Chekhov’s Gun

How is Amy Coney Barrett holding up in her Senate confirmation hearings? Well, her record ...

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How is Amy Coney Barrett holding up in her Senate confirmation hearings? Well, her record is squeaky clean, she’s held fast to the Ginsburg rule, and she’s remained calm and collected despite the Democrats’ best efforts to break her composure. Another benefit from this hearing, as Sarah points out, is that “the media has finally come around to understanding that the Affordable Care Act is not going to be tossed in the trash.” On the flip side, the language of court packing on the left has shifted in the opposite direction, where Democrats now argue that the term simply refers to the act of filling existing vacancies with conservative judges they don’t like. On today’s podcast, Sarah and the guys walk us through the evolution of court packing in recent decades before giving us a temperature check on the presidential election, several competitive Senate races, and the unmasking probe commissioned by Attorney General Bill Barr.

Show Notes:

–Morning Consult poll on ACB’s confirmation, the Cook Political Report, and David’s latest French Press: “Amy Coney Barrett and the Obamacare Debacle, Explained.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Comments (28)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Saied

    I started listening to the podcast while driving this morning until it got to the meaning of words and an online dictionary relabeling the words in real-time. This is too much. So, I flipped to Serious XM to listen to Little Steven's Underground Garage. The first number was the Byrds singing "I was not born to follow" and after that Palmyra Delran (have to love a girl who names herself after two towns in New Jersey) signing "Lies for You". That sums it up.

    I will have to listen to the rest of the podcast after the NY Football Giants beat the no-name Washington team.

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    Jeff Walden

    Ye gods was that discussion of Senate prospects depressing. And, uh, I think there's an obvious answer to the question of (in the hypothetical) "what have we been doing wrong for the last four years?"...

    On the fun note point, the answer to that question surely has to depend whether it's happening *now*, or happening at some random time where kids wouldn't be wearing masks. You put me in one of those seats without a mask, and I have zero poker face. My efforts to stifle myself would succeed, but they would be *very* obvious. You put me there in a mask, and I'd have a fighting chance that the camera wouldn't detect the twinkle in my eye any time Sheldon Whitehouse opened his mouth.

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    Kevin Johnson

    Great pod. Three cheers for calling out Orwellian language manipulation. David noted this works, in the sense that lies about what “packing” means gets them through a news cycle. Such linguistic warfare also works because repetition begets acceptance, even if it is due to passivity. Academics pushed the “words are violence” thesis for years. Now you have the NYT guild claiming physical danger from words, Ezra Klein saying the same...and on it goes. If we don’t object each time, this indoctrination will take hold. Color blindness equals racism, disparities of outcome prove racism, riots aren’t riots, etc. The issue is not that folks can’t seek change to what they find offensive, but that we shouldn’t just let the left decree changes and seek to shame all who disagree. This is not a minor issue of semantics. Some radical trans activists (not/not all or most trans people) are pushing “affirmation” as the required response to all cases of a child expressing doubts about sexual identity. This is promoting hormone treatments and surgery for minors (with a sharp increase among girls) with minimal medical understanding and sometimes against the wishes of parents. Wherever one stands on this trans/human rights issue, be aware that linguistic indoctrination (demanding “affirmation”) is aimed at stopping debate.

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  4. James Bennett

    You guys really need an IT guy on the staff to explain GitHub to you. I am available, for a price.

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    1. James Bennett

      Plus I'm also a Russia/military specialist and can explain in-depth how the DC Movies are inferior to Marvel.

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    Tracie

    I have listened to this panel and the Commentary podcast endlessly gush about Amy Coney Barrett, and complain about the "sexual preference" question, and things the far left has said about her.

    I do not delude myself that conservatives care that many left of center people have simply zoned out. ACB is going to be stuffed down our throats just like Kavanaugh. There's nothing we can do.

    All we can do is remind each other to vote, knowing that we will have to vote in much greater numbers to overcome structural disadvantages.

    The idea that ACB's supposed moral superiority will keep her from imposing her own beliefs about what is right and good on the law is laughable. An originalist can see what they want in the minds of the framers. The framers had nothing at all to say about women. They appeared to regard them as a non-issue, to be dealt with by husbands, families, and less lofty local laws - no matter how backwards.

    If Roe is overturned, and the question is put back to the states, I would bet a wager that there will be an almost perfect correlation between how unfortunate are the women of a given state, and how restrictive are the abortion laws. Amy Coney Barrett's home state of Louisiana typically competes with Mississippi for the highest levels of infant and maternal mortality. These are places where efforts to restrict abortion tend to be strongest and most frequent.

    It is, of course, too small and private of an issue for something as grand as the Constitution to consider. How can women have a right to privacy when the framers didn't even regard women as part of the public sphere?

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    1. Counterpoint

      Yes, my short version of that is that originalism / textualism is incredible marketing, but the judges find what they want to find and do what they want to do.

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        Tracie

        Thanks. I don't do short versions well.

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  6. Jonathan Seery

    You guys crack me up with the github.io URL - I promise it's not the Dark Web.

    Github (github.com) is one of the largest platforms for hosting open-source software. The github.io URL is domain that github offers as an easy way for a data scientist to to publish a software-based project (just like this Poli Sci professor has done). This way, this prof's data, and code used to generate the analysis and dashboard you're using, are all public, so you could inspect and adapt to your own use if you wanted.

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    1. John

      I am sure I am biased because of my own career track, but listening to them be baffled by github is really cringe inducing. Hopefully their IT person can set them straight...

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    Kevin Lanik

    Has Steve really not seen Ghostbusters? It was insinuated, and feels "big, if true."

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  8. ROBERT

    My kids at some sort of Senate hearing?
    Elementary school version: crawling under, over, and through the furniture. They may even have attempted to crawl up on the large desk /podium the senators all sit at.
    Middle school: angry faces with vision daggers going straight into my back - for making them be there.
    Past that: head down into phone or hand held video game player.
    I'm clearly not in ACB's and her husband's league of parenting skills!! 🤣🤣

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    Angie

    Brady bunch was a TV show...teehee....good one Jonah, even your tone of voice...lol
    Good Pod

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    John Russell

    At the end of the podcast, Sarah invited listeners to return, "same bat time, same bat channel...." I'm old enough to remember the live action Batman television series (the title character played by Adam West), in which an episode would be followed by previews of next week's show followed by an appeal (spoken by the character Robin) to "tune in next week same bat time, same bat channel..."---all from the era when Lyndon Johnson was president. Where did did a youngster like Sarah pick that up?

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    1. Jackson

      Sarah and I are about the same age, and I definitely get that reference. Pretty sure it was on Nick at Nite when we were kids...?

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      Angie

      Probably re runs...lol..I watched that too when it was out

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