TRUMP EXPECTED TO QUICKLY NOMINATE AND THE SENATE TO QUICKLY CONFIRM NEW SCOTUS JUSTICE

RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS AND MARXISTS IN PANIC MODE

Note to our readers: This is substantive update, September 24, 2020, of article posted on September 22, 2020.“ ‘As worrisome as this conservative court is for progressives right now, it can get a whole lot worse if Trump gets the chance to nominate another justice,’ said Brian Fallon, the head of Demand Justice, a liberal group. ‘Justice Ginsburg’s resilience is utterly remarkable, but hoping for her continued good health is not a sufficient strategy for Democrats. We need to rally around the Supreme Court as an issue and win this election.’”Demand Justice, in concert with several other leading liberal groups, recently began a $2 million advertising campaign in key presidential election states trying to persuade voters that the direction of the court will be set for decades in the coming election.” Citation from a New York Times article, published on July 17, 2020, titled, “Ginsburg Says Her Cancer Has Returned, but She’s ‘Fully Able’ to Remain on Court.”  

JUSTICE GINSBURG'S DEATH, SEVERAL WEEKS BEFORE THE MOST IMPORTANT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS, IS AT ONCE TRAGIC AND PROPITIOUS BUT SHOULD COME AS A SURPRISE TO NO ONE

A BIT OF RECENT HISTORY CONCERNING THE LATE JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Back in May 2020, the Leftist weblog Politico reported on activist Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dire health and what it would mean if anything untoward happened to her before the General election in November:“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s hospitalization this week and the looming end of the Supreme Court’s term raise the prospect of yet another prized vacancy for President Donald Trump. And if there is a surprise opening or retirement in the months before the presidential election, GOP senators plan to act on it, despite denying President Barack Obama a Supreme Court seat in an election year.Republicans say they wish Ginsburg a swift recovery and have no inside knowledge of a retirement but are prepared to move if a vacancy presents itself.So in what’s already been the most consequential year for politics in a generation, with a presidential impeachment and a rampaging pandemic, Capitol Hill could get significantly crazier.‘If you thought the Kavanaugh hearing was contentious this would probably be that on steroids,’ said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). ‘Nevertheless, if the president makes a nomination then it’s our responsibility to take it up.’In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said voters should decide in the election which president should choose the next Supreme Court justice because the Senate and White House were controlled by different parties. And in the Trump era, he’s repeatedly asserted that he would fill a vacancy in 2020.McConnell and his allies argue the situation is different because Republicans control both the White House and the Senate. They say that makes the situation far different than when Obama was president and McConnell refused to even hold a hearing for Merrick Garland.Democrats acknowledge they could get run over in the next eight months. Supreme Court nominees can now be confirmed by a bare majority after McConnell changed the rules in 2017 to overcome a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch, Antonin Scalia’s successor.”Subsequently, in July of 2020, the public learned that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had been battling aggressive cancer for years, had a flare-up. CNBC reported,“ ‘Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was admitted to the hospital early Tuesday morning,’ the Supreme Court said. ‘She is being treated for a possible infection.‘The Justice is resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment,’ said court spokesperson Kathleen Arberg in a statement Tuesday. . . .’ Ginsburg has survived colon cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer 10 years after that. She was treated for a tumor on her pancreas in August 2019. And in December 2018, she had two cancerous nodules removed from her lungs.”  Recall that, in January, 2020 Ginsburg announced, as reported in health line, referring to an interview she gave to CNN, that she is “cancer-free.” Eight months later Ruth Bader Ginsburg was dead,* as reported by numerous news sources. And, with the death of Justice Ginsburg, one and a half months before the most important U.S. Presidential election in recent decades—and conceivably the most important election since the founding of the Nation—the worst fears of the malevolent, malignant, ruthless, powerful, immoral, repressive forces both here and abroad that seek to upend our independent sovereign Nation and a free Constitutional Republic have come to fruition.In the next several days Trump will nominate Ginsburg’s replacement—his third nomination since he took Office. That he will do so isn’t guesswork. It's a foregone conclusion. It is also a foregone conclusion that, whatever the Democrat Party leadership and Administrative State saboteurs and Radical Left George Soros financed destructors of our Nation have concocted to disrupt and waylay confirmation of Trump’s nominee—and have no doubt, they had made contingency plans in the event of Ginsburg’s death prior to the November election—there isn’t a damn thing these Anti-Constitutional, Anti-American forces can lawfully do to prevent a confirmation hearing and vote on Trump’s nominee, other than do what they have been doing for months: rioting, looting, ransacking, firebombing, threatening the populace, and destroying, killing, and maiming. And, there will be a backlash; no doubt about it. The public has had more than enough of this dangerous nonsense, and will not be placated by claims that all will be well once the senile Biden and the crass opportunist, Harris, take control of the Executive Branch of Government. Extortion doesn't work against Americans. It doesn't sit well in the American psyche or in their blood.

WHY GETTING A STRICT CONSTITUTIONALIST ON THE  U.S. SUPREME COURT BEFORE THE NOVEMBER 3, 2020 ELECTION IS CRITICAL

Unless the election results in a landslide for Donald Trump or for the Democrat Party nominee, Joe Biden, assuming Biden doesn't suffer a stroke or other health-related calamity at the Eleventh Hour, in which case Harris will step in as Biden's replacement, the coming U.S. Presidential  election will be contested. That isn't mere conjecture. It is certain.In fact, even if President Trump does win the election by a landslide, the American public can expect Democrats will contest the election results anyway. The obnoxious, repugnant, disgruntled, arrogant, smug Democrat Party nominee for U.S. President in 2016, Hillary Clinton—ever harboring a personal grudge against Donald Trump for dashing her hopes to be the first female U.S. President, a thing she literally lusted over—made that point quite recently, as reported by several news sources. Fox News, for one, reported that,

“Hillary Clinton issued a warning for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in a new interview released Tuesday, urging the former vice president to not concede defeat on the night of the Nov. 3 election — no matter the circumstances.

“Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances,’ Clinton said. ‘Because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually, I do believe he will win, if we don't give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is.’” But, by the same token, President Trump, should not concede the election results either. His loss of the U.S. Presidency, and the loss of the U.S. Senate in November, will mark the end of a Free Constitutional Republic; will doom the Nation's Bill of Rights, will doom the sovereignty of the American citizenry, and will result in the inexorable loss of an independent Nation State.But make no mistake, the ruthless, rapacious, scheming internationalist Marxists and Billionaire Neoliberal transnationalist elites, both here and abroad, through their well-positioned puppet, the Democrat Party Leadership—have pulled out all the stops to take over the Executive Branch along with the U.S. Senate. The Billionaire Globalist elites, including ex-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the secretive, mysterious, pathological Billionaire George Soros, have spent tens of millions of dollars, and continue to spend untold millions of dollars, to buy this election. Their intention is clear: a return to the Globalist agenda, one commenced decades ago—and one that has gathered steam ever since through the administrations of Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush (George Senior), George W. Bush (George Junior), and Barack Obama—an agenda that came to an abrupt, screeching halt, with the surprising election of a Populist, Donald Trump, to the Office of U.S. President in 2016. For Globalists who have championed the continued erosion of the very concept of independent, sovereign nation-states, the worst thing imaginable for them would be the election of a man who supports strengthening the U.S. as an independent, sovereign Nation-State; who supports the wresting of control of foreign and domestic policy-making from unelected bureaucrats; who has worked tirelessly to halt the erosion of our Civil liberties and fundamental, immutable, illimitable, natural rights; who has emphasized the singular importance of our Nation's Judeo-Christian ethics; who seeks to preserve the foundational juridical, cultural, historical and economic precepts of our Nation, and the sanctity of the Individual soul over recent Collectivist impulses that have denigrated individual thought and expression and that have sought to sow disharmony and dissension throughout America; a man who cherishes our sacred National symbols, and who seeks to preserve and protect them from those scurrilous elements that denigrate them and discourage their continued use; a Nation's leader who demonstrates his singular love and devotion and duty first and foremost to our Nation, to our Nation's Constitution, and to our Nation's people.All that President Trump has accomplished and has sought further to accomplish to benefit our Nation and our people that are encapsulated in his campaign slogans, “Make America Great,” and “Keep America Great”—slogans that are routinely treated like obscenities by the disloyal Marxists and neoliberal transnationalist elites—will likely be lost forever, if Trump loses the U.S. Presidency and if Republicans lose control of the U.S. Senate, in November. In the immediate aftermath of a Trump loss, this Country may very well devolve into Civil War—a clash between Americans who seek to retain the Nation's culture, history, legal, social, political, religious, and economic precepts, consistent with and as embodied both literally and tacitly in our Nation's enduring Constitution, and those Anti-American forces both here and abroad that seek to erase all of it.Ultimately, this election will likely be decided—must needs be decided—in the U.S. Supreme Court. A fair assessment of the General Election results will require fair and impartial U.S. Supreme Court Justices. The public may anticipate a fair assessment from Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and from President Trump's new nominee, once confirmed—certainly someone who fervently respects our Constitution as written, and whose loyalty and interest exists in preserving our Nation's Constitutional foundational framework. Americans may not likely expect a fair assessment of the General Election results from the liberal-wing of the Court, as their goal is to rewrite the U.S. Constitution as the liberal-wing, having taken its cue from their late leader, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, does not perceive the U.S. Constitution as a document beyond reproach, but something that can and should be tinkered with, thereby acknowledging less than a firm conviction in the sanctity and inviolability and immutability of our Nation's Constitution.Recall the late Associate Justice's words in a 2012  2012 interview with Egypt’s Al Hayat TV,  as reported by Real Clear: “ ‘You [referring to the Post-Mubarak Egyptian Government that was looking to the U.S. Constitution as a possible framework for its Nation's governance] should certainly be aided by all the constitution-writing that has gone one since the end of World War II. I would not look to the US constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. . . . It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the US constitution - Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It dates from 1982. You would almost certainly look at the European Convention on Human Rights. Yes, why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world?,’  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in an interview with Al Hayat TV in Egypt. ’ ” One might well have asked Justice Ginsburg, how human rights are to be guaranteed from the tyranny of Government, the inevitable danger of which our Nation's founders knew first-hand, in the absence of a well-armed citizenry?So, then, as the late Justice Ginsburg obviously emulated and found the Constitution of South Africa superior to ours, the incongruity of her remarks emerges eight years later as a manifestation of unholy and horrific, crushing events transpiring in America today—courtesy of rabid Marxists, whose brutal and incessant rioting and mayhem are all lovingly financed by Billionaire Neoliberal Globalists, like the cold-blooded, cold-hearted George Soros. Since these Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists see the foundational tenets of a free Constitutional Republic incompatible with their goal of a one-world social, political, economic, cultural, and juridical scheme, they intend to cut the legs out from under the Constitution that the framers fashioned and concoct a completely new fabric upon which to dress up the vestiges of the United States that they deign, perhaps, to keep.The integrity of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election is disturbingly very much in doubt, given the recent vote-buying antics of Michael Bloomberg and widespread vote-tampering possible through the vehicle of vote-harvesting fraud among other instances of election fraud, all likely to be compounded exponentially through the mechanism of millions of unverified mail-in votes. Even Progressive National Public Radio, NPR, has acknowledged that an extraordinarily high number, 550,000 mail-in votes have already been rejected so far, even as NPR chooses to discount the significance of that fact. It cannot be reasonably denied that ruthless Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist forces are determined to prevent Donald Trump from serving a second term in Office. It is, therefore imperative that President Trump do everything in his power to ensure the integrity of the upcoming election. Sitting a Ninth U.S. Supreme Court Justice on the Bench, prior to and not subsequent to the election, will definitely help to ensure a fair election, as a majority decision, whether 9-0 (most improbable) or 5-4 (most likely) will decide whom the public will see as U.S. President on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021.Without an odd number of U.S. Supreme Court Justices serving on the Bench on the day of the election, the High Court will likely not be able to decide the election when the issue of who actually won the election comes to the High Court, which it will, if the election is a contested one, as it most likely will be, unless Americans witness a landslide for one Party candidate or the other. A 4-4 result will get us nowhere, and may lead to all out civil war, as each side claims victory. We anticipate that, once Trump has made his selection, Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee will quickly convene and vote to send Trump’s nominee to the full Senate for a confirmation hearing. We anticipate that the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, will run the confirmation hearing expeditiously and, with a Senate Republican Majority, the Senate will confirm Trump’s nominee  posthaste. Those Senate Republicans who vote against confirmation of Trump’s nominee to sit on the High Court be damned!_____________________________________________

AMY CONEY BARRETT: A PROVEN PRO-SECOND AMENDMENT JURIST

BOTH PRO 2A AND PRO-LIFE, JUDGE BARRETT WOULD STRENGTHEN OUR BILL OF RIGHTS, PRESERVE OUR FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, AND KEEP AMERICA GREAT

The seditious Press has devoted substantial time analyzing and ruminating on Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court list of potential candidates and will continue to do so up to the point of his selecting someone.Almost certainly, Trump will nominate a woman to replace the late vexatious liberal-wing Associate Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And, that nomination is imminent.The current consensus is that Amy Coney Barrett, who presently serves as a Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, will be that person, as she is the front-runner.Judge Barrett is young, personable, and extremely bright. When analyzing and deciding cases, Judge Barrett applies the methodology of the late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked after graduating from Notre Dame Law School, fist in her class, Summa Cum Laude.President Trump nominated Barrett, on May 8, 2017, to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.Consistent with the methodology employed by the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, her brilliant mentor, Judge Barrett construes the Constitution in strict accordance with its original meaning. In that respect Barrett is Ginsburg’s polar opposite.Justice Ginsburg, unlike Judge Barrett, unabashedly and unashamedly interposed her own personal predilections into case analysis. Those predilections invariably informed her decisions, eroding the fundamental rights and liberties upon which a free Constitutional Republic and a sovereign people rest.The attacks against Barrett coming from the Radical Left seditious Press have just started. Indeed, they have been ongoing for some time.The seditious Press has constantly slammed Barrett’s stance on abortion. That remains its main concern and that, too, of the Radical Left. They haven't attacked her yet on her jurisprudential approach to deciding Second Amendment cases, but that is almost certainly coming. The Arbalest Quarrel has wondered about that: What is Barrett’s stance on the Second Amendment? Fortunately, we have more than a mere clue, we have verified proof of her position, and that proof is consistent with her jurisprudential, methodological approach to case analysis. Judge Barrett is a firm Constitutional originalist and textualist, in the mold of her mentor, the late eminent Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia.A fairly recent Second Amendment case, Kanter vs. Barr, 919 F.3d 437 (7th Cir. 2019), in which Judge Barrett took part, provides us with a definitive answer.The Plaintiff in Kanter had pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud, a non-violent crime.“Due to his felony conviction, he is prohibited from possessing a firearm under both federal and Wisconsin law. At issue in this case is whether the felon dispossession statutes—18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and Wis. Stat. § 941.29(1m)—violate the Second Amendment as applied to Kanter.” Upon his release from Prison, and payment of restitution, Plaintiff applied to the Attorney General for relief from disability so that he could exercise his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.The 7th Circuit Court Majority pointed out that, “. . . the Attorney General may remove the prohibition on a case-by-case basis if an applicant sufficiently establishes ‘that the circumstances regarding the disability, and the applicant's record and reputation, are such that the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest.’” The particulars of Kanter’s felony conviction, as set forth by the Court Majority that decided against Kanter, are as follows:“On May 24, 2011, Kanter pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341 based on a shipment of the noncompliant inserts to a podiatrist in Florida. Section 1341 carries a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Kanter was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a criminal penalty of $50,000, and he reimbursed Medicare over $27 million in a related civil settlement. On May 24, 2011, Kanter pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341 based on a shipment of the noncompliant inserts to a podiatrist in Florida. Section 1341 carries a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Kanter was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a criminal penalty of $50,000, and he reimbursed Medicare over $27 million in a related civil settlement.Kanter has since served his time and paid his criminal penalty, and he has not been charged with any additional criminal activity. However, because of his felony conviction, he is permanently prohibited from owning a firearm under federal and Wisconsin law.Kanter has since served his time and paid his criminal penalty, and he has not been charged with any additional criminal activity. However, because of his felony conviction, he is permanently prohibited from owning a firearm under federal and Wisconsin law.”The Constitutionality of the Wisconsin law was placed squarely in question. The lower District Court found against the Plaintiff because of his felony conviction and irrespective of the fact that he had served out his sentence and paid full restitution.Two of three of the Appellate Court Judges, the majority, who ruled against the Plaintiff Petitioner, Kanter, framed the issue as a question whether individuals who have been convicted of non-violent felonies, no less than those who have been convicted of violent felonies, fall within a class of individuals who can never enjoy their Second Amendment right to own and possess firearms.Why the Court majority framed the issue in this way is perplexing since the majority never bothered to formulate an answer to it or a resolution of it. This suggests that the Court had tacitly accepted as a given that citizens should never, can never, be absolved of their past misdeeds, regardless of the nature of their crimes, grounded, therefor, on the mere assumption that a convicted felon can never and must never be perceived as rehabilitated or capable of rehabilitation, at least, as to matters apropos of the Second Amendment, namely, matters pertaining to firearms ownership and possession. The Majority, thereupon concludes that felons remain, forever, a threat to public safety.Having tacitly decided that the Plaintiff Petitioner cannot lawfully own and possess firearms even though, as the Court Majority was compelled to acknowledge, Kanter had paid his full debt to society, the Court pretended to employ a balancing test as between non-violent convicted felons who had paid their debt to society and who subsequently wish to exercise the unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms, on the one hand, and the State’s  desire to promote public safety by keeping guns from the hands of Americans whom the State deems to be—by the very fact of a prior felony conviction—violent felony or non-violent felony notwithstanding—a perpetual threat to society, essentially, then, wholly beyond redemption, at least in the eyes of the Court.Applying that bald, unsupported assumption to Kanter, the Court said, “Categorical prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons are ‘presumptively lawful,’ even in disqualifying nonviolent felons like Kanter.” The Court thereupon determined that the government had met its burden in denying Kanter the right to own and possess firearms, even though the government really had not, asserting, nonetheless, that the government has shown that prohibiting even nonviolent felons like the Plaintiff Petitioner, Kanter from possessing firearms, is substantially related to its interest in preventing gun violence. The reader should note that the expression, ‘substantially related to an important Government purpose,’ is a court created intermediate scrutiny means balancing test. The Heller Court, in 2008, had considered the tenability of means balancing of interests between a fundamental right a person's interest in exercising a fundamental right, and the State's interest in precluding a person from exercising that fundamental  right on the basis of some presumed State desire to protect theHow so? The Court majority didn’t say. Obviously the Court Majority didn’t care. The Majority simply determined before the fact that a man convicted of a violent crime can never be permitted to exercise the fundamental right to keep and bear arms, after the fact and the Court constructed its argument to cohere with its predetermined decision.The dissenting Judge, Amy Barrett, though, did care. She began her dissent with the following perceptive remarks, which demonstrate her erudition, laser-like legal and logical reasoning, and profound respect for the fundamental, natural, immutable, illimitable, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms:“History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns. But that power extends only to people who are dangerous. Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons. Nor have the parties introduced any evidence that founding-era legislature imposed virtue-based restrictions on the right; such restrictions applied to civic rights like voting and jury service, not to individual rights like the right to possess a gun. In 1791—and for well more than a century afterward—legislatures disqualified categories of people from the right to bear arms only when they judged that doing so was necessary to protect the public safety.” Judge Barrett added that Federal law and Wisconsin State Statute “would stand on solid footing if their categorical bans were tailored to serve the governments' undeniably compelling interest in protecting the public from gun violence. But their dispossession of all felons—both violent and nonviolent—is unconstitutional as applied to Kanter, who was convicted of mail fraud for falsely representing that his company's therapeutic shoe inserts were Medicare-approved and billing Medicare accordingly. Neither Wisconsin nor the United States has introduced data sufficient to show that disarming all nonviolent felons substantially advances its interest in keeping the public safe. Nor have they otherwise demonstrated that Kanter himself shows a proclivity for violence. Absent evidence that he either belongs to a dangerous category or bears individual markers of risk, permanently disqualifying Kanter from possessing a gun violates the Second Amendment. . . .At this point, however, neither Wisconsin nor the United States has presented any evidence that Kanter would be dangerous if armed. Instead, as the majority notes, ‘Kanter is a first-time, non-violent offender with no history of violence, firearm misuses, or subsequent convictions,’ and he is ‘employed, married, and does not use illicit drugs, all of which correspond with lower rates of recidivism.’”In her concluding remarks, Judge Barrett, citing the seminal Second Amendment Heller case, made the pertinent points that,“If the Second Amendment were subject to a virtue limitation, there would be no need for the government to produce—or for the court to assess—evidence that nonviolent felons have a propensity for dangerous behavior. But Heller forecloses the ‘civic right’ argument on which a virtue limitation depends. And while both Wisconsin and the United States have an unquestionably strong interest in protecting the public from gun violence, they have failed to show, by either logic or data, that disarming Kanter substantially advances that interest. On this record, holding that the ban is constitutional as applied to Kanter does not ‘put the government through its paces,’ but instead treats the Second Amendment as a ‘second-class right’ [a point articulated by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas] subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees. I therefore dissent.” Incidentally, in her dissent, Judge Barrett cited, with approval, to Judge Thomas Hardiman's Second Amendment analysis in the oft cited Second Amendment case, Binderup v. AG of United States, 836 F.3d 336, 357 (3d Cir. 2016) (en banc) (Hardiman, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgments). Judge Hardiman is at present a U.S. Appellate Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Judge Hardiman is also on President Trump’s short list to sit on the High Court, as he was when President Trump ultimately decided to go with Judge Neil Gorsuch, in 2016, just weeks into President Trump's first term in Office. Judge Hardiman was the first runner-up. President Trump recognizes the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court in preserving the structure of our Nation in the form the founders conceived for it. Nominating a jurist to sit on the High Court was one of President Trump's first acts as President, and one that he had promised the electorate; a promise he kept. As a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, Judge Hardiman would, as with Judge Barrett, make an outstanding Justice, and he would be the ideal replacement for Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, a Bill Clinton nominee, who is 82 years old, the oldest Justice on the Court, in the event that President Trump nominates Judge Barrett to take the seat on the High Court, vacated by Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, upon the Associate Justice's recent death.Both Judge Hardiman and Judge Barrett utilize the jurisprudential methodology of the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia when analyzing and deciding cases, and they share the same reverence for the U.S. Constitution and for the Bill of Rights, as conceived by the framers of the Constitution.Of course, the Radical Left Democrats and other Soros funded Marxists don’t give a damn about fundamental rights or logic. They are inherently nihilistic, stubborn, irascible, irrational, obtuse, smugly self-righteous, and abjectly hateful. And they have other plans for our Nation, for our Nation's Constitution, and for our Nation's citizenry. And, in the near future, their aim is to do their damnedest to thwart confirmation of any further Trump nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court followed by attempts, by hook or by crook to defeat a Trump victory in November. If successful in that endeavor, they plan to resurrect Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the form of another liberal-wing activist jurist—perhaps, Merrick Garland, whom Barack Obama sought to sit on the High Court to replace Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, after the late Associate Justice's untimely and mysterious death. The Radical Left Marxists feel cheated out of the appointment of a liberal-wing activist jurist to the High Court. They feel disgruntled on two scores: the first, because Hillary Clinton failed to secure the U.S. Presidency, and, the second, because, as a result of her defeat, she could not nominate a liberal-wing successor to the High Court to replace the seat vacated by Justice Scalia after his death—a death, by the way, that has never been adequately explained—which should anger all Americans. Concerning Judge Garland, the Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively about the danger  Garland poses to the preservation of the Second Amendment and to a free Republic.Judge Garland has demonstrated nothing but contempt for the Second Amendment. The danger he poses to our fundamental right to keep and bear arms is so obvious and so egregious that we felt the need to write to Senator Grassley, who, at the time, was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We argued strenuously against voting for a confirmation hearing for Judge Garland, lest a vote by the full Senate serve to confirm him. Fortunately, there was no Hearing. See our open letter to Senator Grassley, posted on April 26, 2016.The Democrats were so incensed at the perceived rebuff by Senate Republicans that they scheduled their own pseudo-hearing, ostensibly to demonstrate their anger toward and disdain for Republicans failure to schedule a confirmation hearing for Judge Garland. Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat Party member of the Senate Judiciary Committee presided over the pseudo-hearing that, while doing much, perhaps, to highlight Judge Garland's ostensibly finer qualities, namely his extensive experience as a judge, his intellectual acumen, and his judicial and personal temperament, did nothing to expose the serious flaws in Judge Garland's juridical, jurisprudential, and philosophical approach to the law, the latter of which are equally important for that person who would serve on the Highest Court in the Land. Those severe failings make abundantly clear that, however well-suited Merrick Garland might be to preside as a U.S. Circuit Court judge, the impact of his rulings on the fundamental rights of the American people, namely and particularly, on Second Amendment matters, through which the very sovereignty of the American people over Government is secured, would be in jeopardy, thereby endangering the continued survival of a free Constitutional Republic, as envisioned by the founders of our Nation. Politico reported, back in May of 2016:“Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland won’t be appearing before senators anytime soon for his confirmation hearing. So Senate Democrats are trying for the next best thing.Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee will host a forum Wednesday featuring former top legal and government officials who know Garland personally and who will testify on behalf of the veteran jurist’s legal acumen and personal character.Among the names who’ll appear at the event: Abner Mikva, the former Democratic congressman and Clinton White House counsel who, like Garland, served as the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.‘The public discussion we are convening this week allows senators, the press, and the public to learn more about this highly qualified nominee and the importance of a fully functioning Supreme Court,” said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who will formally announce the event later Monday. “I hope all senators will join us for this public meeting.’ ” They didn't. And Senator Leahy and those Democrats that appeared for the “forum” (really a mock-hearing that Senator Leahy refused to countenance as a mock hearing) only succeeded in making utter fools of themselves. Democrats and their Marxist and neoliberal Globalist fellow travelers continue to lash out like petulant children. They have unleashed and continue to unleash incessant unprovoked, senseless chaos on President Trump, on the American people, and on our Nation. They have pointedly said that they intend to tear down the Nation if they don't get their way. But, then, they intend to tear down the Nation, if they do get their way, anyway, So, then, what's the point of their threat? Let them continue to make jackasses of themselves. Once Trump emerges victorious in November, he will take appropriate action against those elements in society that have made clear their intention to tear our Nation down. That isn't going to happen.U.S. Senate Republicans now have an opportunity to set matters right and, in doing so, render, as well, something in the way of a little payback, which will undoubtedly result in yet more churlish, childish, clownish antics and unseemly behavior.But, nothing the Radical Left Democrats and their mob of malcontents drum up will prevent President Trump from naming a jurist to sit on the High Court seat vacated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, upon her death; and nothing these Radical Left Democrats and their rabid, horde of troublemakers orchestrate to hamper the confirmation process will prevent Republicans from accomplishing their goal, thereby securing a free Constitutional Republic and preserving our Nation's fundamental rights and liberties for generations of Americans to come.The Arbalest Quarrel encourages President Trump to nominate Amy Coney Barrett, or, in the alternative, to nominate Judge Thomas Hardiman, as a replacement for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to sit on the high Court. And we encourage Senators Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell to speed the confirmation process through to completion before the coming momentous U.S. Presidential election.And——Woe to those Senate Republicans who fail to vote for confirmation of Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.___________________________*Months ago, when word came down that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had suffered a recurrence of her pancreatic cancer, first diagnosed eleven years ago, the Arbalest Quarrel was skeptical of news accounts suggesting that Justice Ginsburg’s cancer was under control.We therefore were not taken off guard when we heard that Ginsburg was readmitted to a hospital in July.NPR reported that “Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is back in the hospital, this time to treat a possible infection. She spiked a fever Monday night, according to a press release from the Supreme Court, and on Tuesday underwent an endoscopic procedure to clean out a bile duct stent that was inserted in August [2019?] The procedure was done at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore after Ginsburg was first evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. . . . According to a press release from the court's press officer, the justice is ‘resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment.’It marks the second time Ginsburg has been hospitalized recently. In May, the justice underwent nonsurgical treatment for a benign gallbladder condition at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and she participated in oral arguments from her hospital bed.”On July 30, 2020, the New York Post reported that Ginsburg revealed “she was undergoing chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer –but insisted she had no plans to retire,” reiterating the point made, as reported in The New York Times, on July 17, 2020: “Justice Ginsburg was typically optimistic in her statement. ‘I have often said I would remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam,’ she said. ‘I remain fully able to do that.’”  In that article, The New York Times pointed to Ginsburg’s Doctors who said that Ginsburg was doing remarkably well, even as they admitted she had advanced pancreatic cancer.Like Chief Justice Rehnquist, Ginsburg refused to step down from the Bench even as Democrats encouraged her to do so. If Democrats are up in arms over the decision of President Trump to nominate a successor to the late Associate Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and if they are in a blood-thirsty rage over Senate Republicans intent to hold a confirmation hearing on that nomination, prior to the U.S. Presidential election, they should blame both fate and themselves for the turn of events, and blame, no less, the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, herself, as Justice Ginsburg must have had some understanding, eleven years ago, when Barack Obama was President, that her life expectancy was short, and that resigning at a time when Barack Obama could have named, as her successor, another Leftist activist Associate Justice to the High Court, several years before the next general election would have cemented liberal-wing control of the Court for generations, as the liberal-wing could count on Chief Justice Roberts to sit in their corner on many if not most cases that came before the Court. Certainly one Obama nominee or another would have been confirmed. That nominee, back in 2011, could very well have been Judge Merrick Garland, who had been sitting as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1995 when then President Bill Clinton nominated him to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Senate voted to confirm that nomination. The Democrats had, for several years, considered Judge Garland to be a strong contender for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, had he received a hearing by the full Senate, he would undoubtedly have been confirmed. Past U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch made that point crystal clear. Hatch, a Republican no less, hailing from Utah, said he supported Garland's confirmation, and would work to see that Garland was confirmed as an Associate Justice to sit on the High Court. Reuters reported, at the time, back in 2010, that,“A Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Thursday he would help moderate jurist Merrick Garland win Senate confirmation if President Barack Obama nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court.Senator Orrin Hatch said he had known the federal appeals court judge, seen as a leading contender for the Supreme Court, for years and that he would be ‘a consensus nominee.”Asked if Garland would win Senate confirmation with bipartisan support, Hatch told Reuters, ‘No question.’‘I have no doubts that Garland would get a lot of (Senate) votes. And I will do my best to help him get them,’  added Hatch, a former Judiciary Committee chairman. ’”That happenstance should not be lost on anyone who cherishes preservation of the Bill of Rights and the continuation of a Free Constitutional Republic. To prevent such a calamity is reason enough for Senator Grassley, who then presided over the Senate Judiciary Committee, and for Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, to prevent a confirmation hearing for Garland, as his nomination would endanger the Second Amendment. And if the Second Amendment fell, so, eventually, would fall all the other sacred Rights and Liberties of the American people, an apocalyptic eventuality. Just imagine the turnabout in the Heller case, if Garland had sat in Justice Scalia's seat on the High Court in 2008 when Heller was decided. Let there be no mistake, the Republican controlled U.S. Senate fulfilled its obligation under the Advice and Consent clause of Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Senate did consider Barack Obama's nominee to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, and thereupon advised the Obama that the Senate does not consent to confirmation. Judge Garland's methodological approach to case analysis, and his jurisprudential leanings make him ill-suited to sit on the High Court. And his experience as a jurist and intellect and legal acumen do not compensate for his errant philosophical bent; one wholly inconsistent with the tenets of Individualism upon which our Constitution rests. Moreover, the fact that the Senate's refusal to permit a confirmation hearing from taking place does not mean that the Senate failed to fulfill its Constitutional requirement of Advice and Consent. The Senate Majority, did fulfill its duty, in Committee. That a confirmation hearing before the full Senate, did not occur, is irrelevant. The decision of the Senate Republican Majority was in keeping with the Constitutional Advice and Consent requirement and consistent with the will of the electorate whom that Republican Majority represents.There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that expressly states or tacitly suggests that the Senate, in its entirety, must hold a confirmation hearing, as the full Senate establishes its own rules of conduct and the full Senate had previously declared the process through which the Advice and Consent requirement of Senate is to be fulfilled. That process is laid bare for all to see at the website law2.umkc.edu: “Judicial nominations are forwarded to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which conducts its own review (using its staff and those of its members) of the merits of the nominee.  Hearings are held in which the nominee, as well as other persons knowledgeable about the nominee's qualifications, offer statements and answer questions posed by Committee members.  After the hearing, the Judiciary Committee votes on whether to recommend confirmation of the nominee by the full Senate.  A nominee who fails to win a majority of Committee votes usually sees his prospects die, unless the Committee chooses to forward the nomination to the full Senate without recommendation. The full Senate, once a nomination is sent to it, will debate the merits of the nominee and schedule a final vote on confirmation.  On rare occasions, as happened when charges of sexual harassment surfaced at the last minute against Clarence Thomas, a nomination might be sent back to the Judiciary Committee for further hearings. A simple majority is required for confirmation.  The average time in recent decades between a presidential nomination of a Supreme Court justice and a final vote by the Senate has been a bit over two months.”So, let the Democrat leadership and Marxists and Transnationalists lament and bemoan their failure to destroy our free Constitutional Republic. The Good Lord Above has ordained our Nation, a free and independent and sovereign Nation, must continue to exist as such; that it should not suffer the fate of Marxist Dictatorships like Venezuela or Cuba, that have fallen into abject ruin, or the fate of such repressive Communist Dictatorships as China that keeps its population under strict surveillance and control, clamping down vigorously on any dissent.If the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg were truly concerned about securing liberal-wing control of the High Court, then she might have acted more pragmatically, voluntarily, if reluctantly, stepping down from the Court when Obama was President, rather than defiantly, stubbornly resisting resignation, perhaps presuming, wrongly, as so many had, that the Executive Branch would remain in Democrat hands; that a smooth transition from Obama to Hillary Clinton, would take place, and that a Democrat in the White House would be making nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court and to the lower federal courts. Ginsburg may have regretted having failed to step down, years earlier. CNN reports that, “Shortly before dying Friday, Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter: ‘My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.’ ”Perhaps Ginsburg did make that deathbed statement; perhaps not. In any event, that utterance, if, in fact, made, must remain, at best, as wish fulfillment, grounded, perhaps, in regret for failing to see that maybe, just maybe, Hillary Clinton would not succeed Barack Obama as U.S. President after all. And, the fact that Hillary Clinton failed to realize her ultimate ambition and the fact that Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists failed to realize their vision for a unified one-world system of governance, amount to an intolerable loss for them as that loss has made all the difference in the world that exists—a world where the United States, and many other independent, sovereign nation states that seek to remain so, have found reprieve—a world that Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists find intolerable and have made clear they will not abide.“The chief of staff to Vice President Pence on Sunday defended the administration's decision to ignore the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's deathbed request not to fill her seat until after the election, telling CNN that it was not Ginsburg's choice to make. ” The choice Ginsburg could have made and should have made if her intent was to maintain a liberal-wing activist majority or, at least, to maintain some semblance of ideological, jurisprudential, and methodological counter-balance to the conservative-wing, the latter of which is loath to tinker with the Constitution, was to resign, back in 2011, when she was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She dismissed out-of-hand any suggestion that she do so.Recall Steve Jobs death from pancreatic cancer on October 06, 2011. Steve Jobs was substantially younger that Ginsburg and therefore, presumably, stronger. No matter; he still died, after battling cancer for seven years. VOA News reported,“Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' death at the age of 56 followed a seven-year battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer - the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. The disease is hard to treat because it is difficult to diagnose. The pancreas is embedded deep in the abdomen, and often, symptoms of cancer become evident at a very late, advanced stage of the disease.” Given the ominous signs of Ginsburg’s rapidly deteriorating health, in the last several months notwithstanding mainstream media attempts to sugarcoat the prescient signs of Ginsburg’s imminent demise and the penchant of the seditious Press to incessantly and blatantly and unapologetically lie to the American public, the Arbalest Quarrel penned an article in July that we had not gotten around to publish, but feel it still apropos to post here, albeit, after the fact of Ginsburg’s death, as it is an appropriate lead-in to the pressing matter confronting the Nation, now, as Ginsburg's death, coming when it has, is a godsend of a kind, even as it is a personal tragedy for Ginsburg's family nonetheless, for her death truly forces the American public to consider what is at stake. The Nation is able now to cut through the smoke and mirrors of the Chinese Communist Coronavirus plague and the gloomy economy wrought by the plague that the Radical Left have attempted to use to their advantage. The public has a choice and it is a clearly demarcated one: either to retain a free Constitutional Republic where the people are sovereign and Government exists to serve the people; where independence of thought and action is encouraged; and where an American spirit and a Judeo-Christian ethos exists; all of which have benefitted our Country and our people since the Nation's inception; or we can toss it all out the window, and see our Nation merged into a one-world system of governance, one demanding the loss of personal freedom and liberty, the loss of independent thought and action; a world where people exist to serve a grandiose, bloated State and are dependent on Government largess for their needs, a Collectivist nightmare. It is this or that; one or the other; not both, and not an amalgam of the two as they are inherently incompatible. A U.S. Supreme Court comprising multiple copies of Ruth Bader Ginsburg will ensure the existence of the latter. A U.S. Supreme Court comprising jurists in the mold of the late eminent Justice, Antonin Scalia will help ensure the continued existence of the former, one predicated on the tenets of Individualism, not Collectivism.In our unpublished article, drafted in late July, titled, “Is It Too Soon to Consider Another Trump Nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court,”  which we feel appropriate to post here, even though after the fact, we wrote,“One year ago, Associate Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then 86 years old, underwent cancer surgery. ABC News reported, at the time, July 25, 2019, that,“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflected on her health amid concerns for the 86-year-old, who underwent cancer surgery in December that caused her to miss oral arguments for the first time in 25 years.The progressive justice, who has become a pop culture icon dubbed ‘the Notorious RBG’ and a hero for young activists, dismissed concerns over her health in an interview with NPR published Tuesday, saying she is ‘very much alive.’”Well, Ginsberg’s assertion that she is ‘very much alive’ is, on one level, certainly true, but trivially so, because, as a matter of elementary logic, one is alive, or one is not. And, apparently, at that moment, Ruth Bader Ginsberg wasn’t dead; ergo, she was very much alive.But, given the nuances of language, the assertion goes to the issue of Ginsberg’s current state of health. Obviously, Ginsberg was, at that time, not in the pink of health. Were she not a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the concern over Ginsberg’s health or, indeed, whether she was alive or not, would be of little concern to anyone outside of her network of family and friends. But, the fact that Ginsberg is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, her life and well-being is and should be the subject of intense focus to Americans since, she is one of a select few people who wields substantial power over the life and well-being of the rest of us.On July 14, 2020, news outlets uniformly reported that Ginsberg was in the hospital due to an infection. The irrepressible, CNN, for one, reported that,“Ruth Bader Ginsberg has been taken to the hospital and treated for a possible infection, according to a court spokeswoman.‘Justice Ginsburg was admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland early this morning for treatment of a possible infection,’ spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said Tuesday.‘She was initially evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. last night after experiencing fever and chills. She underwent an endoscopic procedure at Johns Hopkins this afternoon to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August. The Justice is resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment.’It's the latest development in Ginsburg's lengthy history of medical issues while serving on the high court—though she's proven adept at continuing her job without interruption.”One might have pondered if, given the era of the Chinese Coronavirus in which we live, Ginsberg might have contracted the disease, not an unheard-of possibility. But the lack of any acknowledgment of that sort of infection, one could not help but wonder if the news report was a deliberate attempt at obfuscation to mask another malady. And, then, on July 17, it comes to light that Ginsberg is in the hospital because of a flare up of her cancer and that she is undergoing chemotherapy. In bullet points, Business Insider reported that,“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced Friday that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatments to combat a ‘reoccurrence of cancer.’

