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‘All Animals Are Equal, but Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.’
I need help in trying to understand some of the deep thinking of this “Administration” with the most recent example being the grossly unfair and, if done by anyone but our Potemkin “President,” near illegal announcement that he would only consider a black female for the next seat on the Supreme Court. Here is my question: I would sincerely appreciate it if anyone can tell me the difference between what he (yes, I know and we all know “he” doesn’t do anything but…) is doing and what this sign from our earlier days represents:
Or this one from London:
Some of the messages I found contained such offensive words by today’s standards I could not post them, but you get the point. To return to my question, how are these any more offensive conceptually than the White House criteria, which eliminates 98% or more of the attorneys in the country, approximately a million, from even being considered— even as a long, long shot!- for the position. And, as a writer with the Federalist pointed out,
What a slap in the face, by the way, to Breyer. Nothing says, “Thanks for your service!” like a president effectively deciding you’re unfit to fill the very post you just vacated because he believes it’s politically convenient to discriminate against the skin hue and gonads you were born with. But that’s what the left does. In two years, Breyer will have his namesakes and statues ripped down, just like Lincoln. That’s what they call progress.
There is no doubt that the use of this criteria would be unlawful if used by a business and unconstitutional if used in admission policies in a university; this was set forth clearly in a discussion by Professor Jonathan Turley in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled “A College Couldn’t Get Away With Biden’s High Court Criteria”:
Mr. Biden could have learned something from the universities now defending their admissions policies in Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. For decades, universities have avoided the type of outright quota the court held unconstitutional in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978). “Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake,” Justice Lewis Powell wrote. “This the Constitution forbids.”
As Prof. Turley points out, “Mr. Biden’s use of such threshold exclusions is neither unlawful nor judicially reviewable”’, but it does represent one more instance of this “Administration” taking every opportunity to arrogantly and disdainfully sow divisiveness and fan the flames of already dangerous levels of racial tension across the land. It also carries with it more than just a sniff (no pun intended) of cynicism based on the assumption that no member of the GOP would dare challenge the nomination of one of the most highly privileged classes in America today
While one may safely assume that will be the case with reliable squishes like Romney and Graham, one can only continue to hope that some of the few Senators on our side with at least remnants of backbones may actually examine the record of whichever black woman is nominated just as vigorously as the despicable cretins, such as the current Vice President, Maizie Hirono, and other “luminaries” of the Democrat persuasion, did in the Kavanaugh and Coney hearings. While I am a firm believer in the old saw “Hope springs eternal”, I am certainly not holding my breath on that one.
While not unlawful, this criteria, and the next Justice it will produce, will set up what should be a most uncomfortable scenario when the docket is called for Oral Arguments in the Harvard and UNC cases; Prof. Turley again:
Mr. Biden is now going to create one of the more jarring and incongruous moments in the history of the Supreme Court. This fall, in the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases, the justices will hear arguments that the use of race in admissions is unlawful discrimination. One of them will have gained her seat in part through exclusionary criteria of race and sex.
In the Federalist piece cited above, Joy Pullman sketched out the potential damage Biden is doing with this move (as if he has not done enough damage to our Nation in one short year already) in stark, but accurate, terms:
This makes me sick. When I was a girl, my momma taught me that in America, we don’t treat people any differently due to their skin color. She taught me that’s an evil thing, and she learned it coming of age in Detroit during the civil rights movement. Most Americans alive today learned the same thing from our parents and schools. We hate this and find it utterly repulsive. This is not the America we want, not at all.
***
Today’s left also calls “progress” picking a woman for her boobs instead of her brains, and a judge for her skin color instead of her adherence to the law. They also claim that a nominee should be immune to all criticism and gain unthinking support from elected representatives based solely on her skin color and biological sex.
