Today would be Abraham Lincoln’s 215^th birthday.

I have stated that the Republican Party should be restored to the Party of Lincoln.  Someone once asked me what does it mean to be the Party of Lincoln.  Given that we have an important presidential election this year, and given the turmoil in the nation’s capital, across the country, and around the world, now is as good a time as any to provide an answer.

The Individual

We believe:

• In the dignity of the individual.
• That the individual can pursue happiness, while respecting others in their pursuit.
• That the individual is unique and is not a faceless member of an identity group.

The Constitution

We believe:

• That the Constitution of the United States is a legal document and the supreme law of the land.
• That the Constitution is a contract between the government and the people.
• That the role of government is to secure individual liberty.

The Declaration

We believe:

• That the Declaration of Independence is our nation’s founding document.
• That America is a sovereign country, and that Americans are a distinct people.
• That the Declaration should serve as a reminder of the enduring threat of tyranny.

In summary, the Party should prioritize what is in the best interest of American citizens and must place the government back on the side of the people.  The Party should support and defend the U.S. Constitution and reject any public policy that is at odds with the document.  The Party should promote the principles underlying the Declaration of Independence and fight against those forces that actively undermine those principles.  These tenets are ones embodied in the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

I believe that if Republicans can remain true to these beliefs, we can make the Republican Party great again.

Happy 2023!

Speaking at a conference of about five hundred mostly judges and lawyers in July, Justice Elena Kagan said that the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is threatened when long-standing precedent is discarded, and the Court’s actions are seen as motivated by personnel changes among the justices.  She also said that people are rightly suspicious if a justice leaves the court or dies, and another justice takes his or her place and “all of the sudden” the law changes.  Justice Kagan made clear that she was not talking about “any particular decision” or “any particular series of decisions,” but it’s difficult to believe that she did not have the recent Hobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (Hobbs) case, which overturned the central holding in Roe v. Wade (Roe) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (Casey), in mind.

On the point that the Court’s legitimacy is threatened when long-standing precedent is discarded, Kagan may have a point, however, this is why the Court should decide a case correctly in the first place.  Roe was based on a preferred policy outcome, not the Constitution; the word abortion does not appear, nor is it referred to, in the Constitution, therefore, the Court should not have ruled on the case in 1973.

When a Supreme Court decision is not based on the Constitution or federal statute, the decision will be inherently unstable, because the losing side will inevitably feel cheated and will not accept the outcome, especially on a sensitive matter like abortion.  When the outcome of an important case is not accepted by a sizable portion of the public, the outcome is vulnerable to challenges.

Roe was challenged by Casey in 1992.  Casey partly overruled Roe (in its rationale) but affirmed Roe in its central holding that there was a federal constitutionally protected right to an abortion.  By the year 2022, the protected right to an abortion had been in place for 49 years.  Anyone born after 1960, which is about 80% of the public, grew up in Roe v. Wade America.  These Americans did not live in or were aware of a time when abortion was not universally legal.  The Hobbs decision would appear stunningly cruel to anyone who believes in legalized abortion and felt that, for the most part, it was a settled legal matter.

This Court in 1973 and 1992 issued opinions where abortion was a right protected, not by the Constitution, but by lawyers in black robes.  The Constitution, even with its amendments, is an enduring and stable document.  Members of the Court, however, come and go over time.  When “rights” are protected by lawyers in black robes, it invites a situation like Hobbs, where the legal correction can come years after the initial ruling, causing societal shock.  It is better to have Supreme Court rulings that are rooted in the text of the Constitution rather than the philosophical leanings of lawyers in black robes.

The half-century controversy over this issue is due to the handy work of Weak Republicans.  The Roe opinion had seven Court members in the majority, with two in dissent.

In the majority were:

• Chief Justice Warren Burger (Republican) nominated by President Nixon (Republican)
• Justice William O. Douglas (Democrat) nominated by President F. Roosevelt (Democrat)
• Justice William Brennan (Democrat) nominated by President Eisenhower (Republican)
• Justice Potter Stewart (Republican) nominated by President Eisenhower (Republican)
• Justice Thurgood Marshall (Democrat) nominated by President L. Johnson (Democrat)
• Justice Harry Blackmun (Republican) nominated by President Nixon (Republican)
• Justice Lewis Powell (Democrat) nominated by President Nixon (Republican)

In dissent were:

• Justice Byron White (Democrat) nominated by President Kennedy (Democrat)
• Justice William Rehnquist (Republican) nominated by President Nixon (Republican)

Six of the nine justices in 1973 were nominated by Republican presidents.  Four of the six were Republicans themselves.  Three of the four were in the Roe majority.  One of the three, Blackmun, authored the opinion.

Had Burger, Stewart, and Blackmun rejected the notion that the right to an abortion is rooted in privacy, a word that is nowhere to be found in the Constitution and had the three not signed onto a trimester scheme as to when the government had an interest in regulating abortion, which is legislating, not judging, the decision would have been five-to-four to uphold the Texas law.  Had this happened, each of the fifty state legislatures would have produced abortion laws that would have reflected the will of the people in those states.  Unfortunately, because of weakness, whether intellectual or political, this did not happen.