• The 87-year-old had recently been hospitalized for an infection stemming from a medical procedure on a tumor found on her pancreas.
• ‘I am tolerating chemotherapy well and am encouraged by the success of my current treatment,’ Ginsburg said in a statement.
• ‘I will continue bi-weekly chemotherapy to keep my cancer at bay, and am able to maintain an active daily routine,’ the statement said. ‘Throughout, I have kept up with opinion writing and all other Court work.’

Following another recent heath scare, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced Friday that she was undergoing chemotherapy to treat a ‘reoccurrence of cancer.’Ginsburg, 87, has survived cancer four times before.”The Daily Mail reported, on July 17, 2020, Ginsberg’s remark that, although she revealed that her cancer has returned, she “will not quit Supreme Court while she can work ‘full steam.’. . . ‘I have often said I would remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that.’” Ginsberg’s remarks are all well and good, but one is reminded of Rehnquist’s intention to remain on the Court even as CNN remarked, on June 22, 2005 that, at that time, the Chief Justice looked “frail” and that, “He has been on a physically demanding pace since October, when he had an emergency tracheotomy after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer, for which he later endured weeks of chemotherapy and radiation.The chief justice has released no information about the seriousness of his condition, but his treatment regimen led cancer specialists to conclude he had a serious, invasive form of cancer, with a possibly dire prognosis.”Less than two and a half months later the Chief Justice was dead, as reported by fox news.This brings us back to the question of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s health. She is 7 years older than the Chief Justice, and she is most certainly unwell.Imagine for a moment that Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s health neither improves nor remains at a plateau but declines precipitously between now and the fall.There is an election looming—certainly most critical in the last one hundred and fifty years. When Justice Scalia died—by natural means or not—in 2016, Trump made poignantly clear his intention to name a successor, quickly. And he did so, fulfilling a critical campaign promise. The New York Times reported, “Pledging to move quickly to fulfill what he has called the most important promise of his campaign, President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he would name a nominee to the Supreme Court ‘within about two weeks’ of his inauguration on Jan. 20.At a news conference in Trump Tower, he thanked the leaders of two prominent conservative groups for their help in vetting candidates, a strong indication that his main priority remains choosing an unwavering conservative to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last February.Democrats are promising a furious fight over any nominee they consider to be out of the legal mainstream, saying that Republicans effectively stole a Supreme Court seat from President Obama by refusing for almost a year to consider his nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland, a respected appeals court judge with a moderate record.”And furious fight the Democrats waged when Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch for U.S. Supreme Court Justice. But even that nomination fight paled in comparison to the gladiatorial circus on display during the Kavanaugh Senate confirmation hearing. Imagine the battle that will loom if Ruth Bader Ginsberg dies a month or so before the election.And, that that has in fact transpired. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now dead, we will soon see just how calamitous the aftereffects of that event will be on our people and on our Nation._______________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

IT IS TIME FOR THE U.S. SENATE TO VOTE ON NATIONAL CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY RECIPROCITY.

The Arbalest Quarrel has been at the forefront in the call for national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation. Posting our first article on the subject in 2015, in our “Roadtrip with a Handgun” series, we have  remained a strong proponent of national concealed handgun carry, and have since published two dozen articles on the subject; our latest posted on November 30, 2018.We were very pleased when the Republican controlled House at long last passed their version of national handgun carry. But that was almost one year ago. The House bill is titled, “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017,” 115 H.R. 38. The House immediately sent the bill to the Senate for consideration. But, there has been no action on it to date. It has been sitting idle in the Senate Judiciary Committee ever since. That is unacceptable. More, this inaction is unconscionable. Millions of American gun owners want it, need it, and have the right to have it.We cannot wait because once the Democratic Party majority takes over control of the House on January 3, 2019, we will likely never again see it. The measure would have to be brought up once again, in the new Congress. It would then have to be voted on, and passed by the full House, and that won’t happen—not with a substantial Democratic Party House majority.The Democratic Party leadership that will define the measures to be taken up and voted upon by the full House has no desire to strengthen the Second Amendment. That is not part of the leadership’s agenda. Indeed, the goal of the Party leadership, for decades, has been, on that score—unlike its policy position on illegal aliens and border protection, where it flip-flopped—remarkably consistent. The aim of the Party leadership is to weaken the Second Amendment to the point that the fundamental right set forth in the Amendment ceases to have practical effect.It is therefore imperative for the Senate to bring the House version of the bill it has been sitting on for close to a year, to the Floor of the Senate for a vote by a full complement of Senators. The Senate will hopefully then pass the bill, and get the bill onto the desk of the U.S. President Trump, for his signature, before it adjourns. There is still time. But, the Senate must act now, without further delay.

National Handgun Concealed Carry Reciprocity Would Be a Good Thing; a Rational, Positive Step Forward.

A few readers of our articles have argued against passage of national handgun carry reciprocity, asserting the right of the people to keep and bear arms—as one of our fundamental, unalienable, and natural rights—rests beyond the lawful control of Government to regulate. If so, this would mean that present federal, State, and local Government regulation of the exercise of the right is facially invalid, and unlawful.The concern expressed is understandable. The Arbalest Quarrel has not been unmindful of the issue whether Government can legitimately regulate our fundamental, natural, enumerated rights at all, and if it can, then the extent to which Government can regulate these rights.The tension between Governmental power on the one hand and the rights and liberties of the people, on the other, was, in fact, a focus of attention for the founders of the Republic, and a dilemma. They came to an understanding, if guardedly and grudgingly by some, that, for the fledgling Republic to exist and persist through time, it would be necessary to establish a strong national government. But, having thrown off the yoke of oppression created by one autocratic rule—that of King George III—the founders, who met at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787, had no desire to draft conditions, albeit unintentionally, that would allow for imposition of yet another such rule—and this one of their own making.The answer, for the framers of the Constitution, referred to as antifederalists, was to place an express Bill of Rights into the Constitution, to protect the rights and liberties of the people. The antifederalists saw inclusion of a Bill of Rights as necessary to curb a tendency of a national Government to exercise and accumulate ever more power at the expense of the people to whom that Government was, after all, designed and expected to serve.The federalists were opposed to this idea, but not because they were against securing fundamental rights and liberties for the people. Rather, they felt that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary and redundant, as the power and authority of a central Government would be express and limited. Everything else—rights, liberties, powers—would reside in the respective States and in the people. Further, the federalists felt that, by placing emphasis on a formal Bill of Rights, this would obscure the need for creating an effective and efficient Government that could provide both national security and strength, and, at once, promote liberty. But, we have seen how this has played out, 200+ years later. And, it isn’t good. Thankfully, the antifederalists’ demand for inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution prevailed over the federalists’ objections against such inclusion.The federal Government has indeed, through time, become very effective and efficient in amassing unbridled power, along with securing, for itself, extraordinary levels and layers of secrecy, even as the American citizenry, conversely, has lost its own fundamental right to be free from unlawful Governmental searches and seizures. Indeed, there likely now exists a Government within a Government, an ominous, parallel Shadow Government, separate and apart from the apparent, ostensibly “open” Government the public sees.This Shadow Government likely siphons off billions of taxpayer dollars annually, using that money to advance its own illegitimate goals; money that serves its own interests, not those of the American people; hence, the concern of many citizens against any Government regulation of fundamental, enumerated, unalienable, and natural rights, including the right of the people to keep and bear arms, else Government inevitably, inexorably, and insidiously encroach upon and systematically and oppressively control the lives and actions of its own people.But, is there any statement in the Constitution prohibiting Government regulation of fundamental rights, as some readers assert? Let’s look at a few clauses.

The “Necessary and Proper Clause”

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18 of the Constitution states in part that Government is “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers. . . .”  This clause would appear to be an express limitation on Government regulation, certainly of the enumerated rights, as set forth in the first eight Amendments, apart from the unenumerated rights referred to in the Ninth  and Tenth. If so, the “necessary and proper clause” does restrain federal Government regulation of the Second Amendment and of other fundamental, enumerated rights of the people.

The “Supremacy Clause”

Article 6, Clause 2 of the Constitution states in part, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land. . . .”  The “supremacy clause” is essentially an assertion of federal preemption. The idea alluded to is that the Constitution, acts of Congress, and treaties are the Law of the Land and are subordinated to no other laws. But, contrary to some views expressed, the supremacy clause is not an assertion of the sanctity of the Bill of Rights, beyond the power of Congress to regulate. In fact, at least some antifederalists were much concerned about it, fearing the clause would give the federal Government too much power over the States. Yet, it may also be argued, that the supremacy clause implies that the enumerated rights set forth in the Bill of Rights are—since an express part of the Constitution, along with the Articles—well beyond the power of the federal Government to lawfully regulate. In that respect, the supremacy clause serves to contain and restrain Government regulation of the citizenry’s fundamental, enumerated rights.

The “Commerce Clause”

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution sets forth the power of Congress “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”  National concealed handgun carry reciprocity does implicate interstate commerce, but whether Congressional power to regulate the carrying of a firearm across State lines amounts to an over-extension of the commerce power, at the expense of the States, will require further review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

What Will Happen When National Concealed Handgun Carry is Passed by the Senate and Signed into Law by the President?

Were the Senate to pass national concealed handgun carry reciprocity and the President sign it into law, it would be an odd thing, indeed, yet possible to see antigun groups and some pro-Second Amendment groups both opposing the law. Yet, both sides could do so, albeit each for its own reasons, both claiming Congress had gone beyond its authority to regulate firearms’ possession.Be that as it may, however this might play out, the Arbalest Quarrel feels that, given the myriad antigun laws already enacted, there would be far more to gain from having this one, at this moment in time, than not. National concealed handgun carry reciprocity would at least serve as a significantly pro-Second Amendment federal law to counter the plethora of State and Federal laws that aren’t. Still, we understand and respect such misgivings some pro-Second Amendment people may have on the matter._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

AS DEADLINE DRAWS NEAR, SUPPORTERS OF SECOND AMENDMENT DEMAND U.S. SENATE VOTE ON NATIONAL CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY RECIPROCITY.

THE U.S. SENATE MUST ACT NOW!

We have two weeks left before the Senate adjourns for the Christmas Holiday.If the Senate fails to act on national concealed handgun carry reciprocity within the next two weeks, any chance that this measure will be taken up anew and that it will become a reality when the House of Representatives seats a Democratic Party majority in 2019 will be virtually nil.The Senate Judiciary Committee has been sitting on the bill that was sent to Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, last December 2017, when it passed the Republican controlled House. The version of national concealed handgun carry reciprocity that passed the House is designated, 115 H.R. 38, “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017.” Once Senator McConnell received it, he sent it immediately to the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley, for action. Clearly, no work was done on it; and a year has gone by since the Judiciary Committee had received it.It is imperative we get the House version of the bill onto the Floor of the Senate for immediate roll-call vote.

THIS MATTER REQUIRES THE CONCERTED EFFORT OF EACH OF US.

The Arbalest Quarrel has been on the forefront of National Concealed Carry Reciprocity. We have written numerous articles on this subject. Interested readers are encouraged to read our articles by visiting our website.Our articles have also been published by Ammoland Shooting Sports News  See our article, “National ‘Right To Carry’ For Self-Defense Needs Your Help – Take Action.” And, we have recently posted our article on the website, The Truth About Guns. As a regular guest on “LockNLoadRadio,” hosted by Bill Frady, we have discussed the issue of national right to carry, at length.We have been getting positive responses to our articles. Many pro-Second Amendment groups, organizations, radio, respected news sources and social media, have joined us to mount a grassroots effort to strengthen our sacred Second Amendment right.We know that, as you have gotten the message, you are doing your part to get the Senate to move on national concealed handgun carry reciprocity. Once the Senate passes the bill, it will be sent directly and immediately to the President for his signature. And, have no doubt about this, President Trump will sign it. He has made very clear both during his campaign for the Republican Party nomination and during his successful run against the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton, that he avidly supports the natural, fundamental, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms.It is time to urge Congress to act to strengthen our natural rights and liberties, not weaken them. We must have national concealed handgun carry reciprocity enacted into law now.For those of you who have not added your voice to this critical effort, there is still time.

IMPORTANT CONTACT INFORMATION:

Senator McConnell may be reached at 202/ 224-2541, but he does not provide a personal response and he will not take messages at this time. However, there is a referral to Senator McConnell's on-line email.Senator Grassley can be reached at: 202/ 224-3744. The Senator provides a personal response to your message and your message will be relayed directly to the Senator.Your Senate Delegation can be reached at: 202/ 224-3121. The switchboard will provide you the phone numbers for the Senators of your State.You can reach the White House at:  202/ 456-1414. At the prompt, you can leave a message for President Trump.The NRA can be reached at: 800/ 392-8683. You can leave a message, but be aware there may be a lengthy wait. You can also leave a message for the nra-ila.With your active assistance, we can turn the tide and see national concealed handgun carry reciprocity a reality. Please join us in this important, timely cause. Time is of the essence. We must get the Senate to act immediately on this._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

DEMOCRATS ASSERT: “FOR THE SAKE OF OUR AGENDA, LET’S PUT TRUTH ASIDE; WE MUST DESTROY THE REPUTATION AND CHARACTER OF BRETT KAVANAUGH.”

SENATE DEMOCRATS, ON THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, BLATANTLY ATTEMPT TO DESTROY A MAN’S NAME; TO DO SO WITHOUT CONCERN FOR THE TRUTH.

“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”  ~ Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,” May 4, 1979 through November 28, 1990“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,Is the immediate jewel of their souls:Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;But he that filches from me my good nameRobs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.” ~ William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 3, Scene 3On Thursday, September 27, in a U.S. Senate Hearing Room, Christine Blasey Ford, testified before Senate Democratic Party and Republican Party Judiciary Committee members; and before the American public. This 11^th Hour Senate Hearing, an “addendum,” need not have transpired; and should not have occurred; for the Senate Hearing on Judge Kavanaugh’s qualifications, character, and integrity that had taken place for several days, had concluded weeks before. Judge Kavanaugh demonstrated beyond any doubt that he is eminently qualified to serve as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Senate Democrats, though, did not like that turn of events. What could they do? They decided to play a “trump card,” against President Trump, in a last ditch effort to undercut the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to a seat on the high Court.Senate Democrats sought to demonstrate that Judge Kavanaugh had a serious flaw in his character—a flaw that made him unsuited to sit on the high Court, regardless of his many qualifications and years of judicial experience. Senate Democrats sought, ostensibly, to portray Christine Ford as a victim—the only victim. But, contrary to Democrats attempt to portray Christine Ford as the sole victim, there was a second victim: Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Senate Democrats intended to use Christine Ford’s testimony against Judge Brett Kavanaugh as a cudgel—another planned assault, along with the Mueller probe—to frustrate the policy objectives of  U.S. President, Donald Trump. To derail the President’s nominee to the high Court, Congressional Democrats brazenly used Christine Ford for their own ends, not hers. The result was to turn a seemingly solemn endeavor into a Grand Inquisition, produced and directed by Senate Democrats.

SENATE DEMOCRATS DISPENSE WITH THE NATION’S BASIC PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE AS SET FORTH IN THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND UNDER OUR PROCEDURAL LAWS.

