Democrats push for term limits on Supreme Court justices
Democrats, many of whom have not been stable since Donald Trump won the Presidency in 2016, have lost their last semblance of sanity when Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away and Donald Trump was left with a third Supreme Court pick.
Many of them are still upset that Barack Obama’s pick to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, was never brought to the floor for a hearing and to be honest if the situation were reversed I would still be complaining about it myself. The situation here is slightly different only in the fact that Barack Obama was not running for reelection and Donald Trump could win another term but that is a distinction without a difference according to the Democrats. These Democrats know there is really nothing they can do to stop it and they have already promised to stack the Supreme Court if they win the Presidency.
They also have another plan which includes limiting a President to two Supreme Court judicial nominees per term, and will also introduce term limits to the Supreme Court.
Many legislators who have always been against term limits are now in favor of them, at least in this one instance. The irony is not lost. Here is more on the bill:
Democrats in of [sic] the House of Representatives will introduce a bill next week to limit the tenure of U.S. Supreme Court justices to 18 years from current lifetime appointments, in a bid to reduce partisan warring over vacancies and preserve the court’s legitimacy.
The new bill, seen by Reuters, would allow every president to nominate two justices per four-year term and comes amid heightened political tensions as Republican President Donald Trump prepares to announce his third pick for the Supreme Court after the death on Sept. 18 of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with just 40 days to go until the Nov. 3 election.
It would save the country a lot of agony and help lower the temperature over fights for the court that go to the fault lines of cultural issues and is one of the primary things tearing at our social fabric,” said California U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, who plans to introduce the legislation on Tuesday, along with Representatives Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts and Don Beyer of Virginia.
The bill – the Supreme Court Term Limits and Regular Appointments Act – is the first to try to set Supreme Court term limits by statute, according to Gabe Roth, the executive director of Fix the Court, a judicial transparency group whose campaign for high court term limits has been gaining attention.
This may seem like, and indeed it is, sour grapes but while I have a problem with limiting the President to filling only a certain number of vacancies I honestly do not have a problem with there being term limits on judges, both on the Supreme Court and in the lower courts, because we have seen many instances over the years where a justice is not capable of performing his or her duties and yet remains on the court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a perfect example herself.
The problem I have here is a Constitutional one. Article II Section 2 of the Constitution gives the right to the President to fill ALL vacancies, to say the President can only fill SOME vacancies because he has already filled enough is just silly. And the Constitution grants lifetime judicial appointments in Article III Section 1. Both of the proposals in this bill would require a Constitutional amendment. But of course politicians only care about the Constitution when it serves their means…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Christopher Steele’s Russian dossier source was investigated as a ‘national security threat’ in 2009
It has been awhile since we have heard anything about the Russian dossier and the investigation into the origins of the Russian investigation, but now we are learning that the main source for the now discredited work of fiction was investigated by the FBI way back in 2009 for allegedly being a Russian spy and a “national security threat.” Here is more on this bombshell news:
The primary source for Christopher Steele’s phony Russian dossier was actually investigated by the FBI during the early Obama years for being a “national security threat” and a “Russian spy” who reportedly offered to pay Obama-connected people for ‘classified information’ if they got jobs in the administration. And the FBI knew all of this in 2016 and still used the dossier to get a FISA investigation
Kimberly Strassel, whose Tweets you can read following the link above, tries to unweave the FBI’s web in a Tweet thusly:
The same FBI said to be concerned about Russian interference in election, was using information from a suspected Russian spy to probe a presidential campaign. The same FBI claiming Carter Page a Russian agent, was making that case based on info from a suspected Russia agent.
And of course the FBI withheld this little bit of information from the FISA court when it was seeking a warrant for said spying. You would think that at some point somebody would have the be held accountable, but then again we remember the IRS targeting scandal and Lois Lerner and we realize that nothing is ever going to come from this because the end justifies the means.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Florida AG wants Michael Bloomberg investigated for election law violations
Somehow I missed this story but apparently Michael Bloomberg hatched a scheme to raise money to pay off the debts of felons so that they would be eligible to vote in Florida.
