"For the Children"?

Not that bombastic Democratic hypocrisy constitutes breaking news, but the repeated blathering about S-CHIP represents the epitome of the high art of political posturing. Let’s be clear: the Dems do not now, nor have they ever, cared about kids. They care about government and power and use children merely as a means to that end.

Health insurance is not difficult to come by; it’s just expensive. And while the blame for that can be laid at numerous feet, primary among these is government. NJ boast the highest health insurance costs in the country, but that could be ended with a single stoke of a gubernatorial pen, signing legislation which permits a state resident to purchase a policy approved in any other state. A policy of insurance in Kentucky costs one-sixth as much as does a policy in NJ, primarily because of "community rating" and the huge number of incredibly expensive coverage mandates placed upon policies by the Legislature.

Put another way, faced with the choice of making basic coverage available to everyone at a reasonable price – that is, letting people decide for themselves what coverage they need and want – and compelling everyone to purchase a hugely expensive policy, covering numerous services that most folks don’t want and will never need, the Legislature chose the latter.

The Democrats could make health insurance substantially cheaper; they choose not to do so. indeed, they've spent much of their time over the course of the past six years making it more expensive.

And, then, they whine about the costs, shedding oceans of crocodile tears for uninsured kids.

Through this simple act, we could make affordable health insurance available to millions of NJ residents. Instead, the Dems choose to impose yet another massive taxpayer funded subsidy, looking toward the day when the taxpayers will pick up the entire cost of health care.

"For the children?" Right. If you have the slightest doubt about where the Dems’ loyalty lies, ask a very simple question: as between the NJEA and children’s educational needs, how would the Dems come out?

Let’s use S-CHIP as an example. It amounts to something akin to a voucher program, pursuant to which people get private insurance and the taxpayers pick up the tab for some or all of the cost. No mandate exists that the insured kids see a governmentally-employed doctor at a governmentally-owned facility. (Although if universal, governmental health insurance ever becomes the norm, that would quite possibly follow, as it did in Britain)

Hence, if we assume the validity of such a program respecting health care, why not education as well?

At least for tactical purpose just now, the Left admits the benefits associated with a taxpayer-funded subsidy such that children can secure medical care in the private sector. Let us apply precisely the same analysis to schools. Instead of a one-size-fits-all, hugely expensive governmentally run edifice, why not pursue precisely the same model for education that the Left hails as benefitting kids for health care? If handing a child a health care voucher (rather than creating a huge, governmentally run health care infrastructure) makes sense, why not apply precisely the same model to education?

And the answer is simple: at present, there exists no politically powerful cadre of governmentally-employed health care workers to compel Dem adherence to the public employee line. Forced to choose between the welfare of kids, and the demands of a massive public-employee union, anyone care to wager how Senator Menendez, Governor Corzine, and the rest of the suddenly child-friendly left would come out?

"For the children?" In NJ, our taxes are the highest in the nation. Given that poor kids are already covered by Medicaid and the existing SCHIP program, even if we decide to insist that middle class folks choose between a Rolls Royce policy and none at all, could we not make it tad easier to afford the premiums by cutting taxes? How about a straight tax credit: every kid in NJ takes $2-3K straight off your state income tax. Instantly, that policy of health insurance for the $80,000 per year family starts to look more affordable.

"For the children?" The Alternative Minimum Tax could be renamed the "Let’s Punish NJ Families With Children" tax, but have the Dems done anything about it? Where is Senator Menendez’s impassioned speech demanding that NJ families with kids be permitted to at least use the deductions to which they would otherwise be entitled? This tax costs some NJ families $4,000 or more in additional taxes. And the Dems have done precisely zip to eliminate it.

Why the inaction? Because any such tax cut would need to be "paid for" to the tune of about $50 billion. While that’s not much in the context of a multi-trillion budget, the last thing the Dems in DC will consider is a spending cut. While they spent the last six years bellyaching about the deficits under the Bush administration (quite properly, incidentally), their own programs cost tens of billions more. Forego that additional spending and cut taxes? HORRORS.

Forced to chose between those folks feeding at the public pap and struggling middle class families in NJ, where do the Dems come out?

