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« on: July 09, 2019, 03:23:05 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 6-28-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest
Jun. 28, 2019
https://patriotpost.us/digests/63957-mid-day-digest
THE FOUNDATION
“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” —Thomas Jefferson (1798)
https://patriotpost.us/fqd/63955-founders-quote-daily
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Chief Injustice: Roberts helps Democrats with census.1
The second Democrat debate was a personal food fight.2
Daily Features: More Analysis3, Columnists4, Headlines5, Opinion in Brief6, Short Cuts7, Memes8, and Cartoons9.
FEATURED ANALYSIS
Roberts Helps Dems Rig Elections10
With the amount of information the U.S. Census gathers every decade, it seems logical that one of the questions asked would be simply, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” Yet the very idea of asking this simple “yes” or “no” question outraged the Left — which is in a headlong rush11 to offer free stuff to anyone who arrives. And leftists found a judge12 and a Supreme Court13 willing to stop the Trump administration from adding this longstanding question back into the 2020 census.
While conventional wisdom held that SCOTUS would grant the administration’s request, the Left’s Hail Mary pass was the unearthing of an unreleased report14 penned by a now-deceased GOP consultant claiming the citizenship question could assist Republican candidates. Leftists struck pay dirt when a Barack Obama-appointed judge deemed that what’s become known as the Hofeller files — discovered and released by the estranged daughter of the late consultant Thomas Hofeller, who died last year — “raises a substantial issue15” regarding the Trump administration’s claim that the question would assist in enforcing the Voting Rights Act. Opponents of the question contend that adding it would reduce responses from minorities despite the fact that citizens are required by law to do so.
As speculated here earlier this month16, the ever-capricious Chief Justice John Roberts was the one who handed Democrats a victory with another of his weirdly contorted decisions17. He aided the Left in at least temporarily blocking the question, which Roberts said was valid but that the Trump administration “did not provide adequate reasoning” for its inclusion.
As The Wall Street Journal explains, “The question in Department of Commerce v. New York was whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acted within his purview in reinstating a citizenship question on the 2020 census. That’s not the question the Court ended up deciding. Instead, the Chief held that although Mr. Ross acted lawfully, his motives appear to have been less than pure.”
In other words, Roberts’s decision had to do with process and motives, not the Constitution.
The Court’s 5-4 decision18 thus puts the Trump administration in a box19: Either conduct the 2020 census without a citizenship question — which will likely pad the population counts (and the congressional representation) of Democrat-controlled districts — or delay the census until the administration can make the correct case for its inclusion.
President Donald Trump has chosen to delay the census. “Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed Country, cannot ask a basic question of Citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and important Census, in this case for 2020,” Trump tweeted. “I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter. Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask whether or not someone is a Citizen. Only in America!”
While the Census has been conducted on April 1 since the 1930 counting20, historically it’s been conducted as early as January 1 and as late as the first Monday in August, which was its original timeframe. Moving to August would give the courts four more months to figure out the legality. Moreover, states don’t receive the data for redistricting until several months afterward — in this case, early 2021. (The 2010 Tea Party wave election was such a disaster for Democrats at the state level because in several states they had to cede control of post-census redistricting21 to the Republicans.)
But what if the question were included anyway? Again, even Roberts conceded22 the question was a valid one, writing “neither respondents nor my colleagues have been able to identify any relevant, judicially manageable limits on the Secretary’s decision to put a core demographic question back on the census.”
Nor is politicizing the census anything new. Readers may recall the Supreme Court denied a Clinton administration bid23 to conduct the 2000 census with statistical sampling to correct a perceived undercount of minorities and noncitizens. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the Left doesn’t like the idea of simply counting every citizen.
That’s because leftists aim to rig the electoral system24. And, for now at least, John Roberts helped them do it.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/63950-roberts-helps-dems-rig-elections
Demo Debate 2: ‘Food Fight’25
If the Democrats’ first presidential debate26 was an exercise in pushing the envelope as far left as possible, the second debate involving the next slate of candidates was a political cage match of personal attacks.
The candidates Thursday night: Joe Biden27, Bernie Sanders28, Kamala Harris29, Pete Buttigieg30, Kirsten Gillibrand31, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennet, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, and Eric Swalwell.
The punches were primarily thrown at Biden, who leads the field. And the hardest ones were thrown by Harris, who Mark Alexander argues may join Biden on the ticket32. After last night, they’d have to bury a lot of hatchets.
Harris the prosecutor showed up to tell the jury why Biden isn’t the right guy. She hit him for his record on race, saying, “I do not believe you are a racist … but it was actually very hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations33 of two United States senators who built their reputations and careers on the segregation of race in this country. … You also worked with them to oppose busing.” She recounted how she benefited from busing as a little girl.
Biden, the vice president for America’s first black president, shot back, “It’s a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise racists.” In fact, he said, “I ran because of civil rights.” After bickering with Harris over his record, Biden eventually gave up, saying, “Anyway, my time’s up.” Wrong thing for a 76-year-old with a near-50-year career in Washington politics to say.
Biden 2020: “My time’s up.”
On that note, one of the other zingers of the night was from Swalwell, who said, “I was six years old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic Convention and said, ‘It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.’ That candidate was then-Senator Joe Biden. Joe Biden was right 32 years ago, and he’s still right today.”
Sanders, 77, didn’t take too kindly to that, blasting the assertion as “ageism” in post-debate comments. But though the old socialist tried to set himself up for the debate with an op-ed selling socialist snake oil34, he fell rather flat. His most memorable line might be that he opened the debate by admitting that taxes will necessarily go up for the middle class to pay for his income-redistribution schemes. “Yes, they will pay more in taxes,” he said, “but less in health care for what they get.” The question is this: What kind of health care will we get? It won’t be good35.
Sidebar on immigration and health care: All 10 candidates raised their hands36 when asked if government health care should be provided for illegal aliens. Astounding.
As for “Mayor Pete,” he is the Democrats’ version of John Kasich. He made his mark by sanctimoniously telling Christians how to do politics. Buttigieg lectured, “For a party that associates itself with Christianity to say … that God would condone putting children in cages has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.” It’s a tiresome act now, just as it was for Kasich in 2016.
One stand-out line: Harris, the media’s consensus “winner,” stopped a lot of crosstalk arguing by saying, “You know what, folks, Americans don’t want to witness a food fight. They want to hear how we’re going to put food on their table.” That is not the president’s job, and it’s exactly what’s wrong with today’s Democrat Party, brought to you by a woman who promises to do everything by executive order37.
The next Democrat debates are July 30 and 31 in Detroit.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/63956-demo-debate-2-food-fight |
