‘Twas the Night Before Christmas/Merry Christmas Everybody
“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:11-14 KJV)
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and in keeping with America’s Watchtower tradition I present you with two videos. The first is called “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas–a Soldier’s Poem” and the second is “Merry Christmas Everybody” by The Cure.
Donald Trump forces James Mattis out early
Last week James Mattis suddenly announced he was going to “retire” in February because of policies differences he has with the President. This news came the day after Donald Trump announced the United States would be pulling out of Syria and on the same day we also learned there would be a major draw down of troops in Afghanistan.
It would appear these two decisions are what spurred James Mattis to retire, and being a general it is understandable that he would want to keep troops in the Middle East with basically no plan to ever leave like was the case with the previous two administrations. What is interesting however is how, after years of screaming it was time to get out of the Middle East, Democrats have suddenly turned into warmongers who support an endless war. But I digress…
Earlier today Donald Trump announced that he did not want to wait until February to replace James Mattis by tweeting out the name of his replacement effective January 1st.
Needless to say liberals who are suddenly huge fans of the “Mad Dog” are outraged at the disrespect the President has shown James Mattis but honestly, if you have a Secretary of Defense who you know does not support what you are doing and you have a replacement ready to go who you know does then why bother waiting?
This is of course assuming that the replacement, in this case Patrick Shanahan, is the person you really want and are not rushing into a decision because you want to show up James Mattis because you feel he showed you up.
I hope that Donald Trump is making this decision for the right reasons and is not making a rash decision so that he can feel as if he had the last laugh. Time will tell if this was the right decision but if James Mattis was going to be a distraction then I think there was no reason to delay the inevitable.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, December 23rd open thread” ‘Wicked Game’
“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 HIM performing their version of Chris Isaac’s “Wicked Game” live in 1998:
The Supreme Court hands Donald Trump two losses on immigration
While all of the media attention today has been focused on the budget battle and a possible government shutdown over border wall funding the President had a very bad day on immigration with the Supreme Court. The highest court in the land handed Donald Trump two losses on his asylum policies.
The first loss came when the Supreme Court ruled that the President could not restrict asylum requests by people who enter the country illegally:
This was a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice breaking ranks and siding once again with the liberal justices–this is becoming the norm at this point, he appears to be turning into another David Souter…
The second defeat came when the Supreme Court declined to let the President enforce his asylum ban on Central Americans. Here is more:
The Supreme Court dealt President Donald Trump’s attempt to crack down on illegal immigration a blow Friday when it rejected a White House bid to implement his asylum ban on Central Americans.
The high court declined to overturn a block placed by the San Francisco federal appeals court on Trump’s executive order to automatically reject asylum requests from migrants crossing the US border from Mexico.
Unlike the first decision this decision was 9-3, with Chief Justice Roberts again ruling against Donald Trump.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
The House passes spending bill with border wall funding
Yesterday I was pretty hard on the President for what appeared to be his softening his stance on shutting down the government over the border wall. I wrote that if funding the wall was something Donald Trump really believed in he should make good on his threat.
The Senate has passed a spending bill which would fund the government until February which does not include money for the border wall, and after sending signals out the other day that he would sign such a bill and look for other monies to use on the border wall today Donald Trump indicated he would veto this bill.
It is just breaking as I write this that the House, lead by the Freedom Caucus, has passed a spending bill which does include money for the wall with no Democratic support, setting up a showdown with the Senate on the eve of the deadline to reconcile the two pieces of legislation.
With the Democrats taking over control of the House in the next Congress this is the last chance Donald Trump has of securing funding for the border wall and because of this I do not see either side giving in at this point. The battle of attrition is on and I believe the government will shut down. The only question is, which side is going to blink?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump threatens to use the military to build the wall…again
We all saw that meeting, or at least clips of that meeting, last week between Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer where the President not only threatened to shut down the government over the wall but also claimed he would be proud to do so.
Since that meeting all indications are that Donald Trump is not going to back up that threat and will hope to pass wall funding after the first of the year–good luck with that with the new Congress. This is the second or third time the President has threatened to shut down the government to get wall funding and all three times he blinked.
Donald Trump has also threatened twice in the past to use the military to build the wall as a way to fund the wall without getting the approval of the Congress and today he has made this threat for the third time.
Personally I am getting tired of these idle promises, it is time to either do it or move on. Donald Trump has talked the talk on this issue but he has not walked the walk, but of course he alone is not to blame.
The Republicans in general also deserve blame, actually most of the blame, because the truth is most of them are not on Donald Trump’s side on this. I honestly believe Donald Trump really wants to build the wall while the establishment Republicans would rather keep it on the table as a political tool. They also talk a good game but they really have no interest in doing anything to curb illegal immigration.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump bans bump stocks through executive fiat
Back in February Donald Trump directed then Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ban bump stocks after the man we have been told killed all those people in Las Vegas allegedly used one. Since that time the Trump administration has been working on a new rule to carry out the President’s wishes, and today acting Attorney General signed a new rule which bans bump stocks be reclassifying them as machine guns–something even the Obama administration felt was not necessary to do.