I call this disgustingly racist and sexist. It is not progress, it is retrogression. Americans should not tolerate social Jim Crow dynamics like these any more than we tolerated Jim Crow laws in the second half of the 20th century. I don’t want to go through another round of mass civil unrest to re-establish that American ideal, either. Neither should anyone else, but that’s what this kind of sex- and race-baiting will lead to if left unchecked.
When I first started thinking about writing something about this wretched move on the part of what I consider to be a thoroughly lawless “Administration” which trashes the Rule of Law at every opportunity, I thought I might start with a tongue-in-cheek bit of mischief by wondering what would happen if someone, somewhere, would file a lawsuit claiming this selection was null and void as it is based on the rankest kind of racism and should not be permitted. Lo and behold, I find, in an article titled “You may have a solid racial discrimination lawsuit against Joe Biden and the U.S. Government”, a most interesting discussion by a retired lawyer exploring those very possibilities:
Biden is either more honest than these employers or perhaps just less skilled in duplicity. He boasts of both his diversity and the discrimination that produces it. He has overtly, explicitly and proudly stated that he will rule out 98% of the qualified people for this opening on the basis of their sex and skin color.
That 98% of American lawyers – amounting to a number over a million – have a clearcut lawsuit against Biden and the U.S. government. Expect some of those lawyers to file that suit, including savvy political lawyers at places like Judicial Watch and the Federalist Society.
You too have a claim. Although having dark skin and no penis is a necessary qualification for this opening at the Supreme Court, technically a law degree is not. In fact, for the first century of the Supreme Court’s existence, none of the justices had law degrees because there were no law schools until the early 20th century.
That means the pool of potential plaintiffs in the civil rights claim against Biden and the government is nearly the entire population of American adults.
I foresee some entertaining political theater. Claims will be filed in numerous courts and with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Maybe some aggressive lawyers will seek temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions which would be heard about the same time as the senate confirmation hearings. Decisions will wind their way up the appellate courts culminating in, you guessed it, the Supreme Court.
Where will all of this lead to in the future? The possibilities — bleak as is everything else about this “Administration” — are endless. One talented writer suggests the next logical step in an article titled “Biden Says Next Air Force One Pilot Will Be Black Woman”, in which the “deliberative” process (surely an oxymoron when it comes to this “Administration”) is described as follows:
With calls from within his own party to reimagine the elite retinue of Air Force One pilots into one that “looks like America,” President Biden announced that the next pilot to fly Air Force One will be a black woman.
In his statements from the White House Rose Garden, Biden said that the next Air Force One pilot will be the “most-qualified, active-duty military pilot who isn’t Hispanic, Native American or of Indian, Arab, Irish, Asian, Scandinavian, or Mediterranean descent.” Biden added that “Black men also need not apply,” stating that a president’s safety is too important to be left to anyone other than the most qualified pilot available, provided that the pilot is “a black gal.”
According to anonymous sources within the White House, Biden initially expressed concerns to his aides that a president’s safety when flying is too important to be left to considerations of race and gender, saying “This is my life we’re talking about.” Biden came around, however, after two female staffers fainted and a third male staffer vowed to literally self-immolate then and there if he didn’t choose a black woman. (All of the staffers were white.)
As a proud member of the Bar and one who, if I may say it without sounding too much like so many virtue-signalers of our “woke” generation, reveres and respects our American Rule of Law, it pains me to see these ruthlessly lawless “elites” writing Presidential policy with little or no regard for the values and customs and traditions which made our country what it is today—the greatest Nation ever devised by the mind of man. I hope we can all hang onto the idea that hope really does spring eternal and that we will soon have leaders who love America rather than those who defile America at every opportunity.
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That’s been commented on this post before too, I think. No matter what color/gender/etc the SCOTUS members are, how many of them DIDN’T go to Harvard or Yale?
Which is not a good thing, is it?
No, but to the Left, diversity of VIEWS is not only irrelevant, but undesirable. They want different colors etc, that all think the Approved Way.
Then we should mandate that no Ivy league graduate should be considered.
