In England singer George Michael gets a post mortem as a matter of routine, but in the US not Justice Antonin Scalia

From the story here:

The Thames Valley Police, calling the death "unexplained but not suspicious," sent THR the following statement: "Thames Valley Police were called to a property in Goring-on-Thames shortly before 2pm Christmas Day. Sadly, a 53-year-old man was confirmed deceased at the scene. At this stage the death is being treated as unexplained but not suspicious. A post mortem will be undertaken in due course. There will be no further updates from Thames Valley Police until the post mortem has taken place."

Flashback to February here:

[A]fter Scalia died, it was Texas state law, not any federal framework, that guided officials’ actions—and left a single judge to make the call that an autopsy wasn’t needed.

Trump rewards Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for stonewalling Obama's Supreme Court appointment by picking his wife for Transportation

I don't view this as "nepotism" per se as others have who are much too quick to criticize Trump's centrism post-election.

Mitch McConnell withstood Obama's appointment power all through this period since the death of Scalia, enduring severe attacks for it from the left. People on the right who won't recognize what he accomplished are simply malign. They are like those who didn't recognize John Boehner's achievement getting the Bush tax cuts made permanent, and in many cases they are the same people, and unfortunately they are Legion.

McConnell's wife Elaine Chao had eight years' cabinet experience as head of Labor under Bush II and is competent to govern Transportation now under Trump. Not that we want her to have much to administer.

It is not a consequential appointment, except in the broad sense that Trump is not in the least setting about to take a machete to the federal Leviathan. Chao will maintain the status quo, more or less.

Here's my big idea for Trump's Supreme Court appointments

Don't appoint a replacement for Scalia . . . appoint three.

Thanks to Mitch McConnell the Scalia seat will be filled by Donald Trump

Jonathan Turley is saying right now that Trump is going to make almost unprecedented changes to the make-up of the Supreme Court.

Publius Decius Mus rightly mocks Mark Levin's convention of the states

Not in so many words, but he does nevertheless, here:

"[I]n the federally consolidated super-state, what good do state legislatures do anyway? Does Voegeli or doesn’t he agree with me that federal and administrative state control will become more consolidated rather than less in Clinton II? We could have every statehouse in the nation, and everything we try to do (which, once again, is: not much) would just be overridden by judges and bureaucrats."

It was amusing to hear Mark Levin play an Antonin Scalia audio this evening, in which Scalia ridiculed the parchment barrier of The Bill of Rights, which Levin's grand scheme is to increase the length of with his manifold "liberty amendments". Does Levin even listen to Scalia, or just grovel at his feet?

Scalia clearly expressed in the audio that the separation of powers was key to our liberties, not the Bill of Rights.

Yet, yet, neither Scalia, nor Levin, nor Publius Decius Mus for that matter recognize that it was Abraham Lincoln, their hero!, who destroyed the separation of powers and arrogated all the power to the executive, the very heart and soul of the once and future "federal and administrative state".

That Lincoln did so over slavery was simply the pretext.

Hello Barack Obama. Hello Black Lives Matter. Hello . . . communism.

Ted Cruz says he'll vote for Donald Trump as promised, urges you to join him, and says Hillary is wholly unacceptable

Here on Facebook, citing primarily Supreme Court appointments and the fate of the Bill of Rights, then the costs of ObamaCare for millions of Americans, the Democrat war on coal, oil and gas, the lawless executive illegal immigrant amnesty, threats to National Security from Muslim immigration, and Obama's giving up of US control of the internet.

That should also help him get reelected down in Texas.

Smart move. Really late, but a smart move.

What's wrong with America, epitomized by Glenn Harlan Reynolds

He thinks gay libertarian Peter Thiel would be an excellent nominee to the US Supreme Court.

Here.

The libertarian vote is like 1% of the population. LGBTQLSMFT is less than 4% of the population, but there isn't one Protestant on the Supreme Court even though 50% of the country is.  

Speaker Paul Ryan lectures us to be ideologues and remains ignorant of how our founders appealed to English identity

In March, the Speaker informed us thusly:

"I want to talk about what our country can be…about what our Founders envisioned it to be. America is the only nation founded an idea—not an identity. That idea is the notion that the condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life. Our rights are natural. They come from God, not government."

George Mason, principal author of the Fairfax County Resolves of 1774 in response to the Coercive Acts, in 1776 begged to differ:

"We claim nothing but the liberty and privileges of Englishmen in the same degree, as if we had continued among our brethren in Great Britain."

So also Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley in 1873:

"The people of this country brought with them to its shores the rights of Englishmen, the rights which had been wrested from English sovereigns at various periods of the nation's history.... England has no written constitution, it is true, but it has an unwritten one, resting in the acknowledged, and frequently declared, privileges of Parliament and the people, to violate which in any material respect would produce a revolution in an hour. A violation of one of the fundamental principles of that constitution in the Colonies, namely, the principle that recognizes the property of the people as their own, and which, therefore, regards all taxes for the support of government as gifts of the people through their representatives, and regards taxation without representation as subversive of free government, was the origin of our own revolution."

What's wrong with conservatism in America is that it has forgotten all this, if it ever knew it at all.

