“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Would Bring Rare Criminal-Defense Experience to Supreme Court
Judge Jackson, whom President Biden nominated to the Supreme Court Friday, would be the first justice in decades to have worked as a lawyer representing poor criminal defendants”
“Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson would, if confirmed, be the first justice in decades to have worked as a lawyer representing poor criminal defendants, a background that could add a new perspective to the high court’s deliberations.”
—-
That’s all? Talk about easily impressed.
How about just nominate a criminal, they would bring “new perspective” to the court too, and just cut out the activist middleman, or woman in this case….
Sheesh.
“Biden’s SCOTUS Pick: “Had A High Rate Of Decisions Being Overturned”…”
This is next level stupid. Like hide under your desk in the event of a nuclear attack stupid.
Remember kids, when the nuclear bomb hits maintain social distancing and keep your mask on…. as you melt from the heat and radiation, which by the way, the mask will do nothing for, just like Covid!
He’s doing more for Ukraine than most of the world.
Elon Musk activates Starlink internet service in Ukraine. Will allow Ukrainians to use for free to keep communications going during invasion.https://t.co/4a1Zrv8vaq
Pump American oil on American land by American workers with American equipment piped through American pipelines a d hauled on American roads by American truckers.
The Capitol Attending Physician says in new guidance that masks are now optional at the Capitol, just in time for President Joe Biden’s first state of the union address.
There is zero science supporting this. If you believe mask mandates were necessary a week ago, or a month ago, there is nothing new to support this change…
Weaken, like getting NATO countries to pay their obligations for defense, the defense of Europe primarily? Stop blathering about Trump when the problem is the frail old man in the White House. Spinning an alternative reality only serves those in your bubble.
“Steve has noted how America’s energy policies–suppressing fossil fuels and spending vast sums to develop inherently unreliable wind and solar energy–play into the hands of the Russians. While we waste trillions of dollars on expensive and unworkable energy sources, we simultaneously feed Russia’s export economy by buying Russian oil and gas. Meanwhile, if our “green dreams” are realized, we will allow them to run their economy on a far more efficient basis, with regard to energy, than our own.
There is a real irony in the fact that we purport to sanction Russia while at the same time we and our European allies are financing Putin’s adventurism:
[I]n just the 24 hours immediately following Putin’s recognition of the so-called People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk the European Union, U.S., and United Kingdom “bought a combined 3.5 million barrels of Russian oil and refined products, worth more than $350 million at current prices,” and “another $250 million worth of Russian natural gas.”
With respect to our strategic position vis-a-vis Russia, our current energy policies are literally insane. But they might be even worse with regard to China. China is a far more serious economic competitor than Russia. Russia is pretty much a basket case apart from its oil and gas exports. But if the U.S. actually does try to transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar, it will effectively give the Chinese Communist Party control over our economy.
Wind and solar consume a considerable amount of petroleum, but much more of other materials. Who produces or processes a large majority of the minerals that go into wind and solar energy production? China. But it gets worse. Wind and solar are weather-dependent, and neither will ever produce electricity as much as 50 percent of the time. If you ask a greenie how we are going to overcome this inherent problem of intermittency, his answer will be “batteries.”
Do batteries remotely adequate to the task exist? Of course not. The entire battery capacity of the world is a drop in the bucket compared to what would be needed to electrify everything, as environmentalists say they want to do. My colleague Isaac Orr created this simple chart to show the absurdity of the “battery” theory. It contrasts electricity consumption in just one of fifty states–Minnesota–in just one of many countries, with the total projected battery capacity of the world in 2030:”
“And that is electricity consumption today, not electricity consumption if we “electrify everything,” starting with automobiles. Suffice it to say that batteries are not going to make the Green New Deal viable. But in the meantime, trillions of dollars will be wasted by the U.S. and other developed countries. If we want “green” energy, we need vast amounts of battery storage–vaster by many orders of magnitude than what has ever been produced.
So if there is to be an enormous increase in the production of lithium ion batteries, where will the lithium come from? Oh, guess what. The Chinese Communists are ready to sell it to us–or, more likely, produce the batteries and sell those to us, until such time as they decide to switch our economy off: “China targets lithium trove near Everest as battery demand soars.” The subhead: “Discovery comes as demand for electric car batteries soars.””
“We’re just more than one year into Joe Biden’s presidency, and already on his second foreign policy debacle, as my boss Mollie Hemingway pointed out this weekend.”