No more Harvard, Yale or Columbia graduates.
Or actually any on this list.
Why should there be people with different backgrounds? Is it going to help read the law? What does the person’s background have to do with the ability to read the law?
Because different people “read” different things into the law. Case in point – DC v Heller answers the question “Is there an individual right to keep and bear arms in the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution?”
Many “readers of the law” said “No”. They ignored the plain wording of the Amendment.
Including a great many from the “Ivy League”.
Because different people reject the law or what the law says plainly has nothing to do with their race, class, gender, sexuality or anything else. So give me a break.
That may have been his point: that the people involved may have been different colors etc, but the problem was that they went to the same (types of) schools, and thought more or less identically. Diversity, my ass!
Where you go to school does not mean a person will think X or Y because they went there. Again, none of this should ever be considered. Experience and merit is all that matters.
Whether the people who go to Harvard/Yale/etc tend to think alike because they went to Harvard/Yale/etc, or whether they went to Harvard/Yale/etc because they already think alike, is basically irrelevant. The end result is the same: If you select (more or less) exclusively from Harvard/Yale/etc, you’re likely to get people who think alike. At the very least, it makes it easier for the Left to “pre-screen” for ideology while giving them the cover of “Hey, they went to Harvard/Yale/etc, of course they’re the most qualified!” Diversity of THOUGHT should be seen as more important than diversity of COLOR etc, but the Left will have none of it.
I never said anything about race, class, gender, or sexuality. It is about where they went to school.
Allow me to introduce you to Jane Kitchen. Jane comes from a single parent household and had a 75K scholarship to Bryn Mawr (an Ivy League school, one of the Seven Sisters.) She desired to attend there because of ideology. She left because of COVID.
The Ivy has a distinct ideology and does not respect diversity of thought. They would never find a right to keep and bear arms in the constitution, and they are perfectly ok with outlawing “hate speech”, not to mention foregoing religious liberty.
We have too many Ivy League Justices, as though the Ivy League is some indicator of merit.
Sure it does. More than likely. See “Culture War” and “Long March Through the Institutions” and Conquest’s 2nd Law of Politics. (hint, Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.)
Really? So why is Ted Cruz a Conservative? Gorsuch went to Harvard. Clarence Thomas went to Yale. Alito went to Yale too. So did Sotomayor. They all think alike? If you want to say there should be less ivy league people that’s fine. I agree. But let’s not pretend that people don’t think for themselves and where they go to school implants all their values.
Not always, no. But it seems pretty fair to say that, out of hundreds/thousands of alums, those like Gorsuch and Thomas and Alito are the exceptions that actually prove the rule.
You can only appoint one person to the supreme court. Not hundreds of thousands. Who cares what pool you get them from? And colleges are mostly liberal. Doesn’t matter if they’re ivy league or not. The professors and staff are usually liberal.
I do.
Allow me to introduce you to the Federalist Society.
Since the 1960’s the American Bar Association has graded potential Federal Judge appointments. While the Bar may have represented classical liberal values at that time, it is a classic example of Conquest’s 2nd law and has become left wing over time.
In 1982, the federalist society was founded.
In 1990, Justice David Souter was nominated and confirmed to the US Supreme court under the Presidency of G.H.W. Bush. Despite a thin paper trail, Souter was expected to behave in originalist fashion. Let us say that he didn’t.
The Federalist Society took it upon itself to help prevent this in the future.
So yes, the pool that they come from matters, and in a strict meritocracy they would not have such an outside influence on our jurisprudence.
The federalist society is made up of people from pools you were just decrying. So you want people from pools you think are tainted to pick people from the same pools? And the federalist society has a very poor track record. Not because of where they went to school. But because they’re institutionalist clowns.
Really? Do tell. How do you measure their track record?
This speaks well of them.
Former United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (who served as the original faculty advisor to the organization)
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett
Court Cases
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 – Win
District of Columbia v. Heller – Win
Citizens United v. FEC – Win
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius -Loss
So again, please tell me how you measure failure.
