Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is unconstitutional

Deep commitment to separation of powers inconvenient in this case

Seven conservative lawyers, including Governor Scott Walker's choice to head up his own judicial selection committee, are complaining about a Journal-Sentinel editorial, and misconstrue the U.S. Constitution.

The subject editorial criticizes Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron "Sunspots" Johnson for obstructing the president's power to nominate federal judges, as this space had done previously here and here.

Article II of the Constitution describes the president's powers along with those powers he (it says "he") shares with Congress. Where it comes to federal judicial vacancies, the president has two separate powers: the power to nominate, and the power to appoint. The appointment power he shares with Congress. The nominating power he shares with nobody.

In order to facilitate the nominations in Wisconsin's federal jurisdictions, the State's two Senators instituted a commission to solicit and review applicants, and then make its recommendation to the president. The Constitution does not require the commission, but nor does it forbid it.

The commission is purely a courtesy.

The Constitution places no restrictions on the president's nominating power, and is silent on the matter of how the president goes about discovering a suitable nominee. The present vacancy in question, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, was notified in July, 2009. By November the commission had made its recommendation. The president is not bound by the recommendation, and in fact he can ignore it altogether and nominate somebody else. Say the lawyers:

The nomination was apparently placed on Johnson's desk two days after he took office, in disregard of a senator's duty of "advice and consent" under Article II section II of the U.S. Constitution.

This is a remarkable complaint, coming from these seven experienced attorneys — led by a former judge — because there is absolutely no constitutional basis — read: legal basis — for it. Moreover they don't even know whether they can support the factual bases for their complaint, and acknowledge that "the White House may dispute [our] account."

I should say so.

The president's nomination power is plenary, so the president can put whatever she/he wants on Johnson's desk, whenever he/she wants (assuming there's a judicial vacancy, which there was). The president makes the appointment with the advice and consent of the Senate.

And not with the advice and consent of Ron Johnson. But Johnson has had his say, and in fact used it to say nothing at all, except to complain about his own personal woes, having nothing to do with the nominee.

Ron Johnson, who ran on a devotion-to-the-Constitution platform — despite barely having read the damn thing — should appreciate that, regardless of the establishment and formation of the nominating commission, no such commission is any requirement of the Constitution.

Some of [Victoria Nourse's] supporters now rush to point fingers and assign blame to a senator who just wants to be heard and fulfill his constitutional duty of "advice and consent."

Aw. Poor Ron Johnson. And they call this an argument?

How can he fulfill that duty in the first place if he's preventing Nourse from getting a hearing before the Senate? There is no constitutional "duty" of Johnson's to vet the president's nominees, nor is there any constitutional "duty" of the president's to run nominations by Johnson.

Ron Johnson's duty is to stand aside and release his unconstitutional hold on the nomination and let the appointment process proceed. Then he can come up with some substantive reason (Advice) and then provide or withhold his Consent by voting along with the Senate. The Constitution isn't as difficult to understand as Ron Johnson says he found it to be.

However, its provisions appear to elude some FedSoc disciples. It's amazing such a fundamental first principle got by seven lawyers. Seven.

[The president] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ...

The president shall nominate. Comma.* And appoint. Discrete powers.

And the president did exercise his nomination power. Now Ron Johnson seeks to intermeddle in the nomination, and indeed to intermeddle ex post facto. Ron Johnson hasn't the power to do so, and what Ron Johnson is doing is unlawful and in clear violation of the Constitution.

Why are these lawyers — who should know better — egging him on?

* Not even a forward slash.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is a hypocrite

Somebody's ghostwritten an item in the Washington Post on behalf of Wisconsin's Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, complaining — that's pretty much all he ever does is complain — about a change to the Senate rules doing away with a requirement for supermajority votes. Because, you see, Democrats control the Senate, but only by a narrow margin, and abandoning the supermajority requirement would restrict Johnson and his colleagues' ability to obstruct the majority party's initiatives.

But that's not the remarkable bit. It's Johnson's fatuous claim that "our Constitution was established to protect the rights of a single individual — the ultimate minority." Obviously it's not a fatuous claim on its face; what makes it fatuous is that it's Ron Johnson who's making it. Because there's nothing in the U.S. Constitution about individual rights. Those references appear in the Amendments to the Constitution and most of them are to the individual rights of criminal suspects and defendants, like it or not (and most people don't like it, when they figure it out).

