Have ANY Leftists Read the Constitution?

Gary Horton’s 23 September column “Undemocratic Senate Doesn’t Represent Us” (here) was yet another example of his regurgitation of the Dem/socialist party’s talking points du jour, in this case hysteria about Trump nominating the successor on the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to Justice Ginsburg.

He complains about small states like Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky having the same representation – two Senators – as heavily populated states like California. So, let’s examine that.

The size of each state’s House delegation is determined by its population, thereby representing the “popular vote”. That’s why the House is known as “the people’s chamber”. The purpose of the Senate was to represent the interests of each state as a body, and originally Senators were appointed by each state’s legislature. The Constitution was amended so that the electorate of a state determined its Senators, but again, Senators represent the interests of each state as a body, and so each state is treated equally with two Senators. If each state’s Senate delegation varied by population instead of being limited to two… well, since that’s exactly what the House does, there wouldn’t even be a need for the Senate, would there?

Horton predictably goes on to try to contrast the Senate’s refusal to consider Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to SCOTUS to Trump and McConnell’s intent to seat a replacement for Ginsburg in this election year period.

However, McConnell is simply following long-established precedent in both cases. When, in an election year, the Senate is held by one party and the presidency by another, the usual practice is to wait for the outcome of the election, which is exactly what happened with Garland. But if the Senate and presidency are both held by the same party, standard practice is to move forward with confirmation, which is what’s happening now.

I have to wonder if Horton ever had a class in civics while he was in school. Really, this is pretty basic stuff.

 

 

©Brian Baker 2020

 

(Also published today in The Signal )

My First Appearance in the Denver Post…

… Never Happened.

 

The Denver Post is the local major metro daily newspaper for the region, and reminds me of nothing so much as the Los Angeles Times. That’s not a compliment. Though not as blatant as the Times in refusing to publish opinion pieces that oppose leftism, they definitely favor guest columns and letters that support their own staunchly leftist editorial stance.

Here in Colorado Proposition 113 is on the November ballot, and on 5 September the Post published an editorial urging voters to support and enact that initiative. The following, in italics, is the text of a response I submitted to the Post for publication as a Letter to the Editor (LTE), refuting their position. The response explains the purpose of Prop 113 and why it fails to meet constitutional standards.

The Editorial Board’s (EB) endorsement of Prop 113, which would allow Colorado to join an interstate “compact” to cast its votes in the Electoral College (EC) based on the outcome of the national popular vote and “to walk away from the antiquated electoral college system”, was disappointing, to say the least.

The Founders purposely created the EC to avoid direct democracy in presidential elections, considering it – correctly – as little more than mob rule. The end result would be elections utterly dominated by a few coastal high-population urbanized states, with smaller states completely marginalized to the point of irrelevancy.

It’s not “democracy”; it’s a mobocracy.

Though the EB correctly points out that “…  the founders of this nation empowered states to decide how they would allocate their electoral votes”, they overlook the fact that the US Constitution also requires that each state provide a republican form of government to its citizens, and allowing the residents of other states, through the “compact”, to determine the outcome of an election within the borders of its own state does not comport with that mandate.

Further, the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 10 states: “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress,… enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State…”

That’s about as straightforward as it gets.

I have little doubt this nutty “compact” idea won’t stand up to judicial scrutiny at SCOTUS if an attempt is ever made to use it to determine an election outcome.

If you wish to read the original editorial you can do so here. As is SOP for leftists, they’re either completely ignorant of the actual constitutional issues that are involved – a common problem with leftists, who seem to have never even heard of that invaluable parchment – or they simply don’t care about it, the only other explanation, one which is entirely unacceptable.

Ultimately the Post published seven LTEs, three supporting their position and four opposed. None of those LTEs were mine. Before I say why I think that’s so, let me establish my bona fides.

I’ve been submitting material for publication for over three decades, and have a success rate of over 90% of my material being published. It’s been in The Signal of Santa Clarita, the LA Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, and national publications such as USA Today, Wild West Magazine and the Mensa Bulletin. So I have a pretty good idea of whether or not something I’ve submitted is likely to be published. In this case, though I felt my LTE was pretty well-written and didn’t violate any “style” guidelines, I also felt pretty certain it wouldn’t see the light of day.

“Why’s that, Brian?”, you ask.

Here’s why. Of the LTEs that were published in the Post, particularly those opposed to the idea of this interstate compact, NOT ONE raised the most important point at issue: the specific ban in the Constitution against interstate agreements or compacts.

