Pirate's Cove

This doesn’t sound too much like a cult, does it?

There’s Nothing Sacred about Nine Justices; a Livable Planet, on the Other Hand . . .

The Republican-controlled Senate, by any measure, is acting dishonorably as it moves to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the high court: having previously declared that Presidents in their last year in office should not be able to nominate a new Justice, it reversed this “McConnell rule” when it served them to do so. The Trump years have been so ugly that this hypocrisy doesn’t stand out as sharply as it should, but it is an ignoble thing to have done and, in Barrett’s case, to have gone along with.

Still, it’s not the most remarkable thing about the moment. For me, anyway, that came when Senator John Kennedy, of Louisiana, asked Barrett if she had an opinion on climate change. “I’ve read things about climate change,” she said. “I would not say I have firm views on it.” It’s hard to imagine that an intelligent and highly educated person, such as Barrett, would not have reached a conclusion on the key questions facing the future of life on earth: Is global warming dangerous, and is it caused by humans? Neither of these positions is controversial among the scientific community, nor, for that matter, in the Catholic community where Barrett makes her spiritual home. Pope Francis’s lengthiest and most important encyclical, “Laudato Si,” takes on the climate crisis with a philosophical and sociological depth that few others have even attempted. The Pope’s newest encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti,” released this month, covers much the same ground, and he has helpfully produced a ted talk that makes the point in much sharper terms. “We must act now,” he said, which is what every scientist studying the crisis has said, too.

Still whining about that, eh? Bill makes an interesting admission

It is clear, first, that regulation is going to be essential to bring greenhouse gases under control, and, second, that it’s going to have to happen fast. The world’s climate scientists have stated plainly that the next decade represents the critical time frame: without fundamental transformation by 2030, the chances of meeting the Paris accord’s climate targets are nil. Given Barrett’s performance at her hearings, it seems doubtful that she’ll let America play its role—if you’re not even clear that climate change is real, how much latitude will you give government agencies to attack it? As with so many things about climate change, the problem is ultimately mathematical. Joe Biden, should he be elected, acting not out of anger but out of sorrow at Republican gamesmanship, could make sure that the will of the people, not just the will of Charles Koch, is represented on the bench. The composition of the Supreme Court has varied over time from five Justices to ten; eleven seems like the right number for 2021. Or maybe thirteen.

It is clear, first, that the Cult of Climastrology is really all about empowering more Big Government control over everything, and, second, that the CoC really wants to control your life and take your money, and they cannot do that unless they can pack the court to make sure their un-Constitutional power grabs can be ruled A-OK by the Supreme Court. Of course, to make this happen, they would have to pass a new law to do this, not an easy thing, as having 9 Justices has been the law since 1869. The last time Dems tried this, during the FDR period, and he was a heck of a lot more popular than Joe, people damn near revolted. Seriously, if you need to pack the court to get your agenda through, it might be rather shady, is it not?