What specifically makes Ron Johnson's claim fatuous is the fact that Johnson is blocking one of the President's judicial nominees who has a record of protecting and enforcing the very rights that Johnson is suddenly celebrating. And it was that record that Ron Johnson's pals and allies among Wisconsin Republicans used as a weapon to falsely portray Louis Butler as overwhelmingly sympathetic to criminal defendants.

(Indeed, Butler's challenger in the 2008 State Supreme Court election, Mike Gableman, depicted the sitting justice as an accessory to rape.)

Johnson's fellow travelers at Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, for example, ran thousands (literally) of broadcast ads attacking Louis Butler for his lone dissent in a case called State v. Mark Jensen, wherein Butler objected to the admission as evidence of certain statements made by the deceased, an alleged spousal homicide victim. The Sixth Amendment guarantees that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him."

Subsequent to Butler's opinion, a similar case arose in California which made it to the United States Supreme Court. In a decision authored by Justice Antonin Scalia and joined by the other conservative members of the Court, Butler's legal and historical reasoning in his Jensen opinion was almost identically reproduced. To my knowledge, conservative special interest groups in Wisconsin never once acknowledged this fact.

And why would they? It would be an admission of their dishonesty.

So to now hear Johnson crying out for the constitutional "rights of a single individual" while blocking the nomination of a judge with precisely the record that Johnson's Wisconsin Republican buddies had previously criticized is both comical and pathetic. And it's especially hypocritical.

Speaking of Scalia, Ron Johnson claimed during his campaign that he was an admirer of "strict constructionists" like the celebrated Justice. Except Scalia is not a "strict constructionist" and moreover would surely scoff at Johnson's reliance on what Johnson himself admits is a "legend" in Johnson's attempt to determine the original intent for the Senate, an anecdote attributed to Washington and Jefferson about a tea saucer.*

And of course there was Ron Johnson's ridiculous insistence — which was supported by a bevy of conservative Milwaukee attorneys — that he, as a Senator, retains the power to nominate judges to the federal courts, a power which the Constitution clearly confers on the President. During his campaign Johnson admitted to only having read the Constitution a couple of times. Nothing has changed since then except that Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson has become an even bigger hypocrite.

* By way of the late former Klansman, West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd.

Ron Johnson's judicial heliology

[Ron Johnson] said he preferred justices who would strictly follow the Constitution in their rulings.

How would he know whether they were or not? Ron Johnson has admitted himself that he's barely even read the damn thing:

I will say, y'know, prior to doing this,* I've sat down and read the Constitution probably, thoroughly, three ... probably about five or six times. It is not an easy document to read. It is not, unless you study it in detail, it's hard to study. — Ron Johnson

Better:

[Ron Johnson] said he would have voted against both of President Obama's Supreme Court appointees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, as well as both appointees of President Clinton — Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I would like to hear why, in detail. Did the J-S think of asking? Is it not significant that the imaginary Senator Ron Johnson would have attempted to block four of the last six Supreme Court appointees?

No other Senator has done that, but only because Jesse Helms didn't live long enough. So here we have this Ron Johnson receiving the torch from Jesse Helms; by God, it's the North Carolina of the North.

Did the J-S ask Johnson about Harriet Miers? Does Johnson think she's a "strict constructionist"? What about Justice Scalia, are his constructions to the appropriate degree strict (a highly effective b.s.-detector question)? If they asked, they didn't print the answers.

Sunspots are behind climate change, Ron Johnson says

How can people actually read this stuff and not laugh out loud. Or else how can they write it with a straight face.

Senate candidate Ron Johnson maturing quickly

— Wisconsin State Journal, 08/01/10

* Answering Dick Morris's plea for a "rich guy from Wisconsin."

Ron Johnson is an embarrassment to Wisconsin

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who admitted to only having read the U.S. Constitution three or four times and finding it difficult to understand, suddenly purports to expertise on federal judicial qualifications and is unilaterally blocking, on no stated grounds whatsoever, the nomination of Victoria Nourse, a highly regarded scholar and practitioner, to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

It might be different if someone who knew what they were talking about was opposed to Prof. Nourse's nomination, but it's Ron Johnson.

