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So today is Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayors birthday. Happy birthday to the first Hispanic Latina Justice! Her birthday comes on a day that pushes her jurisprudence and that of the entire left of the Supreme Court into stark relief.

As many Court watchers are aware, today the decision in Department of Homeland Security vs. Thuraissigiamwas released. It was a 7-2 decision denying habeas corpus and due process relief to immigrants, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer concurring in the decision. Thats right, two of the more supposedly staunchly liberal members of the Court agreed with the administration, while Sotomayor penned a pointed dissent.

This comes right after Sotomayors concurrence in DHS v. Regents where she alone refused to dismiss the equal protections concerns of DACA recipients, and well, it really makes you wonder who deserves to be lionized as the liberal anchor of the Court, as a contemporaneous chat with my colleague, Joe Patrice reveals.

And I was not alone in this opinion.

Its become increasingly clear if liberals want a quick gut-check to see just how bad a decision is, they need to see where Sotomayor voted. And yet, RBG remains the cultural touchstone for what it means to be a liberal. But we know she isnt perfect, far from it.(Though I think we can all admit that when there are nine is a bad ass quote.) For her birthday, I want more cultural ephemera celebrating Sotomayor. Im here for the Sonia hoops or nail polish. And yes, t-shirts and posters and laptop stickers and all the trinkets that get churned out for RBG. Its high time pop culture pays attention to who is really holding down the Court.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email herwith any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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Happy Birthday Sonia Sotomayor, The Real Liberal Queen Of The Court - Above the Law

Protesters march in New York to demand an end to police violence after George Floyds killing at the hands of a police officer. (Ragan Clark / AP Photo)

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As The Nations designated liberal hand-wringer, I admit Ive been concerned about the rapid spread of the demand to defund the police, which sociologist Alex S. Vitale argued for persuasively in our digital pages last week. I have worried that its radicalism jeopardizes the growing mainstream support for police reform in the wake of George Floyds apparent murder by Minneapolis police two weeks ago, and the subsequent police violence against those protesting that crime. It has, of course, become a simplistic gotcha question for some reporters and news anchors to shoot at Democratic politicians, especially since a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to disband its police department Sunday.Ad Policy

But Ive decided to calm down and trust the wisdom of the activists, as well as some of the leading politicians, whove been working on this issue far more closely, and with far more on the line, than I have. There is right now a productive tension between liberalism and radicalism, as well as establishment insiders and activist outsiders, the kind we talk about in history: labor unrest in the 1930s (and earlier) helping to lead to New Deal reforms; civil rights unrest in the 60s culminating in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.

Of course, the white backlash to 60s civil rights progress, as well as sometimes-destructive protest and rising crime, led to the election of Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reaganand now Donald Trump. And some of us older folks are still living in the shadow of those traumas.

Ive come to realize part of the problem is that much of the liberal Democratic establishment came of age politically, as I did, in the shadow of the Reagan revolution, when Republicans came to dominate not only policy but language itself, especially around crime, welfare, and the role of government. After Republicans won the White House in five out of six elections, with a brief pause for Jimmy Carter, some Democrats worried that theyd never get it back. President Bill Clinton led us out of that wilderness, partly by making the many compromises with the dominant GOP worldview that progressives now loathe, or at least lament. But even Barack Obama, like me, graduated from college into cramped, fearful Reagan-era political activism. That partly accounted for his (justified) fear of a GOP backlash and (futile) determination to work with Republicans. Now, some of us cringe at every slogan that might potentially frighten off the elusive swing voter, from Medicare for All to Abolish ICE to, now, Defund the police.

But remember when Abolish ICE was going to doom Democrats in 2018? And they took the House?

Even Scott Walker, not the GOPs brightest bulb, framed the issues on Twitter this way Sunday night:

Thus making reform the default conservative position. (Georgetown public policy professor Don Moynihan immediately demonstrated the authoritarian Walkers deep hypocrisy.)

