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Editorial, Elections, Issues, Legal Issues, Liberal Logic, National politics, POTUS 29.06.2018 No Comments
Harry Reid, Republican Mastermind
Democrats can blame themselves for blowing up the judicial filibuster.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid pauses during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Nov. 16, 2016. PHOTO: ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By The Editorial Board
Updated June 28, 2018 7:34 p.m. ET
Schadenfreude is overrated, but it is amusing to see Democrats apoplectic that Republicans might confirm a Supreme Court Justice with 51 Senate votes. Let’s review the tape on the Sage of Searchlight, Nevada, because Harry Reid made this moment possible by blowing up the filibuster for judicial nominees.
Democrats are in various stages of grief about the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy but the prevailing mood is rage. Democrats are insisting that the Senate not confirm a replacement until after the November election. The left is still furious that GOP Leader Mitch McConnell barred until after the 2016 election a vote on Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia. They think Mr. McConnell should be “consistent” now.
But that Court opening came amid a presidential election, when Americans decide who will determine the direction of the courts for four years. No less than a quarter of Donald Trump’s voters said their reason was the Supreme Court. Hillary Clinton would have had her pick of nominees, and Mr. Garland or a more radical jurist would be on the Court. The real Democratic grievance as ever should be with Mrs. Clinton for losing.
Supreme Court confirmations ahead of a midterm election are routine. The Senate confirmed Justice Elena Kagan in August 2010, Justice Samuel Alito in 2006, Justice Stephen Breyer in 1994, and David Souter a month before midterms in 1990. The Great Scalia was confirmed in September 1986.
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1st Amendment, Editorial, Elections, Immigration, Issues, Liberal Logic, National politics, PC Police, Terrorism, War on Women 25.06.2018 No Comments
How to Re-Elect Trump
You’re so deplorable you can’t eat in their restaurants.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, left, walks past White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, right, after speaking to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Monday, June 18, 2018. PHOTO: PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/ASSOCIATED PRESSHillary Clinton lost the Presidency in 2016 for many reasons but one was surely because she called people who disagreed with her a “basket of deplorables.” Millions of Americans knew who she meant, and nearly 63 million voted for Donald J. Trump.
The political left is now repeating that mistake as its cultural and political vanguard sends a message of condescension, hostility and now ostracism to anyone who voted for Mr. Trump or has worked with or for him for the good of the country. Their relentless contempt might end up re-electing him.
On that score don’t underestimate how the refusal by a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, to serve White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will resonate politically. Ms. Sanders had taken a seat at the Red Hen with several others on Friday when owner Stephanie Wilkinson asked her to leave. Ms. Wilkinson told the press, which is turning her into Rosa Parks, that her restaurant “has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation.”
