Saturday, September 9, 2017

Hate Speech in Congress

Feinstein hate-dumps on a Christian and Franken Uses SPLC to scream, "HATER".
Senate Dems Refuse to Grin on Barrett

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) isn't on the Judiciary Committee -- but he was certainly channeling his religious intolerance to the Democrats who are. In an eerie encore of Sanders's fiery exchange with Trump budget pick Russell Vought, California liberal Dianne Feinstein (D) pounced on the president's nominee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Amy Coney Barrett, implying (not so subtly) that Christians have no place in public service.

Barrett, a distinguished professor at Notre Dame who clerked for the late Antonin Scalia, was called "controversial" for subscribing to a faith that 91 percent of the current Congress shares. Even so, Feinstein could barely contain her disgust at Barrett's beliefs. "You are controversial," she told the mother of seven. "You are controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems..." Then, in a soundbite that's probably already making the rounds as a Star Wars meme, Feinstein channeled her inner Yoda, insisting, "the dogma lives loudly within you."
"Why is it," she asked rhetorically, that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that dogma and law are two different things -- and I think that whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that's of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for -- for years in this country... I assume if both of you are on [President Trump's Supreme Court prospects] lists, that you would be a no vote on Roe. That puts a number of us, very honestly, in layman's language, in a very difficult position."
Sounds like the dogma lives within Feinstein too -- not just her anti-religious dogma, but one that honors abortion-at-any-price. To her credit, Barrett replied (like Neil Gorsuch before her) that her beliefs would never supersede the law. "It's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions on the law. I would never impose my own personal convictions on the law."

Of course, Feinstein's issue isn't that judges impose their personal values on the law -- after all, that's been the modus operandi of liberal judges for decades. Her concern is whose values they're imposing. To their distress, originalists like Barrett have spent their careers in deference to the Constitution and the democratic process. That's problematic for a party whose entire strategy rests on the courts rewriting the law to suit their purposes. Unlike the Left's judicial nominees, Barrett understands her role. And for voters, who've been stunned to watch judges discover things like abortion and same-sex marriage in the invisible ink of the Constitution, Barrett's philosophy is a welcome one.

In a gratuitous nod to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) tried to paint Barrett as a hater, linking her to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), one of SPLC's favorite targets. At issue was a lecture the Notre Dame professor gave at ADF on constitutional law. "When you actually take a look at ADF's work," Franken critiqued, "it's clear the group's real purpose is to advance an extreme view of society. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, describes ADF as [one]." It was a desperate attempt to try and prop up the liberal activist organization whose connections with domestic terrorism are raising lots of questions about why the mains stream media uses them as a source. ADF is one of the largest religious liberty legal groups in the country. To suggest that speaking to them is like endorsing the neo-Nazis is outrageous. "I had no reason to think it was a hate group and that was certainly not my experience," Barrett replied.

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