Tag Archives: political parties

Criteria for Serving as Supreme Court Justice

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Here are President Barack Obama’s (D) criteria for his nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.

…judges who approach decisions without any particular ideology or agenda, but rather a commitment to impartial justice, a respect for precedent, and a determination to faithfully apply the law to the facts at hand….

So far, so good. But.

…a judge who knows that “justice is not about abstract legal theory, not some footnote in a dusty casebook.”

And

It’s the kind of life experience earned outside the classroom and the courtroom; experience that suggests he or she views the law not only as an intellectual exercise, but also grasps the way it affects the daily reality of people’s lives in a big, complicated democracy, and in rapidly changing times.

In other words, Obama still is looking to emphasize empathy over law. He wants the superior wisdom of the wise Latina. He wants the Constitution creatively interpreted and updated. He wants a Justice who agrees with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the Constitution is alterable because it lives through judicial rulings. He wants a Justice who agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts that enacted law is accessible to wholesale rewriting in order to arrive at something then worthy of application.

He does not want a Justice who recognizes that the Constitution lives through Article V and that Constitutional amendments and statutes and their changes are political rulings accessible only to We the People and our elected representatives.

He does not want a Justice who will adhere to his oath of office, which requires the Justice to defend and uphold the Constitution rather than to change it, an oath that also requires the Justice to understand and apply only the text of the Constitution and of enacted law, as they are written.

I agree with some, including Obama now, that the Senate has an obligation to consider his nominee(s), even in the last year of his term—a time frame Obama and his fellow Democrats have said should be exempt from Supreme Court nominee consideration. But the Senate has no obligation to rubberstamp Obama’s nominee, and any nominee who meets these criteria is unfit to serve as any sort of judge, much less a Supreme Court Justice.

Full stop.

Reich’s Analysis

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Ex-Democrat Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has offered his analysis of Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) and of Businessman Donald Trump and their relative values as Presidents of the US. See his two-minute YouTube video here.

Stipulate everything Reich said about Cruz is accurate (after looking past the hype): Cruz turns out to be pretty good. Cruz should thank Reich for the endorsement, and wear the description proudly.

An Empirical Test

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It isn’t often that we get to run a controlled experiment in economics, but one seems to be beginning in Oregon on the matter of minimum wages.

Oregon lawmakers have approved landmark legislation that propels the state’s minimum wage for all workers to the highest rank in the US, and does so through an unparalleled tiered system based on geography.

The legislation will raise the state’s minimum wage to

$14.75 in metro Portland, $13.50 in smaller cities such as Salem and Eugene, and $12.50 in rural communities.

This will be complete in just six years, by 2022.

And that’s the experiment. Over the course of these next six years, watch employment rates adjust across the three geographies, and watch small business startup and development across those three geographies.

Hmm….

Racism on the Left?

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Hillary Clinton ratcheted up Democrats’ criticism of Senate Republicans in the debate over filling the Supreme Court’s sudden vacancy, suggesting Tuesday that those calling on President Obama not to nominate someone are motivated by race.

After all, it takes a strong measure of racism to manufacture a racist beef where no racism exists. She, and the Left who are silent on her slur, are also racist in this way: it isn’t possible to criticize a President’s policies or politics when he’s a black man because—he’s black. He can’t handle the criticism, Clinton and her cronies seem to be saying.

Hypocrisy at the State Level

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Congresswoman Mary Lou Marzian (D, Louisville, KY) has proposed—and she’s serious about it—House Bill 396, under which

Kentucky men would have to visit a doctor twice and have signed permission from their wives before obtaining a prescription for Viagra or other such drugs for erectile dysfunction[.]

She insisted

it is merely an effort to protect men’s health and ensure they are informed about a drug with potentially dangerous side effects.

“I want to protect these men from themselves,” said Marzian[.]

She compounded her hypocrisy:

This is about family values[.]

Leaving aside the fact that it isn’t government’s role to protect anyone from himself—only a Democrat insists on so intrusive a government—the lie in her claim of concern about men’s health is shown in her subsequent comments about her purpose in proposing this bill.

[S]he acknowledged the bill is a pointed response to several anti-abortion measures in the current legislative session, including Senate Bill 4, which requires a woman seeking an abortion to get counseling 24 hours in advance of the procedure from a health professional.

This bill is about family values and about men’s health? She wrote in a related op-ed for the Louisville, KY, Courier-Journal:

A rash of anti-abortion bills have been filed, and one is now law, that places extreme hardship and emotional stress upon women and strips away their rights to make choices about their health, future and well being.

And

The conservative movement sweeping Kentucky has put women in the cross hairs of its battle to take over government at all levels, and it’s time we recognize this hypocrisy for what it is.

As these legislators and our governor increase efforts to mandate their presence in our doctor’s examining rooms I believe it is time we regulate men’s reproductive choices.

No, Marzian is simply railing at those who oppose abortion, and being logically inconsistent in her plaints—and as a highly intelligent and accomplished woman she knows she’s being inconsistent, hence her hypocrisy—and placing those who oppose abortion in Kentucky in the cross hairs of her battle to intrude government into the lives of Kentucky citizens—including Kentucky’s babies.

There’s nothing in opposing abortion that concerns women’s health or their reproductive choices, there’s only concern for a human’s life, that baby’s life who hasn’t yet been born. That tale takes up after the “reproductive choice,” made voluntarily or otherwise, already has been made. Now there’s a baby whose right to life must be addressed.

Family values? Nonsense. The baby is as much a part of that family as are the mother and father. Marzian’s bill is simply another Liberal shot at those who oppose abortion; it has nothing at all to do with family values. As far as she’s concerned, the unborn baby is unimportant; the baby’s extreme hardship and emotional stress, his choices about his health, future and well being are beneath her notice.