The Casey opinion had five Court members in the majority, with four in dissent.

In the majority were:

• Justice Harry Blackmun (Republican) nominated by President Nixon (Republican)
• Justice John Paul Stevens (Republican) nominated by President Ford (Republican)
• Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (Republican) nominated by President Reagan (Republican)
• Justice Anthony Kennedy (Republican) nominated by President Reagan (Republican)
• Justice David Souter (Republican) nominated by President George Bush (Republican)

In dissent were:

• Chief Justice William Rehnquist (Republican) nominated by President Reagan (Republican)
• Justice Byron White (Democrat) nominated by President Kennedy (Democrat)
• Justice Antonin Scalia (Republican) nominated by President Reagan (Republican)
• Justice Clarence Thomas (Republican) nominated by President George Bush (Republican)

Eight of the nine justices in 1992 were nominated by Republican presidents.  All eight were Republicans themselves.  Five of the eight were in the Casey majority.  Three of the five, O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, authored the joint opinion.

Five Weak Republican violated their oaths by rejecting the Constitution they swore to support and defend.

From the joint and concurring opinions, it appears that the five justices, particularly Blackmun and Stevens, believe in legalized abortion as a policy matter, which shows that their weakness is their inability to sign onto an opinion with which they do not personally agree.  Also, it is not a surprise that Blackmun voted as he did since was the author of Roe.

We have seen untended consequences of rulings by Weak Republicans in other cases.

With O’Connor, we saw her weakness in the 2003 affirmative action case, Grutter v. Bollinger.  She wrote the majority opinion in that case where she announced that there was a diversity exception to the Fourteenth Amendment.  The ruling effective says that a university may engage in race discrimination in its admission policy, so long as it is the good kind of race discrimination.  It was a constitutional lie, and she knew it was a constitutional lie.  She was too weak to allow the chips fall they may in university admissions because she feared that elite schools, not having a “critical mass” of black Americans, would make the schools (and, perhaps, America) look bad.  Because of this ruling, our country is now obsessed with racial diversity in nearly every walk of life.

With Kennedy, we saw his weakness in the 2015 same-sex marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges.  He wrote the majority opinion where he announced that a state that will not formally recognize same-sex unions violates the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  I am certain that no politician in the 1860s who voted to propose or voted to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment would have thought that the amendment was odds with a state refusing to recognize same-sex marriage.  This ruling was a constitutional lie, and he knew it was a constitutional lie.  He was too weak to do the right thing because he was looking for a legacy for himself.  Because of this ruling, our nation is obsessed with gender identity and teaching same-sex sexual conduct to young children in schools.

When Weak Republicans on the Supreme Court make mischief, the nation pays the price.

We are now in the year 2022.  It has been 49 years since Roe and 30 years since Casey affirmed Roe.   Given the length of time that has elapsed, one could reasonably ask, why not just let the half-century precedent stand?  We look to history for the answer.

An American president in 1863 began a speech with the following words,

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition at all men are created equal.

and ended the speech with

. . . and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

President Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address reminded the crowd that this nation, founded in 1776, would be one that is a republic, where all men, rich or poor, would be equal under the law, and that we would have representative government, which would reflect the will of the citizens.  Lincoln saw the American Civil War as the ultimate test as to whether such a nation could endure.  To Lincoln, winning the war was essential, not just to restore the Union or to abolish American slavery, but to ensure that the experiment in self-governance would not perish from the earth.  After four years and over 500,000 casualties (both sides), the war was won.  The nation would endure.

If the nine unelected lawyers on the Supreme Court are permitted to govern the country as policy makers, we are no longer a self-governing nation.  This would be the death of the American idea.

It is for this reason that the Supreme Court made the correct decision in overturning the central holding in Roe and in Casey.

Should Donald Trump seek the Republican nomination for president of the United Sates?

With the election of 2024 two years away, that is what Republicans around the country are pondering.

When this question comes up in my conversations with others, there is almost always a pause, often accompanied with a deep breath, before responding.  This is true whether the one responding is one of my friends or the one responding is me.

Clearly, Republicans who never liked Trump, especially those associated with the Lincoln Project, would prefer that he stay retired from public life.  And of course, there are true-blue MAGA loyalists who are 100% behind him running.  However, there are those who strongly supported him in 2020 (and possibly 2016) who are not sure if it would be the best idea for him to run for a third time.

There are good arguments on both sides.

Arguments for:

During his presidency, Trump advocated policies such as tax reform (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) and reducing federal regulations (Executive Order 13771), which contributed to a strong economy.

He prioritized fighting international terrorism.  He defeated the Islamic State.  He also ordered the assassination of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani, who was responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump, in his effort to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, worked with the Federalist Society and The Heritage Foundation to select over two hundred nominees to serve as federal judges, including three to the Supreme Court.

To bring peace to the Middle East, the Trump Administration brokered the Abraham Accords, where United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco signed agreements to normalize relations with Israel.  If he were sworn in for a second term, more Arab countries would have joined the accords.