A letter from some folks who do know what they're talking about:

Dear Chairman Leahy & Ranking Member Grassley ...*

Among its 53 signatories: Professors Janine P. Geske, Michael M. O'Hear, Chad Oldfather, and Peter K. Rofes, Marquette University School of Law; Professor Akhil Amar, Yale Law School, a constitutional scholar of the highest rank; and, perhaps most notably, Professor Randy Barnett, Georgetown University Law Center, who has been the most dedicated and prolific libertarian opponent of what Ron Johnson calls "Obamacare," which the Senator himself describes as the single biggest assault on Ron Johnson's personal freedom in Ron Johnson's lifetime.

Over and over and over again. In fact it was tedious a year ago.

However, Johnson is likely immune to irony as well, as Barnett has made Johnson's case considerably more forcefully than Johnson is capable of.

Ron Johnson remarked that he found the very notion of the president's powers to nominate and appoint judges "depressing," so it's clear that Johnson's blue slip is motivated by nothing except the cheapest of cheap partisanship, or precisely what the Constitution was designed to avoid.

He should be ashamed.

* Pleased to see Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III got demoted. Hopefully Sen. Grassley is more capable of reason and less of idiocy.

How about a pink slip for Ron Johnson

Recent con law scholarship corner

Ron Johnson opposes their nominations and has not returned "blue slips" on either to the [Senate Judiciary] committee.[*]

You remember Ron Johnson, he's the woefully unqualified Oshkosh millionaire** who read the U.S. Constitution three times in his entire life, and found it difficult to understand. Now he's pronouncing on the qualifications of the president's nominees to the federal judiciary.

I'd like to see a committee of lawyers grill Ron Johnson on his qualifications to assess those qualifications. Even one lawyer.

Frightening, comical (your humble correspondent tends strongly toward the latter, for the sake of his personal sanity), or both.

"We know what needs to be done to try to get out of a deep hole. First you have to start digging." — Ron Johnson

Of course there are no "blue slips" in the Constitution but evidently Ron Johnson has taken it upon himself to avail himself of these "blue slips." I guess that means Ron Johnson reckons there's a right to privacy and a right to have an abortion in the Constitution as well.

Hell, there may even be an individual insurance mandate in there.

* Which members of the president's political party controls.

** With much thanks to federal, State, and local government.

Dave Westlake seizes the Tea

Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Dave Westlake leaped into the breech Wednesday, understudying for his missing GOP primary election rival Ron Johnson at a Tea Party affair in Madison, WI.

Westlake stressed his hard-right credentials by calling for the repeal of the Patriot Act, a position staked out by Russ Feingold in 2001.

(Dave Westlake's "blaze orange" campaign theme also appropriates Senator Feingold's position with respect to the Second Amendment, which is slightly to the right of the National Rifle Association's.)

Ron Johnson had canceled the Madison Tea Party engagement after disappearing earlier in the week when a set of YouTubes emerged showing Johnson struggling defensively to explain fundamental policy perspectives to a local group called the Rock River Patriots.

Candidate Johnson, 55, admitted to the Patriots he'd only been through the U.S. Constitution "five or six times" and that he discovered it to be "not an easy document to read." Yet almost simultaneously, he assured them he'd "take to Washington a very deep reverence for the genius of the Founding Fathers."

But the Patriots were skeptical.

Westlake is one of two Republican candidates whose election posters were torn down from the wall by Ron Johnson and his posse at the Party's State convention in Milwaukee last month, where Johnson received the Official Establishment Republican Party Endorsement.

At the time, nobody knew anything about Johnson except that he reportedly had $10-$15 million to spend and his "foundational book" was Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (not — oddly — the Bible).

Whereas Dave Westlake had been campaigning assiduously for months, and must have chafed at seeing his poster crumpled and discarded so that Johnson might have a blank wall to stand in front of for the teevee cameras.

Johnson said he decided to run when beloved Fox "News" personality Dick Morris put out a random call for "some rich guy in Wisconsin."

Meanwhile abortion outfit Wisconsin Right to Life endorsed Ron Johnson yesterday, despite Johnson's consent to a broad range of exceptions for the procedure, including the "true life" of the mother. Candidate Westlake said he would allow for no such exceptions.

WRtL determined that Johnson was the more "electable" candidate, proving the abortion opponents' devotion to situational morality. Moreover, situational morality in service of political expediency.

On principle, WRtL's embracing Westlake seems the correct choice.

Ron Johnson remains in hiding, assessing his troubled candidacy.

Ron Johnson requires you to license your guns

And submit to government-mandated functionality testing in order to receive the benevolent granting of those licenses' annual renewal:

Like we license cars and stuff. I don't have a real problem in minimal licensing and stuff. I mean, I don't.