Turning due process on its head, the accused, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, was presumed guilty, not innocent, of sexual assault. Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Ford, simply had to disclose in public matters that she had thought and hoped would remain private—allegations of sexual assault committed by Brett Kavanaugh, when they both were in their teens. The testimony of Christine Ford would be used, so it was anticipated by Senate Democrats, to support the inference that Brett Kavanaugh did in fact sexually assault Christine Ford, thirty-six years ago. Senate Democrats made clear that it wasn’t necessary for Christine Ford’s testimony to actually cohere with or correspond to the facts of the matter. It would be enough, so Senate Democrats assumed and argued that she merely appear to be honest, credible. But, due process requires more from an accuser than an accuser’s mere conviction; due process requires more than the accuser’s honest belief in the truth of her own allegations. And due process requires more than the mere perception, of the observer, that the accuser is, after all, really telling the truth. From both a logical and legal perspective belief does not ipso facto equate with truth.Under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the testimony of an accuser is not sufficient to convict or condemn a man. Evidence to support a naked accusation is required, such as independent forensic evidence and corroboration of witnesses to the event—none of which Christine Ford had produced. So, regardless of Christine Ford’s personal conviction as to her certainty that the events she speaks of—that took place, thirty-six years ago—and however adamant her remarks, fact remains that, bare allegations, ostensibly based on recollections, in the absence of more, do not substantiate truth for the trier of fact. Under our system of laws and justice—a system built on over two centuries of jurisprudence—an accuser’s barefaced accusation of wrongdoing is constitutionally insufficient to convict one of a crime or, as in this case, simply constitutionally insufficient to condemn.Here, the accuser’s testimony came up short on critical details, painfully short. No matter. Senate Democrats had, before the fact, accepted the accuser’s testimony, on its face, as factually true. They accepted on faith alone the veracity of the allegations because, as they have said, in public, even before the hearing, they had found Christine Ford’s barefaced allegations of a crime to be credible and compelling; and, for them, that was enough, and they insisted that Christine Ford’s barefaced allegations of a crime should be considered credible and compelling for everyone else, too. That is patently ridiculous!Imagine if you will that an accusation were sufficient, of itself, to sustain punishment or public condemnation, irrespective of even a scintilla of independent corroborating evidence. What would that mean for someone; what would that mean for you if someone came forth with a damning accusation against you? What it means is that, you, the accused do not  have the right to face your accuser. You don’t have the right to test the sufficiency of the accusation through direct examination of the accuser. The presumption of innocence does not attach. Thus, the barefaced allegations of an accuser are presumed sufficient to convict or to condemn you and off to prison you go or otherwise, if not to prison, then, perhaps, you, the accused lose a benefit to which you ought otherwise be entitled; or you lose an opportunity you sought to obtain. Moreover, you will find your reputation, your honor, your integrity, your character are all irrevocably besmirched and stained, forever. This inversion of our basic principles of due process can happen to you. Don’t think it can’t! This inversion of our basic principles of justice is precisely what we see happening here in the case of Brett Kavanaugh. We see a planned coordinated, systematic, reprehensible attack to destroy a man’s character and reputation. Senate Democrats, who sit on the Judiciary Committee, along with the Congressional Democratic Party leadership, have connived, conspired and implemented a last minute plan in an unconscionable attempt to discredit the honor, character, and reputation of a man. They could not and cannot destroy the man’s judicial record, his jurisprudential philosophy, and his keen, analytical mind. So, they attempt to debase him. They resort to the last tactic available—a tactic of those in the throes of desperation. They resort to an attack on the man himself.Their plan is nothing more than a well-orchestrated, coordinated contrivance, utilizing their echo chamber, the mainstream media, to cherry pick details of the man’s history. They do this with the aim to come up with something, anything that might be used to cast aspersions on the man’s character. They take whatever they find, and then exaggerate the claim, blowing it up out of all proportion to reason and sensibility. Did the man ever drink alcohol in high school or college? If so, then the public must conclude that the man is a drunkard. A few women come forward with the most outrageous claims of moral turpitude. So, then, the public must believe their damning allegations and must conclude that the man is guilty of moral turpitude because of course these women are telling the truth; and because of course these women wouldn’t lie; and, because of course their memories of the events, if such events occurred at all, didn’t fade with time; and because of course a personal animus toward this man—toward all “white men”—doesn’t motivate them to attack the man. Democrats provide their echo chamber, the mainstream media, with tantalizing bits of garbage to rouse to rally and to rouse their base, the #MeToo movement, and the results are as expected: the lizard brain takes over; all reason goes out-the-door. The  #MeToo sorority becomes ever more indignant; and, then they lose all control. They shout, scream, rant, foam at the mouth, convulse with rage. The lizard brain completely takes over; eats away at them; consumes them. They know what they want. It is as clear as a bell. “Down with White Men! Down with Trump! Down with America!” The entire performance, the entire charade, the entire farce, has nothing, really to do with Brett Kavanaugh; nothing at all. It is, rather what, Kavanaugh represents to these people, who, one can reasonably infer, has not read the man’s legal opinions. They know nothing of his love and devotion and of his years of service to his Country. They know nothing of his love and of his devotion to his wife, to his children, and to his Church. They don’t want to know. They don’t need to know. For what it is they think they know is enough for them. It is what they hear from Democrats, and from the newspapers and from MSNBC and CNN and NPR and PBS. They know everything they have to know about him, which is what they think they know, and what they think they know is wrong. What they think they know has been planted in their lizard brain, and what has been planted there is enough: Brett Kavanaugh is President Trump’s nominee; Brett Kavanaugh is just a privileged “white man.” Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t respect women. Brett Kavanaugh is just plain “evil.” So, Down with Kavanaugh! Down with Trump! Down with white men! Okay—Let us now get back to some semblance of reality, as we consider the Confirmation process.Where, then, does that leave the accused, Brett Kavanaugh? Senate Democrats placed the accused in the legally dubious position of having to bear the burden of proving his innocence. They patently surrendered a presumption of innocence afforded an accused—a presumption that is not mere platitude, but the very cornerstone of our system of justice. Application of the presumption requires that accuser, in the first instance, sustain the burden of proof. But Senate Democrats insist on a presumption of guilt. They insist that Brett Kavanaugh rebut Christine Ford’s testimony even though Christine Ford’s evidence, consisting of her testimony alone, had met no recognized legal standard—not even the lowest standard—preponderance of the evidence that might otherwise, if satisfied, shift the burden of proof onto the accused. Be that as it may, Brett Kavanaugh did proffer his testimony willingly; insisting, in fact, that he be permitted to do so; and Judge Kavanaugh did so, professing his innocence through his own equally compelling, credible testimony. Judge Kavanaugh denied—clearly, succinctly, emphatically, categorically, and unequivocally—ever sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford, or anyone. By placing the initial burden of proof on the accused, as Senate Democrats did, though, it became clear even to a lay observer, that the entire hearing was nothing more than a shameless charade, a sham, a circus, complete with clowns; and the clowns in that circus turn out to be Senate Democrats. But, there was nothing for Americans to be amused about.Senate Democrats, looked on dispassionately as the man spoke eloquently, honestly, from the heart. Even so, the attack against him continued. Senate Democrats castigated Brett Kavanaugh and derided him, for they had cast judgment on him even before they heard him speak. And, what do these Democrats, these seemingly honorable people, themselves, really find Brett Kavanaugh guilty of? Just this: the hubris of daring to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court; for doing so wrecks the Democratic Party’s political, social, and economic agenda. The man must be taken down!

WHY DID CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD AGREE TO TESTIFY IN PUBLIC?

As to the matter of Christine Ford’s public testimony, she didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Senate Democrats, dispensing with due process, had urged Christine Ford to testify. This was necessary if they were to delay or derail the Confirmation process. They knew this. They had to attach a face, an identity to a bare accusation against a man. They knew that much. So, even though the accuser sought to remain anonymous, clearly her identity had to be brought out. Only a few Democrats were aware of the accuser’s identity, and her identity was leaked to the Press. A reasonable person would conclude that the accuser did leak the matter since she made clear her wish to remain unknown. Congressional Republicans could not have leaked her name to the Press, for Congressional Republicans had no knowledge of the accusation. Democrats didn’t inform Congressional Republicans of the identity of the accused until the 11^th Hour, when they sprung the accusation on Republicans and on the public. So, a reasonable person would conclude that someone within the Democratic leadership or within the Senate Judiciary Committee had leaked the information. So, much, then for respecting Christine Ford’s wish to remain anonymous.But, whoever it was in the Democratic Party who leaked Christine Ford’s identity, this is what the public learned: The accuser is a middle-aged woman, Christine Ford, a year younger than Brett Kavanaugh; she is a College Professor and holds a Ph.D degree in psychology. Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Ford, made a conscious decision to attack the character of the man, even though she could not remember critical details, sufficient to support a criminal charge against Judge Kavanaugh; and, who, for whatever reason, never reported the matter she claims occurred, to the police, or to her friends, or even to her family, but who deemed the matter important enough to bring up now, thirty-six years after the alleged event occurred. She says she is 100% certain that it was Judge Kavanaugh who had attacked her, who had sexually assaulted her. Despite the many gaps as to when and where the matter in question occurred, and as to exactly what had occurred—if the matter had indeed occurred at all—she accuses Judge Kavanaugh, explicitly, of sexual assault.Christine Ford’s representative thereupon passed the information to Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking Democratic Party member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now Senator Feinstein, for her part, was ethically bound to share that information immediately with the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Chuck Grassley. If she had done so, the Senate Judiciary Committee could then have undertaken a discrete inquiry into Christine Ford’s allegations. But Senator Feinstein didn’t share the contents of the letter with Chairman Grassley. Senator Feinstein held onto the letter, for several weeks, albeit conceivably sharing the contents of the letter with her Democratic Party colleagues on the Committee and with Democratic Party leadership. Congressional Democrats apparently made a decision to spring the information onto Senate Republicans and the American public, days before the Judiciary Committee was set to vote on submitting the Confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the floor of the Senate, for a full Roll-Call vote. Possibly fearing that Judge Kavanaugh would be confirmed by a simple majority of the Senate, they sprung their trap on Senate Republicans and brought Christine Ford’s bare accusation of sexual misconduct to the attention of Chairman Grassley and other Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. Clearly, they did this with the intention to derail, altogether, or, at least, to delay the Confirmation process.The failure to share critical information immediately with Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee—holding onto the information secretly, surreptitiously, to be used as a weapon to delay or to derail the Senate Confirmation process—is unethical, even reprehensible behavior. And everything that followed, from the point in time that Christine Ford’s damning and unsupported allegation against Judge Brett Kavanaugh became public up to and including the sham hearing that followed, illustrates the extent to which Democrats will go to get their way.Ranking Democratic Party Senate Judiciary member Dianne Feinstein and the other Senate Democrats, sitting on the Judiciary Committee, were, though, taking a gamble. Senator Feinstein and Senate Democrats knows that a barefaced accusation of sexual misconduct, especially an accusation going back decades, is, in the absence of supporting forensic evidence or, at least, corroborating witnesses, patently insufficient to convict or to condemn, under our system of justice. And there was none. That constitutes the crack, a chink in the Democrats’ armor, and Democrats, some of whom are attorneys at law, certainly know this. But, they played the game out, victim (the accuser) versus attacker (the accused), anyway.

ACCUSER AND ACCUSED ARE BOTH VICTIMS HERE.

Christine Blasey Ford had presented Democrats with a gift, a dangerous weapon, a barefaced allegation of wrongdoing. The Party, bereft of common decency, would be only too tempted, too willing to use the accusation against Brett Kavanaugh, against Senate Republicans, against the President of the United States, and against the Nation to achieve their ends. Senator Feinstein knew that a barefaced allegation of sexual misconduct against another individual was patently unfair. But, Democrats didn’t hold back. They didn’t care. They gambled that this gambit would serve to derail the Confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the high Court or, at least, delay a Senate Confirmation vote until after the 2018 Midterm elections. It is the hope of Democrats that they can gain control of the U.S. Senate after the Midterms. A cascading sequence of events thus unfolded, as deeply sensitive allegations came to the public’s attention—embarrassing and humiliating to both accuser and accused. These barefaced allegations would forever sully the reputation and character of an honorable man, a man with a distinguished record of judicial service, and would, at once, leave the accuser all alone, with her own reputation and honor tainted. Thus, along with the victim that Democrats played to the public—their “ace in the hole,” Christine Ford—there was another victim. This was a victim whom they failed to consider, whom they had no wish of considering as it was a victim whom they are responsible for creating, the victim whom in fact they made: Judge Brett Kavanaugh.Both Congressional Republicans, and conceivably even some Congressional Democrats, along with the American public, have learned that Democrats and Leftist groups will do anything to frustrate President Trump’s policy objectives. No scheme is too outrageous for them; no scheme too outlandish; no scheme too reprehensible if they can accomplish their agenda; their end goals. They intend to secure power for themselves and to proceed once again with accomplishing their own policy objectives—objectives at odds with the core values of most Americans people. With Judge Brett Kavanaugh sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, their plans to hijack this Country from the American people will be all that more difficult, if not impossible. They therefore had no pangs of conscience, no reservation as to what they would do; what they felt they must do to protect their plans, their agenda. They would be willing to destroy a man’s character and reputation, along with his very life, well-being, and personal safety, and that of his family. They would know and be willing to accept, at one and the same time, that their actions might very well endanger, too, the life, well-being, and personal safety of the human being they claimed to be concerned about, Christine Blasey Ford. This would be the price they would be willing to pay in order to regain power and to be able to proceed with the items on their agenda.The accuser, Christine Ford should be perceived as much a tool, here, as victim—a tool to be used and eventually to be discarded, when no longer useful. And Democrats used their tool, Christine Ford, to play her as victim in need of justice, albeit justice coming decades late. Christine Ford’s accusation became the highlight of the #MeToo movement; trumpeted by the mainstream media in the newspapers; hailed by Leftist pundits on the airwaves; a rallying point for Hillary Clinton supporters, thunderstruck and enraged at the Presidential hopeful’s seemingly implausible defeat in the 2016 general election; and the predicate for mass demonstrations.

THE AGENDA OF DEMOCRATS AND LEFTIST GROUPS

The Democratic Party has been, in great part, coopted by Progressive elements. But, progressives lack basic common-sense. Still, the aims of Progressive elements have gained support from the mainstream media—an institution also responsible for undermining our Constitution and for undermining the foundation of a free Republic. These elements promote an agenda that most Americans do not agree with and which can, if implemented, deleteriously impact our Constitution and the preservation of a Free Republic. The items on the Progressives’ agenda include, among other things, placing specific impediments on a citizen’s exercise of sacred rights and liberties: the right of free speech, freedom of association, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, for turning our system of laws and justice on its head; and for placing considerable limits on, and eventually eliminating altogether, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. They know that it is only by curtailing the citizenry’s basic, fundamental, natural, unalienable rights and liberties that the citizenry be effectively controlled. Most Americans, though, do not agree with these objectives. And, most Americans do not take kindly at attempts to manipulate them, urging them, cajoling them, to take action against their own best interests, which they well see. Most Americans abhor pretense; false preening; glib, self-assured proselytizing; and they particularly loathe hypocrisy which is abundantly in evidence.Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee did not realize the extent to which the most Americans would be appalled at Democrats’ attempt to reduce an honorable man, a distinguished jurist, to the point of tears. Americans’ felt the man’s pain; and they realized that this man could be themselves—a man accused of commission of a heinous act and condemned through mere accusation. The result: a man’s reputation is in tatters; his honor forever tarnished; his sincerity forever doubted.Brett Kavanaugh’s character, reputation, and honor were being directly and systematically attacked. Is it any wonder, then, that he would turn his righteous anger and indignation back on those Senate Democrats, who, curiously, showed surprise that an even-tempered man could exhibit anger. They must have felt: "How can this person, this nominee who sits before us, have the audacity to dare speak so rudely to us? Who does he think he is?" Who Brett Kavanaugh is, if these Senators would only stop to consider the matter, is a man with a sense of honor, pride, character, and integrity, well-deserved, who has served his Country well, in a distinguished career, spanning decades, having worked in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government and subsequently working as a distinguished judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A man who graduated at the top of his Class at one of the premier Universities in our Country, Yale University, and then went on to distinguish himself at Yale Law School. That is who Judge Kavanaugh is. So, then, let us turn the question around on these Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Who do these Senators think they are to toy with a good man's reputation, honor, and character? Who are these Senators who would dare do those things that place the life, safety and well-being of my own family at risk?Apparently, these people, these Democrats, sitting on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, have so little character, honor, and integrity themselves and so full of their own bravado, they could not understand how it was that a man, sitting before them, would dare remonstrate against them; perhaps Democrats thought, in part, that the personal attack on Brett Kavanaugh’s character should not be taken personally; for, after all, they simply don’t want to see him on the U.S. Supreme Court. And, didn’t they say as much? Didn’t minority leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, and other Democrats say as much? Didn’t they ask him, plead with him, to withdraw the nomination, to step aside? If so, they had no idea of the fortitude of the man, for they, themselves have none. Could they truly believe Brett Kavanaugh would not take the attack on his reputation, on his character, on his integrity, and on his personal sense of simple human dignity, personally? Really? Of course he would “dig in his heels” and defend his honor, and his reputation, and his character, and his integrity, and his dignity, too, as a human being--all of which Senate Democrats dared to besmirch.Thus, they concocted an outrageous and outlandish plan to take down an honorable man. And, this all plays out oddly in the Press, as agitators in the #MeToo movement, and their allies, claim that the nominee’s anger, indignation, and, at times, loss of composure, somehow, oddly, bespeak guilt, and lack of proper respect for the Senate? Are they kidding? After what Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have done to this man? And, still, this outrageous, despicable attack against Brett Kavanaugh continues, unabated. Leftists, along with many Democrats, have lost touch with reality and have lost, as well, any sense of human decency.It is strange, indeed, that Progressive elements in society, along with many Democrats, tend to perceive the average American as wrongly attached to the past: wrongly attached to nationalism, patriotism, American history, pride in self and Country, morality as conceived through a Christian ethos; and wrongly attached to the plain meaning of the Constitution as conceived by the founders of the Republic. Progressive elements, many Democrats, the mainstream Press, and Leftists of all stripes, intend to eradicate this, all of it. They intend to destroy all that defines us; all that has defined us since the creation of a free Republic and since the ratification of our Constitution. And they intend to destroy the very conception of fundamental, natural, unalienable rights and liberties, as codified in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.Those elements in our society—and what is becoming increasingly clear, Globalist interests abroad—intend to bring Americans, “kicking and screaming” if need be, into a new world as they conceive it, a new international world order. The world that Progressives, in particular, seek, is one wholly disconnected from our Nation’s past. It is one marked by multiculturalism; subordination of our Nation’s interests to those of a world community; subordination of the Nation’s Constitution and laws to international laws and norms; and the application of a conception of liberal democracy as played out in the EU. It is a view that, as we have seen, mandates the subjugation of whole nations and people; suppression of basic rights and liberties; submission of the populace of independent nations to solitary autocratic rule, emanating from one place: Brussels.Democrats realize that President Trump’s nominee to sit as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, will, given the Judge's high regard for the plain meaning of Statutes, and for the original meaning of the U.S. Constitution, neutralize the goals of Democrats and their allies both here and abroad. They tried to defeat Judge Kavanaugh through several days of Confirmation Hearing, attacking the jurist’s legal reasoning, his jurisprudential philosophy. But, they could not defeat the cogency and brilliance and intensity of Judge Kavanaugh’s legal mind, and of his singular regard to uphold the sacred precepts of the U.S. Constitution, consistent with the understanding and intentions of the framers of it. So, when the initial attempt to tear down his jurisprudential philosophy and methodology failed, and they could see confirmation as imminent, they resorted to more extreme and drastic measures. They attacked Judge Kavanaugh on a deeply personal level. They played their “ace card in the hole”—they brought up a matter that they should have brought to the attention of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, weeks ago, and that they should have done so discretely; a matter that they deviously, deceptively, secretly kept to themselves, to be used as a tactical device to defeat the Confirmation of a man who well merits a seat on our Nation’s highest Court of law. And, when they brought the matter up to the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, they did so, at the 11th Hour, just before the Committee was set to vote on recommending confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the full Senate for a Roll-Call vote. They brought up a sensitive matter at the last minute and with great fanfare, so the public would become aware of a damning accusation before neither they, the Democrats, nor Republicans, had an opportunity, to investigate the matter privately, quietly, and thus protect the identities of both accuser and accused. But they didn't. They unleashed, at the last possible minute, a barefaced, unproven accusation to Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and to the public before Republicans on the Committee had a chance to privately look at the accusation and to discretely investigate the matter. And, even after the fact, Democrats on the Committee refused to work with Republicans on the investigation. But, it is clear that Democrats don't really care to verify the truth of the accusation--especially if there exists no one to corroborate the accusation. Indeed, to date no one, whom the accuser named as witness to her damning accusation, sexual assault, has corroborated it--either asserting that they had not witnessed the event or, if at the scene, refuting that any such assault took place. But, that didn't stop Senate Democrats from attacking Brett Kavanaugh's character anyway. Democrats don't care. All they do care about is the fact of the accusation, not the truth of it. Thus, it is sensible to conclude that Democrats' attack on Brett Kavanaugh’s character is logically fallacious, legally faulty, and morally reprehensible. They directed a massive frontal assault on Judge Kavanaugh’s character, reputation, integrity and bearing, anyway. What took place in a Senate Hearing Room, on September 28, 2018, will go down in American history as one the most sordid, outrageous, abjectly shameless, and disgusting episodes in U.S. Senate history.Americans bear witness to nothing less than wholesale character assassination: the attempted murder of a person’s very self by Congressional Democrats. They have engaged in character assassination for what it is that Brett Kavanaugh represents to them--defeat of their Agenda for this Nation--rather than for who Brett Kavanaugh is. But, did these Democrats honestly think that this last minute gambit would actually work? Apparently so, since they made sure it would play out if Judge Kavanaugh would not step aside, as Senate Minority Leader, Schumer, pugnaciously, sanctimoniously insisted he do. One may well ask: would Chuck Schumer and other Democrats have stepped aside had the same attempt at character assassination been directed at them? Do they have the fortitude, the stamina to withstand such an attack. some of them, surely, do have serious character flaws—beyond any reasonable doubt. That, the public knows full well.Consider the flawed character of Senator Richard Blumenthal, for example. As one of the most vehemently, outspoken of Senate Democrats, he is, perhaps not surprisingly, also one of the most sanctimonious. It seems that Senator Blumenthal tends to project onto Judge Kavanaugh the Senator’s own moral failings, his own character flaws.Recall that Senator Blumenthal claimed to have served in Vietnam during the War. He didn’t. When called on the carpet for his blatant lie, Senator Blumenthal didn’t apologize. He didn’t show remorse. That isn’t in his nature. That isn’t in his character. Instead, Richard Blumenthal deflected the matter. He did so in order to salvage the lie. He sought to “clarify” his false remarks, rather than owning up to them. By failing to own up to his lie, Blumenthal merely compounded the lie; demonstrated to the public that here was a man who has a flawed character and is blind to his own flaws; and that he so contemptuously views the public, that he arrogantly assumes the public will be blind to those character flaws. What the public sees in this man, and in other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, though, are diehard hypocrites. The American public sees, in these Senate Democrats who sit on the Judiciary Committee, and the American public sees in the Democratic Party leadership, people so obsessed with their own sense of self-worth and so enamored with their own smug self-importance, and so dazzled by pretensions of personal grandeur that they truly believe Americans believe in the lies and delusions these Congressional Democrats created for themselves. But they are wrong. Americans, most Americans, at least, are not taken in by the air of pompous self-regard these Democrats have for themselves; nor do most Americans wish for the kind of America that these Democrats seek to create--the kind of America that President Obama had pushed the Country toward; and a kind of America that Hillary Clinton would have continued to work toward had she won the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.Could Senator Blumenthal and could other Democrats, who have a flawed character such as that of Blumenthal, withstand Senate inquiry and serious scrutiny into his character and reputation were he to have been nominated by a President—perhaps by Barack Obama—to sit as an Associate Justice on the high Court? One wonders.

BRETT KAVANAUGH DOES NOT OWE AN APOLOGY TO CHRISTINE FORD; NOR TO SENATE DEMOCRATS, NOR TO ANYONE. IF ANYTHING, CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS OWE AN APOLOGY TO JUDGE KAVANAUGH.

Senate Republican, Lindsay Graham, appropriately and rightfully excoriated Senate Democrats. And then speaking directly to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in an attempt to assist a man whose pain Senator Graham felt, as the man’s character was being improperly impugned before the entire Nation. Senator Graham told Judge Kavanaugh that he, Judge Kavanaugh, has done nothing wrong and does not need to apologize to anyone.Congressional Democrats obviously did not count on the courage and fortitude of Brett Kavanaugh—his tenacity to defend his honor, reputation, character, and good name; nor did they count on the American public’s own sense of fair play and human decency, as Americans have stood by Judge Kavanaugh.Democrats are so blinded by their own misguided sense of moral superiority that they have come to believe the deception they, and their allies, Progressives and Leftist agitators, dared play out on the American citizenry. But, “means do not justify the ends”—certainly not in this Age of Reason, and certainly not here, in the United States. Americans were justifiably appalled at Democrats’ chicanery; even more so once it became apparent that Senate Democrats had urged Judge Kavanaugh—plaintively, as a last ignominious and clearly futile attempt to delay a Senate Roll-Call vote on Confirmation—to ask President Trump to authorize the FBI to investigate Christine Ford’s allegations against the Judge. This was absurd.Senate Democrats, on the Judiciary Committee, know full well that Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the nominee, cannot authorize FBI investigations into himself or anyone else; nor should he. The claim put forward by Senate Democrats that, if Judge Kavanaugh were truly innocent, he would authorize an investigation into the allegations was merely a red herring. How was Judge Kavanaugh expected to respond to that. Was he expected to capitulate? That would only serve to delay a Confirmation vote, which, of course, was what Senate Democrats hoped to accomplish. Moreover, Judge Kavanaugh would appear weak, having capitulated to the will of Senate Democrats. That would serve their own end; not his; nor ours, the American people.For all that, the FBI, as with any police agency, undertakes investigations on its own initiative when deemed necessary and has done so, many times, in the course of Judge Kavanaugh’s extensive work for the Nation. Nothing remotely came up, during seven thorough FBI investigations into Judge Kavanaugh’s background. That, in itself is telling. Also, the Senate itself can authorize an investigation; and the Senate itself can conduct its own investigation. In fact, Senate Republicans did undertake their own investigation into the barefaced allegations of Christine Ford, contacting individuals whom Christine Ford mentions as supporting her allegations. None of them did support Christine Ford’s allegations. Moreover, and oddly too, Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, refrained from taking part in the Senate investigation, conducted by Republicans.Why is that? Could it be that the Democrats did not wish to know whether Christine Ford’s allegations could not be corroborated? For, if Senate Democrats learned that the accuser’s allegations could not be corroborated that would undercut the claim that Christine Ford’s allegations were true and that would have effectively ended the matter, as the accuser’s allegations would appear to the Nation to be less credible and Senate Democrats would have been compelled to acknowledge as much. But Senate Democrats would have none of that. Lastly, as Judge Kavanaugh pointed out, this latest hearing was itself an investigation. What more would actually be accomplished through an FBI investigation as the investigators would be doing no more than what Senate Republicans had already done: namely talk to those individuals whom Christine Ford had mentioned as people who could corroborate her story. They did not corroborate her story when interviewed by Senate Republicans, under pain of criminal penalty if they were caught in a lie. These individuals would not have corroborated the accuser’s story to FBI investigators as well. So, then what would be gained from an FBI investigation into the accuser’s allegations? Nothing. A call for a seventh FBI investigation at this time would serve nothing but make clear to the American public that Senate Democrats sought merely to delay a Roll-Call vote.*When one feels compelled to resort to chicanery, that chicanery comes back to bite them. And it has done so, here. The chicanery has come to bite Senate Democrats.

AMERICANS HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF DEMOCRATS’ DECEITFUL AND REPREHENSIBLE TACTICS.

Many members of the Democratic Party—certainly those members who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee—thought they could win over the public and, too, those few holdout Senators on the Republican Party. They apparently didn’t realize that, far from persuading Senate Republicans to turn against President’s Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, they have likely persuaded those Senate Republican holdouts to vote in favor of Confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, and, perhaps, may have persuaded a few Senate Democrats to do so as well.Americans have now become increasingly aware that those Democrats who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee as well as the Democratic Party Leadership and, many other Congressional Democrats, are “little people.” They have little empathy for human beings even as they claim empathy and concern for people. Their only concern is accumulation of power for themselves and to enable them to continue working toward completing the items on their agenda. They are people who have no integrity, no sense of human decency or character themselves, and therefore assume, wrongly, that no one else does either. Since they are flawed people, they are blind to their own flaws; and that will doom them and will doom the ignoble causes they seek to force upon our Nation and upon the American people. What they seek is massive social change and political upheaval, in order to remake this Country in a way far removed from a conception of a free Republic and a free people, propounded by the founders of our Nation, the framers of our Constitution.A quotation from the 1951 Cary Grant film, “People Will Talk,” aptly describes what befalls those people who are so consumed with hate and vindictiveness and so convinced of their own moral superiority that they fail to see the flaws in their own character. Cary Grant, star in the film. He plays the protagonist, an idealistic medical professional, named Dr. Noah Praetorius. The antagonist in the film, Dr. Rodney Elwell, is played by the actor, Hume Cronyn. Dr. Elwell unfairly, spitefully, and ruthlessly attempts to destroy the character and reputation of Dr. Praetorius. Toward the end of the film, when Dr. Elwell’s attempt to destroy the character and reputation of  the man fails, he finds himself literally and figuratively, alone. As Dr. Elwell and Mr. Shunderson, Dr. Praetorius’ mysterious friend and personal servant, remain alone in a conference room at a college where Dr. Praetorius teaches, Mr. Shunderson privately scolds Dr. Elwell. Mr. Shunderson does so, not loudly and proudly like a victor might who had fought and won a brutal contest, but quietly, thoughtfully—and, curiously, in a way, that may be described as soothing, even melancholy—as he contemplates now a broken man, a disgraced man, a shallow man, sitting at the conference table. Here was a man who had been smugly self-assured, seemingly pious, but no longer.Dr. Elwell is now truly alone, a ruined man, and wholly irrelevant, as he has failed utterly to bring over others to his side in what was clearly found to be an unfair attack on Dr. Praetorius, a man for whom, it became clear, Dr. Elwell was deeply envious, and whose character and reputation he had, therefore, sought to ruin. But, those whom he had hoped to convince had heard more than enough. No one wished to listen to Dr. Elwell anymore. Dr. Praetorius character and reputation was vindicated and it was Dr. Elwell whose character and reputation now lay in tatters.Mr. Shunderson tells Mr. Elwell, this: “Professor Elwell, you're a little man. It's not that you're short. You're. . . little, in the mind and in the heart. Tonight, you tried to make a man little whose boots you couldn't touch if you stood on tiptoe on top of the highest mountain in the world. And as it turned out . . . you're even littler than you were before.”Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are, together, “Dr. Elwell,” and we would add the Democratic Party leadership, too, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Representative, Nancy Pelosi. They are attempting to take down Brett Kavanaugh, whose boots these Democrats couldn’t touch if they stood on tiptoe on top of the highest mountain in the world. These Democrats are, themselves, little people, and always have been even if that fact had been lost on many Americans; but no longer. And, after the disgusting sham hearing they put on to cut down an honorable man, a sham hearing they put on for the entire Nation to see—after behind the scenes machinating, conspiring—it isn’t Brett Kavanaugh who appears “little” to the Nation, whom they sought to make little. Rather, it is these Democrats who are “little, in the mind and in the heart.” Americans should seriously think about the matter witnessed in the spectacle they see played out before them. If they do so, and are not taken in by false rhetoric, they will become fully aware of what is really going on here: a ruthless attempt to destroy a man’s honor, character, and reputation, not because of some perceived flaw in the man—as there is none—but because Brett Kavanaugh stands in the way of their own lust for power; he stands in the way of their own quest for personal aggrandizement. And, through all that they have done and all that they continue to do to ruthlessly cut down the honor, character, and reputation of a man, they now appear, like Dr. Elwell, even littler than they were before.If there was any doubt whether Judge Kavanaugh merits ascendancy to Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Senate Democrats have now, themselves put that doubt to rest. But they have done so not in the manner they thought; not in the manner they planned for; not in the manner they have hoped and expected. And, perhaps worst of all, for them, the public sees them now as disgraceful actors, as circus clowns, yet still bearing animosity, still bearing grudges, despite being found out for the buffoons they are. They hold high rank in Government, yes, but they have been thoroughly exposed for the hypocrites they were; for the hypocrites they are, and for the hypocrites they will, unfortunately, always remain. They are worthy of no American’s respect and should expect none.We implore our fellow Americans to contact their U.S. Senator immediately, telling their Senator they should do nothing to dignify the Democrats’ despicable last minute attempt to sabotage confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh through their outlandish scheme to impugn Judge Kavanaugh's character, reputation and honor. Tell your U.S. Senator to vote in favor of confirming the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. As is abundantly clear, the American people need Judge Kavanaugh as he will help preserve the integrity of our Constitution, and our  system of laws and justice as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court; and that Judge Brett Kavanaugh will do so in a manner consistent with the will and wishes of the founders of our Republic. We can ask for no more of Judge Kavanaugh; and would expect nothing less from him. You will find the name and contact number of your Senator at this link: https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm._____________________________________________*As of the date of the posting of this article, President Trump, on his own initiative, has authorized a limited FBI investigation. The FBI is limited to investigating the specific allegations of sexual misconduct made against Brett Kavanaugh, however implausible the allegations are. Ostensibly, President Trump felt compelled to take this action because Jeff Flake, who had agreed to refer, along with other Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the full Senate, had, literally, at the last minute, reneged on that referral. Further, Senate Republicans, Collins and Murkowski, taking their cue from Senator Flake, have now made clear that they wish for the FBI to investigate the allegations of sexual misconduct, too, before they are willing to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Unfortunately, apart from delaying a full Senate Roll-Call vote for another week, this places the FBI in an unenviable position. Whatever the outcome of the investigation, the FBI’s report will be deemed political. This, the FBI doesn’t need, given that the American public has been apprised that, both prior to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, and thereafter, high ranking DOJ and FBI officials have operated as functionaries of the Democratic Party and not as independent police investigators and attorneys. Moreover, since Senate Republicans have, as they made clear during the last Hearing, already undertaken an investigation of individuals whom Christine Ford named as witnesses who might corroborate her allegations, and as none of those individuals had corroborated Christine Ford’s allegations, nothing would be gained through an FBI interview of those same people. Now, two other individuals, Debra Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, have come forward with their own allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. However, the allegations of sexual misconduct that these two new accusers have brought against Judge Kavanaugh are so patently ludicrous, that any time spent and taxpayer monies expended by FBI personnel to interview these women would serve only to turn what has already become a circus into a full-fledged farce. But that is where we, the American people, are, no thanks to Senator Feinstein’s unethical, and truly despicable 11^th Hour bombshell release of Christine Blasey Ford’s barefaced accusation against Judge Kavanaugh._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

DEMOCRATS TRY AN ELEVENTH HOUR ATTACK ON JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH’S CONFIRMATION TO THE HIGH COURT.

