Democrats say: nice SCOTUS you’ve got there, it would be a shame if something were to happen to it
Here’s an article at National Review by David French, who is not ordinarily a rabble-rouser. It begins this way:
I just finished reading of the most astonishing legal briefs I’ve ever read. It is easily the most malicious Supreme Court brief I’ve ever seen. And it comes not from an angry or unhinged private citizen, but from five Democratic members of the United States Senate. Without any foundation, they directly attack the integrity of the five Republican appointees and conclude with a threat to take political action against the Court if it doesn’t rule the way they demand.
Extremely ominious.
The brief was filed in a case involving a particular gun law that was amended in a way that gun control proponents think should moot the case against the law. The brief was filed by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Mazie Hirono, Richard Blumenthal, Richard Durbin, and Kirsten Gillibrand:
The senators ask the Court to dismiss the case to “stem the growing public belief that its decisions are ‘motivated mainly by politics.’” It then details how much money the NRA spent to support the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh (there’s no mention of the amount of money progressive groups have spent to support the confirmation of progressive judges), questions the sources of money funding amicus briefs opposing New York’s law, and then claims that if there were transparency, the petitioners’ “amicus army would likely be revealed as more akin to marionettes controlled by a puppetmaster than to a groundswell of support rallying to a cause.”
There’s much more, and I suggest you Read the Whole Thing.
Here’s another quote from the brief:
The Supreme Court is not well. And the people know it. Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be “restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.” Particularly on the urgent issue of gun control, a nation desperately needs it to heal.
The entire thing is predicated on the senators’ rage at the fact that there is a 5-4 conservative slant to the Court at the moment. This of course de-legitimizes the Court in their eyes, whereas the reverse situation—a “progressive” majority—would just be independent, objective decision-making. Right?
[NOTE: More from Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection.]
Note the Senators who signed the brief: they are probably the five dimmest and dumbest members of the Senate as currently constituted, and perhaps in the entire history of the Republic. Especially that Hirono. She’s dum dum. She makes Biff from Back to the Future look like Einstein.
Even as a non-lawyer, I can tell that this language doesn’t belong in a brief filed with the Supreme Court.
The last march has to be complete from top to bottom.
The Supremes best have really good security or that will just look like bad luck like choking on the pillow. Or hanging from a bunkbed, whatever.
Threats backed with polonium, hookers, and yearbooks will maybe drive the weak into submission or just yelling and screaming. Hard to know.
Seems to be a point of order these days but they say the old ways are the best.
Partisan Democrats expect appellate courts to impose their preferred policies when elected officials and the general public won’t co-operate. Now they’re in a situation where the appellate courts may abstain or (now and again) provide some mild impediments (e.g. a decision which says that the New York Times Co. is not the only corporation in America with a claim to freedom of speech and publication, or a decision which says the phrase ‘the right of the people’ refers to an actual personal right of whose exercise they disapprove.
That’s the Democratic Party for you. It’s a collecting pool of America’s arrested development cases. Choice company you keep, manju.
Even as a non-lawyer, I can tell that this language doesn’t belong in a brief filed with the Supreme Court.
All five are lawyers. At least one had a BigLaw partnership at one time and two were state attorneys-general. Worst political class evah.
they are probably the five dimmest and dumbest members of the Senate as currently constituted,
Not likely. Dubin as an attorney was always on patronage. Hirono was a fairly common-and-garden do-my-real-estate-closing attorney. Some people of that description are dolts (e.g. Joe Biden), but not usually. At least three of them are Ivy League issue, and Durbin has a degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. No problem with the amount of ‘g’ between their ears. Of course, you have to ask ‘does that make this better or worse’.
Art Deco:
Makes it worse.
Assuming that educational credentials makes one wise is a blind, dangerous alley. The issue in my farm boy mentality is ideology. They are leftists hell bent and martini bound to stand on the necks of the peasants forever because their ideology is superior simply because it affords them arbitrary power over you and me. This is why they hate the 2nd, seek to control law enforcement in places like Portland, and subvert the military.
And they wonder why I keep reloading ammo. I have nothing but contempt for them. They don’t want to have a civil conversation, they want to shut you up by any means possible.
“Hirono was a fairly common-and-garden do-my-real-estate-closing attorney.”
She’s still an idiot, as per her exchange with one of Trump’s federal judge nominations. She asked him if he “were aware of his unconscious bias.” His response: “How can I be?”
My former point stands: she’s the Idiot of the Senate.