Raising money to help felons who have done their time pay of their debts so that they can get a new chance in life might be a decent cause, however if you are an elected official and your goal is to help them gain the right to vote you can see where there could be a problem. It is akin to paying them for their votes.
Now the Florida Attorney General is asking for an investigation into Michael Bloomberg for election law violations, here is more:
Florida’s attorney general asked state and federal law enforcement on Wednesday to investigate possible election law violations after billionaire and former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg helped raise more than $16 million for Florida felons to pay their debts so they can vote in the presidential election.
Attorney General Ashley Moody sent letters to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI saying that further investigation is warranted. Gov. Ron DeSantis had asked Moody to review allegations that Bloomberg and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition had violated the law by offering incentives for voting. DeSantis and Moody are both Republicans.
“I have instructed the Statewide Prosecutor to work with law enforcement and any Statewide Grand Jury that the Governor may call,” Moody said in a written statement.
This certainly looks like a clear cut violation to me and while Michael Bloomberg claims the organization is not looking at the party affiliations of the felons it is pretty obvious the hope is they will remember which party the man that paid their debts belongs to and vote accordingly. Florida is always a battleground state and it is obvious the New York Democrat was trying to sway the election.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Report shows ‘possible criminal activity’ by Hunter Biden and Burisma
Although the left refuses to admit it, there is much more evidence showing conflicts of interests between Joe Biden’s family and foreign nations because of his position as Vice President than there is of any collusion between Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 election.
While being mostly ignored by the mainstream media the evidence of influence peddling has been documented all over the blogosphere and now the Senate has released a report which found “potential criminal activity” on the part of Hunter Biden and that the Obama administration knew about the potential problems and did nothing.
Here is more:
The 87-page report stated that Obama administration officials “knew” that Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma was “problematic” and that it interfered “in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine.”
“This investigation has illustrated the extent to which officials within the Obama administration ignored the glaring warning signs when the vice president’s son joined the board of a company owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch,” the report’s executive summary stated.
The report also stated that Hunter Biden “formed significant and consistent financial relationships” with the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, and that his and his business partner Devon Archer’s firms “made millions of dollars from that association” while his father was vice president.
The Senate committees also revealed in the report that they obtained records from the U.S. Treasury Department, which “show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals.”
Notice there are four countries mentioned, including ironically enough Russia. Apparently Joe and Hunter Biden are equal opportunity shysters. And here is the kicker:
The committees stated that they received records that Hunter Biden “sent thousands of dollars” to individuals who have “either been involved in transactions consistent with possible human trafficking; an association with the adult entertainment industry; or potential association with prostitution.”
You can rest assured that because of the timing of this report the left is going to claim this is nothing but an almost-October surprised designed to influence the election, but the bottom line is we have known about these accusations for months but the Democrats have stonewalled any and every attempt to get to the bottom of this scandal so they are to blame for the timing of this report.
The American people deserve to know exactly what was going on with the Biden’s during good ole Uncle Joe’s time in the White House and it is time to name an independent investigator to look into this burgeoning scandal.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Democrats float impeachment to stop Donald Trump from nominating Supreme Court Justice
Over the weekend Nancy Pelosi refused to rule out impeaching the President in order to stop him from nominating a person to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, claiming the Democrats have plenty of arrows in their quivers. (I know, that sounds a little racist to me too.)
Now the true leader of the Democratic party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is promoting the idea of not only impeaching Donald Trump but also William Barr, here is more:
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Sunday night at a joint press conference with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on Democrats to buy time with procedural tools which she said could include impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr.
Earlier in the press conference, Ocasio-Cortez said, “We must also commit to using every procedural tool available to us to ensure that we buy ourselves the time necessary. We must commit to allowing and considering and utilizing every single procedural tool available to us again to buy that time.”
