Sunday, March 22nd open thread: ‘Soul Meets Body’
“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.
Here is Death Cab for Cutie performing “Soul Meets Body” live:
Department of Justice seeks new emergency powers
According to this story Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is seeking new emergency powers, among which would be the power to detain American citizens indefinitely. Here is more:
The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States.
Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted.
The move has tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and Donald Trump’s critics — that the president will use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes.
In one of the documents, the department proposed that Congress grant the attorney general power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.”
The proposal would also grant those top judges broad authority to pause court proceedings during emergencies. It would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings,” according to draft legislative language the department shared with Congress.
The request raised eyebrows because of its potential implications for habeas corpus –– the constitutional right to appear before a judge after arrest and seek release.
“Not only would it be a violation of that, but it says ‘affecting pre-arrest,’” said Norman L. Reimer, the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.”
Of course the President has already declared a national emergency and there are rumors he is considering a national quarantine using the National Guard to patrol the streets of America so this would be in addition to that. If any or all of these rumors are true we are entering very dangerous and scary times as once-free Americans.
It is hard to imagine the Democratic controlled House of Representatives giving Donald Trump this power, although there is a chance because this will doom his chances of reelection and the Democratic President who follows him would love to have this power when he or she declares a National Emergency on gun violence…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
COVID-19, the Boston Marathon bombing, and Martial Law
With the American people in a frenzy and shrinking in the face of some “invisible menace” I thought now would be a great time to look back at a couple of excerpts from a post I wrote in 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombing.
We are now seeing whole States shut down (as of this writing there are four) and ordering the residents to stay in their houses, and it was after the Boston Marathon bombing that I remember hearing the term “shelter in place” for the first time. And it was also the first time that I saw Americans willingly neglecting the infamous words Ben Franklin said about liberty and security.
And the irony of it happening in what was once called the cradle of liberty was not lost on me…
Most of the original post is not relevant to today’s topic, but then again maybe it is, you can check it out here if for no other reason than to verify the date of my prediction. Here goes:
We need look no further than earlier this year in Boston. After the marathon bombing we saw defacto Martial Law declared and a militarized police force roaming the streets and forcibly (in some cases) violating the Constitutional rights of American citizens by illegally entering their homes without a warrant.
Boston was a test run and the government must be more than pleased with the results, after all, there was nary a negative word about the Constitutional violations during the manhunt even though it was an average American citizen who found the bomber and not the militarized police.
Boston allowed these violations to take place and now we are going to see more and more of this type police action in the future for our own good. Boston Strong?
Flash forward seven years and look at what is happening around you. Even if your state is not under lock down–yet–can you live your daily life normally and uninterrupted with the exception of going to and from work? Slowly but surely we are again seeing defacto Martial Law creeping across the nation and I see very few people standing up and questioning what is happening.
Personally what I find far more frightening than this virus is to learn how easy it is for the government to step in and halt daily life and take away its citizen’s means of earning a living, and I find it equally troubling how many Americans are just laying down and taking it without question.
And this is still mostly being done on the state level, what happens when the Federal government decides to step in and put us under a national lock down? There is already talk Donald Trump is considering it and it will include the National Guard on the streets of America patrolling to keep Americans in line.
These colors don’t run? Well, only because the government will not let us out to run…
As always, I end my post with the Latin phrase malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium and it seems more relevant to this post than any other.
Four Senators dumped stocks after confidential COVID-19 briefing and before the crash
It is now being reported that four Senators–three Republicans and one Democrat–divested themselves of millions of dollars in stocks after receiving confidential briefings on COVID-19. You will recognize most of the names, here is more:
Four senators dumped millions of dollars worth of stock while Capitol Hill was being briefed on the threat of coronavirus but before the markets tanked as infections soared, disclosure records have revealed.
Republicans Richard Burr, Kelly Loeffler and James Inhofe and Democrat Dianne Feinstein collectively offloaded up to $11 million in stock between late January and early February, according to records seen by The Daily Beast, New York Times and ProPublica.
Burr, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was directly briefed on coronavirus, sold up to $1.7million in stock including in hotels, according to reporting from ProPublica.
Feinstein, a member of the same committee, sold up to $6 million in stock including in a biotech firm.
Loeffler dumped up to $3.1 million in investments starting on the day the Senate Health Committee, which she sits on, was briefed by the CDC. Meanwhile James Inhofe sold up to $400,000 in stock including real estate.