We're dealing with Biden's second foreign policy debacle and we're only just over one year into this presidency.
“That’s not even close to all the disasters consuming the United States and world as Biden repeatedly retreats to his basement in Delaware.
We have an affirmative-action Supreme Court nominee who will join the leftist wing of the court in attacking the U.S. Constitution for likely another 30 years. We have Congress contemplating eye-watering spending while the nation’s economy is not only extremely weak but also saturated with the most government debt in all of world history. We have historic levels of price increases especially harming the poor and working class.
We have the rise of authoritarianism around the globe as governments formerly considered self-governing turn on their own citizens, criminalize dissent as “terrorism,” and head towards Communist-style social credit systems under an inflated and now-permanent state of public emergency, while legislatures and courts mostly sit back and watch it happen. (If you don’t think it’s permanent, just ask yourself: Exactly when is it going to stop? There’s absolutely no criteria for a clearly defined endpoint anywhere in the formerly free world, and that’s the point.)
We have a southern border that has been opened wide to mass human trafficking by international drug cartels and a presidential administration flying unknown foreigners all around the country in the dead of night. The United Nations is even aiding this effort to end U.S. sovereignty, as it has for other manufactured migration “crises.”
Don’t forget the rising crime, deterioration of infrastructure, the self-destruction of our K-college education systems, the refusal of historic levels of able-bodied, working-age men to work, governments and employers doubling down on pitting Americans against each other based on race, the allowance of election systems that befit a banana republic, forcing predatory males into girls’ and women’s private areas, and the now-repeated deployment of the U.S. military against American civilians.
Amid all this, we have idiots at the wheel as the world careens into what could turn into World War III, as any international conflagration could, if everyone isn’t very, very careful.
So it’s no wonder that Biden is seeing rock-bottom approval ratings. It’s a bit horrifying the ratings aren’t even lower.”
———
“It also surfaces at least one clear conclusion: The allegedly 81 million Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 got played, hard. And they owe the rest of us a big apology, and a promise to never screw our nation over like this again.
Yes, Trump was a jerk. You know what he wasn’t? Dangerously incompetent. Or barely kept motoring with a personalized daily slushie of embalming fluid.
It’s time for the Americans who saddled us with this embarrassment of a president to realize that they did exactly what they self-righteously accepted from mass media they were saving our nation from: voting for a four-year national disaster.
We all realize there was massive social pressure from every corrupt institution in this nation to vote a certain way. It’s hard to resist that. But once it’s obvious that you made a terrible decision, the only way to move forward is to come clean.
The first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem. It’s the only way. As everyone knows deep in their hearts somewhere, denial only makes matters worse. So, for the sake of the country, we need Biden voters to please just admit it: Voting for Joe Biden was a horrific mistake.”
Michigan School District Spied On Parents’ Facebook Groups, Reported Them To Their Employers, Lawsuit Alleges
The superintendent of a school district in Michigan monitored the social media posts of parents who criticized the district’s COVID-19 policy, then reported those parents to their employers, and in at least one case, the police, according to a lawsuit filed by a parent in the district.
The Detroit News first reported Tuesday that Robert Shaner, the superintendent of Rochester Community Schools, made the calls to police because he was “concerned and scared” about the “aggressive” social media posts from parents, some of which suggested staging protests outside school board members’ homes, and an email he allegedly received from another parent that stated that the parent was going to “wreak havoc.” Shaner made the comments as part of a deposition made on February 3 in connection with the lawsuit.
The suit, originally filed in May 2021, but amended earlier this month, was brought by Elena Dinverno, a parent of two children at Rochester Community Schools. The suit alleges that Shaner and another high-ranking member of the school board contacted Dinverno’s employer and falsely claimed that she had made threats against the board, which resulted in her being fired from her job.
Scott McClallen of the Center Square has more on the particulars of the lawsuit:”
“Rochester Community School (RCS) officials were sued for compiling a dossier on parents who commented negatively on the school’s virtual learning policy. One official even called a parent’s employer, which possibly resulted in the parent’s termination.
Parent Elena Dinverno sued the district in 2021, claiming school officials called her place of work in the fall of 2020, and told her employer Dinverno was part of a group threatening the school district. She was fired in December 2020.
The Detroit News first reported the story.
A lawsuit filed on May 3, 2021, claims Dinverno advocated on two separate Facebook groups to reopen schools in-person: “RCS Parents for In-Person Education” and “Conservative Parents for Rochester.” Dinverno asked other parents for video testimony of how virtual school was hurting kids.
