property. It really isn’t, okay?

Richard Spencer makes a good case for a “free-speech zone”: “Instead, by focusing on S230 of the Decency Act—by threatening Twitter that it will be treated like a publisher—Republicans are encouraging Twitter to act more like a publisher: fact checking relevant information, censoring bad opinions, etc.” AND: “Republicans care deeply about free speech when it comes to posting Hunter Biden dick pics—not so much when it involves speech that is anti-Zionist or ‘racist.'”

Or, when Candace Owens’ boilerplate speech is compromised.

UPDATED: OCTOBER 12, 2020: When President Trump talks, one can’t help but be impressed by his unbounded force, energy and excellent command of details, down to a Bill’s public law number. In this case, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act:

Bartiromo … asked Trump about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects social media companies from being legally liable for content on their networks published by users. Trump called it “a disgrace.”

Still, questioned he must be. Voters handed POTUS both legislative Chambers and the presidency for two years. Yet he and the GOP failed to strip Deep Tech of Section 230, …  which, to repeat, “protects social media companies from being legally liable for content on their networks published by users.”

(I use the Deep Tech coinage to better capture the power and reach of the high-tech monopolists in politics.)

What’ll change this time around, if we elect Republicans?

Moreover, small, independent entitles who suffer banning by social media (“MERCER DOMAINS BANNED BY DEEP TECH FACEBOOK“) cannot afford to sue conglomerates whose revenues are greater than “the GDP of four of the G20 nations.”

So what is the remedy for the powerless (check) who’ve been thrown off social media, for no good reason?

Speaking of one of the Five Big crooked Tech companies; Microsoft’s Bill Gates recently told Chris Wallace “that Trump’s travel ban may have worsened the coronavirus pandemic.”

Those who live a lie usually spout, at best, only half-truths. Trump’s travel ban after the unleashing of COVID was indeed worse than useless. Chinese were merely rerouted and their temperatures taken. But that’s because Mr. Gates “seeded the disease here,” by replacing American with Chinese workers and making these Chinese citizens who travel to-and-from Wuhan.

UPDATE II (11/9): Tucker Carlson Calling Out Deep Tech For Protecting Joe Biden

UPDATE III (11/10):

On Tucker Carlson, Allum Bokhari was very clear about the massive failure of the people we had sent to D.C. to prevent the Orwellian nightmare developing. On the line is dissidents’ ability to speak, publish, sell books, transact financially.

NEW COLUMN: Law And Order Unites Main Street America

Abortion, America, China, Criminal Injustice, Education, Ethics, Law, Private Property

Leave a reply

NEW COLUMN is “Law And Order Unites Main Street America.” It is now on WND.COM and the Unz Review.

Excerpt:

… China might control thinking on its campuses, but can you imagine the Chinese Communist Party instructing its apparatchiks to promote material meant to make the next generation thieving, dumb and decadent? Unlikely, considering that the Chinese have a wicked work ethic, low-crime rates and that criminality is severely punished.

…  the book, In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action, has become the toast of the towns not yet burned down by the putrefying left. Its author, Ms. Osterweil, a welcomed guest on many “probing” programs, presumably to explain her “provocative” “thesis” of theft.

Indeed, we inhabit a culture in which high-brow polemics are banned and banished from the public square by grubby, low-brow, social engineers, from Facebook functionaries to the once-august “Publishers Weekly”: It dubbed Osterweil’s debut a “bracing rethink” of something or another.

A new kind of Kafka confronts any author whose thoughts veer from those of the mono-cultural mainstream. Books that enlighten never see the light of day or are digitally burned by the Amazon monopoly; pamphleteers that dim debate find publishers and “respectable” reviewers.

Happily, however, Amazon reviewers were having none of the looter lady, who, mind you, merely “identifies as a woman,” which is not the same as being a woman (in my non-expert opinion). They have not reconsidered their “bracing” views about Osterweil’s immoral enterprise. These book reviews are a riot of hashtags like #violence, #steal, #stupid, #vicky, #waste:

I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because, while it is empty headed garbage, it was a bargain since I shoplifted it.

Since Amazon doesn’t have a physical bookstore from which I can steal this book, will they please implement a virtual looting option? One star.

Sam says 1.0 out of 5 stars: “Garbage: terrible ideas and a terrible book.”

Understated, yet “Astounded” gives In Defense of Looting 1.0 out of 5 stars, writing, charitably, that it “seems rather shallow and malevolent.”

If you think these Amazon reviews are the work of Russian trolls acting for Trump, “Century Rider” provides a corrective cue: “Want another 4 years of Trump?”, writes the reviewer on August 29. “This is the kind of ‘reasoning’ that will get Trump re-elected.”

Clearly, the restoration of law and order and the reverence for private property rights are the most powerful principles with which to unite main-street America, left and right, in the ramp-up to the November election. This is what Republicans must remember, before they scamper down the judicial rabbit hole of abortion.

As to the book: Here’s the true disgrace of In Defense Of Looting: someone read the book, endorsed its publication, someone edited it, someone else set it in type, designed a cover, compiled an index, read the proofs. Now people are reviewing it.

READ THE REST. “Law And Order Unites Main Street America.” It is now on WND.COM and the Unz Review.

My website domains have been banned by Facebook. If you are on this lowbrow forum, please register your support for my work by writing a review here. One line will do. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.