Brett Kavanaugh Sits Next to Clarence Thomas on Supreme Court's Ideological Spectrum

I just love this Kavanaugh pick.

Seen on Twitter:

Where Brett Kavanaugh sits on the ideological spectrum (#2 behind Justice Thomas) https://t.co/gvC7CsJq1T

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 10, 2018

The Hill Slams Tomi Lahren with Photo That Looks Like She's Giving a Blow Job

Sorry, not sorry, but that's not the most flattering photo, no matter what you think of Ms. Tomi.

Tomi Lahren breaks with conservatives: Pushing to overturn Roe v. Wade "would be a huge mistake" https://t.co/NzkatFSQm3 pic.twitter.com/vv4TmtsgXj

— The Hill (@thehill) July 7, 2018

Red Wave in November

Lol, a Marxist red wave.

THAT'S RIGHT! NO BLUE WAVE IS COMING FOR YOU, RED WAVE COMING!!!! pic.twitter.com/SsAduxLYZs

— Guy Gardner (@guygardnergreat) July 9, 2018

Megan Parry's Hot and Muggy Forecast

It's not near as bad as it was last Friday, but it's summer, and it's hot.

Here's the lovely Ms. Megan, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

Democrats Come Out Swinging Against Kavanaugh (VIDEO)

Naturally.

At NYT, "Senate Democrats Come Out Swinging in Long-Shot Fight to Block Kavanaugh":

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats, facing an uphill struggle to reject the nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, opened a broad attack on Tuesday, painting him as an arch-conservative who would roll back abortion rights, undo health care protections, ease gun restrictions and protect President Trump against the threat of impeachment.

But the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, excoriated Democrats for engaging in what he called “cheap political fear-mongering,” and for declaring their opposition to Judge Kavanaugh even before his nomination was announced.

“They wrote statements of opposition only to fill in the name later,” the ordinarily staid Mr. McConnell said, growing exercised as he delivered his customary morning remarks on the Senate floor. “Senate Democrats were on record opposing him before he’d even been named! Just fill in the name! Whoever it is, we’re against.”

And a key Republican swing vote, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, quickly signaled just how hard it will be for Democrats to pull any Republicans into the opposition. “When you look at the credentials that Judge Kavanaugh brings to the job, it will be very difficult for anyone to argue that he’s not qualified,” she told reporters.

As Judge Kavanaugh arrived at the Capitol to meet with the Republican leader and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee’s Democrats and the Democratic leader took to the Supreme Court steps to deliver a direct appeal to Americans to rise up in opposition to his nomination.

“If you are a young woman in America or care about a young woman in America, pay attention to this,” said Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California. “It will affect your life.”

More.

Brett Kavanaugh Could Cement Conservative Majority for Decades

It's the big story, and it's great!

At NYT, "Senate Democrats Come Out Swinging in Long-Shot Fight to Block Kavanaugh":

Breaking News: President Trump has selected Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. His confirmation would cement a conservative hold on the court. https://t.co/oU0Lj1nCxR

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 10, 2018

President Trump on Monday nominated Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a politically connected member of Washington’s conservative legal establishment, to fill Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s seat on the Supreme Court, setting up an epic confirmation battle and potentially cementing the court’s rightward tilt for a generation.

Presenting Judge Kavanaugh at the White House, Mr. Trump described him as “one of the finest and sharpest legal minds in our time,” and declared him a jurist who would set aside his political views and apply the Constitution “as written.”

The nomination of Judge Kavanaugh, 53, a federal appeals court judge, former aide to President George W. Bush and onetime investigator of President Bill Clinton, was not a huge surprise, given his conservative record, elite credentials and deep ties among the Republican legal groups that have advanced conservatives for the federal bench.

But his selection will galvanize Democrats and Republicans in the months before the midterm elections. Moments after the announcement, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, declared, “I will oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have.” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who leads the barest of Republican majorities, had expressed misgivings about his path to confirmation, but said he was a “superb choice.”

Justice Kennedy, who is retiring, held the swing vote in many closely divided cases on issues like abortion, affirmative action, gay rights and the death penalty. Replacing him with a committed conservative, who could potentially serve for decades, will fundamentally alter the balance of the court and put dozens of precedents at risk.

Judge Kavanaugh’s long history of legal opinions, as well as his role in some of the fiercest partisan battles of the last two decades, will give Democrats plenty of ammunition for tough questions. Nearly 20 years ago, working for the independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, he laid out broad grounds to impeach Mr. Clinton — words that Democrats can now seize on to apply to Mr. Trump and the Russia investigation.

In choosing Judge Kavanaugh, the president opted for a battle-scarred veteran of Republican politics but also someone with close ties to the Bush family — a history that aides to Mr. Trump said he viewed as a strike against him and had to overcome.

Before serving Mr. Bush in the White House, Judge Kavanaugh worked for him in the 2000 presidential vote recount in Florida. When Mr. Bush nominated him in 2003 to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Democrats complained that he was too partisan. He survived a contentious confirmation hearing and was confirmed in 2006.

In his remarks, Judge Kavanaugh, who once clerked for Justice Kennedy, said he would “keep an open mind in every case.” But he declared that judges “must interpret the law, not make the law.”

Democrats are still bitter that Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to fill the last Supreme Court vacancy, created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. Republicans denied Judge Garland a hearing, arguing that the right to name a justice ought to be left to Mr. Obama’s successor...

More.

And lots of stuff at Memeorandum.

Barbara Palvin Shows Off Confidence and Beauty (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Chanel West Coast in Red Lace Lingerie

At Taxi Driver, "Chanel West Coast Nipples in Red Lace Lingerie."

