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The answer to that big question will depend on Justice Brett Kavanaugh. During oral arguments, Kavanaugh channeled a 46-page Harvard Law Review article he had published in 2016, two years before President Donald Trump nominated him to the Supreme Court. The crux of the piece, which was titled Fixing Statutory Interpretation, was that existing Chevron doctrine inappropriately makes judges decisions whether to defer turn on a murky distinction that has yielded arbitrary and inconsistent, though hugely consequential, outcomes.

The threshold question judges face, Kavanaugh emphasized, is whether the meaning of statutory language in question is, on the one hand, clear, plain, or unambiguousin which case judges themselves should apply that meaning (as they understand it)or ambiguous, in which event judges should accept the agencys view. Experience has proven, he contended, that the difference between the two categories rests purely in the eye of the beholder.

Instead, Kavanaugh wrote, judges should simply seek from the outset, and later apply, their own best reading of the relevant terms. However, he stressed, this suggested approach would require judges to still defer to agencies in cases involving statutes using broad and open-ended terms like reasonable, appropriate, feasible, or practicable. In those circumstances, then-Judge Kavanaugh wrote, Courts should be careful not to unduly second-guess the agencys choice of regulation.

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The Supreme Court Could Permanently Break the Government. Liberals Have a Chance to Stop Them. - The New Republic

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Some thoughts on why the Liberals are sinking in popularity - Toronto Star

More than a decade ago, Justin Trudeau took a dispirited, strife-torn, third-place Liberal Party and recreated it in his own image, winning election after election after election. There are few voices of dissent within the party because the voices who matter all matter because of him.

But the latest polls show the Liberals headed for, not just defeat, but decimation in the next federal election. Even the most die-hard Trudeau loyalist must be starting to wonder whether its time for a change at the top.

The Conservatives opened up a substantial lead over the Liberals last summer and have held it ever since. That lead may even be growing. A poll released on the weekend by Abacus Data for the Toronto Star shows the Tories ahead of the Grits in the popular vote by 19 percentage points 43 per cent to 24 per cent with the NDP at 18 per cent.

Data Dive with Nik Nanos: 2023 was a historically bad year for Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals

The Liberals are in third place in the Prairies and in British Columbia. The Tories have more than 50-per-cent support in Atlantic Canada and lead the Liberals by 14 points in Ontario. But heres the truly amazing number: Abacus has the two parties statistically tied in the historically Liberal bastion of Quebec, with the Bloc Qubcois at 34 per cent, the Conservatives at 26 and the Liberals at 25.

(The online survey of 2,398 adults was conducted Feb. 1-7, with a comparable margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.)

Provincial sample sizes are small, with a greater margin of error than the overall national count. Thats why a Lger poll released last week is so important. An online sampling of 1,032 Quebec voters released earlier this month showed the Bloc Qubcois at 29 per cent, the Liberals at 28 per cent and the Conservatives at 24 per cent.

Thats two polls showing the Conservatives competitive with the Liberals in Quebec. What does that mean?

It means that if an election were held tomorrow, the Liberals would lose most of their 24 seats in Atlantic Canada and at least some of their 34 seats in Quebec.

The Conservatives would eat heavily into Liberal strongholds in suburban Ontario and B.C., while the NDP could steal seats from them in the downtowns. The Prairies would remain a Liberal desert.

There are Liberals who believe Mr. Trudeau is the best leader to save the furniture, as the saying goes that even in the event of a defeat in the next election, the Prime Minister would preserve the Liberal base for a successor to build upon. Those who think that need to reconsider.

The Liberals under Mr. Trudeau face a historic drubbing, one that could rival the calamities of 1958, 1984 or 2011. And polling analyst Philippe Fournier at 338Canada.com believes the assertion that there is still time to turn things around increasingly looks like naive wishful thinking.

The Conservatives already have their winning coalition of voters, he posted Sunday. Barring anything egregious, that vote is now locked in.

So is it time for Mr. Trudeau to step down? Voters appear to think so.

Data Dive with Nik Nanos: The national mood is dour good news for the Conservatives

In his poll for The Globe and Mail, released Monday, Nik Nanos has 46 per cent of Canadians saying Mr. Trudeau has done a poor job as Liberal Leader, compared with 25 per cent who rate his performance as excellent. When asked how the Liberals could best increase their chances of winning the next election, 39 per cent said the answer is to replace Mr. Trudeau. Only 3 per cent thought the partys best option is for him to stay.

(The hybrid phone and online survey of 1,114 adults was conducted between Jan. 29-31, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.)

