MY USA TODAY COLUMN: What To Expect With Kavanaugh On The Court.
Archive for 2018
October 8, 2018
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Columbus Day and Much, Much More. “Immediately after the contentious Kavanaugh vote in the Senate on Saturday, Kavanaugh and family snuck into the SCOTUS building to get sworn in. A more formal swearing with the President in will take place this evening. The #resistance was not pleased about Kavanaugh’s confirmation and swearing in.”
To say the very least.
HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY: Many in the West will demonstrate their fierce originality and intellectual independence today by condemning Christopher Columbus using the same shopworn cliches they used last year. For those of a different bent, I recommend Samuel Eliot Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, which takes a somewhat different position. Here’s an excerpt:
At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .
Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”
Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.
Morison’s book is superb, and I recommend it highly as an antidote to the simplistic anti-occidental prejudice of today — which, as Jim Bennett has noted, has roots that might surprise its proponents:
This is primarily an effect of the Calvinist Puritan roots of American progressivism. Just as Calvinists believed in the centrality of the depravity of man, with the exception of a minuscule contingent of the Elect of God, their secularized descendants believe in the depravity and cursedness of Western civilization, with their own enlightened selves in the role of the Elect.
Indeed. Nonetheless, Bennett thinks that a different Italian deserves the real credit. (Reposted from 2005, but it still fits.) [Doesn’t this leave you vulnerable to charges of recycling too? –ed. I prefer to think of it as “They came at us in the same old way, and, you know, we beat them in the same old way.”]
I post this every year, as it’s evergreen. The original link to Bennett’s column seems to have succumbed to link-rot, but I believe this is it.
CARL GUSTAF AT GRAFENWOEHR, GERMANY: Paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade fire the Carl Gustaf on a range at Graf.
OFT EVIL WILL SHALL EVIL MAR: Byron York: Did Jane Mayer, Ronan Farrow, and Michael Avenatti give Trump his biggest victory yet?
PURGING THE BELIEVERS: Chaired Law Prof At University Of Oklahoma Resigns Associate Dean Position Amidst Outcry Over His Book.
The book is To Build the City of God: Living as Catholics in a Secular Age. Apparently, the expression of traditional Catholic views renders him too “sexist and homophobic” to hold the job. A Muslim with similar views, of course, would be a shining example of diversity, because reasons.
IT SURE LOOKS THAT WAY: Did Jane Mayer, Ronan Farrow, and Michael Avenatti give Trump his biggest victory yet?
The Avenatti-Swetnick story represented the moment when the anti-Kavanaugh forces jumped the shark. The allegation was off-the-scale serious: Who knew Brett Kavanaugh was a high-school Bill Cosby? But Swetnick produced no witnesses to the events she alleged, nor could she produce witnesses who confirmed even that such events occurred, nor could she produce witnesses who confirmed her presence at any such events, and, she was not even part of Kavanaugh’s social circle at the time (Swetnick was older than the others and from a more distant suburb of Washington and attended public school there, outside the tight-knit group of private school students with whom Kavanaugh hung out).
In short, Avenatti and Swetnick had nothing beyond an incendiary accusation. Nevertheless, some Democrats embraced the story to push the notion that there was an accumulating weight of sexual misconduct accusations against Kavanaugh.
“We already have three credible reports of sexual misconduct by Judge Kavanaugh,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, referring to Ford, Ramirez, and Swetnick. Pressing for an FBI investigation, Hirono said it “certainly should cover the three credible reports that have come forward.”
“We now have three credible accusers of sexual assault,” said Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued a press release headlined: “Senate Democrats: FBI Must Investigate All Three Credible Allegations of Sexual Assault Against Judge Brett Kavanaugh.” Other Democrats on the committee sent out the same release.
The talking point got some pickup in the press. ABC News asked President Trump: “Mr. President, there are now three women accusing Judge Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Are you saying that all three of these women are liars?”
Democrats had their pattern. They demanded Trump order the FBI to interview people who might have knowledge about all three accusations.
Releasing the FBI report might make for an excellent October Surprise.
YEAH, PRETTY MUCH: Feinstein’s Disgrace. I believe she leaked the Ford stuff because she was feeling pressure from her far-left challenger, De Leon. Putting Kavanaugh, and the country, through such an ordeal for such a petty reason is indeed a disgrace.
