Don't feel sorry for Merrick Garland

I just want to clear something up about Merrick Garland. I come here not to praise or bury him, but to castigate him soundly. 

When Merrick Garland stood beside Barack Obama being announced as the next nominee for the Supreme Court, he teared up. I don't blame him. It was quite an honor. When the Republicans did not give him a hearing or move forward on his nomination because it was in an election year, I opposed it. He should have had a hearing. I think he'd be on the court, because Republicans are more likely to vote for a Democratic nominee than vise versa, but, it is hard to say. It seemed at the time he was not so different than Brett Kavanaugh, who, despite all the venom shot in his direction, is at best a moderate conservative. I'm sure Trump is sorry he nominated him. In any event, blocking Garland inflamed and energized the D party.

That said, now that Garland is the Attorney General, I take back my empathy. Despite his declaration that he's independent of the White House, he usually appears to be a true lap dog to the president in a way Bill Barr certainly never was (he sometimes made Trump very unhappy). 

For example, he had the DOJ file a civil rights action against Texas. Some would be mad at me if I assume it's because Texas is trying to find away to stop babies with heart beats from being torn apart in the womb, but I have trouble not seeing that - as it is the whole point of the law to avoid it. The civil rights complaint claims to seek the protection of women's rights. But, note, not women who are in the womb, of course. That will not even be considered. 

Though I don't think as the abortion cases stands now - with it being constitutionally protected before viability, there is a chance much above 0 that this law will survive the Supreme Court decision (contrary to rumor, Texas has not already won in the Supreme Court - the Court only decided not to uphold the lower court stay while a different case was being determined), the federal suit is a second bite at the apple. There is no doubt that Texas is seeking an end around of Roe and the Casey case, which modified it. A federal judge has now, based on the federal suit, issued a stay, despite the Supreme Court striking down the previous one. However the appeals court reinstated the operation of law and it will probably get a second Supreme Court hearing. 

The reason I hold this against the supposedly independent Garland at the DOJ is that if you review the previous cases concerning abortion that made it to the Supreme Court, none of them concern federal civil rights suits against a state. I could be wrong, as I don't have encyclopedic knowledge of abortion cases, but I think this is the first time the federal government is a plaintiff (they have frequently filed briefs known as Amici briefs - that is, friends of the court briefs). 

While Biden at one time claimed to be personally opposed to abortion and supported the Hunt Amendment that forbid our country using public funds to support abortion outside the country, he through his core beliefs under the bus in order to win the nomination in his party.  As for Garland, when he was nominated, he had zero public record on his abortion beliefs. Had he had a hearing, there is little doubt he would have said what virtually everyone else says - Roe v. Wade is precedent, perhaps super-precedent, but also say that he's not given abortion much thought. Now as AG, he can act on his beliefs, but he is clearly doing what Biden wants. Those who said when he was nominated - we don't need to know his beliefs, we know Obama's, were correct.

He also is seeking the investigation of parents upset with the racist CRT teachings to their innocent children. At his nomination hearing, Garland famously refused to acknowledge Antifa as a terrorist group. I wonder how he would feel if they showed up his door, particularly when he wasn't home and his family was (as has happened to others). But, he clearly sees these parents as terrorists, which was exactly what was asked of him by pro-CRT groups.

I'll get back to his adventures as U.S. AG below, but the main point I want to get to here is that the narrative that has so inflamed the left - that the Republicans unfairly blocked Garland from the Supreme Court - is basically ridiculous. Blocking nominees, including for Courts, is hardly news. Both parties have done it. 

Example - George W. Bush nominated Miguel Estrada to the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals. He was a highly respected lawyer, Harvard educated and editor of their prestigious law review. The Democrats couldn't stop his hearing and his passing through the judiciary committee, because they did not control it, but, for the first time ever, filibustered a Court of Appeals nominee. Even their basic claim for voting against him, that he was never a judge, was shown to be a fib. Pres. Clinton had, in fact, nominated Elena Kagan in 1999, and she had not been a judge. In fact, in 2010 when she was nominated and confirmed, she still hadn't been a judge (and, by the way, despite how he was treated and their political differences, Estrada publicly supported her confirmation). 

A leaked memo from Sen. Durbin's staff (Dem.) indicated that the Ds used the filibuster because, other than political reasons, Estrada was "Latino." Hard to believe, but there it was in writing (Nov. 7, 2001 memo, if you want to research it yourself). The Ds were able to distract from that because the memo and others were apparently illegally obtained. 

Though the filibuster had been used before against nominees, this was the first time it was ever successful against a nominee who clearly had majority support (if he could only get a vote), the first time it was used against a Court of Appeals nominee and the first time it prevented a judicial nominee from joining a court (the filibuster had been used to keep associate Justice and LJB friend and lawyer, Abe Fortas, already on the Court, out of the Chief Justice's chair, but, there were serious ethical issues behind it and he eventually resigned over it). After more than two years in limbo, Estrada asked Bush, who had nominated him, to withdraw his name (at least that's what they said, to make it look better for him). 

