Anonymous Op-Ed from the NYT

[Cow Poke]

So - no explanation...?

of what?

[carpedm9587]

For you and your ilk, yes.

My ilk?

(CP always wanted to use that word "ilk", but does not really believe that Carp is ilky)

A court of strict constructionists would be WAY better than a court of judicial activists.

A court that brings balance would be better than either. I have recently been exploring the issue of "unenumerated rights." I was amazed to find that the constitution says nothing about protecting a parent's right to raise their children as they see fit, does not actually specify voting as a right (except to note that it cannot be refused on the basis of gender, race, etc.), enumerate a right to travel, or a right to choose a school for one's children. A while host of such rights are simply implied by the 9th amendment. In general, I find that "strict constitutionalists" tend to seek to restrict such rights, while "judicial activists" tend to err on expanding them. Our history is one of expanding rights, not limiting them. At the dawn of our republic, only landed white men could vote. Then all men. Then women. Then all races. So-called "judicial activists" are very closely involved in all of those decisions.

A good balance of "strict constitutionalists" and "judicial activists" would ensure that we stay on the course of continuing to err on the side of recognizing rights without getting too carried away. The right and left will never be truly happy. But if they are equally unhappy, it suggests we've struck a balance.

[carpedm9587]

of what?

At this point...NVM.

[Cow Poke]

At this point...NVM.

[Cow Poke]

My ilk?

yes

A good balance of "strict constitutionalists" and "judicial activists"...

I revise and extend my remarks to mean originalist rather than strict constructionist.

[Terraceth]

Our history is one of expanding rights, not limiting them. At the dawn of our republic, only landed white men could vote. Then all men. Then women. Then all races. So-called "judicial activists" are very closely involved in all of those decisions.

As far as I am aware, "judicial activists" had nothing to do with those decisions. The people (through their representatives) were the ones who accomplished that, either by passing laws or constitutional amendments to do so, i.e. the exact opposite of judicial activism.

[carpedm9587]

yes

I revise and extend my remarks to mean originalist rather than strict constructionist.

I have no idea what "my ilk" means, or what someone of "my ilk" is supposed to be like.

As for the rest, "originalist" with respect to the constitution equals "literalist" with respect to the bible, IMO. Both are largely useless. The original intent, as far as it can be determined, needs to be counter balanced with the simple fact that the world has changed. So "how does this apply given the state of the world today" is a perfectly reasonable question. The founders could not possibly have anticipated modern technology, medicine, economics, and so forth.

[Cow Poke]

I have no idea what "my ilk" means, or what someone of "my ilk" is supposed to be like.

You're doing that thing again. Read the post again....

For you and your ilk, yes.


(CP always wanted to use that word "ilk", but does not really believe that Carp is ilky)

A court of strict constructionists would be WAY better than a court of judicial activists.

Focus on the "fine print".

[carpedm9587]

You're doing that thing again. Read the post again....

Focus on the "fine print".

OK - so you don't think I'm "ilky." So there are no people of "my ilk?" I should just disregard the entire post?

[Cow Poke]

OK - so you don't think I'm "ilky." So there are no people of "my ilk?" I should just disregard the entire post?

Sheeeeeesh.... yeah, whatever!

[Tassman]

Do you have any idea how many times The New York Times has been busted for printing blatant lies? They have quite the history.

Source: New York Times: Reporter routinely faked articles

(2003) The New York Times has concluded, after an extensive internal investigation, that one of its former reporters committed "frequent acts of journalistic fraud."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast...imes.reporter/

© Copyright Original Source

Here's a 2004 editorial from the Times itself half-heartedly apologizing for its own false reporting:

Source: The New York Times

...we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge.

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/w...-and-iraq.html

© Copyright Original Source

Here's a 2011 story about the Times using sketchy, one-sided sources and (almost certainly deliberately) failing to report a certain fact that would have undermined their anti-fracking narrative:

Source: Public Editor Admits NYT�s Fracking Article: �Went Out On A Limb, Lacked An In-Depth Dissenting View�

https://www.mediaite.com/online/publ...view%e2%80%99/

© Copyright Original Source

Here's an archived Times article from 2015 where they blame Wisconsin governor Scott Walker for teacher layoffs that happened before he even took office.

Here's an example from 2016 where the Times blatantly misreported the facts to rehabilitate the image of a member of the Black Panthers:

Source: New York Times Caught in Lies Defending Black Panthers

https://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016...k-panther-lie/

© Copyright Original Source

Here's a 2017 story about The New York Times using a misleading photograph to make it seem like the delegation from a visiting sports team was smaller than the one that had previously visited Obama when the delegations were, in fact, the same size. Here's the actual Twitter post; notice the number of heads in the foreground in the 2017 photo.

