RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/28/will-we-ever-eradicate-the-cancer-of-identity-politics/

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court finally granted a writ of certiorari in two now-consolidated affirmative action cases, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. The cases will be argued jointly during the next Supreme Court term, and they place directly in their crosshairs the court’s noxious precedents in the thorny area of race-conscious university admission policies. As presented to the court, the leading question the justices will consider is “whether the Supreme Court should . . . hold that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions.”

The court should of course do so posthaste. The propagandist assertion that America in the year 2022 is bedeviled by a sprawling “systemic racism” is a destructive lie, but the ubiquity of affirmative action means that university admissions offices do, in fact, propagate systemic racism. Fortunately, there is reason for optimism that the justices will do their job. It was the mercurial Chief Justice John Roberts himself who, in the 2007 case of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle, penned perhaps his most iconic line: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

But by Wednesday afternoon, Monday’s propitious step forward toward an America no longer obsessed with race and identity politics was abruptly undermined by a severe step backward toward a race-centric polity.

Justice Stephen Breyer, an octogenarian Jewish male and the senior statesman of the court’s liberal bloc, announced his retirement, effective at the end of this court term and contingent upon the successful confirmation of his successor. The announcement was hardly surprising; given Breyer’s long-standing Democratic ties, his liberal jurisprudence, and the fact that Republicans are poised to retake control of the U.S. Senate this fall, it would have been more surprising if Breyer had not retired this year.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/the_elites_morally_obscene_response_to_the_canadian_trucker_convoy.html

Something big is happening in Canada and it’s happening in a typically Canadian way. After two years of draconian lockdowns and mandates, truckers are pushing back with a 70 km long convoy that pulled into Ottawa yesterday. It’s exciting and inspiring. It’s also drawing the elites out from cover, as they abandon any pretense of supporting the people they applauded so vigorously almost two years ago when they hid in their offices while “the little people” kept the world working.

The Canadians have been renowned for being an obedient, peaceable people. But perhaps we’ve forgotten that there’s a warrior strain in them. During both WWI and WWII, some of the British Empire’s most ferocious fighters came from Canada. That blend of warrior and peaceful soul seems to have come together with the massive Freedom Convoy that Canadian (and some American) truckers have driven from Vancouver to Ottawa, Canada’s capital.

I wrote about the convoy on Friday, along with lots of videos. It’s incredibly inspiring to see these cheerful truckers driving along Canada’s frozen lands, cheered on by hundreds and thousands of people wherever they go. Tucker interviewed another trucker on Friday night and it’s moving to see his good spirits and optimism as he and his fellow truckers push back against the effort to make them bow down to the technocracy for which COVID has provided a glide path.

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.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.”