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OCTOBER 1,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

KAV – You may have noticed a great deal of talk about a Judge Kavanaugh.  And you may have noticed that there's not much news to go with it.  Be careful this week.  The FBI is conducting the ordered, extended background check on the judge, but news organizations have to fill time and space.  And they push a lot of "stories" that are of no significance at all.  We may learn in the next day or so – I have it on the best authority – that Brett Kavanaugh kissed Katie Simmons in kindergarten.  Be prepared for the headlines.  And be prepared for extended discussions featuring "youthful kiss" experts, who will tell us why this matters on the US Supreme Court.  I think we'd all be better served if the news networks would show old travelogues this week, and stop trying to convince us that every minute moves us closer to the end of the Republic.

HEIDI IN TROUBLE – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:  A new poll shows Republican challenger Rep. Kevin Cramer leading Sen. Heidi Heitkamp by a 10- point margin, with North Dakotans overwhelmingly in favor of confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Losing a race in North Dakota would make it significantly more difficult for Democrats to retake the Senate.  The poll, from Mason Dixon and North Dakota's NBC affiliate, shows Cramer opening up a 51 percent to 41 percent lead over the Democratic incumbent.  The poll also finds North Dakotans support the confirmation of Kavanaugh by a 60 percent to 27 percent margin. Furthermore, the survey found that at 21 percent, more people rated Kavanaugh as their top concern than any other single issue.   This shows why contests in the states are vastly more important than national polling averages.  We are electing members of Congress in a month, district by district, state by state. 

AND IN MISSOURI – FROM NATIONAL REVIEW:  The heated battle over Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has hurt vulnerable Democratic senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri in her race for reelection, according to a recent poll.  The poll, conducted by Remington Research Group Wednesday and Thursday, found that 49 percent of the 1,555 likely Missouri voters questioned said they were less likely to vote for McCaskill after witnessing Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, while just 42 percent said they were more likely to vote for her. Notably, 47 percent of women said the Kavanaugh process had made them less likely to vote for McCaskill compared to 42 percent who said the opposite.  McCaskill announced Wednesday evening that she would oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination due to his judicial record, absent any consideration of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he drunkenly pinned her down and attempted to rape her at a high-school party more than 30 years ago.  McCaskill’s opponent, Republican state attorney general Josh Hawley, has been steadily climbing in the polls, and the Real Clear Politics poll average has him behind by just one percentage point.  The Senate is at stake.  If the GOP loses the Senate, judgeships at all levels are in jeopardy.

October 1, 2018       Permalink

WHAT AMERICA DO WE WANT? – AT 12:08 P.M. ET:   The Kavanaugh hearings have exposed deep and serious problems with America's concept of itself.  We may be at a crossroads, where we determine whether we want a great and free America, or something considerably less.  From Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness: 

The Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and their endless sequelae have ended up as an epitaph for a spent culture for which its remedies are felt to be worse than its diseases. Think 338 B.C., A.D. 476, 1453, or 1939.

The coordinated effort to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court required the systematic refutation of the entire notion of Western jurisprudence by senators and much of the American legal establishment. And there was no hesitation in doing just that on the part of Senate Democrats, the #MeToo movement, and the press. And I write this at a moment in which conservatives and Republicans still control the majority of governorships, state legislatures, the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court and the presidency—a reminder that culture so often is far more powerful than politics.

So, here we were to be left with a new legal and cultural standard in adjudicating future disagreements and disputes, an utterly anti-Western standard quite befitting for our new relativist age:

1 The veracity of accusations will hinge on the particular identity, emotions, and ideology of the accuser;

2 Evidence, or lack of it, will be tangential, given the supposed unimpeachable motives of the ideologically correct accuser;

3 The burden of proof and evidence will rest with the accused to disprove the preordained assumption of guilt;

4 Hearsay will be a valuable narrative and constitute legitimate evidence;

5 Truth is not universal, but individualized. Ford’s “truth” is as valid as the “Truth,” given that competing narratives are adjudicated only by access to power. Ford is a victim, therefore her truth trumps “their” truth based on evidence and testimony.

6 Questionable and inconsistent testimony are proof of trauma and therefore exactitude; recalling an accusation to someone is proof that the action in the accusation took place.