In a February 3 deposition, Superintendent Robert Shaner admitted he called the parent’s employer over a parent’s social media post encouraging protesting private homes over virtual learning because he was “scared.””
It wasn’t an argument AJ — it was posted as an added perspective on the nominee. Lower your weapons, now and again. This is also be a place to share different ideas and perspectives, right?
What is unfortunate is how the court — designed to be an independent, non-political body — has been weaponized by both parties in the past decades. It’s viewed as a way to boost one side’s — or the other side’s — legislative and political agenda.
I don’t know how we undo that, we probably don’t. We should all be concerned at how the foundations of our government are being twisted and used for political ends.
In this climate, I’d say complaining that she’s “too political” is a very weak — and almost amusing — argument. Both sides are playing that game. Supreme Court nominees are among the leading issues in any presidential campaign now. The court is thoroughly politicized in our day and will continue to be used as a tug-of-war for conservatives and liberals as they try to gain leverage.
Regarding her personal history, a good friend of mine — a family who live on a farm in NY I’ve known for years — was the lead public defender in their nearby city for years. I remember some of our talks about how sometimes hopeless that job was, but as a Christian he was also able, on the side, to help many of his clients on a personal level.
Their caseloads alone were impossible — he said it was like the ocean waves washing ashore, one after another after another … and handling each case with an individual focus was nearly impossible. I sat in on one of his cases in Albany when I was visiting one time.
I also remember seeing the public defenders shuffling into courtrooms when I was covering a story, lugging huge stacks of files wheeled behind them and looking, typically, pretty frazzled.
They also usually weren’t as well dressed as the other attorneys. 🙂
I don’t think many of them do it for “the money” (as the money isn’t there on that side of the legal system).
But it’s always an interesting sidelight to know what folks are doing for a living, why they’re doing it, what’s motivating them.
Sometimes politics, yes, but sometimes faith, a calling to a vocation.
I think it’s good to try see the humanity and personal sides of these “political” figures we can only know as cardboard cutouts (making them easier to “hate,” of course).
We may still wind up disagreeing with their positions, but too often in today’s political climate it’s easy to lose sight of the humanity we all share, all of us made in God’s image.
“Matthew L. Perna, a Pennsylvania man prosecuted for his 20-minute walk through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, took his own life on Feb. 25 due to “a broken heart” and a justice system that “killed his spirit and his zest for life,” his family said.
Perna, 37, of Sharpsville, was due to be sentenced on April 1 in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in a plea agreement on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding, aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. One charge is a felony and the others are misdemeanors.
Perna learned that prosecutors would seek an even longer jail sentence based on “domestic terrorism deterrence,” Julie Kelly of American Greatness wrote on Twitter on Sunday night.
“His community (which he loved), his country, and the justice system killed his spirit and his zest for life,” his online obituary reads.
“He didn’t break, touch, or steal anything. He did not harm anyone, as he stayed within the velvet ropes taking pictures,” the obituary said. “For this act, he has been persecuted by many members of his community, friends, relatives, and people who had never met him.””
“Dozens of defendants charged with alleged Jan. 6 crimes have been held in jail for more than a year while awaiting trial. Inmates at the Central Detention Facility in DC have said they suffered beatings by guards, been denied food, made to march around the jail carrying their mattresses, punched for singing the National Anthem, and placed in solitary confinement for months.”
The American Supreme Court and the process to appoint someone continues to both puzzle and amuse me. Clearly, Jackson is as qualified as Barrett. Only her perspective annoys some, but the final court should have different perspectives if only to keep each other on their toes and thinking. Its too easy to fall back on the “usual” if everyone has the same perspective. And if Jackson brings some experience others don’t have then even better. Republicans claim they are the party of the working class — here’s some who knows how the working class and poor are treated by the justice system.
On one hand, happy to see Musk help out. On the other hand, should one man have this much power?
O’Connor’s tweet ignores the simply reality — the US doesn’t buy Russian oil. It can supply itself and if necessary will purchase oil from Canada, the Middle East and Venezuela. Only the Europeans rely on Russia. Even if the US were to dig and pump more oil, the quality, price and convenience won’t match Russia. As the Democratic tweet you posted yesterday suggested; its time for the Saudis to prove they are allies (my guess; they’re not but at 100$ a barrel they will step up)
Trump did weaken NATO. The main problem was a lack of trust — the Europeans simply did not trust him, they thought he was compromised, he was too careless with secret information (some were seen on a Mar-a-lago dinning table). And he didn’t nothing to repair or correct this perception and in fact his rhetoric (eg “why should we protect Montenegro?) and his relationship with Putin made it worse. Ironically, the present crisis in Ukraine has united NATO, Putin did more for NATO unity than Trump.
