Tag Archives: politics

Reactionary Ideologue

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President Donald Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh, of the DC Circuit, to the Supreme Court, and “within seconds” Democracy for America called him a reactionary ideologue.

DfA, without correction from the Progressive-Democrats of Congress, or anyone else on the left, also has foretold Kavanaugh’s confirmation would

directly lead to the deaths of countless women with the dismantling of abortion rights.

Even taking the manufactured hysteria seriously, it’s instructive here as an aside (of no small size) to consider that the Left worries about the risks to grown, adult women who make the conscious choice to run a risk, but they care not a red sou for the deaths of countless babies who cannot speak for themselves and for whom the Left insists no one should so speak.

That the Progressive-Democrats’ opposition to the Kavanaugh nomination has nothing to do with principled disagreement with how the man might adjudicate cases and everything to do with naked politics is further illustrated by a fund-raising email House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) sent Monday.  In it she wrote that [emphasis added]

she is “determined to avenge President Obama if it’s the last thing I do” by preemptively opposing President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee….

All of this is confirmation of the Progressive-Democrats’ view of the Constitution.  That core of our nationhood is just something to be modified at will by unelected judges—so long as they’re properly selected by Progressive-Democrats.  It’s Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “living” constitution.

Or, as a journolist put it more bluntly,

[The constitution] has no binding power on anything.  …the text is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago….

Never mind that there’s nothing at all reactionary in a judge upholding the Constitution.  That’s what his oath of office enjoins him to do.  On the other hand, a judge modifying the Constitution to fit a personal view of social justice is rank judicial activism—and a violation of his oath of office.

Free Food Stamps

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The House passed a farm welfare bill that includes a requirement for food stamp recipients to work for their welfare payouts last month, and the Senate passed its version—carefully without that requirement for actual work. Or perhaps just timidly passed, since Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts (R, KS) was intimidated by Progressive-Democrat Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow (D, MI) and couldn’t find the backbone to oppose her.

Now the two bills go to conference for resolution, and the outcome doesn’t look promising for work.

In today’s tight employment environment, that work would be easy to find, too, and in light of that, The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board made the comment

What’s bewildering is that Democrats seem willing to write off so much human potential as permanent wards of the state.

There’s nothing at all mysterious about that, though. The only potential that Progressive-Democrats see in these unfortunates is their votes, not their human potential. Indeed, that’s the Progressive-Democrat work-for-welfare program: vote for us Prog-Dems, or we won’t pay you any money.

President Donald Trump should support the House and inject some backbone into Senate Republicans, including especially Roberts, and announce he’ll veto any farm welfare/food stamp bill that doesn’t include the House’s work-for-stamps requirement.

In a Contest of Tariffs

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In a piece purporting to show Where the Trade Battle Hurts the Most, Julie Wernau and Ira Iosebashvili had this comment:

Renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement are being closely watched in Canada, too. The Trump administration has used threats of auto tariffs to win concessions from Canada and Mexico, a strategy that hasn’t sat well with the two countries.

President Donald Trump also offered them, and the rest of the G-7, a regime of no tariffs at all. Their refusal even to discuss the offer doesn’t sit well with those of us outside the NLMSM.

Hysteria

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Is the Left, in its hysteria, turning more violent?  And I don’t mean just Antifa or BLM.  Or last year’s attempt by a Leftist kook to murder Republican Congressmen.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was threatened by a group of “protestors” as he left a restaurant last Saturday.  One of them shouted

We know where you live, Mitch. We know where you live.

As McConnell left in his car, another of the “protestors” was self-congratulatory:

We did good, fellow citizens.

It’s not just kooks, anymore; these threats of violence and the potential for violence, is going mainstream, as Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, CA) actively eggs them on, and “mainstream” Progressive-Democrats remain silent beyond a few vapid words on the Senate floor.

This is the level of freedom toward which we can look, if we’re not careful this fall.

A Thought on Auto Tariffs

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The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board is worried about auto tariffs.  They do make a fair case concerning the national security aspect of our automobile industry (while eliding the fact that industry includes many more car companies than just GM, Ford, and Chrysler—and that none of them manufacture cars in the US, while all of them assemble cars in the US from imported parts).

They weaken, fatally IMNSHO, their argument, though, when they present only one aspect of the case for/against auto tariffs or the threat of significant increases in already extant auto tariffs.  In particular, the Editorial Board has carefully elided the fact that the Trump administration and German auto manufacturers have agreed in principle to a no-auto-tariff-at-all regime.

Now it’s on the German government and Brussels to agree.  It’s likely, although not certain, that plans to impose a 20% tariff on auto imports from the EU had an impact in moving the German companies toward eliminating tariffs altogether.

A no-auto-tariff regime also would render the security beef moot, but some folks on the Left don’t want that.