The term “half-black” is racist and offensive. I also dislike it when people say things like, “I’m half Russian.” That’s offensive, too. No they aren’t half Russian. Half their ancestry may be from Russia, but that doesn’t make them half Russian.
I may be missing some aspect of this and am willing to listen to arguments to the contrary, but I’m probably going to argue back.
By the fact that no matter how many judges we get we still manage to lose to progressive legal thinking. Where were the federalist society judges during all this covid mess or the election? Oh right. Nowhere.
I am ok with folks saying “half Black” or some other similar expression as long it doesn’t come with the expectation of benefits.
For the record I’d love to hear Elizabeth Warren say aloud the the probable percentage of Native American ancestry she has.
You mean when they struck down COVID restrictions that unfairly targeted Churches? You don’t remember that?
Duplicate comment
How about they strike down the restriction that unfairly targets everyone? The government essentially destroyed livelihoods and businesses through never ending administrative fiat. They never were forced to demonstrate why their policies and mandates were vital. The burden of proof was never put on them. And that was after the courts completely let unconstitutional main in balloting move forward and a whole host of other questionable voting changes also done by fiat. So spare me that after all the federalist society recommendations that churches got limited relief as long as they put up with masks and social distancing and all the unproven garbage that was imposed with no evidence to back it up.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/06/gorsuch-turns-down-colorado-churches-request-to-block-covid-restrictions/
Let me get this right. Leftists have been solidly in charge of the United States supreme Court since the 1970s. The only organization that has stood up and actually started to try to get things changed at that level didn’t really start getting things changed until about 2001 and you are pissed off that they haven’t changed fast enough for you.
Here’s a little clue bird for you. Bad supreme court decisions take generations to undo. They always have. If you’re relying on the Supreme Court to get change done in a rapid fashion, you’ve backed the wrong snail.
So don’t be pissed off that you misunderstand the very fundamental nature of our system of government in that you don’t get relief from courts rapidly. You get relief by electing the right people. At all levels of government. So take your ire somewhere else. I’m all full up here.
Covid restrictions and destruction of business we’ve seen the last two years came about in the 70s? What are you talking about? What decisions am I demanding get overturned that were in place for generations? I’m demanding some basic protections from fiat from governors and bureaucrats. The Supremes and the lower courts were nowhere because they’re cowards who didn’t want to be called senior citizen killers for striking down onerous and ridiculous mandates that came out of thin air. And that includes the losers the federalist society got through under Trump. The courts haven’t been a solution for decades and they continue not to be. So spare me the it just takes time racket. People lost their livelihoods and all levels of government including the ones run by so called originalist small government people were nowhere to be found.
Here Glen, I’ll make it easy for you.
When SCOTUS makes a bad decision, it takes generations to undo.
Example Plessy V Ferguson until Brown v Board of Education
Korematsu
Many others
You see Glenn, SCOTUS is only the first court to hear something when States sue each other. Not when citizens claim their rights have been violated.
Those cases take many years to be heard. Multiples of the 2 years we have been enduring COVID restrictions.
Lower Federal courts haven’t even started hearing cases yet, only petitions for injunctive relief.
Now make sure you pay attention to your civics lessons, because there is a test to follow.
Blaming allies in the fight for better judges is a poor waste of time.
Elections are faster. Try them.
I’ll make it easy for you. Leftists get injunctive relief really quickly when a school doesn’t want to let a trans male into the bathroom or when a baker refuses to bake a cake. Federalist society losers have provided nothing to save our rights or anyone’s business after 2 years of this madness. If conservatives pass a law tomorrow saying a male can’t break a females face in the UFC tournament the left will have it shot down that week. The conservative legal movement has been trash for decades. You can pretend it’s not. The left doesn’t talk about Plessy vs Ferguson when they don’t get what they want. This isn’t hard.