Kelly Loeffler and Dianne Feinstein defended themselves by claiming they did not have personal control over their portfolios–as if they could not call the people who did have control and give them the information–while Richard Burr claimed he made his move before he had the information. James Inhofe could not be reached for comment.
And on top of all this it is being alleged that Richard Burr warned others about the potential problem.
If these accusations are true and the first reaction these four people had was to protect themselves instead of thinking about the American people they are supposed to represent they need to resign immediately and face criminal charges.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
FBI shuts down FOIA operation due to COVID-19
Believe it or not the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch is still trying to get to the bottom of the Spygate scandal but the FBI has been less than helpful, and now it looks as if it is going to get even harder to get answers.
According to this story the FBI has announced that it is shutting down its FOIA operation until at least the end of March because of COVID-19, and judging by what we have seen so far I think it is safe to assume it will not be operating for quite awhile after March either.
Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton is not too happy and here is what he had to say in a tweet earlier:
Tom Fitton’s tweet says all that needs to be said, I have nothing to add to it.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Joe Biden demands Donald Trump invoke the National Production Act…after he already did
Earlier today Joe Biden, in an attempt to make it seem as if the President is not doing anything in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, demanded that Donald Trump invoke the National Production Act. Here is more on what the tough guy had to say to the President:
The campaign of Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden on Wednesday called out the Trump administration’s “inaction” on responding to the new COVID-19 coronavirus, outlining a number of steps President Donald Trump should be taking–including the invocation of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to meet the increasing demand for life-saving hospital equipment.
Biden said the Trump administration must: “Prioritize and immediately increase domestic production of any critical medical equipment required to respond to this crisis – such as the production of ventilators and associated training to operate – by invoking the Defense Production Act, delegating authority to HHS and FEMA.”
“This action must be built on forecasted demand, using the best modeling currently available for negative scenarios,” Biden said in a lengthy statement that also partially blamed the Trump’s “misguided trade war with China” for the nation’s lack of necessary devices.
The problem for good ole Uncle Joe is that Donald Trump had already announced he was going to invoke the Defense Production Act so the Presidential hopeful’s demand seemed a little silly and made him look foolish and slow to the draw.
It was a tough couple of days for Joe Biden because before this embarrassing gaffe he was called out for lying during the debate about the President refusing an offer to buy COVID-19 test kits from the World Health Organization which were never offered to the United States because other, poorer countries were in greater need of them.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
There has been a meme circulating on Facebook among the liberals which claims that WHO offered the United States COVID-19 test kits but that Donald Trump refused them, which led to a shortage of test kits in the United States.
Apparently one of Joe Biden’s handlers was on Facebook and saw the meme and thought it would be a good idea for the Presidential hopeful to use this against Donald Trump during the debate.
And that is what good ole Uncle Joe did, here is what he said:
“No, look, the World Health Organization offered — offered the testing kits that they have available and to give it to us now. We refused them. We did not want to buy them,” Biden said. “We did not want to get them from them. We wanted to make sure we had our own. I think he said something like we have the best scientists in America, or something to that effect.”
The problem is that that statement is simply not true and in fact WHO did not offer the test kits to the United States because the organization focused its attention on countries who could not develop their own test kits. Here is more on that:
The countries WHO helped are ones that lack the virology lab horsepower that exists across the United States. The outreach work by the Pan American Health Organization is a case in point.
The group is WHO’s arm in the Americas. It conducted trainings and sent materials to conduct tests to 29 nations. The list included Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and many others.
The group said it focused most of its efforts on “countries with the weakest health systems.”
“No discussions occurred between WHO and CDC about WHO providing COVID-19 tests to the United States,” said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris. “This is consistent with experience since the United States does not ordinarily rely on WHO for reagents or diagnostic tests because of sufficient domestic capacity.”
Joe Biden told an outright lie and I do not give him the benefit of the doubt on this because he was Vice-President for eight years and he had to have known this is how the system works. Although from what we have seen from him during this election it is quite possible he has forgotten…
Joe Biden almost touched on the truth when he mentioned the United States having the best scientists in the world, however he claimed this was Donald Trump’s excuse for not accepting the test kits when in fact WHO did not offer the test kits for that very reason.
