Monthly Archives: September 2020

Another Activist Judge

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…stacking the vote and demonstrating the need for judges at all levels who will be true to their oaths of office and rule based on what the law says and not on what the judge wants the law to say.

[L]ast week a [Michigan] state judge ordered officials to keep tallying ballots that arrive up to 14 days late, provided they bear a postmark of November 2 or earlier.

Never mind what Michigan State law actually says on the matter. The judge knows better than the people’s representatives, and she considers herself eminently qualified and obligated to stray from her judicial constraints and intrude into a political matter.

This also illustrates the need to get a Justice confirmed for the Supreme Court seat previously held by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—so Court ties can be settled by nine Justices, and not by a capricious Chief Justice.

Judicial Nominees

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Bobby Jindal, in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, is on the right track, but wide of the mark. He opened with

President Trump’s determination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy has enraged Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ominously warns that if Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is replaced and Democrats gain a Senate majority, “nothing is off the table.” It’s not clear what was off the table before: Democrats had already threatened to end the filibuster, ignore pay-as-you-go rules, make the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico states and pack the court.

So far, so good, but then he strays into irrelevancies. “The Biden Rule,” “Ginsburg’s dying wish,” “Democratic distortion,” and on and on.

It’s foolish to talk about this Senator’s rule or that one’s, or Justices’ desires, or Democrat threats. The only “rules” that matter are those in our Constitution that require the President to nominate candidates for a variety of offices—here a Supreme Court Justice—and for the Senate to advise and consent/withhold consent for those nominees.

The practice, too, has been—nearly 30 times—for Presidents to nominate Justices in election years and for the Senate to confirm or choose not to confirm those nominees. Indeed, on three occasions, the losing incumbent President has nominated Justices after the election, and on those occasions, the Senate confirmed/withheld confirmation of those nominees before the newly elected President was inaugurated.

Alternatives

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In an op-ed in Friday’s Wall Street Journal centered on the foolishness of “sustainable” investing, Burton Malkiel had this remark:

The most effective way to reduce an economy’s carbon intensity is to change the economic incentive to pollute.

Not at all. The most effective way to reduce an economy’s carbon intensity—even assuming that’s a useful thing to do—is to provide viable alternatives to carbon intensity. So far, all the Left and their Progressive-Democratic Party is willing to offer is punishment for carbon intensity.

All that does is punish the successful because the less successful don’t or can’t keep up or do better.

Bait and Switch

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Recall the trillions of American taxpayer dollars already committed to dealing with the Wuhan Virus situation, including $139 billion sent to State and local governments explicitly for that situation.  It turns out

blue states and Democratic mayors are also using the money for their pet causes.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) is spending millions on free college for more than 600,000 essential workers.
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell (D) agreed to spend $629,000 to hire 15 community relations specialists.
Democratic St Paul Mayor Melvin Carter recently announced a guaranteed income program for low-income families using $300,000 in CARES Act money….

This is another demonstration that State and local governments don’t need any more Federal American taxpayer money. Progressive-Democrat-run jurisdictions can’t be trusted with the money.

Remember this in November.

The Lady Misunderstands

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Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) says it’s total BS that the Progressive-Democrat proposed $1 trillion in Federal Wuhan Virus stimulus monies aimed at State and local governments would benefit public sector unions. Whether public sector unions should or should not benefit is a separate matter.

It’s generous, though, to suggest that such an intelligent woman actually misunderstands.

Adding a trillion dollars—or any other amount of money—to a budget means—work with me, now—that budget has those added dollars to spend. Earmark the trillion for specific purposes, or bar it from being used for public unions. Do that by sending the money as cash and tracking serial numbers. That still lets the recipient government move a different [trillion] of dollars from a different part of its budget to benefit its public unions. That’s the fungibility of money. It can be moved around.

Then the Senator said this in all seriousness:

We need to fund government so that we can continue to grow the economy….

Here are the Constitutionally authorized reasons for funding the government:

to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States

Nothing in there about “growing the economy,” not even under that general Welfare part. What is the general Welfare of the United States is explicitly defined by the clauses of the rest of Article I, Section 8.

Indeed, as has been demonstrated over the course of our history and across a broad range of nations, the way to grow the economy is to have a free market, capitalist economy with minimal government involvement.

In fine, the State and local governments don’t need the stimulus money; they need to step back, (in many cases) end the lockdowns, and let the private economy function.