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Randy Barnett, law prof at Georgetown, who will be profiled in Thursday’s Pickings has a Volokh post today on the organized campaign against Supreme Court justices.
It has been clear for some time now that activists have moved from impugning the character of conservative Supreme Court nominees to delegitimating them as sitting justices. Curt Levey has an interesting article describing these tactics and the possible motives of the attackers: Ganging Up on Justices Thomas, Scalia, and Alito. Here is how the article begins:
“President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address featured an unprecedented scolding of the conservative Supreme Court justices, seated before him, for their Citizens United campaign finance ruling. It signaled a dangerous escalation in the left’s politicization of the courts and “set the tone,” says Politico, for this year’s “aggressive — and, at times, personal — attack on the… impartiality and ethics of Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and, to a lesser extent, Samuel Alito.”
The attack is being led by left-wing activist groups, talking heads, and a group of liberal congressmen. It is born of unhappiness about the Court’s recent and prospective decisions impacting the Obama agenda, as well as paranoia about a corporate cash-fueled, vast right-wing conspiracy headed by the Koch brothers. And it is maintained by cobbling together tenuous suggestions of conflicts and misconduct involving Scalia, Thomas, and Alito in the hopes of creating an ethical cloud. …”
Didn’t think Liberals could fight any dirtier? Curt Levey writes about the attacks against conservative Supreme Court Justices, in the American Spectator.
…liberals hope their attacks on the conservative justices will ensure that the justices are intimidated and the public is suspicious when the most controversial aspects of Obama’s agenda — Obamacare, the attack on Arizona’s illegal immigration crackdown, and the EPA’s attempted end-run around congressional resistance to cap and trade — reach the Supreme Court.
…The bottom line is that the Supreme Court’s vote on the constitutionality of Obamacare is likely to be very close, so liberals need Kagan’s vote and will fight hard against any pressure for her recusal. Are the attacks on the conservative justices the beginning of that fight? Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey thinks so:
“The purpose of this isn’t really to pressure Thomas into a recusal, at which Thomas is almost certain to issue his trademark booming laugh, but to pre-empt the recusal argument for Elena Kagan.”
…TO BE FULLY understood, the ethics attacks must be seen in a historical context. It is said that “Liars think everyone lies, and thieves think everyone steals.” Thus, it should come as no surprise that the ethics allegations — essentially, charges that the conservative justices are beholden to political interests — comes on the heels of the left’s decades-long endeavor to politicize the courts. …
Investor’s Business Daily editors criticize Secretary Geithner for wanting to pay for the federal spending spree by increasing taxes on small businesses.
The secretary of the Treasury says taxes must be raised on small business so the federal government can stay big. With that breathtaking statement, he helpfully mapped out the key difference between the parties.
…”If you don’t touch revenues,” Geithner said, “you have to shrink the overall size of government programs”…
Even more appalling is the fact Geithner didn’t back off his position when Ellmers told him that 64% of new jobs in this country are created by small businesses. In fact, he acknowledged that she is correct. …
In the WSJ, Stephen Moore looks at the recovery that isn’t.
…In a report entitled “Unchartered Depths,” the Committee finds that “employment is now 5.0% below what it was at the start of the recession, 38 months ago. This compares to an average rise in employment of 3.7% over the same period in prior post-WWII recessions.”
On economic growth, real GDP has risen 0.8% over the 13 quarters since the recession began, compared to an average increase of 9.9% in past recoveries. From the beginning of the recession to April 2011, real personal income has grown just .9% compared to 9.4% for the same period in previous post 1960 recessions.
The standard response from Obama apologists is that recession of 2008 and 2009 was different because, as former Clinton administration economist Robert Shapiro puts it, “this was a financial crisis, and these take longer to recover from.” In fact, in most cases, the deeper the recession, the stronger the recovery to make up for lost ground. …
Victor Davis Hanson looks at the massive wealth redistribution program called the Department of Agriculture.
The Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline to millions of struggling homestead farmers. Instead it is a vast, self-perpetuating, postmodern bureaucracy with an amorphous budget of some $130 billion — a sum far greater than the nation’s net farm income this year.
In fact, the more the Agriculture Department has pontificated about family farmers, the more they have vanished — comprising now only about 1% of the American population.
Net farm income is expected in 2011 to reach its highest levels in more than three decades, as a rapidly growing and food-short world increasingly looks to the U.S. to provide it everything from soybeans and wheat to beef and fruit. Somebody should explain that good news to the Department of Agriculture: This year it will give a record $20 billion in various crop “supports” to the nation’s wealthiest farmers — with the richest 10% receiving over 70% of all the redistributive payouts. If farmers on their own are making handsome profits, why, with a $1.6 trillion annual federal deficit, is the Department of Agriculture borrowing unprecedented amounts to subsidize them? …
Joel Kotkin notes the growth of the Gulf Region.
For most of the nation’s history, the Atlantic region — primarily New York City — has dominated the nation’s trade. In the last few decades of the 20th Century, the Pacific, led by Los Angeles and Long Beach, gained prominence. Now we may be about to see the ascendancy of a third coast: the Gulf, led primarily by Houston but including New Orleans and a host of smaller ports across the regions.
The 600,000 square mile Gulf region has long been derided for its humid climate, conservative political traditions and vulnerability to natural disasters. Yet despite these factors, the Gulf is destined to emerge as the most economically vibrant of our three coasts. In Forbes’ rankings of the fastest-growing job markets in the country, six Gulf cities made the top 50: Houston, Corpus Christi and Brownsville, in Texas; New Orleans; and Gulfport-Biloxi and Pascagoula, in Mississippi. In contrast, just one Pacific port, Anchorage, Alaska, and one small Atlantic port, Portsmouth, N.H., made the cut.
This reflects a long-term shift of money, power and jobs away from both the North Atlantic and the Pacific to the cities of the Gulf. The Port of Houston, for example, enjoyed a 28.1% jump in foreign trade this year, and trade at Louisiana’s main ports also reached records levels.
This growth stems from a host of factors ranging from politics, demographics and energy to emerging trade patterns and new technologies. One potential game-changer is the scheduled 2014 $5.25 billion widening of the Panama Canal, which will allow the passage to accommodate ships carrying twice as much cargo as they are able to carry currently. …