Imagine the dilemma of the Opinion editor at the Post being confronted by the very specific and irrefutable obstacle to the editorial position they’d publicly taken on this issue. Do they publish that LTE, and if so do they have to also acknowledge they’re supporting a proposal that clearly flies in the face of constitutional proscriptions? Do they have to print a retraction? Probably much better all around if they simply pretend they never saw it, so they simply spike it.

Thus I wasn’t at all surprised when my LTE simply vanished into the ether, probably along with anything written by anybody else who’s actually taken the time to read the Constitution.

As I said in my opening paragraph, the Post reminds me very much of the LA Times… and that’s definitely NOT a compliment.

 

 

 

©Brian Baker 2020

Judicial Insanity

In what is quickly and disgustingly becoming a new norm, yet another low-level federal judge has issued a national injunction against one of Trump’s policies. In this case I’m referring to U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar’s action barring Trump’s plan to require those seeking asylum to do so at a regular port of entry.

Per the Constitution, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is a branch of the government that is CO-EQUAL with the President, not superior. Certainly, no inferior court, such as one at the District level, has status or authority equal to SCOTUS. Therefore I see no constitutional reason why the President, in this case Trump, is bound by any holding of any Court other than SCOTUS.

Secondly, this phenomenon of District courts issuing rulings with national effect is completely new. The only court with national jurisdiction is SCOTUS. Lower courts have jurisdiction within defined geographical boundaries, and their rulings only apply WITHIN those jurisdictional boundaries. Each District covers certain defined areas and each Circuit is comprised of several Districts. The Circuit assures uniformity of the law within its own boundaries by ruling on the conformity and propriety of rulings of the Districts within its jurisdiction.

From there one of SCOTUS’s main functions is to settle conflicts between the rulings of the various Circuits in order to assure uniformity of the application of law throughout the nation.

With that in mind, barring a SCOTUS ruling, I maintain that Trump – or any President – can tell any lower court judge to stick it where the sun never shines.

In fact, I have to stress that even SCOTUS is only co-equal to the President, not superior. A President doesn’t even have to obey a SCOTUS ruling. As a matter of further fact, we have an example of one President who refused to do so.

In the case of Worcester v. Georgia SCOTUS handed down a ruling that Andrew Jackson chose to completely ignore. Though this resulted in the Trail of Tears tragedy, it did illustrate the principle that SCOTUS doesn’t have authority superior to the President.

The bottom line is that Trump, or any President, can tell a court to pound sand. Of course, there could be political consequences if that court is SCOTUS. It could end up being a “constitutional crisis”. It would certainly be a constitutional conflict. But it may be one worth having, as the courts seem to have lost all sense of their rightful place in the scheme of things.

©Brian Baker 2018

(Also published on 27 November 2018 in my local newspaper, The Signal)

A Conservative Guide to Voting in Santa Clarita (and Commiefornia)

I’ve said it before, right in these pages: we’re in the midst of a civil war in this country every bit as profound and fundamental as the one that took place in the 1860s. So far it’s been pretty bloodless, but make no mistake. We’re in a battle for the very soul of this nation.

In the two years since Donald Trump put an end to Hillary Clinton’s “unstoppable” ascendancy to the Oval Office the Dem/socialists have cranked their outrage meter all the way up to eleven, culminating in the outrageous and despicable attempt at character assassination targeted against Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process as a Supreme Court justice.

Fortunately, that attack failed and Kavanaugh has been seated. But that battle may well not be over. Many of the Dem/socialists’ leading voices – luminaries such as Nancy “The Red” Pelosi, Cory “Spartacus” Booker, and Maxine “Muddy” Waters, among others – have intimated, if not outright promised, that they will explore the possibility of impeachment, not only of Kavanaugh, but Trump himself, too, if they manage to take over control of the House of Representatives.

It doesn’t matter to the unhinged left that there aren’t any “high crimes and misdemeanors” upon which to hang an impeachment charge, nor that removal from office requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate, a level impossible to attain. This is all political kabuki, theatrical melodrama designed to impede the political process while chomping from a bowl of sour grapes.

We need to put an end to this right now.

