I should probably stop reading the news. It drives me to bang my head against the wall so hard that I may have dislodged the cerebral cortex and now logical thought eludes me–but then again, perhaps it is those about whom the news is written logic eludes.
Imagine that!
Look what I read a few days ago on the news feeds: “Baltimore Police Deputy Commissioner, Danny Murphy, was robbed at gunpoint in the city’s southeast area on Friday night.” Apparently, the ban on so-called assault weapons and against magazines holding more ammunition than some faceless bureaucrat believes a regular citizen needs hasn’t stopped crime in Maryland. The Firearm Safety Act of 2013 didn’t make MD citizens any safer. Imagine that!
A Ray of Sunshine
I enjoy reading Bob Adelmann’s columns at https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/itemlist/user/51-bobadelmann where he artfully mixes commentary about economics, politics and the law. After all the bad-to-awful news the month of July brought, I was heartened to read his July 16 column about President Trump’s judicial nominations. Although Supreme Court confirmations get all the news coverage, Adelmann suggests that the president’s appointments to courts of appeal are cause for even greater optimism than getting Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court. Only about 1 percent of the 7000 cases filed are heard by the Supreme Court, so the real potential to correct a nation veering off the course of liberty and personal responsibility rests in the lower courts.
Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has appointed 127 judges, Adelmann points out, and his appointees “account for some 14 percent of the federal judiciary and more than 22 percent of the judges on the nation’s courts of appeal. If Trump is reelected there is every likelihood that he will be able to nominate close to 40 percent of the country’s federal judges.”
Although I am not personally strongly aligned with one political party over the other, I was heartened by the suggestion that the experience, education, and credentials of these newer judges are considerably greater than some of the earlier appointees. Could America actually return to an era in which the Constitution sets the standard for what citizens can expect from the government more than the feelings and whims of politicians and bureaucrats?
Not everyone agrees with every decision handed down by Trump-appointed judges, of course. Still, it is encouraging to hear that the latest crop of judicial appointments brings strong scholastic achievements, extensive legal experience, and conservative political viewpoints that are likely to oppose political forces bent on finishing off and burying the U.S. Constitution once and for all.
The political pendulum swings hard to the left, hard to the right, but now and then it hovers in the center. I am guardedly optimistic that these judicial appointments might buffer us from the worst of both extremes.
To read more of this month's journal, please click here.