But the ever-centrist Politico Playbook reported Tuesday morning that some congressional Republicans say they are seriously considering whether they can support any of the police reform tenets of the bill proposed by the Democratic House along with Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker on Monday. Senators Mitt Romney and Tim Scott are said to be looking at what they might back, and even some House Republicans are, too. Politico reports:

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The low-hanging fruit for Republicans includes a ban on chokeholds, declaring lynching a federal crime, creating a national reporting mechanism for police officers who get in trouble and beefed-up training programs for law enforcement. Republicans are even holding open the possibility that they could rework liability protections for police officers.

Ill believe it when I see it, but its not nothing.

Im not going to pretend I dont still worry about the slogans being confusing and potentially chasing away Americans who are otherwise open to serious police transformation. (So does Senator Bernie Sanders, by the way.) But I also worried that the violence on the fringe of the George Floyd protests last week would alienate the publiconly to see public support for the demonstrators, and police reform, soar in that same period. Part of that is thanks to cops themselves: The violent police riots we saw in cities from New York to Minneapolis to Austin to Los Angeles opened the nations eyes, belatedly, to the lawlessness of too many of the men and women who are paid to enforce the law.Defund the Police

And I think liberal and progressive Democrats are mostly handling the question well. The Views Meghan McCain tried to corner Senator Kamala Harris on Monday by professing support for police reform but opposition to defunding the police, and insisting that Harris say whether she supports that demand, yes or no. Harris did something deftI think she learned a lot from her failed presidential campaignand turned the question around on McCain: How are you defining funding the police? Of course, McCain couldnt answer. Noting that many cities spend more than one third of their budgets on police, Harris said she thought the actual task was reimagining how we do public safety in America, which I support. Incidentally, thats the same formulation used on Sunday by Representative Ilhan Omar, who is to Harriss left. For now, Im going to let those running for and holding public office sort it all out.

And theres a lot to sort out. Even those who profess to support defunding the police mean different things. For many, it starts with demilitarizing urban police forces by not investing in the armaments of war. For others, its putting significant chunks of police budgets into social services treating homelessness, mental health issues, and substance abuse. It can also mean disbanding police forces, as the Minneapolis City Council seems to envisionbut even that proposal remains admittedly vague. And though he only uses the word reform, Minneapolis SEIU leader Javier Morillo laid out seven tough moves to break the power of conservative, often brutal police unions that have blocked attempts at change in many cities, including his own.

In an interview last week, The End of Policing author Vitale acknowledged this:

Im certainly not talking about any kind of scenario where tomorrow someone just flips a switch and there are no police. What Im talking about is the systematic questioning of the specific roles that police currently undertake, and attempting to develop evidence-based alternatives so that we can dial back our reliance on them. And my feeling is that this encompasses actually the vast majority of what police do. We have better alternatives for them.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden, elected to the Senate in 1972, grew up in the shadow of Nixon, which was in some ways more withering to the political soul than Reagan, especially on racial issues. Biden says forthrightly that he doesnt support defunding the police. Of course he doesnt. But the former vice president is coming along on these and other issues. Can we move him to systemic questioning of the roles police perform? Or even reimagining the police? Well see where Biden lands.

The only remaining worry I have is if it becomes a litmus test for activists, and they spurn a presidential candidate like Biden who wont go that faryet. But Ill worry about that later. Ive finally realized: Its time for those of us who grew up in the shadow of the Reagan revolution either to shut up and listen, or exit stage left.

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Liberals: Dont Be Afraid of Calls to Defund the Police - The Nation

Dave Rubins recent Dont Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason documents the YouTube personalitys intellectual journey from a Young Turks firebrand to a self-described classical liberal and an unlikely hero of the political right. Rubin hails from what has been termed the intellectual dark web, made up of individuals from the left and right who have found themselves on the wrong side of current political whimsmost notably in regard to free speech, race theory, or gender politics.

These individuals include Jordan Peterson, Brett Weinstein, Sam Harris, and Ben Shapiro, all frequent guests on Daves wildly successful YouTube channel and podcast, The Rubin Report. Rubin prides himself on giving a platform to diverse viewpoints, championing a classical liberal perspective he differentiates from the newer regressive left.

