While expressing his extreme "disappointment" with Trump's selection of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News contributor, revealed that he voted for Gary Johnson in the 2016 election (you must be kidding me--more on this in a minute). At a different spot on the right-of-center portion of the political spectrum, conservative purists have been attacking Kavanaugh as "part of the swamp" and "the Establishment's pick," claiming that he will be soft on religious freedom and that he defended Obamacare's individual mandate.
If you have any doubts about Kavanaugh's conservative record, these two articles should convince you that he will be a strongly conservative judge:
Brett Kavanaugh Said Obamacare Was Unprecedented And Unlawful
Trump Hits Another Home Run With Supreme Court Pick Brett Kavanaugh
Purists wanted Amy Barrett. So did I. But some of the purists' attacks on Kavanaugh make it sound like he'll be another Stephen Breyer or David Souter, which is ridiculous. The NRA is very happy with Kavanaugh's record on gun rights. The ardently conservative and pro-Christian American Center for Law and Justice says that Kavanaugh's record on religious freedom and the rule of law is strong. The National Federation of Independent Business notes that Kavanaugh has a solid pro-business, anti-over-regulation record.
NRA-ILA | NRA Applauds Brett Kavanaugh's Nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court
Nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is “Superb Choice” Showing “Unwavering Commitment to the Rule of Law and the Constitution” | American Center for Law and Justice
NFIB Welcomes SCOTUS Nominee
One of Napolitano's biggest beefs with Kavanaugh is that Kavanaugh does not think it's unconstitutional for intelligence agencies to collect metadata on phone calls and e-mails. This is downright silly, and it shows how little libertarians know about intelligence collection. Collecting metadata on phone calls and e-mails is no different than simply noting the sender's and recipient's names and addresses on an envelope. If the sender's and/or the receiver's name and/or address raises suspicion or is mentioned in known terrorist traffic, then you have to get a judge to allow you to examine the contents of the phone call/e-mail. The argument that you should "just get a warrant" to do metadata collection is not only dangerous but absurd. Most of the time, metadata collection reveals connections that you would have never known about otherwise.
What disturbs me even more than Napolitano's distortion and nit-picking about Kavanaugh is the fact that, with so much at stake in the 2016 election, Napolitano voted for the flake-job Gary Johnson (and his even more bizarre running mate William Weld). Are you kidding me? If more voters had voted the way Napolitano did, Hillary would have won and we would would have a 5-4 liberal majority and all of the key cases that we won in the last few months would have gone the other way.
If you have any doubts about Kavanaugh's conservative record, these two articles should convince you that he will be a strongly conservative judge:
Brett Kavanaugh Said Obamacare Was Unprecedented And Unlawful
Trump Hits Another Home Run With Supreme Court Pick Brett Kavanaugh
Purists wanted Amy Barrett. So did I. But some of the purists' attacks on Kavanaugh make it sound like he'll be another Stephen Breyer or David Souter, which is ridiculous. The NRA is very happy with Kavanaugh's record on gun rights. The ardently conservative and pro-Christian American Center for Law and Justice says that Kavanaugh's record on religious freedom and the rule of law is strong. The National Federation of Independent Business notes that Kavanaugh has a solid pro-business, anti-over-regulation record.
NRA-ILA | NRA Applauds Brett Kavanaugh's Nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court
Nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is “Superb Choice” Showing “Unwavering Commitment to the Rule of Law and the Constitution” | American Center for Law and Justice
NFIB Welcomes SCOTUS Nominee
One of Napolitano's biggest beefs with Kavanaugh is that Kavanaugh does not think it's unconstitutional for intelligence agencies to collect metadata on phone calls and e-mails. This is downright silly, and it shows how little libertarians know about intelligence collection. Collecting metadata on phone calls and e-mails is no different than simply noting the sender's and recipient's names and addresses on an envelope. If the sender's and/or the receiver's name and/or address raises suspicion or is mentioned in known terrorist traffic, then you have to get a judge to allow you to examine the contents of the phone call/e-mail. The argument that you should "just get a warrant" to do metadata collection is not only dangerous but absurd. Most of the time, metadata collection reveals connections that you would have never known about otherwise.
What disturbs me even more than Napolitano's distortion and nit-picking about Kavanaugh is the fact that, with so much at stake in the 2016 election, Napolitano voted for the flake-job Gary Johnson (and his even more bizarre running mate William Weld). Are you kidding me? If more voters had voted the way Napolitano did, Hillary would have won and we would would have a 5-4 liberal majority and all of the key cases that we won in the last few months would have gone the other way.