These are just some of accomplishments of the Trump presidency.  Trump, if he ran, could make a persuasive case that, if re-elected, he would continue the great work during his four years in office.

Arguments against:

Born June 14, 1946, Trump would be 78 years, seven months old on Inauguration Day in 2025, and would the oldest man to take the presidential oath of office.  Joe Biden was only 78 years, two months old when he took the oath in 2021.  Despite Trump’s apparent good physical and mental health, one could argue that he may be too old for to meet the demands of the office.

Trump has dominated national news coverage since he announced for president in June 2015.  Even out of office, he gets nearly the level coverage as when he was in office.  If he runs and wins in 2024, it will be nine and a half years of coverage, with the potential of four additional years.  The Republican Party’s primary voters could conclude that continued intense – mostly negative – press coverage is more drama than they are willing to accept.  It might be better to nominate Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis.

His televised rallies from around the country show high levels of enthusiasm from his supporters.  Trump still energizes the Republican base.  The trouble is that Trump also energizes the Democratic base.  Democrats of all stripes – from moderates to liberals – hate Trump.  Of course, nearly all loyal Democrats will oppose any Republican nominee, but it would not be with the same ferocity as it would be with Trump.  They, along with their Republican allies, will by hook or by crook see to it that he is not re-elected.

Will he?

Given that he drops big hints in interviews and at his rallies that he is likely to run, and given that he feels that he was wrongly denied a second term in 2020 due to alleged voter fraud, and given that the FBI recently raided his Florida home, it is a virtual certainty that Trump will run.

It is worth noting though that a Trump candidacy is not only not a lock for victory in November 2024, but there is also no guarantee that he would win the Republican nomination.  While Trump would be the favorite to win the nomination, should DeSantis throw his hat into the ring, it would be a competitive contest, especially in the early primary and caucus states.

If Trump runs and wins a second term, there would be another benefit for everyone, both here and abroad.  When a president first takes office, foreign leaders size up the new executive.  They, especially our adversaries, will try to determine what they think they are able to get away with (think Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Cuban Missile Crisis).  Having already served as president, Trump has already gone through this vetting.  He has demonstrated himself to be a strong global leader.  One key advantage of him winning in 2024 is that on day one there will be adult supervision on the world stage.  Nations like Russia and China will be less aggressive in their conduct.  This may be the best reason for him to follow Grover Cleveland’s example.

Whatever the merits of a second Trump presidency, the print and television media will mercilessly attack him during the campaign.  And it will be uglier than the first two campaigns.  The media’s treatment of Trump, however, should have never been a surprise as we have seen this kind of reaction years before Trump sought national office.  We once had a leader who, as a populist, spoke on behalf of the people, like Trump.  We once had a leader who believed in expanding domestic sources of energy, like Trump.  We once had a leader who drew very large crowds at political rallies, like Trump.  We once had a leader whose endorsement many Republican candidates sought, like Trump.  We once had a leader who was utterly despised by the mainstream media, like Trump.  Donald Trump may be the leader of the current Republican Party, but this Republican Party is one that she inspired.

It took eight LONG years to count the votes of the election of 2008.

The result: Sarah.  Palin.  Won.

Late one evening over a week ago, I got word that the Supreme Court of the Unites States was about to overturn Roe v. Wade.  The details about this bit of news became known to me the following morning as I read and listened to news coverage.  Someone leaked a draft of the ruling on the Mississippi abortion case (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization).  We do not know who that someone is, but many are speculating that the individual is a clerk to one of the justices.

The reaction to the leaked draft was quick and fierce.  Many were outraged at the breach of trust by the individual who provided the leak; others were even more outraged by the content of the draft.  Conservatives dominated the former group, where liberals dominated the latter.

The hysteria regarding the written draft is not surprising.  Abortion is an important political issue for both liberals and conservatives.  It is also a personal issue for voters.  Emotions run high when the abortion issue is front and center.

However, the leak, and the reactions to it, were completely avoidable.

Barack Obama was president for eight years.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had an opportunity to retire during Obama’s time in office.  In 2013, the first year of Obama’s second term, Ginsburg turned 80 years old.  She could have retired during the first few years of his second term, especially in 2013 and 2014, where the Democratic Party controlled the U.S. Senate.  Obama would have nominated a successor aligned Ginsburg’s political philosophy who the Senate would have easily confirmed.  It should be noted that Ginsburg had been battling cancer for about two decades.  In 1999, she diagnosed with colon cancer.  In 2009, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  In 2018, after Obama left office, her doctors discovered cancerous nodules on her lungs.  In 2020, Ginsburg had treatments for cancerous lesions on her liver.  She also had heart stent surgery in 2014.  Justice Ginsburg, given her age and her serious health issues, had good reasons to retire before 2016.

Because Justice Ginsburg chose to remain on the bench during the Obama years, she presented an opportunity for Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, a Republican, to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Appeals Court for the Seventh Circuit to succeed her when she died in September 2020.

Assuming Justice Barrett differs significantly from Justice Ginsburg in judicial philosophy, staying on the Court instead of retiring during the Obama presidency places her legacy in jeopardy on not just abortion, but issues of race, healthcare, gender, and sexual orientation.  Liberals, however much they admire RBG, no doubt feel some sense of betrayal because of her refusal to step down years earlier.