While Rubin agrees with many of the issues conservatives are most vilified forfree speech, freedom of religion, Second Amendment rightshe continues to term himself a classical liberal. In Dont Burn This Book, Rubin shows us why he and others who have left the left still consider themselves liberals, lending itself to a broader conversation about liberal and conservative thought.

Dont Burn This Book isnt a dense treatise. Much of what Rubin is discussing are ideas are both conservatives and liberals have been hashing for centuries. The book isnt a manual of new ideas, but an entreaty to return to the old ideas of the left before it turned, as Rubin puts it, regressive.

Chapter 3, entitled Think Freely or Die, spends more than 40 pages outlining a middle ground on hot topics of the day, decrying the vilification of those who hold the slightest different view from current woke trends, discussing free speech, Second Amendment issues, abortion, American exceptionalism, immigration, and more.

According to Rubin, todays liberals, no longer accept that all men are created equal. He writes, While liberalism aims to produce hard work and pride around a common cause, our new, negative worldview spawns only jealousy and grievance. By contrast, classical liberalism returns to the roots of liberalism, rejecting authoritarian leftism.

Before his political awakening began, Rubin says he was, solidly pro-choice, but has recently begun describing himself as begrudgingly pro-choice. While hes upset with the way the left has fetishize[d] abortion, he still supports the right of women to have an abortion before the 12th week of pregnancy. However, Dave concedes that the unborn child is a human life and argues, What may seem to be a logical inconsistency is a well-thought-out position.

Daves reasoning for his position on abortion skews liberal. He says the 12-week cutoff point for abortions is the optimal compromise between observing the rights of the individual (primarily the mother, then the baby) and the necessary role of public policy, which protects our freedoms in the first place. Dave ranks the right of the mother to choose her destiny above the right of the unborn child to live his or her life.

Liberals arent immoral, but they typically place individual freedom over other moral considerations. In this case, a womans right to free herself of responsibility and the physical and mental toll pregnancy and subsequent motherhood leaves her with trumps the fact that life is sacred. At the same time, Rubin tries to balance this position with the recognition that taking an innocent life is immoral.

In the pro-life debate, conservatives and liberals often talk past each other. Liberals see an individuals potential for self-actualization infringed upon and nothing else. Conservatives see the murder of a human life and nothing else. Rubin recognizes this classic conflict between the liberal and conservative mind, saying, My libertarian side says that government should have nothing to with this decision, Rubin explains, but my realist [or perhaps his conservative] side says the state has a duty to protect the life of the unborn.

Abortion is not the only aspect where Daves classically liberal positions highlight the age-old differences between conservative and liberal thought. Dave, a married gay man, doesnt see why someone who cares about individual liberty would be against same-sex marriage.

While he tolerates religious positions on the issue, an individuals right to act in accordance with that position, he makes a too broad sweep over why some of these individuals also believe the government would be remiss in recognizing same-sex marriages as such. But according to the classical liberal tradition, if individual liberty is all that principally matters, then why would anyone care if a same-sex couple may marry?

If you believe in individual rights, he puts it, then, great stuff, youre on the right path. Rubins explanation of the classical liberal, or libertarian, reasoning for gay marriage is woefully simplistic. Its not that Christians and other religious individuals think their religious beliefs should be foisted upon the rest of the nation, but that up until very recently most agreed that government plays a role in shaping the moral compass of the nation through families.

The idea that the state has a role in protecting moral ends is inherent to conservatism. In the case of abortion, to the conservative this means protecting human life at the expense of a womans claimed right to choose. In the case of gay marriage, this means protecting a certain model of the family as the most conducive to a virtuous society, at the expense of homosexual couples ability to marry.

Liberals have often been ridiculed for being so open minded their brains fall out, which, while unhelpful as a serious point of political argument, makes a salient point. The liberal tendency is to look to the future and the new to such an extent that they forget the roots that have held together Western Civilization for so long. Thankfully, Rubin has the good sense to avoid that pitfall, dedicating a whole chapter to praising American excellence and the values of Western civilization.

