{"id":107867,"date":"2023-03-07T19:46:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T00:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=107867"},"modified":"2023-03-07T19:46:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T00:46:44","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-monday-march-6th-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=107867","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Monday, March 6th, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Monday, March 6th, 2023…but before we begin, the gay-activist\u00a0Democrat (now former) mayor of College Park, Maryland, who has presented himself as a role model for LGBTQ youth and<\/em><\/span>\u00a0has been “mentored” by Mayor Pete was arrested last Thursday morning on a total of 56 child sex offenses, including possessing and distributing child pornography<\/em><\/a><\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As Doug Andrews relates at The Patriot Post<\/em><\/span><\/a>…<\/strong><\/p>\n

“…The Washington Post reports<\/a><\/em><\/span>, “College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn, a long-serving public official and advocate for environmental and social justice issues in his Maryland city, was arrested Thursday morning and has been charged with 56 counts of possession and distribution of child pornography.”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As the Post details, the specifics of the case are sickening:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Authorities have accused Wojahn of uploading and sharing dozens of videos to the social media app Kik in early January that depicted explicit sexual acts involving prepubescent boys and adult men. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children flagged the suspicious Kik account to the Prince George’s County police on Feb. 17, authorities said, and investigators obtained a warrant to search Wojahn’s College Park home on Feb. 28.<\/span> During that search, police said in court documents, Wojahn waived his Miranda rights and told investigators that the Kik account was his. Police also said that Wojahn “advised that he has viewed and possessed files depicting child pornography,” according to court papers.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Post further notes that the news of Wojahn’s arrest “shocked” the city’s residents, who described him as “a present, reassuring leader during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and an advocate for [wait for it<\/em>] equity<\/em><\/span>.”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It’s strange, though. The above-cited WaPo story is a comprehensive one, 25 paragraphs in length and 1,134 words long, and yet not one<\/em><\/span> of those words is “Buttigieg<\/em><\/span>.”<\/span><\/span> Nor<\/em><\/span> is one of those words “Democrat<\/em><\/span>.”<\/span> Same with this article<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span> in The Hill, which, unlike the Post, purports<\/em><\/span> to be a credible<\/em><\/span> news source. To its credit, The New York Times, which also covered the story and failed to mention Wojahn’s friendship with Buttigieg, did<\/em><\/span> mention that he’s a Democrat, albeit in the 19th paragraph, fifth from the bottom, well beyond most folks’ willingness to continue reading<\/span><\/span><\/strong>.<\/span>..”<\/p>\n

One can only imagine the hue and cry which would have erupted had Wojahn had been a frequent guest at the Trump White House, let alone been “mentored” by Don, Jr.!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Still, like every cloud, even this one has a silver lining, at least from Pete’s perverted perspective:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In a related item, the first Black lesbian White House press secretary that identifies as a woman blasted a new Tennessee law banning pornographic drag shows in public spaces, as well in the presence of children, suggesting elected officials who are concerned with legislating against drag shows are ignoring more pressing issues that Americans are focused on, such as\u00a0the economy, inflation and building safer schools and communities<\/em><\/span><\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of doing anything to address those real issues that are impacting American people right now, you have a governor from Tennessee who has decided to go after drag shows. What sense does that make, to go after drag shows?\u201d she said.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

…She concluded in saying that President Biden has \u201calways been very clear when it comes to vulnerable communities like LGBTQ community that he has their backs.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Soooo…the leader of the political party which is actually responsible<\/span><\/em> for destroying our economy, sky-high inflation and creating unsafe schools and communities is focused on promoting<\/em><\/span> perversion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, here’s The Gouge<\/em>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, NRO<\/em>‘s Charlie Cooke accurately avers, the misleading musings of a not-so-wise Latina woman to the contrary notwithstanding…<\/strong><\/p>\n

There Is No \u2018Expert\u2019 Clause in the U.S. Constitution<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