— Republican candidate Ron Johnson, June 11, 2010

So it comes as a bit of a surprise to read Ron Johnson's blog post essentially accusing Senator Russ Feingold of dishonesty for his Second Amendment positions. But thanks to Russ Feingold, Ron Johnson's licensing proposals are probably unconstitutional.

While Ron Johnson was just another multi-millionaire from Wisconsin lolling on his divan hypnotized by Bill O'Reilly and Dick Morris's snow jobs, Russ Feingold was affixing his name to Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's amicus brief in McDonald v. City of Chicago.

Senator Feingold and the others filed the brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to urge the Justices to make their holding in a prior decision, D.C. v. Heller, applicable to all State and local governments. The Court agreed with Feingold, and cited the brief numerous times during the course of its majority opinion, authored by Samuel Alito.

Ron Johnson, for reasons best understood by only he and his crack team of legal researchers, apparently finds that incongruous because Russ Feingold opposed the confirmation of Justice Alito in 2006.

Gun buffs

Except Russ Feingold's opposition to the confirmation of Samuel Alito had nothing to do with the Second Amendment. As a career conservative Republican, Alito could certainly be depended upon to sympathize with the attitudes prevailing among Larry Pratt, Wayne LaPierre, and the rest of the nationally prominent gun buffs.

Rather, Feingold's opposition had to do with Alito's record of support for unilateral executive encroachments on the individual liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights, specifically, the Fourth Amendment.

For but one example, substantive questions raised by Alito's celebrated dissenting opinion as a Third Circuit Court of Appeals judge in the 2004 case of Doe v. Groody, in which Alito defended the strip-search of a ten-year-old girl in her home, even though the executive authorities' warrant did not "particularly describ[e] the place to be searched," as the U.S. Constitution requires.*

Nor had Feingold's opposition to Alito's nomination anything to do with the then-president. Had Johnson been paying attention to someone other than Fox lawyers Megyn Kelly and Andrew Napolitano, he would have known that Senator Feingold was similarly vigilant throughout the Clinton era, and remains so during the Obama years.

Intrepid

If candidate for Senate Ron Johnson really is as devoted to "freedoms" as he claims he is, his attentions should be in perfect consonance with Senator Feingold's principled defense of individual constitutional protections as against any broadening of executive branch power over the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

And perhaps some intrepid reporter might ask candidate Johnson why he's so cool with subsuming the right to keep and bear arms — which Senator Feingold recently succeeded at incorporating into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment — within a DMV-like regime of state approval and registration. At the least, it will give the GOP candidate an opportunity to perform another about-face.

* The majority opinion was written not by some wild-eyed Warren Court devotee, but by Michael Chertoff, appointed to the Third Circuit by George W. Bush (with Sen. Feingold's advice and consent) and later named to head up the Department of Homeland Security.

Open democracy, Ron Johnson-style

'The Senate is not an entry-level job.' ― Erick Erickson

According to today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Ron Johnson's most pointed comments were directed at Senator Russ Feingold, saying that when [Feingold] and other senators "come out and start demanding a U.S. pullout and that kind of thing in public, it just undermines what our troops are trying to do."

Said Johnson: "That's not saying if you have real grave concerns as a member of Congress you should not be talking to the administration. It's just extremely harmful to our nation when it's all done in public."

But a few days ago, according to WisPolitics.com, "GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson [said] he wants to restore the tradition of Congress declaring war before the military is sent abroad."

So all those committee and subcommittee hearings, to which members of the public are invited to testify and inform Congress, and all those floor debates and votes, they should be held in private?

Just between Ron Johnson and Barack Obama, or maybe just Ron Johnson and one of Obama's underlings? An Obama "czar" or two?

Free and open and public debate in and out of Congress is "extremely harmful to our nation," according to Johnson. That's good to know.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require secrecy ... [art. I, sec. 5, cl. 3.]

It sounds as if Ron Johnson wants to turn an exception into a rule. Then again, Ron Johnson did say he found the U.S. Constitution "difficult" to read, after the three or four times he attempted it.

Ron Johnson can't read the Constitution either

We need to understand the constitutional role of senators in judicial nominations. — Ron Johnson, speaking for himself

According to RoJo:

The Constitution grants the president the power to nominate federal judges "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate." That means the voters of Wisconsin are entitled to a say in who the president nominates to judicial vacancies in the state.

