RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/01/27/mazie-hirono-i-want-a-justice-who-wont-base-her-decisions-solely-on-law-n444546

“Quiet part out loud,” Dan McLaughlin tweeted about this word salad that she croaked out yesterday.

As is true with most Americans, Supreme Court nominations bring out the worst in Hirono. But her worst tends to be worse than the worst of most of her colleagues.

Not so in this case, though. This is standard liberal palaver about how judges should approach jurisprudence, encouraging them to begin with a progressive outcome and then work backwards to find some legal justification for it. “Living Constitution” fever — catch it:

Hirono stated, “What I’m looking for is a justice who can be fair and impartial and who does not have an ideological axe to grind, which is what we saw — as far as I’m concerned — in President Trump’s nominees, including to the Supreme Court. So, yes, I am expecting a fight, but there you have it. And I’m looking for someone who’s going to be, not only highly qualified, as all of the people that you already talked about are, but who really brings to the judiciary the kind of diversity that I’d like, that — someone who will consider the impact, the effects of whatever decision-making is on people in our country so that they are not making decisions just based on — which I would like them to base it on law, which would be nice and precedent and who are not eagerly trying to get rid of decades of precedent that would protect a woman’s right to choose, for example, and voting rights, etc. But I’d like a justice who also will take into consideration the real-life impact of the decisions he or she will be making.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-has-a-green-bridge-to-sell-energy-infrastructure-pittsburgh-11643410837?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

President Biden couldn’t have picked more grimly ironic timing to visit Pittsburgh to promote the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill he signed last November. Hours after a snowy bridge in the city collapsed, injuring 10 people, the President promised to fix all of the nation’s 43,000 faltering bridges. “We’re sending the money,” he assured.

Sorry, he isn’t. The bill he signed doesn’t have nearly enough money unless his Administration plans to borrow from the Energy Department’s green energy venture-capital fund. The bill includes $40 billion in new funding for bridges, a pittance compared to the $156 billion for mass transit and rail that are bleeding cash due to generous labor agreements and low ridership. Mass transit had already received $70 billion in pandemic relief.

The infrastructure bill’s other big winner is green energy. The Department of Energy is getting $21 billion for “demonstration projects” for clean hydrogen, advanced nuclear, carbon capture and other green largesse. There’s also $11 billion for states and utilities for grid “resilience” (i.e., backing up renewables) and $6 billion to rescue nuclear plants that renewable subsidies are driving out of business.

This is on top of its expanded loan guarantee program. “Our Loan Programs Office (LPO) is back in business, with $40 billion in loan authority to finance large-scale clean energy deployment projects,” the department boasts on its website. It notes that loan guarantee applications have increased 23-fold. Expect many more taxpayer-backed startups like Solyndra to go bust.

ttps://www.wsj.com/articles/race-gender-and-the-supreme-court-biden-nominee-ilya-shapiro-ruth-marcus-11643412000?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden hasn’t yet chosen his nominee to replace Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, but already any criticism is being ruled off-limits by the progressive auditors of political debate. Witness the assault on Ilya Shapiro, a legal commentator, for daring to challenge Mr. Biden’s pledge to choose his nominee first and foremost on the basis of gender and race.

Mr. Biden pledged during the 2020 South Carolina primary campaign to select a black woman for the Court, as a way to win the support of influential Rep. James Clyburn. The gambit worked. Mr. Clyburn endorsed, Mr. Biden won in the Palmetto State, and he went on to defeat Donald Trump.

The President reiterated his black woman pledge this week, and he was criticized by many, including us, for putting identity politics above qualifications. Mr. Shapiro, a scholar at the Cato Institute, took to Twitter with his commentary on Wednesday.

“Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart. Even has identity politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American,” Mr. Shapiro wrote. Mr. Srinivasan is the Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. “But alas doesn’t fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman,” Mr. Shapiro added.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/biden-box-office-poison

JOE BIDEN, BOX OFFICE POISON. Remember when President Joe Biden visited Georgia and the state’s Democratic star, gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, did not appear with him? Abrams said she had a “scheduling conflict,” which nobody believed.

Now, the “scheduling conflict” problem has spread to Pennsylvania. Biden is set to visit Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University to “discuss strengthening the nation’s supply chains, revitalizing American manufacturing, creating good-paying union jobs, and building a better America,” according to a White House press release.

The White House invited John Fetterman, the Democratic lieutenant governor now running for Senate, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic attorney general who will run for governor, and Conor Lamb, the Democratic representative from the Pittsburgh area, to appear with Biden. Only Lamb, who gave Biden valuable support in the state in 2020, said yes. Fetterman and Shapiro both begged off, citing those “scheduling conflicts.” Like Abrams, they did not say precisely what those “scheduling conflicts” were.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2022/01/soros-group-boasts-bullying-justice-breyer-daniel-greenfield/

You may recall Demand Justice, backed by the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s dark money machine, trying to harass Justice Stephen Breyer into quitting last year.

Demand Justice, an advocacy group led by a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), is pressing longtime liberal stalwart Justice Stephen Breyer to retire from the Supreme Court.

“We are now firmly in the window when past justices have announced their retirement, so it’s officially worrisome that Justice Breyer has not said yet that he will step down. The only responsible choice for Justice Breyer is to immediately announce his retirement so President Biden can quickly nominate the first-ever Black woman Supreme Court justice,” said Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice and a former top aide to Schumer.

Demand Justice has hired a billboard truck to drive around the Supreme Court with the message: “Breyer, retire. It’s time for a Black woman Supreme Court justice. There’s no time to waste.”

The group also launched an online petition asking signatories to “Tell Justice Breyer: Put the country first. Don’t risk your legacy to an uncertain political future. Retire now.’”

If conservatives had been doing this kind of thing, there would have been an FBI investigation and congressional hearings about an urgent threat to democracy. Since it was not just lefties, but radicals backed by the big lefty money machine, there was just awkwardness. Justice Breyer released a statement dismissing such efforts at pressuring him to resign.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18178/can-the-president-constitutionally-restrict-his

Supporters of President Biden’s announcement will argue that there is a big difference between prohibiting a person from serving based on religion, race or gender, and affirmatively giving preference based on these criteria. That is sophistry. By limiting his choice to a Black woman, President Biden has disqualified every non-Black woman and man in America. There are a considerable number of highly qualified Black women, and I would applaud the nomination of any one of them. But that is not the issue. The issue is exclusion.

The Supreme Court has a long history of exclusion…. The Supreme Court was [for many years] an institution reserved primarily for white Protestant males. That was wrong and unconstitutional. But two wrongs, even if one of them is a “good” wrong, do not make a constitutional right.

The Black woman who is eventually nominated for the job will suffer reputationally from the president’s announcement. She will not be regarded as the most qualified person to be nominated, but only as the most qualified Black woman. That is insulting, even if not intended to be.

President Biden should direct Attorney General Garland to prepare a list of the 25 most qualified nominees. No one should be excluded on the basis of race or gender. Such a list, if fairly compiled would include several Black women. (It should not include Kamala Harris, because she might have to cast a tie-breaking vote on herself!)

Imagine a president announcing that since no Muslim has ever been appointed to the Supreme Court, he pledges to nominate the first Muslim justice. That would undoubtedly be unconstitutional since Article VI of the Constitution specifies that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”