One of the most important jobs of a political leader is to leave their party in decent shape for their successor. Stephen Harper not only reunited the conservative movement and provided almost 10 years of government, he left the Conservative Party with solid finances and 99 seats in the House after his 2015 election loss.

Mr. Trudeau has a duty to bequeath a healthy Liberal Party to the next leader. He must ask himself honestly whether remaining at the helm of the party best ensures that outcome. Most voters appear to have reached their own conclusions.

Editors note: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to the Bloc Qubcois as the Parti Qubcois. This version has been updated.

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Opinion: Liberals face political oblivion with Trudeau at the helm - The Globe and Mail

Tim Tebows mother contracted amoebic dysentery while she was pregnant with her son. Doctors advised an abortion. She refused. Tim was born, turned into a great son, and won a Heisman Trophy. She is very grateful that she made that choice, and that he survived.

When it became known Pam Tebow would star in a 2010 Super Bowl ad sponsored by the socially conservative Focus on the Family, abortion-defending liberals lost their minds.

Matt Yglesias at the Center for American Progress griped not only that Tebow would alienate fans, but also that his Mom had succumbed to invalid reasoning in not aborting Tim. Later, Yglesias called the ad Tim Tebows forced pregnancy advocacy.

Lots of womens groups called on CBS to cancel the ad.

The ad featured Pam Tebow discussing how important family is and how lucky she is to have her son.

You would have thought the furor would disappear after the ad aired and everyone realized it wasnt lobbying to outlaw abortion.

Nope. Terry ONeill, president of the National Organization of Women, still decried the ads anti-abortion message, although finding that offense to be lesser than its apparent justification of violence against women.

Set aside the humorlessness of that reaction. The fact that NOWs president saw the ad as anti-abortion was tellingand true. Despite zero mentions of abortion, the ad was an anti-abortion message.

Celebrating Tebows birth and his life, instead of arguing that a more reasonable mother would have killed him, is condemning abortion. Its saying that choosing life is better than choosing death.

This unnerves NOW and the abortion lobby. It ought to.

Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiners commentary editor, can be contacted at [emailprotected]. His column appears Tuesdaynights on washingtonexaminer.com.

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SuperFlashback: When abortion-defending liberals freaked out about ad featuring Tim Tebows proud mom - Washington Examiner

European liberals erupted into cheers in 2019 when the 45-year-old environmentalist and civil rights lawyer Zuzana Caputova was sworn in as Slovakias president. Even though she has fallen short of her ambitious goal of rooting out the persistent corruption and cronyism that course through Slovak society, she has chalked up many successes. These have earned her widespread popularity among Slovaks, who seemed to understand her project would always require more than one five-year term.

European liberals erupted into cheers in 2019 when the 45-year-old environmentalist and civil rights lawyer Zuzana Caputova was sworn in as Slovakias president. Even though she has fallen short of her ambitious goal of rooting out the persistent corruption and cronyism that course through Slovak society, she has chalked up many successes. These have earned her widespread popularity among Slovaks, who seemed to understand her project would always require more than one five-year term.

Theres just one problem: Caputova, facing new headwinds from the election of a new populist prime minister, has announced shes not prepared to fight on.

Not only was Caputova the first-ever woman to hold the office, but her progressive, pro-European outlook and squeaky-clean biography stood out in a regional landscape stocked with ethnic nationalists, authoritarians, and other questionable operators. Caputovas tough anticorruption platform was welcome relief to a country that had been rocked by graft, money laundering, and abuse of power scandals, as well as the contracted murder of a young journalist investigating organized crime.

In the course of her five-year term, the newcomer to elected office acquitted herself remarkably well, navigating Slovakia through the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine, a country with which it shares 60 miles of border to the east. Even as Slovakias southern neighbor, Hungary, prevaricated and obstructed transatlantic solidarity with Ukrainea course many Slovak nationalists applaudedCaputova, suddenly head of a front-line state, stood fast. She has remained unflinchingly pro-Western even in the face of an acute energy crisis and hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Her mission to clean up the Slovakian state also notched impressive wins. Dozens of investigations were launched and cases opened up against figures linked to former governmentsmany of which led to convictions. In August 2023, Caputovasometimes referred to as the Erin Brockovich of Slovakiafired the countrys counterintelligence service chief for interfering in corruption investigations. But her anticorruption drive grew larger in scope when parliamentary elections in September 2023 reinstated Robert Fico, the former prime minister and pro-Russian, anti-American populist with the interests of himself and his associates always foremost in mind.

