Quote of the Day posts

“If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments.”

— Christopher R. Browning, “The Suffocation of Democracy,” in The New York Review of Books

“I think Edgar's one of the 50 greatest hitters who ever lived.”

— Joe Posnanski on Edgar Martinez in his series on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot this year. It's Edgar last year before the BBWAA. Looks like he has a chance to make it. In Pos' piece, there are even nicer quotes on Edgar from pitchers Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Mariano Rivera. Slouches, all.  

Edgar, waiting his turn.

From 1947's “Le Diable souffle” (“Woman of Evil”), written and directed by Edmond Gréville. More on Gréville here. 

Oa·kum /ˈōkəm/ (n): loose fiber obtained by untwisting old rope, used especially in caulking wooden ships.

“You know, I love Ireland, I'm a proud Irishman. Ireland is a great country, but it's not an idea. America is not just a country; it's an idea.”

— Bono, front man of U2, as related by U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), in Jeffrey Toobin's article, ”Adam Schiff's Plans to Obliterate Trump's Red Line,“ in the Dec. 24/31 New Yorker.

The obviously follow-up is ”What's the idea?" To me, it's the opposite of almost everything Donald Trump stands for. The idea is that you come here and within a generation you are American. That doesn't happen in almost any other country. We are a microcosm of the world. If we can make it work here, the world has a chance. 

“I'm a retired attorney who is on no one's short list to serve on the Supreme Court. But I listened on Sept. 27 while Kavanaugh peppered two hours of Senate testimony with attacks against people and groups he associated with Democrats. Kavanaugh alleged (without factual basis) that he was the victim of a vast, secret, left-wing cabal, masterminded by senators such as Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and motivated by ‘revenge on behalf of the Clintons.’ I was shocked to hear a Supreme Court nominee carry on like a crazed conspiracy theorist.

”Turns out, there's a rule against federal judges behaving like this. Congress passed the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act in 1980, and the rules under that act state that it's misconduct for a federal judge to make ‘inappropriately partisan statements.’ I may be retired, but I think I know an inappropriately partisan statement when I hear one.“

— Larry Behrendt, ”I filed one of the 83 dismissed misconduct complaints against Brett Kavanaugh. Here's why." on The Washington Post site. Behrendt's complaint, along with the others, was dismissed by the 10th Circuit Judicial Council earlier this month. Its reasoning was like out of a Marx Brothers movie or Joseph Heller novel: the Judicial Conduct Act applies to circuit judges, and while Kavanaugh was one when he made the remarks, he's now an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, so the rule doesn't apply. It's straight from Groucho: Too late, that's old business already.