The first step is to make sure that Katie Hill doesn’t win election to the House of Representatives. She’s already made her position clear on Kavanaugh, calling him a “serial predator” in a tweet (https://twitter.com/KatieHill4CA/status/1045009222918799361). As I discussed in my September 19^th column (“A Lynching in the Senate”) there was no actual evidence to support the outrageous accusations, but that evidently didn’t mean anything to Hill. Is that the mindset we want to see in the person representing us in the US House of Representatives? Guilt and personal destruction by unsupported accusation? Do we want to send her to Washington so she can hop on the impeachment bandwagon?

Throw in the nature of the policies she supports – gun control, government-run healthcare (which will destroy both healthcare and the economy), amnesty – and you have a hard-left activist who I believe doesn’t represent the values of our community.

Let’s re-elect Steve Knight.

We have our work cut out for us at the state level, too. If and when the Sacramento socialists get a super-majority, bad things will happen. You think the gas and car registration tax hike was bad? Well, buckle up if they get even more power!

To that end, it’s a big “NO” on Christy Smith and a “Yes!” for Dante Acosta. For those of us in the north part of the SCV, Tom Lackey gets the nod over Steve Fox.

The race for Governor is pretty much a no-brainer. It’s interesting how, in his media ads, Gavin Newsome tries to come across as reasonable and moderate. All you have to do is look at his tenure as Mayor of San Francisco to see the real face behind the mask. John Cox is the guy to vote for.

Leftist extraordinaire Xavier Becerra is being challenged by Steven Bailey for the post of state Attorney-General. This is an often-overlooked position in people’s election thinking, but it really is quite important. Let’s support Bailey.

At the local level, I’ve previously mentioned that we have a group of radical leftist activists who have “endorsed” certain candidates for some of the offices on the ballot. To me, that’s a list of candidates to avoid. Here they are:

City Council: Haddock, Trautman, and Logan Smith. There are 12 other candidates from which you can choose, including my friend Jason Gibbs.

Saugus Union School District: Barlavi, Arrowsmith, and Chris Trunkey.

Hart Union School District: Donna Robert and Kelly Trunkey.

You may have noticed I didn’t mention the race for US Senate. Feinstein versus De Leon. Well, it reminds me of a movie: “Dumb and Dumber”. I’m sitting that one out.

I’m not a member of any political party, so, as a conservative “independent”, those are my recommendations for the upcoming elections.

Vote as if your kids’ futures depend on it. Because they do.

 

 

©Brian Baker 2018

(Also published today in my local newspaper, The Signal)

A Lynching in the Senate

“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” –

Lavrenti Behria, head of Stalin’s secret police.

 

There’s a reason why legal proceedings, both civil and criminal (with a very few exceptions such as for murder), are subject to statutes of limitations, meaning that such court proceedings must be initiated within a prescribed and limited time frame.

The reason is because as time passes, evidence disappears or is no longer attainable; people’s memories of events fade and become unreliable; witnesses move away, becoming impossible to find, or they simply die off.

Further, in our legal system the burden of proving the offense, criminal or civil, lies with the accuser—the prosecutor or plaintiff. The defendant doesn’t have to prove his innocence; he enjoys a presumption of legal innocence that must be overcome.

But we seem to have entered an era that proves why there’s an actual need for statutes of limitations. This is an era of hysterical accusation, as typified by the #MeToo movement, in which any allegation of impropriety at any time in a person’s past has the potential of destroying that person’s life without benefit of the protections of any legal proceeding at all. It’s mob-sanctioned character assassination and personal destruction.

This is reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials, in which completely fabricated and fantastical accusations by hysterical teenagers was enough to condemn women to death unless they could prove their innocence of the accusations, an impossibility. Basically, a lynch mob.

We saw something similar in the 1980s when a completely unfounded hysteria swept the nation about children in preschools being subjected to satanic rituals, including human sacrifices, all of which led to the infamous McMartin Pre-School trials, in which the defendants were ultimately exonerated and the nature of the hysteria finally understood.

The latest iteration of this phenomenon is Senator Dianne Feinstein’s incredibly cynical and despicable act of accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh of committing the criminal act of sexual assault well over 30 years ago while he was in high school, an accusation she leveled during the last day of the committee hearings concerning his appointment as a Justice to the Supreme Court.

If she knew about this claim for months, as she’s said, why did she wait so long to bring it to light? If this is anything other than a Hail Mary attempt to derail the confirmation process, why didn’t she raise the matter much earlier, when it could have been addressed in an orderly fashion? Why, after examining the “evidence”, did the FBI decide not to pursue the matter?

