URLs du Jour

2018-10-09

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  • At Law and Liberty, Greg Weiner has an interesting idea: Avoiding the Next 50-48 Vote: Disempower the Court. But I really liked the first two paragraphs:

    After the Senate voted 50 to 48 to confirm Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted that she was “not going to sugarcoat anything. We lost a tough fight. And it hurts. What happened today will touch every single person in this country, in some very real & terrible ways. But it’s OK to step back for a minute, take a breath, & lean on the shoulder of someone you love.”

    Oh, please. For those who were awaiting the permission of a U.S. senator to lean on a shoulder, you are authorized to proceed. For the rest of us, yes, let’s take a breath. If a Supreme Court justice whose nominal job is to apply laws to specific cases is touching “every single person in this country, in some very real & terrible ways,” then we have bigger constitutional problems.

    As I type, Election Betting Odds has Senator Warren with an 8.0% probability of being our next US president. Which is way too high for comfort. If she thinks her duty as a mere senator is to direct the shoulder-leanings of the American citizenry, what will she think the Presidency will allow her to do?

    Other people with way-too-high probabilities of winning the Presidency in 2020: Trump, Kamala, Bernie, Pence, Biden, Booker, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Bloomberg, Hillary, Ryan, Oprah, Michelle Obama (!), Kasich, Cuomo, Ivana (really), Cuban, Rubio, Castro, Zuckerberg, Cruz, Kaine, Gowdy.

    Although Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has a 0.5% shot. That might be good. I have no idea.

    I guess I'm really pinning my hopes on "Other". Who has a 17.3% probability of taking office, higher than anyone except… Trump.


  • Whoa, kind of got offtrack there. Anyway, David Harsanyi's Federalist column could be subtitled "Breaking News from 1933". Or 1912. Or, heck, 1861: Democrats Have Become A Dangerous Threat To Our Institutions.

    When modern Democrats talk about prese[r]ving “norms,” traditions,” or even the “Constitution,” they’re really talking about preserving their preferred policies. We know this because “liberals” have shown themselves not only willing to destroy the legitimacy of institutions like the presidency, the Senate ,and Supreme Court to protect those policies, they’re willing to break down basic norms of civility, as well.

    Take the example of Hillary Clinton. In the very first sentence in her new scaremongering essay, which makes the case that America’s “democratic institutions and traditions are under siege,” she attacks our democratic institutions and traditions. “It’s been nearly two years since Donald Trump won enough Electoral College votes to become president of the United States,” the piece begins.

    The intimation, of course, widely shared by the mainstream left, is that Trump isn’t a legitimate president even though he won the election in the exact same way every other president in U.S. history has ever won election. According to our long-held democratic institutions and traditions, you become president through the Electoral College, not the non-existent popular vote.

    Also see: Senator Kamala dismissing Justice Kavanaugh's pocket Constitution as “that book you carry”.


  • NR writer Mairead McArdle notes: Susan Collins Accuses Planned Parenthood of Double Standard on Supreme Court.

    Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) expressed frustration with Planned Parenthood on Sunday, accusing the group of a double standard when it comes to Supreme Court nominees.

    “I would note that Planned Parenthood opposed three pro-choice justices just because they were nominated by Republican presidents: David Souter, Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Kennedy,” Collins said, recalling the organization’s opposition to Justice Anthony Kennedy.

    “They said the same thing: Women will die. This is just outrageous.”

    Senator Susan Collins, inexplicably, said she was still in favor of sending tax dollars to Planned Parenthood.


  • Peter Suderman (at Reason) reveals the least surprising news of the year, so far: Trump Isn’t a Self-Made Man. His Wealth Is the Product of Years of Government Subsidies.

    Last week The New York Times released a major investigative report into President Donald Trump's personal finances. The story, which took over a year to produce and relied on a massive trove of confidential documents, describes the accumulation of the Trump family's real estate fortune and the mechanisms that Trump's father, Fred C. Trump, used to pass wealth on to his children, with Trump receiving an outsized share. The story is relevant because the president's refusal to release his tax returns has left the public with few detailed glimpses into his financial dealings.

    The report makes a strong case that Trump's public claims to being wealthy as a result of his business acumen ("I built what I built myself") are a myth created by Trump and abetted by allies in the media.

    The details may be newly-revealed, but the general idea shouldn't be shocking news. Back in June 2015, we quoted Kevin D. Williamson's description of Trump as "the self-made man who started with nothing but a modest portfolio of 27,000 New York City properties acquired by his millionaire slumlord father".


  • Ringing the Google LFOD News alert was this column by Jason Sorens and Will Ruger in the Nashua Telegraph: New study on New Hampshire: Number two in freedom?

    “We’re number two” just doesn’t sound right, does it? New Hampshire placed second in the latest version of [the Cato Institute] study, Freedom in the 50 States, and we’ve gotten some flak for it. So why is the Live Free or Die state not number one?

    Jason and Will break down the good news and bad for NH liberty found in Freedom in the 50 States. (Which, yes I know, I've linked to before.)


Last Modified 2024-01-24 3:32 PM EDT