Your federalist post at 8:52 am is amusing; partly because its ridiculous and also because it throws everything but the kitchen sink in the argument.
The comments on the budget ignore the fact the deficit is projected to go down in terms of % to GDP and non defence spending is going down. Would the author prefer Biden cut defence spending? After all, defence is roughly half of the discretionary spending.
To complain about decaying infrastructure after one year pre-supposes it can decay in a year? Most infrastructure lasts longer than that. The decline goes back to Reagan (cut taxes and thus hamper the state’s ability to build). However, Trump only had infrastructure weeks — Biden’s plan appears to be more ambitious, and time will tell if it happens. Unfortunately some people are so eager to see him fail, they would rather block infrastructure spending.
Until now, inflation and price increases have almost matched increases in corporate profits. It appears corporations are taking advantage of supply chain issues and use it as an excuse to raise prices. However, if gas prices go up, actual inflation will occur but that will be Putin’s fault not Biden. And if you wanted SWIFT to exclude Russia, its the natural result.
The rise of authoritarianism? He’s just noticed that? Its been happening for at least a decade if not the beginning of the 21st century and has accelerated in the last five years. Right wing populism and Mussolini style regimes are popular in Latin America, Eastern European and elsewhere. Hardly Biden’s fault
Criminalize dissent as terrorism? Again did he just notice this. The Palmer Raids in the 1920s. COINTERPOL. The criminalization of the Black Panthers. We go back to the Anti-Sedition Acts; Criminalizing dissent as terrorism is as American as apple pie.
The UN can barely hold its own conferences without creating a train wreck let alone take away American sovereignty. The World Food Program and UNICEF are probably the only agencies that are run well.
American education has been in decline since, you guess it, Reagan was the governor of California. He destroyed the once great and almost free California university system. As for public school — the disparity in funding reflects the disparity in results; some American public schools are absolutely incredible and others could be mistaken for the third world. Hard to blame Biden for something that is inherent in the system.
The Great Resignation is an interesting phenomenon that’s common in many countries not just the US. Its the result of young people not seeing an achievable end goal. Why work like your parents or grandparents when you won’t succeed like them despite the same effort? People need a reason to devote 25 years of their short lives to a career; a stable family with a mortgage, pension, and heath care will do that. Take this away and the question is why work. It was common place to hear when I was young, “he will settle down once he gets a good wife and a mortgage” – a somewhat outdated ideal but one that accurately describes what happens to young people in their 20s or used to. House prices are now 10 times a yearly income here whereas it used to be below 4. House prices have risen almost 200% since the ’60s but income only about 305. Rent is similar. With this in mind, why work any more than you have to — live with your parents, make enough to help out, save up to travel or do other things, and wait for your parents to die so you will have a house. And I don’t blame them. I don’t know how the author links this Biden — if Biden did all this in one year he’s an incredible man.
There’s a few more points I could make but I’m getting bored as is anybody who made it this far. The fact is many accused people of Trump Derangement Syndrome and while I’ve seen and heard cases of it; nothing comes close to this author and Biden.
The Michigan school Facebook post is interesting. First its not spying if its on a public Facebook site and especially if the group is linked to the school. Schools do monitor parent groups if possible. Frequently, parents and students will come to the admin with print outs and screenshots of social media posts and conversations — its public and the poster is responsible for it.
Now that being said, reporting someone’s posts to their employer crosses the line. If the posts involved the school, then contact the person who posted it. If the post indicates a possibility that harm will come to the school and/or students due diligence must be done. If there’s a threat or even just a planned picket/protest calling the police to monitor the situation is reasonable. Planning to stage protests outside private residence would necessitate a call to the police. Freedom speech, right to protest, etc should not extend to harassment.
The Perna case posted by Tychicus actually demonstrates why having a public defender and criminal lawyer on the Supreme Court may be helpful. The complaints by many Jan 6th are not uncommon for people in the system. A common technique is to hold a person who can’t make bail and then delay the trial over and over again. After a period of time, the DA will offer time served in exchange for a guilty plea. This is the most famous example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder
I agree this is a tragedy but almost entirely predictable. And many on the left will point this out as an example of people wilfully ignoring the abuse of the system until it happens to them or somebody they can relate to.
