If you’ve a memory longer than a nanosecond you might recall that in 2016 when he was nominated by then-President Obama to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, Merrick Garland was widely touted as a “moderate.” President Biden has now nominated him for the slot of Attorney General, and the confirmation vote is scheduled for this coming week.
How do you define moderate? His confirmation hearings reveal to me that Garland is certainly not one:
Last summer, 220 cities were besieged by gangs that attacked homes, businesses, federal buildings, and local law enforcement. In his confirmation hearing, Garland testified that the people who did this could not be considered “domestic terrorists” because they did this only at night and apparently terrorist acts can only be committed in the daytime in his view. Is that preposterous? Of course, it is. Did the KKK (Known during their heyday as “night riders”) burn crosses in mid-afternoon? Most people would find the acts committed, not the hours in which they were, the key. And most of us would find explosions, fires, marauding at nighttime when visibility is diminished and help hard to come by at the very least as threatening, if not more so, than the same rampages committed in daytime. Indeed, there’s a history here of nighttime terrorism.
Why would someone supposedly seeking to establish a reputation for law enforcement and order make such a stupid distinction? David Horowitz explains:
It is a transparent move to protect the domestic terrorists of the left who laid siege to 220 American cities at night last summer, showing utter contempt for authority and law, while attacking federal buildings and local police offices along the way. In other words the fake insurrection in the Capitol -- an event conducted mainly by Trump supporters in which only Trump supporters died -- is an act of domestic terrorism because it took place in the daytime. But violent armed insurrections and attacks on federal buildings conducted by leftists at night, cannot be regarded as terrorist events. How can Americans expect blind justice from a sophist like this? The nauseating sophistry has an obvious bottom line. Only violent protests by Trump supporters can justify the political witch-hunts and purges the Democrats are currently conducting against all conservatives and Republicans.
The so-called “armed insurrection” in the Capitol on January 6 was used to impeach Trump? It was allegedly so dangerous as to justify impeaching him after he left office? But it deserves to be called a “fake armed insurrection” because there were no firearms present, and no plausible plan to overthrow the government. The malicious fantasy that this effort was an armed attempt to overthrow the government is just that: a malicious fantasy.
There were no firearms used; all four of the people who died at that event were Trump supporters (including Brian Sicknick, who had not -- contrary to published reports -- been struck by a demonstrator; the group who arranged the mob scene did so two months before Trump’s January 6 speech which itself was “perfectly normal, law-abiding and democratic” given a mile away from the Capitol.
In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris and leaders of the Democratic party supported Black Lives Matter and Antifa which ravaged 220 cities just months before, ravages that saw attacks on not just private homes and businesses but as well “federal courthouses, national monuments, police stations.”
That Garland adopted Black Lives Matter’s lie that the January 6 melee was a “white supremacist coup” is not only a testament to his partisanship and weak character, but, as Horowitz observes, a sign of “how pervasive this racist ideology has become in shaping the Democrat Party drive to destroy our constitutional Republic”.
Nancy Pelosi proves his point, seeking a commission to examine the event, a commission that would have “a ridiculous 7-4 Democratic majority.”
Here are some other gems from that hearing:
His top priority will be investigating the Capitol incursion. Another priority will be enforcing civil rights, including investigating law enforcement violations of civil rights and misconduct. “Garland said he was "very concerned" about the large number of people who were sentenced to death and later exonerated, and the disproportionate impact of the death penalty on people of color. ”
On the other hand, the “moderate” nominee has said that unless there is cause to remove the prosecutors, investigations into Hunter Biden’s tax fraud and the conduct of the Robert Mueller investigation into purported Russian interference in the 2016 election, those investigations will continue.
Senator Mitch McConnell, who blocked Garland’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, has indicated he will not attempt to block his confirmation as Attorney General and there’s every reason to believe he will be confirmed. Once in office it will be interesting to see if he really intends to continue these Democratic witch hunts -- occasioned, I believe, by a recognition that the Democrats have a weak hold on the citizenry and the reins of power -- or will revert to a moderate stance.
How weak is Biden’s hold on power? There are signs already showing up.
New orders for durable goods increased for the ninth straight month. The economy is growing faster than predicted,” and “the Biden ‘inheritance’ from predecessor Donald Trump was a strong 4.1% annual rate of real economic growth in our 45th president’s last full quarter in office.” The jobs market is also improving, with new claims for unemployment benefits: ”falling to the lowest level since November.” Hiring is picking up.
As the Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman reports:
Old Democratic friends have been warning President Joe Biden not to inflict his supersized stimulus plan on a growing economy in no need of rescue. Today these old hands from the Obama administration are enjoying vindication. Various reports show a robust recovery bearing no resemblance to the dismal scene described by the president. After Mr. Biden’s faulty diagnosis and treatment plan for the economy, now it seems that some members of his party don’t even want to trust him with nuclear weapons.
Politico, not known for criticizing the left, reports that almost 36 Democrats asked Biden to relinquish sole authority to launch nuclear weapons.
James Freeman opines, ”Perhaps the president is so out of touch with the reality of today’s economy, it now seems that some members of his party won’t even trust him with the decision to initiate global thermonuclear war.”
Of course, the pols who signed the letter claimed there was nothing personal in this, but I don’t see how it could be taken any other way. And, in fact, I think he should take it personally and to heart.
He’s been nothing but reckless since taking office, last week continuing his record of ill-considered stands on everything from the Trump travel ban on China, to the efficacy of the Trump vaccine (now presenting this administration with resistance to vaccination which they want people to take), to “climate change,” and coddling Iran. He launched an air strike on Syria, ruffling some dove feathers in his party. But it provided as well a humorous comparison to what leading Democrats said when Trump did the same thing. Their view on the constitutional authority of a President to engage in such things clearly and irrefutably is purely partisan, as is their manifest hypocrisy.
If this all seems a dispiriting rise of fascism on American soil, perhaps this article by Robert Morton might ease your concerns. Comparing events today with the aftermath of the French Revolution, he says we are already seeing signs that without Trump as a target of their venom, they are already attacking each other. He gives several examples, none I think as compelling as radical Governor Gavin Newsom’s rapidly crashing approval and the swift turning on Governor Andrew Cuomo. The left always needs new villains to blame for not having solutions to problems they have only imagined, and the scalps now are from their own ranks.
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