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,Is the immediate jewel of their souls:Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;But he that filches from me my good nameRobs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.” ~ William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 3, Scene 3_____________________________“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”  ~ Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,” May 4, 1979 through November 28, 1990_____________________________

CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA MAKE A MOCKERY OF A SOLEMN PROCESS FOR CONFIRMING A PERSON TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURT AND, WORST OF ALL, DARE ATTEMPT DESTRUCTION OF A MAN'S GOOD NAME--FOR NO PURPOSE BUT THEIR OWN MISBEGOTTEN AND SELFISH POLITICAL END.

The American public’s patience with the Democratic Party and with the Democratic Party’s echo chamber, the mainstream news media, must be wearing thin, and rightly so. In a disgraceful, 11^th Hour attempt to derail the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democratic Party member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, brought to the attention of Chairman Grassley and to other Republicans sitting on the Committee, uncorroborated accusations impugning the Judge’s character.The accusations against Judge Kavanaugh came to Senator Feinstein, last July. No explanation has been, to date, forthcoming from the Senator, as to her reason or reasons for holding onto the contents of the letter for over two months, but we can reasonably surmise that one major reason Senator Feinstein held onto the contents of the letter has to do with the political usefulness of it in attempting to derail or, at least, holding up a Senate vote on the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court until after the 2018 Midterm elections, when the Democrats hope to gain control of the House and even the Senate. Senator Feinstein, and other Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee knew, full well, of the difficulty, if not the empirical impossibility, of holding up the confirmation of a person admirably qualified to sit on the high Court Justice unless she had a card, an “Ace,” up her sleeve that would rally Leftists in this Country. And, apparently, she did have an “Ace” up her sleeve. In a last minute attempt to throw a wrench into the entire Confirmation process, Senator Feinstein dropped a bomb shell on Chairman Grassley and on other Senate Republicans, sitting on the Judiciary Committee. The bomb shell took the form of an allegation against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, ostensibly referring to an event that, if it occurred at all and if it involved Judge Kavanaugh, happened literally decades ago, when both the Brett Kavanaugh and the accuser were teenagers, in high school.The accusation came to the Senator in a letter she received from a person who, apparently, and not surprisingly, made clear to the Senator, at the time she contacted the Senator, last July, that the accuser wished to remain anonymous. From details of the letter that Senator Feinstein only made known to Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee just days before a Roll-Call vote of the Senate was planned, Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser cast a pernicious and potentially libelous accusation on Judge Kavanaugh. One can surmise the accuser’s motives and she should explain them to the American public. But, assuredly, the accuser, and Senate Democrats, sought to create doubt upon and to impugn the Judge’s good name, character, and reputation, and that is certainly the impact Democrats, through their echo chamber, the mainstream media, are attempting to invoke in the psyche of the American public. If their campaign of deception to cast doubt on the character of Judge Kavanaugh is successful, Senate Democrats will prevent confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh as the new Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. That is what they want and that is the reason Senate Democrats have implemented an last minute smear campaign. They have nothing else. Thus, they engage in the most despicable act of all: an attempt at character assassination. It is for this reason that Senate Republicans must remain firm in their own commitment to confirm Judge Kavanaugh as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and without delay, and not allow a false flag smear campaign against Judge Kavanaugh to gain traction. Now, it isn't clear whether Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and other Congressional Democrats really aware of the content of the letter in Senator Feinstein's possession before releasing it to Chairman Grassley and to other Senate Republicans. Were other Senate Democrats aware of the contents of the damning letter? And, if so, who, and when did they learn about the contents of the letter? Did they know of the contents before the Confirmation Hearing even took place. After all, Senator Feinstein had the letter in her possession for several weeks, prior to the Hearing. Senator Feinstein could certainly have questioned Judge Kavanaugh about the letter's contents, discretely, when she met with him privately; or she could have brought the matter up at the Hearing, albeit, an attack on a person's character is hardly a matter that should be the subject of a Senate Hearing on the Confirmation of a Judge to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the subject of one's character and integrity and reputation should not even be in question. Judge Kavanaugh has served admirably as a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for several years. Impugning a Judge's character serves only to degrade the entire Confirmation process and denigrates, too, the dignity of everyone present, Senators as well as the nominee himself.But, we have to ask: Were other Congressional Democrats—especially Democratic Party members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Senators Patrick Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Amy Klobuchar, Christopher Coons, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Mazie Hirono—also aware, last July, of the contents of the letter that had landed on Senator Feinstein’s desk? If so, they aren’t saying, and no one in the mainstream media seems to be interested in asking. But, they have lent their voices to impugning the character and good name of Judge Kavanaugh merely on the basis of an uncorroborated, unsupported damning barefaced, written accusation.*As Senator Feinstein certainly intended, Congressional Democrats, along with the assistance of the  mainstream media, launched an immediate, vigorous, aggressive attack against Judge Kavanaugh, shamelessly smearing and besmirching his name and character across the National landscape.Obviously, Democrats intend to squash the confirmation of the President’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court by whatever means available, however dubious and shameful those means may be.

THE IDENTITY OF THE PERSON WHO HAS ATTACKED JUDGE KAVANAUGH’S CHARACTER, COMES TO LIGHT.

Eventually the identity of the accuser came to light—by whom it is not clear.  Conceivably, Democrats, themselves, leaked the name of the accuser. Democrats had certainly become aware that a damning, barefaced anonymous accusation would not delay a Senate Confirmation vote; nor should it. They had to attach a name and face to the accuser, and that would have been their motive, then, for releasing the identity of Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser to the public.The letter to Senator Feinstein, the Nation has learned, came from a middle-aged lady by the name of Christine Blasey Ford, a resident of California, and a Psychology Professor at Palo Alta University. Of note: Fox News reports that, “Ford is a registered Democrat who has given small monetary donations to political causes, according to The Washington Post.” As a registered Democrat, that fact would certainly supply a motive for the Professor having contacted Senator Feinstein.Christine Blasey Ford alleges, in her letter, as relayed to the mass media by Senator Feinstein, that the U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, assaulted—or attempted to assault the woman (it isn’t clear which, nor is it even clear if the assault or attempted assault was in fact of a sexual nature)—when the two were in high school, an event that would have occurred, if it occurred at all, well over thirty ago. Notably, the accuser is short on critical details, such as when the alleged assault occurred, where the assault occurred, and, for that matter, what it is, exactly, the accuser claims, had occurred, but which, the American public is to believe, has festered in the mind of Christine Blasey Ford for decades.The problem, of course, is that there does not appear to be anyone around who is able to corroborate the accusation. Senate Republican Committee members attempted to find someone, anyone, who might be able to corroborate Judge Kavanaugh's accuser's story. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, for his part, categorically denies the accusation. No matter, Democrats, sitting on the Judiciary Committee, have presented the accusation, and continue to present the accusation to the public as gospel, however sketchy the details. Other, more reasonable, rational individuals, including Republican members, sitting on the Judiciary Committee, are not so obliging; nor should they be; no one should.

A WOMAN LODGES A BAREFACED, UNSUPPORTED, SERIOUS, HEINOUS, IF NOT ALTOGETHER SPURIOUS, ALLEGATION AGAINST A RESPECTED AND RESPECTABLE JURIST DESCRIBING AN EVENT THAT, IF THERE IS ANYTHING TRUTHFUL ABOUT IT AT ALL, REFERS TO A MATTER OCCURRING DECADES AGO; AND THE ACCUSER HONESTLY BELIEVES DOING SO WOULD NOT LEAD TO PERSONAL REPERCUSSIONS FOR HERSELF, HAVING PROFFERED IT? HOW CAN A MIDDLE-AGED, PRESUMABLY RESPONSIBLE, RATIONAL ADULT—REMEMBER WE ARE NOT DEALING WITH A CHILD HERE—WHO HAS HAD MANY LIFE EXPERIENCES, AND WHO HAS EARNED A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY, WHO TEACHES PSYCHOLOGY AT AN ACCREDITED UNIVERSITY IN CALIFORNIA, AND WHO IS, THEN, OBVIOUSLY INTELLIGENT, BE SO CALLOUS, SO HEARTLESS, SO SELF-CENTERED, AND, AT ONE AND THE SAME TIME, SO NAÏVE AS TO BRING UP A PERSONAL MATTER THAT DOES LITTLE, IF ANYTHING--CONTRARY TO WHAT SOME MAY BELIEVE--TO BUTTRESS HER OWN NAME, CHARACTER, AND REPUTATION?

A serious allegation has been lodged against a man whom dozens of other individuals, male and female professionals, know well. Individuals have come forward, pointing to a sensitive, caring person, with impeccable character and reputation; a person having a brilliant legal mind, honed through many years of service to the Nation as a Judge sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. So, if one person’s deprecating comments against Judge Kavanaugh are to be given honest consideration, as both the accuser and Democrats hope—as there are, to date, no negative remarks from those individuals who know Judge Kavanaugh either personally or professionally—then it stands to reason this person must come forward and explain herself to the Nation.We know, however, that Christine Blasey Ford, did not wish to come forward, and does not wish to come forward and that, through her attorney, Debra Katz,** she has made and continues to make many outrageous demands, frustrating, and, obviously, deliberately so, the patience of Senate Republicans, sitting on the Judiciary Committee.One of Christine Blasey Ford’s demands are that Judge Kavanaugh testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, before, Blasey Ford testifies. That is a ludicrous demand to make and it is one contrary to our system of justice and legal procedure.An accuser bears the burden of proof, and must present evidence in support of the accusation so that the accused has an opportunity to hear and view the evidence and has an opportunity to respond to it. It is patently unfair and contrary to our Nation’s judicial practice and procedure and, for that matter, illogical to demand that the accused testify before the accused has had an opportunity to know just what it is the accused is being accused of and has had no opportunity to rebut the accusation made against him or her.The accuser is also demanding that a Senate Confirmation vote be delayed so that she has time to prepare her testimony. But, does Christine Blasey Ford truly require time to prepare? She presented her letter to Senator Feinstein in July. She should have known, ultimately, that she could not simply present a damning accusation, attacking the reputation, character, integrity, and good-name of the man without personally testifying and presenting independent corroborating evidence, to support her accusation, if she has any, that is to say.Christine Blasey Ford’s attorney, probably working closely with Senate Democrats in the shadows, is  attempting to create unnecessary delay when there is no tenable reason to do so. She, and Senate Democrats working with her, are doing this, not because the attorney really needs to prepare her client's testimony before the Senate Committee, even as she says there exists a need to do so, but because they both want to delay a Senate vote on Confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court until after the  2016 Midterm Elections in the hope, once again, that Democrats gain control of both the House and Senate and can then prevent a majority vote in the Senate, in favor of confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. A Senate Democratic Party majority will effectively block Judge Kavanaugh from being confirmed as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, thereby frustrating the President, and also frustrating the people who elected Donald Trump as President of the United States, and who had every reason to expect that the President would nominate a person to the high Court who would preserve the Constitution and the rights and liberties of American citizens, in strict accordance to the plain meaning of the Constitution, as drafted by the framers of it. And, Donald Trump has kept his word. We, who support the President, seek to defend the U.S. Constitution, our legal system, the supremacy of our laws and the continued sovereignty of our Nation. And the best way to do so is to secure jurists on the U.S. Supreme Court and on the lower Courts who would do the same. Activist jurists who legislate from the Bench are precisely what supporters of the U.S. President do not want. That is what Barack Obama has given to the American people, and the American people have seen what that has wrought for Nation, and Americans have had enough of that. Is not the derailing of the Confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, then, the central reason that Christine Blasey Ford, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, contacted Senator Feinstein? And, isn't the presentation of Christine Blasey Ford's barefaced damning allegation, to Senate Republicans and to the Nation--an isolated, solitary, ludicrous allegation attacking a good man's honor, character, good name, and reputation--the purpose of this smear, this attempt at character assassination? Isn't this what Congressional Democrats had planned all along: to deny Judge Kavanaugh a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of his ability and brilliance as a jurist and regardless of his integrity, character, reputation, sensitivity, and decency as a person and American citizen? Isn't this what a last ditch attempt to disrupt the assured confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh is really all about? Of course it is. And, Democrats have nothing else to use in their attempt to derail the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to a seat on the high Court. They can come up with nothing else. So, then, this is what Senate Democrats have allowed themselves to be reduced to, ghoulish wretchedness. They utilize the most despicable of tactics in a last ditch attempt to prevent confirmation of a man eminently suited to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. They resort to character assassination. And, they don't care whether the claims impugning Judge Kavanaugh's character are true or not. Indeed, they are reduced to lauding the truth of barefaced damning, unsupported, and vacuous allegation before the accuser has even testified, turning reason, and logic, and common-sense, and proper due process and procedure and judicial fairness; and simple, plain common decency our the door. Indeed, they claim that Judge Kavanaugh must prove his innocence. And, how in law or logic would he even do that, even assuming, for purpose of argument that the onus is on him to prove his innocence? How does one, anyone, go about proving a negative?For purpose of delay, Christine Blasey Ford’s attorney has also demanded that the FBI conduct an investigation of the charge her client has made against her client. That demand is equally absurd. No individual can demand as a matter of right—and, for that matter, it is even wrong to ask—a police department or agency to conduct a criminal investigation. It is the prerogative of a police agency, whether local, County, State, or Federal, to conduct an investigation if, in the first instance, proper jurisdiction exists and it appears worthwhile to do so, which means that forensic evidence likely exists that a crime actually occurred.In this instance it is particularly absurd for the FBI to conduct a criminal investigation. First, the FBI has no jurisdiction to conduct a criminal investigation. The matter would have been within the jurisdiction of the State where the alleged matter purportedly occurred, as the matter is a State matter, not a federal one. No federal law has been violated. So, jurisdictionally, the FBI cannot investigate the matter as a crime, even if it wanted to. Second, as a possible State crime, the State’s Statute of Limitations on assault, sexual or otherwise, may have expired if a Statute of Limitation exists in the jurisdiction where the alleged assault took place. And, even if a Statute of Limitations does not exist, still, in the absence of forensic evidence and in the absence of witnesses who can corroborate the allegation--both of which are highly unlikely--given the fact that the allegation refers to a matter occurring if it occurred at all, literally decades ago, no competent prosecutor would ever attempt to prosecute such a case, as there would be little, if any, chance of obtaining a conviction.If, third, the accuser is demanding that the FBI investigate the allegation not as a crime, but as an investigation into Judge Kavanaugh’s character, then that demand is pointless if not altogether absurd as well because the FBI has already conducted numerous extremely extensive background investigations on Judge Kavanaugh as he has worked for both the Executive Branch of the Federal Government and for the Judicial Branch of Government, the Federal Judiciary, where he presently serves as a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.There is nothing further to be gained from use of taxpayer funds for the FBI to do another background investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as he has gone through thorough background investigations already, the last one of which would have been required in the Judge’s capacity as President Trump’s nominee to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. If the FBI had come up with anything concrete to cast doubt on the Judge Kavanaugh’s character, to prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the high Court, the Confirmation process would have been short-circuited, at the inception. There would never have been Hearing. FBI background investigations are extremely thorough, and especially so for those individuals who are being considered to hold powerful positions in the Federal Government, as is true here.It strains credulity to believe the FBI would have been unable to obtain evidence of criminal wrongdoing or evidence of anything suggesting a person has character flaws if any such evidence truly exists.  We should not be looking at Judge Kavanaugh at all. Americans, should, rather, be looking at the accuser, Christine Basely Ford; for if her accusation were true, it is difficult to believe that she would not have mentioned the matter to someone, if not the police, then, perhaps, to a friend, or to her pastor, or, if not to one or more of them, then certainly to her parents who themselves would have contacted the police. In this era of the hysterical "Me Too" movement (or #MeToo) with women coming out of the woodwork, many with the most outrageous of claims, reason dictates that a reasonable person be skeptical of claims of moral impropriety or criminal wrongdoing when all that exists is a bare bones allegation.In the instant case, a decades old claim of assault (sexual or not)--and one, at that, coming from a person holding political views antithetical to Republicans, a person who is certainly no supporter of President Trump, and a person who is represented by an attorney who is, herself, a known hard-core left-wing activist--smacks of an orchestrated scheme, a design, a plan, concocted by Democrats and Left-wing agitators to undermine the President at every turn. The American public has certainly seen substantial evidence of that to date. A direct, concerted attack on the President's nominees to sit on Federal Courts, especially the President's nominee to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, when that nominee would create a clear conservative-wing majority on the Court, is something that Democrats and Leftists cannot, it is evident, abide. Indeed, since a Supreme Court Justice holds a lifetime appointment, the power of the high Court, with Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation, would provide the best means possible to preserve: the U.S. Constitution and a free Republic; the supremacy of our laws, and the sovereignty of our Nation; the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizenry, and an  appreciation for the continued autonomy and sanctity of the individual--all of which exists within the framework of our Constitution and system of laws, as established by the founders of our Nation. None of this, Democrats and Leftist groups want to preserve. Their aims and goals require a tortuous reading of the Constitution. They see our Constitution and fallible and malleable. They do not accept the supremacy of our Constitution and laws, but rather as contained within a broader spectrum of international law and pacts and treaties and foreign tribunals, all impacting our Nation and its people. They do not believe in the conception of natural law--that the fundamental rights and liberties of the American citizen exist beyond their lawful power to curtail or eliminate. They believe that all laws, even our natural unalienable rights, codified in our Bill of Rights are merely man-made constructs, and, as such, they see rights and liberties as subject to constant reconfiguration, refinement, regulation, even elimination; and they seek to create new substantive rights that nowhere exist in the Constitution, such as a right to an abortion on demand. These Leftists would destroy our Country, as originally constituted: an independent Sovereign Nation. They would accomplish this by opening up our borders to virtually anyone who wishes to reside within our borders, and they would provide these individuals, these aliens, with all the rights, liberties and privileges attendant to citizens, thereby destroying the very concept of 'citizen,' along with the concept of our Country as an 'independent, Sovereign Nation' in the process. These Leftists would destroy our Nation and its Constitution as assuredly as would a foreign military invasion. In fact, it would be worse, as destruction of our Nation and its Constitution would be completed, quietly, insidiously, from within. We have seen this playing out before, through the actions of the previous President of the United States, Barack Obama. We see this playing out now, even more clearly, only because Donald Trump, rather than Hillary Clinton, secured the Presidency in 2016. And Americans now know, cannot reasonably deny, that Barack Obama, when he held Office, was busy at work, not doing the work of the American people, but, rather, busy at work quietly creating within the federal bureaucracy and within the Judiciary, mechanisms to weaken our Constitution, and our rights and liberties and dismantling our Nation, a free Republic. Much of his disassembling, consisted in part of the placement of individuals in key positions, thousands of them--Leftist ideologues, who have, it is fair to conclude, no love for our Nation, for its Constitution, or for its system of laws--certainly no love for our Nation, for its Constitution, or for its system of laws, as conceived by our founders. President Trump has begun to rectify this. He has attempted and is attempting to reconstitute our Nation in the manner envisioned and implemented by our founders. Democrats and Leftist groups and agitators, and mainstream media newspapers and organizations, perceive what is happening; they see the turnaround, and they are unhappy with it; want none of it. And, we see them fighting back; and they are doing so through means that illustrate their contempt for our Constitution, for our laws, for our jurisprudence, as their methods and actions are patently unlawful. Again, they don't care, as it is their design to dismantle this Nation and to rewrite our Constitution anyway. They have an agenda; it is one that Barack Obama has been following. It is one that Hillary Clinton--had she gained the Office of U.S. President--would have continued. It calls for control of the massive federal bureaucracy. It calls for control of the Press. It calls for control of the Judiciary; it calls for the very destruction of the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizenry. This process was well underway during Barack Obama's terms in Office; and it is still underway, even as President Trump attempts methodically, albeit with great difficulty, to set things right; to set things back to the way they were; to the way they ought to be; to the way our founders intended. And, we see the Press, an organ of this vast bureaucratic and judicial conspiracy--publishers, editors, reporters, commentators, editorialists, commentators--working assiduously, aggressively, ceaselessly  against our Nation, against our Nation's Constitution, and against the best interests of the Nation's citizenry. They strive to force the United States into a trans-nationalist, globalist, world order. That do not deny this. They do not disagree with our assessment. They embrace it, talk lovingly about it. They argue that President Trump has a view of this Nation and its laws that are archaic, that our Nation must enter a new age; that it must become part of a larger community of nations, politically as well as economically. They argue that we must not be insular. That we must embrace multiculturalism, alien ideas, extreme diversity. They argue that we must be willing to relinquish our old jurisprudential standards, along with those  parts of our Constitution that reflect a history, a conception of our Nation and its people, that is no longer,as they see it, useful and relevant, and that is, in fact dangerous to a new conceptual schema, a new political, legal, economic, social, and cultural framework, a new paradigm, as the old ways--the Constitution as originally articulated, the Nation State as originally conceived--all of it is no longer consistent with conception of and aims of a new international world order. The Press is, in fact, correct in its assessment of President Trump of what President Trump is attempting to do. But, the Press is wrong in one critical respect. It is this: the conception of our Nation and of our Nation's laws, and of our Nation's Constitution, as conceived by our founders, is precisely what the American people do wish to preserve. The Press, as the mouthpiece of those elements both in our Nation and abroad that wish to reconfigure our Nation to cohere with the model of the EU, see the design of our Constitution, and see the notion of the sovereignty and independence of our Nation State as old and archaic--reminiscent of  an Order conceived by our founders, that is no longer relevant and, so, no longer worth preserving, no longer worth even remembering. They see our Constitution, as drafted by its framers, and as ratified by the States, as anachronistic. They see our centuries of law and jurisprudence, and of the citizenry's rights and liberties, as codified in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution as reflecting ideas that are no longer relevant or useful. They see the notion of the sanctity of the autonomy of the individual as altogether incompatible--which it is--with the utilitarian concept of "the good" achievable only when people are conceived as and ruled over as "a collective." All that, which the American public sees as timeless and which has preceded us and which the American public sees is worth preserving, and worth remembering, and worthy of adulation, these Democrats and Leftists, see as unimportant, and, in fact, destructive to their goal of incorporating our Nation into a new international, globalist world order, one where our citizens are perceived as no different than the citizens of any other nation of the world--where, in fact, the very notion of 'citizen,' so long pervasive in our society, is now perceived as detrimental to their goal of a one world government, requiring our citizenry to be shoehorned into the populations of the world, reduced to abject servitude. Those things that we see as timeless, permanent, worthy of preserving and, in fact necessary and vital, Democrats and Leftists have been altogether dismissive of. They have quietly, but, of late, vociferously, sought to undermine, our history, our culture, our pride of Nation, our system of laws and jurisprudence, our fundamental rights and liberties. There is a war proceeding now, a war for the soul of our People; for the soul of our Nation; for the soul of our Constitution and four our system of laws. Donald Trump was elected precisely because enough Americans realized--could see--the destruction of a Nation occurring before their very eyes and therefore sought a person to hold high Office who would prevent this, would turn the destructive tendencies, impulses, as well, as design for a new conception of our Nation, for a new conception of our laws and a new conception of our Constitution, completely around. There is a war brewing in this Country. It is a war fought, not, at the moment at least, with bombs, and guns and swords, but with words. But the winds of violence, of strife and turmoil are brewing, ominously on the horizon, as we see Leftist agitators, using violence, more and more: rapidly, incessantly, with more severity; and Democrats and their echo chamber, the mainstream media, the Press, do not condemn this violence. Far from it. They condone it, even encourage it. Democrats and their echo chamber, the mainstream media, the Press, are, therefore, complicit in the incitement of it.The Leftists in this Nation and abroad, who control the media--seek to control the mind, the psyche of the public. They are losing, nonetheless. Thus, they resort to the use of agitators; and they besmirch the character and reputation of those individuals who are not on board with their game plan. This much is clear; this much is obvious; this cannot be denied. As the Democrats and Leftist radicals lose control of the discourse, they become more discouraged, and then disgruntled. By degrees, they become agitated, then enraged, and ever more determined. They thrash about, making ever more ridiculous assertions, devising ever more noxious, disreputable schemes for fighting back. In so doing, they no longer appear like human beings. They take on the wild-eyed look of animals, of beasts. And, the more obstreperous they become, the more the public turns against them, in repugnance, in loathing, as well we should; for, these people, these Democrats, these Leftists, are not the voice of restraint. How can they be? They cannot even restrain themselves. And, so the public turns against them, enraging them even more; and they devise ever more outlandish schemes and make ever more outlandish pronouncements. They are not the voice of reason. Their claims of concern for the health, safety, and welfare of others are empty, vacuous, as the public knows their words are not heartfelt. It is no more than pretense; and not subtle pretense. Their moral tone is a charade, and so it appears to the public, as their outrageous actions belie their words. These Democrats, these Leftists, are not the voice of sanity; they are not the voice of morality, despite their claims to the contrary. They are not the voice of reason. How can they be? Their pronouncements are reduced to gibberish, mere sanctimonious patter, endlessly repeated, by one and then others of them. And, the American public has contempt for them and for good reason, as they are not sincere. The public is disgusted with their empty rhetoric, their bombastic retorts; their bald faced arrogance.These Democrats and Leftists, seeming liberal in outlook as they wish to appear, as they think they appear to others, become more and more radical in bearing, as their tone becomes more strident and either childishly simplistic, or completely incomprehensible. They resort to ever more alarming, ever more irrational assertions, remonstrations, and actions. As  more and more Americans turn against them, as they see the tide of the public turning against them in disgust, these Democrats, these Leftists, become ever more agitated, ever more desperate. They resort to ever more ridiculous, outrageous, and reprehensible assertions and actions; devise ever more insidious, outlandish, and illegal schemes in an attempt to turn the tide--to return to their program, their agenda. They cannot help themselves. They are on a runaway train. They don't even know how ludicrous they look; how clownish they appear; how irrational their actions are; how irrelevant they have become. As conservatives, we American conservatives--conservatives , indeed, in our very restraint, and in our thought and in our behavior and in our deeds, and in our outlook on life--hold more securely to our Constitution, to our Nation as a free Republic, to our system of laws and jurisprudence, to our great history, and to our core values, and to our pride. We see that Democrats in Congress, and Leftist radicals, become ever more radical in presentment of their schemes, and in their protestations, and in their aims; and in their attitudes and behavior toward others. They cannot and will not countenance any view but their own. They will not debate. For, they would lose. Their aims, and goals, and philosophy are nonsensical, completely at odds with our National character. They have lost their sense of balance; of reason. They have lost all semblance of self-control. They are completely forsaken. And, that fact has not been lost anyone.