Why did the alleged “victim” wait literally decades before telling anyone about this assault? Why didn’t she report it to the cops at the time, or at least her parents? She claims Kavanaugh was drunk. How do we know it wasn’t she who was actually drunk, this whole thing being just a figment of her fevered imagination?

Both Kavanagh and his friend – who would be an “accomplice” to this “crime” – have stated that the incident never happened. Why shouldn’t we believe them? How does Kavanaugh prove something didn’t happen over 30 years ago? Why should he have to, since that flies against all the foundational precepts of our justice system? Scores of his high school contemporaries have stated that they don’t believe the accusation, and that it doesn’t conform with his personality. Why should anyone believe the sole accusing “victim” over all the others who have made statements about the matter?

As I said, this is why we have statutes of limitations; so we don’t have a “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” society.

Think about it. How would you like to wake up one morning and find out that some kid you went to high school with three decades ago has, out of the clear blue sky, falsely accused you of committing a major felony all those years ago? And that to top it off they were making the accusation to local reporters, maybe right here in The Signal for example, so that all your friends and neighbors, relatives and business associates, would have that accusation staring them in the face over their morning coffee.

Well, that’s exactly what happened to Brett Kavanaugh thanks to the shameless manipulations of Feinstein.

This is the closing run of the Dem/socialist clown car that they’ve driven through this whole confirmation process. I thought Kamala Harris and Cory “Spartacus” Booker were absurd, but Feinstein’s managed to take the cake with this.

Remember this when it comes time to vote on November 6^th.

 

 

©Brian Baker 2018

 

(Also published today in my local newspaper, The Signal)

 

It’s About Damned Time!

After decades of bringing a plastic toy bat to a gunfight, the GOP – that party with an uncanny record of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory – finally grew some gonads and “went nuclear” on the confirmation process for Judge Neil Gorsuch.

It’s about damned time!

The result is that Gorsuch has taken his rightful place on the bench at the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS).

We’ve all heard the incessant bleating from the left. “It’s a stolen seat! It should be Merrick Garland’s! Senate rules! Tradition!” Blah, blah, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

I, for one, couldn’t care less about their whining. In fact, in all honesty, I’m absolutely reveling in it! Because the time finally came when they had to pay the piper, and they didn’t like it one little bit. They’re squealing like stuck pigs. Good!

For decades, for purely political purposes, they changed rules, and moved the goalposts, at will. They counted on the GOP to consider themselves to be above such “petty” political games when they were themselves in power, and for the most part they’ve been right… up to now. The GOP was indeed stupid enough to keep letting them get away with it while refusing to resort to the same tactics themselves.

This kind of cynical, manipulative behavior goes all the way back to FDR, who threatened to “pack” the Supreme Court with like-minded leftist judges who’d back his socialist programs, and when the GOP legislators chickened out and backed off, the stage was set.

When Reagan nominated Robert Bork, a superbly qualified originalist jurist, to SCOTUS the scurrilous attacks on his character, ironically led by Ted Kennedy – the “Lion of the Senate” who was apparently taking a break from molesting and drowning young interns at the time – were so outrageous that Bork ended up withdrawing from consideration. The episode was so shameful it even led to the coining of the term “borking” for subjecting nominees to irrational and unreasonable political attacks.

When Bush I nominated Clarence Thomas to SCOTUS Senate Dems tried, unsuccessfully, to “bork” him with the infamous Anita Hill slander. When Bush II nominated Samuel Alito Senate Dems tried unsuccessfully to filibuster his appointment. They did successfully block Bush II’s nominee to the DC Circuit, Miguel Estrada, using a filibuster.

Yet when the shoe has been on the other foot, Dem/socialist nominees have sailed through to an easy confirmation, in spite of their political bent, with little to no GOP opposition, die-hard doctrinaire leftist Ruth Bader Ginsburg being a classic example. A Carter appointment, she was confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 96 to 3. Breyer was confirmed 87 to 9; Kagan by 63 to 37; and Sotomayor by 67 to 29.

When Bush I was president then-Senator Joe Biden – who was at the time chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee – said he would block any Bush nominee to SCOTUS that may occur in an election year. So much for the “stolen seat” of Merrick Garland, since all the Senate GOPers did during the last year of Obama’s term was follow that very same “Biden Rule”.