"For the children?" The Left wears kids like fashion accessories. Given how many of them are childless, they exhibit no little chutzpah in purporting to care so much more about kids than those who actually bear and raise them. Indeed, quite often, while purporting to care so much about kids, the Left exhibits base contempt for their parents (at least until such time as they become governmental wards, too). As between governmental officials and parents, the Left repeatedly sides with the former.

The point of governmental policy should be to empower parents to attend to their children’s needs as they see fit. This can best be done by repealing mandates, cutting taxes, and providing more parental choice. In each case, it would infuriate the Left, which fought for mandates, supports high taxes, and believes that parental choice ends at birth.

"For the children?" Please. The best possible set of circumstances for the overwhelming majority of kids is a simple, traditional two-parent home, in which those folks who care most about them – to wit, said two parents – make decisions for them. Governmental policy which makes this difficult and expensive – insurance mandates, high taxes, etc. – should be repealed.

"For the children?" When Speaker Roberts, with the enthusiastic support of Governor Corzine and President Codey, proposes a voucher program, dividing all state aid for children equally and letting parents choose the best educational program for their kids, that’s when the Left can be taken seriously as caring about kids. When Senator Lautenberg demands the unconditional repeal of the AMT and "pays for" it by proposing a cut in spending, that’s when the Left can be taken seriously as an advocate for the needs of kids. In short, when the Left stops trying to "help" kids and empowers parents to do the job themselves, then, and only then can they be taken seriously.

Until then, their "for the children" rhetoric amounts to little more than hollow campaign rhetoric, every bit as phony as their preposterous claims of fiscal responsibility.

Political Profiling

The Dems love to accuse Republicans of politicizing science, which, when you think about it, is kinda funny. Republicans don’t put politically correct science projects on the ballot, nor single out one problematic area of research for referenda, purely for partisan purposes. (If it were for scientific purposes, it would rise of fall on its own merits in the normal course of scientific research) Remember that Democrats asserted that 1,200 psychiatrists thought Goldwater was crazy. Some wacky leftist "scientists" – with taxpayer money, no less – aver that conservatism constitutes a mental disorder.

And does politicized science have a more prominent example that our esteemed Nobel laureate, His Hysterical Majesty, Al Gore?

Indeed, even so much as the slightest – truly scientific – dissent from received leftist orthodoxy gets branded as "political".

Comes now a particularly interesting crank, one "Professor" Donald Shields, late of the University of Missouri, claiming that, based upon a statistical analysis, the Department of Justice must be political, because it investigates so many more Democrats than Republicans.

If anyone wonders at the ever increasing cost of college education, it’s because people like this dimwit "teach". A quick search of election records reveals the erstwhile Prof to be a consistent Democratic Party donor. What a surprise.

Referring to the process as "political profiling", akin to "racial profiling", the good Perfessor avers that the Justice Department investigates 7 times as many Democrats as it does Republicans, with baleful consequences to the investigated parties.

Consider the following claim:

"Political profiling makes Democratic officials look like they are more corrupt than Republicans, just as racial minorities are made to look more corrupt than whites by the practice of racial profiling by law enforcement agencies. However, the data on state-wide, U.S. Congress, and U.S. Senate elected officials do not support this claim."

Uh-huh. Lessee. Sharpe James. Wayne Bryant. Mims Hackett. Al Steele. Joe Coniglio. John Lynch. Tony Impreveduto. I get it. These folks are only in trouble because they’re Democrats. Presumably, the Tom Keans, Joe Pennacchios, and Mike Dohertys only escape indictment because they’re Republicans. That must be it. Heck, maybe the only reason that Assemblywoman Evelyn Williams got accused of shoplifting was because some partisan Republican hack politically profiled her.

How ‘bout a slightly different possibility: more Democrats face indictment and investigation because, all other things considered, they’re more likely to be crooks.

Corruption is not an exclusively Democratic problem, but it tends to hang around in urban areas, which tend to be represented by Democrats. Every party and every profession will have its share of rotten apples – witness Monmouth County for a Republican version – but cities tend to breed opportunities for corruption, and that’s where Democrats live.

