‘Puter imagines this to be the creative process in the New York Times’ editorial suites. Here comes another double-flusher from Keller!

‘Puter was enthralled to read today the the New York Times editorial board fervently believes that judicial retention elections are TEH WERK UB TEH DEBBIL!!11!!1!  Intrigued, ‘Puter read on to discover what sort of shenanigans were afoot. 

Surely, the New York Times’ editors had uncovered some nefarious right wing plot to illegally — maybe even unconstitutionally — subvert the will of the people and established political order!  Let’s see here.

Under Florida’s system of choosing Supreme Court justices, the governor makes the initial appointments, then voters get to decide every six years whether to keep them.  This system of “retention elections” was intended to avoid the politicization of the courts associated with regular, multicandidate judicial elections.

Holy moley! A smoking gun! Conservatives are having a judicial retention election, as mandated by law! OH NOES!!1! And an unsupported allegation as to legislative intent being to prevent politicization of the judiciary! O. Mah. Gawd. The New York Times has uncovered this generation’s Watergate!

But wait, dear reader.  It just gets worse. In an election open to all eligible voters and subject to all applicable local, state and federal election laws, conservatives are ADVOCATING FOR THEIR PREFERRED CANDIDATES! ZOMG!!1!

Some conservatives are trying to purge three moderate justices facing a retention vote in November: R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince. The only Democratic appointees on the state’s seven-member court, they are being singled out for various rulings, including a decision in 2010 that blocked from the ballot a misleadingly worded constitutional amendment designed to permit the state to opt out of national health care reform.

‘Puter especially enjoys the part where the three judges are defined as “moderate justices” in the first sentence, and we only learn in the second sentence that all three of the allegedly “moderate justices” are in fact Democrats.

But surely evil Floridian conservatives have been biased in their targets.  Conservatives must be taking on only liberal Democrats, right? Not so much.

An effort to remove the two Republican judges who voted with them [the three Democrat “moderate justices” -‘Puter]on the case failed two years ago. But this year’s antiretention drive, which is being led by a group based in Orlando with ties to the Tea Party, Restore Justice 2012, appears more robust, and it is being aided and abetted by the Republican governor, Rick Scott.

So let ‘Puter get this straight, New York Times editors.  Your position is that an election held as mandated by state law and in accordance with state law on whether to retain Florida’s Supreme Court justices is bad and wrong because it can be used for political purposes? ‘Puter politely leaves aside for the moment the admitted fact that the New York Times’ conservative nemesis has used Florida’s judicial retention elections to oppose both Republicans and Democrats. 

It seems the editorial could’ve been more succinctly written thus:

Florida’s judicial retention elections are valid if and only if the results always and without fail retain Democrat appointees. Love, the New York Times editors XOXOXO

Consider ‘Puter’s world rocked, New York Times.  You’ve plainly demonstrated how destructive to law and order the forthcoming Florida judicial retention elections are.  ‘Puter’s certain you, being the pinnacle of leftist thought and the setter of the daily agenda in all right-thinking newsrooms across America, are consistent in your hatred of all duly held elections that may subvert the will of the people, right?

Wrong.  Here’s the New York Times editorial board opinining on June’s recall election of governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

As Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin faces a well deserved recall vote next month after stripping public unions of their bargaining rights, voters are discovering the generosity of Diane Hendricks.

That’s the editorial’s lead sentence.  Please feel free to read the rest of the cited editorial, but you’ll only find the usual liberal “ever since Citizens United we’ve been getting our asses handed to us” schtick.* But debating wrongheaded liberal opposition to constitutional laws is not ‘Puter’s primary purpose in this posting.  ‘Puter’s purpose is to call out the New York Times editors for their blatant hypocrisy in pursuit of their favored political outcome.  

How is Wisconsin’s recall election scheme materially different from Florida’s judicial retention election scheme? It’s not.  Both are legal methods of obtaining citizen input on the performance of government employees.  In fact, the Wisconsin recall election law is inarguably more destructive to political order than Florida’s judicial retention election law because the former interrupts the term of a duly elected public employee while the latter occurs at the end of a duly appointed public employee’s term of office.

There is no rational basis for opposing judicial retention elections on the one hand and supporting recall elections on the other.  Unless you, like the New York Times editorial board, are willing to sacrifice your good name in support of your pet political cause.

*’Puter thinks the Citizens United decision is merely correlated with the Democrats’ political fortunes, and not causative, but ‘Puter’ll defer to the plainly superior intellects at the New York Times.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.