And when Obama was president the ever-despicable Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader at the time, used the so-called “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster option for all judicial appointments other than to SCOTUS, thereby ensuring that Obama was able to load the lower-level Circuit Court system with activist leftist jurists. The truth is in the numbers: at the end of Bush II’s term ten of thirteen circuit courts had majorities nominated by Republican presidents. But as of now, nine of them have majorities nominated by Democrat presidents. In other words, the situation reversed by almost 180 degrees during Obama’s time in office.

There’s nothing in the Constitution that requires anything other than a simple majority for the Senate to act. As it’s been used on judicial appointments, in reality it’s been a tyranny of the minority exploited by the Dem/socialists to pack the court system, right up to and including SCOTUS, with activists more concerned with advancing a “social justice” agenda than with ensuring that proper legal and constitutional principles are observed.

Thus the irony is so thick it can be cut with a knife when Mitch McConnell and the other Senate Republicans used the Democrats’ own traditional strategy, the “nuclear option”, to ensure Gorsuch’s ascension to a seat on SCOTUS. It’s why the wailing and bleating of the left is music to my ears.

Their own chickens have come home to roost.

 

 

©Brian Baker 2017

(Also published today in my local newspaper: The Signal)

Gary Johnson Will Not Be President!

 

Neither will John Kasich, Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, nor the Green Party’s Jill Stein. That’s just a fact of life, and we’d all better get used to it.

In the 2008 election pitting McCain against Obama, I voted for Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate. I also quit my lifelong membership in the GOP and re-registered as “Decline To State”, this state’s version of Independent. That was because I saw McCain as only very slightly less “progressive” than Obama, a view I still hold to this very day.

There was also the potential benefit in a McCain loss that the GOP – which had already meandered to the Left over the post-Reagan years – would learn a valuable lesson from such a defeat and mend their errant ways.

Well, that clearly didn’t happen, as the Establishment GOP kept to their chosen path, the result of which has finally been a populist uprising resulting in the nomination of outsider Donald Trump as their nominee. Good, bad, or indifferent, that’s the way it is.

I wish I could go into that polling booth in November and cast my ballot for someone else, but I can’t if I want my vote to have any actual relevance, and wishing I could won’t change anything. If wishes were horses, beggars would be riding instead of walking.

The further reality is that even if Trump hadn’t thrown his hat into the ring I’m not sure I would have been able to vote for a real conservative anyway. Over the last decade plus, the Establishment GOP has constantly crept ever-further leftward, scorning the true conservatives in their ranks. How else to explain the nominations of John McCain and Mitt Romney? That, too, is a fact, and further proof that the Establishment GOP is not just stuck on stupid, but super-glued in place. The GOP is in reality the PSP – the Perpetually Stupid Party.

So where does that leave us?

The two major parties have named their candidates, and one thing we know for certain: come January either Clinton or Trump WILL be taking the oath of office as President.

In Trump we have an unknown. A guy who CLAIMS to be conservative, yet has a record of backing leftist causes and policies. An unmitigated blowhard. Someone not familiar with the details and minutiae of policy. Absolutely no record when it comes to elective experience or voting history.

Basically, he’s a pig in a poke. We don’t really know what we’d be getting. He could end up being great; he could end up being an absolute disaster. His presidency could fall somewhere in between. Who knows?

His choice of Mike Pence as his running mate gives me a sound basis for the hope that he’ll follow through on his vow to select solid conservatives as his appointees, both judicial and otherwise. And judicial appointments, particularly to the Supreme Court, are a huge but neglected issue this election.

Then there’s Clinton, certainly not an unknown. In fact, we know FOR CERTAIN what we’d be getting with her, and frankly, it’s an outright disaster for this country. An unindicted federal criminal with a pathological bent for lying. A scandal-ridden crone married to a convicted perjurer and accused serial rapist who’d be re-occupying the White House. A corruptocrat whose policy decisions can seemingly be bought with large “donations” to her sham “foundation”. A woman who can’t point to a single policy success in her term as Secretary of State, and whose big claim to qualification for the office is that she has a uterus. A leftist ideologue who’s vowed to continue, and even expand upon, the disastrous policies of Obama. A die-hard anti-gun fanatic. A woman who will, with absolutely no doubt, appoint the most leftist jurists she can find to nominate to the Supreme Court, changing the dynamic of that institution for decades to come.

