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ITEM #1: Last weekend, President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the United States Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy created by the death of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18.
Any fair assessment of Barrett leads to an inescapable conclusion: She is eminently qualified to sit on our nation’s highest court, and she has a remarkable personal life story that’s a shining example for any American — and especially any young woman.
As President Trump said in his Rose Garden speech announcing Barrett’s nomination: “For the last three years, Judge Barrett has served with immense distinction on the federal bench. Amy is more than a stellar scholar and judge; she is also a profoundly devoted mother. Her family is a core part of who Amy is.”
Of course, none of that has stopped the left (including our “news” media) from greeting Barrett’s nomination with a barrage of vitriolic attacks. Indeed, Barrett’s sterling life story is without doubt a big part of the very reason behind the attacks — many of them of a personal nature.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Kate Bachelder Odell notes that, "Amy Coney Barrett has been not-so-subtly depicted as straight out of 'The Handmaid’s Tale,' Margaret Atwood’s dystopian 1985 novel," over the fact that she's a mother of seven who belongs to a Christian group known as People of Praise.
As Fox News reports, ABC News is among those that have gone so far as to indulge in the bilious smear that there’s a link between “The Handmaid’s Tale” and the Christian group to which Barrett belongs.
This ugly caricature of Barrett is not only completely unfair and ugly, it's also grossly at odds with the reality of her life.
As Odell writes:
"What [Barrett] has said about work and family over the years confounds the normal contours of the culture wars. She is a walking example of how young children and demanding work can coexist — I dare suggest even happily. More women should hear her message of personal decency and nonconformity.
"Interviews with Judge Barrett invariably ask how she balances her professional obligations with the demands of raising seven children. At a February 2019 event with the Notre Dame Club of Washington, D.C., Judge Barrett said she’s benefited from 'a flexible workplace and a husband' who 'pitches in, and a town of a manageable size' — South Bend., Ind., where she spent more than a decade as a Notre Dame law professor. She used to keep a basket of toys in her office so her kids could play while she worked.
"She and her husband, Jesse, a former government attorney now in private practice, 'were open to either one of us staying home' at 'different points when things were intense with the children,' a trading back and forth that is common in dual-career marriages. Since her 2017 investiture as a judge, 'Jesse is really doing much more of the heavy lifting,' including 'most of the cooking' and 'most of the kids’ doctor’s appointments and things like that during the day.'"
Odell then asks: “Does this sound like someone who’s submitted to the patriarchy?”
Barrett’s story is, in truth, a wonderful example for working mothers all across the country. But no matter. Because she fails to conform to the left’s views of what womanhood should be — specifically, her embrace of her role as a mother and her opposition to progressive judicial philosophy — she must be vilified.
The attacks from the left will only get worse from here. Which is why it’s so important for the rest of us to strongly and apologetically push back against those smears, and stand behind this immensely qualified nominee.
ITEM #2: Fortunately, a few on the left — those with an ounce of class, at least — have responded to Barrett’s nomination by putting aside their own ideological biases and considering the judge on her merits.
Once such fair-minded individual is Noah Feldman, who says in a piece for Bloomberg that, “I disagree with much of [Barrett’s] judicial philosophy and expect to disagree with many, maybe even most of her future votes and opinions.”
Yet he goes on to make the case, in a very powerful way, that “Barrett is highly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.”
Feldman writes:
"I know her to be a brilliant and conscientious lawyer who will analyze and decide cases in good faith, applying the jurisprudential principles to which she is committed. Those are the basic criteria for being a good justice. Barrett meets and exceeds them. ...
“To add to her merits, Barrett is a sincere, lovely person. I never heard her utter a word that wasn’t thoughtful and kind — including in the heat of real disagreement about important subjects. She will be an ideal colleague."
He also takes aim at the overtly anti-Catholic bigotry that’s clearly fueling much of the opposition to Barrett:
"Barrett is also a profoundly conservative thinker and a deeply committed Catholic. What of it? Constitutional interpretation draws on the full resources of the human mind. These beliefs should not be treated as disqualifying."
Finally, he also puts the lie to the Democrats’ claims that there’s somehow something nefarious about President Trump and the Senate moving forward with a Supreme Court nomination at this stage of an election cycle:
“Elections have consequences, and so do justices’ decisions about when or whether to retire. Trump is almost certainly going to get his pick confirmed.
“Given that reality, it is better for the republic to have a principled, brilliant lawyer on the bench than a weaker candidate. That’s Barrett.”
It is indeed. Barrett is a stellar nominee, full stop. The Senate should consider her nomination and confirm her as soon as possible.