That is not what the Constitution says. What it says is this:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law[.] — Art. II, Sec. 2, Cl. 2.

Clearly, the president's power to nominate "all other Officers," including lower federal judges — judges of the "inferior Courts ... the Congress shall from time to time establish" as the Constitution refers to them elsewhere — is not restricted by the Senate's duty of advice and consent, whose application is limited to the president's appointment power.

Insofar as the voters of Wisconsin are entitled to a say in whom the president nominates, they had it and did so on November 4, 2008.

"He shall nominate."

The remainder of Ron Johnson's letter consists of irrelevant petulance.

Moreover, it is manifestly fatuous to claim, as Ron Johnson does, that former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler has or had "little regard for the rule of law," especially where Johnson himself is incapable of discovering a rule of law plainly set forth in the U.S. Constitution.

Notice that Johnson's claim is unsupported, because it is unsupportable.

This is, to date, now the second opinion piece in a week the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has published containing this same misinformation.

See also: What John Marshall said (that would be this John Marshall).

Sad Ron Johnson is sad

Dateline DC: "Ron Johnson said today he's unhappy."

"My understanding of the standard procedure in the judicial nomination process is that the Administration extends the courtesy of consulting the home state Senators before nominating an individual to the courts," Ron Johnson, who took office on Wednesday, said in a statement.

In a startling abandonment of current Tea Party protocol, Ron Johnson failed to cite the constitutional provision that requires the president to seek the advice of individuals who aren't even Senators yet (the nominations were submitted on the preceding Monday).

Johnson said he's currently opposed to both nominations.

Big surprise from Johnson, who testified last year the mere thought of Barack Obama nominating federal judges made him "depressed."

So consider Ron Johnson consulted. And still sad: Pass the tissues.

Meanwhile Ron Johnson's Tea-Fox-Republican fellow travelers in the U.S. House of Representatives got themselves so excited about grandstanding astride the Constitution* they reportedly both cast unconstitutional votes and violated the Congressional rules of ethics.

* PC-Expurgated version.

NRA to license guns like they do with cars and stuff

Item: NRA endorses Ron Johnson

Laughable.

It obviously wasn't for either his understanding of the Second Amendment or the abject dishonesty of his presentations, when Ron Johnson can say things like this with an apparently straight face:

Now in the McDonald case they [the U.S. Supreme Court] ruled that that individual right applies to the States. This is a pretty clear difference between myself and Senator Feingold.

No, this is pretty clearly the nadir of double-speaking absurdity.

It bears repeating — again — that Senator Feingold signed on to a Friend of the Court brief in McDonald, in support of the proposition that that individual right applies to the States. The friends prevailed. So the pretty clear difference between Ron Johnson and Senator Feingold is that had it not been for Senator Feingold and others on the record, Ron Johnson wouldn't even have a McDonald to praise.

Meanwhile Ron Johnson is on the YouTubes saying he only decided to read the Constitution after visiting with the oracle, Dick Morris. To say nothing of the candidate's pontificating — incorrectly — on two vital decisions of the Supreme Court he's evidently not read at all.*

And the NRA falls for all of this incoherent pandering. Sad.

* Ron Johnson's Second Amendment fantasies.

Johnson misrepresents Feingold Senate vote

Being the first of many misrespresentations to come, undoubtedly.

Not so long ago, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Dave Westlake served as last-minute understudy for missing GOP rival Ron Johnson at a Madison, Wisconsin Tea Party affair.

Johnson disappeared after his notoriously "disastrous" performance last week, a YouTubed excursion to a deep woods Patriot clubhouse where Johnson dismayed Tea Party sympathizers not only with his inability to address specific Tea concerns, but with his failure to even recognize their most cherished constitutional ideals.

Some were led to wonder: Was he Tea or wasn't he GOP?

Yesterday morning Johnson emerged in the affluent Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield presumably after days of relentless murder-boarding with his new internets research specialist to face Westlake and WisPolitics.com's intrepid presenter Steven Walters.*

U.S. legal system derived from Bible stories

Seizing another opportunity, Westlake went on Full Tea Mode in Brookfield, calling for the abolition of the federal Departments of Education and Energy along with the IRS. He announced that in every Biblical story, one "undeniably" finds a little bit of Constitution, some Declaration of Independence, and a treatise on patent and trademark prosecution, and that the Second Amendment "defines who we are."

