URLs du Jour

2020-09-21

  • Our Eye Candy du Jour is a telling tweet:

    Do you need the Washington Post to tell you what to think? I don't.


  • But otherwise. I think Kevin D. Williamson hits one out of the park on Supreme Court Nomination Hypocrisy. His NR Corner post in its entirety:

    It is the case that during the Merrick Garland fight, a bunch of Republicans said we shouldn’t confirm a new Supreme Court justice before an election — and now say something else.

    It’s also the case that a bunch of Democrats at that time said we should confirm a new Supreme Court justice before an election — and now say something else.

    Why is only one of these developments considered hypocrisy?

    Either we can have a confirmation vote before an election, or we can’t — in which case, “Garland’s seat” was not “stolen,” as Democrats insist. You cannot have it both ways.

    It would be easier if we stopped pretending that this fight is about something other than straightforward power politics.

    People pretending to argue about this out of some deep transcendent principle they just discovered in the past 15 minutes… it was amusing for the first couple examples, now it's just boring as hell. (In fact, making me watch politicians nonstop on TV—that would be hell. Nobody tell Satan.)

    Example from the Free Beacon: Klobuchar Struggles to Defend 2016 Position on Filling Supreme Court Vacancy. Completely unsurprising, completely predictable, and I'm sure the blue side of the web is filled with the equivalent, equally boring, takes.


  • Glenn Reynolds makes a good point in USA Today, though. The headline: Ginsburg flap shows Supreme Court, justices are too important.

    Why does Justice Ginsburg’s replacement matter so much that even “respectable” media figures are calling for violence in the streets if President Trump tries to replace her? Because the Supreme Court has been narrowly balanced for a while, with first Justice Anthony Kennedy, and later Chief Justice John Roberts serving as a swing vote. Ginsburg’s replacement by a conservative will finally produce a long-heralded shift of the Supreme Court to a genuine conservative majority.  

    That shift matters because, for longer than I have been alive, all sorts of very important societal issues, from desegregation to abortion to presidential elections and state legislative districting — have gone to the Supreme Court for decision. Supreme Court nominations and confirmations didn’t used to mean much — Louis Brandeis was the first nominee to actually appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee — because the Court, while important, wasn’t the be-all and end-all of so many deeply felt and highly divisive issues. Now it very much is.

    It ain't healthy. Coincidentally, I listened to Jonah Goldberg's recent Remnant podcast with Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, and Jonah appended Sasse's opening remarks at the Kavanaugh hearing to the usual interview format. It's excellent, and makes me wish voters were sensible enough to elect 50-60 Sasse clones to the Senate and 300-320 to the US House. Here's the YouTube:


  • And the observant eye of Phil Magness watches an unsupportable claim vanish Down the 1619 Project’s Memory Hole.

    The history of the American Revolution isn’t the only thing the New York Times is revising through its 1619 Project. The “paper of record” has also taken to quietly altering the published text of the project itself after one of its claims came under intense criticism.

    When the 1619 Project went to print in August 2019 as a special edition of the New York Times Magazine, the newspaper put up an interactive version on its website. The original opening text stated:

    The 1619 project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative. [emphasis added]

    The passage, and in particular its description of the year 1619 as “our true founding,” quickly became a flashpoint for controversy around the project. Critics on both the Left and Right took issue with the paper’s declared intention of displacing 1776 with the alternative date—a point that was also emphasized in the magazine feature’s graphics, showing the date of American independence crossed out and replaced by the date of the first slave ship’s arrival in Jamestown, Virginia.

    Reminds me of a movie quote:

    Dr. Evil: [deep voice] Austin, I'm your father.

    Austin: Really?

    Dr. Evil: No, not really. I can't back that up.