July 24, 2018: Shameful Weakness, Baseball Can Do That, Idiotlogical Imperative

Political commentator George F. Will once observed that when he was young all his friends were St. Louis Cardinals fans. Will followed Chicago baseball and became a life-long devotee to the Cubs. “My friends grew up happy and liberal” observed Will wryly, “I grew up bitter and conservative.” Woe to those who follow the wrong team. Baseball can do that to a man.

A former sportswriter and editor at The New York Times and now senior editor at Propublica takes a similar view of the nomination of Judge Matt Kavanaugh by Caesar Disgustus to the Supreme Court. Writing in Thursday's Times and citing the importance of precedent in deciding constitutional questions he asks tongue-in-cheek, “Has there, then, been any precedent that raises graver questions about a Supreme Court nominee's fitness than the fact that Brett Kavanaugh got himself as much as $200,000 in debt largely by buying tickets to Washington Nationals games? Indeed, it is a lapse of judgment that boggles the imagination.

Our nation's capital has always been a laughing-stock when it comes to its representatives in professional sports. There have been incarnations of the Washington Senators baseball team, both of which have since relocated to other cities. These were American League franchises who distinguished themselves with the adage: “Washington: first in war, first in peace and last in the American League.” Evidently, the gods of baseball ciphered that if they changed leagues, as well as the name of the team from Senators to Nationals the jinx would, somehow, be broken. To be fair, Washington has raised its ranking in the standings, winning the completely meaningless division title of late but, as Sexton, summarizes:

“But the Nats? They are the most soul-sucking strain of professional sports franchise. Not awful. Not great. Just tempting enough for suckers to believe they might be one or the other...

“Seriously? He imperiled his family's finances because he couldn't get enough of the team that has been a bipartisan waste of time and energy for people in Washington for a decade?...

“Are we so deep into the post-fact era that we can't expect a Supreme Court Nominee to take seriously the irrefutable evidence before him?

“Judge Kavanaugh went to Yale Law School, right? My dad did too, and I've bragged about it for years. But maybe reputations aren't what they seem—Yale's, I mean, not my dad's.” (1)

At last, surreptitiously, Sexton brings us to the main point. There are many reasons to oppose this nominee and the Democrats will, reliably, trot out the usual suspicions. Abortion, voting rights, anti-labor and affiliated idiotlogical reasoning. His legal record, grown voluminous in his time as a federal appellate judge, will be combed-over. But Sexton has, inadvertently, struck upon one of the two most glaring reasons to oppose this nominee: Yale Law School. Yale has given us a host of legal “scholars” who now populate the federal bench as well as the Supreme Court, nearly all of them renowned for torturing organic law until it confesses to their philosophic sophisms. It is clear that the elevation of this man to the highest court will do material damage to the letter and intent of our founding fathers and their documents. Yale Law School stands as an immediate disqualification for public office or service, with Harvard and the University of Chicago close on its heels. Yale has given us Clarence Thomas. Case closed.

It is time that we stop the practice of appointing, much less elevating, graduates from these schools to the federal bench. Indeed, it is time we end this incestuous practice of appointing law clerks who have served justices on the court to the federal bench and then, when the time comes, of returning them to the High Court. This for the very good reason that they lack any peripheral vision. They have no experience outside the law. Foremost, they have no experience in governance.

The best of those who have served on the Supreme Court have been those who have served in government. Those who have hands-on experience with the administration of the state. Warren, Brandeis, Taft, Chase, Douglas. Not simply those who have only legal experience, and, if they have any private legal experience, of representing corporations or putting people behind bars. Federal courts populated with more than a few former office holders would not, for instance, have handed down these obscene rulings on gun control. Those responsible for the administration of our social safety net would not have been so prone to hand down these ridiculous decisions on health care, or a worker's right to organize. In sum, such courts would be practical instead of ideological.