7 Statutes of limitations do not exist; any allegation of decades prior is as valid as any in the present. All of us are subject at any moment to unsubstantiated accusations from decades past that will destroy lives.

8 Assertion of an alleged crime is unimpeachable proof. Recall of where, when, why, and how it took place is irrelevant.

9 Individual accusations will always be subservient to cosmic causes; individuals are irrelevant if they do not serve ideological aims. All accusations fit universal stereotypes whose rules of finding guilt or innocence trump those of individual cases.

10 The accuser establishes the conditions under which charges are investigated; the accused nods assent.

Our cultural traditions are being insidiously rewritten in this new Dark Age. We know now that Euripides’s Phaedra should have been believed, as a female accuser of rape. Perhaps university presses can either reissue properly corrected editions or ban the Hippolytus entirely. No doubt we will ban Racine’s Phèdre as well. Harper Lee’s Tom Robinson deserved his fate because his female accuser should have been believed—and perhaps To Kill a Mockingbird  should be rewritten as well.

In our time, we have finally and only now belatedly realized that Tawana Brawley’s voice was stifled.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  It is brilliant.  You might also consider the term "outmigration."  I'll be writing about this.  I fear that, if trends continue in America, we might suffer the same fate as other failing societies and see our best people starting to leave, even starting small nations elsewhere. 

Ronald Reagan warned that we are always one generation away from losing our freedoms.  I'm afraid he was right.

October 1, 2018        Permalink

WHERE THE PRESIDENT STANDS – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  In the midst of the Kavanaugh mess, the president stands well.  From Rasmussen: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 34% who Strongly Approve of the president is performing and 42% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8.

COMMENT:  The new NAFTA agreement should add to Mr. Trump's approval.  He's promised to be out there fighting for Republican congressional candidates, and he might just turn some races around.

October 1,  2018     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 30,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

CANADA AND U.S. MAKE UP – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  The US and Canada reached a deal late Sunday on reforming the North American Free Trade Agreement.  Canada agreed to join the revised trade deal that the US and Mexico had signed last month — just hours before a midnight deadline, that allows Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto to sign the accord on his last day in office, two people familiar with the talks told The Washington Post.  The new treaty is expected to be signed by President Trump and his counterparts in Canada and Mexico within 60 days — preserving a three-country NAFTA trade pact.  The agreement will boost US access to Canada’s dairy market and protect Canada from possible US auto tariffs, two sources with direct knowledge of the talk told Reuters.  We have no further details at this time.

STUNNING – THIS STORY IS JUST GETTING STARTED – FROM FOX:   Rachel Mitchell, the sex-crimes prosecutor who questioned Dr. Christine Blasey Ford last week, wrote in a memo released late Sunday that there were inconsistencies in Ford's testimony and that-- given the information at hand-- she would not bring criminal charges against Judge Brett Kavanaugh.  Mitchell, who was hired by the Senate Judiciary Committee to assist Republicans, addressed the letter to “All Republican Senators,” and said no senator approved the memo. She noted in the assessment that she is a Republican, but said she is not a political person.  She identified Ford's case as an example of  “he said, she said,” and said her case is “even weaker than that.”   Ford, a California psychology professor, claims Kavanaugh assaulted her while at a house party in the 1980s when they were both teenagers. She said he pinned her to a bed, attempted to forcibly remove her clothes and prevented her from screaming. Ford said she was "100 percent" certain that Kavanaugh was her attacker.  Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations.  Mitchell, who worked as a sex-crimes prosecutor for nearly 25 years in Arizona, pointed out what she identified as timing inconsistencies. She wrote that Ford appeared to jump around on the timing of the alleged sexual assault, ranging from the “mid 1980s” to “early 1980s,” and then the “summer of 1982.”  “While it is common for victims to be uncertain about dates, Dr. Ford failed to explain how she was suddenly able to narrow the timeframe to a particular season and particular year,” she wrote.  Mitchell also pointed out that Ford has a history of struggling to name Kavanaugh as her attacker. Mitchell noted that his name was not in notes from her 2012 marriage therapy or her individual therapy in 2013.  This story was posted late tonight.  I'm sure there'll be more tomorrow.  It is an excellent takedown of Ford's case.