ITEM #3: A number of pundits have commented on one of the more striking takeaways from Tuesday night’s presidential debate: Joe Biden’s unwillingness to say whether he would support a scheme to pack the Supreme Court.
It’s a highly relevant issue, given the growing drumbeat in support of the idea on the left. Yet when asked, Biden flat-out refused to answer the question.
As Dan McLaughlin put it: "Joe Biden flatly refused to answer whether he would support Court-packing, which he had once recognized was wrong and destructive. 'Whatever position I take, that will become the issue … I’m not gonna answer the question.' If you had any doubt that Biden is terrified of saying no to his party’s most extreme elements, we just got our answer.”
And here’s Kyle Smith weighing in as well: “Joe Biden again tonight refused to answer whether he supported plans bruited by some Democrats to first end the filibuster and then add seats to the Supreme Court. As both Chris Wallace and President Trump pressed him on the point, Biden said the issue was that the people should get to vote on it. Vote on what? They don’t know what Biden’s position is because he won’t say.”
Come on, Joe. Americans deserve to know!
ITEM #4: We’ve been vocal in our criticism of Governor Steve Sisolak’s erratic and selectively draconian approach to shutting down Nevada’s economy amid the coronarivus pandemic, and we’ve been urging our fellow Nevadans to join us in speaking out. Well, it certainly sounds like many of you are as fed up as we are.
A couple of Letters to the Editor published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal in recent days no doubt speak for lots of frustrated Silver Staters.
Debra Krupp of Las Vegas writes: “It’s been more than six months, governor. You’ve been exercising your emergency powers with gusto. Your legacy will be one of societal alienation, economic destruction and the demise of the entertainment capital of the world.”
And here’s Anne Merriman of Henderson: “How is it that, according to Tuesday’s Kats! column, 750 people can be at the outdoor Area 15 Annex, but the same rule doesn’t apply to the NASCAR venue? How is it that 60 people (50 percent) can be partying in the portal area indoors, but the same rule doesn’t apply to church services? Oh wait, I guess it’s ‘Sisolak science.’”
Sisolak science — where all evidence gets subjugated to partisan politics.
Keep speaking up, Nevada!
ITEM #5: The Democrats’ and “news” media’s Russia-collusion narrative was dealt yet another big blow this week — perhaps the biggest and most damning yet.
Andrew McCarthy reports at National Review:
"Hillary Clinton personally signed off on the Russiagate farce to distract attention from her email scandal, according to a Russian intelligence analysis that was obtained by U.S. intelligence agencies in July 2016.
“That is the bombshell allegation that National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe has just dropped on the Senate Judiciary Committee, with the first presidential debate just a few hours away and with former FBI director James Comey scheduled to testify before that Committee tomorrow morning.
“Ratcliffe’s letter to Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) asserts that in late July 2016, American intelligence agencies ‘obtained insight’ into an analysis by Russian spies, which alleged that Democratic ‘U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a plan to stir up a scandal’ against her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. The plan involved ‘tying [Trump] to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.’”
McCarthy notes also that "this allegation about Clinton’s role was obviously known to the Obama administration at the time."
He explains:
"Ratcliffe elaborates that handwritten notes from former CIA director John Brennan show that Brennan 'briefed President Obama and other senior national security officials about the intelligence, including the alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.’"
Given that Joe Biden was a rather high-ranking official in the Obama administration during all this, it seems like maybe the press ought to pose some pointed questions to the former VP. (Of course, we know they won’t.)
You can read McCarthy’s full analysis here, and Ratcliffe’s letter here.
ITEM #6: The left persists in pushing a false narrative regarding the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and once again, those lies have served to foment violence in the streets.
After Daniel Cameron, the Attorney General of Kentucky, announced that a grand jury declined to file charges against the police officers involved in Taylor’s shooting, violent riots broke out in the city. We’ve seen widespread destruction of property, and two police officers were shot (fortunately, they survived). Peaceful protests, as the Democrats would call them.
In times like this, it’s crucial to push back against the storyline that opportunistic left-wing politicians and their media enablers are promoting.
Aubrey Williams, a defense attorney and former president of the Louisville NAACP, did just that in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Said Williams: “I call it the way it is. The cops were doing their jobs. … When they entered the apartment, they were shot at. One of them was hit. They had the right and were justified in defending themselves.”
He added: “It’s unfortunate that this young lady was killed, and I grieve for her. Many of us in this community grieve for her. But acting the way that the citizens, the people acted tonight in shooting those officers is absolutely, absolutely wrong.”
We urge you to watch Williams’ full interview with Ingraham below:
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