For me the defining moment came while I watched FBI Director Comey spend 14 minutes detailing Clinton’s criminal actions, then spend about 1 minute declaring that the FBI would recommend that she NOT be prosecuted for those actions. I was absolutely stunned. As far as I was concerned, that moment defined the depth of the corruption of the Dem/socialist party, and the Obama/Clinton cabal in particular. It’s an outright and blatant corruptocracy.

So there you have it. A summary of two candidates, one of whom WILL be the next President of these United States. It’s certainly clear, at least to me, that no matter how bad a President Trump MAY turn out to be, Clinton would DEFINITELY be orders of magnitude worse.

We conservatives pride ourselves on voting our conscience and our principles. But I think there’s one overriding principle that overshadows all others: the ultimate future of our country. I believe this is the single most important presidential election at least in my lifetime.

I’ve made my decision. In spite of everything I’ve written over the last year, in light of the issues I’ve outlined here I’ve decided to cast my vote for Trump.

What about you?

 

 

©Brian Baker 2016

 

(Also published today in my local newspaper, The Signal )

Scalia’s Replacement and the Election

Of course, the big news this past week or so is the very sad passing of a legal giant, Antonin Scalia, Justice on the Supreme Court (SCOTUS).

There’s a political knife fight brewing over replacing him, with Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell at this point vowing to block any Obama nomination because he has so little time left in office, while Obama and his minions – including a sycophantic mainstream media – are clamoring that to do so is to subvert the intent expressed in the Advise and Consent Clause of the Constitution.

Indisputably, the Republicans have the authority by virtue of their control of the Senate to proceed however they wish, including blocking Obama’s nominees from confirmation. It’s also indisputable that the Dem/socialists’ ginned up “outrage” is laughably hypocritical. After all,  when Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork to SCOTUS, his confirmation was blocked on purely political grounds by a Senate Dem/socialist lynch mob led by Ted Kennedy, and they thought that was just perfectly fine. In fact, they took great pride in it.

Even more hypocritical is that when Bush 2 nominated Sam Alito to SCOTUS back in 2006, a little known Senator from Illinois, one Barrack Hussein Obama, participated in a filibuster attempt to block the nomination. It sure seems to me that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

At issue is the fact that SCOTUS has been pretty evenly divided ideologically for quite some time, with many cases being decided by a 5 – 4 vote, Kennedy being a “wobbler” who vacillates between originalist (“conservative”) and living constitutionalist (“liberal”) positions. Scalia has always been a fervent originalist. In his absence the Court is evenly divided between the two camps (always with the caveat that Kennedy’s something of a wild card, and there’s the occasional Roberts hiccup, too).

So, the argument goes, in a year in which the presidential election is so contentious, particularly on divisive fundamental philosophy, and we’re so close to the actual election, any SCOTUS appointment should be delayed until the newly-elected President can make his or her own choice.

I think there’s merit to that argument, but frankly I don’t really care about it. As far as I’m concerned, the Constitution gives the approval power to the Senate, the GOP controls the Senate, and they don’t need any rationalization to block Obama’s appointments if that’s what they want to do. There’s plenty of precedent, as I’ve already pointed out, and there’s no way such a rabid leftist zealot as Obama is going to make any nomination that’s going to be any good for this country. Period.

But there’s another aspect I don’t hear anyone talking about when considering the upcoming election and SCOTUS nominations.

Scalia was 79 when he died. But Ginsburg, a hard-Left zealot, is 82. For that matter Breyer, another doctrinaire Leftist, is 77. It’s quite conceivable that either or both could retire or die during the first term of the next President. At 79, Kennedy could very well be in play, too.

That means, assuming that Obama can’t successfully replace Scalia, that the next President could very well be able to appoint four SCOTUS Justices. So let’s do some math and see how this could play out.

Let’s assume that over the next President’s first term three more SCOTUS seats open up, for a total of four. The current ideological split, in Scalia’s absence, is essentially 4 – 4. If the Dem/socialists win, they can appoint 4 leftists, giving them a 6 – 3 (Roberts, Thomas, and Alito) majority. If the GOP wins, they might also get to appoint 4 conservatives, giving them a 7 – 2 (Kagan and Sotomayor) majority.

Anybody have any questions about how important this election is? It’s way past time for the GOP to get its act together, stop screwing around, and – for once – get it right.

 

 

©Brian Baker 2016

(Published in my local newspaper, The Signal, on 2/26/2016: http://www.signalscv.com/section/33/article/149114/)

 

 

The Supreme Court Drops The Ball … Again

The current US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has handed down some really excellent decisions, such as in the Heller, McDonald, and Citizen’s United cases. They’ve also managed to hand down some real stinkers. The Obamacare case comes immediately to mind.