Donald Trump made plenty of missteps when this outbreak was first happening in my opinion and he gave the left and the mainstream media plenty to work with and let them get ahead of his response and control the narrative when he had a chance to step up and be a leader, but spreading lies such as this during a debate in front of the nation is irresponsible.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Oh those pesky Democrats, you just cannot make them happy. For three years they have been warning the American people that Donald Trump is a dictator-in-waiting who is going to cancel the 2020 election, abolish the Congress, and install himself as a dictator. But now with the coronavirus outbreak some of these same Democrats are claiming the President should nationalize some critical industries.
Remember never let a good crisis go to waste? Can you imagine what the Democrats would be saying if Donald Trump actually tried to do this?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, March 15th open thread: ‘Minnie the Moocher’
“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.
Here is Cab Calloway at the tender young age of 81 performing “Minnie the Moocher” live in 1988, did I just see the moonwalk in there?!
Four years ago we saw the rise of the #NeverTrump movement, a group of lifelong Republicans that claimed they would vote for either a third party candidate, Hillary Clinton, or would just stay home that November.
This had the real potential to split the Republican party during the election and hand the victory to Hillary Clinton, which would have been just fine with lifelong establishment Republicans who did not want an outsider stepping in and tearing down everything they had built for themselves in Washington. The #NeverTrump movement continues to dog the President to an extent even today.
But the #NeverTrump movement never achieved its ultimate goal because the Democratic party nominated a candidate just as polarizing and as despised, if not more so, than Donald Trump.
But there was another factor which partly accounted for Donald Trump’s victory and that is the fact that many Bernie Sanders supporters who felt slighted and cheated by the way the Democratic party took the nomination away from him that they stayed home in November and this canceled out the #NeverTrumpers, at least to a large enough extent to hand the victory to the billionaire businessman.
And so now we flash forward to this election cycle and we find that not much has changed in the Democratic party in regards to setting up who its nominee will be and once again Bernie Sanders supporters, who for some reason thought it would be different this time around, are seeing the party begin to maneuver and manipulate the primaries to ensure that the party nomination goes to Joe Biden instead of the Vermont socialist.
Liberals who remember how the 2016 election played out are now beginning to panic because they see the same thing happening again this year, with the only exception being that the Republicans are more unified than they were in 2016 and that could spell trouble for the Democratic party.
These Democrats are already calling for party unity and begging all Democratic voters to rally around the eventual candidate no matter who it is, but the old adage of fool me once must be fresh in Sanders supporters minds and if the Democratic party thinks these people are just going to roll over and vote for whomever the Democratic part tells them to vote for after what happened in 2016 they might be in for a long election night. A #NeverBiden movement is starting to form and it could spell doom for the Democratic nominee’s chances.
Here is more:
On Tuesday night, Joe Biden’s campaign was celebrating his latest primary night triumph.
By Wednesday morning, #NeverBiden, #WriteinBernie and #DemExit2020 hashtags began trending on Twitter.
There’s no question it’s been a banner two weeks for Biden. But lurking in the background of his sudden ascension to all-but-presumptive nominee is evidence that at least some Bernie Sanders supporters might not migrate to him in November, weakening him in the general election.
There is certainly anecdotal evidence that for many progressives, Biden represents everything they dislike about mainstream Democratic politics. On “The Young Turks,” which draws millions of viewers, Krystal Ball, the former MSNBC host, said she couldn’t vote for Trump.
“The rationale for us is that our votes need to be earned and that we’ve been taken for granted, and the party never moves to us,” said Alyson Metzger, a 54-year-old writer and progressive activist in New York City who supports Sanders. “If they install Joe Biden, I will not vote for Biden. … This is not democratic what’s happening in the Democratic primary.”
For Metzger, not voting for Biden is a matter of conscience. For others, it is also strategy. On “Never Biden” Facebook pages and in Twitter threads, some activists argue that if Trump is reelected, Democrats will fare better in the next midterms and that the party will be more likely to nominate a progressive in 2024. If Biden is elected, they see eight years of centrist governance.
That is just a small sample of some of the anecdotes in the article, there is more, but as the article says it is unclear how widespread this movement is at this time and there is still time for Sanders supporters to mend their wounds and fall in line.
However if this #NeverBiden movement is real it could be enough to derail the Democrats’ hopes of taking out Donald Trump. Back in 2016 the #NeverTrumpers could not overcome the negative feelings many people had toward Hillary Clinton and this time around Donald Trump is filling the role of hated villain.
Donald Trump is more hated now by the left than he was in 2016 and when faced with the prospect of four more years of Donald Trump or biting the bullet and voting for Joe Biden I have to believe most of the #NeverBideners will be good little Democrats and will fall in line just as expected.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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