WHATEVER TESTOSTERONE SUPPLEMENT LINDSEY GRAHAM IS TAKING, IT SHOULD SELL LIKE HOTCAKES BASED ON RESULTS: Graham Challenges Schumer: ‘Name One Person on This List You Think Is Acceptable.’
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) challenged Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Sunday to name one person from President Donald Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court justices that he finds acceptable.
“This is a list that was compiled in November, but [Trump] actually put it out during the campaign,” Graham told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, as he held up the list. “There are twenty something people on this list; I’m asking Chuck Schumer, name five, name three, name one that would be okay with you.” . . .
Graham added that Kavanaugh is a mainstream judge that any Republican president would have nominated. He said Democrats are trying to undo the 2016 election and prevent conservative jurists from being confirmed.
“Brett Kavanaugh was a mainstream judge I would’ve chosen if I had been president. [Former President George W.] Bush supported him. Everybody running for president on our side believe that Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were outstanding conservative jurists. The other side wants to cancel the election,” Graham said. “So Chuck, you want someone new? Look at this list and see anybody you agree to, but what you want to do Senator Schumer is to overturn the election. We are not going to let you pick the judges. If you want to pick judges, then you need to win the White House. When Obama won that, I voted for two judges that he picked. So Chuck Schumer, name one person on this list you think is acceptable.”
Related: Meet Lindsey Graham 2.0.
NOW THAT KAVANAUGH HAS BEEN SWORN IN, IS IT MORE LIKELY OR LESS LIKELY THAT THE COURT WILL GRANT REVIEW IN METCALF v. UNITED STATES?: I can make arguments running both ways. What I have a hard time understanding is why anybody would think the Thirteenth Amendment (slavery prohibition) gave Congress the power in 2009 to pass a law against racially-motivated hate crimes, long after any threat of slavery’s return had passed. But you can judge for yourself if you read this brief.
THE INSTA-WIFE: How the Kavanaugh Case Teaches Men to Fight Back.
CYBERSECURITY: US Homeland Security statement plays down Bloomberg spy chips claim. “The US Department of Homeland Security has issued a statement that seems to refute Bloomberg’s claim that a significant number of US companies had been compromised due to clandestine microchips reporting sensitive data back to China. Amazon Web Services and Apple have also rebuked the article’s content.”
Plus:
An article published by Bloomberg Businessweek this week, called “The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate US Companies,” has created something of a ruckus in the cybersecurity sector. In a nutshell, the piece states unnamed sources saying that Chinese intelligence agents had managed to install chips on motherboards manufactured by a company called Supermicro, which were then used in servers operated by companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Apple and even in systems utilized by the US Department of Defense and the CIA.
Bloomberg has stuck by its report, insisting on its veracity. However, Apple, Supermicro, and AWS have denied the allegations, with Apple publishing an unambiguous statement that completely rejects the notion of malicious chips being found in any servers. Now the press secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security has offered a rather terser statement in regard to the subject:
“The Department of Homeland Security is aware of the media reports of a technology supply chain compromise. Like our partners in the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre, at this time we have no reason to doubt the statements from the companies named in the story.”
It’s looking more and more like Bloomberg really stepped in it.
SELF-MARGINALIZATION: Elite Law Schools Turn Against Conservatism. Like so many institutions these days, they’re run by people who care more about their standing within their tribe than about the welfare of the institutions they run, or of the people they are supposed to serve.
NATION OF HOSTAGES: Venezuela Demands Citizens Pay for Passports With Petro. “New Venezuelan passports will cost two petros, equivalent to 7,200 bolivars ($115 USD) or four minimum monthly wages, Maduro’s deputy, Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez stated Friday during a televised press conference, local and foreign media reported. By the way, the token has not even been issued to the public yet – it’s expected to go on sale on November 5.”
KAVANAUGH WILL DRIVE WOMEN AWAY FROM THE GOP, RIGHT? DATA SAYS NOT LIKELY: Leave it to that pesky darn data to put the lie to yet another Unchallenged Truth (AKA the “conventional liberal wisdom”). This time it’s LifeZette’s Brendan Kirby who took a look at the survey results and came away concluding:
“For all the confident pronouncements of the conventional wisdom, though, there is surprisingly little objective evidence to back it up. Polling reveals little evidence of a gender gap on Kavanaugh (pictured above) after accounting for political affiliation.”
OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER JUST BEGINNING: Susan Rice Raises Hand When Jen Psaki Asks for Susan Collins Challengers.