Now they can add the case of Perry v. Hollingsworth, the case about California’s Proposition 8, to their Hall of Shame.

Rather than deciding the merits of the case, the majority dismissed the case and remanded it back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, meaning that the Circuit’s finding that the Prop 8 ban was a violation of federal constitutional rights remains in effect. They did this on the basis that, since the state’s officials – the Governor (Schwarzenegger) and Attorney-General (Jerry Brown) –  refused to do their duty to uphold and defend the properly-enacted ballot initiative, the proposition’s proponents who did actually work the case had no “official” position (“standing”) that entitled them to have their case heard in the court.

SCOTUS held that the defenders weren’t “harmed”, another issue that goes to standing. But I believe that SCOTUS did, in fact, err in holding that the Prop’s defenders didn’t have standing. Their group had expended considerable time and financial resources in getting Prop 8 enacted, and to have two government hacks — Schwarzenegger and Brown — refuse to do their jobs and uphold and defend the law — a function of their office — meant that they (the defenders) suffered tangible injury, which gives them standing.

Further, nowhere in the US or California Constitutions are executives endowed with the power to determine the constitutionality of ANY issue. That’s properly the purview of the appropriate courts. Their job is limited to executing and defending properly-enacted laws, which they clearly failed to do. If this case is an example of the “proper” execution of the politicians’ duties, that raises interesting questions: Why do we even bother having a proposition process at all? Or legislatures? Why don’t we just coronate Caesars and have done with the whole charade?

Additionally, as Kennedy pointed out in his excellent dissent, it’s not at all unusual for interested parties to represent such issues when state officials refuse to do so; that the majority was wrong in applying the “Arizonans” case; and that the states have the right to allow other parties to have standing as the states are the bodies that determine such matters under state law and the California Supreme Court had approved the defenders’ standing.

The initiative process in California was enacted in order to give the people a direct voice in government and allow them recourse if arrogant or corrupt politicians failed to address their concerns. By remanding the case because the politicians failed to defend the law, essentially SCOTUS invalidated the entire referendum process, depriving the people of California of any recourse against officials who refuse to carry out the duties of their office.

Now, I do think that the defenders made a strategic error in not trying to pursue a Writ of Mandamus while the issue was still at the state level. Such a Mandamus would have forced Schwarzy and Brown to defend the law, or appoint some other “official” government representative or agency to do so, depriving SCOTUS of their escape hatch.

There’s yet another problem with this ruling, too: Prop 8 is unconstitutional on Federal grounds in California, while identical laws on the books in many other states are unchallenged and therefore still constitutional by default. SCOTUS has allowed a double standard to come into existence, where constitutional rights in California are different from every other place in the country.

In the past when the Federal courts have ruled on same-sex marriage cases they’ve held that such state bans are constitutional. When the cases were appealed to SCOTUS, most notably 1972’s Baker v. Nelson, SCOTUS hasn’t granted cert and has let the Circuit decisions stand.

Through their actions in this case, they’ve allowed two definitions of “constitutionality” to come into existence: in the Ninth Circuit and California, the bans are unconstitutional. In the rest of the country, they’re not. That’s an absurd and untenable condition.

Interestingly, there are a couple of other cases working their way up which don’t have this specious “standing” issue in play, particularly Sevcik v. Sandoval, a Nevada case so it’s also in the Ninth Circuit. So, if the Ninth again holds the ban to be unconstitutional, SCOTUS will have to deal with the issue again, and won’t be able to duck the issue over the specious “standing” issue as the state’s officials are actually fulfilling their duties to defend the case.

So this clearly isn’t over yet. Further, there’s going to have to be some kind of resolution as to the inconsistency of the state of the law in different Circuits as to constitutionality. The Constitution demands “equality”, and right now that’s not the case at all.

Instead, we now find ourselves with the issue of constitutionality in this country completely unresolved. This is an absolutely terrible decision, one grown out of cowardice on the part of SCOTUS to actually face and resolve the issue. I give them a big, fat “F”.

© Brian Baker 2013

A Manifesto To Save America

 

“A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy”

                                                                       Alexander Tytler   1747 – 1843 (Pop. Attrib.)