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“CNN\u2019s Joan Biskupic\u00a0writes up<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0yesterday\u2019s\u00a0oral arguments<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0from the two student loan cases that are currently before the Supreme Court:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Prelogar\u2019s arguments were bolstered by the three liberals among the nine.<\/span> Sonia Sotomayor, the senior justice on the left, warned that judges would seize greater power if agency authority to carry out acts of Congress were diminished.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Addressing Nebraska state Solicitor General James Campbell, who argued against the Biden administration, Sotomayor said, \u201cWhat you\u2019re saying is now we\u2019re going to give judges<\/span> the right to decide how much aid to give them.<\/span> Instead of the person with the expertise and the experience<\/span>, the secretary of education, who\u2019s been dealing with educational issues and the problems surrounding student loans, we\u2019re going to take it upon ourselves<\/span>, instead of leaving that decision in the hands of the person who has experience<\/span> with these questions.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is a nonsense<\/span><\/em> argument from Sotomayor.<\/span> First off, the question before the Court is not<\/em><\/span> \u201chow much aid\u201d to give to students. The question before the Court is whether the statute it is examining \u2014 the 2003 HEROES Act \u2014 confers upon the executive branch the power to do what it\u2019s trying to do<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> If it does, it does. If it doesn\u2019t, it doesn\u2019t.<\/span> The amount<\/em><\/span> of aid doesn\u2019t enter into that calculation<\/em><\/span>. Neither<\/em><\/span> does\u00a0the level of \u201cexpertise and experience<\/em><\/span>\u201d exhibited by the incumbent Secretary of Education.<\/span> That Secretary could have the most sparkling mind in American history, or he could be a total moron, and, in both cases, the issue before the Court would be same: \u201cDoes he have the power to do it<\/em><\/span>?\u201d There is no provision<\/em><\/span> within the United States Constitution that accords unlimited power to bureaucrats simply because some people consider them to be well-credentialed.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As for Sotomayor\u2019s suggestion that, by superintending this statutory matter, the Court is taking it upon itself to set policy, \u201cinstead of leaving that decision in the hands of the person who has experience with these questions,\u201d that too is absolute rot. As Biskupic notes, Elena Kagan made this argument in last year\u2019s EPA case . . .<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court appoints itself \u2013 instead of Congress or the expert agency \u2013 the decisionmaker on climate policy,\u201d Kagan wrote in a dissenting opinion. \u201cI cannot think of many things more frightening.<\/span><\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

. . . and that was a bunch of old tosh as well. In that controversy, as in this one, the Court was not appointing itself as \u201cthe decisionmaker\u201d; it was deciding where the decisionmaking power lies.<\/span> Was it in Congress, which, the plaintiffs claimed, had not yet legislated on the issue? Or was it in a federal agency that had been empowered by Congress to execute congressional legislation?<\/span> In that case, the Court determined that it was in Congress, because Congress had not granted the EPA the powers that it was claiming. In so doing, it did not take the power for itself; it handed it back to Congress.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In essence, Kagan\u2019s argument is completely backwards. In statutory cases such as these, the risk is not that the Supreme Court will claim a role for which it is not suited, but that, absent the court\u2019s deliberation, the executive branch will claim powers that rightfully belong to Congress.<\/span> If, as Kagan seems (selectively) to want, the Supreme Court were to habitually abandon the playing field whenever it was presented with\u00a0statutory questions, then the role of deciding which powers the executive branch has been delegated would henceforth be performed by the executive branch \u2014 which, having been given carte blanche to interpret the laws however it likes, would start doing whatever it wished to do without reference to the law as written. It would, no doubt, be nice if we were in the habit of electing presidents who were faithful to their oaths of office.<\/span> But we are not in that habit. Instead, we keep electing presidents who scour the law books for sentences that might, if you squint, seem to connect vaguely with whatever they want to do that week, and who then insist dishonestly that they are empowered to act without further legislation.<\/span> By intervening in such cases, the Supreme Court is not undermining the \u201cexperts\u201d; it is playing its role as the arbiter of the meaning of the law \u2014 a role that it is self-evidently better placed to fulfill than is the non-lawyer and non-judge who heads up Joe Biden\u2019s Department of Education.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

One suspects this might be more obvious to Kagan and Sotomayor in different circumstances.<\/span> Were the Secretary of the Treasury in the next Republican administration to claim in bad faith that he had the power to stop collecting all income taxes for a year, one would likely not hear much talk about the brilliance of the bureaucracy from Elena Kagan, and nor would we hear Sonia Sotomayor wondering aloud during oral arguments, whether she ought to leave the matter to \u201cthe person with the expertise and the experience, the secretary of the treasury, who\u2019s been dealing with fiscal issues and the problems surrounding high taxes\u201d\u00a0\u2014 even if, as a matter of indisputable fact, the secretary in question were the most experienced expert in the land. Instead, Sotomayor and Kagan would grasp that the policy matter and the legal matter were separate, and that the scope of the question before the Court was clear: \u201cDoes that law allow<\/em><\/span> for this?\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s<\/em><\/span> the question at hand here<\/em><\/span>, too.<\/strong><\/span>“<\/p>\n

Were one to elicit a response from Sotomayor and her Socialist sisters as to what serves as a guide for their judicial philosophy, outside of Das Kapital<\/em>\u00a0and the musings of Saul Alinsky, their honest answer would be…<\/strong><\/p>\n