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For almost four years, conservative news sources told me about the deficiencies of the Biden administration. Apparently, however, the government has changed because now they tell me about the failure of the Biden-Harris administration. Meanwhile, they tell me about the supposed glories of the Trump administration. Poor Mike Pence.

The news last week reported on a space walk by the first civilian. It is always gratifying to learn about the new experiences afforded billionaires.

Most summers we hang an American flag between the upper windows of our summer place. It is the burial flag of the spouse’s uncle and namesake. He was an Army pilot who crashed and was killed in the waning months of World War II. This year the spouse thought we should not display the flag because people might think that we were Trump supporters. I insisted we put it out. I said that I did not want to cede this symbol of American liberties and equality to those who claim patriotism but too often seek to obstruct the freedoms and aspirations that the flag stands for.

I was outstanding at trivia. No longer, for several reasons. Many of the questions are rooted in the last twenty or thirty years, and much of this knowledge I never learned. This makes me feel old. Furthermore, many of trivial things I once learned, I have now forgotten. This makes me feel old. And often I have an answer on the tip of my tongue that I can no longer get out in time. This makes me feel old. Even so, recently I have frequently watched Jeopardy!, and I test myself in a new way. I will watch it on Channel 6 at 7 PM. Then the very same episode is on Channel 8 at 7:30. I watch it again and am proud whenever I can remember an answer from a half hour earlier.

All U.S. presidents since Andrew Johnson have had a pet. Except for Donald Trump. Rumor has it that he has eaten all his cats and dogs.

“The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.” Thomas Carlyle.

I feel privileged to have seen James Earl Jones on the stage, including in Othello and Fences. He was amazing. Rest in peace.

Posted on by rjonakait

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Hamas attacks Israel. Is this, as an American Jewish leader said, not only an attack on Israel but on Jews? If so, is the war on Hamas also a war on Islam and Muslims? A related question: Can one criticize or even question Israel without being labeled, or being, antisemitic?

A conservative candidate for president said that the incumbent president should urge, lean on, coerce Egypt into taking in those who are fleeing from Gaza. He did not, however, say that the United States should open its welcoming arms and take in more refugees.

About two decades ago I went to Israel on an unusual junket—all expenses paid to study terrorism from an Israeli perspective. An interlude in the trip was a guided walk around Jerusalem. We started at a place that overlooked Jerusalem. Our exceptional guide pointed out things in the old city; where Bethlehem was and is in the hills near Jerusalem; the Palestinian-controlled territory; the wall marking the boundary (although Israelis called it a fence, not a wall); and a mural-painted wall (this was called a wall) behind us, which prevented Palestinians down below from shooting into Israeli apartments up above.

Our location was a parking lot, and a nearby food van was, like many other Israeli places, playing old American rock and roll. The third song I noticed was Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. I almost laughed at the remarkable fortuity. I know that the song is about a woman’s strength in rejecting a lover who walked out, but what better chorus could there be as I looked out over Israel and Jerusalem than I WILL SURVIVE.

During this trip, because of the sensitive places we visited—military and intelligence facilities—we were accompanied by heavily-armed young men, and in Jerusalem I fell into step with one such escort. A few moments later, some men rounded a corner shouting and elbowing others aside. I asked the escort, born and raised in Israel, what that was about, and he replied, “Just some Arabs showing off.” He and I exited the old city together, and I was visually assaulted by a row of tacky tourist shops. American rock and roll came from them, too, and the first song I heard outside the old city was R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion. I smiled and said to the escort, “That doesn’t seem right for Jerusalem.” He stopped, paused a beat, and thoughtfully said, “I think that is the only way.”

Is he right? Can there only be peace if we lose our religion?

“There are only two gods worth worshipping. Chance and electricity.” Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

“We’ve all been blessed with God-given talents. Mine just happens to be beating up people.” Sugar Ray Leonard. (Why is it always Sugar Ray? Why not Sugar Jim or Sugar Marie?)

Each year, the U.S. gives nearly $4 billion to Israel in military aid, which since the founding of Israel has totaled hundreds of billions of dollars. Only occasionally has this been controversial. On the other hand, some in Congress don’t want any more aid for Ukraine. They contend that sending this money abroad is a drain on our economy. But when I read about Ukraine aid, the story often says that Ukraine is using major portions of the money to buy American-made arms and other military supplies. How much of the Ukraine aid is actually spent in the United States?

