“Fair Enough”

That’s what The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board thinks of Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s rationalization of his refusal to publish his list (assuming it exists) of judges from which he’d pick nominations to the Supreme Court.

Mr Biden has resisted naming individuals he’d consider for the Supreme Court, saying it would subject them to undue criticism. Fair enough—Mr Trump’s practice of making his short-list public is not required of other candidates.

Fair enough? No. Ridiculous and cynical. Trump’s lists of judges from which he’d select nominees for judge and Justice have been long publicized. The lists themselves have been criticized for not being definitive enough or lacking this or that candidate—the stuff of all lists. Judges on the lists have been criticized, too, with commentary on their writings and opinions suggesting too much conservatism or not enough.

But the only time—the only judge—on all of those lists “undue criticism” (a cynical euphemism if ever there was one in the present case) has occurred has been the present all-out assault on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s religion, integrity, and character being perpetrated by Biden’s Party cronies and Party supporters in the NLMSM.

Biden’s rationalization is wholly cynical if it isn’t merely projection.

Then there’s Biden’s primary criteria for anyone he’d nominate for the Supreme Court. Like Party’s pick for his Vice President candidate, Biden’s judicial criteria are, first and foremost, gender and race.

[H]e would appoint the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court.

His nominee’s understandings of our Constitution, of judicial oaths of office, of law don’t enter into it until far down his list of qualifying criteria.

The intrinsic sexist and racist bigotry in Biden’s selection criteria is just disgusting. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to talk overmuch about his potential nominees.

“Sharing a household with children and risk of COVID-19”

That’s the title of a medRxiv preprint (unpeer-reviewed) paper that looked at the risk to adults—in particular, Scottish NHS healthcare workers, NHS-contracted general practice service providers, and members of their households—of contracting the Wuhan Virus (my term) when they lived in households with children with ages ranging from new-born to 11 years old. Total participants numbered more than 300,000 adults and children.

The results are correlative rather than causative, but the strength of the correlation is strongly suggestive.

The risk of hospitalization with COVID-19 was lower in those with one child and lower still in those with two or more children….

And the money quote:

Conclusion[:] Increased household exposure to young children was associated with an attenuated risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and appeared to also be associated with an attenuated risk of COVID-19 disease severe enough to require hospitalisation.

That suggests, also (my conclusion; the authors didn’t address the matter), that putting children back in school (at least grade school) poses no serious risk of spreading serious illness from the virus.

The preprint abstract can be read here.

Another Activist Judge

…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

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

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.