Here is more:
The Trump administration Tuesday banned bump stocks, the firearm attachments that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns and were used during the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The regulation was signed Tuesday by Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. It will take effect 90 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which is expected to happen Friday.
Donald Trump had urged the Congress to ban bump stocks but when they failed to do so the President, in Obama-esque fashion, grabbed his pen and and phone and did it on his own. Before this rule went into effect the ATF had already ruled it would take a new law from the Congress to do this:
The amended regulations reverse a 2010 ATF decision that found bump stocks did not amount to machine guns and could not be regulated unless Congress changed existing firearms law or passed a new one.
And on top of that owners are required to turn them over or face the consequences if they are found:
Bump stock owners will be required to either destroy them or surrender them to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a senior Justice Department official said.
Investigators expect most owners will comply with the new rule and ATF will take action against those who don’t, the official said.
I did not approve of Barack Obama creating new laws by executive fiat when he was President and I fail to see the difference here, this is unacceptable to me. Do you think I am being a little harsh? If so ask yourself what you would be saying if Barack Obama had ordered Eric Holder to do the same.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, December 16th open thread: ‘Just Like Heaven/Lullaby’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is the open thread for Sunday, December 16th. 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.
Last week a great injustice was finally rectified when it was announced that after being eligible since 2004 The Cure will finally be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March. So today in honor of The Cure I give you two videos from the newly-minted Hall of Famers.
The first video is “Just Like Heaven” from the MTV Music Awards in 1989 and the second is “Lullaby” from 1990. Enjoy:
Robert Mueller scrubbed Peter Strzok’s phone before turning it over to the Department of Justice
It has not been a good couple of weeks for the appearance of impartiality for Robert Mueller and his investigation. First we learned that Jerome Corsi filed an ethics and criminal complaint against him for withholding exculpatory evidence about Donald Trump and then we learned a judge ordered Robert Mueller to hand over documents related to the questioning of Michael Flynn because his rights were violated and exculpatory evidence might have once again been withheld. And now we are learning that before handing Peter Strzok’s phone over to the Department of Justice is was scrubbed clean of all text messages.
Here is more:
On Thursday, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report stating thousands of text messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page could not be recovered after Mueller’s team wiped clean the phones it had issued them.
“SCO’s Records Officer told the OIG that as part of the office’s records retention procedure, the officer reviewed Strzok’s DOJ issued iPhone after he returned it to the SCO and determined it contained no substantive text messages,” the watchdog report reads. As Conservative Review national security reporter Jordan Schachtel first discovered, the OIG said Strzok’s cell phone was “reset to factory settings,” deleting all data stored on the device.
Is it just me or does Robert Mueller seems to have a problem with both preserving evidence and turning over all relevant evidence? It must be me so move along, nothing to see here…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Texas judge rules Obamacare is unconstitutional
I was busy last night so I was not able to blog or to even keep up with the news until I got home so naturally some big news had to break. I am of course talking about the ruling in Texas yesterday and the fact that the courts struck down Obamacare as being unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court had previously ruled that the healthcare law was legal when Chief Justice Roberts reinterpreted the mandate by declaring it was a tax and thereby constitutional when ironically the government was arguing it was not a tax.
Now a judge in Texas has ruled that because the mandate was repealed in 2017 the whole law is unconstitutional. Here is more:
since Congress removed the individual mandate in 2017, O’Connor ruled, there’s no way the ACA can be allowed to stand.
“The Individual Mandate can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress’s Tax Power and is still impermissible under the Interstate Commerce Clause — meaning the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional,” O’Connor wrote. “The Individual Mandate is essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA.”
Without the system being upheld by a wide pool of mandated participants, the ACA cannot stand, O’Connor ruled.
“Without it, Congress and the Supreme Court have stated, the architectural design fails,” according to O’Connor. “It is like watching a slow game of Jenga, each party poking at a different provision to see if the ACA falls.”
Now, I agree with what this judge said about the mandate being inseverable from the remainder of the law however I am not sure I agree with the logic he used to declare the whole law unconstitutional.
Let me explain: To me the one part of Obamacare that was unconstitutional was the mandate, so I fail to see how removing the unconstitutional part of the legislation makes the rest of the legislation unconstitutional. It is true that without the mandate the healthcare act will not function in the long run and so it seems to me this judge is confusing functionality with constitutionality.
It is not up to a judge to determine if a law is functional. But maybe I am splitting hairs here and do not get me wrong, I am not trying to defend a law I believe needs to be repealed and replaced.
Anyway, this battle is far from over and this ruling is going to be appealed, and it will eventually make it back to the Supreme Court where it will be interesting to see how John Roberts rules this time around. He had to play verbal twister to uphold the law the first time around so who knows how he will rule the next time.
And then there is newly minted Justice Kavanaugh, who is already 0-1 with conservatives after he sided with Planned Parenthood last week…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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