The fact that the New York Times published one of the most absurd stories in news history, a straight up lie-filled smear of Brett Kavanaugh, shows just how important the battle for the courts is to the Left.

There is no depth to which these people won't dive in an effort to maintain their chokehold on this institution.  But good propaganda has at least a kernel of truth hidden somewhere in it to sow doubt.  This story didn't even have that, making it one of the worst examples of journalistic malpractice in years, topping even the collusion delusion narratives.

Most of the Democrat presidential candidates rushed out to demand Kavanaugh's impeachment based on a series of confirmed lies so transparent that even the New York Times news room is trying to stay clear of the fallout.

The reaction of prominent Democrats, the party's national standard-bearers, is perhaps the most depressing element of this story.  They are so morally bankrupt that they don't even hesitate to slander a good man.

What a contrast they are to Kavanaugh's 10-year-old daughter, who wanted to pray for the soul of a woman who was trying to destroy her father almost certainly in the interest of protecting abortion.

So why would a once proud newspaper indulge in such obvious self-destructive behavior?  The answer lies in the stakes involved in the court fight.  What most surprises me about this story is that anyone is actually surprised.

The Left, of which the media are cheerful card-carrying members, is fully committed to waging war for the courts by any means necessary.  Naturally, leftists reserve their worst and most desperate lies in service of this war since the stakes are both high and long-lasting.  The New York Times has long since stopped being a paper that reliably prints news.  It's all about the narrative.

The Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 was such a legal abomination that the only way the Left could keep its abortion regimen in place was to control the Judiciary, which it was effective in carrying out.

Over the course of decades, leftists got hooked on a liberal activist Judiciary and saw it as a birthright.  It was more addictive than heroin, allowing them to implement their policy preferences without actually needing to win votes.

Along came President Donald Trump, in conjunction with a Republican Senate, to incinerate that birthright, and leftists are as furious and confused as rabid dogs about it.  It's within this context, in a news room with zero ideological diversity, that a story like this makes it to print.

President Trump has been severely hampered during his first term by activist judges.  But that power is waning by the day as Trump appoints new Constitution-respecting judges to fill the Judiciary.  He has appointed 152 judges while the Left has foamed with impotent rage.

Many conservatives voted for Trump based upon his promise to appoint constitutionalist judges.  Even at that, he has overachieved.  In three short years, he has returned much needed sanity to the Judicial Branch, and it is going to get a lot worse for the Left, since there are still over a hundred vacancies waiting to be filled.

This is a lasting legacy that Trump has given America.  Don't look now, but even the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has moved dramatically to the sane thanks to seven judges President Trump has put there, with more waiting in the wings.  Even activist liberal judges start to act more rational when they share the bench with constitutional jurists.

Liberals are watching states restrict their evil sacrament of abortion, and there is nothing they can do about it until they can regain the presidency and perhaps also the Senate.

This is the gift that has only started giving.  As Harold Finch pointed out in a Twitter thread, there are several high-profile cases that will soon hit the Supreme Court, to include cases on concealed carry, DACA, and the Census, and the liberals are panicking, knowing they are likely to get routed.

Perhaps even more disturbing to the liberal mind is the fact that they will no longer be able to thwart President Trump at every turn.  If Trump is re-elected, he will wield far more power in a second term without those unconstitutional liberal restraints.  If Republicans can also maintain control of the Senate, which seems somewhat likely although by no means guaranteed based on the Senate map, the parade of judges will continue.

For that matter, if a Democrat is elected, liberals will wield far less power than they would have if Trump had not been so effective in rebalancing the courts.

For years, liberals had the field to themselves in the court wars since Republicans had unilaterally disarmed in the interest of civility.  But Republicans were finally prodded into action by liberal overreach and have taken up that fight.  Senator Mitch McConnell has done a superb job in this regard.

Part of the liberal rage is centered on the lost opportunity that slipped through their fingers.  Like a recovering football addict who watched his beloved Steelers lose the 1994 AFC championship game to a much weaker Chargers squad, liberals are trapped in a recurring nightmare, reliving their worst moments from the 2016 election.  Had Cruella DeClinton been elected as promised, liberals would have locked full control of the courts for decades.  The courts, and America as we know it, would have been gone.

The Left will not take loss of the courts sitting down, but its options are limited.  As a starting point, leftists will not be able to remove Brett Kavanaugh any time soon.  While they may get the votes in the House, the idea that they can get 66 votes in the Senate is laughable.  They know this, meaning that all of these outrageous calls for impeachment are political theater aimed at their crazed base.

If they ever get to where they have the Senate impeachment votes, the loss of a Supreme Court justice would not rank among America's bigger problems, since we will already be descending into Mad Max territory.

So what other options are open to crazed liberals cut off from the courts other than to place lies and slander in the New York Times?  This is going to be an interesting roller coaster ride.  When it comes to the courts, the Left is on war footing.  If another vacancy occurs, particularly if it is to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the descent into madness will involve violence, and probably a lot of it.

They will also likely pull another card out of their playbook and try nullification of a Supreme Court decision, particularly if the courts continue to shift back toward the constitutional intent.  They will declare the decision not legitimate, and a handful of blue states will ignore it.  Republicans need to be ready for this and respond forcefully.

If Trump holds the White House and Republicans hold the Senate in 2020, all bets are off.  This New York Times obscenity is the canary in the coal mine of much darker coming attractions.

Fletch Daniels blogs at deplorabletouchdown.com and can be found on Twitter at @fletchdaniels.