She’s also very full of herself and her intellect, which is the worst kind of idiot (one who thinks they’re super-smart): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLnZt86r8IQ
Speaking of leftists maliciously influencing the Judicial System, Ace HQ has an interesting post about folks such as Soros spending big bucks to elect DAs who while not empowered to repeal laws, would simply refuse to enforce them.
This isn’t helping my blood pressure.
Assuming that educational credentials makes one wise is a blind, dangerous alley.
Yeah, well nobody did that. The gentlemen says they’re dolts. They’re not dolts. People of low character, yes. Dolts, no. And you know that because Dartmouth is a highly selective institution that successfully screens out dolts. What it doesn’t do is screen out people of bad character, because it is run by people of bad character. Our elites are godawful.
It is always nice when the mask slips and the real visage appears.
This should be the basis of a campaign video used by the republicans — but that assumes that Trump has taught them how to fight.
If Gillibrand every shows up in Council Bluffs again, I’m going to ask her about this. An exclusive to neo!
There is only one response when anyone like David French writes anything like this:
WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN?!?!?!
French and those like him have spent the last three years egging on and indulging liberal/Democratic insanity and demagoguery. That never ends well for anyone.
Let’s be clear about something. The real problem with America today is people like David French. At least the Bernie Sanders and AOCs of the world recognize something is wrong. They may be utterly incorrect about what’s wrong and how to fix it but at least they’re generally aware of the reality around them. David French thinks Thanos just snapped his fingers to elect Donald Trump and if we just get rid of him, everything will go back to being “fine.”
Mike
Cornhead:
I eagerly await her answer.
MBunge,
With respect to you, and with sympathy for what you’ve said, I’d like to push for a bit of nuance re: David French.
David French is mistaken, badly, about the nature of the cold civil war and the needs, dangers, and opportunities which govern our methods this particular phase of the war.
French does not grasp that, even in a “cold” civil war, one must deal differently with an enemy (someone who disagrees so profoundly with you about both ends and means that he’d gladly have your children taken from you and indoctrinated until you no longer recognize them, see you reduced to poverty, and then smile to hear that some of his more thuggish associates had bludgeoned you to death for dissenting from the Left’s programme) than one deals with a patriotic fellow citizen (who wishes like you to preserve the Republic, but differs somewhat about the best means).
So French is mistaken, badly. Annoyingly. He’s frustratingly myopic.
Still, David French is a fellow citizen, and even a fellow combatant against the Left. He’s even won some skirmishes against them, and might one day win more, if we enter a new phase of hostilities more suited to his strengths. As such, French is in a different category than, say, Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, et alia who are literally now campaigning against policies they once embraced, reversing all their prior philosophical commitments, purely out of visceral distaste for Trump and the kinds of lowbrow rabble (their view) whom they imagine must be Trump’s sole base of support.
At present, David French is a liability to those who’re defending the Republic, but a pretty mild one: A horsefly, not a case of cholera. He insists upon the truth that the president is a bit of an undignified, obnoxious ass sometimes with a loudness vastly disproportionate to the comparative unimportance of the observation. That’s better than Max Boot who channels Goebbels to chime agreement with every Big Lie told about conservatives, with utter disregard for the plausibility of anything he says, and thereby permanently poisons the well of political discourse, hurdling every pretense of principles in a mad sprint to make armed civil conflict inevitable.
And while Bernie may be an earnestly-mistaken harebrained old commie, I think you give AOC too much credit. I think she’s riding a wave with few actual convictions (positive emotional associations with a handful of vague slogans doesn’t count as having “convictions”), but an overdose of chutzpah and just enough raw talent to set herself up comfortably for life if she plays her cards right. We’ll see.
And we’ll see if David French can bring himself to grudgingly admit that Trump’s done more for French’s pro-life causes than French himself has ever achieved. That’d be a good sign, a flicker of latent political vision behind those cultural cataracts.
But in the long term, he’s not the enemy; he’s a friend who can’t figure out how to shoot straight. I’m inclined to give him a bit of grace; I hope you can, too.
Politics, like life itself, is the Iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma.
The choice is to cooperate or cheat, and that’s already been solved: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/1998-99/game-theory/axelrod.html
The best strategy is to start with a green card (cooperate). Every turn thereafter, play whatever the other side played one turn prior.
In simple terms for leftists – we start nice, we always punch back twice as hard, if you repent, we forgive. and we’re unalterably clear about it.
*************************************
You corrupt the court when you’re in, and we’ll undo it twice-over when WE’RE back.
You try to lock the door behind you and we’ll kick it in twice-over.