Another one from 2017

Source: Journos Slam New York Times For �Garbage� Hit Piece On Rick Perry

https://dailycaller.com/2017/01/19/j...totally-bogus/

© Copyright Original Source

Summary of a 2018 story where the Times made a false claim about something said in a White House briefing:

Source: Media Double Down After New York Times Gets Busted Peddling Fake News

http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/28/...ing-fake-news/

© Copyright Original Source

I could easily dig up another dozen examples if I wanted to invest the time, but, no, you go ahead and trust The New York Times as a "reputable" source, especially when they're telling lies that you want to hear.

As many as the 4,229 lies Trump has made since becoming president, according to the Washington Post? Spare us the high-spin crap from your biased, misleading sources. The NY Times is a reputable paper of record. Trump partisans just can't face the truth, which is being increasingly reiterated, that their hero is a compulsive liar and unfit for office.

[Cow Poke]

The NY Times is a reputable paper of record.

And Tassman is the Queen of Sheba.

[Starlight]

A good balance of "strict constitutionalists" and "judicial activists" would

Those aren't opposites. The modern "originalist" / "strict constitutionalist" is the most activist viewpoint of all because it advocates it's fine to burn and ignore all precedents and history in favor of whatever the modern judge on the court happens to get it into his head that the constitution really meant. So if a law has been considered constitutional by everyone in the US for the past 2 centuries and upheld by a hundred courts over that time, a "strict constitutionalist" might nonetheless decide tomorrow that no, it's actually totally unconstitutional because of their own reading of what the constitution / founding fathers really meant.

I view it as duplicitous way of being an extreme judicial activist. It's a deceptive theory that modern conservatives have come up with as to how they can throw out all the previous precedents and long-held laws they disapprove of - it's designed to allow them to do judicial activism.

Overturn Roe v Wade and I would be quite satisfied with a balanced court. Until then, I want it as "right-leaning" as possible.

I don't really care about Roe v Wade. But what I do care about is corruption in politics, and the right-wing judges consistently vote to strike down anti-corruption laws. So that's it as far as I'm concerned, those judges are unacceptable and need to be gone.

It also doesn't help, IMO, that the right-wing judges consistently rule in favor of large companies and special interest groups and against the interests of the majority of the people. e.g. Report Finds Judge Kavanaugh Ruled Against Public Interest in Almost All of His District Court Cases is totally unsurprising to me: That's what I've come to expect from any SCOTUS Republican nominee. They are nothing but hacks. We wouldn't regard them as judges in my country, just corrupt hacks. The Dems actually do seem to nominate real judges, albeit ones that lean mildly left-wing (though not a quarter as much as I might wish).

[Terraceth]

It also doesn't help, IMO, that the right-wing judges consistently rule in favor of large companies and special interest groups and against the interests of the majority of the people. e.g. Report Finds Judge Kavanaugh Ruled Against Public Interest in Almost All of His District Court Cases is totally unsurprising to me: That's what I've come to expect from any SCOTUS Republican nominee. They are nothing but hacks. We wouldn't regard them as judges in my country, just corrupt hacks. The Dems actually do seem to nominate real judges, albeit ones that lean mildly left-wing (though not a quarter as much as I might wish).

While I do have some respect for the amount of work put into the report, there's a lot of problems with using it to actually argue anything. It's popular to spout off numbers like that because it looks persuasive, but it means very little without context. What were the merits of the cases? Granted, such a thing is very time-consuming due to the number and by definition at least somewhat arbitrary, but without that, the data is not of much help. If someone rules in favor of a particular group 95% of the time and in 95% of those cases that group was clearly in the right legally, that number doesn't mean much in regards to whether they're biased in any particular way.

Also, it's worth pointing out the data limits itself to the rather specific subgroup of 2-1 decisions where he was in the majority, leaving out quite a number of cases. While there is some merit to that, as it is cases where he was the deciding vote and such cases are the ones he would be most important in, it still paints an incomplete picture.

In fact, there is a way to get more insight into those numbers: How about doing this other members of his district court? Is he dramatically higher than the rest in these areas? (heck, if doing it for all of them is too time-consuming, there's one particular comparison that could be noteworthy: Merrick Garland) Such a thing wouldn't be perfect, as the cases are generally different, but it would at least provide some kind of comparison point, which woudl be useful. In fact, I've noticed that every time someone spouts off numbers and percentages to show how someone is supposedly so favored towards a particular kind of defendant or plaintiff, they never include those comparison points. Do they simply not want to put forward to the work to make their data mean something? Or are they trying to hide that because it would work against their claims?

So, bottom line, the data is interesting, but not particularly useful for assessing anything.

[rogue06]

As many as the 4,229 lies Trump has made since becoming president, according to the Washington Post?

Again nobody is holding Trump up as a paragon of truth like you did the NYT so once again your attempt here falls flat.

And btw, the overwhelming majority of the "lies" on the list are what rational people would call mistakes or errors. Such lists of lies told by various presidents used to circulate along the fringes and passed back and forth by nutcases but now they're circulated by supposed reputable news services.