Tulsi Gabbard on Hate Crime Hoaxes

Brett Kavanaugh on the Confirmation Circus

Jonathan Turley on Due Process

Sheldon Whitehouse on Rules

On Trump and the Courts

Joe Biden on the Ginsburg Rule

Rejecting Tomi Lahren's Pink Slime Pro-Choice Perspectives

In offering analysis after President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to be on the Supreme Court, Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren opined that conservatives seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade are effectively spitting on the Constitution.

Lahren has been outspoken in her adherence to abortion rights.  She was separated from Glenn Beck's "The Blaze TV" last year because of her inconsistent opinions about abortion.  This was sparked by an appearance on ABC's The View in which she argued that it was hypocritical to be anti-choice and be a small government conservative.    Beck insisted that he wanted to terminate Lahren for lacking intellectual integrity.

“I can’t speak for the company and why they did it, but it had nothing to do with being pro-choice...
What I have a problem with is somebody who will change their point of view or that will say absolutely crazy, red meat things, and not have any intellectual firepower to back it up. Have the intellectual integrity to be able to back things up.”

Now Lahren laments that some conservatives want a Supreme Court to carry out religious judicial activism to get rid of Roe v. Wade (1973).  Tantalizing pro-choice red meat but it like the pink slime substitute which some fast food outlets use to sell dollar menu items to a hungry public even though it causes indigestion.

Lahren assumes that any rollback of Roe would be premised on religious issues.  Even the Roe decision recognizes that government has interests in unborn life in the last trimester that is viable.  Prenatal medicine has made great leaps of advancement so viability is pushed closer to the 20th week of pregnancy.  No signs of religion in this hermaneutic. And that does not even consider the scientific fact that human life begins at the moment of conception

Pro-Choice jurisprudence currently rests on the shaky foundation of abortion as being included in a right to privacy that is within  penumbras and emanations of the Bill of Rights, as applied to states by the Fourteenth Amendment.  Justice Blackmun's holding in Roe is a quintessential example of judicial activism, legislating from the bench for the entire nation.

Conceptually, a texualist originalist led Supreme Court could rule that "the right to privacy" is not enumerated within the Federal Constitution and that the Tenth Amendment is applicable.  This would throw the abortion issue back to the states, where it resided prior to the 1973 judicial fiat.  Some states, like California and New York, would have liberal abortion laws, while other states may be more restrictive.   That sort of subsidiary jurisprudence sounds like small government conservatism.

Maybe Lahren's political science studies at UNLV did not adequately cover jurisprudence.  She seems to think that it is unconstitutional for the Supreme Court to overrule bad precedent or is judicial activism.   In his confirmation hearing to become Chief Justice in 2005, John Roberts noted that stare decisis does not hold as a legal precedent when a matter was wrongly decided.  But in Tomi Lahren's legal logic, Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that overturned the Separate but Equal standard of  Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was just spitting on the Constitution too. 

It is lamentable that Fox News turns to Tomi Lahren for legal analysis.  In little more than a year, she has shifted her abortion rights advocacy from being premised on what she believes is small government conservatism to combating religious judicial activism.  No wonder she burned her bridge at The Blaze TV for lacking intellectual integrity. 

Some may want to consume pink slime perspectives because they are spicy tasty morsel temptations, but assuredly many leave the establishment when such dreck is  seen on the television menu.

President Donald Trump on Vetting SCOTUS Nominees

Antonin Scalia on the Constitution

Clarence Thomas on Universal Injunctions

Dennis Miller's SCOTUS Snark

On Applying the Nuclear Option and Comity

Article II Section 2 of the Constitution gives the United States Senate the prerogative to give "Advice and Consent" in confirming Executive Branch nominations, especially the judiciary. For most of the Republic, confirmations of Supreme Court justices were not voted on in a markedly partisan manner. 