By the way, Estrada wasn't alone in being treated so by the Democrat minority - there were 9 other nominees eventually filibustered by the Ds during Bush's terms. This is when Trent Lott came up with the "nuclear option" to change the rules so that a filibuster couldn't stop a judicial nominee. The nuclear option wasn't actually used then (while Bush was president, some moderate senators from both parties worked out a compromise so that the filibuster would be rarely used against judicial nominees) but was resurrected by the Ds when they held the Senate. As Sen. McConnell said at the time the Ds enacted the nuclear option, they would come to regret it and sooner than they thought - they did when the Rs took the Senate back and Trump became the nominator. 

As also is well established, former Sen. Joe Biden himself (among others) said during the first Bush's term that he should not nominate a Supreme Court Justice in the presidential election year. He was not the only D who indicated that "belief." Sen. Schumer, who I detest as he reminds me more and more of Joseph Goebbels, actually took that position in 2017: "We should not confirm any George W. Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances. They must prove by actions not words that they are in the mainstream rather than we have to prove that they are not."  

I am not suggesting that Ds alone are responsible for game playing with the filibuster. Both parties have used it to stop nominations and there has been tremendous hypocrisy on both sides. I call into the void for a Constitutional Amendment deeming all presidential nominees confirmed by the Senate unless there is an up or down vote within 90 days of nomination. The inordinate waste of time, vehemence and infighting between the parties over it would be at end and the elected president, of any party, would get to have his chosen staff. There is not a chance of it happening, but, still, it should happen.

Leave aside his nomination, I now despise Garland's tenure as AG. It did not have to be so. If he had merely acknowledged the fascist Antifa as such, if he didn't bring the Civil Rights actions against Texas, if he didn't press the investigation of parents by the FBI for fighting about a racist program being taught to their children pushed by Obama and now Biden, I'd have not changed my mind about him.  He brought this contempt on himself.

Of course, he doesn't say things the way I do. His moves, like with virtually all politicians, is always couched in some bureaucratic speech to make it sound like they are the good guys. The memo he wrote about parents calls for investigating threats against school boards. Nobody should disagree in the abstract that no threats should be made against school boards because people don't like their policies. But, he nor the administration is concerned with the confrontations called for by Maxine Waters against Republicans, or the rioting across America followed by the great upswing in murders absolutely generated by BLM and their compatriots following the killing of George Floyd or insane mayors and local legislatures defunding police, leading to the deaths of so many people, mostly young minorities. Why is he concerned so much about regular parents who just want their kids to follow the MLK, Jr. dream rather than the path of racism? 

The answer is because the administration actually pushes the racist theory known as Critical Race Theory (now being taught again to our military and federal agents and also being foisted upon the captured audience employees for giant "woke" companies. I've written about CRT a number of times here - it teaches that white kids are oppressors and black kids victims. There is no concern by the administration or Garland that racism is being taught in schools, of course, because in our version of 1984, racism is considered to be Anti-racism and vise versa. 

Garland's memo to investigation supposed "threats" came on the heels of requests by the National School Boards Association and National Association of Secondary School Principals to help them get rid of parents opposing CRT even asking that they be treated as "domestic terrorists," that the Patriot Act remedies be called upon and other drastic remedies. This has led to 17 Attorney Generals from various states (all red states, of course), to protest it, noting that actual threats are rare and that the complaints seem to be disruptive, not criminal. They note that "in no known instance, has there been anything like the burning, looting, police assaults, vandalism and other criminal activity that occurred in the summer of 2020.” 

What's the real problem - our slipping further and further into left wing fascism. When Trump sent federal troops just to protect federal property that Antifa was seeking to destroy, the left, including the Idiot Mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, cried out as if the feds were storm troopers. The feds picked up a single criminal in a van and were accused of every possible form of violence and fascism - called storm troopers. To the contrary, when Jan. 6 rioters are held in solitary confinement or otherwise abused, Garland and this administration seem blind to it. I've covered before the left's acceptance, support or ignoring of Antifa and won't repeat it here again. But, it seems that to this administration and the left in general feel angry parents who are dismayed their children are being taught racism are much worse than battle-geared brown shirts who have literally murdered and tried to burn cops alive. And you wonder why I keep using the word fascists.

I no longer feel sorry for Merrick Garland. He, who once prosecuted terrorists, has now become their champion and I only feel contempt for him. People of every ideology, every ethnicity, every religion - just everyone, really do need to wake up. A single election could begin to turn the tide. The fascistic movement on the left has drowned out almost any dissent. They are relentless. We cannot just give up.