The bottom line is that had Justice Ginsburg retired during Obama’s time in office, the leaked opinion would likely not have had five votes to make it the majority opinion.  Missed opportunity #4.

Apart from Ginsburg’s refusal to retire, the leak was avoidable in others way.

In 1990, George H.W. Bush had the opportunity to nominate to the Supreme Court Judge Edith Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, when Justice William Brennan retired.  Jones had been a judge on that court for five years and was 41 years old.  Bush ultimately chose Judge David Souter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for the vacancy.  Bush nominated Souter because his friends U.S. Senator Warren Rudman and White House Chief of Staff John Sununu persuaded him to do so.  Senator Rudman represented New Hampshire in the Senate.  John Sununu was Governor of New Hampshire prior to joining the Bush Administration.  Souter was raised and spent much of his adult like in New Hampshire (he served as New Hampshire Attorney General and was an Associate Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court).  Bush apparently did recognize that there may have been a conflict of interest when Rudman and Sununu were lobbying on Souter’s behalf.  The Senate voted to confirm Souter.  Two year later Souter voted to uphold the central holding in Roe v. Wade (Roe) in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (Casey).  It is highly likely that Edith Jones, a known constitutionalist, would have voted to overturn Roe.  Missed opportunity #3.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Appeals Court for the Ninth Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the retiring Justice Lewis Powell.  Kennedy’s nomination came about because (1) the Senate rejected Judge Robert Bork’s nomination and (2) the withdrawal of the nomination of Judge Douglas Ginsburg.  Given the failed first two nominations, it is understandable that Reagan wanted a safer choice who he felt the Senate would find acceptable.  February 1988, the Senate voted to 97-0 to confirm Kennedy.  The safe choice does not necessarily mean a good choice for the Court or the country.  About four years later, voted to uphold the central holding in Roe in Casey.  Years later, Bork, in an interview, said that the Democratic-controlled Senate blocked his nomination because he would have been the fifth vote to overturn Roe.  Missed opportunity #2.

In 1981, Reagan nominated Judge Sandra Day O’Connor of Arizona Court of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court after Justice Potter Stewart announced his retirement.  Reagan pledged during the 1980 presidential campaign that he would nominate a woman to “one of the first Supreme Court vacancies” in his administration.  This was the first vacancy during his administration.

A graduate of Stanford Law School, where she was the classmate of future chief justice of the United States William Rehnquist, O’Connor had the educational pedigree for the job.  While she had a distinguished career in state government, serving in all three branches, O’Connor did not have much of a record on deciding federal constitutional questions.  It did not matter.  She exceeded the minimum qualifications to serve on the Court, and she was a woman.  This kind affirmative action when dealing with important occupations is often a recipe for disaster.  Sure enough, eleven years later, O’Connor voted to uphold the central holding in Roe.  Had Reagan nominated Bork, who had argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court during his time as solicitor general in the 1970s, to the Supreme Court, a Republican-controlled Senate would have confirmed him in 1981.  Missed opportunity #1.

When the Supreme Court did not overturn the central holding in Roe v. Wade – that abortion is a protected right under the U.S. Constitution – when it decided Planned Parenthood v. Casey, it deepened the polarization in the country.  Like Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) deepened the polarization on the question of slavery, Casey did so on the abortion question.  Had the Court overruled Roe completely, as upsetting as it would have been to many Americans, the public was mentally prepared for it to happen.  After all, the two dissenting justices in Roe (Rehnquist and Byron White) were still on the Court in 1992, and Republicans Reagan and Bush filled five vacancies between them during their presidencies.  It should have been easy to get to five votes to outright reject Roe.  It did not happen.  As a result, those who believed that abortion is a fundamental right were emboldened, and those in the other camp felt like they were cheated (again) by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Because of Roe and Casey, the abortion issue has infected electoral politics and has made Supreme Court confirmation process needlessly contentious, if not downright nasty.  Bork, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh have been especially harmed, in large part, due to these decisions.

Strangely enough, the case involving the leaked opinion draft is not about abortion.  The issue at hand is the role of the federal government.  Since 1973, the federal government has been involved in the abortion issue.  Since the U.S. Constitution says nothing on the issue, abortion policy should be left to the states to regulate (or not regulate).  That was the fundamental mistake made in Roe.  The Court should not have taken up the case, much less decided as it did.  Without Roe or Casey, state legislatures would make laws regarding abortion.  Some states would have restrictive laws (such as Florida and Texas) and others would have no restrictions on abortion (such as Vermont and Oregon).  The laws would reflect the attitudes of the people of those states.  If an abortion is unavailable in one state, a woman can travel to a nearby state to have the procedure.  This is a key feature of federalism.

As for who leaked the draft, I suspect that the identity of person who did it is now known to Chief Justice Roberts and was probably known to him within a day of the leak.  There is an investigation at the Court.  The universe of possible suspects is small: the nine justices, their thirty-six law clerks, and a few support staff employees.  It could be any one of them, though it is difficult to believe that any of the justices or permanent Court staff would do this.  The likely culprit is a clerk who works in the chambers of one of the justices nominated by a Democratic president (Breyer, Sotomayor, or Kagan).  Given the technological safeguards at the Court, this breach would have been detected and would have identified the leaker.