As Rubin finds that the left has abandoned true liberalism, Rubin, who is by no means a conventional conservative, has found an intellectual home on the right. While the principles of free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought arent exclusively conservative or liberal (both sides have their bittersweet histories), its also no accident conservatives have been the ones doing the conserving of age-old civil liberties.

In Chapter 5, Rubin recounts the story of how conservative radio host Larry Elder changed his mind on systemic racism on his YouTube show and podcast The Rubin Report. Instead of digging in his heels, Rubin used the interview as an opportunity to open minds, including his own. [W]hether I liked it or not, he writes, this devastatingly embarrassing moment was everything The Rubin Report was meant to be aboutpushing personal and political growth through conversation.

Maybe conservatives could learn from this. Just as liberals tend to look towards the future and the new to the detriment of the tried and true, conservatives tendency to focus on what has been rather than what could be, often blinds them from considering differing viewpoints. Rubin and The Rubin Report are a testament to how people of goodwill on both sides can stand up for the other sides right to say what they think, even when they dont agree.

Sarah Weaver is a graduate student at Hillsdale College. You can read more of her work as well as contact her through her website at sarah-weaver.net. Find Sarah on Twitter @SarahHopeWeaver.

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Dave Rubin On Where Liberals And Conservatives Can Agree, And Can't - The Federalist

Canada is almost smack-dab in the middle of the freest spending six months ever by any federal government.

Even in the build-up to D-Day during the Second World War, when all the Allies were buying ships, tanks, bombs, guns and planes to defeat Nazi Germany, Ottawa never spent money like it has in the middle of this pandemic.

And its being done almost entirely without Parliamentary oversight.

The Liberals who only have a minority have largely governed without opposition for the past three months and intend to continue doing so for at least three more.

Despite the unprecedented spending, we have seen no budget this year. Finance Minister Bill Morneau hasnt even tabled official spending estimates, so it is impossible to know where all the money is going.

Now the Liberals intend to force a vote on $150 billion in special spending on June 17 after only four hours debate and without amendments.

After that abbreviated debate and arbitrary vote, Parliament (such as it is) will be suspended until at least Sept. 21.

The pretend Parliament on June 17 will culminate three months in which governing in Canada has mostly consisted of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau descending the steps of Rideau Cottage in Ottawa to give a daily news briefing, followed by a handful of softball questions from reporters handpicked by the PMs communication staff and disproportionately selected from Quebec.

In March, Parliament shut down out of fear of spreading the coronavirus. After a month of that lockdown, the only meetings of MPs have been a 30-member committee that is limited to asking questions solely about the pandemic.

Remember, too, during the early weeks of the pandemic, the Liberals sought to vote themselves extraordinary power to tax, spend and borrow without recourse to Parliament until the end of next year.

They have managed all these moves with a minority because the NDP and Bloc Quebecois let them get away with it.

So where is the outrage from the chattering classes? Or are most commentators, networks and academics just so Liberal-friendly they cant bring themselves to criticize Dear Justin?

I saw a meme the other day that said, If Justin Trudeau ate a dog on Parliament Hill, the CBC headline would be Trudeau makes Canada safer for cats.

In 2008, one month after a federal election left Canada with a Tory minority under Stephen Harper, the Liberals and NDP conspired with the Bloc to push the Conservatives out and install their own coalition instead.

Then-Governor General Michaelle Jean agreed to grant Harpers request to prorogue Parliament. That sparked one of the greatest festivals of wailing and shrieking in modern Canadian political history.

The Harper government was called illegitimate and unconstitutional by all manner of scholars and pundits.

Concordia University political scientist Brooke Jeffrey accused Harper of dismantling Canada, while her colleague at the University of Alberta, Lori Thorlakson, insisted Harper had made Canadas Parliament the weakest of the weak.

Several academics banded together to pen an open letter insisting no other P.M. had so abused power. And The Economist magazine editorialized that the danger in permitting prime ministers to end discussion any time they choose, is that parliaments then become accountable to them rather than the other way around.