THE AIMS OF DEMOCRATS AND LEFTIST RADICALS HAVE BECOME INCREASINGLY CLEAR, SELF-EVIDENT: THEY SEEK TO STRIP THIS NATION CLEAN OF ITS HISTORY, ITS HERITAGE, ITS DIGNITY, ITS UNIQUENESS, OF EVERYTHING THAT HOLDS US TOGETHER--EVERYTHING THAT HAS, SINCE OUR NATION'S INCEPTION, BOUND US TOGETHER, AS ONE NATION UNDER THE GUIDANCE AND CARE OF OUR CREATOR.

A Congress controlled by Democrats and Leftists of all stripes, would strip bare the framework of our Nation and reconstruct it as merely a unit within the structure of the European Union. Our Nation would become part of an international world order, unconstrained by traditions or history. Multiculturalism would dominate. Our Nation would become a heterogenous conglomeration of unassimilable people, holding alien ideas to whom our core values, our traditions, our Bill of Rights is simply indecipherable, meaningless. As our societal fabric becomes more tenuous, we will see our Nation, our Constitution, our system of laws fragment. The Nation will be ripe for a takeover by powerful international forces. This new "modern" America would no longer be recognizable. Democrats and leftist groups welcome the change; indeed, they are working for that change; they are working for that very transformation of our Country. And they think that is a good thing; that such transformation is proper; that the old Nation, conceived and established by our founders, no longer adequately "works;" that it no longer represents the values of the modern age; that the founder's "construct" no longer reflects the new age that exists. They see, President Trump's slogan, "America First" as representative of an archaic notion; that it is  anachronistic and, worse, that it is arrogantly defiant. Democrats and Leftist groups argue for a new conception of the way Americans should see themselves, namely that they should see themselves not as citizens of a Nation, the United States, but, rather, that they should see themselves as "citizens of the world,"--an empty concept really, as we, citizens of a new world would be reduced to serfdom, as we fit into a new world feudalistic order, as the European Union is degenerating into.Our Supreme Court, though, our third Branch of Government, that in previous years, the public has been little cognizant of, can prevent this. The public is certainly cognizant of and sees the importance of our high Court now. And, what is it that we want and expect from our Justices? Americans should want and expect Justices who test the lawfulness of Congressional and State action through the Constitution, as it is written, as the framers of it understood it. Such Justices would be a mighty force to be reckoned with even if Democrats to take control of the House after the 2016 Midterm elections. For, a conservative-wing majority on the high Court can withstand a Congress run amok. But, Conservative-wing jurists who defer to and respect the Constitution, who do not legislate from the Bench, will then protect our history; our heritage; our fundamental rights and liberties; the supremacy of our laws; and the sovereignty of our Nation. All that we hold dear would be undone if Democrats are able to prevent competent jurists, such as Judge Kavanaugh, from gaining a seat on the high Court. Yet, the Democrats' tool for thwarting the Confirmation process would be laughable in the contemplation if we did not see it unfolding in practice: a malcontented middle-age woman, holding a decades old grudge. That is what Senate Democrats are using to derail the Senate Confirmation process.One decades old barefaced allegation of wrongdoing, short on details, in the absence of forensic evidence and corroborating witnesses, is hardly a legitimate, rational basis for the FBI to seriously consider launching another background investigation even if they had the authorization to do so.Of course the U.S. President could ask the FBI to undertake an investigation (the seventh?); but one would hardly expect the President to authorize yet another investigation into Judge Kavanaugh's past, as Judge Kavanaugh, after all, is the President’s nominee to serve on the high Court. It would be against the President’ interest to request such an investigation, and there is no suggestion that Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee feel that a further FBI investigation is necessary, anyway.If Senate Republicans wish undertake an investigation of the allegation, let them do so. They have the prerogative to do so; and, likely, they have already quietly undertaken an investigation. For all that, there is nothing to suggest, from one solitary allegation of purported wrongdoing on the part of Judge Kavanaugh--as brought to the attention of Chairman Grassley, at the 11^th Hour by Senator Feinstein--to support an FBI investigation were the President, in fact, inclined to authorize the FBI to do so. The fact of the matter is that any further background investigation would simply delay a Senate confirmation vote and delay a confirmation vote indefinitely—which, of course, is really the point. An investigation into the allegation would be interminable; it would and could never be completed because there is nothing to be undertaken. So, if one considers the entire matter rationally, another FBI background investigation into Judge Kavanaugh's past, would be futile, redundant, and silly, making a mockery of the entire Senate Confirmation process. But, Democrats don't care. They  want to prevent a confirmation vote of Judge Kavanaugh from ever occurring. That is their goal. And, even now, Democrats must be operating in the dark to devise ever more outrageous schemes to prevent Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, if the present "tool" doesn't work. And, they will undoubtedly pull out another"Me Too" tool to use against any person President Trump nominates to the high Court. They will do everything they can to prevent a Conservative-wing Majority on the high Court.

IS JUDGE KAVANAUGH’S CREDIBILITY AND CHARACTER REALLY IN QUESTION HERE? IS IT NOT, REALLY, THE CREDIBILITY, CHARACTER, AND MOTIVATION OF JUDGE KAVANAUGH’S ACCUSER THAT ARE IN QUESTION?

It is not Judge Kavanaugh's credibility and character that are really in question, here, but those of Christine Blasey Ford. Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser’s recollection of the allegation she has lodged against Judge Kavanaugh demands she personally come forward to the Senate Judiciary Committee to offer testimony to support her allegation if she intends for it to be taken seriously.The Judiciary Committee should also question Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser as to her motivations for having brought a damning accusation against Judge Kavanaugh, pertaining to a matter that, if there is anything to it at all, references an event occurring well over thirty years ago. The Judiciary Committee might ask Christine Blasey Ford about the possibility of her having had an hysterical reaction to something unrelated to assault or attempted assault, and the nature of the alleged assault or attempted assault—whether of a sexual nature or not. There is a possibility, perhaps a probability, that Christine Blasey Ford is misremembering critical facts. There are certainly gaps in her account, as the accusation, as presented to the public, as reported in the news, is short on critical details. The Judiciary Committee might ultimately and reasonably infer that the event, in any critical particular, had not really transpired at all.Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser may simply be recalling a bad dream she had as a child or as a teenager, mistakenly, albeit honestly, believing the dream to constitute reality; or if the event described actually happened, she may be mistaken as to the identity of the individual she believes had assaulted her or attempted to assault her. The entire accusation, from what the public has seen, to date, is altogether murky, but Democrats expect the public and Senate Republicans to accept the account as given, as true on its face. That is decidedly irrational.The Judiciary Committee should question Christine Blasey Ford as to her political leanings, as the  motivation for bringing up the matter is definitely relevant. In that regard, would Christine Blasey Ford have sent her damning letter to Senator Feinstein, if the allegation in the letter pointed to a nominee of the U.S. President who happened to be favored by Democrats? If not, would not that mean that the purpose of the letter is not to preclude an individual from being confirmed as a Justice on the high Court because of purported character flaws, but to preclude an individual from serving on the high Court that the accuser, along with Democrats, doesn’t like because of his jurisprudential philosophy and approach to case analysis? And if the accuser and Senate Democrats do not like Judge Kavanaugh, not because of any doubt as to his professional qualifications, but because of negative and baseless presumptions about how, they believe, that Judge Kavanaugh might happen to decide a case; and based on their personal biases toward the Judge, totally apart from and irrespective of his qualifications to decide cases before the Court in a well-reasoned, sensitive manner, consistent with the import of Judicial precedent and with due regard to the plain meaning of words as set forth in the U.S. Constitution and in Statute. If, then, Senate Democrats--with assistance from a compliant Press sympathetic to Democrats' goals, and philosophy, and desires to rewrite the Constitution and to change the very fabric of American society to correspond to a "modern" world, as exemplified in the social and political and legal framework we see in the Nations comprising the European Union--have orchestrated a scheme, have hatched a devious plan, have devised a plot to undermine the Kavanaugh Confirmation process as part and parcel of a greater plan to contain the U.S. President and his policy goals and objectives as he promised, consistent with the will of the American people, to preserve the U.S. Constitution and a free Republic, as the founders of our Nation had intended, then Democrat's  attempt to derail the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to a seat on the high Court has nothing to do with and has never had anything to do with getting to the truth; it has nothing to do with and never had anything to do with the vindication of a woman, Christine Blasey Ford, who claims to have been wronged by Judge Kavanaugh, and who brings up a decades old claim of  wrongdoing on the part of Judge Kavanaugh; for that is nothing but pretext. No! The real reason Senate Democrats seek to delay a Senate Roll Call vote on the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to sit on the high Court is to frustrate President Trump; to frustrate the will of the people. And the attack on Judge Kavanaugh's character and reputation is merely one more tactic, like the Mueller probe. Simply, Judge Kavanaugh is in the way of the agenda that Democrats intend for this Country once they resume power. A conservative wing majority in the high Court would be capable of continuing to frustrate Democrats and Leftists groups in this Country from reconfiguring the Constitution and the institutions and laws of society to conform to their new world view. Hence, they are pulling out all the stops to prevent Judge Kavanaugh from becoming a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, in spite of his good character, solid reputation, impeccable judicial work, intellectual brilliance, and love and respect for our Constitution and system of laws. If, then, the delay in holding a confirmation vote is politically motivated, and not rationally related to the qualifications or character of the President's nominee, as is obvious, Senate Republicans must stand firm, and make clear to their counterparts, Senate Democrats, and to the American people, that they support Judge Kavanaugh fully and that they will not allow Senate Democrats to take control of the Confirmation process, which, unfortunately, as is becoming increasingly obvious, is happening. Senate Republicans are allowing Democrats to do just that.Of course the American public knows this to be the case, but these facts are not supposed to be obvious. Increasingly, though, it is becoming glaringly obvious to the American people that the accusation against Judge Brett Kavanaugh is nothing more than yet one more weapon in the toolbox of Democrats and extreme leftists in this Country, pulled out with no legitimate aim but only to frustrate the will of the American people who elected Donald Trump as President of the United States, in anticipation that, one day, they will regain control of the reins of Government.Judge Kavanaugh for his part is perfectly willing to come forward, once again, before the Committee, to respond to the accusations, to get this matter behind him. He has already categorically denied the truth of Blasey’s accusations. Christine Blasey Ford, an American citizen, has made a damning accusation against another American citizen; and there must be a public accounting for it. After all she made a conscious decision to contact Senator Feinstein, accusing Judge Kavanaugh of a heinous act. Christine Blasey Ford, and her attorney, and Senate Democrats, sitting on the Judiciary Committee apparently believing it unnecessary for Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser to make a personal appearance before the entire Nation, despite smearing Judge Kavanaugh’s character, reputation, and good name before the Nation, and, in the process, potentially, psychologically harming Judge Kavanaugh’s wife, children, and parents. Many on the political left don’t seem to care, including those in the mainstream media. Nonetheless, as of this writing, Christine Blasey Ford, through her attorney has agreed to testify, albeit reluctantly, although the conditions under which and the manner in which Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser testifies, whether openly before the Nation, as she should, or secretly, behind closed doors, as she might, are, apparently, still being hammered out, by the accuser’s attorney and Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, along with other conditions, to be hammered out, patently ridiculous though they be.Chairman Grassley and other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have made clear that, if they are compelled to play the game Democrats demand they play, then, Democrats are not going to make up all the rules as they go, changing them at will. His patience must be running thin, and with good reason. But, one thing is clear. Whatever the facts happen to be, surrounding the allegation that Christine Blasey Ford has brought against Judge Kavanaugh, and whatever her motivations for bringing it, Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser must come forward and testify. She must explain herself. Christine Blasey Ford, her attorney, and Senate Democrats sitting on the Judiciary Committee had thought that Christine Blasey Ford need not testify. They are all profoundly mistaken.

CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD HAS OPENED A PANDORA’S BOX WITH HER BAREFACED ALLEGATION, WHICH, IN THE ABSENCE OF INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE, SUPPORTING THE ALLEGATION, IS VACUOUS. NOW SHE MUST DEAL WITH THE TROUBLES SHE HAS UNLEASHED AND THAT SHE AND SHE ALONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR.

Media accounts refer to the psychological toll the entire matter has had on Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser, with little, if any, regard, shown for the psychological toll this matter has had on Judge Kavanaugh and his family. Why is that? Media accounts proclaim how courageous Christine Blasey Ford is to come forward with her allegation. Really? How much courage does it take to write a letter, attacking and impugning a person’s character, and demanding that and believing that one’s identity remain obscured, hidden in the shadows, and that the accuser’s identity will forever remain anonymous? Christine Blasey Ford is an adult, not a child; and no longer a teenager. She should have known that an intelligent person, as she undoubtedly is, cannot reasonably expect to smear the name of another, publically, especially a highly respected person—presently serving as a Judge on a federal Circuit Court, nominated by the U.S. President to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court—and, yet, expect no personal repercussions to emanate from that smear. Indeed, if the accusation is false, that amounts to the commission of a serious tort. What is clear enough is that this matter has political overtones—political overtones that cannot be denied. Christine Blasey Ford, along with her attorney, and along with Congressional Democrats, seek retribution against Donald Trump for having prevailed in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. They seek retribution against the President’s nominees to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. But, it is retribution on their own heads that they deserve and that they will receive from the American public.It must need be reiterated that no person has come forward, to date, to corroborate Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation. So, who can defend the repugnant claim, apart from the accuser, herself? Apparently they include only those people who would like to believe Christine Blasey Ford and who have become inappropriate stand-ins, in the absence of a witness to the purported event. One stand-in is Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand. Senator Gillibrand, a Democrat sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has her own agenda, which likely includes a run for the U.S. Presidency in 2020. This is what the Senator had to say about the veracity of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against Judge Kavanaugh, as reported by the National Review:“‘I believe Dr. Blasey Ford because she’s telling the truth. You know it by her story. You know it by the fact that she told her therapist five years ago. She told her husband. This is a trauma she’s been dealing with her whole life. She doesn’t want to be in a bedroom that doesn’t have two doors. People knew that about her a long time ago,’ Gillibrand said.”“‘These are the hallmarks of truth, these are the hallmarks of someone who wants to be believed. I believe her because she’s telling the truth. She’s asking the FBI to investigate her claims,’ the senator added. ‘She’s asking for that kind of review, that investigative work, that oversight, that accountability. Someone who is lying doesn’t ask the FBI to investigate their claims.’” From these remarks, a reasonable person can come to two diametrically opposed inferences about Senator Gillibrand: one, either she is omniscient; or, two, she is a moron. It is unlikely that Senator Gillibrand is omniscient. Other Democrats have proclaimed similar ludicrous and imbecilic remarks.Curiously, though, Senator Dianne Feinstein, herself—the Democrat who tactically, but untactfully and disgracefully released Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation, inopportunely, on Chairman Grassley and on other Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, without, at the very least, attempting to investigate the veracity of the accusation before releasing it at all, and then having decided to release the barefaced accusation on the Judiciary Committee, as well as on the Nation, only days before a Senate Roll Call vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation was planned even though Senator Feinstein had received the accusation, in the form of a letter, months earlier—pointed out, as reported by the Washington Times, that: “Ms. Blasey Ford has been ‘profoundly impacted,’ but [Senator Feinstein] added, ‘I can’t say that everything is truthful. I don’t know.’”  Those remarks were the most neutral and most reasonable of remarks that any Democrat has said to date on the matter, coming from any Congressional Democrat. But, perhaps, not unexpectedly, Senator Feinstein backpedaled—no doubt at the urgent behest of other Congressional Democrats as Feinstein had essentially contradicted Senator Gillibrand; for, Senator Feinstein had created a new narrative, with her account of Christine Blasey Ford's accusation--an account not synchronized with the narrative Democrats and the mainstream media had orchestrated for the American public and have been playing incessantly to the public to encourage public support in Democrats' attempt to derail the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the high Court. Democrats and the mainstream media always operate in lockstep with each other, often reciting verbatim, ad nauseum, the same trite talking points.So, then, as reported in the same article by the Washington Times, “Ms. Feinstein . . . later clarified her statement on Twitter. ‘During every step of this process, I’ve found every single piece of information from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford eminently credible, sincere and believable. She knew this would have a huge effect on her life and she was incredibly brave to come forward.’” But, note: Dianne Feinstein’s “clarification” still falls noticeably short on one critical point, and this certainly wasn't accidental. While saying she believed Christine Blasey Ford’s “information” to be “eminently credible, sincere and believable,” the Senator still refrained from asserting a belief that the information is in fact true. Thus, to her credit—and Dianne Feinstein owes the American public that much since it was the Senator who, after all, brought the barefaced allegation, directly impugning the character of an honorable man, to the public’s attention in the first place—Senator Feinstein knows that, however “credible, sincere and believable” the allegation is, it may still be false. Displaying such obvious concern for precision in her remarks--something, by the way, that we do not see from Senator Gillibrand--and from many other Congressional Democrats, who have exhibit no inclination toward the importance of personal integrity and who have no sense of personal honor but only demonstrate concern for results and for the amassing of personal power--it is odd that Senator Feinstein released the accusation prior to undertaking a quiet vetting process, herself, before the fact. Perhaps, though, Senator Feinstein did attempt to conduct a quiet, secretive investigation into the veracity of Christine Basely Ford's allegation against Judge Kavanaugh when the Senator first received the Professor's letter; and, perhaps, Senator Feinstein was unable to obtain independent evidence to corroborate the barefaced allegation. This would not be surprising given the passage of so many years and given the extensive gaps pertaining to the account as related in the accuser's letter, as related to the public by the Press. Conceivably, as we speculate, Senator Feinstein may very well have fretted over all of this, but felt, ultimately, inevitably, calculatedly, and, perhaps, even resignedly, that, if Democrats were to have any appreciable chance at all of derailing, or, at least, delaying the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court--and despite realizing the damage that could and undoubtedly would be done to the Senator's own professional reputation by unilaterally releasing a barefaced, heinous accusation--Senator Feinstein would take the risk of damaging her own reputation anyway; and, so, she released a barefaced, unsupported, uncorroborated, damning allegation, that she knew or had every reason to presume would unfairly impugn the character and integrity of an honorable man and highly respected jurist, as well as doing psychological harm to Judge Kavanaugh's wife and young, impressionable daughters. Having taken this action, probably at the urging of other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Feinstein has done irreparable damage to her own personal and professional reputation, and deservedly so. Perhaps, then, Senator Feinstein’s “clarification” was meant to inform Congressional Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee that she bears some animosity toward those Democrats by having been urged by them to release Christine Blasey Ford's allegation to the Senator Grassley and to other Senate  Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, and to the Nation. That would certainly explain why Senator Feinstein's "clarification" still manages to conflict with Senator Gillibrand’s remark—and the remarks of other Democrats--who exclaimed, unabashedly, that they accept the veracity of the allegation on its face, even though there is no reasonable, rational basis at all to do so.

BELIEFS ARE NOT EQUIVALENT TO KNOWLEDGE

Senator Feinstein acknowledges, subtly, but more than merely impliedly, that one’s belief that a statement is true does not, of itself, make a statement true even if, as with Senator Gillibrand's comment and that of other Congressional Democrats, as a group,  for political reasons, the claim is made that beliefs about truth and factual truth amount to the same thing. Senator Feinstein is correct. They aren't the same thing. She knows that it is ridiculous  to say that because someone believes a statement to be true that that the statement is true.  So, it appears, on some level, at least, that Senator Feinstein continues to insist that she simply doesn’t know if Christine Basely Ford's allegation against Judge Kavanaugh is true. But, as she brought this mess to the attention of the public, Senator Feinstein, more than anyone else, is responsible for the mess she created.No one needs to take courses in formal or informal logic, or in epistemology, to know that beliefs, however sincere do not ipso facto equate with truth. Beliefs that such and such is the case may be false, and often are. Centuries ago most people believed the Earth was flat. They sincerely believed that and, given the number of people who believed that the Earth was flat and that if one travels too far on a flat Earth, one would fall off the Earth, were held to true and credible beliefs, insofar as the majority of the people believed this to be the case. But, scientists, of course have proved, conclusively—indeed Christopher Columbus has shown through his voyage to the "New World"—that the Earth is indeed round. The Earth is a sphere, not a flat disc or plate. The point is that bare beliefs, in the absence of evidence, do not equate with truth. They never did. There is, then, no reason to raise Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s asserted belief in the truth of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation to the level of truth, however sincerely felt that belief may be, if, in fact, Senator Gillibrand does in fact sincerely believe the accusation and is not simply pulling a political stunt. Senator Gillibrand, as with many Democrats, are conjurers, sleight-of-hand artists, who attempt to control the public's perceptions, no less so than an actual stage illusionist, doing seemingly wondrous things, but merely playing tricks, controlling the audience's perceptions. Democrats are doing the same thing, and the mainstream media is merely one of the assistants of the Democrats. The mainstream media is not interested any longer in imparting truth to the public, passively, The mainstream media is, as well, attempting to shape public opinion.As to the matter at hand, we simply don’t know whether the accuser's “information” is true, rather than false. And, contrary to Senator Gillibrand’s remark, the Senator doesn’t know either. She may profess a belief in the truth of the accusation, but, once again, one's belief in the truth of a proposition does not make that belief, true. Beliefs can be and often turn out to be mistaken. Indeed, given the span of time, Christine Blasey Ford’s recollection of the event amounting to an assault may be wholly or partially false. Her recollection may certainly be false or fallible given the passage of time, even if she sincerely believes the account to be true. We simply don’t know in the absence corroborating reports, and forensic evidence—difficult things to collect now, from a decades old allegation. But, always keep in mind: it is not necessary for Judge Kavanaugh to disprove Christine Blasey Ford’s account. This matter does not boil down to a “He said; She said” debate, as some have argued, with due allowance, as some give it, but improperly, to the accuser, for presumptively assuming the truth of the accuser’s claim.In a criminal trial, the burden of proof is always on the accuser, as it should be, as it must be, and, as, under our system of laws and procedure, always is. The burden of proof is always on the prosecution, never on the defendant. The defendant may remain silent and need not present any evidence to support or contradict the accusation. If the accuser’s evidence is insufficient or lacking in all or any important detail, then the prosecution’s case falls flat. The accused therefore has the presumption of innocence, not guilt, as that presumption must be given to the accused, if fairness is to prevail. Now, we are not, of course, faced with a criminal trial here. Still, the methodology of presumption of innocence persists and other important judicial presumptions, consistent with our legal procedure, still hold. If Christine Blasey Ford fails to testify and fails to provide credible evidence to support a bald allegation of wrongdoing on the part of Judge Kavanaugh, then the allegation falls flat, and must be given no force or effect.

SO, WE ASK:

Do those individuals who believe in the veracity of the accusation that Christine Blasey Ford has lodged against Judge Kavanaugh—belief in the accuser’s account, without reservation and without need to hear her testimony, under oath, before the Senate Judiciary Committee and before the American public, and without need to see, and, indeed, to insist on seeing independent evidence that supports the bare allegation—believe the accuser because they happen to know the accuser personally and have, through their own observations, never known the accuser to fabricate a story or to have been subject to a delusion or hallucination, or do they elicit confidence in the truth of the accusation simply because it serves an agenda: namely keeping Judge Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court, and in the process, frustrating the U.S. President, and frustrating the will of the American people, who, in full accord with the Constitution, legitimately elected Donald Trump as 45th President of the United States. If the latter is the case, then these people—Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and in their echo chamber, the mainstream media; and Leftists, supporters of “Planned Parenthood” and the “Me Too” movement and supporters of other Left-wing radicals, among others—evince belief in the truth of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation because they have a political and ideological reason to do so, they have items on a political agenda to see through to fruition. Now, these people and members of left-wing groups may convince themselves, albeit irrationally, that they really do believe the accusation of Judge Kavanaugh's accuser to be true, when, however, in a contemplative, self-reflective moment, they may admit to themselves, that they really do not know, as they have no basis in logic to do so. But, whether they do honestly, sincerely believe the accusation, or not, the belief is not equivalent to truth. Perhaps, as appears likely, they really don't care in the truth. They only care in the spectacle and if the spectacle operates well, according to plan, to derail the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and others may, then, choose to believe whatever they wish to believe, whether sincerely felt or merely presented for political expediency. Whatever the case, that is no reason why anyone else should accept as true what it is that the Senator or others believe to be true and happen to say is true, however fervently and loudly they proclaim their belief to accord with the truth. And, the public must be mindful of an intricate illusion--a magical trick being played upon it.

THERE IS MUCH AT STAKE HERE.

For the sake of preservation of our system of laws and justice, Americans should not accept and should not be expected to accept an uncorroborated accusation as true simply because they would like to believe the accusation to be true. But that is likely what we are seeing here. Our Constitution and our system of laws require that one be circumspect, rational, and diligent.One should not be headstrong, emotional, haphazard, gullible, in accepting as gospel things that one would, perhaps, like to believe are true simply because they fit a particular paradigm of one’s personal reality, of the way one would like things to be, irrespective of rational reflection. Americans should expect no less from a jurist. Americans should want a jurist to be competent and capable, to dispose of cases, carefully, in accordance with law, as it is written, as it is. This is why, after all, Americans should want to see confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh. They should not want a jurist sitting on the high Court who disposes of cases the way a jurist happens to believe the law ought to be. Unfortunately, we see the latter among jurists, at all levels. Judge Kavanaugh, though, is not that kind of jurist.Judge Kavanaugh has the temperament as well as the intelligence to serve on the high Court. He is careful to render decisions that comply clearly, carefully, and narrowly with the original intent of the Constitution, and does not go off half-cocked, as all to many jurists, unfortunately do, rendering decisions that comply with a personal ideological perspective, irrespective of the plain words of the Constitution, of Statute and of high Court precedent. Too many jurists render legal opinions that operate more like personal, rhetorical political tracts than as true legal opinions, demonstrating less the idea of cogent and clear and articulate knowledge and application of  and adherence of the law to the facts, and more like polemics, asserting the jurist's desire for the way he or she would like the world to be, fitfully forcing law to fit a particular factual paradigm. This explains why Democrats are afraid of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation and why they have made a spectacle of the entire confirmation process. They do not want to see calmness, intelligence, rationality on the high Court; quite the opposite. They want to see someone sitting on the high Court who renders decisions on the basis of emotion, and sentiment, and sentimentality, those things that the Left ascribes to, devoid of sound reason, exhibiting little if any respect for the plain meaning of the Constitution and of our laws, as written. Indeed, haven’t we seen, during the Confirmation Hearing, Democrats exhibiting themselves those very attributes in a jurist that no American should want to see in a jurist: someone who renders opinions emotionally, irrespective of what the law and Constitution say? Haven’t Democrats shown the American people that they want jurists who render decisions beyond the scope of case precedent, beyond the plain meaning of Constitution and Statute? Hasn’t it become clear to all Americans that Democrats want jurists on the high Court who are not afraid to rewrite the Constitution and laws to reflect their view of what they think the law should be, to reflect a Country the way they think the Country ought to look, rather than what the law and the Constitution demand; what the law and the Constitution dictate? Don't Americans, rather, seek to maintain a Country operating coherently and cohesively and consistently as the founders of our free Republic prescribed; as the framers of the Constitution intended?

WHAT IS CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD’S BAREFACED ALLEGATION AGAINST JUDGE KAVANAUGH REALLY, THEN, ALL ABOUT?

The hysteria that is being displayed, deliberately whipped up by the mainstream media, exemplifies the character of the kind of jurist the Left in this Country would like to see sitting on the high Court: a person that mirrors themselves; their personal view of what a “modern” America should look like, completely at odds with the framework the Founders of our Republic established as set forth clearly, categorically, and meticulously, in the U.S. Constitution.Mainstream media newspapers, such as The New York Times, lost little time in posting numerous articles on Christine Blasey Ford, supporting the veracity and efficacy of her remarks in both news articles and editorials, lending a sympathetic voice to the accuser’s concern for her dignity and character and for her safety and that of her family. But, why is there no complementary statements made in the mainstream media for the well-being of Brett Kavanaugh and his family? After all, Judge Kavanaugh’s character has been seriously impugned by bald, sketchy, uncorroborated allegations of one person, purporting to recall an event going back literally decades. Judge Kavanaugh has a family, too, and that family includes a loving, devoted wife, and two young, impressionable daughters. The mainstream media expresses nothing that we have seen to suggest concern for Judge Kavanaugh and his family. Apparently, in the age of the “Me Too” movement, we are to throw out concerns for the harm that this heinous accusation has had on Judge Kavanaugh and his family, for the unstated but obvious purpose of political expediency.