Many supporters expected that Caputova, as the principled, popular face of a new Slovakia, would soldier on for at least another term come elections in March 2024: to finish the job she had started. But Caputovas tenure, she announced in June 2023, will come abruptly to an end. Her familys well-being, she said, was behind her choice not to run again. My decision is a personal one, she said. I am sorry if I disappoint those who expected my candidacy again. In office, she had received multiple death threats, she said. A year earlier, she had already complained about people who are threatening to kill me are using the vocabulary of some politicians. It does not only concern me, but also my loved ones.

At the time of her announcement, Caputova polled as Slovakias most trusted politician. I was surprised and disappointed when I heard the news, said Pavol Demes, a German Marshall Fund fellow in Bratislava, who served as Slovakias foreign minister from 1991 to 1992. Her track record proves that it was not coincidence that people elected her, Demes said, adding that he believes Caputova would have prevailed again at the ballot box.

Others admit theyre more than just disappointed with Caputovas premature departure, as the Slovak daily Dennik N put it. Having an opportunity and not using it is literally a sin, opined the Slovak newspaper Pravda, especially if it is one that will never come again. President Zuzana Caputovas decision not to run can be considered a mistake. At a time when the chaos in Slovak politics has reached unprecedented proportions and the disillusionment among the population is great, the president bears even more responsibility for the fate of the country.

In office, Caputova often punched back as hard as she was punched by her less principled opponents. She refused to let Fico, in the opposition since 2020, hound and bully her with impunity. In May 2023, she sued Fico for calling her an American agent and of appointing Soros government, referring to U.S. billionaire-philanthropist George Soros and the technocratic caretaker government she appointed in May 2023. Slovak authorities are still pursuing criminal cases involving dangerous threats made against the president.

Caputovas aversion to the nastier aspects of Central European politicsin 1995 the son of the then-Slovak president was literally kidnappedis understandable. But Caputovas presence is all the more necessary today as Fico and his Smer-SD party are back in power and bent on returning Slovakia to its former incarnation. In just four months, Caputova has checked Fico several times. In October, for example, Caputova quashed the nomination of Rudolf Huliak as environment minister by the Slovak National Party, a Fico ally. Huliak, a nationalist, is known as a climate skeptic and opponent of LGBTQ+ rights.

She is currently weighing a veto of the Fico governments move to dismantle the special prosecutors officethe body that handled the most serious corruption casesand modify the criminal code, which triggered weeks of protests across Slovakia and rule-of-law concern from the EU. By weakening criminal sanctions for financial crimes, Fico could rescue the likes of Smer-allied oligarchs who would otherwise face prison sentences. One opposition politico charged that the law looks as if the mafia itself had written it. If her veto is overridden, which is likely, Caputova could take the issue to the Constitutional Court.

Caputovas decision not to run thus opens the way for a multi-candidate race, the first round of which will be held on March 23 with, if necessary, a second in April. The vote is likely to come down to two candidates: National Council Speaker Peter Pellegrini, an on-again, off-again Fico ally; and Ivan Korcok, a liberal-minded former Slovak foreign minister and career diplomat. If Pellegrini triumphs, his victory will open the way for Fico to set in motion a pro-Russia political course that will greatly complicate the Wests defense of Ukraine, among other concerns.

Certainly, there would be no presidential corrective to hinder Fico in emulating his strongman counterpart next door in Hungary, Viktor Orban. Polands throwing off of its authoritarian leadership last year could have left Orban completely isolated in Central Europe. But Fico, though unlikely to amass the power of Orbans Fidesz party or act so defiantly as Law and Justice Poland, sees Orban as a blood brother.

Fico and his followers are fascinated by Orbans method of governance since 2018, Juraj Marusiak of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Institute of Political Science told Foreign Policy. They see this authoritarianism as efficient and Orban as someone who takes care of his countrys national interests. This has made Orban creditable in Central Europe beyond Hungary alone.

And Caputovas bright light will be missed beyond diminutive Slovakia. Upon her election in 2019, a Hungarian acquaintance said to me that the only reason someone like Caputova could win in Central Europe is because she seemed to have no drawbacks at all: She was politically clean, charismatic, down to earth, and smart. And in office, she learned the ropes quickly. But she wasnt perfect, apparentlyno one could foresee that there would eventually be limits to her will to lock horns with Slovakias ruthless profiteers.

Sadly, theres only one of her in the region. And soon, by her own choice, there will be none.

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Slovakia's Zuzana Caputova Has It AllExcept the Will to Fight Robert Fico - Foreign Policy