Too, Democratic voters don’t care much about corruption. Witness the difference in voter reaction between Monmouth and Essex Counties. People in the burbs object strenuously to corruption, or even the hint thereof. Ellen Karcher owes her job to the fact that her opponent walked some fine ethical lines, and the voters of Monmouth acted accordingly. If Jon Bennett toed some lines, James and Bryant planted both feet squarely on the sleazy (if not necessarily criminal) side of that line, and both Hackett and Steele went much further. Is there the slightest possibility that the voters in those districts will react by electing Republicans?

Corruption is simply not a viable electoral weapon against Democrats, because Democratic voters expect their pols to be slimy – if not actually criminal – and don’t hold it against them.

Put another way, can you imagine how Morris County voters would react if our local Sheriff appointed Rick Merkt and Michael Carroll as undersheriffs? The electorate would evict us in a New York minute. But such passes as routine in Democratic Counties. Democratic voters expect their elected officials to use their power for personal profit, and really don’t care if they do so criminally.

Back to the report of this nutcase professor. The recommended solution to the perceived problem amounts to something akin to "political party norming" criminal investigations: for every Democratic crook one finds, one must scare up a Republican crook to indict. For every James or Bryant we indict, we need to find a Kean or a Whitman. Just to ensure balance. Just to ensure that the public doesn’t come away with the impression that the Dems are more corrupt.

Except that they are.

The long litany of NJ Dems frogmarched out of elected office in cuffs resulted not from any "political profiling", but because they see government as a food source and power as something to be exploited for personal profit. Republicans – occasional rogues notwithstanding – do not. Even when a particular undertaking is technically legal, Republicans shy away from walking those lines, lest they be punished by their own voters. Quite obviously, Democrats entertain no like anxiety. Absent indictment – sometimes even in the teeth of an indictment – a sleazy, if not crooked Dem office holder has nothing to fear from the electorate. The electorate expects no better.

Judicial Review

Today’s Star Ledger offers up a review of a new book on the Supreme Court of the United States. Alas, the language of the review fails to make it clear whether the opinions expressed are those of the author of the review or of the work under consideration. Perhaps both.

In the seminal case of Bush v. Gore, the review states, the SCOTUS "... demonstrated vanity, overconfidence, impatience, arrogance, and political partisanship..." The review’s author – now clearly speaking for himself – condemned the Court for its lack of "deference" (presumably to the determination of the execrable Florida Supreme Court) and "restraint", concluding that "... activism can be of any ideological stripe."

And, on that head, the author – erstwhile new Jersey Chief Justice James Zazzali – speaks with unquestioned authority, as he sat on, and presided over, the least restrained, least deferential, most activist, most impatient, most overconfident, most arrogant, vainest, and most politically partisan court in the Country. Indeed, certainly since the early 1970's, no Court in the nation has so consistently embarrassed folks who take the role of the judiciary seriously.

The litany of disgraceful cases knows almost no limit: Robinson v. Cahill, Right to Choose v. Byrne, Abbott, Mount Laurel, the Torricelli replacement case, death penalty cases, the legislative redistricting case, the gay marriage decision. To this list, one could easily add dozens of other, lower profile cases in which the Court put its best – that is to say, its left – judicial foot forward.

"Conservatives" – an infuriating term when employed to describe a judicial philosophy – concern themselves not with the results at which a Court arrives, but with whether that result comports with the text and history of the document it purports to construe. Hence, the problem with the above cited cases is not that they came out "wrong", in the sense of reaching an incorrect result, but that they lacked any underpinning in the text or history of the constitution or of the statutes at issue. Alas, our NJ Supreme Court – and all of the political left – cares not one whit about process, provided that the case comes out "right". One need merely consider the editorials of The New York Times on such subjects. A jurist who rules against civil rights plaintiffs, in favor of corporations, or against "workers" is, perforce, unqualified to serve or secure a promotion, never mind that the law actually dictated such a result.

