SCOTUS Tested

And now Maine joins Colorado in perpetuating the myth that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist and, therefore, ineligible to be on the 2024 ballot. When this case finally makes its way to the Supreme Court, where many pundits claim it will be defeated 9-0, we will get an accurate measure of our state of division. Ketanji Brown-Jackson is surprisingly considered to be the most moderate of the liberal justices, but as a recent appointee of Joe Biden, it will be interesting to see if she rewards his confidence with a vote to remove his chief political opponent. Elena Kagan, a former Harvard Law faculty member, is purported to be farther left in ideology than Brown-Jackson. Still, given her past performances, she appears to skew towards progressive causes over the application of constitutional law, surprising in that a former academic wouldn’t tend to be more impartial as her colleague Dershowitz has been. Sotomayor, an Obama appointee and former activist for Puerto Rican causes, is considered to be the most liberal-leaning member of the court by far, never failing to bend any decision into a racist narrative. It is with her that Americans should have the least confidence, as she rarely breaks with liberal doctrine regardless of the application of the law. The decision should be a 9-0 “slam dunk” based on constitutional law. But this case will offer a rare glimpse into whether the members of the Supreme Court have become partisan representatives of the liberal presidents who appointed them or justices sworn to uphold the Constitution. If the liberal justices fail this test, it is a frightening foreboding of the power a stacked court, long a dream of progressive activists, could wield in this age of judicial activism. 

The Power Of Ignorance And Complacency

Never underestimate the power of ignorance and complacency. Too many of us don’t read and or lack ambition. We get all our information and pleasure fed to us from the little screen. As long as we have our recreation and leisure time, we are content. Again, too many of us pride ourselves on gaming the system, working as little as possible but squeezing management for more benefits. I’ve heard more than once the benefits of working from home, being the ability to satisfy the minimum work requirements while going to the gym, running errands, napping, or pursuing one's hobbies while on the clock. Is management so desperate for workers that they turn a blind eye to apparent sloth?  So, concerned the employee will bolt for greener pastures if their workload is too rigorous? It is devolving into a race to the bottom, and the Democrats are using it to their advantage. 

New York Exodus

Did you hear about the workings of the well-oiled Democrat political machine in New York State?  Apparently, in the last election cycle, the Democrats set up a commission to redraw congressional districts. The commission was composed of democrats and republicans in equal numbers. Fair, right? Not quite. Knowing they would never come to a consensus, the state put in place a tie-breaking panel that would have carte blanche to gerrymander the districts as they saw fit. Naturally, the tie-breaking reserve panel was composed of progressive partisans, resulting in districts drawn to overwhelmingly favor the democrats. Not so fast, shouted the Republicans. Off they went to court, where the judge found in favor of the republicans. The democrats appealed and were defeated again. The result was that Republican voices were heard, and New York sent 10 Republican representatives to Washington. But here we are, four years later, and the Democrats found yet another pathway to assure that no Republican ever wins an election in New York again. Ever. They packed the courts with progressive judges. And lo and behold, the original rulings were overturned.  New York is now redrawing congressional districts once again, attempting to send only Democrats to the House of Representatives in the hope of tipping the House back to democrat control. So much for taxation with representation. Let the out-of-state exodus resume.

Jewish Incongruity

Listening to NPR again, Do these people hear themselves?  They were interviewing Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of Atlantic Monthly who devoted an entire issue to the dire consequences that will happen if Trump is re-elected. This said of course after he and the compliant interviewer, I believe it was Sara Innskeep who never fails to spin it far left, praised the magazine for its non-partisan reporting with a staff that represents all political persuasions. Surely you recall that they’re talking about writers like David Frum, who identifies as Republican despite hit piece after hit piece trashing the party and Trump in particular. What’s with these leftie Jewish guys continually praising the increasingly anti-Semitic Democrat Party when the Republicans, and most notably Donald Trump standing arm and arm with Israel? I don’t get it. And Goldberg rationalized devoting the entire magazine to Trump-bashing by saying he owed it to his children, to tell the truth about the threat to America. Really?  The truth?  He just got through telling us that he is speculating on what he thinks will happen if Trump returns to the Oval Office based on his and his leftist staff’s optics. It’s preposterous, it’s inflammatory, it’s partisan, it is slanderous editorializing, pure and simple, posing as news.