He proclaimed the Federal Reserve "a consumer threat," denounced Obama for performing "nothing more than a shakedown" on British Petroleum yachtsman-in-chief Tony Hayward, whose industry's safety record Westlake deemed "impeccable," and demanded that obese, sedentary tobacco smokers accept responsibility for their own poor health and stop insisting everybody else pay to take care of them.

Westlake also spoke emotionally of values and morality and especially moral hazards (to wit, federal unemployment benefits extended for another week or two, and their resultant Devilish temptation of the beneficiary to remain unemployed in perpetuity, in accordance with Tea Party psychology and prophesy).

Mr. Ron Johnson was less than truthful

Candidate Johnson came armed with new quips researched and served up from the deep recesses of the Googles, including one about how Senator Russ Feingold "voted for funding a sanctuary cities [sic]." Which sounds a lot like, "Feingold voted directly in support of something having to do with funding whatever thing it is that makes a sanctuary city a sanctuary city," doesn't it?

Except Johnson's implication is just a bit wide of the mark. Last October, Feingold voted to table (kill) a one-liner nuisance amendment advanced by wingnut Republican Sens. David Vitter and James Inhofe to withhold funding from COPS, a program in place and duly appropriated for since 1994. COPS is devoted to assisting selected local law enforcement engaged in specialized challenges.

For example, combating the social blight and attendant crime of methamphetamine addiction in distressed communities where State or municipal resources are otherwise unavailable.

There wasn't any connection between any particular city's so-called sanctuary ordinance — which discourages municipal employees from participating in immigration investigations except where required by the law — and COPS. Save that connection fabricated inside the roiling medullae oblongatae of Messrs. Vitter and Inhofe.

In fact a number of Republicans joined Sen. Feingold in opposing Vitter and Inhofe's transparent, regressive grandstanding.

Johnson said of immigration, which he claimed "is one of the weakest issues [Feingold's] on," that Feingold "has a zero rating from a group that basically calls for open borders." But wouldn't that be a good thing? Perhaps it will take Johnson a few more days to properly digest all of that newly discovered internets research.

Elena Kagan already "probably disqualified"

In a similar vein, Johnson also asserted that Feingold "voted for partial birth abortion seven times." Obviously nobody votes for "partial birth abortion." But Russ Feingold has certainly voted against placing onerous federal restrictions on women's access to what is and has been for decades — whether Ron Johnson likes it or not — a legal and constitutionally protected right: "the settled law of the land."

Johnson's embedded accusation that supporters of abortion's safe and legal availability are by definition active proponents of infanticide may be the most disingenuous of conservative Republican fallacies.

Among other freshly released Johnson zingers, the candidate determined that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan** was "probably disqualified" for "actually den[ying] access to military recruiters at Harvard" (another falsehood) and that the very thought of Obama having the authority to appoint federal judges was "depressing."

And he repeated his nonsense about knee replacements in Canada, adding a new twist: that it's not unusual to wait one year to receive a coronary bypass in Germany, which sounds equally preposterous.

WisconsinEye supplies the video.

* Sample Walters inquiry: "Do you support President Obama's move to require BP to set up a $20 million [sic] trust fund for oil spill damage that came ahead of any formal finding of criminal or civil negligence?" Both candidates answered "No" based almost entirely on the response Walters had thoughtfully provided in the question.

** Said Dave Westlake of Elena Kagan: "I don't have a whole lot of confidence in nominee Kagan. She's never served in any capacity similar to what she'd be experiencing on the federal court." But neither has Westlake served in any capacity similar to what he'd be experiencing in the federal legislature. As such, not among the most compelling or tactical objections to Elena Kagan's qualifications.

"Divisive" Ron Johnson "a nightmare" for schools

When, during the first U.S. Senate debate in Milwaukee recently, Mr. Johnson used my name as an example of him working across ideological lines to get things done, I was more than surprised ...

Len Herricks, President of the Oshkosh Education Association

Somebody get PolitiFact on that one, willya. Ron Johnson was taken out of context. He was responding to a question about the Senate's constitutional roles of advising on and consenting to the president's executive and judicial branch nominations (seriously, he was*).

More: "I felt I was duped by him."

* Johnson also claimed he's been carrying around and studying a pocket Constitution for all of his life, even though he told the Rock River Patriots in June he'd only read it three or five times since Dick Morris urged him to run for the Senate as the token millionaire.