In the 1990s, computer programmers around the world were busy coding to address the Year 2000 problem, also known as Y2K.  The issue was that dates represented in computer programs had the year stored as two digits (1972 would be stored as 72), making the year 2000 indistinguishable from the year 1900.  If the problem was not fixed, it could have brought down industries and institutions such as airlines, banks, and financial markets.  After societal anxiety about what would happen on January 1, 2000, the catastrophe, because of very hard work, was averted.  Turned out to be a nonevent. If the leaked opinion becomes the final majority opinion, where Roe and Casey are completely overturned, where abortion is declared not to be a constitutionally protected right, where abortion regulation is returned to the several states, this, too, after the initial yelling and screaming, will turn out to be a nonevent.

Today is Presidents Day.  It used to be known as Washington’s Birthday.  With the name change, we now honor all the men who occupied the office of president of the United States, instead of recognizing the nation’s first president only.  I don’t think the change in name represents progress.

We can take this occasion to examine the performance of the current occupant of the office.  During the 13 months of Joe Biden’s administration, we have witnessed the following:

• The crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, with roughly 1.7 million migrants entering the country unlawfully.
• The disastrous troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving behind hundreds of American civilians and military equipment.
• Reversing Trump-era travel ban, which will make America less safe
• Canceling of the Keystone XL Pipeline permit and paused oil and gas leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, resulting in America not being energy independent.
• A federal executive order banning discrimination based on gender identity, which allows (1) males to participate in women’s sports, (2) males to shower in women’s locker rooms, and (3) males to be incarcerated in women’s prisons.
• Inflation, especially the 50% rise in gasoline prices.
• International instability, with Russia threatening Ukraine and China’s provocative military conduct directed at Taiwan.

And we have three more years to go.

The one who is happiest about this administration is the ghost of James Buchanan.  In Biden, Buchanan sees someone who will displace him as the worst U.S. president of all time.

Buchanan is almost always ranked at the bottom in presidential ranking surveys, normally in good company with Franklin Pierce and Andrew Johnson.

In twenty-three presidential ranking surveys, from 1948 through 2021¹, the top three are normally George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt.  Lincoln is rank on top in the majority of surveys.

C-SPAN conducted a survey in 2021².  There again, the top three are Lincoln, Washington, and FDR.  Coming in at number four is Theodore Roosevelt, with Dwight Eisenhower securing the fifth spot.  The ranking of the top five is not terribly controversial or surprising even if some historians or political scientists might have others who should be considered among the greats.

What was surprising were those ranked at the bottom.  Actually, the bottom three were the usual Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, coming in at 42, 43, and 44, respectively.  The surprising addition to the rankings basement, ranked 41, is Donald Trump.  His addition was surprising to me given his accomplishments while in office.  During Trump’s time in office, we saw:

• A lowering of income taxes, particularly the corporate income tax rate, and a net reduction of federal regulations, which lead to a 50-year low in unemployment (3.5%) and significant increase wage growth (prior to the global pandemic).
• The defeating the Islamic State and killing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
• The assassination of the Iranian top terrorism leader, Qasem Soleimani.
• The nominations and confirmations of 230 federal judges, including three Supreme Court justices.
• America become a net energy exporter
• America brokering Israeli peace with four nations (UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco)

The C-SPAN survey ranked Trump 34 (of 44) in Economic Management and 43 (of 44) in International Relations.

Surprisingly, Barack Obama was number 10 (of 44) in the overall ranking.  He ranked 9 in Economic Management; 6 in Moral Authority; and 3 Pursue Equal Justice for All.

The 2021 C-SPAN survey is a sham.  The historians were clearly influenced by their own politics.

Even though we should not take the survey results seriously, there are some noteworthy trends.

As noted, Eisenhower came in at number 5; however, between 1962 and 2011, surveys had him hovering around 10.  With Thomas Jefferson, earlier surveys had him ranked between 2 and 5; recent surveys have him between 5 and 7.  Woodrow Wilson had a similar decline over time.  Andrew Jackson has seen a larger fall.  In the early surveys, he was normally ranked in the top 10; in the recent five surveys, he has generally declined from 16 to 21.  Ulysses S. Grant also has an interesting ranking history.  For the first 12 surveys, he was in the cellar with Pierce and Buchanan; however, since the 2005 survey, he has generally risen in the rankings, with him being ranked 20 (of 44) in the 2021 survey.

Since I have not personally spoken to any of the historians involved in these surveys, I cannot comment definitively on why the changes – some of them large – in the ranking of presidents.  However, the one issue that would explain these trends is race.

Eisenhower appears to be given more credit for proposing and signing the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.  Sending troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect black students is viewed even more favorably in recent years.

Grant’s protection of the formally enslaved and his support and enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the right of black Americans to vote, is better received in the early 21^st century compared to the middle 20^th.