Dubai COP28

Cataclysm! The apocalypse! The sky is falling! Such is the news coming out of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai. You know, the posh event where world leaders fly their Gulfstreams halfway around the world to stay in luxury accommodations, and dine on caviar and Wagyu beef while simultaneously attempting to convince the rest of the world’s population to accept austerity measures to save the planet. Tagging along for the ride, like pilot fish on a shark, are representatives of third-world nations vying to fleece the wealthy nations for cash payments for climate damage they claim disproportionately affects them. Call it climate welfare. What a repulsive bunch of hypocritical maroons. Ultra-maroons. Their latest and greatest solution to global warming is punitive taxation and regulation to punish livestock farmers to ultimately drive up the price of beef, making meat an unaffordable food choice for the masses. The reason?  Flatulence.  Yes indeed, cow farts. These pesky ruminants are apparently quite gassy, expelling 11-17% of total carbon emissions and upwards of 38% of methane into the environment. Sheep are on the chopping block as well and pigs, despite having only one stomach,  apparently live up to their filthy reputation and are somehow four times more carbon-intensive to bring to market than cows. No word yet on how to manage goats. But deer, giraffes, and elk probably will get a political pass because they’re “indigenous”. And that’s a protected class. As we’ve said before, they’re coming for you. The administrative state wants to control your movement, control how you heat your home, control what you cook with, and now wants to control what you eat. All in the name of existential climate change. How the climate is a threat to our existence when climate-related deaths have fallen some 98% since 1920 remains a closely held secret amongst the elitists. And who is preaching this new religion to the ignorant masses? Bill Gates, King Charles, and John Kerry to name a few. All preposterously wealthy yet ironically unfamiliar with the concept of a Zoom meeting. Wouldn’t it be fascinating to know the accumulated carbon footprint of their multiple residences and palaces alone, not to mention their aforementioned private jets? Recall John Kerry once had the city of Boston move a fire hydrant from in front of his swanky Beacon Hill residence so he could park there. Hypocrites, all.  Does anyone think that the proposed restrictions will have any effect on the lifestyle of the pampered elite?  Of course not. Despite John Kerry’s reputation for stiffing bartenders at Boston’s prestigious purveyors of fine spirits, I doubt he would even notice if he had to pay twice as much for his filet mignon. Maybe that’s because his wife Teresa Heinz, she of the Heinz ketchup empire, is picking up the tab. Even Obama appears unconcerned about catastrophic sea level rise at his Martha’s Vineyard estate. But I digress. The point is Johnny, Charlie, Barry, and that dork Billy will continue to jet around the globe, maintain multiple residences, and eat whatever the hell they want while they impose restrictions on the rest of us. You know, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Yeah, “those” people. So what they’re basically telling us is: “Let them eat cake.” And you know how that worked out for Marie. 

HuffPo Indigestion

 Reading HuffPo at lunch today I was astounded by the comments after an article reporting on the House moving toward impeachment proceedings against Biden. Lots of attacking Trump, Republicans in general, and constant cries of “they have nothing” for evidence of wrongdoing. Not one mention of the two-year slog through the Russia collusion hoax. One comment went so far as to defend a Hunter-to-Joe money exchange as a car repayment. What car?  And why was the money drawn from a shell company account that received direct payments from the CCP?  What do all these companies produce?  Why is the entire Biden family receiving money while not providing any products or services? Any banker will tell you that money exchanges of this magnitude immediately raise the concern that money laundering is taking place. The entire fandango stinks to high heaven but not a single democrat raises even a skeptable eyebrow. Goings on oh so scary.

