As seems increasingly to be the case, important stories keep
rushing past without enough notice. Consider this column a mea
culpa for not writing about them in timely enough fashion.
Obama-Holder DoJ Embarrassed
Again: At this magazine
and
elsewhere I’ve written numerous times about the case in
Kinston, N.C., in which Eric Holder’s Justice Department
effectively told the black-majority residents that they weren’t
smart enough to know their own interests — specifically, that they
could not move to nonpartisan municipal elections because they
couldn’t elect their “candidate of choice” if the candidate were
not identified as a Democrat. The decision was so outrageous —
quite literally, indefensible — that a challenge to it seemed like
a perfect vehicle for the Supreme Court to overturn the entirety of
the outdated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires DoJ
“pre-clearance” for any change in election procedures in
only certain states and jurisdictions.
Two weeks ago, the Holderites were forced into
ignominious, but well-merited, retreat. As whistleblower
extraordinaire J. Christian Adams
explains, “This is a message for all the states and counties
being played with by Eric Holder’s Voting Section — fight
back.”
Yes, fight, fight, fight against the bullying and
lawlessness of the Holder team. The outlaws are in charge of the
Justice Department, and their outrages must not stand.
Buffalo Case Might Help FDNY:
In another case we’ve been
following, the Justice Department has ignored the logic of the
Ricci v.
DeStefano case to try to force the Fire Department of New York
to adopt racial quotas while admitting some applicants who missed
as many as 70 percent of the questions on a fire academy entrance
exam. As that case continues, however, a
decision in a Buffalo case last week suggests again that the
comparable DoJ position in the FDNY case is on thin ice. As well it
should be, because it is not just wrongheaded but utterly immoral
in its unapologetic racialism.
An “infrastructure” bill that may actually be
conservative: Red State’s Erick Erickson
may not agree, but if even the super-conservative Rep. Jim
Jordan is leaning in favor of it, and if all the claims for it on
Speaker John Boehner’s site (no earmarks;
no increase in debt; etc.) are accurate, and with it earning
committee approval on a party-line vote (all Republicans
for and all Democrats against), those are pretty good indicators
that this is exactly the sort of bill conservatives ought to
support. I haven’t had time to fully study the bill, but —
especially with its promotion of domestic energy and its
elimination of 70 duplicative federal programs — this certainly
looks like a major step in the right direction. It is
important to fund the federal highway system; for once,
conservatives in Congress seem to be doing it the right
way.
The Utter Abomination of the Ninth Circuit’s
Homosexual “Marriage” Decision: There are so
many objectionable
facets of the case’s progress so far that it’s hard to know
where to start. Even ignoring the subject matter
itself, about which some good people disagree, this whole thing
smells to high heaven. First, the very idea of overriding not a
state legislature but a state referendum — in other words, to tell
the people of a state that even by an open public vote they cannot
set the terms of their own state Constitution — is incredibly
problematic. Only on a clear-cut, unambiguous violation of human
and civil rights should federal judges dare such a thing. Instead,
California’s voters did nothing more than reinstate the
understanding of marriage that has applied for millennia and that
matches that of almost every state in the union; how that
public act, via referendum, can violate the U.S. Constitution is
beyond the ken of ordinary human logic.
But the conflicts of interest among the judges in this
suit are, if anything, even more astonishing than the substance of
the decision. Ed Whelan at Bench Memos repeatedly has
argued that the trial judge should have recused himself because
of conflicts related to the judge’s own longtime homosexual
relationship. But, as Whelan and others have argued, one of the
appellate judges has a major conflict as well. Hans von Spakovsky
makes the case again
here, which is well worth a read. In short, Judge Stephen
Reinhardt’s wife was, for all intents and purposes, a party to the
case. Reinhardt should have recused himself — indeed, his conflict
is, if anything, even worse than that of trial judge Vaughn
Walker.
Other Stuff: If only there
were time to develop these thoughts, it’s worth noting that A) The
Indianapolis Colts would be crazy to let Peyton Manning go. They
should trade down their top draft pick for another top-5 pick plus
another first rounder, shore up their run-blocking and their
defense, and then and only then worry about an eventual heir to
Manning. B) Sticking with Manning, it’s not fair to say Eli Manning
has now somehow shown he is better than Peyton, just because he has
won one more Super Bowl. They both are superb. But Eli has had the
benefit of an amazingly good defense; Peyton usually has carried
his whole team on his back (witness the 2-14 record without him),
and rarely has had a defense the slightest bit better than the NFL
average. C) Phil Mickelson just played one of the best rounds of
golf I have ever seen, firing a 64 Sunday to win at Pebble Beach in
far less than ideal scoring conditions. Wow. D) Barack Obama
doesn’t care one bit about religious freedom. His “compromise” on
Friday on forcing religious organizations to participate in
insurance that provides free contraception and abortifacients was
cynical in the extreme (as many other people have noted) — and,
worse, it was an example of authoritarianism speeding up from a
creep to a trot, on its way to a gallop.
Okay, enough for now. Billy Joel’s “We
Didn’t Start the Fire” at times seems very much on target. It
was always burning, since the world’s been turning…..