Jefferson’s and Jackson’s views on slavery, and Wilson’s views on race hurt their images in the modern era compared to earlier times.  Jackson may even lose his image on the TWENTY in favor of former slave, Harriet Tubman.

It appears that, to some degree, the survey participants are influenced by increased public sensitivity surrounding racial matters, which we have seen in the past two decades.

Interestingly, George Washington, who was a slaveowner, has not seen any change in his rankings over time.  It is true that he provided for the freeing of his slaves upon his death, but he owned slaves for most of his life and did own over one hundred slaves when he died.  It seems, however, given his stature, that he is simply untouchable.  For now.

As the political left continues to reevaluate the morality of past leaders, it could be a matter of time that the Father of the Nation may fall out of favor with our leading historians.  Could be only a matter of a few more years of Washington battling Lincoln for who will be number one.

Could be only a matter of a few more decades that Washington will be on the ONE.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States#Scholar_survey_summary
2. https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall

Happy 2022!

A week ago, I was reading a news article about the spike in deaths during the summer due to the coronavirus for those who are pregnant.  What I found most striking about the article was not the data regarding the fatalities, but how the writer referred to those who were pregnant.  Repeatedly, the term used was “pregnant people” to refer those individuals who were dying from the coronavirus.  It was the first time I had seen the term.  In May, I heard a member of Congress using the term “birthing people” during a public hearing, which I thought very odd.

In a clumsy attempt to have what the Left says is “inclusive” language, we must say pregnant people instead of pregnant women, and we must say birthing people instead of mothers.  This change in language is supposedly necessary, because the Left considers women (born female) who transition to men to be men; but these men still have female reproductive organs and can still give birth.  In the eyes of the Left, both men and women can give birth.  Very confusing.

At the University of Pennsylvania, there is a transgender woman, Lia Thomas, who has recently broken women’s swimming records.  In news reports, journalist have you used the terms “shattered” and “smash” to describe the breaking of the prior records.  It should be noted that the 22-year-old Lia competed at the school as a man for three years, as Will Thomas.  NCAA rules mandate at least one year of testosterone suppression treatment to be eligible to compete as a woman.

In June 2018, some Connecticut parents expressed outrage when two transgender girls won the top prizes at the state championship for track and field.  Terry Miller won first place and Andraya Yearwood came in second place.  Parents complained that Miller and Yearwood had an unfair advantage over non-transgender students.  Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference rules allow high school athletes to compete on the genders with which they identify.  Its executive director, Glenn Lungarini, says that the athletes’ right to compete is no different than other classes of people not being allowed to compete together in the past.

In the mixed martial arts, a commentator described a 2013 match between Fallon Fox and Erika Newsome as follows:

Fox, a male to female transgender athlete, destroyed Erika Newsome in a Coral Gables, FL, MMA fight during which she “secured a grip on Newsome’s head… With her hands gripping the back of Newsome’s skull, she delivered a massive knee, bringing her leg up while pulling her opponent’s head down. The blow landed on Newsome’s chin and dropped her, unconscious, face-first on the mat.” That was Newsome’s last pro fight.

Fox also beat Tamikka Brents, in 2014, a fight lasting just over two minutes after the referee ended the contest.  Here is some commentary on the aftermath:

Brents received seven staples to her head, and also suffered a concussion. She was overpowered by Fox to an extent that even the orbital bone inside her skull was fractured.

Fallon Fox was born male and is a transgender woman.

This is complete madness.

Title IX (of the Education Amendments of 1972) states the following:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. . .

While the language does not reference sports specifically, competitive sports are part of education programs.  There has also been a long tradition of having separate sports teams for boys/men and girls/women.  That tradition is based on biology.  The biological fact that credentials one to be eligible for girls/women sports teams is the absence of the Y chromosome.  Simply stated, one must be female to participate in girls/women sports.

Someone who is male but feels feminine or dresses femininely or has had gender reassignment surgery and undergoes hormone therapy, does not change the chromosomal fact of being male.

If LeBron James began calling himself LaBron and began taking a steady diet of testosterone suppressors for one year (or ten years!) and then joined the WNBA, we would all see the absurdity in this.

The absurdity, however, continues and is embraced by the highest levels of the federal government.  The Biden Administration’s 2022 fiscal budget replaced the word mother with birthing people.

In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), that gender identity is a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Title VII:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

To protect gender identity under Title VII makes a mockery of the entire notion of civil rights.  One of the basic tenets that undergirds the idea of providing special civil rights protection is immutability.  Race is an immutable characteristic because an individual does not choose his ancestry.  Characteristics like color, religion, and national origin also have to do with ancestry.  Since one does not get to select his sixteen great-great-grandparents, it would seem to be unfair to hold such traits against him.  Sex, on the other hand, is not about ancestry, but about chromosomes, which is also an immutable characteristic.

When Congress included sex as a protected classification, representatives and senators were addressing issue of the unfairness of treating a woman differently (employment opportunities, harassment, etc.) simply on account of being a woman (this would be true for a man as well).

Transgender individuals are not entitled to special civil rights protection because being transgender is the polar opposite of immutability.  Transgender individuals affirmatively select to change their gender identity.