And my post from yesterday on Jackson’s career, as HRW accurately pointed out, was, of course, focused on her bringing a different background and legal experience to the court — which I don’t think is a bad thing, either.
The focus is first and foremost on qualifications and character — with the understanding that, in this era, liberal presidents will appoint liberal nominees; conservative presidents will appoint conservative nominees. It’s an established fact that shouldn’t really come as a big surprise. Obama phrased it correctly when he said that “elections have consequences.” It works in both directions.
“In this climate, I’d say complaining that she’s “too political” is a very weak — and almost amusing — argument.”
I’m not complaining she’s too political, I’m saying she’s unqualified because a judge who repeatedly has their decisions overturned, as she has, is not SC material.
And she shouldn’t be political at all in this position, but as her overturned decisions show, she is. Which makes her unqualified.
They got what they asked for, and the rest of us have to suffer too.
If you voted for Harris/Biden, congrats, you got what you asked for. ➡️ Inflation at a 40-year high ➡️ Botched Afghanistan withdrawal ➡️ Risking crime ➡️ Unscientific response to COVID ➡️ Mandates and hypocrisy https://t.co/xXscR2zvio
None of the elderly people in congress have to wear a mask at the State of the Union, but children have to wear them for two more weeks. https://t.co/9NbgKVy4xE
There was no quid pro quo on the phone call cited in impeachment. Zelensky publicly said he never felt pressured.
And yes, Trump should get credit for lethal aid to Ukraine because he gave it to them after Obama/Biden admin refused to give them weapons. https://t.co/wN2VybtrqY
Lacking the proper or required qualifications.
Not modified by conditions or reservations; absolute.
Not qualified, ineligible, unfit for a position or task.
“”Judge Jackson’s record of reversals by the left-leaning D.C. Circuit is troubling for anyone concerned about the rule of law,” Judicial Crisis Network president Carrie Severino told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. “For example, in Make the Road New York v. Wolf, a D.C. Circuit panel composed of a majority of Democratic nominees concluded that Jackson had set aside a Trump administration rule where there was no legal basis to do so.”
“Cases like these suggest that Jackson might be willing in politically charged cases to ignore the law to deliver a particular policy outcome, and that’s not what we want to see from a Supreme Court justice,” she continued.”
“This morning President Biden named ten individuals he intends to nominate to Article III judgeships (along with one to a D.C. municipal seat). As expected, Biden has selected federal district judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill one of the two existing vacancies on the D.C. Circuit. I’ll offer just a few thoughts for now on Jackson’s selection.
1. Jackson, 50, has a strong background, including eight years as a district judge, service on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, a clerkship for Justice Stephen Breyer, and double degrees from Harvard.
Yet, as I first noted five years ago when she was being talked about as a possible candidate to fill the Scalia vacancy, Jackson is not highly regarded as a judge. Inquiries I have made recently of folks knowledgeable about her work confirm that she continues to have a middling reputation. This criticism, I’ll emphasize, is on grounds of quality, not ideology. Indeed, she is not regarded as ranking high among the ten or so district judges that President Obama appointed to the federal district bench in D.C. (If any informed reader has a different take on Jackson’s quality or reputation, I’d be eager to hear it.)
For what it’s worth, I don’t mean to present this as an argument against Jackson’s confirmation. Indeed, conservatives might be happy that Biden didn’t select someone more formidable.
2. Jackson has a striking record of reversals by the D.C. Circuit—including by liberal judges—in her high-profile rulings:
a. In 2019, Jackson issued a 122-page opinion in support of her preliminary injunction (in Make the Road New York v. McAleenan) barring the Department of Homeland Security from enforcing its decision expanding the reach of its expedited-removal process to the statutory limit. Jackson ruled (among other things) that plaintiffs had sufficiently established that her court had jurisdiction over the challenge to the decision; that Congress “did not intend to commit implementation of the expedited removal process it authorized entirely to agency discretion”; that plaintiffs had procedural claims under the Administrative Procedure Act; and that the DHS decision was arbitrary and capricious.
The D.C. Circuit reversed Judge Jackson. All three judges on the panel agreed that she got things very wrong. They differed only on which error required vacating her injunction.