You can’t get ahead by cheating, because the old “stupid party” is dead.
Wear it.
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure:
Rule 11. Signing Pleadings, Motions, and Other Papers; Representations to the Court; Sanctions
(b) Representations to the Court. By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:
(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation;
(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;
Rule 12. Defenses and Objections: When and How Presented;
(f) Motion to Strike. The court may strike from a pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter. The court may act:
(1) on its own; or
(2) on motion made by a party either before responding to the pleading or, if a response is not allowed, within 21 days after being served with the pleading.
The plaintiffs should move to strike the senators’ brief, or the court should, sua sponte, and sanction those scumbags!
“And you know that because Dartmouth is a highly selective institution that successfully screens out dolts.”
Are you certain about this? You are familiar with a certain higher education admissions scandal that broke earlier this year, right?
My point is that you are giving these particular Senators way too much credit. They are know-nothing dimwits. Just for grits and shins, look up Sen. Whitehouse’s grilling of Kavanaugh about the subject of high school farting.
These are totally un-serious people. I don’t care if one or two attended Dartmouth. Given that the ivory tower is now handing out A’s like candy, I’m not at all certain that a degree from these institutions means anything.
““And you know that because Dartmouth is a highly selective institution that successfully screens out dolts.” Art Deco
Dolts are easily led and manipulated. A certain percentage are useful. Thus it is a virtual certainty that Dartmouth along with every other college and University graduate some.
“In simple terms for leftists – we start nice, we always punch back twice as hard, if you repent, we forgive. and we’re unalterably clear about it.” Robert Arvanitis
Bingo
Institutions like Dartmouth mainly screen for book smarts. That’s about it. Let’s not make it out any more than that. As a group such people can snake their way in and out of political clout if they choose politics as their way of living. Doesn’t mean society needs or should be led by such people. Doesn’t require society to look at them with awe. Because of this they are. more dangerous to society than the mechanic living in small town central Illinois.
I voted for Trump (and Rubio as well) because I wanted the future of the court out of the hands of leftist extremists. I have been rewarded for those votes (even though I’m no big fan of Rubio he is at least a reliable confirmation vote). Now it’s being implied that I am an illegitimate white supremacist by the leftist collective. Color me un-surprised.
Are you certain about this? You are familiar with a certain higher education admissions scandal that broke earlier this year, right?
Yes, I am certain about this. It remains true even if they admit a dozen people consequent to some sort of corrupt practice. They admit 1,000 others consequent to grades and test scores. They’ll relax admissions standards for minorities, but in that case, they get people better suited to the academic pacing at a state research university, not dolts.
And Kirsten Gillibrand was admitted to Dartmouth 35 years ago, so I’m not seeing how recent scandals are relevant to her case.
My point is that you are giving these particular Senators way too much credit. T
And my point is that you’re talking rot and misidentifying the problem with them.
Have their been any recent Supreme Court appointments that have not been criticised by one party or the other?
Jon:
No, there haven’t been.
Two questions come to mind in response:
Q1: Have there been any recent (read: since Robert Bork) right-of-center Supreme Court nominations that weren’t subject to hysterical accusations and innuendo by the left? (And by “the left” I mean: Actual elected officials and well-known, large-audience spokespersons for the left, not random low-audience wingnuts.)
Gorsuch’s grilling was less-bad than others because he was replacing one of the most conservative jurists and, consequently, was viewed as either status quo or possible improvement. Even so, he got filibustered.
Q2: Have there been any recent (read: since Robert Bork) left-of-center Supreme Court nominations that were subject to comparably hysterical accusations and innuendo by the right? (And by “the right” I mean: Actual elected officials and well-known, large-audience spokespersons for the right, not random low-audience wingnuts.)
I raise these questions because, while you didn’t state it explicitly, it seems that your question could imply an equivalence between the left and the right regarding the norms of SCOTUS nominations. And that, to my mind, would be an untenable view.
“I’m inclined to give him a bit of grace; I hope you can, too.”
I certainly agree French is clearly above the Boots and Rubins of the world. But I would differ with you in that he should be held to a higher standard because of it. If Boot or Rubin changed their tune about Trump tomorrow, nobody would care. The political establishment would roll on without pause.
However, if David French were to loudly and forcefully advocate for Donald Trump when Trump does the same things French would cheer any other Republican President for doing, even while still fiercely denouncing Trump for French’s perceived character flaws, people would care. They’d care either that French was saying those things or they’d care when he got shut out of the public discourse for saying those things.
