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

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

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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

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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

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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.

Conservatives Refuse To Call Out Critical Race Theory As Exclusively ‘Anti-White’

America, Communism, Conservatism, Multiculturalism, Race, Racism, The West

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“CRT is an exclusively anti-White set of abstract, ethnocidal ideas, convicting an entire racial group for metaphysical crimes.”–ILANA MERCER, “Critical Racist Theory Robs And Rapes Reality.”

How is it possible to discuss Critical Race Theory and fail to mention its salient characteristic—that it is exclusively anti-white, ethnocidal agitprop?

Easily, if one is a Beltway conservative. They complain a lot about Critical Race Theory, and construct elaborate theories around its crass edifice, yet seem constitutionally or congenitally incapable of calling it what it is: exclusively anti-white.

All conservatives can muster, seemingly, is to accuse Critical Race Theory peddlers of preventing multicultural America from having that big group hug we all crave and know we are capable of.

For example, this Federalist piece, “Critical Race Theory Is A Classic Communist Divide-And-Conquer Tactic,” hides behind the term “identity politics,” and decries a way of thinking that exploits the amorphous “tragedy of racial divisions in America.”  Some bad people with a communist mindset and a manual aren’t interested in healing. Boohoo.

Really? I didn’t know that Communism revolved around the exclusive subjugation of whites?

If reality means anything, this is bizarre and wrong. America is racially divided. Blacks, for the most, hate whites for a variety of unjust reasons (not least the incessant propagandizing by other progressive whites). They want to hurt them and make them pay. For what? For everything; for whatever is wrong with their lives. Deal with that truth. Communism is but an intellectual crutch.

Deferring to communism allows the ever-quaking conservatives to hide behind respectable argument.

As to that Uriah Heep like obsequiousness: Going by this Federalist writer, conservatives refuse to even take credit for the culture for which Europeans are being berated. So they universalize the creed (the Protestant Ethic).

Recall the “‘Smithsonian display on “whiteness’ that condemned all elements of civil society, including politeness, hard work, self-reliance, logic, planning, and family cohesion”? “None of those are ‘white’ values, but critical race theory frames them just so,” assures the aforementioned author.

Rubbish! These values are most pronounced in the European culture. One might even call them Western European by nature, because the sanctity of the handshake, the word-of-mouth promise, the contract—the things that made capitalism take so well in the Anglo-American world: These are not really part of the East European ethos.

Imagine being so servile and apologetic that you wash your hands of a really cool thing you invented.

Hybrid conservative Dave Rubin also won’t say it. Critical Race Theory is … wait for it, “racist.” We’ll leave it at that, shall we, Rubin seems to be saying. Racist? Is it anti black, Hispanic, Asian? Naturally not.

Even Christopher F. Rufo, formidable warrior against institutionalized Critical race Theory, still can’t bring himself to SAY IT.

By Rufo’s definition, CRT is “a radical ideology that advocates the overthrow of capitalism, meritocracy, and equal protection under the law.” Maybe. But those lowly goals are secondary to singling out whites for a unique form of subjugation and intimidation.

 

 

Political racism is, however, properly deconstructed in these columns:

‘Systemic Racism’ Or Systemic Rubbish?
Was The Cop’s Knee On George Floyd’s Neck ‘Racism’? No!
Ethnocidal ‘Critical Race Theory’ Is Upon Us Like White On Rice
Critical Racist Theory Robs And Rapes Reality