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Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Politics rules the reactions to Trump’s Supreme Court nominee


The nomination by President Donald Trump of highly respected Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court is yet another opportunity for hysteria to invade the world of entertainers.

** One of the crew of ABC’s “The View,” Joy Behar, opined the other day: “Why would a president who’s under investigation by the FBI for obstruction of justice and collusion be allowed to pick a Supreme Court justice who will be there? I’ll be dead. There are many people in this room who will still be alive and need abortions … and need health care. How dare he be allowed to do this when he is under investigation?”

** Actor Ron Perlman emoted: “OK Ladies and Gentlemen who care for and respect ladies, it is official. The move back to Medieval Values, Shariah Law even, where old, bitter men get to tell women what is best for their bodies, lives, and well being is as done a deal as this is Twitter. Unless we say NO! NO!”

** Then there’s the media: CNN's Jeffrey Toobin tweeted that confirmation means "abortion illegal; doctors prosecuted; gay people barred from restaurants, hotels, stores; African-Americans out of elite schools; gun control banned in 50 states; the end of regulatory state."

The hysteria epidemic is not limited to entertainers and news folk; it is rampant among Democrats, socialists and regressive politicians. (Please pardon the redundancy.)

** House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi: “The President’s selection is a clear and disrespectful assault on the fundamental rights of women and on the quality, affordable health care of the American people.” 

** Former Virginia Governor Democrat Terry McAuliffe: “The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh will threaten the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come and will morph our Supreme Court into a political arm of the right-wing Republican Party.”

** Independent socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders: “President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will be a rubber-stamp for an extreme, right-wing agenda pushed by corporations and billionaires. We must mobilize the American people to defeat Trump’s right-wing, reactionary nominee.”

** Senate Minority Leader Democrat Charles Schumer: "With this pick, the president is making good on his pledge to ‘punish’ women for their choices. Judge Kavanaugh got the nomination because he passed this litmus test, not because he’ll be an impartial judge on behalf of all Americans. If he were to be confirmed, women’s reproductive rights would be in the hands of five men on the Supreme Court," he said.

There is so much that these poor folks don’t know or understand, or pretend to not know. Their negative reactions were automatic, and puerile.

To put the lie to the idea that Kavanaugh is THE worst possible choice among the four final possibilities, remember that the lefties created posters opposing the nomination before the nominee was even chosen, listing “XX” as the nominee.

Among the volumes of things Behar doesn’t understand is that (1) a duly elected President of the United States is duty-bound to nominate persons to fill judicial vacancies, (2) that accusations can be made by anyone, anytime, against anyone, and therefore are not sufficient to stop a president from being president, and (3) investigations are not a finding of guilt.

Perlman is controlled by the emotions that enable actors to ply their trade, to an excessive degree. Toobin lacks professional integrity and business sense and perspective.

Pelosi, Sanders, McAuliffe, Schumer and the rest, of course, have future elections as their prime motivation.

In order to accomplish their political goals, Congressional Democrats condemn and obstruct anything and everything associated in even the slightest way with Trump.

They don’t mind trashing a Trump nominee for any position, despite her or his credentials. Not only are the 25 original potential Supreme Court nominees all highly qualified jurists, but of those on the shortlist from which he selected Kavanaugh, all were supremely qualified.

They all are proven originalists in interpreting the Constitution, refusing to alter it from the bench, and honoring the Constitution’s own process for amending it, as has been done 17 times since the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments, were ratified.

Which, of course, is precisely why Pelosi, Sanders, McAuliffe, Schumer and the rest oppose everyone on the list.

They favor judges who will alter the Constitution or enacted laws from the bench, which occurs when unelected Supreme Court Justices or judges of inferior courts bend the plain language and intent of the Constitution or laws to mean what they think they ought to mean.

This is what is meant by the Constitution being a “living” document; the idea of being able to change the meaning and intent of the Constitution on a whim, or in response to some momentary social fad, or even when changing it will accomplish something good.

Our Constitution is not chiseled unchangeably in stone. It also is not written on a chalkboard where parts of it may be easily erased and rewritten. There is a process to make changes when there is strong, broad support for change.

A governing document that is a “living” document is not a governing document at all.

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