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Rita Ora Relaxes in a Bikini by the Pool in France

At Just Jared:

Rita Ora relaxed in a bikini by the pool in France on a break from her European tour https://t.co/6qFhFU07yt

— JustJared.com (@JustJared) July 5, 2018

Also, at Drunken Stepfather, "RITA ORA STILL IN A BIKINI OF THE DAY."

She's a fabulous lady.

Jennifer Delacruz's Heat and Thunderstorms Forecast

It's not nearly as bad as Friday, when we had the power outage, although it did rain in the inland areas over the weekend. Look for a combination of heat and rain today and through Tuesday.

Here's the fabulous Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

The Rebirth of Socialism in American Politics

It's not so much as a "rebirth" as an acknowledgment of reality. Democrats are far-left Marixist ideologues. It's just now that they're not afraid to come out that way publically.

At the Washington Monthly, "The Socialist Network: Are today’s young, Bernie-inspired leftist intellectuals really just New Deal liberals?":

It’s Time to Give Socialism a Try.” So declared the headline of a Washington Post column in March; one imagines Katharine Graham spitting out her martini. The article, by a twenty-seven-year-old columnist named Elizabeth Bruenig, drew more than 3,000 comments (a typical column gets a few hundred); a follow-up piece, urging a “good-faith argument about socialism,” received nearly as much attention.

By now, the rebirth of socialism in American politics needs little elaboration. Bernie Sanders’s surprisingly strong showing in the 2016 Democratic primary, and his continued popularity, upset just about everyone’s intuition that the term remains taboo. Donald Trump’s victory, meanwhile, made all political truisms seem up for grabs. Polls show that young people in particular view socialism more favorably than they do capitalism. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America, which has been around since 1982, has grown from about 5,000 to 35,000 since November 2016, and dozens of DSA candidates are running for office around the country. In June, one of them, twenty-eight-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, upset New York City Congressman Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary, knocking off a ten-term incumbent and one of the most powerful Democrats in the House.

The meaning of socialism has always been maddeningly slippery, in part because it has always meant different things to different people. Michael Harrington, one of the founders of the DSA and the most outspoken American socialist of the postwar era, writes on the first page of his 1989 book, Socialism: Past and Future, that socialism is “the hope for human freedom and justice.” By the end of the book, the definition hasn’t gotten much more concrete. Karl Marx himself spent more time critiquing capitalism than describing communism, a habit that subsequent generations of leftists inherited. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said of pornography that, while he couldn’t define it, “I know it when I see it.” Socialism sometimes feels like the inverse: socialists know it when they don’t see it. Bernie has only made things murkier by defining his brand of socialism in terms hardly indistinguishable from New Deal liberalism. “I don’t believe the government should own the corner drugstore or the means of production,” he declared in the fall of 2015, at a speech at Georgetown University, “but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a fair deal.” But while the meaning of American socialism in 2018 begins with Bernie, it doesn’t end there. Every political movement needs an intellectual movement, and when it comes to today’s brand of socialism, it’s the thirty-five-and-under crowd doing much of the heavy lifting...

Keep reading.

This is all a scam, of course. Leftists won't define "socialism" because they know the American public will reject it. Real socialism calls for the natioanlization of industry, if not the public ownership of all means of production (think the Soviet Union). It calls for the elimination of capitalist oppression and the eradication of inequality. Most of all, socialism calls for solidarity with the world's workers, anywhere on earth, and thus the eradication of borders and national sovereignty.

And if genuine ideological socialism were practiced, it would then see the so-called withering away of the state and the advance to "full communism."

This is textbook socialism and any leftist that tells you differently is lying.

Via Memorandum.

Boris Johnson Quits

This is interesting.

At the Guardian U.K., "Boris Johnson resigns as foreign secretary over May's Brexit plans: Senior Conservative becomes third minister to walk out over ‘common rule book’ proposal."

Also, "Power, not Brexit, is behind Boris Johnson’s decision to quit." Sounds about right: Perhaps old Boris is looking to trigger a vote of confidence on P.M. Theresa May." More on that, "Theresa May would fight any no-confidence vote, says No 10 – politics live."

Anticipation Ahead of Trump's Supreme Court Nomination Tonight

Ann Althouse posts on NPR's big piece on tonight's announcement, which I happened to tweet a little while ago:

Announcement is scheduled for tonight at 6:00pm PST. #ScotusPick 🤗 https://t.co/h6WUdHlG6O

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) July 9, 2018

Holiday Fire in Goleta (VIDEO)

Via KSBY News 6 San Luis Obispo:



Also, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Fast-Moving Brush Fire Rips Through 20-Plus Buildings In Goleta; Thousands Evacuated."

ADDED: At LAT, "'I had no idea the flames could go that fast': Goleta devastated by fire as record heat burns path of destruction."

Georgie Clarke in White Lace Bodysuit

At Taxi Driver, "Georgie Clarke in White Lace Bodysuit."

BONUS: "Ashley Greene in See-Through Black Tank Top."

Today's Deals

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Nina Agdal Celebrates Fourth of July (VIDEO)

Hey, she's a patriot!

Marxism Didn't Die

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Marxism didn’t die. It’s alive and well and living among us. New Labour was a triumph of the reborn left, made to seem like a takeover by the right..."

Evelyn Taft's Heatwave Forecast

It's a hellish heatwave.

Our electrical power went out around 6:00pm last night, at the peak of the afternoon heat, around 109 degrees. We walked across the street from out apartment complex to 7/11, and the local Korean barbecue had a sign posted: "Power Outage: Currently Closed." PG&E was able to get the power back on within a couple of hours, thank goodness. It would have been unbearable overnight with no cooling.

In any case, let's hope it's not so hot today.

Here's the lovely Ms. Eveyln from last night, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles: