Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Bernie Sanders is Hillary Clinton's rabbit. Read this Wikipedia entry to see what sometimes happens with rabbits.

The Republican donor class is discombobulated. They need a candidate they can control, but Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are uncontrollable. Jeb Bush was their man, but the American people have Bush fatigue, so now it's on to Marco Rubio for the fat cats. He can't be trusted. He supported amnesty once and he'll support it again. Donald Trump is our best chance to retake the White House. He's not perfect, but he can win. He'll eviscerate Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Here.

Here.

Utilitarianism . . . is not the only method of ethical inquiry which considers human goods, as ends, as its principles. Another method is possible. This method does not attempt to determine the moral value of acts by assessing their actual consequences. Instead, it examines whether these acts are compatible with an upright will—that is, with a sound love of true good. The moral judgment of conscience depends upon right reason. Reason is right if it is rooted in sound principles. And these principles, in turn, are sound if they ultimately reduce to insights into the goods that man's heart loves if he loves the Good Itself, God, above all things.

Some ends of human activity are not goods that perfect man in himself. Property is an example. Such ends are subordinate and derived; they are not sought for themselves. Some ends are goods that are considered in separation or abstraction from the unity of man. Pleasure is an example. It is a good state of consciousness, but it is considered by itself only when the state of consciousness is dualistically abstracted from the metaphysical unity of sense and intelligence, self and body. But there are certain goods that are intrinsic to man, that are sought for themselves, and that are not defined by abstraction from the unity of man.

Some of these goods have a definite content in themselves; they are not defined by reference to something else. Truth that is known for its own sake, esthetic qualities appreciated for themselves, activities (such as play) engaged in on their own account, and the very process of human life itself—its initiation and its continuance—are examples of such goods. Other goods are defined by reference to something; they are forms of harmony or integration. The integration of the personality, which includes the traditional virtues of temperance and fortitude, is one example. Another is the integration of the agent and his own action, which includes the virtues of practical wisdom and sincerity. The harmony of men with one another, which includes justice and friendship, and the harmony of man with the sources of reality, which is the object of religion, are other examples.

(Germain G. Grisez, "Methods of Ethical Inquiry," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 41 [1967]: 160-8, at 164-5 [ellipsis added])

To the editor:

David R. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey note that the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia loved to cite Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Paper on limiting the judiciary's power to the exercise of “merely judgment.” ("Justice Scalia kept constitutional originalism in the conversation—no small legacy," Opinion, Feb. 15)

Alas, Scalia never would have cited James Madison's Federalist No. 37, where he argued that no language “is so correct as not to include many equivocally denoted different ideas” and that “all new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill . . . must be considered more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications.”

Madison's understanding of language is the best challenge to Scalia's “gift” of originalism. It invalidates Scalia's claim that the language of the Constitution has a “fixed” meaning that a judge can discern objectively.

The gift of “originalism” that Scalia offered was a bogus gift in my opinion (and certainly for Madison too).

Thomas Gustafson, Los Angeles

To the editor:

Despite claiming to be an originalist, Scalia had to invoke his own “penumbra” to conclude that the 2nd Amendment was really about a personal right to bear arms and not focused instead on arms that would be needed by a “well regulated militia.”

In his 2008 opinion in District of Columbia vs. Heller, Scalia divined for the first time in our jurisprudence that the 2nd Amendment, despite what it actually says, was only about our personal right as Americans to own weapons. To conclude that, he had to ignore the plain text of the first clause about a “well regulated militia.”

To accomplish this feat, he found (but did not call it so) an originalist's “penumbra” argument, claiming that the “original” intent of the framers was to guarantee the right of the people to own weapons.

But wait—what about that “well-regulated militia” clause? So much for the plain text.

Richard Brock, Indio

To the editor:

“Originalism” is just a made-up term for Scalia's brand of judicial activism. Anyone who argues that a corporation should effectively be a person before the law doesn't have any concept of biology and has a real loopy idea of what the framers of the Constitution intended.

Using the term "originalism" as an excuse is like saying, “God made me do it.”

Leigh Pomeroy, Mankato, Minn.

Note from KBJ: With all due respect to their authors, these are three of the stupidest letters to the editor I've ever read. Gustafson's flagrantly fallacious reasoning is that, because no expression is perfectly clear, every expression is perfectly unclear. Brock has obviously not read District of Columbia v. Heller (or, if he has, he didn't understand it). Pomeroy doesn't realize that corporations are and always have been legal persons, with rights and duties. Not all legal persons are natural persons. The stupidity of progressives never ceases to amaze me.

Memo to Karl Rove, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Reince Priebus, John Podhoretz, Rich Lowry, Byron York, et al.: Get right with the Donald while you still have time.

Ann Coulter nails it. Key paragraph:

Even if you think Trump is a libertine, shallow narcissist, you know he will do what no other Republican will: Go to Washington, kick ass, mock political correctness, build a wall, deport illegals, bring manufacturing home, and end the GOP's peculiar fixation with remaking the Muslim world.

Exactly.

The American people have spoken: They don't want another Bush in the White House. Jeb Bush represents all that is wrong with this country. He puts foreigners ahead of Americans (amnesty) and the wealthy ahead of workers (free trade); he's in favor of big government and intrusive bureaucracy (Common Core, Terri Schiavo); and, like his supporter Lindsey Graham, he never met a war he didn't like. Good riddance. (As I said the other day, I'm glad George and Barbara Bush lived long enough to see their family repudiated. The first George gave us eight years of Bill Clinton; the second gave us eight years of Barack Obama.)

Addendum: Harry Enten does the post-mortem.