Mark Pulliam notes that the famously left-wing 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is sponsoring a “Mid-Winter Workshop.” Mark comments:

Chief Justice Roberts recently chastised President Trump for criticizing federal judges as partisan. Roberts insisted that “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best….” The Ninth Circuit makes that Pollyannish assessment difficult to take seriously. The agenda of its Mid-Winter Workshop reads like the program for an activist group—which is exactly what it is.

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If the general public had any idea how ideological judges are in even their internal meetings, they would find the Chief Justice’s defense of the judiciary to be fatuous.

I am afraid that assessment is correct. Here is the agenda for the Mid-Winter Workshop. After which, some comments:

Midwinter WSorshop AAgenda2019Ninth Circuit FJC MidWinterWorkshop Draft Program_10232018 by John Hinderaker on Scribd

The agenda is a left-wing laundry list, but I have a few favorites. Like the keynote speech at lunch, by Jeffery Robinson, ACLU Deputy Legal Director and Director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality: “Controversies Regarding Confederate Monuments.”

Monuments and symbols are important in every culture. Do the Confederate flag and monuments to Confederate heroes reflect our culture and pride or something much uglier? Are the current day explanations of the meaning of the flag and the monuments the same explanations used at the time the flag and the monuments were created? This presentation will look at the historical context of the creation of the Confederate flag and monuments, including information that is not generally taught in American schools.

“Information that is not generally taught in American schools”–in context, that is chilling.

Then there is “The Care of Gender Non-Conforming and Transgender Individuals.”

This workshop will cover the basics of the gender lexicon, medical and surgical interventions, and a brief review of the research regarding such interventions. The overarching theme of this workshop is to help participants gain understanding of what it means to be navigating a world that creates significant mental, medical, educational, legal and employment disparities for transgender individuals.

What would the Left do without disparities?

The most sinister workshop, I think, is “Free Speech Values: Campuses, New Technologies and Polarization.”

This distinguished, eclectic panel will examine free speech broadly and philosophically, exploring implications of contemporary developments on campus and off. It will address cross-currents at work in society on a number of levels that raise First Amendment questions and consider whether shifting views may take the law as we know it in new directions and how quickly. Panelists also will discuss the particular context of speech cases involving controversial speech, offensive and hate speech, “triggering speech,” and online speech.

The panel will consider whether “shifting views may take the law as we know it in new directions.” Those shifting views, I take it, are the ones held by leftists who claim the right to shut down speech with which they disagree. The 9th Circuit seems to see merit in such efforts to gut the First Amendment, given the “and how quickly” conclusion. And, of course, “offensive speech,” “hate speech” and “triggering speech” are all constitutionally protected. Unless “shifting views…take the law as we know it in new directions.”

We can only pray that President Trump gets at least two more Supreme Court nominations and some 9th Circuit nominations, as well.