When a reporter asked if buying time could include impeachment of President Trump or Attorney General Barr, Ocasio-Cortez said, “Well, I think I am. I believe that certainly, there has been an enormous amount of law-breaking in the Trump administration. I believe that Attorney General Barr are is unfit for office am, and I am that he has pursued potential we are breaking he here.
For four years the Democrats have been telling us that Donald Trump is abusing the power he was entrusted with and yet here we have leaders in the Democratic party advocating the use of impeachment for none other than purely political reasons. If they do this it will be an outrage and an abuse of power the likes of which we have not seen in our lifetimes.
But this is coming from the party which has already threatened to pull out all the stops if they win the election by packing the Supreme Court if Donald Trump got another Supreme Court nominee before the 2020 election, so is it shocking to anyone they would try something so insidious?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, September 20th open thread: ‘Take a Bow’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
This week’s musing brings us the band performing “Take a Bow” live in 2017:
Corrupt
You corrupt
Bring corruption to all that you touch
And spell
Cast a spell
Cast a spell on the country you run
And our freedom’s consuming itself
What we become is contrary to what we want
Take a bow
To one degree or another we have seen most of the States in the country violate the rights of their citizens under the guise of keeping them safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the States that pushed the limits of totalitarianism during this crisis was Pennsylvania, and earlier today a Judge ruled that Governor Tom Wolf’s measures went to far and are unconstitutional. Here is more:
A federal judge ruled on Monday that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) coronavirus orders, which shut down the state, closed businesses and limited gatherings, were unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, a Trump appointee, said in his opinion that COVID-19 orders from Wolf and Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Rachel Levine violated and continue to violate the First Amendment right to freedom of assembly and the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.
He went on to say that while these were well-intentioned measures (I disagree with that assertion) that “even in an emergency, the authority of government is not unfettered.”
“There is no question that this Country has faced, and will face, emergencies of every sort,” he wrote. “But the solution to a national crisis can never be permitted to supersede the commitment to individual liberty that stands as the foundation of the American experiment.”
The only problem I have with that last statement is that these totalitarians were permitted to supersede the individual liberties of Americans but I put most of that blame on the people themselves for not standing up for their rights in the first place.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, September 13th open thread: ‘The Globalist’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
This week’s musing brings us the band performing “The Globalist” live in 2016:
Nancy Pelosi calls Donald Trump’s Middle East peace deal ‘a distraction’
You might have heard, if you do not strictly listen to the mainsteam media at least, that Donald Trump negotiated a deal between the UAE and Israel which will normalize the relationship between the two countries. This is a major accomplishment, so much so that the President has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize yet again.
Of course Democrats do not want to give Donald Trump any credit so earlier today Joe Biden was forced to admit this deal could be good for the Middle East even though it would have been done “accidentally” by the President.
That was just plain silly but not to be outdone by good ole Uncle Joe, Nancy Pelosi offered her two cents when asked about the deal and here is what she had to say:
“Well, hopefully they won’t—hopefully they will beneficial [sic] to the region,” Pelosi said. “We’ve been waiting for a very long time for the president’s proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement that honored the two state solution. It was coming in two weeks, it was coming in two months, it was coming in six months—it still hasn’t come in any way that has brought peace.”
“So, good for him for having a distraction on a day when the numbers of people who are affected and the numbers of people who are dying from this virus only increases,” Pelosi stated.
It is nothing but a distraction from COVID-19 according to the Speaker of the House, as if this is not a big deal and as if there cannot be two issues on the table at the same time.
The truth is that the Democrats are upset because they have been claiming for years that Donald Trump was going to start WWIII and to this date he has done the opposite, and if this deal holds up Donald Trump will have done something that Presidents have unsuccessfully tried to do for decades. But mostly they are hurting because Donald Trump undid Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal and that probably set the ball rolling for all the advances in the Middle East since that time.
The truth is the Democrats would rather see war in the Middle East than give the President credit for calming tensions in the region,
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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