Judges matter...

just ask Donald Trump

In 1984, I saw exactly one Mondale for President ad.

It is the one at the 4:38 mark.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?25896-1/presidential-campaign-commercials-1984

I was in college in Virginia….and my home state had not gone Democratic for President since 1964. Before that, Virginia went Democratic in 1948. Twice in nine presidential elections.

For its time, the Mondale “Jerry Falwell” ad was prescient of the political situation facing the Left.

The Right keeps packing the Courts. The efforts of the Left to balance that out has largely been putting academics and well-respected attorneys (i.e. nominations that get bipartisan support) on the bench.

The result:

Biden’s vaccine mandate stymied by the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. And to be clear that “mandate” applies to companies with 100 or more employees. And the mandate is little more than enforcement of an OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) regulation that has been in effect for decades.

Donald Trump’s struggle over anyone peaking at his taxes has led to his attorney appealing Judge Tanya Chutkan’s decision rejecting Trump’s assertion of “executive privilege”, a rather novel claim since he lack’s the governmental office required to have such a thing. The ruling is headed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The three judge panel (all Obama and Biden appointees to the bench) is having an expedited hearing set for November 30th. A likely Trump loss there will be appealed to the Supreme Court.

And that’s just this week.

And the once somewhat balanced Supreme Court prior to the Trump Administration is now precipitously tilted to the Right.

And what could the supposedly “apolitical” Court do? Well, the worst thing they could do is nothing or nearly nothing.

The vaccine mandates were not going to go into effect until January 4, 2022. The Court could docket the case for the Supreme Court’s October 2022 Term and leave the 5th Circuit ruling in place (reversing the mandate and halting any enforcement of it). It could also decide not to hear it at all.

On Trump’s assertion of “executive privilege”, it could stay the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, put it on the docket for October 2022 (which means any ruling could be after mid-term elections).

And given the Supreme Court’s decision not to immediately block SB 8, Texas’s rather odious and convoluted anti-abortion bill, it would be par for the course.