THERE IS MUCH AT STAKE HERE.

Ultimately, Democrats and the mainstream media are not really concerned about the health, safety, and well-being of either Christine Blasey Ford or Judge Brett Kavanaugh. For Democrats, an accusation against Judge Kavanaugh, however weak, constitutes a last ditch effort to prevent the installation of a fifth originalist on the U.S. Supreme Court. Democrats know full well that the high Court has the last word on the constitutionality of State and Federal legislation. Democrats have an agenda and a policy that they seek to implement. It is one that essentially rewrites the U.S. Constitution. Democrats seek to create new “rights” out of whole cloth that don’t exist in the Bill of Rights, and never did. Contrariwise, they seek to constrain fundamental, natural rights, like free speech, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms--rights that are clearly and succinctly etched in stone. They know that any legislation that they enact that fails to comply with the Constitution of this Nation as originally conceived, as plainly set forth in text, will not withstand Constitutional scrutiny and will be struck down, as well it should. Thus, the idea of a jurist who applies rigor and restraint to legal opinions, with proper deference to the written word of the Constitution is not to their liking. The idea of a fifth originalist sitting on the high Court drives those on the political Left to apoplexy, as they see their agenda for a new kind of Country--one envisioned by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a Country uncontained by and unrestrained by the Nation's Constitution, laws, and jurisprudential history--completely undone.Democrats, both moderates and far left progressives, know that, once Judge Kavanaugh sits on the high Court, as the fifth and decisive conservative voice, Constitutional questions will be analyzed and decided utilizing the jurisprudential approaches and methodology championed by the late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia’s approach serves to preserve and strengthen the Constitution, consistent with the intentions of the framers of it. The Constitution that we have that has served our Country well for over two centuries would be fractured, severing forever the rights and liberties codified in the Bill of Rights, and severing the tenuous checks and balances that the framers carefully put in place as set forth in the Articles of the Constitution, if Democrats are able to sit activists on the high Court, as they would like to do, as Barack Obama has done and would have continued to do had Judge Merrick Garland been confirmed to sit on the high Court, and as Hillary Clinton would certainly have done had she prevailed in the 2016 general election for U.S. President.Leftists in this Country want to see high Court decisions that reflect radical narratives; that display a novel and disjointed view of our Nation; a view that is completely at odds with the Nation, conceived by the founders. The rights and liberties the founders codified in the Bill of Rights and the careful attention they paid to the separation of powers as exemplified in the Articles of the Constitution are in peril if Leftists have their way; for they do not see the Constitution as demonstrative of fundamental, core values, concrete and timeless. They see the U.S. Constitution as something equivocal, temporary, even archaic—subject to the whims of the moment, and to ideas that, if expressed in high Court law, would result in the disruption of our Nation’s core values, the diminution of our natural rights and liberties, and the fracturing of the fragile concept of “separation of powers” that, together with the Bill of Rights, comprise the mainstay of a free Republic. The late Justice Scalia, and the conservative wing of the high Court is careful, in their analyses of cases that come before them, to render opinions, consistent with the plain meaning of our Constitution and laws—opinions designed to preserve and strengthen our core rights and liberties and to maintain a free Republic, as the founders of our Nation intended. Do not expect anything like that from the opinions of the liberal-wing of the high Court, who tend to read the Constitution and laws expansively, to reflect ideas that go far beyond the parameters of text, and who, using their own methodologies, at odds with the methodology of the Conservative wing of the high Court, would, in so doing, destroy the very fabric of the Republic, given the chance if they ever secure a majority.

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

Take the matter of the fundamental and natural right of the people to keep and bear arms. Liberal Jurists sitting on the U.S. District Courts and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have chiselled away at the holdings in District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), and in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010). The reasoning of the majority in the Heller and McDonald cases has been patently ignored, thereby weakening State Court precedent and destroying jurisprudential history.Second Amendment cases that have, to date, wended their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, to challenge outrageous State gun laws, have failed to secure a fourth vote necessary for a case to be heard. Firearms that are in common use, including many, and eventually, most semiautomatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns, are in danger of being banned outright in many states.Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch, and the late Justice Scalia have made clear, in their dissenting comments, in cases that failed to secure a fourth vote necessary to have the cases heard by the Court, their frustration at the failure of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear lower Court cases that directly confront and blatantly attack the import and purport of Heller and McDonald. With Judge Kavanaugh sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, though, those cases will definitely secure the fourth vote necessary for a Second Amendment case, negatively impacting the core of the right, to be heard. Those lower Court cases that permit Government to subvert the rights and liberties of the American citizen, will be overturned. Once overturned, the Supreme Court will assert once and for all, through cases consistent with and building on Heller and McDonald, that which we know: semiautomatic weapons fall within the core of the Second Amendment. States cannot ban such firearms outright under the guise of calling them illegal “assault weapons.” Democrats know this would happen. That worries them. That is why they do not want Judge Kavanaugh sitting on the high Court.Senate Democrats devoted substantial time directing questions to Judge Kavanaugh, during the Confirmation Hearing, concerning the legality of certain firearms. They are aware that Judge Kavanaugh understands and appreciates the precedential import of the Heller and McDonald cases—precedential import and value of cases they don’t share. Democrats want an activist on the Court. They want someone who shares their ideological imperatives; a jurist who does not defer to the plain written word of the Constitution; a jurist who is not afraid to legislate from the Bench. They won’t get that from Judge Kavanaugh or from any Judge that President Trump is likely to nominate. That disturbs Democrats deeply. That is why they have pulled out all the stops in a reprehensible attempt to disrupt the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.Democrats succeeded in derailing the confirmation of the late Judge Robert Bork to the high Court, and they attempted, fortunately unsuccessfully, to do the same during the Confirmation Hearing of Justice Thomas. They are using the same strategy here. They are attempting to impugn the character of a great man, devoted father, and brilliant Judge who would serve this Nation well once he sits on the U.S. Supreme Court. They will not abide this. They intend to disrupt the confirmation process, as they have done during the Hearing itself. They intend to deny confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the high Court. They may try, but they will not succeed even as they, at the moment, attempt nonetheless to delay a vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the high Court until after the 2018 Midterm elections. Democrats hope they can obtain a majority in the Senate. If that happens, Judge Kavanaugh would not, of course, be confirmed to sit on the high Court. And that is the Party’s wish. That is their goal. That is their fervent desire. Of that, there can be no doubt; but—as to that end—these Democrats, moderates and  Progressives; Socialists and Communists, and Billionaire Globalists and Transnationalists, too, will certainly fail. As their wishes, their goals, their desires, are all immodest and impure; and as their wishes, their goals, their desires are antithetical to the needs, wishes, will, and welfare of the American people; and as their wishes, their goals, their desires, are completely contrary to the application of the laws of our Nation, they will fail. They will fail utterly.There exist forces in this Country that wish to recreate a reality that suits their personal preconceptions of what our Country should look like, based on a personal conviction and certitude that they know what is best for the rest of us. That is a very dangerous attitude to have and one, were it to prevail, absolutely destructive to the continued existence of the U.S. Constitution; altogether inconsistent with and contrary to the rights, liberties, dignity, and continued autonomy of the individual American citizen; altogether incompatible with the continued maintenance of a Constitutional Republic; and wholly inconsistent with the manner in which both our legal and political systems work. Even as these left-wing power brokers claim to follow basic precepts, namely the “rule of law” and “a Nation ruled by laws, not by men,” they mean, in practice, no such thing. These people are the implacable foes of a truly free people and they have silently declared war on the very concept of a free Republic, a Republic and Nation ruled by law, not by men, in accord with the Constitution, as written.To those on the political Left our fundamental legal precepts and, indeed, the words of the Constitution itself are nothing, mere platitudes—things that at the moment are seen as convenient, perhaps, merely to mention; but, in actuality, such lofty legal precepts, to the political Left, are no more than pretext, mere rhetorical verbiage, to be discarded, eventually, like old clothes. To these left-wing power brokers who claim to speak for all Americans, concepts such as ‘Sovereign Nation,’ ‘One Nation under God,’ ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ ‘Bill of Rights,’ ‘Rule of Law,’ ‘Individual Worth and Dignity,’ ‘Individual Liberty,’ ‘U.S. Constitution,’ ‘U.S. Law,’ and ‘U.S. Citizen,’ will simply be discarded when deemed no longer necessary; when the very meaning and purport of these great concepts grow dim in the American psyche, in the Nation’s memory; lost to history, as these left-wing power brokers intend to happen once their vision for a new Country, unconstrained by the U.S. Constitution, unconstrained by our system of laws, and by our core values and history has been realized.These people hold contempt for the President of the United States. They refuse to recognize him as our President and their President, too, duly elected by the people of the United States, in accordance with the Laws of the United States. They are so beset by rage and raw hatred, so motivated and mesmerized by personal lust for power and grandeur, so enamored with themselves and with their personal vision, so convinced of the righteousness and certitude of their personal beliefs, and so assured of their own infallibility, that they do not see themselves as the buffoons they are; the buffoons they demonstrate themselves to be to the American people. These people are blind to their own conceits and pride—to those things that comprise their passions; those things that drive their actions. They reproach, demean, lecture, and scold the American people they pretend to represent—the American people they no longer even pretend to care about; unaware that the public is aware of their deceit; of their feigned concern for the needs of the American people, of the needs of the citizenry of the Country. These left-wing power brokers are oblivious to how sordid and ridiculous they look; and how patently obvious it is, the drivel they spew out.Those forces in this Nation who seek to dismantle the Bill of Rights, to rewrite the U.S. Constitution, and who seek to weaken our Sovereign Nation State and free Republic must not succeed in their endeavor. The American people must not let them. Americans must vote in the 2018 midterm elections to maintain Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress. It is all up to “We, the People” to protect our Sovereign Nation, our Constitution, our sacred Rights and Liberties from the forces that would, if given the chance crush this Nation and its citizenry into submission.________________________________________________________*The New York Times has provided a forum for those who wish to attack the honor and integrity of Judge Kavanaugh, merely on the basis of one bald-faced allegation, referencing an uncorroborated extraordinarily sketchy event that purportedly occurred over three decades ago—an event that Judge Kavanaugh categorically denies ever took place. But it is an event that those on the political “Left” take as self-evident true, nonetheless.In an Op-Ed, published in the NY Times, Saturday, September 22, 2018, titled, “The Case for Impeaching Kavanaugh,” written by a Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr., Professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, Professor Krotoszynski lays out his argument for impeaching Judge Kavanaugh even before the Judge has been confirmed to sit on the high Court. What is this law Professor’s “case” for impeaching Judge Kavanaugh? In his article, Professor Krotoszynski’s argument for impeachment boils down to: (1) a single bald-faced, decades old allegation of sexual misconduct, brought to the attention of Senator Dianne Feinstein, by a middle-aged Professor of Psychology, Christine Blasey Ford, albeit in the absence of any corroborating evidence or independent forensic evidence; and (2) two claims that Judge Kavanaugh committed perjury in giving testimony to the Senate, predicated on “subsequently released emails [that] suggest [Judge Kavanaugh’s] answers were at best misleading and at worst false.” What? Does this make sense?Has Professor Krotosznski made out a decipherable, compelling basis for impeachment of Judge Kavanaugh? We do not think so. Let’s take a close look at the Professor’s stated grounds for impeachment.Professor Krotoszynski argues that impeachment of Judge Kavanaugh is warranted on two grounds, both of which are extraordinarily tenuous. One ground consists of a solitary, bald-faced allegation, extremely short on details, referring to a purported event that, if the accuser is to be believed at all, involved a matter that occurred over one-third of a Century ago. Judge Brett Kavanaugh categorically denies the allegation. Moreover the allegation, apart from the accuser’s recitation of the allegation itself, cannot and is not buttressed by any supporting evidence or argument. Whatever forensic evidence that existed, if any such evidence existed at all, has long since been lost to time; and no one else to date—after Senate Republicans did in fact conduct an investigation of the accusation, although neither Democrats nor the mainstream news media acknowledge as much—offer independent support for accepting the allegation as true. At the very least, the Senate certainly has the right to demand the accuser testify and respond to questions. At the moment, it is not clear, though, when and how exactly the accuser, herself, will proffer testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, if at all. And Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, some of whom are trained attorneys, are asserting, bizarrely, that Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser, should not be required to testify. Imagine what this means. It turns our system of law and justice on its head. For, if all that a person need do is simply accuse another person of a crime without any requirement that the accuser face the accused, testify in the open, in public, present independent evidence to support the accusation, bear the burden of proof, and be subject to cross-examination, then what does that do to the very notion of “due process” in this Country? Yet, Democrats claim the barefaced accusation can and should speak for itself.Granted, the matter here does not involve a formal criminal proceeding. Judge Kavanaugh does not face criminal charges and cannot. Nonetheless, his character has been impugned, and his fate—whether a Senate Roll-Call vote for Confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court is to take place—is placed in jeopardy, at least if Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are to have their way in the Confirmation process. Apparently our system of laws and procedure are to be perceived as infinitely flexible, subject to the whims, and desires, and predilections of those powerful people who seek a predetermined outcome. That would mean reducing our system of laws to nothing more than ad hoc, rules of expediency, never concrete, ever changing; and that would mean no tenable system of laws and judicial procedure would exist in this Country that anyone could rely on. Thus, the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments would have no real effect. Any person could lose his or her life, liberty, or property by the decree of whomever it is that wields power. This is the Country that Democrats would bequeath to the American people; and we see this in the manner in which Democrats seek to use an unsupported allegation of a middle-aged college Professor, purportedly referencing an event that cannot be reasonably proved. Professor Krotoszynski, though, sees this allegation as sufficiently credible that it warrants a full Senate investigation—evidently one that would not be complete until after the 2016 midterm elections. That would be convenient! Obviously, the lack of forensic evidence and the motivations of Christine Blasey Ford are seen as inconsequential factors to Professor Krotoszynski.The second ground amounts, as Professor Krotoszynski acknowledges,—if a person wishes to give the law Professor even that much leeway—to emails that “suggest” perjury. Mere suggestions of perjury though—suggestions that a person would like to believe are true—hardly rise to the level of essential irrefutable, undeniable proof. There is, then, neither a cogent legal nor logical basis upon which to impeach Judge Kavanaugh, were he to be confirmed as Associate Justice to the high Court. But, Professor Krotoszynski would relax standards to allow impeachment to proceed on the flimsiest of reasons, and this what we see.So, then, what is really going on here? Just this: as with the election of Donald Trump to the Office of President of the United States, we see that Democrats and other elements in society—and, as it is becoming increasingly obvious, elements abroad as well—who resist political results they did not expect and cannot and will not abide—have taken it upon themselves to manipulate our Constitution and system of laws to support a reality that they personally want and had, as they felt, every reason to expect, the American public be damned. And, so, they attempt, through an abhorrent, illegal, unjustifiable misapplication of law and irrespective of the import and purport of the Constitution, to reset the clock to a time prior to the 2016 election—to a world they would like to imagine exists and imagine must exist: a world where Hillary Clinton prevailed and who would have, then, appointed two activist jurists to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. One such jurist whom Hillary Clinton would have been likely to nominate to the high Court would have been Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to sit on the high Court, or someone like him, a person who has no qualms about legislating from the Bench. A second activist jurist who Hillary Clinton would nominate to sit on the high Court would no doubt share the same non-orthodox philosophy and jurisprudential methodology of Merrick Garland and of other liberal-wing Justices who presently sit on the high Court. Consider the jurisprudence of retired Justice John Paul Stevens who would, as he has pointed out, rewrite the Bill of Rights to reflect his personal philosophical whims and who believes, as does Justice Breyer, that American Constitutional analysis and decision-making can and should take into account the laws of other Nations, including so-called international law. This jurisprudential methodological approach to case analysis is altogether anathema to that of Justice Thomas, of Justice Alito, of Justice Gorsuch, and to that of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The liberal-wing jurisprudential approach to case analysis that admits of judicial activism and to legislation from the Bench is, as we know, anathema to that approach utilized by Judge Kavanaugh in his judicial opinions, as well. Democrats don’t want jurists sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, or, for that matter, sitting on U.S. District Courts, and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, who do not share their philosophical perspective, requiring, then, that they wish to sit jurists on the high Court who read the U.S. Constitution and Statute expansively, and who would be willing to create new rights that nowhere exist in the Constitution, such as the “right” of a woman to abortion on demand, and who would be just as willing to curtail those fundamental, natural rights that do exist in the Constitution, as clearly codified in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, such as the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, the free exercise of  of religion, and the right of free speech, among other fundamental, natural rights.The mainstream media continues to deluge the public with spurious reports and opinions concerning Christine Blasey Ford's accusation against Judge Kavanaugh. It does so with the clear aim of preventing confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to a seat on the high Court. In the New York Times, we see news reports and accounts written like opinion pieces. Reporters claim that Judge Kavanaugh will not be confirmed. How do they know this? The newspaper also claims that Democrats will secure a majority in the House, and conceivably the Senate; and news accounts of the Christine Blasey Ford spectacle readily assert that the Christine Blasey Ford accusation against Judge Kavanaugh will help Democrats to retake control of Congress. These are odd comments to make in news reports, as they are written as future forecasts--purportedly telling the public what will happen, rather than what has occurred or is presently occurring. They are also laying out the strategy of Democrats and of Leftist groups in this Country for retaking control power. The aim of the mainstream media seems to be to compel the public to believe the forecasts are true, so that Americans will lose faith and hope and acquiesce to the will of Leftists in this Country. Americans should not fall for that. They didn't fall for that by believing prognostications related to the outcome of the 2016 General Election, and they shouldn't for that now. Yet, the mainstream media intends to control the public discourse.It is clear that the wrench Democrats have thrown into the Confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court has utility for Leftists beyond the Confirmation process. Democrats, with the help of the mainstream media, do intend to take control of both Houses of Congress. If they succeed, they will be able, as is also their aim, to contain the President and to frustrate him at every turn. That means, as well, that Democrats, Leftist groups in this Country, "Deep State Bureaucrats" and the mainstream media--all of them, working in lockstep--intend to frustrate the will of the American people too. We must not allow these Left-wing elements to succeed.Americans should make clear they will not permit Democrats and their Leftist compatriots to control the Confirmation process. They must tell Republicans to hold firm. Republicans must not capitulate to Democrats as seems to be happening. Democrats do not now control the Legislative Branch, and "Deep State" Bureaucrats do not control the Executive Branch and the public should not allow Democrats and Deep State Bureaucrats to act like they do. The Judicial Branch, in particular, must remain pure and above the fray. Democrats know that, in terms of long range social policies and goals, the Judicial Branch of Government is the most important Branch. They seek jurists who read the Constitution and federal statute expansively, without concern with the literal word and without proper deference to the Constitution and our laws. What they don't want is the seating of jurists on the federal Courts who would preserve the Constitution as crafted by the framers of it. They seek to place jurists in the Federal Courts--from the U.S. District Court level, through the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, up to the U.S. Supreme Court--with activist jurists who have no reservation in rewriting the Constitution, as they view the Constitution expansively, interpreting the Constitution and laws in a manner that fits personal ideology, not hindered by precedent and demonstrating little if any deference to the plain words of the Constitution and federal statute. Barack Obama has done tremendous damage to the high Court with his placement of two left-wing activists on the high Court. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate was able to prevent Obama from placing a third activist jurist on the high Court, Merrick Garland. So, we know that Republicans can work successfully on the part of the American people to preserve our Nation, our core values, our Constitution if they set their minds to do so. Still, Barack Obama has done extraordinary damage through numerous appointments of left-wing activist jurists to the lower federal Courts--the U.S. District Courts and in U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. We have seen what this has wrought as activist jurists have frustrated the U.S. President's efforts to protect our Nation by enjoining the President from implementing his temporary travel bans. Only through a U.S. Supreme Court decision, secured by the Conservative wing of the high Court, as we have seen, has the President been able to salvage, if temporarily, some vestige of his policy to protect this Country from Mideastern terrorists. Democrats are determined to frustrate the President and the American people at every turn. Nothing less is at stake than the preservation of our Constitution, our core values, even our history, and, as well, the Sovereignty of our Nation, and the supremacy of our laws. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, on the high Court, as Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh can help, immensely, in preserving our Nation, its values, its history, and the rights and liberties of the American people, as the founders of our free Republic intended. Democrats and other Leftists--many on the extreme, radical Left--intend to dismantle our free Republic, curtail or end, altogether, our fundamental rights and liberties, subvert our core values, rewrite our history, and denigrate our Nation, subjecting it to a new Globalist world order where our Nation becomes subordinated to the will of an internationalist body--merely one more spoke in a massive wheel. Simply take a look at the EU, and you can see what Leftists have in store for our Nation and for our citizenry. We must not allow this to happen. It is imperative that Judge Kavanaugh be confirmed to a seat on the High Court. Failure of Republicans to confirm Judge Kavanaugh will serve both to encourage Democrats to continue in their destructive practices of frustrating the President and denying the public the exercise of their Will, and likely preclude a Conservative-wing majority in the U.S. Supreme Court from emerging, thereby endangering our Constitution, endangering our fundamental rights and liberties, and enabling Leftists to dictate the future of our Country, one countenancing a new paradigm, one completely at odds with the framework created by our founders. There is no doubt of this.___________________________________**Debra Katz is a left-wing activist attorney, who was also a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton. Please be advised that, Roger Katz, one of the authors of this AQ article, is not at all related to Debra Katz. We happen to share a common surname, nothing more. The New York Times reports that Judge Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has added two more attorneys to her legal team: Lisa Banks and Michael Bromwich. Likely, Senate Democrats, with the assistance of Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, have had a hand in this and are, behind the scenes, controlling the Confirmation process. Judge Kavanaugh has retained counsel too, as the Daily Caller reports that Judge Kavanaugh "has retained . . . Beth Wilkinson, to advise and represent him." Recent news accounts mention that Christine Blasey Ford has agreed to testify in open, before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. It isn't clear whether she will be questioned by members of the Judiciary Committee or by an attorney appointed by Republicans on the Committee to question Ford. It does appear, though, that her testimony will be heard prior to the testimony of Judge Kavanaugh, as would be appropriate and consistent with criminal legal procedure. The question we have is why Republicans should allow the charade to go this far. It could only mean that Republicans do not believe that they can be assured of the votes they need to confirm Judge Kavanaugh. The Senate majority is a razor thin. They can survive through no defections. Politico points to several Republicans whose vote in favor of Confirmation is in doubt and who have, apparently, demanded to hear Christine Blasey Ford's testimony. It is these Republican Senators, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, and a couple of others who have, unfortunately played directly into the hands of Democrats. Democrats, for their part, are cohesive. Republicans are not. This would explain why Senator Grassley has agreed to delay a Confirmation vote. It is unfortunate and deeply disturbing that some Republicans can allow themselves to be the instrument of Democrats and Leftists in this Country. The Christine Blasey Ford matter is a trap. Apparently, Democrats, with the aid of Republican Senators Flake and Corker, and with the complicity of a couple of other Republican Senators, are using this "Me Too" movement nonsense to destroy our Constitution. If the Supreme Court secures a liberal-wing majority, all is lost for the preservation of our Constitution, our  natural, fundamental, unalienable rights and liberties, and the continued maintenance of our Country as an independent Sovereign Nation and free Republic. Why would Senators Flake and Corker fall for this? Is their hatred of President Trump so pronounced that they would jeopardize the preservation of our sacred Constitution and the preservation of our cherished history; the preservation of our core rights and liberties; the supremacy of our laws and jurisprudence; and the continued independence and Sovereignty of our Nation, and its continued existence as a free Republic because they happen, simply, personally to abhor the present President of the United States. Apparently so. Their behavior is childish, churlish, disgraceful, altogether unredeemable. No American should expect this kind of behavior from any other American, least of all from a United States Senator. These individuals are not worthy of the status they have. They are not worthy of their station. Americans should well remember them for this if Judge Kavanaugh fails to be confirmed to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, for these people, these Republican Senators, have allowed a charade, a travesty, an illusionist's trick concocted by Democrats and Leftist groups to play out, to hijack our Nation and its Constitution--one so lovingly, carefully created by our founders--our Birthright. They wish to dictate a new Constitution, reflecting ideas alien to those of the framers of it. They will destroy our Constitution, and for what? Personal animosity? A private agenda? And, by what means? Well, we know of one, and we see it playing out in the matter of the Confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.Here we see a disgruntled middle-aged woman, whom, it would seem, has a personal bone to pick with a man, as she tells us, having done harm to her. But did he? This woman concocts a story out of whole-cloth or dredges a story up--if one is to give any credence to this woman's story at all--relating an event that occurred, if "memory" serves her, literally one-third of a Century ago, when the two of them were teenagers. And, because this woman, who is a Leftist whose agenda coheres with that of other Leftists in this Country and with that of Democrats, she allows herself to be used for political purposes, truly unrelated to a matter, long-dead, trivial--one that no prosecutor who has any sense at all would ever dream of prosecuting, and a matter that no police department would ever investigate (how would a police investigator begin to investigate this matter, anyway, with no forensic evidence whatsoever available, the account itself extraordinarily sketchy, with no one at all able to corroborate it, and the accused, the true victim, adamantly denying it). And, why would this woman wait, at this juncture, 30+ years later to smear the reputation of a man she has not seen, or known--assuming that she ever knew him--for over thirty years. Bringing up such a matter in a reprehensible attempt to destroy a brilliant jurist, a devoted husband, and loving father, does nothing to serve  justice, or fairness; nor can it even provide "closure," for this woman. This is a matter of pure vindictiveness, brought to the attention of the entire Country to serve a political end, unrelated to justice or fairness. Christine Blasey Ford is merely a "tool," of ruthless forces that have not her well-being at heart, but a political goal to achieve. She is not even the real victim here. But, there is a victim. It is not the accuser, but the accused, Judge Brett Kavanaugh; and the sad thing here is that Christine Blasely Ford, a college Professor and psychologist, no less, does not seem to realize that she is being used as a tool. She is simply a pawn in an elaborate chess game that Democrats and Leftist groups in this Country are playing and intend to win. Democrats and the Leftist interests they represent have lost power and they want it back; and they intend to get it back by any means, however reprehensible. They have goals for this Country that they intend to implement; that they began to implement with Barack Obama in Office, and which they thought they would continue to implement with Hillary Clinton in Office--Clinton, a felon no less, who only escaped prosecution and assured conviction because she, too, serves those forces that seek to destroy this Nation, its Constitution and the fundamental rights and liberties of its people; but she is a willing pawn too, who sold her soul for money, and influence and power. She is a wretched creature. But, a great switcheroo occurred. Hillary Clinton, lost the U.S. Presidential election.  Her election to the highest Office in the Land was seemingly assured. Horror of Horrors! What went wrong. The public did not play along? They didn't listen to the soundbites; the news accounts; the cajoling. So, what do Democrats and Leftist Groups both here and abroad that sought a Clinton Presidency to do now? Their game plan is not on track. So they plan, they theorize, they brainstorm, they conspire to come up with something, anything, however ridiculous, to contain and restrain the will of the American people who saw what was coming and who fought back. They work behind the scenes in an attempt to destroy the President whom the American people elected, in full and proper accordance with the Constitution. They see in the moronic, so-called "Me Too" sex harassment movement, a useful mechanism to bring low every man, any man who doesn't tow the Leftist line, who presents a danger to their agenda; to the Leftist Internationalist agenda. And, so, we see here an 11th Hour clown's act, entertainment for children and idiots, produced by and directed by Congressional Democrats with the avid assistance and complicity of the Press, and with the connivance of a few, wayward, unthinking Republicans, who have fallen for the spectacle, totally unaware, it would seem to them, what is clear enough to others: that they have been taken for fools. Stupidity of the Highest Order! Truly Incredible. Senate Democrats must be having a quiet chuckle over their successful manipulation of the public and of their brethren on the other side of the political aisle, during their private Happy Hour. Toasts for everyone! The Grand Game continues, as they see themselves as winning._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

BRETT KAVANAUGH SENATE SUPREME COURT CONFIRMATION HEARING: DEMOCRATS GRILL TRUMP NOMINEE ON “ASSAULT WEAPONS.”

