The Patriot Post Digest 4-7-2017

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-7-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Mid-Day Digest

Apr. 7, 2017

IN TODAY’S EDITION

McConnell killed the filibuster, but Democrats triggered its death.
Trump launches a strike on Syria that accomplishes some important objectives.
The Seventh Circuit proves the need for Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Cartoons, Columnists and Short Cuts.

THE FOUNDATION

“Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence.” —Joseph Story (1833)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

McConnell Kills the Filibuster1

Senate Democrats followed through Thursday morning on their promise to use a partisan filibuster for the first time in Senate history to temporarily derail Judge Neil Gorsuch’s cloture vote. Their victory was short-lived. Cloture failed by a 55-45 margin (only three Democrats sided with their 52 Republican colleagues), leaving Gorsuch short of the 60 “yes” votes needed in order to advance. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately followed through on his pledge to outmaneuver Democrat obstructionists by implementing what’s become known as “the nuclear option,” which, as Democrats hate to be reminded, is also known as “the Reid Rule.” It’s a simple rules change that eliminates the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.

As Bloomberg explains2, “The ‘nuclear option’ allows Republicans to revise Senate rules with a simple majority vote, rather than the 67 typically required. McConnell has said he had no choice but to change Senate rules for Gorsuch and future high court picks because Democrats were ignoring a tradition of allowing nominees to proceed to simple-majority confirmation without a filibuster.”

He’s absolutely right. For example, in 2006 Sen. Dianne Feinstein opined, “I think when it comes to filibustering a Supreme Court appointment, you really have to have something out there — whether it’s gross moral turpitude or something that comes to the surface. Now, I mean, [Justice Samuel Alito] is a man I might disagree with. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be on the Court.” Her logic was correct. Ironically, and regrettably, she ultimately let her private sentiments dictate her cloture vote then3 just as she is now. Feinstein recently stated she found Gorsuch’s “originalist, judicial philosophy to be really troubling,” and, as such, his jurisprudence precludes her from advancing his nomination. Which makes the situation doubly ironic. Recall that in 2006, Feinstein — along with every other Democrat lawmaker at the time — supported Gorsuch’s nomination to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s response was predictable: “Just as it seemed unthinkable decades ago that we would change the rules for nominees, today’s vote is a cautionary tale about how unbridled partisan escalation can overwhelm our basic inclination to work together and frustrate our efforts to pull back, blocking us from steering the ship of the Senate away from the rocks. There’s a reason it was dubbed the nuclear option.” Evidently, he forgot to counsel then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid likewise in November 2013, when Reid changed Senate rules to give non-Supreme Court nominees a reprieve from the 60-vote threshold. Their antics, like the hypocrisy of Sen. Feinstein, epitomize “unbridled partisan escalation.”

Meanwhile, on Tuesday The New York Times published an editorial under the headline, “The Supreme Court as Partisan Tool,” accusing McConnell of abusing his Senate power. However, in 2013 when former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid changed the rules on judicial nominees to prevent the Republican minority in the Senate from blocking votes, the Times applauded the move under an editorial title, “Democracy Returns to the Senate.”

McConnell correctly says, “There cannot be two sets of standards, one for the nominees of Democratic presidents and another for the nominees of Republican presidents.” So Senate Democrats threw a tantrum and trashed Senate customs and traditions. And for what? If all goes according to plan, Gorsuch will Friday become the ninth member of the Supreme Court. At which point Justice Antonin Scalia will finally have a worthy replacement.

Three Reasons Trump’s Syria Strike Will Help America4

President Donald Trump decided Thursday to send 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Shayrat Air Base in western Syria in the wake of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons5 against civilians earlier this month. (It’s worth wondering whether these are some of Saddam Hussein’s WMD, which we have long suspected were transported to Syria ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) Trump’s move, the first time the U.S. has directly targeted Assad, serves America’s foreign policy interests in three ways.

First, the speed with which the retaliatory strike was launched sends the very clear message that Trump will act decisively to protect what he called America’s “vital national security interests.” The scale of the strike also sends a message. Fifty-nine Tomahawks made a mess of the base and the three squadrons of fighters based there. This base is going to need a lot of repairs — and its Russian Su-22s and MiG-23s won’t be easy to replace. In other words, Assad’s feeling the pain, and it goes a little way toward repairing the damage done when Barack Obama didn’t back up his “red line” declaration.

Second, a certain pudgy psychopath in Pyongyang just received 59 warning shots. Trump earlier said that unilateral action against North Korea was an option. Now, that warning is much more credible.

