Paging the Boo Hoo girl
Posted on 06/28/2018 9:43:27 PM PDT by lowbuck
How dare an 81-year-old man retire from the Supreme Court. How dare he.
That, in a nutshell, seems to be the widespread reaction among many liberals to the announcement that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will step down from the bench next month.
"Anthony Kennedy Just Destroyed His Legacy as a Gay Rights Hero," announced a headline at Slate. Twitter, that great Hieronymus Bosch painting of our collective id, was aflame in what can only be described as full-on liberal panic. "The future of our democracy is at stake," proclaimed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
This gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth is a symptom of the dysfunction and corruption of the constitutional order. The reason Kennedy's retirement matters so much is that he was the swing vote -- the justice who could bequeath victory or defeat to the liberal or conservative bloc in any important case that divided the court.
And the reason the swing vote matters so much is that we've made the Supreme Court far too important in our lives. By being the deciding vote on so many issues, Kennedy in effect became the court itself, making him the de facto incarnation of the judicial branch, the way the president is the physical personification of the executive branch. This became all the more problematic because Kennedy's philosophy of judicial review all too often took the form of a deep personal inventory of his feelings rather than of the Constitution's text.
Thus, Kennedy's decision not to live forever -- or at least until a Democratic appointee could replace the Reagan-appointed justice -- was seen as a personal betrayal, because the political has become so personal for so many.
"I never thought I'd say this, but you're only 81!" late-night comedian Stephen Colbert exclaimed. "You know what they say: They say 81 is the new 79! And don't tell me your mind's going, because I've read Bush v. Gore and Citizens United; you never had one!"
A Comedy Central writer tweeted (and later deleted) that he wished "this Kennedy had been shot instead of the other ones." To think such things, never mind to state them publicly, can be seen as a symptom of deranged mental health, but also of a deformed civic health.
How did we get here? There are two tracks that converged to deliver us this dysfunction. The first is narrowly political. The Democrats, confident that they were on the right side of history, thought there was no harm in accelerating the rush to total victory. For years, Democrats practiced the rule that all is fair in judicial confirmation battles, starting with the war on Judge Robert Bork in 1987. Then, under the leadership of Barack Obama and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, they did away with the filibuster on judicial appointments short of the Supreme Court, opening the door for Republicans to nudge it slightly more wide open.
The second track is longer. Starting over a century ago, progressives began emphasizing ends over means. If the Supreme Court could deliver wins unattainable at the ballot box and unsupported by the Constitution, so be it. Thus was born the "living Constitution" -- the doctrine which holds that the magical parchment should mean whatever progressives need it to mean at any moment. This was how Anthony Kennedy became (an apparently temporary) gay-rights hero. After consulting his feelings, he found a Constitutional right no one had found in the text before.
This idea that the Supreme Court is there to serve as a Praetorian Guard around progressive policies was on full display this week. Prior to Kennedy's retirement announcement, the court issued a 5-4 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME which held that public-sector unions can't compel nonunion members to pay fees for union representation, thus violating the First Amendment.
Justice Elena Kagan caustically disagreed. For her, the problem with the decision was that, "Public employee unions will lose a secure source of financial support."
"The First Amendment was meant for better things," Kagan concluded in her dissent. "It was meant not to undermine but to protect democratic governance -- including over the role of public-sector unions."
In short: The Supreme Court isn't there to protect the meaning of the First Amendment; the Supreme Court is there is protect a secure source of financial support for public-sector unions. If the First Amendment gets in the way, that's OK.
The panic unfolding across the progressive landscape stems from the creeping fear that the Supreme Court might start doing its job -- and not the job progressives have assigned it.
it hangs on who his replacement is.
Speaking of Jonah Goldberg, his mother has a well known website “Lucianne.com” that has been down for at least two days. I guess now it’s her turn to catch the virus.
Hope not for long. I’m thrilled that FreeRepublic did not stay down much longer. I felt locked out. There is FR Facebook, but I’m not signed into Facebook, so I can only gaze at other people’s postings.
Staring through the Candy Store Window, watching everybody having fun at the party.
We do not need another swing voter like Kennedy. He swings from limb to limb in his existentialist tree by impetus of this own will alone. He has no core!
Give us a principled Conservative.
Justice Scalia’s death was the most depressing event in my 66 years. Because the left have driven the court to be the defense against we the people ever being able to stay free. I told my wife after his death the USA is dead too, unless by some miracle HRC is defeated. Then McConnell held off a replacement for Scalia. I held out for Cruz thinking he may not beat Clinton. Then DJT kept talking MAGA and took off. I started believing he meant it and could win when he got the nomination. All this time I belived the USA will be dead if he doesn’t. We are supposed to have 3 co-equal branches of government and we don’t. Thus a single mans death can doom our Republic. Devine intervention? I’d like to think so. But we the people need to get our government back to the founders vision. I think DJT May just help us do it. SCOTUS is just part of the solution IMHO
The greatest thing McConnell has ever done was to keep that communist bootlicker Garland off the SC.