DO NOT FOR ONE INSTANCE BE TAKEN IN BY FALSE CLAIMS OF DEMOCRATS THAT "OF COURSE" THEY DEFEND THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND THAT THEY ONLY SEEK TO ENACT SO-CALLED SENSIBLE, COMMON-SENSE GUN LAWS. THAT IS PURE, NAKED DECEPTION. THE KEY GOAL OF CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS IS AND, FOR DECADES, HAS BEEN THE REINING IN OF THE RIGHT OF THE AMERICAN CITIZENRY TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. AND THEY WILL NOT STOP THERE. CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS ALONG WITH OTHER LEFT-WING ELEMENTS IN SOCIETY, INCLUDING THEIR ECHO CHAMBER, THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, SEEK NOTHING LESS THAN THE UTTER, TOTAL DISSOLUTION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

THE DUBIOUS LEGAL ARGUMENT EMPLOYED BY THOSE WHO SEEK DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS PREDICATED ON THE NOTION THAT THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS REFERS TO A COLLECTIVE RIGHT, ASCRIBED ONLY TO ONE'S CONNECTION WITH OR ASSOCIATION WITH A MILITIA. WERE THIS TRUE, THE SACRED, FUNDAMENTAL, UNALIENABLE, NATURAL RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS WOULD BE TRIVIALIZED AS WOULD THE CITIZENS THEMSELVES BE TRIVIALIZED. IF SUCH WERE IN FACT THE CASE, AMERICANS WOULD WITNESS THE FALL OF A ONCE GREAT NATION AND FREE REPUBLIC.

BUT THOSE WHO WOULD DESTROY THE SECOND AMENDMENT HOLD TO A FALSE  NOTION OF THE IMPORT OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT. FOR, THEIR NOTION THAT THE WORD, 'PEOPLE,' THAT APPEARS IN THE OPERATIVE CLAUSE OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT, REFERS TO THE CITIZENRY IN A "COLLECTIVE" CAPACITY OR SENSE HAS BEEN REPUDIATED. IT IS NOW SETTLED LAW THAT THE WORD, 'PEOPLE,' AS IT APPEARS IN THE OPERATIVE CLAUSE OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT, REFERS TO THE CITIZENRY OF THIS NATION IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY OR SENSE. AND THE RIGHT THEREFORE RESIDES, INTRINSICALLY IN THE INDIVIDUAL, AND NOT IN AN AMORPHOUS COLLECTIVE MILITIA.  AS SUCH, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS IS FUNDAMENTAL, AND MUST BE RESPECTED. THE RIGHT REFERRED TO IS NOT INCIDENTAL, AND, THEREFORE, THE RIGHT IS NOT TO BE PERFUNCTORILY DENIED, AS THOSE WHO DETEST THE SECOND AMENDMENT WOULD HAVE YOU, FALSELY, TO BELIEVE.

“The first salient feature of the operative clause [in the Second Amendment] is that it codifies a ‘right of the people.’ The unamended Constitution and the Bill of Rights use the phrase ‘right of the people’ two other times, in the First Amendment's Assembly-and-Petition Clause and in the Fourth Amendment's Search-and-Seizure Clause. The Ninth Amendment uses very similar terminology (‘The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people’). All three of these instances unambiguously refer to individual rights, not ‘collective’ rights, or rights that may be exercised only through participation in some corporate body.Three provisions of the Constitution refer to ‘the people’ in a context other than ‘rights’—the famous preamble (‘We the people’), § 2 of Article I (providing that ‘the people’ will choose members of the House), and the Tenth Amendment (providing that those powers not given the Federal Government remain with ‘the States’ or ‘the people’). Those provisions arguably refer to ‘the people’ acting collectively—but  they deal with the exercise or reservation of powers, not rights.  Nowhere else in the Constitution does a ‘right’ attributed to ‘the people’ refer to anything other than an individual right. . . .This contrasts markedly with the phrase ‘the militia’ in the prefatory clause.  As we will describe below, the ‘militia’ in colonial America consisted of a subset of ‘the people’—those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range.  Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to ‘keep and bear Arms’ in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause's description of the holder of that right as ‘the people.’We start therefore  with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans. We move now from the holder of the right—‘the people’—to the substance of the right: ‘to keep and bear Arms.’”~ (A portion of the Opinion of the Majority, penned by the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia), in District of Columbia vs. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 578-581 passim (2008) Well before the Brett Kavanaugh Senate Confirmation Hearings, the Arbalest Quarrel pointed out that Congressional Democrats’ assault on and goal of elimination of the right of the natural, sacred, and unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms, as succinctly codified in the Second Amendment, was and always has been a central plank of the antigun Democratic Party agenda. See "the United States Safe Act in the Making: Penned and Penciled by Andrew Cuomo."This was so even though in the weeks and months leading up to the Hearing. Democrats and their liberal media echo chamber talked incessantly about Democrats’ Party’s other goals. These goals included: one, open borders; two, expansion of personal federal income taxes; three, the complete elimination of ICE, and the hamstringing of other law enforcement agencies across the Country; four, the clamping down of all investigations into subversive activities of high ranking Governmental Bureaucrats of the Deep State; and five, the removal of Donald Trump from Office.

DEMOCRATS CONSISTENTLY REMONSTRATE AGAINST THE PLAIN MEANING OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION. THEY DO THIS BECAUSE THEY SEE THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AS OUTMODED, DRAFTED AND RATIFIED TO REFLECT THE NEEDS OF AN ANCIENT TIME AND, SO, IN NEED OF DRASTIC REVISION. THUS, THEY SEEK TO REWRITE THE DOCUMENT TO REFLECT A MODERN WORLD. THIS, UNFORTUNATELY, A NOTION  NOTION HELD NOT JUST BY POLITICIANS AND LAY PERSONS, BUT  BY JURISTS AS WELL. IN FACT, RETIRED LIBERAL-WING JUSTICE, JOHN PAUL STEVENS WISHES TO REWRITE THE BILL OF RIGHTS. HE SAYS SO IN A BOOK HE HAS PUBLISHED. AND, IN THE WORDS OF THE LIBERAL-WING U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG, OUR CONSTITUTION IS, AFTER ALL, “A RATHER OLD CONSTITUTION” MEANING THAT GINSBURG, TOO, APPARENTLY THINKS OUR CONSTITUTION IS IN NEED OF RADICAL REVISION.

The Senate Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing on the President’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, that took place for several days, laid bare the Democrats contempt for our Constitution and, especially, their misconception of the Bill of Rights as framed by the founders of our Republic. Spending a good part of three days of the Senate Confirmation Hearing process, by turns pontificating, chastising, and even excoriating Judge Kavanaugh, it became clear to all Americans that those Democrats, who sit on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, have succumbed to the will and wishes of Americans on the far left of the political spectrum, or otherwise always held to extreme left-wing views concerning the Constitution. Americans who believe that the Constitution, and especially that part of it--the Bill of Rights--that sets forth the fundamental rights and liberties of the American citizen, proclaim that the Bill of Rights can mean essentially whatever it is they choose it, or wish for it, to mean. They do not look at the plain meaning of the text, but read into the sacred Document what they wish for the words of the Document to mean; not what the framers of it meant, as clearly articulated in it.But, application of such an erroneous belief concerning the Constitution, destroys the very efficacy of it. Revisionists take the U.S. Constitution to be infinitely malleable, flexible, bendable. This is what they mean by the Constitution as a "living document"--that it can be changed to reflect changes in society, changes they seek to impose on the Nation. Thus, they would twist the Constitution and contort it to a degree that essentially destroys its import and purport, as conceived by the framers of it. These leftist revisionists don’t care, and they do not care for a jurist, such as Judge Kavanaugh, who does not share their view of a Constitution they perceive to be easily malleable, like a lump of clay that one might knead into any convenient shape.Judge Kavanaugh’s jurisprudential approach to Constitutional case analysis is in line with that of Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. These eminent jurists do not read into the Constitution what they may happen to wish to see. They take the Constitution for its literal word. That doesn’t sit well with Americans who hold to a Socialist philosophy; who have drafted a new plan, a new design for our Nation; who have a Socialist Agenda and who seek to implement radical Socialist policies for our Country--policies destructive to a free Republic and destructive of a free market Capitalist economic society; policies inconsistent with the Constitution of this Nation as ratified by the founders of our Nation. Hence, progressive forces in our Nation do not want Judge Kavanaugh—brilliant and thoughtful a jurist though he be—to sit as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

SENATE JUDICIARY DEMOCRATS HAVE MADE THEIR IDEAS AND GOALS PATENTLY CLEAR TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

The Democrats sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee made no attempt to hide their distaste of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, known. Even as the right of the people to keep and bear arms is explicitly set down in stone in the Bill of Rights, these Congressional Democrats would like to see the Second Amendment weakened, disassembled, abandoned, and eventually, even obliterated from historical records and memory.Yet, curiously, wrongly, and even weirdly, Congressional Democrats believe it to be perfectly permissible to expand the domain of what they presume to be fundamental rights, worthy of protection, such as a right to abortion on demand, and equal protection rights expanded to include individuals exhibiting gender dysphoria—an expansion of purported rights, nowhere explicitly mentioned or even alluded to in the Bill of Rights. All the while, Congressional Democrats seem to be under no similar compunction to retain those fundamental rights that are expressly codified in the Bill of Rights.For example, Democrats see no legal or moral compunction against constraining Americans’ free exercise of religion, freedom of association, and freedom of speech—to proscribe what they, alone, perceive as permitting ideas anathema to their own—and they see no legal or moral issue with doing away with the Second Amendment altogether. That is their goal, clearly inferred through three days of Senate Hearing on Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and as further evidenced in antigun legislation Congressional Democrats have proposed in the last twenty plus years.Democrats argue, as they made pointedly clear during the Confirmation Hearing that, in matters pertaining to the citizen ownership and possession of firearms, State orchestrated cries for “public safety,” as the ground for curtailing the exercise of a fundamental and natural right should, and, indeed, must, invariably outweigh the personal right of self-defense. Moreover, Congressional Democrats consistently and continuously convey at best a blasé attitude toward the right of the people to keep and bear arms—a natural and fundamental right that the framers of the Constitution saw need enough to codify in the Bill of Rights, and did so to preserve a free Republic and to protect the sanctity and autonomy of the American citizen.From the questions posed by Senate Democrats to Judge Kavanaugh, and by the comments they made, these Democrats do not perceive the Second Amendment to be worth protecting and strengthening, or, otherwise they simply don’t care that, as the framers of the U.S. Constitution well knew, it is only through an armed citizenry that tyranny in Government can be ultimately, successfully, forestalled. The need for the free exercise of that right has not diminished with the passing years, decades, and centuries. Rather, contrary to the pronouncements of those who seek to constrain the exercise of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the need to preserve and to strengthen this sacred right has actually, increased, many-fold, as the power of the Nation's Federal Government with the assistance of technology has itself increased exponentially in the centuries since both the formation of our Country as an independent sovereign Nation and free Republic, and since the ratification of our Constitution.

DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT WAS ALWAYS FIRST AND FOREMOST IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY JUDICIARY COMMITTEE MEMBERS’ CROSSHAIRS.

While expressing concern for the survival of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 (1973)* which was certainly a central point of discussion manifested through three days of Confirmation Hearings, Democrats made abundantly clear, on the flipside, their disgust for the salient holding in Heller vs. District of Columbia, 554 U. S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). Indeed, at times, Democrats’ expression of their disdain for Heller eclipsed their concern for the preservation of Roe vs. Wade. In fact, as Senator Diane Feinstein began her questioning of Judge Kavanaugh, during the first day of the Confirmation Hearing, the first set of questions that she directed to Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee did not involve the issue of female reproductive rights, but were aimed squarely at the Second Amendment—namely and most notably at so-called “assault weapons”—which, as one of a plethora of antigun measures that antigun zealots would love to impose on the Nation as a whole, this one, in particular, has been, for decades, the especial target of Congressional Democrats. Wallowing in the abyss of fallacious reasoning and seeming self-pity, they plead with Judge Kavanaugh to forsake centuries of case law and jurisprudential history, ostensibly to ensure the safety of children, but oblivious to the fact that it is not the firearm, an inanimate object--their singular target for annihilation--that is the cause of violence, but, rather, a weakness of heart and will that prevents them from actively and avidly enforcing the hundreds of laws that Congress has enacted to forestall aggressive acts of those who would wreak violence on innocent lives: the lives of innocent adults as well as children.

WOULD DEMOCRATS BE SUCCESSFUL IN IMPLEMENTING A FEDERAL ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN IN 2019 IF THEY WERE TO CEMENT MAJORITIES IN BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS?

To be sure, it is by no means certain that Democrats will take control of the House in November, after the midterm elections. Less likely, but of greater concern, is the prospect of Democratic Party control of the U.S. Senate. If Democrats do take control of both Houses of Congress, what is certain is that they intend to muscle through Congress a new “assault weapons” ban, modeled on the New York Safe Act of 2013.Democrats would get substantial assistance from progressive State Governors, led by the virulently anti-Second Amendment Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo—assuming, which is likely, albeit depressing to contemplate, that Cuomo does prevail in the coming New York Gubernatorial election, in November, to secure a third term in Office.

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN’S RAISON D’ETRE IS TO PROHIBIT CIVILIAN OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION OF ANY FIREARM THAT SHE PROCLAIMS TO BE AN “ASSAULT WEAPON.”

If you recall, Feinstein attempted to ram through an “assault weapons” bill in 2013. That bill was even more draconian than the original restrictive U.S. Senate Legislation, “The Violent Crime and Control Protection Act of 1994.” In Subtitle A of Title XI of the 1994 Act, Senator Feinstein laid out a comprehensive nation-wide ban on an “assault weapons.”  Subtitle A of Title XI severely restricted the “manufacture, transfer, and possession of certain semiautomatic assault weapons.” The “assault weapons” provision included a sunset provision and, in 2004, the “assault weapons” provision of the 1994 Act did expire. It was not reauthorized by Congress.Feinstein wasn’t done. On the heels of enactment of, and in lockstep with, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s New York Safe Act, signed into law by Cuomo, on January 15, 2013, U.S. Senator, Dianne Feinstein, sought to generate public interest in a new and incredibly ambitious federal “assault weapons” ban, modeled in substantial part on the “assault weapons” provisions of the NY Safe Act. The Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy provided the pretext for this.Feinstein’s bill, used much of the language of Cuomo’s NY Safe Act, but to emphasize her personal distaste for firearms, the federal bill included over 110 specifically named firearms and categories of firearms. This categorization of specifically named firearms was unnecessary as the list was redundant. No matter, Subtitle A of Title XI “The Violent Crime and Control Protection Act of 1994” included the list anyway. Feinstein’s “assault weapon”, bill, if successful, would have caused the entire Nation to suffer the constraints on a weapon in common use by the American citizenry that Cuomo’s New York assault weapons ban has imposed on residents of New York.Fortunately for American citizens, Feinstein’s federal bill, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, went nowhere because the Senate Democratic Party Majority Leader at the time--Harry Reid--stripped Feinstein’s assault weapon ban out of a broader gun control bill that Democrats sought to pass. Senator Reid evidently believed that doing so would make the restrictive gun control measures more palatable to reluctant members of the Senate. Feinstein was furious, but Reid remained undeterred. The bill, sans Feinstein's “assault weapons” ban provision, was still soundly defeated on Roll Call vote of the Senate held on April 17, 2013.

IF BRETT  KAVANAUGH IS CONFIRMED TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURT AS AN ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, A FEDERAL ASSAULT WEAPONS’ BILL THAT BECOMES LAW IS LIKELY TO BE STRUCK DOWN AS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee know full well that, even if they were to secure majorities in both Houses of Congress, any “assault weapons” bill they happen, in 2019, to enact into law would be immediately challenged on the ground that a ban on an entire category of weapons in common use is contrary to the core of the Second Amendment, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in the 2008 Heller decision and as reiterated by the high Court in the 2010 McDonald decision (561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010)). Unlike the unhappy present situation with core Second Amendment cases that wend there way to the high Court, that are invariably not taken up for high Court review, this is likely to change with Brett Kavanaugh sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court as a petition for a Writ of Certiorari would likely be granted. Brett Kavanaugh would provide the crucial fourth vote necessary for a Second Amendment case (subsequent to the seminal Heller and McDonald cases) implicating the core of the Second Amendment, to finally be heard.** Once granted, and the case heard, a Conservative-wing majority, properly employing sound judicial and logical and jurisprudential reasoning, would likely determine that an outright ban on civilian ownership and possession of a substantial number of semiautomatic firearms—including handguns, rifles, and shotguns, as well as non-semiautomatic weapons, such as  revolving cylinder shotguns, along with so-called large capacity magazines, that are all in common use in this Nation—would be and must be struck down as inconsistent with the import and purport of the Second Amendment, as interpreted by the high Court’s Majority in the U.S. Supreme Court Heller and McDonald cases. And this explains why Senate Democrats are particularly worried over the confirmation of Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court—enough so that they devoted substantial time to questioning Judge Kavanaugh over his methodology for resolving cases involving the Second Amendment. And this explains why the American people must suffer through a delay on a confirmation vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee, due to the 11th hour political stunt pulled by Senator Dianne Feinstein, herself. Feinstein has raised an issue concerning a naked, uncorroborated allegation against Judge Kavanaugh, of a purported event allegedly occurring decades ago, that the Senator learned about through a letter she received in July of this year, and which she had sat on all this time, obviously to bring up at an inopportune time as it serves purely as a convenient political delaying tactic. Chairman Grassley and Senate Democrats, sitting on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, should not allow Democrats to turn the Confirmation process into a circus act. Unfortunately, Democrats are not acting alone. Senate Republican, Jeff Flake, who also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee said he wishes to hear from Judge Kavanaugh's accuser before he will vote to allow the Confirmation process to proceed. It is no secret, though, that Senator Flake, who will be stepping down from the Senate, anyway, has no love for President Trump, and apparently takes delight in constantly admonishing him to the Press. It therefore stands to reason why Senator Jeff Flake would jump ship and play with Democrats in opposing the President's nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to sit on the high Court even though a brilliant jurist, such as Judge Kavanaugh, sitting on the highest Court in the Land would help preserve our free Republic and strengthen our Bill of Rights. Does Jeff Flake think so little of the President that he would be willing to sacrifice the well-being of both the Nation and the American citizenry by placing obstacles in the President's path. Apparently this is so. For our part, we believe that Jeff Flake cannot leave Congress soon enough. That is the best thing he can do for this Nation and its people.

IN OUR UPCOMING ARTICLE:

The methodology which Judge Kavanaugh utilizes to analyze and resolve Second Amendment cases, which Democrats sitting on the Senate Judiciary Panel, scarcely touched upon, but denigrated nonetheless, will be discussed in detail in our next article on the Kavanaugh U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing. We look specifically at Judge Kavanaugh's critical important dissenting opinion in the case popularly styled, Heller II (Heller vs. District of Columbia, 670 F.3d 1244 ; 399 U.S. App. D.C. 314; 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 20130).___________________________________________*Associate Justice Byron White and Justice William Rehnquist dissented from the Majority Opinion, penned by then Chief Justice Warren Burger. Note: Justice Antonin Scalia had not yet been appointed to the high Court at the time Roe was decided. Justice Scalia was confirmed to the high Court in 1986, the same year that then U.S. President Ronald Reagan nominated Justice Rehnquist to serve as the new Chief Justice to replace retiring Chief Justice Burger, and whom the Senate subsequently confirmed as the new Chief Justice.Six years later, in Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1992), the high Court essentially reaffirmed the holdings in Roe, namely that a Constitutional right to elective abortion exists, but only until viability as the State “has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting . . . the life of the fetus that may become a child.” Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. at 846. The majority in Casey held that an elective abortion is a fundamental right but the Casey Majority loosened the standard for determination of whether a State regulation unduly burdens a woman’s right to elective abortion. The Court replaced the stringent strict scrutiny approach, that favors a State’s interest in protecting an unborn child, to a lesser standard that would operate in favor of a woman’s decision for an elective abortion. Note: Justice Scalia who dissented from the Majority made clear that nothing in the Constitution elevates a woman’s decision to have an abortion to the that of a fundamental right. His dissenting opinion is critical to the methodology of textualism and originalism. Justice Scalia opined: “The States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so.” Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. at 978. Further, Justice Scalia opined:“That is, quite simply, the issue in these cases: not whether the power of a woman to abort her unborn child is a ‘liberty’ in the absolute sense; or even whether it is a liberty of great importance to many women. . . . A State’s choice between two positions on which reasonable people can disagree is constitutional even when (as is often the case) it intrudes upon a ‘liberty’ in the absolute sense. Laws against bigamy, for example—with which entire societies of reasonable people disagree—intrude upon men and women’s liberty to marry and live with one another. But bigamy happens not to be a liberty specially ‘protected’ by the Constitution.The [majority on the high] Court destroys the proposition, evidently meant to represent my position [which they in fact misrepresent, namely] that ‘liberty’ includes ‘only those practices, defined at the most specific level, that were protected against government interference by other rules of law when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified,’ ante, 505 U.S. at 847 (citing Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110, 127, n.6, 105 L. Ed. 2d 91, 109 S. Ct. 2333 (1989). That is not, however, what Michael H. says; it merely observes that, in defining ‘liberty,’ we may not disregard a specific, ‘relevant tradition protecting, or denying protection to, the asserted right,’ ibid. But the Court does not wish to be fettered by any such limitations on its preferences. The Court’s statement that it is ‘tempting’ to acknowledge the authoritativeness of tradition in order to ‘curb the discretion of federal judges,’ ante, 505 U.S. at 847, is of course rhetoric rather than reality; no government official is ‘tempted’ to place restraints upon his own freedom of action. . . . The Court’s temptation is in the quite opposite and more natural direction—towards systematically eliminating checks upon its own power; and it succumbs.” Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. at 979-981. Justice Scalia’s remarks are directed against a jurist’s wrong, albeit, natural tendency, as is the case with anyone who wields power, but particularly jurists, who--specifically invoking the force of law in their decisions--operate without restraint, when they ought to be circumspect. As a result, such jurists tend to create an ever expansive array of dubious substantive rights. Not surprisingly, we see these same jurists irreverently curtailing fundamental rights and liberties that do exist and have existed since ratification of the Bill of Rights, namely and particularly, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, which they happen to be personally philosophically opposed to.AQ’s Note: The liberal wing of the Supreme Court—and the liberal wing of U.S. District Courts and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, as well—sees fit to play with standards of review whenever it suits the result it wants. Thus, liberal wing judges and the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court tend to revert to “interest-balancing” approaches to judicial review as that approach invariably serves to support the results they want, that is to say, tends to support predetermined decisions. Thus, in Second Amendment cases, liberal-wing Judges of the lower Courts and liberal-wing Justices of the high Court employ “interest-balancing” to support restrictive, draconian firearms’ regulations even where Government enactments clearly and blatantly impinge upon and infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms—a right succinctly codified in the Bill of Rights. These same jurists also resort to “interest-balancing” in abortion cases, but, in those cases, rather than using “interest balancing” to support legitimate actions of Government that seeks to preserve the life of the unborn child, these jurists conclude that “balancing” the interests of Government, on the one-hand, and the interests of the individual on the other hand—the interests of the individual seeking abortion ought prevail over that of Government that seeks to protect the unborn child. With little wonder, then, Justice Scalia was leery of invoking a traditional, "interest-balancing" standard of review in Heller that might, after the fact, ostensibly, give judicial cover to a liberal-wing Judge who happens to detest the very existence of the Second Amendment.It is clear enough that some regulations, such as the District of Columbia law banning, altogether, citizen ownership and possession of handguns within the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia, are clearly, categorically unlawful. Thus, the majority in Heller saw no need to revert to an "interest-balancing" standard of review, when it rendered its opinion that the D.C. handgun ban is de jure unconstitutional; for, application of any traditional standard of review would amount to mere legal pretense—an empty, redundant exercise, devoid of import. Although Justice Scalia was circumspect in penning the Majority’s Opinion, one finds, clearly enough, when perusing the opinion, that the Majority in Heller knew full well that the D.C. handgun ban was audacious in its conception and abjectly ludicrous--a bald-faced "slap-in-the-face" at the fundamental right codified in the Second Amendment. The D.C. handgun ban therefore deserved no serious judicial consideration.If the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights were to have any meaning and purpose at all, the D.C. restriction had, properly speaking, to be struck down, and struck down unceremoniously; and so it was. The Heller majority, though, used the case to exemplify once and for all, beyond any further need for clarification, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, unconnected to one’s service in a militia. With that point now clearly articulated, it was the fervent hope of the Heller Court’s majority, that Government action that fails to give proper deference to the right as codified in the Second Amendment would at once be struck down; and that it would be unnecessary for courts to go through tortuous gyrations to strike down firearms’ laws and regulations that are facially unlawful.Unfortunately, the late Justice Scalia, and Justices Thomas and Alito may not have realized the tenacity of governments and courts that abhor the Second Amendment, to find lawful governmental action that is facially and categorically unlawful. The philosophical disposition of jurists who personally abhor the Second Amendment, as we have seen, leads them to patently ignore the principal holdings of, and of the Majority's reasoning in Heller and McDonald, even as they perfunctorily mention those cases in their opinions to which they give no more than lip-service. Unfortunately, too, the late Justice Scalia, and Justices Thomas and Alito may not have realized the reluctance of moderates on the high Court--now the lone Chief Justice, John Roberts, now that Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has retired--to take up cases that blatantly ignore Heller and McDonald. This means of course that this Nation requires the swift confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the high Court. Judge Kavanaugh would hold the crucial fourth vote, that would allow cases that infringe the core of the Second Amendment to receive high Court review that they deserve.The 11^th Hour attempt by Senator Dianne Feinstein to throw a wrench into confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh must not be allowed to gain traction. If Republican Senators Jeff Flake, and Lindsey Graham, who sit on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and who, according to news reports, indicated they may refrain from allowing the vote on the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh by the full Senate to proceed, then that would send a clear message to the American citizenry, that elected Donald Trump to the U.S. Presidency, that elements exist, both among Republicans and Democrats, who do not wish for the U.S. President to fulfill his promises to the American people. President Trump has promised to nominate people to the U.S. Supreme Court who believe in the sanctity of the Bill of Rights as ratified. A confirmation vote of the full Senate, on President Trump's nomination of John Kavanaugh to sit on the high Court, must proceed forthwith**See, Friedman vs. City of Highland Park, 136 S. Ct. 447, 193 L. Ed. 2d 483, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 7681, a Second Amendment case implicating the very core of the Second Amendment that failed to receive a critical fourth Supreme Court Justice vote, necessary for review. This case, as with others decided by liberal judges of the U.S. District Courts and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal, who take a very dim view of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, deals directly with the issue as to whether so-called "assault weapons" fall within the core of the Second Amendment.Jurists deciding these cases use methodologies at odds with the reasoning of the majority in Heller and McDonald. Not surprisingly, these Courts invariably find for the government and against the American citizen in holding that firearms defined as "assault weapons" in l0cal regulations or State law, are not protected by the Second Amendment.  That was the finding of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the Friedman case. These are the pertinent facts of the case: The City of Highland Park, Illinois, bans the manufacturing, selling, giving, lending, acquiring, or possessing many of the most commonly owned semiautomatic  firearms, which the City branded “Assault Weapons,” which many Americans own for lawful purposes like self-defense, hunting, and target shooting. The City also prohibited “Large Capacity Magazines,” a term the City used to refer to nearly all ammunition feeding devices that “accept more than ten rounds.” §136.001(G), id., at 70a. The City’s ordinances were challenged by an American citizen and resident of Illinois. The federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted summary judgment for the City. The Petitioner appealed. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that routinely upholds such bans, affirmed the decision of the District Court. The Petitioner appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Certiorari was denied as the case did not receive a fourth critical vote from the Justices, necessary for the case to be heard. When cases are not decided for high Court review, the reasons for refusing to take up a case are not generally stated. The high Court simply asserts that a Petitioner's Writ is denied, and the Court leaves the matter at that. The nature of the votes cast by each Justice is never given, either. In the Friedman case, it is clear that the Seventh Circuit blatantly ignored the reasoning of the Majority in Heller and McDonald. The Writ for Certiorari should have been granted. It wasn't. It is clear enough that the liberal-wing of the Court and two members of the conservative wing, likely the so-called swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who recently retired, along with Chief Justice Roberts, did not want the case to be heard, and they did not want the case heard for a specific reason. They obviously feared that application of the holdings of Heller and McDonald, together with the reasoning of the majority in those cases, would dictate the overturning of the Seventh Circuit Court's decision in Friedman, and that, in turn, would result in a cascading effect, across the Country, where assault weapon bans would be overturned in every jurisdiction that presently ban or severely restrict the ownership and possession of a large category of semiautomatic weapons, including firearms that are not semiautomatic in operation, namely, revolving cylinder shotguns. Understandably, Justices Thomas and Scalia were livid that Heller and McDonald could and would dare be blithely ignored by jurists for ideological reasons, predicated on personal biases, mandating results that are contrary to law. Justice Thomas wrote a blistering dissenting comment in response to the high Court's failure to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's decision in Friedman. The late, eminent Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia, who penned the Heller decision for the Majority, joined Justice Thomas in the Associate Justice’s dissenting comment. We can reasonably infer that Justice Alito, who penned the majority opinion in McDonald, also voted in favor of reviewing the Friedman case, even though he did not join with Justice Scalia in Justice Thomas' dissenting comment. Even so, that meant that, at best, only three votes--one short, of the required minimum, four--were cast for high Court review of the Friedman case.Justice Thomas wrote in salient part:“[O]ur central holding in” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), was “that the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home.” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010) (plurality opinion). And in McDonald, we recognized that the Second Amendment applies fully against the States as well as the Federal Government. Id., at 750, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3026, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 903; id., at 805, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3058, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 938 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).Despite these holdings, several Courts of Appeals—including the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the decision below — have upheld categorical bans on firearms that millions of Americans commonly own for lawful purposes. See 784 F. 3d 406, 410-412 (2015). Because noncompliance with our Second Amendment precedents warrants this Court’s attention as much as any of our precedents, I would grant certiorari in this case. . . . Instead of adhering to our reasoning in Heller, the Seventh Circuit limited Heller to its facts, and read Heller to forbid only total bans on handguns used for self-defense in the home. Based on its crabbed reading of Heller, the Seventh Circuit felt free to adopt a test for assessing firearm bans that eviscerates many of the protections recognized in Heller and McDonald.The Court’s refusal to review a decision that flouts two of our Second Amendment precedents stands in marked contrast to the Court’s willingness to summarily reverse courts that disregard our other constitutional decisions. E.g., Maryland v. Kulbicki, ante, at 1 (per curiam) (summarily reversing because the court below applied Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984), “in name only”); Grady v. North Carolina, 575 U. S. ___ , 135 S. Ct. 1368, 191 L. Ed. 2d 459 (2015) (per curiam) (summarily reversing a judgment inconsistent with this Court’s recent Fourth Amendment precedents); Martinez v. Illinois, 572 U. S. ___, ___ , 134 S. Ct. 2070, 2077, 188 L. Ed. 2d 1112, 1120 (2014) (per curiam) (summarily reversing judgment that rested on an “understandable” double jeopardy holding that nonetheless “r[an] directly counter to our precedents”).There is no basis for a different result when our Second Amendment precedents are at stake. I would grant certiorari to prevent the Seventh Circuit from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right.” Had Judge Kavanaugh been sitting on the high Court, instead of Justice Kennedy, at the time the Court was considering Petitioner’s Writ in Friedman, it is highly likely that Judge Kavanaugh would have provided the critical fourth vote necessary for the Friedman case to be heard, along with one vote each cast in favor of review from Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito. Were the Friedman case heard, then consistent with the Heller and McDonald holdings—and this is a point that bears repeating—it is also highly likely the majority on the high Court would hold that so-called “assault weapons,” which include many popular semiautomatic weapons, and other kinds of weapons, including shotguns that operate through revolving cylinders, do in fact fall within the core of the Second Amendment. That would put to effective rest all the media fanfare and ridiculous uproar over this matter. Thus, any legislation that bans the civilian citizenry of our Nation from owning and possessing such weapons would be struck down as unconstitutional. This, then, easily explains, in great part, the apoplectic reaction by progressives, and by other left-wing radical elements in our society, toward Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to sit as the next Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. These left-wing elements know that unlawful legislation, which includes much of what it is they want, and what they would have obtained had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 Presidential election--and had she appointed non-originalists to the U.S. Supreme Court, which she would certainly have done--will not withstand judicial scrutiny at the level of the Supreme Court, with Judge Kavanaugh on the Bench. If Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to sit on the high Court, that will put a damper on the efficacy of a Socialist agenda, ever coming to fruition, long after Donald Trump’s Presidency has ended. Thus, Donald Trump's legacy and, indeed, the jurisprudential legacy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, will be preserved. Thus, the blood spilled by those who sought to create a free Republic, and the blood spilled by Americans, since--in all the wars and conflicts fought to maintain our free Republic--will not have been in vain._________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

HEARING OF THE U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY ON NICS REPORTING AND FIREARM ACCCESSORY REGULATION

WHAT IS THE GOAL OF CONGRESS: TO REPAIR AND IMPROVE NICS REPORTING REQUIREMENTS OR TO TURN NICS INTO A MASSIVE FIREARMS REGISTRATION SCHEME?