Authoring the opinion of the Court, Justice Gorsuch wrote:

An employer who fired an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

Justice Gorsuch uses tortured logic to shoehorn special civil rights protection for transgender individuals claiming that it is their sex that is at issue.  This interpretation completely ignores the context of why Congress enacted the law in the first place.

It may be unwise for an employer to fire a person because he is transgender, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not provide any legal protection from such a decision.  At a minimum, Congress would have to pass a separate statute to address this issue.  Very likely, we would have to adopt a constitutional amendment to authorize Congress to act in this area.

The federal government has shown through gestures in language and in interpretation of the law an openness to the concerns of transgender individuals.  The Administration has approved of transgender men competing in women’s sports; the Supreme Court has not ruled on the matter (yet).  Still, this openness is very encouraging to the Left, which is not in the interest of women and girls who want to play professional or scholastic sports.

In order to combat this assault on women athletes, we must speak in clear language.  Transgender women are not women; they are men pretending to be women.  Out of good manners, our society can go along with pretense regarding which restrooms to use and with pronouns to use.  We must, however, draw a line when it comes to sports.  The setting of records, college scholarships, and the physical well-being of women are on the line.

Abraham Lincoln once posed this question: How many legs does a dog have?  The response was four.  Lincoln went on and asked: If we call the tail a leg, then how many legs does a fog have?  The response was five.  Lincoln stated: No, just because you call a tail a leg doesn’t make it so.

We can learn a lot from our sixteenth president.

On June 26, 2008, the United States Supreme Court issued its landmark decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, ruling that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia. 

The Second Amendment reads:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

In defining a well regulated Militia, writing for the Court’s majority, Justice Antonin Scalia quotes a 1939 case as follows: the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.

On August 25, 2020, a 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse arrived at the scene of unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after two days of protests and rioting, to protect private property.  Kyle was armed with an AR-15.  Rittenhouse was a militiaman acting in the common defense of his father’s city.

Later that evening, while Kyle was stand guard in front of a car dealership, he was attacked by protestors.  Kyle killed two and injured one.  This killing was in self-defense, which was captured on video.  In November 2021, Kyle was on put on trial for these shootings, along with several other charges.  Two changes were dismissed.  He was found not guilty on all other charges, including the three shootings.

What should have been an open and shut case of Kyle’s innocence, turned into a polarizing media sensation.  Even with the availability of the video, which showed him being attacked (kicked in the head by one, struck in the head with a skateboard by another, had a gun pointed at his head by a third) and showed him running away from his attackers, much of the media and liberal politicians portrayed Rittenhouse as a terrorist, vigilante, and murderer.

The criminal past of the two men (Huber and Rosenbaum) killed did not soften the criticism of Rittenhouse (one of them was convicted of sexual conduct with five preteen boys).  In response to the verdict in the case, Governor Tony Evers of Wisconsin said in his statement, “No verdict will be able to bring back the lives of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum…”.  Evers apparently feels that these two felons who assaulted Kyle is worthy of public sympathy.

The physical attacks on Rittenhouse, the harsh criticism directed, and empathy for his assailants, demonstrates a particular loathing for this young man.  There is video that should have exonerated him in the eyes of the public.  The widespread disregard of the video evidence testifies to something visceral directed at Rittenhouse.

Very present in the American Left is a sneering, and, very often, hatred, of the country.  From tearing down of statues of historical leaders and calls to abolish the Electoral College to renaming Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day and the 1619 Project, the Left is saying that the United States of America and many of its institutions are illegitimate and evil.

Kyle Rittenhouse, who is white, male, probably heterosexual, and courageous enough, even at his young age, to run toward an area of civil unrest to stand up to evil of rioting, epitomizes much of what they despise about America.  He seems to channel the spirit of those in the 1770s who mutual pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to fight off the tyranny of Great Britain.  Those who attack Rittenhouse, physically and rhetorically, apparently see in him the same patriotism of those who fought to found this nation, a nation they see as deeply flawed.  With his semi-automatic rifle, which was willing to use to defend commercial property and himself against rioters, he embodies the Second Amendment that has always been a thorn in the side of many of those on the political left.  He symbolizes the best of what America has to offer.  For this, the Left hates Kyle Rittenhouse.

For over a year, Rittenhouse was abused by the legal system, which included incarceration.  To say that this was disgusting grossly understates this injustice. He should have been given a medal for his heroism.

In a 1998 U.S. Supreme Court case, Campbell v. Louisiana, the Court held that a defendant had the right to sue to overturn his indictment because no black person ever served as grand jury foreperson in Evangeline Parish, in which over 20% of registered voters are black.  Campbell, who was indicted for second-degree murder, was white.  He was accused of killing another man, who also was white.  Yet, he mainly appealed his indictment on the grounds that it violated his Fourteenth Amendment equal protection and due process rights.  Somehow, because of an alleged racist exclusion of a black American from serving in the role of foreperson, Campbell felt that the judicial process harmed him.