CJE Zazzali’s criticism – or his repetition of the author’s criticism – of Bush v Gore is actually fairly well taken, as the SCOTUS clearly failed to distinguish itself. The Court probably should have deferred to the Florida political Powers That Be. It seemed fairly clear that – despite the absolutely outrageous and indefensible actions of the Florida Supreme Court (no doubt taking a cue from its NJ counterpart) – the Legislature would properly award Florida’s electoral votes to the winner of the election – George Bush – and the political process would solve the problem.

But for a NJ jurist to charge another court with arrogance constitutes the height of chutzpah. Perhaps no other court in history less deserves the honorific "judicial"; the NJ Supremes stand almost unchallenged as the worst state high court in the nation. (Florida certainly made a gambit for that title in 2000, and Nevada a few years later, but no Court in the nation is as consistently horrible as is that of NJ.)

Consider: the Court ignored absolutely clear statutory time limits, permitting the Democrats to replace a flawed candidate with someone else, on utterly specious grounds. It invented a "right" to massive urban school funding, even dictating that preschool be provided to 3 and 4 year olds. It crafted, out of whole cloth, a constitutional obligation to build low and moderate income housing. In the redistricting case, it declared a portion of the NJ Constitution unconstitutional – a truly cute trick. (The Appellate Division, on the same case, averred that the question was as simple as 1+1=2, demonstrating conclusively that the NJ Supremes not only illiterate, they’re innumerate as well) In the gay marriage case, Justice Zazzali himself dissented from the majority opinion, not on the grounds that 3000 years of tradition could not be unconstitutional, but on the assertion that the majority opinion wasn’t nutty enough.

In his final sentence, Zazzali opines that, as respects courts, "we will get what we deserve". What, pray tell, did the people of New Jersey do to so anger the gods as to be afflicted by the NJ Supremes these last 40 years? During that time, not one Justice – not a single one – ever consistently demonstrated that he/she got passing scores on the separation of powers section of the Constitution. Or, for that matter, in reading comprehension.

Conservatives don’t object to taking their policies before the electorate. The people get the policy they deserve: if they want a bloated government, outrageous taxes, questionable ethics, and public employee giveaways, racialism, unrestricted abortion, etc., (and, seemingly, they do) the Democrats stand ready to oblige them. But to have such idiotic policy imposed upon an unwilling populace based upon nothing more substantive than the whim of a few unelected, geriatric, ideologically predisposed lawyers is simply unconscionable. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a massive problem confronting the people of NJ which does not owe much, if not all, of its genesis to a judicial decree, one utterly lacking in constitutional basis.

CJ Zazzali avers that the judicial decision making process is "nuanced and complicated". Oh? In the Torricelli case, one lawyer – charged with arguing that the statute meant what it said – heard from numerous out-of-state lawyers: "you can’t lose"; and from hoards of NJ lawyers: "you can’t win." They knew the Court: it would not permit the law to stand between it and its preferred policy objective.

Similarly, I predicted, years before the gay marriage decision came out, that the Justices would impose it upon an unwilling populace. (Although BlueJersey types object to the perceived slight in the Court’s refusal to call this rose by its appropriate name, the effect is pretty much the same and they may yet succeed in getting the Court to pull that trigger) Why? Not because anything in the NJ Constitution even remotely suggests – let alone compels – such a result, but because the result comports with Politically Correct orthodoxy, and such is the only relevant concern to this Court. It cares not about the language of the Constitution; it simply asks "what’s ‘right’", and then acts accordingly, following the whims of its uniformly leftist membership.

Appellate judging is not especially nuanced or complicated. Not, necessarily, that it’s simple, but the process is easy to describe, if not always to follow: read the language of the relevant instrument and discern what the authors had in mind. Legitimate disputes may arise about the meaning of a text, but there can be no legitimate dispute about the appropriate judicial role. It is not, as one Justice said during confirmation hearings, "gap filling". It is not "doing the right thing" or arriving at a desirable result. It simply requires following the language of the instrument wherever it leads. If the Legislature or the people got it "wrong", it’s up to them – not the Court – to correct matters.

For an erstwhile co-conspirator in the NJ Supreme Court’s never ending struggle to subvert the rule of law to criticize another Court, let alone one which, increasingly, actually follows the law as it is, not as the Members might wish it to be, constitutes the height of arrogance.