The Rock River Patriots couldn't believe their ears when candidate Ron Johnson informed them, "It is not an easy document to read." "It's not that long," one of the RRPs retorted. That famed encounter was the last of Ron Johnson's Tea Party appearances, incidentally.

Talk about a nightmare.

What I'd like to know is why in the name of Robert Heron Bork, when somebody who's been studying the Constitution for all of his life is asked about the United States Senate's role in judicial confirmations, he answers by rambling away about the Oshkosh school board?

(Nobody asked him about Charles Murray, although they should have.)

Ron Johnson: Champion of Freedom!

You and whose Dick Armey?

Champion of Freedom? Who are they trying to kid? Ron Johnson wants to license your guns and then inspect them every other year.

"In sum, it is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty."

— The United States Supreme Court, June 28, 2010

That was after Ron Johnson had a chance to read the United States Constitution four or five times (he found it "difficult to understand").

We cannot infer much about [Elena Kagan's] current view on the Second Amendment and what restrictions on guns are permitted by it. — the "conservative" candidate Ron Johnson

You needn't infer anything about Ron Johnson's. He flat out told you.

Bill Lueders gets up on right side of bed

Why in the world is Bill Lueders complaining about Russ Feingold's reaction to Fox News/Republican/Tea candidate Ron Johnson's wanting to treat firearms "like we license cars and stuff"?

More importantly, how about Ron Johnson acknowledging that his retooled stance — following on the heels and toes of podiatric extraction — as practically a Second Amendment absolutist wouldn't even be possible without the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in McDonald v. Chicago, a result that Senator Feingold had urged, in a writing submitted to and considered affirmatively by that very Court.

Feingold has a record on those questions and of course he's going to — and should — reflect it off of Johnson's ill-conceived meanderings.

"I believe it's an essential American freedom," says Ron Johnson, suddenly. "Fundamental right" is the constitutional term of art impressed upon the Court by Feingold and which the Court accepted.

Senator Feingold and his fellow amici argued that the right to keep and bear arms predates the drafting of the Second Amendment itself, which should tickle even the devoutest natural law aficionados.

"The people of Wisconsin can trust me not to play politics with their Constitutional Rights while protecting our right to keep and bear arms," Johnson announces, now. But Wisconsinites were unable even to assert capital-C Constitutional rights until McDonald v. Chicago.

The irony is strong with this one and Russ Feingold needs to make much more of it. If only for Ron Johnson's edification, as the latter's provided every indication that it went sailing right over his head.

Bill Lueders's "morons" are free to make of that what they will, but the majority non-morons should give it some serious consideration.

The Constitution is worth it. Ask any of the real Tea folks.

Bob Barr, liberal moonbat for Russ Feingold

From one consistent reader of the Constitution to another:

What I look for in Washington are folks in the Senate and the House who put the Constitution first. Not the "R" or the "D", not partisan politics but the Constitution. And what you have in Russ Feingold, and I have worked closely with him over a number of years to try to rein in the Patriot Act, to try to rein in the government surveillance and so forth — this is a man who understands the Constitution, who supports and fights sometimes against his own party to defend the Constitution in the Congress of the United States in ways that are much more consistent and much more proactive than a lot of Republicans.

Earlier: Bob Barr, liberal moonbat

Compare:

I will say, y'know, prior to doing this, I've sat down and read the Constitution probably, thoroughly, three ... probably about five or six times. It is not an easy document to read. It is not, unless you study it in detail, it's hard to study. — Ron Johnson

See also: Ron Johnson's Second Amendment fantasies

Ron Johnson impugns the founding documents

Too many lawyers in the Senate, complains Ron Johnson.* 57%.