No. The deciding vote on this notoriously divided body must be taken from the hands of the idiotlogues and placed in the firm hands of a Practical legal scholar. This requires the appointment of someone who will not savage legal precedent in headlong service to the ideological imperative; someone with eyes open and a hands-on approach. Someone who has a clue about the consequence of flooding the streets with guns or flooding our politics with money. I am reminded here, of Justice Alito's shaking his head and muttering “no” as President Obama in his subsequent “State of the Union” address admonished the court for its Citizens United decision warning that money would now control the electoral process. You can rest assured, that nothing that has occurred in subsequent years has changed the idiot justice's view, as has nothing in the wake of his gun control rulings or his vote to gut the voting rights act will change his idiotlogical view. For no matter how many states move to further restrict voting, no matter how much blood runs in the streets or how much the middle class gets savaged in the wake of these decisions, you can rely upon these Justices to stand firm in their ignorant beliefs. Will this action“Promote the General Welfare”? Or, will this action produce Domestic Tranquility? These are not ideological questions. These are practical questions. These, among others are responsibilities enumerated in the preamble of our Constitution, that we are obligated to provide. These are the very purposes for which the Constitution and this government were created in the first place. Secondary considerations such as: Can this law be effectively administered? What benefit or harm will this decision inflict? Is this a legal or is it a Political question. If it is legal it has standing before the court; if it is political then there are political remedies that must be addressed elsewhere either legislatively or administratively. (2) These, though practical, are also controlling questions.

I'm thinking of some self-educated country bumkin turned politician, oh someone from perhaps Illinois who had his administrative problems but had some command of the king's English and knew how to govern.

There is one other consideration that transcends this nominee and the usual spectrum of criticism that awaits anyone facing the nomination process and that is the criminal intent of the one placing the name in nomination. Here lies the deciding vote of every subsequent 5-4 supreme court decision. A vote over whether a sitting president can be forced to testify before a grand jury. A vote over whether a sitting president can be indicted. A vote over admissibility of evidence in legal proceedings against a sitting president. A vote over whether a sitting president can shut down any ongoing investigation—including investigations into his own conduct. A vote over whether his expansive power to pardon extends to include pardoning those about to testify against him, or whether he can pardon himself.

Some of these questions have never been adjudicated. Some of these questions have been considered settled. But the idiotlogical political wrong have now a long record of judicial activism, overturning decades of established law. Kavanaugh's musings on these issues have been less than reassuring; in fact they have—reflecting the view of presidential power taught at Yale, unnerving.

But there is a larger issue here, a point raised by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, among others. It is whether a sitting president can or should appoint anyone to the federal bench while under criminal investigation. It is also a question of whether a sitting president under investigation for possible collusion with a foreign adversary to materially affect his election to the office should so appoint. It is also a question whether a sitting president potentially liable to be found guilty of sedition or treason for conspiring with such foreign adversary should so appoint.

Kavanaugh has been nominated by tRUMP, the most soul-sucking president in our history—not great but awful--nevertheless tempting enough for suckers to believe.

The Senate needs to stand up to its constitutional responsibility. The Senate Intelligence Committee has found that the Russians did interfere with our electoral process in support of Donald John tRUMP. There is now reasonable doubt as to the legitimacy of this presidency and, until the dust settles, the Senate should declare that any further presidential appointments are dead upon arrival at Capital Hill, no matter what team he supports.

“'An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

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1. Sexton, Joe. “Kavanaugh's Shameful Weakness” The New York Times. Thursday, July 19, 2018. Page A21.
2. Bush v. Gore, For instance. Here the court overturned over two centuries of legal precedent wrongfully declaring jurisdiction in one of the greatest examples of judicial activism on record. Any previous court would have ruled that the dispute was a political dispute for which there is political remedy clearly outlined in the constitution. That is, whenever the votes of a state in the electoral college are in dispute the question goes to the House of Representatives where each state gets one vote. In fact, several elections had previously been determined by this route. The court, driven by partisan Rescumlican fever, nevertheless intervened appointing, by ending the recount in Florida, Bush to the presidency by a 5-4 vote thereby rendering the Bush presidency a bastard administration. The court, however, has in its history routinely decided that a question has a political remedy and admonished the parties to look elsewhere for relief.