The Senate, which liked to consider itself as the world's greatest deliberative body, usually operated in a manner which vetted high court nominees in a conscientiously deferential manner to the President.  For example, Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been chief counsel of the ACLU and a noted feminist attorney, yet she garnered a 93-3 confirmation vote in 1993. 

Admittedly, this was not always the case. President George H.W. Bush's nominee of Clarence Thomas endured a contentious confirmation hearings  in 1991 which he likened to a "high tech lynching for uppity blacks".  

And  of course the vitriolic attacks on Robert Bork, President Ronald Reagan's 1987 pick to fill a Supreme Court opening, resulted in the verb "to Bork" to be added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002.  But the adamant opposition from the left stemmed, however peripherally, to nitpicking "flaws" in the nominees.

Much of the comity that the Senate enjoyed was due to Cloture Rule (Senate Rule XXII) which was instituted in 1917.  In order to end debate on a filibuster, three-fifths of Senators (today 60 votes) is required.  Applying that to judicial nominees, Presidents often picked less stridently partisan or controversial candidates, as some Senate Minority votes were needed in order to advance to the confirmation vote.  

Former Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) found this 3/5ths Cloture requirement to be inconvenient in his effort to aid President Barack Obama in packing the judiciary (particularly changing the balance in the 4th Circuit, a.k.a. "The Rocket Docket").  Thus, in 2013 Reid exercised "The Nuclear Option" which abrogated Senate Rule XXII for judicial confirmations save Supreme Court nominees. 

 Reid was warned on the Senate floor by then Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that you will regret using the nuclear option.   In the 115th Congress, when Senate Democrats became openly obstructionistic about any nominations made by President Donald Trump, Majority Leader McConnell extended the "nuclear option" to include Supreme Court nominees, which resulted in Neil Gorsuch being confirmed by a 54-45 vote.

After Justice Anthony Kennedy's announced retirement from the Nation's High Court, Democrats have campaigned for the Senate to delay confirmation hearings for the SCOTUS opening until after the 2018 midterm elections.  Their facile rationalization is that Republicans ought to follow the same standard used to deny Merritt Garland a confirmation hearing in 2016 because it was an election year.  Of course, this partisan plea ignores that it was a Presidential election year and had over 70 years of precedent.  In addition, Democrats are not in the majority and they set the agenda. Elections do have consequences.  

So does changing and exploiting rules.  Democrats might have some gravitas to their suggestion to stall SCOTUS confirmation hearing until after the midterms if they were not already slow walking nearly all Trump confirmations.   Senate rules allow for 30 hours of debate on each nominee.  Democrats have been routinely requiring the entire 30 hours of debate, which would mean that President Trump's picks could receive senatorial "advise and consent" in nine years. So the threat that Democrats will further slow walk Senate proceedings in retaliation or to forestall a SCOTUS confirmation vote is meaningless. 

The recalcitrant response of Democrats should be a cue to Majority Leader McConnell on how to react to the diminution of comity in the Senate.  If Democrats are going to slow walk everything in retaliation or retribution for the Senate leadership for exercising their "advice and consent" on Supreme Court nominees in a timely manner, then keep them in session.  McConnell already effectively cancelled the traditional long summer recess so they can meet their budgetary duties. So they get to spend the dog days of summer on Capital Hill and enjoy the swampy weather in the District of Calamity (sic).

But the lack of comity and the need for elected officials to do their job might mean spending more time on Capitol Hill.  Since Democrats seem to relish filibusters and slowing the process down, the Majority Leader should change how filibutsters are treated.  Instead of the failure of a cloture vote resulting in the legislation (or the nomination) being pulled, let the debate continue.  If legislators want to invoke "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and talk until they are hoarse and drop from exhaustion, that is their prerogative.  But just as the nuclear option changed things in unexpected ways, tinkering with the filibuster might have adverse effects on Senate minority rights in the future.