Signers of the Declaration of Independence:

Josiah Bartlett — Judge; William Whipple — Judge; Matthew Thornton — Judge; John Adams — Lawyer; Robert Treat Paine — Lawyer, Judge; Stephen Hopkins — Lawyer; William Ellery — Lawyer, Judge; Roger Sherman — Lawyer, Judge; Samuel Huntington — Lawyer, Judge; William Williams — Judge; Oliver Wolcott — Lawyer, Judge; Lewis Morris — Judge; Richard Stockton — Lawyer, Judge; Francis Hopkinson — Lawyer, Judge; John Hart — Judge; Abraham Clark — Lawyer; Benjamin Franklin — Honorary Doctor of Law; John Morton — Judge; James Smith — Lawyer; James Wilson — Lawyer, Judge; George Ross — Lawyer, Judge; Caesar Rodney — Judge; George Read — Lawyer, Judge; Thomas McKean — Lawyer, Judge; Samuel Chase — Lawyer, Judge; William Paca — Lawyer, Judge; Thomas Stone — Lawyer; George Wythe — Lawyer, Judge; Thomas Jefferson — Lawyer; William Hooper — Lawyer, Judge; John Penn — Lawyer; Edward Rutledge — Lawyer; Thomas Heyward, Jr. — Lawyer, Judge; Thomas Lynch, Jr. — Lawyer; Lyman Hall — Judge; George Walton — Lawyer, Judge

36/56 = 64%

Signers of the United States Constitution:

George Read — Lawyer, Judge; Gunning Bedford, Jr. — Lawyer; John Dickinson — Lawyer; Richard Bassett — Lawyer, Judge; Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer — Judge; John Blair — Lawyer, Judge (U.S. Supreme Court); John Rutledge — Lawyer, Judge (U.S. Supreme Court); Charles Cotesworth Pinckney — Lawyer; William Few — Lawyer, Judge; Abraham Baldwin — Lawyer; Nicholas Gilman — Bankruptcy Commissioner; Nathaniel Gorham — Judge; Rufus King — Lawyer; William Samuel Johnson — Lawyer; Roger Sherman — Lawyer, Judge; Alexander Hamilton — Lawyer; William Livingston — Lawyer; David Brearly — Lawyer, Judge; William Paterson — Lawyer, Judge (U.S. Supreme Court); Jonathan Dayton — Lawyer; Benjamin Franklin — Honorary J.D.; Jared Ingersoll — Lawyer, Judge; James Wilson — Lawyer; Gouverneur Morris — Lawyer

24/39 = 62%**

(Not counting "career politicians.")

So what was Ron Johnson's point again?

Oh, right. There's not enough millionaires in the Senate.

* The lone accountant, incidentally, is Republican of Wyoming Mike Enzi, who has been a "career politician" for going on 37 years.

That is, more than half of his life (Sen. Enzi is 66).

** James Madison is not among these. But he, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay (a lawyer and future Chief Justice), authored the Federalist Papers, so JM knew a thing or three about the law.

Ron Johnson on the Constitution, again

"The number one priority of federal government really is the national defense, protecting our system, our economic system."

Nice to see the arch-conservative Tea Party Senator from Wisconsin invoking the priority of the General Welfare Clause. But in fact the Constitution has nothing to say about any "economic system" at all.

h/t Robin Marohn (watch the entire clip).

Ron Johnson also thinks he has the power to nominate federal judges.

Feingold brings the ruckus

Darrow: What do you think?
Bryan: I do not think about things I don't think about.
Darrow: Do you think about things you do think about?
Bryan: Well, sometimes. [Laughter in the courtyard]

"[Ron Johnson] is a 55-year-old man. He's a person who has been out in the community, according to his own account. The fact that he's never given any serious thought to the Constitution, to the right to bear arms — any 8-year-old in the State has a position on the right to bear arms. The fact that he just flips off irresponsible comments about the science of climate change suggests that it's not that he's a new candidate, it appears he hasn't thought about issues that most people who want to either be in the private sector or public sector feel they have a social responsibility to have some understanding of. He wants to go to the U.S. Senate without having thought about apparently anything." — United States Senator Russ Feingold

That's the spirit. Hit 'em where it hits.

Johnson's latest press secretary's response is to call Russ Feingold a "career politician," in spite of Ron Johnson's cavorting with Mitch McConnell, a quarter-of-a-century-tenured leader in the U.S. Senate.

See also: Career politician endorses other career politician

That "criticism" is pretty much a wash, don't ya think?

Ron Johnson reverses two centuries of U.S. law

Don't just take my word for it:

1. The nomination. This is the sole act of the President, and is completely voluntary. — Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).

Emphasis added. Ron Johnson cannot read the U.S. Constitution.

Which is not particularly surprising. What is surprising, however, is that these seven attorneys, among whom is Scott Walker's choice to head up his own judicial nominating committee, make precisely the same error.

And they are all criticizing these nominees' qualifications. It's laughable.

Ladies and gentlemen, your strict constructionist, judicial conservatives.