Monthly Archives: April 2021

The Relevance of Constitutionality

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal had an editorial Wednesday that decried Progressive-Democrats’ (my term; the editors wrote only of “Democrats”) DC statehood “gambit.” In their piece, the editors made the case that the move, as designed by Congressional Progressive-Democrats, was unconstitutional.

One part of their writing jumped out at me.

But the impetus behind both measures [Supreme Court packing and DC “statehood”] is the same—to tilt the constitutional playing field and consolidate liberal power.

Indeed. It’s important to keep in mind that today’s liberals, far from being classically liberal, are 18th century monarchist, Big Government Knows All/Controls All proponents. For such as these, our Constitution is whatever they say it is—if it has any value at all. Their own hero, Woodrow Wilson, insisted that our Constitution is obsolete and ought be done away with altogether.

Today’s monarchist liberals are bent on the same aim, this time by simply ignoring it.

This is Why…

Posted on by
Reply

…we can’t afford any more Progressive-Democrat-appointed judges or any more judges appointed by anyone who want to argue politics rather than confine themselves to the law. Especially when the politics they argue are so blatantly biased and un-American.

The Sixth Circuit ruled, in a case in which Imelda Lopez-Soto, a Mexican citizen who came to the US illegally in 2000 at age 19, was contesting a removal order, that the immigration court had not erred, and Ms Lopez-Soto had not been denied due process. (The immigration court’s removal order was upheld.) The two Liberal judges, Martha Daughtrey and Karen Moore, ruled that

[i]n an era in which it is difficult to find any issue upon which a large percentage of Americans agree, few people would dispute that our nation’s immigration system is broken and is need of a structural overhaul. Admittedly, a not-insignificant number of Americans believe that any change to our immigration statutes should result in shutting our borders to almost all individuals, or at least to all potential immigrants who are not blond-haired and blue-eyed.

Judge Amul Thapar, a son of immigrants, had a different take, even though he agreed with the basic ruling:

I have my doubts about the wisdom of courts opining on hot-button political issues or the motives of citizens who hold one position or another in those debates. And as someone who is neither blond-haired nor blue-eyed and who has benefited directly from the kindness of the American people, I believe that the American Dream is alive and well for persons of all stripes. Thus, I respectfully concur only in the judgment.

Daughtrey and Moore, with Thapar sitting right next to them, acted like he was invisible to them and they couldn’t hear him speaking.

Did the two women not see or hear him because he is a member of the male patriarchy, or did they not see or hear him because he’s an immigrant who defeated their seeming accusation of racism on the part of those not-insignificant number of Americans?

Wow.

The appellate court’s ruling can be read here.

Say Their Names

Posted on by
Reply

The Left has long insisted “Say their names” in reference to police killings of blacks. That mantra has intensified in the days since Derek Chauvin was convicted on three counts of various forms of homicide in the killing of George Floyd.

In 2020, there were a total of 214 blacks killed by police (using The US Sun‘s data and some third grade arithmetic).

In 2020, there were roughly 8,600 blacks killed by civilians, primarily by other blacks.

My challenge to the Left and to luminaries like Congresswomen Maxine Waters (D, CA) and Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Senators Dick Durbin (D, NY) and Raphael Warnock (D, GA), Vice President Kamala Harris (D), President Joe Biden (D), and…activists…like Al Sharpton, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Shaun King, Michelle Alexander, Jamal Bryant:

Say the names of those 8,600.

Or is it that, as the New York Post puts it, those lives don’t matter to the Left or to Eminences like the ones above?

A Brazilian Extortion Move

Posted on by
Reply

The headline of a Wall Street Journal piece regarding the Amazon forest, its putative role in Earth’s climate, and Brazil says it all: Brazil’s Climate Overture to Biden: Pay Us Not to Raze Amazon. The article’s lede lays it out in crystalline terms.

Brazil’s government, widely criticized by environmental groups as a negligent steward of the Amazon rainforest, has made an audacious offer to the Biden administration: provide $1 billion and President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration will reduce deforestation by 40%.

The article closed with a question for readers:

Should the US give the Bolsonaro government in Brazil $1 billion to slow deforestation in the Amazon?

No, I say. No, in spades.

Here’s my counteroffer to Bolsonaro: slow deforestation of the Amazon by 50%, and we won’t cut our imports of Brazilian goods and services by $1 billion. End your deforestation by 2030—your proposed goal—and we’ll continue, after that date, to import Brazilian goods and services at rates consistent with market demand.

Here are the Brazilian terms starkly articulated by Bolsonaro’s Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles:

If we don’t give these people this economic support, they will continue to be co-opted or incentivized by illegal activities.

Cute. Those are “activities” the Brazilian government condones with its own passivity. Hence the Bolsonaro/Salles threat: “Nice forest you guys got here. Be too bad if something was to happen to it. Be better if you was to pay up.”

Stuff and Nonsense

Posted on by
Reply

That’s what my grandmother—a much more gracious woman than I ever have been a man—would call things and behaviors that were utter…foolishness.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has signed a law that toughens the penalties for engaging in a variety of acts during riots. Engaging in the riots themselves has long been illegal.

The law, which goes into effect immediately, grants civil legal immunity to people who drive through protesters blocking a road and allows authorities to hold arrested demonstrators from posting bail until after their first court date. The legislation increases the charge for battery on a police officer during a riot and adds language that could force local governments to justify a reduction in law enforcement budgets.
The bill allows people to sue local governments over personal or property damages if they were determined to have interfered with law enforcement response during civil unrest. It also increases penalties for protesters who block roadways or deface public monuments and creates a new crime, “mob intimidation.”

Naturally, the Left is up in arms about the law. Kara Gross, ACLU of Florida Legislative Director and Senior Policy Counsel:

The problem with this bill is that the language is so overbroad and vague…that it captures anybody who is peacefully protesting at a protest that turns violent through no fault of their own. Those individuals who do not engage in any violent conduct under this bill can be arrested and charged with a third-degree felony and face up to five years in prison and loss of voting rights. The whole point of this is to instill fear in Floridians.

Not at all. Those peacefully protesting when their protest turns violent through no fault of their own can leave, and they can show that they were trying to leave if they’re arrested on the way out of the area. It’s their conscious choice to remain or to not try to leave when the violence starts. If they make that choice, they’re no longer peaceful protesters; they’ve created themselves rioters.

Progressive stuff and nonsense.