Third, and, we would argue, most important, Vladimir Putin has to be feeling nervous. Between sequestration and the Obama administration’s slashing of weapons procurement like the F-22 and Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the Pentagon was in a world of hurt. Yet within 72 hours, the United States still crushed Shayrat Air Base. What will the United States be capable of after Trump rebuilds our military capabilities? Putin would be smart to avoid finding out. Russia may be developing some modern systems, but there aren’t many of them in service yet. That hasn’t stopped the Kremlin from pledging to help its client Assad defend against future strikes.

Meanwhile, we expect the Leftmedia will try to paint Trump’s attack as being aimed at countering the Russia-collusion narrative. It does serve that purpose, but we don’t think it was Trump’s motive for risking American blood and treasure. For one thing, the missile strike isn’t Trump’s first move to anger Russia, so if he’s supposed to be bought and paid for, he’s not showing it.

Indeed, strategically, this strike isn’t nearly as important as the tremendous disruption and pain for Putin’s economic base caused by increased American oil production. Russia has been handicapped by this stout competition, and Trump’s moves on energy have only made the U.S. stronger.

Whether this missile salvo signifies a true change in U.S. policy toward Syria or whether we soon return to business as usual remains to be seen.

Top Headlines6

Republicans revive ObamaCare repeal talks with change to unite conservatives, centrists. (The Daily Signal7)

Mark Meadows: Freedom Caucus would vote for Mike Pence’s proposals on AHCA. (Hot Air8.)

U.S. jobs growth slumps to 98,000 jobs in March. (Market Watch9)

Almost 25% of current workers have less than $1,000 set aside for retirement. (USA Today10)

Homegrown Islamic extremism on the rise in United States. (The Washington Free Beacon11)

Stockholm attack: Truck plows into department store, killing at least two. (CBS News12)

Justice Department cites “grave concerns” about Baltimore police reform. (NBC News13)

Arizona considers the nation’s first universal school-choice program. (National Review14)

Climate change fan fiction from LA Times: Global warming caused the Exxon Valdez oil spill. (The Federalist15)

100 years after the U.S. entered World War I, its legacy is still with us. (National Review16)

Policy: Be very careful before beating the war drums in Syria. (National Review17)

Policy: Reid killed rules. Gorsuch can help save laws. (Washington Examiner18.)

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report19.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
The Seventh Circuit’s Open Activism21

By Brian Mark Weber

All eyes were on the Senate this week as Democrats and Republicans engaged in a battle over whether to confirm Neil Gorsuch as the next justice of the Supreme Court. Already, Republicans have invoked the so-called “nuclear option,” a rules change that allows them to confirm Gorsuch with a simple majority vote rather than face an unprecedented partisan filibuster from Democrats. It’s worth noting that Democrats started us down this road in 2003, when they filibustered Miguel Estrada, George W. Bush’s nominee to the influential DC Circuit, long a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. Then they nuked it in 2013, leaving the filibuster for only the Supreme Court.

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-7-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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Democrats aren’t opposed to Neil Gorsuch because of their feigned ideological concerns, or because he’ll restore balance to the court, or because he’s not Supreme Court material. Rather, they fear Gorsuch doesn’t accept the judicial dogma of all true progressives: that the Constitution is a “living document22” to be interpreted so broadly that it basically means whatever progressives want it to mean.

The problem with progressive justices today is not that they merely exaggerate the concept of a “living Constitution” or even that they’re allowing leftist ideology to determine their interpretation of law (although both of these are certainly part of the problem). It’s that judges responsible for ensuring the integrity of the judicial system do everything they can to circumvent the system, all in the name of social justice and progressivism. The real concern is that they view the courts as a vehicle to deliver their agenda rather than as a component of constitutional government.

In the progressive mind, the only thing that matters is the long-term objective. As National Review’s David French writes23, “Never mind the actual words on the page. Never mind the common meaning of the words then or now. All that matters is the right result — the triumph of the social-justice ‘super clause’ that is hidden in every law, regulation, or constitutional provision.”

Hardly a week goes by without a new case popping up in which leftist judges have twisted the intent of constitutional law in order to serve a progressive end. This week, the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals (which covers Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin) ruled in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination, also covers sexual orientation.

Let’s take a look at just one of the arguments made by the concurring judges: “The compelling social interest in protecting homosexuals (male and female) from discrimination justifies an admittedly loose ‘interpretation’ of the word ‘sex’ in Title VII to embrace homosexuality: an interpretation that cannot be imputed to the framers of the statute but that we are entitled to adopt.”

Now that’s a bold statement revealing the true intent of these judicial demagogues. And they actually have the audacity to spell it out in the ruling.

Members of the Rainbow Mafia may be celebrating this ruling, but they had better think twice about what this precedent might do to our system of government in the coming years. Whether one believes that sexual orientation should be a protected class, in the end turning the courts into a quasi-legislature will ultimately undermine all of us. The Founding Fathers certainly didn’t want to empower the judicial branch with legislative powers, but that’s where we’re heading.