I remember at the time speaking to a coworker about the decision in the case.  The idea that Campbell had legal standing to sue seemed absurd to me.  While he did suffer the injury of being indicted, he did not suffer any injury on account of the foreperson being white.  My colleague felt differently.  He said it was a good idea to take a closer look at the case and at the process that was called into question.

The mere hint that racism was involved in the judicial process, no matter how tangential or irrelevant, was enough to cast the whole process as illegitimate, even if it resulted in a murderer being set free.

With voter ID laws, we have a similar situation.  Showing identification to a poll worker on Election Day to verify one’s identity before voting strikes most U.S. citizens as reasonable.  Given the possibility of another party casting a ballot in someone else’s name, showing identification is reasonable.  However, since many on the Left have effectively branded such an idea as racist, requiring that a voter verify his identity prior to voting is now seen as illegitimate.

The Left offers two reasons for the racism charge: (1) many black Americans do not have government-issued identification cards and (2) Republicans want to make it harder for black Americans – roughly 90% of whom support the Democratic Party – to vote.

My response to the first charge is that about 75% of blacks have IDs.  Of those who do not, identification cards are generally easy to get at local departments of motor vehicles.  There is no evidence of the second charge.  Even if there was some truth to that charge, it would only be relevant if black Americans were somehow uniquely incapable of obtaining the required identifications.  Those who suggest such an idea are insulting their fellow citizens in the name of defending them.

I find the charge of racism odd.  Why would it be that blacks would have a harder time, compared to whites, getting an ID?  Perhaps, the Left means to say poor people, and blacks may be disproportionately poor, so race is a proxy.  If so, why not simply say poor people will have a more difficult time, rather using racism, which is a more loaded term.  Looks to me like the use of loaded language is the point.  It puts the proponents of voter ID laws on the defensive.  Injustice against blacks gets the nation’s attention.

Those in favor of presenting IDs before voting remind us that one needs an ID to:

• Board an airplane
• Stay at a hotel
• Purchase an Amtrak ticket
• Apply for a job
• Drive a car
• Purchase alcohol/cigarette
• Open a bank account
• Withdraw funds from a bank account
• Rent/buy a house or apply for mortgage
• Get married

No one ever alleges that any of the above activities or their participants are being “suppressed” because of the ID requirement.

Those in opposition to presenting IDs before voting respond (when there is a coherent response) to the above by saying that voting is a constitutional right.  That is a non sequitur.  There is a constitutionally protected right to gun ownership, but one must have an ID to purchase a firearm.  By the way, there is no constitutional right to vote.  The Fifteenth Amendment guarantees that someone cannot be denied the right to vote on account of his race.

The reason the Left focuses on race when it comes to voter IDs is because it is politically useful and, more importantly, it works.  Linking someone’s motives to racism, no matter how reckless, tends to place one on the defensive.  Once such a charge is made, it is very difficult for that someone to demonstrate his innocence.

One key reason that it works can be explained by author Shelby Steele’s 1990 book, The Content of Our Character.  “The Memory of Enemies” is the final chapter where Steele discusses how black Americans can reenact an “enemy-memory” through situations like hearing a Southern accent or seeing a pickup truck with a gun rack.  For some black Americans, any barrier to vote that could be deemed racial is a case where some remember an enemy that was often prepared to use violence to prevent blacks from voting.  Such memories – even if one did not actually live during the Jim Crow era – are enough to take a defensive posture and fight against policies that bring about barriers.

Being susceptible to enemy-memories is the result of decisions made after emancipation in 1865.  The following year, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866.  In 1868, the nation adopted the Fourteenth Amendment.  Both provided former slaves with U.S. citizenship and legal rights.  These were good things, but then, it also meant that former slaves would be living alongside the population that had enslaved them for generations.

One can imagine what might have happened had the Jews remained in Germany after WWII.  We cannot know how events would have developed, but it is likely that the Jewish population would have adopted an identity that was in opposition to the larger German population, even if that population genuinely wanted to make amends.  Creating Israel, as the homeland for the Jewish people, among other things, allowed the Jews to not have a constant reminder of their oppression.

The “Israel” for free blacks (or people of color) was the Colony of Liberia.  A few thousand blacks were relocated to the colony, but the project was generally viewed to be unsuccessful and was unpopular among the black population and abolitionists.  As a result, history played out as it did, where most blacks stayed here in the United States.  That history has left psychological scars.  It has made many within black America suspicious of their fellow countrymen.  The Left understands this and, unfortunately, uses the historical mistreatment of the black population as a political weapon.  Joe Biden has smeared Georgia’s new voting law as “these new Jim Crow laws”, that the law “makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle”, and as the “Jim Crow in the 21^st century”.  Today, blacks and whites together are wary of any policy that could be seen as racist.

It is worth noting that other countries have voter ID laws, without controversy surrounding them.  One country is Ghana.  Another one is Nigeria.  A third one is Kenya.  Many countries in Africa have some form of voter identification.  These are nations where blacks populate them, and blacks govern them.  They can evaluate a public policy, free of the effects of an enemy-memory.  Free of the racist stigma, the people of these nations can recognize a good idea when they see it.

Voter ID is one of those good ideas.