MAJOR ARTISTIC NEWS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  The Kent State School of Theatre and Dance has chosen to cancel its production of “West Side Story” due to some students remaining dissatisfied with the production’s casting decisions.  Theater major Bridgett Martinez, of Puerto Rican heritage, apparently thought her ethnic background alone would get her the play’s lead role of Maria. She was disappointed that she was cast as Maria’s understudy, reports KentWired.com, but got really upset upon seeing the full cast list.  “I was just blown away because it was not correct at all,” she said.  “Not correct” means several non-Latino students had gotten traditional “Latino” roles in the classic musical, including the leads.  Another theater major, Viviana Cardenas, was irked a role she wanted had gone to a black student.  This is complete madness.  If allowed to continue, it will shut down all college theater, or turn it into one of those "Everybody is a winner here at Dumbbell State" things.  Grow up.

September 30, 2018       Permalink

WE HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR THIS GREAT MOMENT – AT 2:18 P.M. ET:  We want her.  We yearn for her.  The nation cannot do without her.  And now we learn that we may indeed get the chance to have her as our guide and mentor.  I weep for joy.  And I am kidding.  From Daily Beast: 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), one of the most high-profile progressives in the U.S. Senate, said Saturday that she will seriously consider a presidential run after November’s midterm elections.

“Let’s face it, Donald Trump is taking this country in the wrong direction,” Warren told an audience member at a town hall in Holyoke, Massachusetts, according to remarks sent to The Daily Beast by a spokesperson.

“Working people have taken one punch to the gut after another,” she continued. “And I am worried down to my bones about what Donald Trump is doing to our democracy.”

Warren told the group that Washington was broken long before Donald Trump came to town but added that it has “gotten a whole lot worse” going on to express her outrage at hearings Thursday over sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“And then this week, I watched 11 men who were too chicken to ask a woman a single question,” she added. “I watched as Brett Kavanaugh acted like he was entitled to that position and angry at anyone who would question him. I watched powerful men helping a powerful man make it to an even more powerful position.”

COMMENT:  Yup, we sure need that level of intellect.  And that level of civility.  What will we do if our Lizzy doesn't come to save us?

September 30, 2018       Permalink

SON OF WISDOM – AT 1:32 P.M. ET:  Well, the apple didn't fall far from the tree.  The son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a giant of the Supreme Court, shows he has his father's careful mind.  From Fox: 

The son of late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia told Fox News on Sunday that his father wouldn't have been shocked by the partisan conflagration surrounding the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, owing to what he called the improperly outsized power of the Supreme Court in modern life.

"On a general level, he wouldn't be terribly surprised about the intensity surrounding this Supreme Court nomination, because so much of it comes down to Roe v. Wade -- at least, that's how the left is presenting it," Christopher Scalia said, referring to the landmark 1973 case holding that women have a constitutional right to an abortion within certain trimesters.

In one fell swoop, Roe effectively prevented states from deciding on their own how to regulate abortion, and several states immediately took steps to try to restrict abortion rights in response.

"My father often said, with Roe v. Wade in particular but other cases as well, the court was really trying to come in and settle a cultural issue that should have been resolved in elections, and the legislative process," he added during his appearance on "Fox & Friends." "By trying to short-circuit that process, the Supreme Court caused more damage and, as a result, Supreme Court nominations and confirmation battles have become more heated, because justices have taken on the role that properly belongs to legislators."

COMMENT:   He is correct.  The purpose of a court, any court, is to interpret the law, not to make the law, and surely not to change social and religious customs at will.  Even Ruth Ginsburg lamented that she'd wished the issues of Roe had been decided by the states. 

I would introduce, though, one gentle note of dissent:  The Court was controversial, to some degree, long before Roe.  In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the Court "nine old men," and tried to pack it with additional justices because some of his New Deal legislation had been declared unconstitutional.  He was rejected.

In 1954, there was an expected uproar after Brown vs. Topeka Board, the famous school desegregation decision, was handed down.  Chief Justice Earl Warren, heading a unanimous court, became, for the South, Public Enemy Number One.

And in 1962, the Court again became the center of anger when it released its decision restricting prayer in public schools.

But it was Roe, in 1973, that galvanized objections to what some saw as the growing, arbitrary power of the Supreme Court.  And indeed, the Court, in a 7-2 decision, with Justices White and Rehnquist dissenting, involved itself in deep issues of theology, biology, and ethics.   Roe has become what is probably the single most controversial decision in Court history.

September 30,  2018     Permalink