“Admiration for ourselves and our institutions is too often measured by our contempt and dislike for foreigners.” William Ralph Inge.

Posted on by rjonakait

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I have watched HGTV shows where a couple are looking to buy a house. We learn what the husband desires. We learn what the wife wants. There are conflicts in these wishes. We watch them visit homes for sale, and, of course, the husband likes one house and the wife another. At the end of the show is “the big reveal” where we learn which house was selected, which almost invariably is the one the wife preferred. I am not surprised by this dynamic, but I have been surprised by the fact that even though many of these couples have children, neither husband nor wife ever asks about schools. I expect that any concerned parent would ask how far away is the school. How would the kids get there? How would they get home from afterschool activities? How does the quality of the schools vary from one place to another? These couples ask none of that. Is this another piece of evidence that indicates the decline of America?

“Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.”  Pete Seeger.

I liked a line in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Wolf Hall, which I saw quite some time ago. A character explained why Thomas More was so hard to understand: “Everything he learned growing up, he still believes.”

Polls galore. Some may be meaningful, but I don’t understand the point of asking, “Do you think the country is headed in the right or wrong direction?”. The results routinely proclaim that many more people think the country is headed in the wrong direction than the right one. The direction question is so open-ended that I can’t imagine that the poll results tell us very much. I, for example, think that our country is tugged in the wrong direction when it pays college football coaches $10 million a year. You might think we are not headed correctly because more people report they have no religion. She might not like that the country is too woke. He might think the price of a six-pack is too high. Others might be sad to see that too much of the country denounces trans people. And so on and so on. What is the point to asking about whether the country is heading in the right direction?

State officials ordered Floridians to evacuate their homes in advance of a hurricane. I expected big-name conservatives to let out the Big Government cry or perhaps even the Socialist denunciation when people are ordered from their homes. That has not happened. Why not?

At that Republican get-together, Mike Pence labeled another attendee a “rookie” whome we should not elect. He said this without any irony I could detect, and yet he was on the ticket in 2016 with what almost anyone would label a rookie.

“Either heaven or hell will have continuous background music. Which one you think it will be tells a lot about you.” Bill Vaughan.

People talk about the likelihood that Donald Trump will go to jail. I hope he does get imprisoned. Wouldn’t it be great that while there, he converts to Islam?

“I have no use for lawyers,/That I have I won’t pretend,/I admit, though, one comes in handy/ When a felon needs a friend.”

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Pence and the Demise of Conservative Jurisprudence

          In a recent interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network, vice present Michael Pence labeled John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, a “disappointment to conservatives.” Pence cited some of Roberts recent decisions about LGBT workplace discrimination, immigration, abortion, and religious demands for favored treatments. Pence, however, was not making jurisprudential or constitutional comments in criticizing the Chief Justice. Pence was trying to score political points. He wants to make Roberts into a campaign issue. Pence insisted that the Chief Justice’s decisions “are a reminder of just how important this election is for the future of the Supreme Court.” He is concerned that the judicial appointments are not the campaign issue that they were four years ago. “We remember the issue back in 2016, which I believe loomed large in voters’ decisions between Hillary Clinton and the man who would become president of the United States,” he said. “And some people thought that it wouldn’t be as big an issue these days. But I think that’s all changed.”

          Pence apparently does not believe that Chief Justice Roberts is sufficiently conservative, that the Court needs a greater number of conservative justices, and that the reelection of Trump is necessary for those appointments. The comments, however, left open an important issue: How does Pence, or conservatives generally, or the religious people Pence was trying to reach on the Christian Broadcast Network define a conservative or “good” Supreme Court Justice? In discussing recent cases, Pence indicates that his touchstone is the outcome that a justice reaches. He expects a “conservative” justice to rule against abortion, Obamacare, and immigration, and in favor of religious claims. Other conservatives might expect conservative justices to side with business, with law enforcement, with gun owners, against regulations, against campaign finance restrictions, and against voting rights.