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." ~ Thomas Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774—1776On Wednesday, December 6, 2017, the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, presided over by Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-IA, held a three-hour Hearing on firearms, titled, “Firearm Accessory Regulation and Enforcing Federal and State Reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).” The full Committee attended. That included the Ranking Democratic Member of the Committee, and virulent opponent of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.  CSPAN televised the Hearing.Two panels convened. The first one included senior officials of the ATF, FBI, the Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, and the Inspector General of Department of Defense. The second panel convened included, inter alia, a survivor of the Las Vegas mass shooting tragedy, Heather Gooze, who was the first to speak; two Second Amendment legal experts, David Kopel and Stephen Halbrook; and the Montgomery County Chief of Police and Major Cities Chiefs Association President, J. Thomas Manger.The two mass shooting incidents—one occurring during the Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 1, 2017 and the second occurring at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, roughly one month later, on November 5, 2017—served, evidently, as the impetus for and the backdrop for this Hearing. The Senate Judiciary Committee focused its questioning of the first panel on: one, the mechanics of criminal and mental health reporting requirements, two, the sharing of data or lack of sharing of data between State and federal police agencies, and, three, the failure of Governmental agencies, both federal and State, to maintain accurate, reliable, and complete databases on those individuals who are not permitted to possess firearms. The Senate Judiciary Committee focused questioning of the second panel on firearms—semiautomatic rifles—that the killers, Stephen Paddock and Devin Patrick Kelley allegedly utilized to murder innocent people.The purpose of this article is not to delve into the interstices and intricacies of the Senate Hearing but to inform the American public of the fact of it and the specific concerns addressed during it that cast in high relief the dangers posed to preserving the sacred right embodied in the Second Amendment.Antigun proponents, through their Congressional representatives—Senate Democratic Party members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including ranking Democratic Party member, Dianne Feinstein, and her principal cohorts, Patrick Leahy, Richard Blumenthal, Dick Durbin, and Sheldon Whitehouse, among others—wish to move the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and other criminal and mental health databases into an efficient and massive and broad digital firearms registration scheme, embracing more and more individuals and incentivizing the military and the States to add comprehensive criminal and mental health data into NICS and other databases. Through this Hearing, and through recent comments of antigun proponents in news broadcasts, we see renewed efforts by antigun proponents, stoked by the recent mass shooting incidents—to weaken the Second Amendment beyond past efforts. Emboldened, we see efforts afoot by antigun proponents to transform NICS and other federal and State databases into a comprehensive digital firearms’ registration scheme, wrapping it into a more restrictive, draconian criminal and mental health background check scheme.If successful, these efforts by the antigun movement would infringe not only the basic, natural and fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms, embodied in the Second Amendment, but would also infringe the fundamental right embodied in the unreasonable searches and seizures clause of the Fourth Amendment, and infringe, too, the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. And, the antigun movement does not stop there. Not content to ban some semiautomatic firearms—that Federal Statute (the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB)) at one time, defined certain semiautomatic firearms as ‘assault weapons,’ until the AWB expired in 2004, and which several States, with their own assault weapon ban statutes, in full force, presently prohibit—the antigun movement now seeks to ban all semiautomatic firearms.There are efforts afoot to enact federal law not unlike the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). Under the NFA, the ATF heavily regulates civilian ownership and possession of from possessing fully automatic machine guns and submachine guns and selective fire assault rifles. And, the civilian population is prohibited altogether from owning newly manufactured fully automatic weapons.So, even as the House in recent days passed the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 (H.R. 38), a bill that strengthens the Second Amendment, which now goes to the U.S. Senate for consideration, we see--in stark contrast and contradistinction to pro-Second Amendment efforts to strengthen the right of the people to keep and bear arms--efforts by antigun Legislators mobilizing and gearing up to dispossess American citizens of semiautomatic firearms—all semiautomatic firearms, not merely those bizarrely categorized as ‘assault weapons.’ Antigun proponents evidently feel that they can hoodwink the American public, given the recent mass shooting incidents—which they use to their advantage—as they work unceasingly toward their ultimate goal to dispossess all Americans, eventually, of their firearms.During the questioning of the first panel, senior Officials of the Federal Government admitted that the NICS system was incomplete and faulty. The reason for this is that the military, especially, but also the States, have been remiss in entering data pertaining to individuals convicted of crimes that preclude these individuals from possessing firearms. Senator Ted Cruz, in his opening remarks, also made the pertinent point that individuals who falsify information to obtain a firearm have violated federal law, but that these crimes are rarely prosecuted and, so, all too often go unpunished.Falsifying information to obtain a firearm when an individual is not permitted to possess a firearm is a serious crime. 18 USCS § 922(a)(6), titled, “Unlawful acts” sets forth clearly, categorically, and unequivocally that: “it shall be unlawful for any person in connection with the acquisition or attempted acquisition of any firearm or ammunition from a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector, knowingly to make any false or fictitious oral or written statement or to furnish or exhibit any false, fictitious, or misrepresented identification, intended or likely to deceive such importer, manufacturer, dealer, or collector with respect to any fact material to the lawfulness of the sale or other disposition of such firearm or ammunition under the provisions of this chapter.” Senator Cruz was making the point, albeit tacitly, that laws that have no legal consequences do not amount to laws at all. Enforcement of federal firearms laws is lackadaisical at best, a point often made by NRA and a point perfunctorily ignored by antigun proponents whose real goal, after all, is to go after the millions of law-abiding gun owners, even as they profess to express concern over those individuals, alone, who are absolutely prohibited by law “to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign  commerce.” See United States Code, 18 USCS § 922(g) and 18 USCS § 922(n), titled, “Unlawful Acts,” as set forth in Title 18, “Crimes and Criminal Procedure,” of Part I, “Crimes,” of Chapter 44, “Firearms.”During the hearing, Legislators on the Judiciary Committee uniformly expressed concern over faulty federal NICS record-keeping and they requested, from the panel of senior Government officials, an explanation for the failure of these Government Offcials to keep the criminal databases up-to-date. But, it is one thing to repair the NICS record-keeping system; it is quite another to contemplate dumping ever more people into it, essentially, eventually, encapsulating minutia of mental health details of every American, along with details of every infraction committed by every American during every period of his or her life—every spat between husband wife or boyfriend and girlfriend, and an accounting of every instance, every bout of depression or anxiety an American citizen at one time or another may have had. Democratic Party members of the Judiciary Committee—alluded to expanding NICS and other criminal and mental health databases into a comprehensive and permanent digital—as opposed to merely manual—database of every firearm’s transaction and tying that to and in tandem with a universal background check schema.Clearly, the aim of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee is, then, more ambitious and grandiose than merely repairing a faulty NICS system. We are headed toward a universal registration system if antigun proponents have their way. Every firearm owner becomes suspect. Hence, every American, who owns a firearm must be carefully screened, and those licensed and therefore “privileged” to own and possess a firearm, will be carefully and continuously observed for signs of anti-social behavior, predicated on subjective standards of assessment. The implication of a universal criminal and mental health background check system tied into a permanent NICS databases are dire from the standpoint of Constitutional privacy concerns.Then, there are the firearms themselves. During the questioning of the second panel, it became clear that it wasn’t Stephen Paddock or Devin Patrick Kelley who were being castigated for the horror they caused. Rather, it was the semiautomatic weapons that were the target of and the focus of the Senators' ire--those Democratic Party members who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee.One speaker on the second panel, who was the first to speak, was a young woman named Heather Gooze. She detailed her personal experiences during the Las Vegas shooting episode and resulting carnage. This survivor’s anguished account of holding and attempting to aid and comfort a dying stranger, who had been shot by Paddock, was poignant, graphic, heart-rending, heartfelt, and deepfelt, as it was meant to be—but, for all that, it was also irrelevant. The fault for the tragedy in Las Vegas was not laid at the feet of the maniac, Stephen Paddock, the sole cause of the carnage—assuming there were no others that abetted Paddock. No! The fault for the crime is laid on inanimate objects—the weapons Paddock used in the commission of his heinous acts. But, if civilian access to an entire category of weapons, semiautomatic rifles, in common use by millions of law-abiding, sane, responsible Americans, is to be curtailed, then, those who would ban civilian possession of semiautomatic weapons  must propound sound legal and logical arguments in support of their case. Arguments amounting to emotional rhetoric, however endearing and heartfelt and honest they may be, are not rational substitutes for sound reasoning.What was on display during the Hearing, was unabashed grief and anger. That is what we heard from the young woman, Heather Gooze: a plaintive and soulful, if tacit, cry for a universal ban on semiautomatic weapons, and that is what the Senators on the Judiciary Committee got from her. This appeal to sympathy for one's cause, derived from heartfelt pain, is representative of a common fallacy. It's one an undergraduate college student learns about in a course on informal and formal symbolic logic. The Latin expression for this informal fallacy is argumentum ad misericordiam (argument from pity or sympathy or misery, or compassion). The fallacy of argumentum ad misericordiam is committed when pity, or sympathy, or compassion, or misery is appealed to for the sake of getting someone to accept a conclusion predicated on emotion, alone, sidestepping the salient issue.Appealing to pity, compassion, or sympathy, or misery avoids dealing with the pertinent legal questions. The pertinent legal question here is this: do semiautomatic weapons fall within the core of the Second Amendment’s protection? Antigun proponents use the argument from pity incessantly to sidestep this legal issue—the real issue—because they do not wish to hit the issue head-on. Appealing to sympathy or pity, or misery, or anger operates as a convenient substitute for cogent and sound legal and logical reasoning. It is unfortunate that the U.S. Supreme Court has, at least twice, decided not to take up the issue whether semiautomatic weapons do fall within the core of the Second Amendment’s protection, as appellants in the cases failed to garner four votes necessary to secure high Court review. See, Friedman vs. City of Highland Park, Illinois, 784 F.3d 406 (7th Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 447, 193 L. Ed.2d 483 (2015); and, recently, Kolbe vs. Hogan, 813 F.3d 160 (4th Cir. Md., 2016), cert. denied, 2017 LEXIS 7002. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on both these cases.The legal and logical weaknesses of the antigun proponent’s position, apropos of semiautomatic weapons, would be all too apparent were they to try to evince an argument. The public is hit with emotional rhetoric and pious sentiments, instead. Such emotional outrage has clout, even as it is devoid of substance. Heather Gooze used it to good effect during the Hearing. Her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee was as much a plea for action from the public as it was a plea for action from the Senate. No doubt, that was the reason she was invited to speak before the Committee at this public Hearing.Antigun proponents invariably take the argumentum ad misericordiam out of their sack of tricks whenever a tragedy involving the misuse of firearms occurs. They know that tragic events tug at the heartstrings of anyone who has a modicum of compassion in his or her heart, which are the majority of us—and which do not include psychopaths, who have no inkling of and therefore have absolutely no understanding of the concept of compassion. And, these individuals, who lack a modicum of compassion include, as well, common criminals who might understand the concept but simply don’t care since a consideration of compassion during the commission of a crime interferes with their personal selfish ends.Appealing to sympathy as an argument to dispossess millions of law-abiding firearms owners of their firearms operates as a useful makeweight, a convenient scapegoat, for antigun proponents, allowing antigun proponents to avoid factoring in the complex legal, logical, historical, cultural, and ethical ramifications of taking firearms away from millions of sane, rational, honest Americans. Essentially the antigun proponent’s argument, in various forms and permutations, boils down to this:“semiautomatic ‘assault weapons’ are weapons of war and have no legitimate use in civilian hands other than to commit murder and to do so on a large scale. And, manufacturers market these weapons to the entire civilian population which includes, then, mentally ill individuals and criminals who should not have them. These weapons have incredible firepower and no legitimate civilian use. Just look at what happens when a poor, deluded person gets hold of this ‘weapon of war.’ Just look at the harm he calls. Anyone who has a heart at all should see that semiautomatic assault weapons will only cause bad things to happen and will cause good people to do bad things. If you don’t want to see an innocent child, a vulnerable woman, a weak old man harmed—and what caring, compassionate human being does—then you will agree with us that there is no place for these ‘weapons of war’ in a civilized society, and you will write or call your Congressman or Senator, asking your Legislator to enact legislation that permanently bans these awful weapons of war, to ban them for the good of society so that no other person will ever suffer the needless tragedy that these weapons of war cause.” Well, if there is a sound reason for banning semiautomatic weapons from civilians, this isn’t it. Apart from appealing solely to one’s emotions, the argument embraces false assumptions, hyperbole, and irrelevant considerations. And, if you think our illustration of the fallacy of argumentum misericordiam amounts itself to a fallacy—the straw man fallacy, as some, who challenge our position, may claim—it does not. The remarks, concerning semiautomatic weapons as ‘assault weapons’ and ‘weapons of war,’ “weapons that have no legitimate civilian use,” and the notion that firearms manufacturers market these “weapons of war” to criminals and to the mentally ill are not suppositions the Arbalest Quarrel has invented to illustrate an argumentum misericordiam, for the purpose simply to knock down a straw man. No! These remarks are not our invention at all. These remarks, purporting to be arguments against civilian possession of firearms, are utilized constantly, incessantly by antigun proponents. And, more to the point, these remarks, as set forth in our example, comprise, in part, allegations taken from an actual formal legal pleading—namely and specifically the First Amended Complaint of the Soto Plaintiffs, in Soto vs. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC., 2016 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2626; CCH Prod. Liab. Rep. P19,932. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively on this case and continues to write articles about it. See, for example, our in-depth article, titled, “Soto vs. Bushmaster: Antigunners Take Aim at Gun Manufacturers.” We also wish to point out that a detailed account of one’s personal experiences, as related to the reader or listener—those of Heather Gooze, during the Senate Hearing—amount to a series of declarations that have no appreciable epistemic value. In other words, her account of the tragedy in Las Vegas, that occurred during the Harvest Music Festival, is not the sort of thing that one can reasonably challenge, or that need be challenged, or is expected by anyone to be challenged, as false.The Arbalest Quarrel accepts the account of Heather Gooze, as related at the Senate Hearing, as true, and does not quarrel with it. There is no reason to. There is no reason to consider her personal account as false. We say this because the remarks of Heather Gooze have no concrete epistemic value on the salient issue whether semiautomatic weapons fall within the core of the Second Amendment. Her remarks or declarations of events as she experienced them at the Harvest Music Festival do not serve as a sound reason for banning semiautomatic weapons from the millions of average, law-abiding, rational, responsible American citizens who own and possess them, notwithstanding that the Democratic Party Senators on the Judiciary Committee happen to believe the account of Heather Gooze to be relevant to the issue whether semiautomatic weapons are the sorts of firearms that properly belong in the hands of the average, rational and responsible American citizen. The remarks of Heather Gooze simply attest, at best, to a matter that everyone can agree with: that criminals, psychopaths, Islamic terrorists, and other assorted lunatics—the flotsam and jetsam of society—should not have access to any firearm. One might by the same token argue that the worst elements of society should not have access to anything that can feasibly be used to cause great harm to others and to many individuals at one time. Consider for example: a knife, an automobile or truck, or chainsaw. What we are getting at here is that common criminals, and members of drug cartels and criminal gangs, and psychopaths, and Islamic terrorists, and other assorted lunatics and maniacs and riffraff who pose a danger to others, as these individual do, should be removed from our society. It is not the firearm that should be removed from American society.That common criminals, terrorists, psychotics, or psychopaths may happen to get their hands on a semiautomatic rifle or on any other firearm to harm others does not serve as a sound legal or logical reason for banning semiautomatic weapons en masse from millions of average, law-abiding, responsible, rational American citizens. And, make no mistake, Senator Dianne Feinstein and the other Democratic Party members of the Senate Judiciary Committee do seek to ban and do work feverishly to ban all semiautomatic weapons, just as fully automatic weapons and selective fire weapons have been essentially banned from civilian possession, since 1934, with passage of the National Firearms Act (NFA). In fact, Senator Dianne Feinstein would accomplish this feat through enactment of a very devious bit of legislation, which was referred to during the Senate Hearing.Roughly two months ago, on October 4, 2017, Senator Feinstein introduced the following bill in the U.S. Senate:Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, This Act may be cited as the "Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act".POSSESSION OF CERTAIN FIREARM ACCESSORIES. Chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, is amended-   in section 922, by inserting after subsection (u) the following:   "(v)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), on and after the date that is 180 days after the date of enactment of this subsection, it shall be unlawful for any person to import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, a trigger crank, a bump-fire device, or any part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment, or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle but not convert the semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun.   This subsection does not apply with respect to the importation for, manufacture for, sale to, transfer to, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof."; and   in section 924(a)(2), by striking ", or (o)" and inserting "(o), or (v)". Attorneys David Kopel and Stephen Halbrook, sitting on the second panel, and testifying at the Senate Hearing—were acutely aware of this Senate bill. David Kopel pointed out that the language of Feinstein’s bill, the "Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act," makes very clear that any change at all to any semiautomatic weapon—lightening the trigger pull, for example, or even cleaning a firearm—can effectively serve to increase the rate of fire of the weapon. Thus, any semiautomatic rifle can, were Feinstein’s bill enacted, serve as the basis to ban outright all semiautomatic rifles. When faced with David Kopel’s critical, astute remarks, Senator Feinstein demurred, seemed agitated and, evidently, perplexed, asserting, disingenuously, that the bill was drafted by capable attorneys, suggesting, perhaps, or, then again, perhaps not, that her bill only targets certain types of accessories or components for semiautomatic weapons, such as the “bump-fire device” (“bump stock”) that are specifically mentioned, and not, ipso facto, all semiautomatic weapons. But, that doesn't seem to be the case; and, if that is not the case, then this would suggest that the drafters of Feinstein’s bill either know very little about the operation of semiautomatic rifles or know the operation of semiautomatic weapons all too well. If the former supposition is true, then the bill has unintended consequences: positive consequences for antigun proponents; negative consequences for everyone else. This means that all semiautomatic rifles can and eventually would be banned. This is consistent with the plain meaning of the bill. If the latter supposition is true, then, given the plain meaning of the bill, the bill is a subterfuge. This would mean that those who drafted Feinstein's bill intended, all along, not merely to suggest that only some accessories for semiautomatic rifles would be banned, but that, in fact, all semiautomatic weapons would be banned, as this is what antigun proponents want and have wanted all along and this is what the bill says: no semiautomatic weapons in the hands of American citizens qua civilians. Either way, Senator Feinstein would derive from her bill, if enacted, exactly what she had long sought—a universal ban on semiautomatic weapons defined as ‘assault weapons’—meaning, of course, that all semiautomatic weapons would be banned because all semiautomatic weapons are, ipso facto, ‘assault weapons,’ as Senator Feinstein sees it.Never underestimate the deviousness of antigun proponents and never trust them when they assert that they do not seek to defeat the right of the people to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment. These antigun groups, and antigun legislators, and their billionaire benefactors, and their fellow travelers in the mainstream media and in Hollywood, will not rest easy until each and every average American citizen qua civilian—apart from the so-called “elites” in society, like Senator Feinstein, herself—is prohibited, by law, from owning and possessing any kind of firearm._________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

TOM COBURN ADDS HIS NAME TO THE GROWING LIST OF PRESENT AND FORMER REPUBLICANS WHO SAY THE SENATE SHOULD HOLD A VOTE ON GARLAND. THE QUESTION IS: WHY ARE SOME REPUBLICANS CAVING IN?

TOM COBURN ADDS HIS NAME TO THE GROWING LIST OF PRESENT AND FORMER REPUBLICANS WHO SAY THE SENATE SHOULD HOLD A VOTE ON GARLAND. THE QUESTION IS: WHY ARE SOME REPUBLICANS CAVING IN?

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” Animal Farm, by George Orwell, 1945Can we be certain that Senate Republicans are dead-set against the confirmation of Judge Merrick Garland to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, we know that at least one Senate Republican, Mark Steven Kirk, would like very much to see Obama’s nominee confirmed.This should come as no surprise to anyone; for Senator Kirk, the Republican, is, as we know, a virulent opponent of the right of the American people to keep and bear arms. See the Arbalest Quarrel article, titled, "Senator Kirk Can't Whitewash Merrick Garland; the Record Speaks for Itself."But, what of other Senate Republicans – those who ostensibly support the Second Amendment, such as Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Well, as we recently pointed out, the Senator made poignantly clear to CNN anchor Kate Bolduan that, if a confirmation is held, Judge Garland will be confirmed. Take a look at the Arbalest Quarrel article, titled, "Read the Fine Print: Garland's Confirmation Under the Microscope."Would that concern Senator Graham, presumably a staunch defender of the Second Amendment? Apparently not. After all, Senator Graham voted to confirm Obama’s first two short-list nominees to the high Court: Sonya Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. The jurisprudential philosophy of these two Obama nominees is well known, and it is one diametrically opposed to that of Justices Thomas and Alito, and opposed, as well, to the jurisprudential philosophy of the late Justice Scalia.So, then, if Senator Graham harbored any doubts about the qualifications of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, it obviously was not enough to prevent him from voting for their confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. The attitudes of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan toward the Second Amendment are well known and they are contrary to those held by Justices Thomas, Alito, and to the late Justice Scalia.Of course, Senator Graham may have been duped. But that is highly unlikely. He is highly intelligent. Could any United States Senator truly doubt that Obama would nominate a judge to the high Court without having given careful consideration to that person’s jurisprudential philosophy on a range of Constitutional issues and to that person’s methodology for deciding cases and to the impact that person’s jurisprudential philosophy would have on Americans’ fundamental rights through that person's written decisions.Recently, in the New York Times, former Republican Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma, added his voice to the growing chorus of seemingly staunch supporters of the Second Amendment who are calling for action on Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.Oddly enough, former Republican Senator Coburn says, according to the NY Times, in the article, titled, “Tom Coburn, Ex-Senator, Says Merrick Garland Should Get a Vote,” that Garland should get a vote but that this should not be taken to mean that Garland should be confirmed.Wait a minute! If Garland gets a vote there exists the possibility that he may be confirmed, and, according to Senator Graham, if Garland gets a vote, he would be confirmed, no doubt about it. So, then, what is the rationale for holding a vote if past and present Republican Senators agree that Garland will be confirmed, notwithstanding their remarks that Garland ought not to be confirmed to a seat on the high Court.Obviously, if there is no vote on the confirmation, Garland cannot be confirmed. It is logically impossible for Garland to be confirmed without a vote of the Senate. But, if Garland cannot possibly be confirmed, then why hold a vote at all? Does the Senate have nothing better to do than to hold a vote on Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court if Garland could not possibly be confirmed? The entire vote issue on Garland is a red herring, and should be laid to rest until the next U.S. President assumes Office.If Coburn and others believe a vote on Obama’s nominee is required by law, that is false. While there is debate among legal academicians as to the import of the “advice and consent clause,” one point is abundantly clear, the U.S. President cannot, on his own authority, lawfully, unilaterally appoint a person to the U.S. Supreme Court.If, as is presently the case, the Senate does not consent to the nomination, allowing a vote on the nomination would not be consistent with the consent requirement. In fact there is nothing in the appointment’s clause and in the "advice and consent" clause of Article 2, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution that discusses the matter of voting on a President’s nominee at all. In the present matter the Senate has spoken. The Senate has advised the President that it does not consent to the nomination of Judge Garland.Now, if Coburn and other like-minded Republicans were to argue that the Senate owes the President a vote on his nominee as a matter of professional courtesy, which, then, has nothing to do with the Senate’s obligation under the “advice and consent” clause well, consider: does the risk of snubbing a President’s nominee outweigh a threat posed to the continued preservation of the Second Amendment? It would seem that Tom Coburn would very much like to see Garland confirmed.As the NY Times reports Coburn saying, “I don’t know if he [Merrick Garland] deserves a hearing. . . . He deserves a vote out of the [Judiciary] committee.” “Tom Coburn, Ex-Senator, Says Merrick Garland Should Get a Vote,” Really? Coburn appears to be saying, although tacitly, that the Senate should dispense with a public hearing altogether – that the Senate should just hold a closed-door vote, out of the purview of the public. That would be fair? To whom? Certainly not to the American people who have more than a little stake in the matter.The mainstream media and those who call for a hearing, or a vote, or both, constantly carp that the Senate Judiciary Committee’s motivation for denying Garland a hearing and/or vote is simply to be attributed to “politics.” But, that’s mere subterfuge.The Senate Judiciary Committee is well aware that, if Garland receives a vote – whether that vote comes after or in lieu of a hearing – he will be confirmed. The House knows it; the Senate knows it; the President knows it; and the American people know it.If Garland is confirmed, the sanctity of the Second Amendment will be threatened in a manner never before seen. A threat – any feasible threat – to our fundamental rights ought never be casually dismissed as mere “politics.” That is why Senator Grassley’s Judiciary Committee must hold fast and not be swayed by rhetoric coming from surly Democrats, disloyal Republicans, and from the mainstream media that echoes and trumpets their sentiments.Once again, we are drawn back to Orwell’s allegory, "Animal Farm," which has as much application today as it had in Orwell’s time: “No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”As between those Senate Democrats who are calling for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary to convene a hearing and/or hold a vote on Obama’s third nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, and those Senate Republicans who are calling for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary to convene a hearing and/or hold a vote on Obama’s third nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court – as we look at each of them – as we move back and forth among them – one to the other – from Democrat to Republican, and from Republican to Democrat – it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between them. So many Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans are looking awfully like one another. Aren’t they?[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2016 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.