The problem with David French is not that he condemns or fails to praise Trump or that he doesn’t appreciate the nature of today’s political conflict. The problem is that David French obstinately refuses to even consider WHY Donald Trump ended up President. As I referenced, he and those like him seem to regard it as this cosmic fluke with no rhyme or reason. It’s just something that happened and if we can make it “unhappen,” then all will be right again with the world.
The truth is that for all the battles won by men like David French and George Will, there were other battles they were refusing to fight and they were losing the overall war. THAT’S why we got Trump and that’s a painful truth for someone like David French to acknowledge. His reluctance to do so doesn’t anger me. But Trump is going to be gone either by 2020 or 2024. If men like French still haven’t learned their lesson, the next person to ride up on that White Horse could make Donald Trump look like a member of the League of Women Voters.
So either they learn or they have to be replaced as political/cultural leaders. There’s no alternative.
Mike
Q2: Have there been any recent (read: since Robert Bork) left-of-center Supreme Court nominations that were subject to comparably hysterical accusations and innuendo by the right?
A. No. Since 1900, there have been a half-dozen Democratic nominations to the Supreme Court who encountered more than token resistance:
1. Louis Brandeis
2. Hugo Black
3. Sherman Minton
4. Abe Fortas / Homer Thornberry
5. Sonia Sotomayor
6. Elena Kagan
Of whom only the 4th was rejected. And it’s not surprising there was resistance.
1. Brandies had no history on the bench and had been for years a prominent advocate in those social controversies which had landed in Court. It would be roughly analogous to a Republican president nominating John Whitehead in our own time.
2. Hugo Black had no experience on the bench bar a brief period as a small town JP. He was a member of Congress and a partisan of New Deal agencies at a time when the constitutionality of such agencies was an issue. Nominating him was brazen. He still received the votes of a majority of the Republican caucus.
3. Sherman Minton was a pal of Pres. Truman’s and his nomination was subject to much clucking in newspaper editorials. He’d been a member of Congress awarded by FDR a seat on the federal circuit court of appeals after he’d been voted out of office, rather like the character Lucky Lucky Louis Sears in The Ugly American. Again, he still received the votes of a majority of the Republican caucus.
4. The nomination of Fortas to the position of Chief Justice (and Thornberry to replace him as Associate Justice) was the consequence of a scheme of dubious legality hatched by Earl Warren. Warren forwarded to Lyndon Johnson a contingent letter of resignation: I leave once a successor is confirmed. The idea was a hedge: If Johnson’s nominee was approved, Warren could retire. If the Senate blocked Johnson’s choice, Warren’s 77 year old tuchus would still be in place if the Republicans took the presidency in November. Fortas had originally been approved with scant opposition, but the antics of the Warren Court had been such that the thought of Lyndon Johnson’s henchman running the place provoked revulsion among Republicans and Dixiecrats in the Senate. Johnson was compelled to withdraw the nomination for a deficit of support, and Thornberry was collateral damage. The next year, knowledge of skeevy dealings on the part of Fortas and his wife (who was also an attorney) came to public attention and he elected to resign from the Court rather than face impeachment proceedings. At that point, Earl Warren gave up and retired.
5. Sotomayor was known to have engaged in procedural scamming around with civil rights cases which came before her. Also the context: of the seven most recent Republican nominees, three had faced campaigns of defamation by Democratic members of Congress and associated pressure groups and one other had withdrawn over public knowledge of minor drug use.
6. Kagan had zero history on the bench (and, again, the context).
I should note that the last Democratic nominee confirmed to the Court who was not a predictable advocate of what the leftoid ‘public interest bar’ wanted in controversial cases was Byron White, who served from 1962 to 1994. By contrast, of the last 19 Republican appointees seated on the Court, five have been devoted to social-policy-via-judicial-ukase and five others provided only trimming and temporizing (i.e. unprincipled) resistance to it. (The jury’s still out on three others and a fourth was on the Court only a modest run of years).
“And my point is that you’re talking rot and misidentifying the problem with them.”
I disagree with you 100%.
Somebody needs to give these solons a copy of the Constitution – as they’ve apparently never read it. I wouldn’t be surprised if some had never heard of it.
Robert Arvanitis on August 15, 2019 at 10:16 pm said:
Politics, like life itself, is the Iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma.
* * *
I love it when theory and practice come together.
Game Theory was a favorite part of my MA studies in political science, but I went back to computer programming to make a living.
At one point, a few years before Axelrod’s Tournament, I almost wrote a paper working out the same problem of strategy-against-strategy, but left the university before completing it, thereby losing my claim to fame.