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Sell not liberty to purchase power”

                                                Benjamin Franklin  1706 – 1790

People familiar with my writings, both in my blogs and in various Letters To The Editors and Guest Columns published in newspapers, know I’ve long maintained that this country is far down along the path to self-destruction. Back in February 2008, at my Townhall blog, I wrote an essay entitled “Bread and Circuses” (Read it here) in which I drew parallels between our country today and the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

The Roberts Court

Most recently, we have the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) discovering and endowing the government with vast new powers to use taxation to force people to behave in certain ways, and enter into contracts to purchase goods and services. For the first time in our history, a tax can be imposed on people for not doing something. It’s as if King George imposed a tea tax on the colonists for not drinking tea.

To achieve this repugnant decision, as I’ve described previously, Chief Judas Roberts ignored all bounds of reason, logic and constitutionality in order to side with the liberal “ignore the Constitution” faction of the Court. Whatever his motives – and speculation on that runs rampant – neither Roberts nor any other Justice will ever suffer any consequences for their actions or decisions because the Constitution guarantees them lifetime tenure.

Then we have the problem with the inequitable nature of our current tax system which has led to debts and deficits that will inevitably bankrupt this country if not resolved somehow. Almost 50% of the populace pays little to no federal income taxes at all, and the top 5% of earners – those earning anything over a mere $154,643 (statistics) – pay almost 59% of all the income tax money collected. Yet they’re still castigated for “not paying their fair share”.

Meanwhile, that bottom 50% pays almost nothing at all but still has an equal say, through their power to vote, in how tax burdens are allocated and the funds spent. Naturally, as they really have no skin in the game as far as fiscal prudence is concerned, they’re going to be inclined to vote for their own economic self-interest, meaning that they’re all for robbing Peter to pay Paul, since someone else is always going to be the Peter that pays their Paul. Paul really doesn’t care if Peter goes broke.

Further, what’s going to happen when the tax non-payers outnumber the taxpayers? Then we’ll have a situation akin to three foxes and a chicken voting on what’s for dinner. It won’t be pretty, and at that point this country will be completely doomed.

I believe this country’s only hope of salvation lies in a major restructuring of how we do things, and that can only be properly enacted by amending the Constitution. Therefore I’d like to propose the following four constitutional amendments.

“Judicial Accountability Amendment:  After 12 years of serving on the federal bench, each judge including Supreme Court Justices shall be replaced, unless reconfirmed by the US Senate.”

Hopefully, that would force the judiciary to be more responsive to the actual Constitution, but no matter what it would impose accountability on the Mandarins In Black Robes.

“Flat Tax Amendment:  Every person who receives income, from whatever source and without exception, shall have that income taxed at the same rate of X%. The tax rate may be changed by Congress by votes of 2/3 in each House.”

The “X” rate of taxation would be determined during the amendment process, but this would certainly eliminate the inequality of tax rates and burdens. Further, it would eliminate the motivation of those with no tax exposure to burden those who actually do pay taxes with ridiculous obligations that simply can’t be met.

Everyone would then have at least some skin in the game.

Further, the super-majority requirement to change the tax rate would force some fiscal sanity on Congress, and force them to start to cut spending. Raising the tax rate would become a VERY politically risky move… as it should be.

“Voter Eligibility Amendment:  No person who is exempt, for whatever reason, from paying income taxes shall be eligible to vote.”

A companion piece to the prior Amendment, this would assure that anyone who might still escape any tax obligation would also lose their ability to influence the outcome of legislation that forces everyone else to pay up.

“Tax Legitimacy Amendment: Taxes shall be imposed solely to raise revenue for the legitimate function of government as defined in the US Constitution. Any tax or spending bill must cite the appropriate and legitimate constitutional authority for that program or expenditure. No tax shall be imposed whose purpose is to influence the behavior of citizens, either individually or as a group; nor shall taxes be imposed as a penalty.”

The most immediate effect of this Amendment would be to void Obamacare and repeal the recent SCOTUS decision, much like the 14^th Amendment killed the Dred Scott decision; and it would prevent the kind of laws – as well as judicial decisions – that grant such unbridled power to the government that the people’s ability to make their own decisions is completely pre-empted.

Unless these amendments – or something very much like them – are enacted, this country as we know it is finished. We may still be in existence physically, but we’ll ultimately devolve into a Euro-trash “social democracy” like Greece. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the political will exists in this country to take those necessary steps.

I hope I’m proven wrong, but I am not sanguine…

© Brian Baker 2012