Moreover, so that the Senate is not simply the place where legislation goes to and dies, remain in session through October instead of taking the election break.  From an objective standpoint, they will be doing their jobs (instead of concentrating on getting re-elected).  Politically, this hurts Senate Democrats (as they have 25 of 33 seats up, including 10 in states where Mr. Trump won).  And it might make obstructionism less appealing and allow incumbents to give comity a chance.

On the Loch Ness Monster of the DC Swamp

Democrat Demagogue and Double Standards on Immunity

At the height of Russian Collusion delusion, Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA 15th) was almost an omnipresent figure on cable television.  When rumors that immunity would be given to those alleged to be involved in Russiagate, Swalwell repeatedly demagogued: "Innocent people do not ask for immunity!"

Just before the DOJ Inspector General  David Horowitz publicly releases a report about the Clinton Email coverups, fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe has reportedly asked for immunity in order to testify before Congress.

Wonder if Swalwell will invoke the diurnal Democrat double standard about innocence and immunity?  

On Tolerance, Pardons, Politics and Dinesh D'Souza

In 2012, conservative polemicist Dinesh D'Souza contributed $20,000  via a straw donor for his friend Wend Long's quixotic campaign to become Senator from New York.   His infraction was zealously prosecuted by politically connected US Prosecutor from the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara.   

In 2014, D'Souza entered a plea for a one count felony charge. D'Souza's sentence was for eight months in a half way house, five years probation and a $30,000 fine. 

 This was perhaps the first time that someone was sentenced to prison for a minor FEC infraction.  Liberal Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz noted that such campaign violations were common and questioned if it was a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion.   Many conservatives believe that Bharara threw the book at D'Souza as payback for cinematic success of  "2016: Obama's America" (2012).   Bharara was thought to be a front runner to replace Obama Attorney General Eric Holder in 2014. 

On May 31, 2018  President Donald Trump announced via Twitter that he would grant D'Souza a full pardon because  he was very unfairly treated by our government.

President Barack Obama granted clemency to 1,715 nonviolent criminals, many of them were for drug dealers and even a terrorist.  Obama granted more commutations  than the prior twelve Presidents. The mainstream media lauded the Obama Administration as being tolerant.  

It is dubious that the media accredited Democrat steno-pool will apply the same standards towards President Trump regarding Dinesh D'Souza.

DC Edition of What's New Mr. Magoo?

The Strange Case of Tommy Robinson

Last week, British new media journalist Tommy Robinson (ne Stephen Lennon) was taken into custody and summarily sentenced to 13 months in prison while he was live streaming outside of the Leeds Crown Court.





There is considerable confusion about the matter.  Robinson has a history of being a soccer hooligan who became active in nationalist politics, with an animus against radical Islam. Robinson's arrest was while he covered a Muslim rape gang which groomed its child victims.

Because Tommy Robinson was weary of Islamic influence in the UK, it is easy to leap to the conclusion that a police state is trying to shut down a dissenting voice from elite internationalists.  It may well be that Robinson was taken in on suspended sentence for contempt of court regarding coverage of a gang rape case in 2017 that was escalated by being in a scuffle with police.  Robinson fears that his 13 month sentence will effectively be a death sentence due to Muslim gangs in prison.

Robinson's arrest seems kind of reminiscent of what happened to the LA videographer in the wake of the Benghazi attack in 2012.  Use trumped up charges on a small fry to politically placate.

What should be truly disturbing to all freedom lovers is the injunction that the judge, Geoffrey Mason QC, ordered an Orwellian media blackout, enjoining the British press from reporting on it until after the conclusion of the child grooming case.

[C] Judge Geoffrey Mason watching Tommy Robinson arrest, Leeds Crown Court

Several European Parliament Members have called Robinson a political prisoner and demanded his release. It is puzzling that the public can not be informed of someone who has been convicted of a crime. Are Star Chambers back in style in England again? In the past, the Star Chamber supposedly took on prominent people.  Is it now to enforce political correctness or PC dhimmitude?

Jonathan Turley on Spygate

Joe DiGenova on John Brennan

When the Constitution Is Used As Kleenex