          However, assessing a justice against what are thought to be desirable conservative outcomes is measuring the justice against political principles, not legal ones. Conservatives used to decry liberal justices as unprincipled, claiming that the judges did not follow neutral legal principles and were only interested in reaching results justices personally desired. Judges, however, are not supposed to act as politicians or even lawyers. As an attorney, when I represented a client on appeal, I started with the desired result, which was usually seeking to overturn a criminal conviction. I then sought out precedents, arguments, and reasonings that I hoped would lead to the desired result. I was not acting neutrally. When judges do something similar and seek out justifications for a result they want, the judge is not acting as a judge but as a political partisan. A judge is supposed to use neutral principles and follow them to wherever that might lead, even if that is not the result desired by political instincts.

          Not all nonpartisan judges, however, agree on what neutral principles should be applied, and it was the selection of the judicial methodology that supposedly defined conservative jurists, notably Antonin Scalia. They believed in “strict construction,” “originalism,” or “original public meaning.” (I have discussed these terms earlier on this blog. You can search for them.) They believed in enforcing the text of a statute and did not seek out the drafters or adopters’ intentions in passing a law. They believed that precedent was important and should never be disregarded lightly.

          Pence, however, did not mention any of these conservative jurisprudential principles in complaining about Roberts. Instead, he emphasized the Court’s June ruling that ruled unconstitutional a Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. “That’s a very modest restriction on abortion providers, but a narrow majority in the Supreme Court still said it was unacceptable,” Pence said. “And I think it’s been a wake-up call for pro-life voters around the country who understand, in a very real sense, the destiny of the Supreme Court is on the ballot in 2020.” (Pence’s notion of “modest” is striking since it was expected that the state rule would have forced all but one of the Louisiana’s abortion providers to close. I wonder if Pence would label as “modest” a gun control measure that would cause all but one of Louisiana’s gun shops to shutter.)

          Pence did not mention that only a few years ago, the Supreme Court had struck down an almost identical admitting-privileges requirement from another state. Roberts in his recent opinion wrote that he felt compelled by good, what might say, conservative jurisprudence to follow that precedent. My point, however, is not to defend Roberts or his decisions. (Roberts wrote the opinion and was the fifth vote in one of most important and least defensible Court decisions of last generation—Shelby County v. Holder, where the conservative justices aborted much of the Voting Rights Act thereby giving political conservatives more power.) Instead, we should see that the conservative Pence does not really want conservative justices. He wants judges who reach the “right” political, religious, and social outcomes as he as a conservative politician defines right. He does not care about neutral judicial principles, whether they be conservative principles or not. He wants a political, activist court of the kind conservatives used to rail against. And, once again, conservative principles disappear.

The vice president’s criticism of the chief justice’s jurisprudence comes after Roberts sided with the high court’s Democratic appointees on several occasions in recent months, dealing the Trump administration defeats on issues including LGBT workplace discrimination, immigration and abortion.

Roberts, an appointee of President George W. Bush, also joined his Democratic-appointed colleagues two weeks ago when the court rejected a Nevada church’s request to block the state’s cap on attendees for religious services amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. | Leah Millis/AP Photo

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The court’s public information office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Roberts on Pence’s interview.

Following the court’s rejection of his attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program’s protections for roughly 650,000 immigrants, President Donald Trump pledged in June to unveil a new list of potential justices ahead of November’s general election.

The announcement by the president represented a reprisal of a campaign tactic that helped him shore up conservative support during his 2016 White House run, when he issued a list of candidates he said he would consider appointing to the Supreme Court in an effort to win over evangelical voters.

“He did that in 2016. He kept his word,” Pence said Wednesday of Trump’s list. “He’s going to do that in the fall of 2020, and in the next four years, he’ll keep his word and appoint more principled conservatives to our courts.”

Since assuming office, Trump has routinely touted his presidency’s rapid rate of judicial confirmations — including the hard-won installations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh on the high court — to energize his base in public remarks and at political rallies.

But it was Gorsuch who sided in June with Roberts and the court’s Democratic appointees in the landmark LGBT anti-discrimination case, authoring the majority opinion ruling to protect gay, lesbian and transgender employees from being disciplined, fired or turned down for a job based on their sexual orientation.