True
Liberals are crazy.
Kennedy was their hero on cases dealing with abortion rights and homosexual marriage.
He has the audacity to retire, and now they hate him? After he gave them homosexual marriage, he’s now persona non grata???
>> Kagan: “Public employee unions will lose a secure source of financial support.”
Nothing against the working individual, but as a tax payer, I’m not obliged to secure the financial well-being of the public employee.
Collective bargaining in the public sector must be outlawed — the tax payer is NOT represented.
Paging the Boo Hoo girl
and on who his next two replacements are. And that is only good for a couple of decades. It would be great to have a court full of wise and learned 30 year old Conservatives but the problem is that youngsters often become something else by the time they are 40.
There is no “collective bargaining” in the public sector. Politicians give the unions what they want and raise taxes. Look at California. Even FDR knew this. Why would a politician piss off a potential voter who’s giving money to him/her. It’s a ponze scheme with the tax payer playing BOHICA.
Next
Ginsburg drops dead
Then the left will REAALLY fall of da erf
I was a big fan of Jonah Goldberg until he became a NeverTrumper.
This article is a breath of fresh air.
To give you some idea where Goldberg stands among conservatives, here is a comment from the article:
Hey Townhall moderator, this comment is not spam and you know it!
1. It deals with Goldberg’s article specifically
2. It doesn’t violate your rules governing comments.
Try to has some self-respect and integrity and stop censoring my comments unless they violate your written policies. Otherwise you are just weak hypocrites!
Thus was born the “living Constitution” — the doctrine which holds that
the magical parchment should mean whatever progressives need it to mean
at any moment. This was how Anthony Kennedy became (an apparently
temporary) gay-rights hero. After consulting his feelings, he found a
Constitutional right no one had found in the text before.”
Goldberg is correct, although it is crystal clear that he is plagiarizing Mark
Levin’s commentary. Levin constantly uses the term “Praetorian Guard”
when referring to the liberal media. Goldberg has stolen the term and
applied it to the judiciary. However, Goldberg is right, liberal Judges
across the land, including the liberals on the Supreme Court have used
the Constitution for toilet paper for the last 20 years, under the
deceitful guise that it is a “living document.”
What is so amusing about this entire article is that Goldberg actually tacitly
tried to get Hillary Clinton elected in 2016. President Trump offended
his “sensibilities” so he became a leader of a small band of nutcase,
arrogant Never-Trumpers. The Never-Trumpers mostly are a few journalists
and they actually either openly (George Will) or covertly (Goldberg),
worked to get Hillary Clinton elected. George Will stated he hoped
Clinton would win 49 states.
So this brings us to this article which is the actual epitome of hypocrisy by Goldberg because if he and the Never-Trumpers had their way, Hillary Clinton would be president right now and instead of having Neil Gorsuch on the court, the most conservative justice since Scalia, we would have a 5th liberal extremist
Supreme Court judged in his place. This would have ceded the Supreme
Court to the extremist liberal democrats for the next 30 years or so and
the destruction to our nation to our nation would have been incalculable and devastating. The democrats would have been able to rule through the judicial branch by fiat - which is of course unconstitutional, but as I mentioned, the extremist democrats have zero respect for the Constitution.
If Goldberg and his Never-Trump traitors had succeeded, the conservative movement would not be on the brink of the greatest victory since Reagan’s turning our entire nation to conservatism.
Goldberg is a vile, two-faced, back-stabbing traitor to the conservative movement with a god-complex. He deserves to be permanently banned forever from the conservative movement. Otherwise you may turn around to find his knife in your back as so many other true conservatives have. Goldberg is the Benedict Arnold of the conservative movement, treat him accordingly.
You may be thinking of Bernie Goldberg. The white haired gentleman with a New York accent who often appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox show.
I was speaking of Jonah Goldberg, a writer who’s about 25 years younger. Mr. Trump at one time said “Jonah can’t find a pair of pants that fit.” when he was upset about an article Jonah had written.
That would be very funny if Trump put out two candidates at once.
Yes, Maxine would go postal.
Wouldn’t it be more properly written;
And the reason the swing vote matters so much is that we've made the Supreme Court has made the Supreme Court far too important in our lives.
If the Supreme Court read the constitution instead of president they would be much less important in our lives.
If you imagine thier reaction is extreme, just wait until Buzzy retires ...
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