Times Are A Changing

No question that times have changed since the days of “it’s the economy, stupid.” The Democrat Party is overrun with single-issue voters…..not necessarily a bad thing when that issue is crucial to sustaining the republic ……but it’s the activist and social warrior arms of the party whose issues are all related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, supercharged to encompass abortion as an extension of women’s rights, unencumbered immigration posing as equity for people of color, defunding the police as some form of racial equity allowing lawlessness, the abolition of meritocracy in favor of racial quotas, and wealth redistribution. And now we can add a ceasefire in the Palestinian conflict into the mix. How can the economy and national security take a backseat to social issues?  One would have to suspect that for the 50% of the electorate that favors Democrat party policy, they are living comfortably enough on the government dole, be it jobs in the public sector or outright welfare, that the private sector economy has no importance in their lives. The government continues to grow, the unions are seeing a resurgence, particularly in the auto industry, and the welfare state continues to expand with hoards of illegal immigrants added to their ranks. The private sector is under siege by the left as they progressively move towards a Marxist brand of socialism. Distracting their voting base with social issues, the left is insidiously gaining more control over an increasingly dependent populace, simultaneously harnessing our economic engine to feed their growing welfare state and government expansion.  Is it sustainable?  Of course not.  Again, we must recall Thatcher’s prescient warning:  “The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s  money.” 

DeSantis vs Newsome

Interesting that in the Apple Newsfeed this morning the only mention of the DeSantis v Newsome debate was a report from a publication called Cal Matters. Gee, I wonder if they’re at all biased.  Naturally, they stated early on that Newsome predicted it would be a “two-on-one pile on ……teaming up to make their liberal foe look bad” and “in the end he wasn’t wrong.”  They accused Hannity of framing the questions by highlighting what he believed was wrong with California. Really. So topics like failing public schools, out-of-control crime, a population exodus, homelessness, and unchecked immigration with their sanctuary state policies should have been ignored?  These are policies that Newsome wants to export to the rest of the country, topics that concern the American voter and should form the backbone of any presidential campaign. Perhaps the only topics Newsome wanted to cover were related to LGBTQ rights, abortion, and climate change, hoping to receive the typical softball questions that the leftist media lobs at their favored candidates. And deny it all you want, Newsome is setting himself up as the heir apparent. Maybe to come off the bench if necessary in this election cycle but surely as the democratic nominee in 2028. And isn’t it ironic that the liberal media accuses Hannity of bias for asking the tough questions and engaging in partisanship after the Republicans have repeatedly been subjected to mainstream media-sponsored debates that have seen the liberal moderators actually participate in the attack on conservative candidates? The debate was framed as a battle between the policies of a conservative versus a progressive state governor and that’s precisely what we got. DeSantis was well prepared and appeared to have been underestimated by Newsome, who resorted to denying statistics, spinning the data, dodging the questions, and outright lying. He appeared shallow and lacking substance, yet another shill for Biden’s progressive policies. And like it or not, this is the first debate we have seen in the last two two election cycles that has actually pitted conservative against progressive policy. The Republican debates this year have been nothing more than a sideshow with the main event, Mr. Trump, refusing to participate. We have been left with the remaining field bickering over degrees of separation on policies with which there is some consensus. The leftist media sits back and feasts on the carnage that has been reduced to the obvious personal animus between Haley and Ramaswamy, the vitriol spewed against Trump from the windbag Christie, and a preposterous speculation about whether DeSantis is wearing lifts in his cowboy boots. Irrelevant noise, all of it. What we actually saw last night was the only opportunity the American public is going to get to see a debate between potential presidential candidates, DeSantis running in this cycle and Newsome queuing up for the next. But most importantly we are seeing two candidates who are not cognitively impaired and should be able to articulate their positions. If you think the Democrats intend to roll out Joe Biden for an hour of gaffs, smirks, guffaws, and cringe-worthy malprops against any conservative nominee, you’ve got another thing coming. It’s not worth the risk. Trump will eat him alive. On the contrary, they will sequester Biden in his basement once again and rely on yet another wave of Trump derangement syndrome, media compliance, perhaps a pandemic scare, a deluge of unverified mail-in ballots and unsecured drop boxes. And why not, it worked last time. Face it, DeSantis took all the risk last night and emerged the clear winner. Yes, it was contentious and at times unruly, but finally in the light of day failed liberal policies were laid bare for all to see. Kudos to Hannity for hosting the event and arriving prepared. Congratulations to DeSantis for representing conservative values and comporting himself well. He was on top of his game, feisty, and combative but backed up with facts, figures, and most importantly: results. Newsome was……well, Newsome. Hollywood on display, full of swagger, cockiness, and camera ready with a hint of swarmy. He appeared on his heels for much of the night, overwhelmed by facts and figures, and mostly in denial. Not a good look. He has plenty of time to recover before 2028 but he did no good service to his party in this presidential election cycle.