Whether you agreed with those positions on Harpers moves or not, you have to ask, Where is the similar level of outrage this time around?

Surely the danger of a six-month suspension of Parliament during a pandemic and unprecedented spending is just as great a threat as Harpers two-month prorogation.

But I guess it doesnt bother as many academics and journalists when its the Liberals crushing Parliamentary procedures.

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GUNTER: Where's the outrage at the Liberals crushing Parliamentary procedure? - Toronto Sun

In these trying times, its difficult to find something to smile about. But Ive found some modicum of mirth watching very sympathetic liberals go the extra mile to help hone the message of activists calling to "defund the police." For instance, Katy Tur, an MSNBC anchor, had Isaac Bryan, the executive director of the Black Policy Project at UCLA on Meet the Press Daily to explain what "Defund the Police" really means.

Isaac, thank you so much for joining us. Lets talk about what this means because I think there are a lot of people out there who hear defund the police and [think] it means abolishing a police department. It doesnt. So can you explain it to me?"

Bryan very politely replied that he disagreed with the premise of the question. Defund the police doesnt in fact preclude abolishing the police. Bryan says the term means taking that idea as far as the political imagination and the political will of our leaders across the country is willing to push this idea."

Most Democratic politicians understand that actually abolishing police departments root and branch would be close to political suicide (and terrible policy). Even Sen. Bernie Sanders is against it. They also understand that nobody in America wants the Democrats to embrace this idea more than Donald Trump.

Thats why many liberals want Defund the Police to mean reform the police or even reinvent the police. The problem is the activists who hold the emotional and psychological high ground wont play along. When the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, spoke with protesters last week, he said almost everything the crowd wanted about fundamental reform, systemic racism, etc. But when a leader of the protests asked him, yes or no do you favor outright abolition of the police, he said no. The crowd booed. The leader told him to get the [expletive deleted] out of here. And he wandered off to chants of shame and a sea of extended middle fingers.

What we have here isnt a failure to communicate but a legitimate difference of opinion. Some people favor serious reform. Some favor actual abolition. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the people who truly favor abolition should continue to say so and the people who dont should probably stop trying to prove their solidarity by using a slogan they disagree with. And, so far, most prominent Democrats, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden have done exactly that.

So much for the politics. What about the actual ideas?

Lets start with reform. Banning choke holds, redirecting some responsibilities to mental health professionals, EMTs, and social workers has been tried with some success. Moving further on that front is sensible.

Repealing qualified immunity laws so that police officers can be held more responsible for their actions is more complicated but certainly worth exploring. As a matter of principle, Im opposed to all public sector unions, even if some do worthwhile things, so Im certainly open to fresh thinking about police unions.

Many people have focused on the example of Camden, New Jersey, as a model for defunding the police. Except it isnt. In 2012, the cash strapped city decided to disband the existing force, which was rife with corruption and union-fueled dysfunction, and started over. They rehired some 100 officers and committed to retraining. It appears to have been modestly successful. But no one driving through Camden today would mistake it for some cop-free utopia where yeoman citizens police themselves.

But abolishing the police? Thats insane.No really, its insane. Who will respond to school shootings? Social workers? What about bank robberies? Who will investigate murders? If you just want to rename the police, fine. But the police function is essential to a civilized society. And there are times when that function can only be performed by agents of the government willing and able to use force.

Some defunders propose community patrols, which sound a bit like local militias to me. But whatever name you give them, how does that not create more problems? Do you really want untrained groups of cop wannabes confronting suspicious characters in a neighborhood? Thats how Trayvon Martin got killed by George Zimmerman. All of the problems with race, but also class, would be exacerbated if local communities took it upon themselves to do police work. Affluent, mostly white, communities would have more resources and poorer, mostly black, communities would have fewer.

Anger over George Floyds killing is justified. But what is true of individuals is also true of mass movements: You dont do your best thinking when youre really angry.

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Liberals Want 'Defund the Police' to Mean 'Reform.' It Doesn't. - The Dispatch