Mostly female social conservatives saved the Republican platform from Paul Singer surrogate Annie Dickerson

From the story here:

But the [Tony] Perkins wing was met with vocal opposition from Annie Dickerson, an adviser to billionaire GOP donor Paul Singer, who is a proponent of same-sex marriage and other issues championed by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Dickerson fumed as her socially liberal proposals went down and the socially conservative measures she opposed sailed through the subcommittee. ... 

The 16-member subcommittee, made up of 13 women and three men, rejected Dickerson’s request to remove language in the platform that “salutes” states like North Carolina for passing controversial bathroom laws that critics say discriminate against transgender people.

She protested language that said the party supports “traditional marriage and the families a husband and wife create,” arguing instead for a provision that said children should be “raised in a loving and stable home.”

And she argued against having language in the platform that opposes the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.

Jonathan Turley rips Justice Ruth "Buzzi" Ginsburg, agrees with Trump that her statements are unethical and undermine the Supreme Court

Here:

[Trump] is right. What she did is not just wrong ethically. It undermines the integrity of the Supreme Court. it's a very serious blow to that court.

Six plus years on the federal gravy train have been bery bery good to Justice Sonia Sotomayor

2009

2015

Dilbert knows liberals have to have the presidency because without the Court they've got bupkiss

Hm. Maybe they did knock off Antonin Scalia.

Here:

When you encounter a rabid anti-Trumper, ask her what are the biggest concerns of a potential Trump presidency. 

If “Supreme Court nominee” is one of the top objections, discontinue your persuasion for ethical reasons. This person has put some thought into the decision and has a legitimate opinion that is at least partly based on reason. I don’t recommend changing that person’s mind.

Obama's Justice Sotomayor is the total and complete racist Americans should be worried about

New York Times transcript of 2001 Sotomayor speech, here, where she says physiological differences may and will make a difference in the administration of justice and make decisions better:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Senate Republicans Alexander, Bond, Collins, Grahamnesty, GreggTARP, Lugar, Martinez, Snowe and Voinovich voted to confirm her, 68-31.

Hey Paul Ryan, I got your textbook racism right here!

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

When the Supremes rule that men can pee and poop in all little girls bathrooms, John Kasich will just say it's time to move on

"Get over it if you have a disagreement with somebody."

OK, somebody confiscate this guy's Republican registration right away before someone gets hurt.

John Kasich thinks the Supreme Court runs this country, not the people, just like the GOPe thinks it picks the candidate, not you

Here:

“I do believe in traditional marriage, but the court has ruled, and it’s time to move on.”

Ken Blackwell of Club For Growth is delusional: 47% of Trump's supporters won't vote for Cruz if he's given the nomination by the convention

There's that number again, 47%.

Of Trump's popular vote to date, that's only 3.7 million Trump voters rebelling against the Republicans.

Remember Rush's Limbaugh's "4 million stayed home in 2012"?

Ken Blackwell, quoted here:

“As far as my objective of forcing this into a contested convention, I feel very optimistic about it," said Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who is working with a pair of anti-Trump groups, including Our Principles PAC, which paid for the Wisconsin billboards. ...

Blackwell said he wasn't concerned about a Cruz convention victory splitting the party, as long as the process was “transparent.” He also said the party could afford to alienate new voters Trump is bringing to the party—Blackwell referred to them as “undocumented Republicans”—because the traditional base would be motivated to stop Clinton.

“Folks will get over it,” Blackwell said. “The prospects of Hillary Clinton naming a liberal justice to the Supreme Court, expanding our welfare state and furthering our incompetence in international affairs will drive out the old base that didn't come out for Romney.”

The John Kasich vote is the Rorshach for the "Obamacon" vote, owns about 14% of the GOP primary vote so far

"I ought to be running in a Democrat primary", he said in New Hampshire.

"Just because someone happens to be a Democrat doesn't mean they're disqualified", he said about his possible choice of a vice presidential running mate.

"Well, you know, he received you know overwhelming support, I think even from Senator Hatch, so of course we'd think about it," he said about possibly naming Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court himself, Obama's current pick to replace Scalia.

John Kasich, Supreme Court squish, would consider Obama's nominee Garland

Quoted here:

"As someone who's talked about unity, would you take a look at Mr. Garland...if you were elected president?" host John Dickerson asked Kasich.

"Well, you know, he received you know overwhelming support, I think even from Senator Hatch, so of course we'd think about it," Kasich replied.

In other words, expect more liberals on the court from President John Kasich.

Bruce Bartlett goes off his meds again

Here:

[T]he system is out of balance, creating gridlock even as the public cries out for action on serious problems such as our deteriorating public infrastructure, epitomized by that in Flint, Michigan. ... The government was shut down, increases in the debt limit are constantly at risk, nominations to even the most minor administration positions are blocked and, now, the president has been denied the opportunity, which is his right under the Constitution, to name a new justice to the Supreme Court.

Let's see.

Incompetent Democrats failed to treat the water of the Flint River properly before tapping it, ruining Flint's infrastructure.

Republicans gained seats after the government shutdown. Maybe they should do it more often.

Republicans subsequently extended the debt limit until after Mr Teflon is gone so as not to interfere with the president's many golf outings and vacations.

The president still can name whoever he wants to whatever he wants.

Meanwhile the public cries out for Donald Trump, not action.