Writing for the Washington Examiner, Joseph Murray asserts24, “Few would argue that it is just for an employer to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. It is why many states have passed civil rights laws prohibiting such discrimination. But what happened in a federal court in Chicago on Tuesday is not about protecting the LGBT community. Instead, the Seventh Circuit has used the LGBT community as a conduit to further distance the federal judiciary from the checks and balances that once contained it.”

Sensing the non-activist jurisprudence of Judge Neil Gorsuch, Democrats who previously recognized the nominee’s qualifications have now threatened to undermine his candidacy by attacking his character and professionalism. Remember, the Senate unanimously confirmed Gorsuch to the Court of Appeals in 2006. Now Senate Democrats think he’s an imminent threat to the Constitution.

Progressives have issues with Gorsuch because his views on the purpose and function of the Supreme Court are too close to that of the Founding Fathers. In other words, Gorsuch believes the Constitution’s provisions should not be re-interpreted to mean what we think they should mean for the convenience of political expediency, but rather what the Founders intended them to mean.

People in a free society change their views on a wide range of issues over time, but our Founders gave us various mechanisms to respond to contemporary mores and morals such as amending the Constitution. But for progressives, constitutionalism and the separation of powers are serious roadblocks to the enactment of their sweeping agenda.

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

Trump and Xi Have a Lot to Discuss25 — The two meet in Florida with a lengthy agenda, including North Korea.
Conservative College Students Live In Fear26 — Death threats and violence are all part of the tuition package at St. Olaf College.
Hillary Blames ‘Misogyny’ … Without Evidence27 — Clinton has yet come to grips with the reality that her own record tanked her aspirations.
IRS Takes Advantage of Forfeiture Law28 — Millions seized from individuals who were innocent of any criminal activity.

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

Charles Krauthammer: Karma, Precedent and the Nuclear Option29
Jonah Goldberg: Meet the New Realism, Same as the Old Realism30
Byron York: Schiff Mum on What He Saw at White House31

For more, visit Right Opinion32.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Charles Krauthammer: “A major reason these fights over Supreme Court nominations have become so bitter and unseemly is the stakes — the political stakes. The Supreme Court has become more than ever a superlegislature. From abortion to gay marriage, it has appropriated to itself the final word. It rules — and the normal democratic impulses, expressed through the elected branches, are henceforth stifled. Why have we had almost half a century of massive street demonstrations over abortion? Because the ballot box is not available. … In a democracy, what better embodiment of evolving norms can there be than elected representatives? By what logic are the norms of a vast and variegated people better reflected in nine appointed lawyers produced by exactly three law schools? If anything, the purpose of a constitutional court such as ours is to enforce old norms that have preserved both our vitality and our liberty for 230 years. How? By providing a rugged reliable frame within which the political churnings of each generation take place. The Gorsuch nomination is a bitter setback to the liberal project of using the courts to ratchet leftward the law and society. However, Gorsuch’s appointment simply preserves the court’s ideological balance of power. Wait for the next nomination. Having gratuitously forfeited the filibuster, Democrats will be facing the loss of the court for a generation.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.” —Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Observations: “Perpetual warfare on all fronts doesn’t mean you’re winning, just that you have a lot of enemies. Counterpunching doesn’t always mean you’re hurting your adversary, just that you may be fighting on his terrain. Chaos doesn’t mean you’re draining the swamp, just that you’re wasting political capital. The adage is that if you’re taking flak, it means you’re over the target. In Trump’s case, it may mean that he decided on a whim to change the flight plan in the middle of the mission to divebomb some out-of-the-way, well-defended target. Normality won’t mean anything until it reaches all the way to the top.” —Rich Lowry

For the record: “Democrats would filibuster Ruth Bader Ginsburg if President Donald Trump nominated her. There is simply no principled reason to oppose this exceptional, exceptional Supreme Court nominee.” —Mitch McConnell

Braying Jenny: “You know in any campaign there’s so many different cross-currents and events and some have greater impact than others. But it is fair to say … certainly, misogyny played a role. I mean that just has to be admitted.” —Hillary Clinton on the blame for her loss

Wait, did Hillary just agree with Trump on something? “I really believe that we should have and still should take out [Assad’s] airfields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people.” —Hillary Clinton before Thursday’s missile strike on Syria

Non Compos Mentis; “I like to be close to the children. And in this administration, they need us all to stay close to them.” —Nancy Pelosi (Unless they’re in the womb, of course…)

Late-night humor: “North Korea conducted a missile test, which escalated tensions in the region. But don’t worry — things settled down when Kendall Jenner stepped in and handed them a Pepsi.” —Jimmy Fallon

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Managing Editor Nate Jackson

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