The ABA and Judicial Ratings

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Judge, now Justice, Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court and hearing cases.  The American Bar association is still looking for relevance here.  The ABA, after first giving Kavanaugh glowing marks as a judge wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee that it was “reopening” its evaluation—timing its letter for 5 Oct, just before the Senate’s floor vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

The ABA was ignored when Kavanaugh, et al., were being evaluated for a Supreme Court nomination and again when Kavanaugh was nominated. That prior ABA endorsement was simply the association’s jumping on the band wagon.

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Mao Lives

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The People’s Republic of China, the home of rule by law (not rule of law), has retroactively legalized its “internment” camps, which the government is using to jail reeducate recalcitrant Muslims in its western province of Xinjiang.

Chinese authorities in the far-northwestern region of Xinjiang on Wednesday revised legislation to permit the use of “education and training centers” to combat religious extremism.

So far—so far, mind you—a million Muslims are…housed…in those camps.

The camps are strongly reminiscent of those of President Xi Jinping’s early predecessor, Mao Tse-tung.  Mao sent 16-18 million children and millions more adults to his “reeducation” camps.

This is a preview of Mao Lives. Read the full post (141 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

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The tentacles reach far—even into the origin of Western concepts of individual liberty.  A British court has ordered

the wife of a jailed Azerbaijani banker to explain how she and her husband could afford their multimillion-pound London mansion or face having it seized.

Government does not have to prove the illegal origin of the money.  No, the holder of the money must prove her innocence.  Here is the outcome of the British government’s legislation ostensibly aimed at allegedly dirty money held by people with political connections or suspected of serious crime.

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Exxon’s Carbon Tax

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Exxon Mobil Corp is throwing $1 million at the move to produce a national carbon tax.

Exxon’s move is an attempt to manage what it sees as the risk of a similar movement in the US, in ways that it hopes will simplify requirements on its industry….
Exxon sees a carbon tax as an alternative to patchwork regulations, putting one cost on all carbon emitters nationwide, eliminating regulatory uncertainty….

On the contrary, Exxon is looking for short-term competitive political advantage at the expense of long-term economic—real—advantage.  That’s unfortunate.

This is a preview of Exxon’s Carbon Tax. Read the full post (236 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

A Newly Conservative Court?

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Jess Bravin, writing in The Wall Street Journal, thought so.

When Justice Brett Kavanaugh takes the bench Tuesday, it will mark the culmination of the Republican Party’s 50-year drive to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

At the least, he argued,

[A] five-justice majority more sensitive to regulatory and litigation costs on business should tip more outcomes toward industry and employers, imposing higher bars for workers, consumers and environmentalists, according to legal experts who have studied the court and Justice Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence. At the same time, the new majority is likely to show more sympathy for social conservatives resisting the encroachment of gay rights and access to contraceptives, as well as greater tolerance for state initiatives to curb the availability of abortion.

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The New Left

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There can be no reasoning, no rational debate anymore with the Progressive-Democratic Party and the Left in general.  This is made clear by the statements luminaries of that collection have made in recent days—confirming their behavior during the Kavanaugh confirmation process just concluded, during which they actively rejected a foundation of liberty: innocent until proven guilty.  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) was the loudest on this, saying outright that then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh had to personally authorize an investigation into himself or he would show himself guilty.

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Consider a Possibility

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Our ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, will resign her position at the end of the year.  She told President Donald Trump her intention six months ago.

That raises a couple of thoughts in my pea brain.  One is to watch the utter vitriol, hatred, and character assassination with which the Progressive-Democrats will try to block any Trump replacement nominee from confirmation.

Beyond that: Nikki Haley for President in ’24.  Consider further: Lindsey Graham for VP (unless we still need the Republican numbers in the Senate to protect the Supreme Court).  (If Graham proves unavailable, how about Congresswoman Mia Love (R, UT)?  It’d be fun to watch the Party of Identity Politics campaign against that ticket.)

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Roberts’ Court

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Aside from the misnomer of the title, which is implied by the thrust of a piece in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal centered on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation and the hoo-raw surrounding that, Chief Justice John Roberts has a problem with the perception of the Supreme Court—according to Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin, the authors of the piece.

“We don’t work as Democrats or Republicans, and I think it’s a very unfortunate perception that the public might get from the confirmation process,” CJ Roberts…2016.

The Court can’t worry about perceptions, though.  It can—should—only rule on what the Constitution or law actually says.

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Credibility

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This. Is. Facebook.  Sorry, I don’t have James Earl Jones’ impressive, deep voice.  But here is Facebook’s MFWIC on a most serious incident that occurred during the Ford/Kavanaugh sort of joint hearing a little bit ago.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg told a packed room of employees Friday that the company should embrace diverse views, but he expressed frustration that a senior executive had attended Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s highly politicized hearing….

These are mutually exclusive claims, particularly since all Kaplan—that evilly miscreant employee about whom Zuckerberg speaking—did was sit in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s gallery with other of Kavanaugh’s friends and family.

This is a preview of Credibility. Read the full post (177 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

Partisanship

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Chris Wallace interviewed Senator Ben Cardin (D, MD) on his Fox News Sunday program last Sunday.

Here are some of the claims Cardin made.

The change that Senator McConnell made to the rules on the Supreme Court really caused us to be much more partisan in this[.]

And

I don’t believe that Justice Kavanaugh’s in the mainstream of judicial thought.

And

Kavanaugh’s confirmation puts at risk “the progress we’ve made on health care issues, on women’s Constitutional rights, and on protecting the Mueller investigation.”

Not quite, although this is America, and Cardin is entitled [sic] to his spin.

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