In her majority opinion, Judge Patricia Millett, joined by Judge Harry Edwards—both are liberals appointed by Democratic presidents—held that Congress did indeed commit to DHS’s “sole and unreviewable discretion”—that’s the statutory language—the judgment whether to expand expedited removal to the statutory limit. The DHS decision was therefore not subject to review under the APA, and Jackson’s preliminary injunction was improper.
In a separate opinion, Judge Neomi Rao determined that Jackson made an earlier threshold error in exercising any jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ challenge. (Rao’s opinion is styled a dissent, rather than a concurrence in the judgment, because she would require that the district court dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.)
b. In 2018, in what the Washington Post hailed as a victory for federal-employee unions, Jackson wrote a 119-page opinion enjoining executive-branch officials from implementing provisions of three of President Trump’s executive orders that (in the Post’s summary) “aimed at making it easier to fire employees and weaken their representation.”
But in a unanimous ruling by an ideologically diverse panel (in American Federation of Government Employees v. Trump), the D.C. Circuit held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to decide the case, as a federal statute vests adjudication of federal labor disputes in the Federal Labor Relations Authority, subject to direct review only in the D.C. Circuit. Judge Thomas Griffith wrote the panel opinion, which was joined most notably by Obama appointee Sri Srinivasan as well as by Bush 41 appointee Raymond Randolph.”
“Over the weekend the NY Times published an opinion video about the 10th anniversary of Travon Martin’s death. The video features interviews with Henry Louis Gates, Al Sharpton and Barack Obama. It starts off on a controversial note with Gates arguing that the modern Civil Rights movement really started after the “murder” of Martin. There was of course a trial of George Zimmerman for murder back in 2013 and he was acquitted on grounds of self defense. In any case, the video quickly shifts into telling the story of the shooting starting with the 911 call which Zimmerman placed that night. Here’s a transcript of the audio as presented by the Times: [emphasis added]
Dispatcher: Sanford Police Department, this line is being recorded. This is Sean.
Zimmerman: Hey, we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood and there’s a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. He looks black.
Dispatcher: Did you see what he was wearing?
Zimmerman: A dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie. He’s got something in his hands. I don’t know what his deal is. These assholes, they always get away. Shit, he’s running.
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.
Dispatcher: Okay, we don’t need you to do that.
This has been edited in a way that is intentionally misleading. The Times has removed a question the dispatcher asked which prompted his statement about Martin’s race. Here’s the actual call:”
Hillary Clinton would pivot to act like she was suddenly a staunch opponent of Russia, but as we shall see, she would come to rely on Russian disinformation during her 2016 presidential campaign against Donald Trump.
On April 8th, 2010, the new START treaty was signed, which would entail a strategic drawdown in nuclear weapons stockpiles. While maintaining nuclear parity is not a bad thing on its face, the treat was 'hopelessly lopsided' and allowed Russia to 'cheat.'https://t.co/2i3J6eYFlJ
In 2012, President Obama was caught on live mic telling then-President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia he would have “more flexibility” to negotiate on ballistic missile defense after the November election. This isn't exactly 'tough on Russia' optics.https://t.co/iLia1U6012
“In March, Crimea voted overwhelmingly in favor of leaving Ukraine in a referendum that Europe and the United States said was illegal and triggered sanctions.” https://t.co/0GIIWRFv1a
“On March 21, Putin signed legislation that completed the process of absorbing Crimea into Russia, defying Western leaders like then U.S. president, Barack Obama, who have since faced heavy criticism for being too soft with the Russian invasion.” Sound familiar?
The Obama admin. had denied Ukraine access to “radar jamming and detection equipment necessary to evade and counter [Russian] anti-aircraft systems” — like the system Putin’s cronies had used to shoot down Flight 17.
But Obama’s disarming of Ukraine extended back to before he was even president. As a Senator, he had actually taken a special interest in making sure that the country would be relatively defenseless against the Russian bear.
“As a U.S. senator, Barack Obama won $48 million in federal funding to help Ukraine destroy thousands of tons of guns and ammunition – weapons which are now unavailable to the Ukrainian army as it faces down Russian President Vladimir Putin….”https://t.co/Zzw2ZAKTEI
To retain our deterrence abroad, we must tighten our belts at home, pump oil and gas, start to balance our budget, junk wokeism as a nihilist indulgence, and recalibrate our military. ”
—
“On cue, an embarrassed Left now offers some surreal takes on why Putin went into Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014 and again into all of Ukraine in 2022—while mysteriously bookending the four invasion-free Trump years. We are told that hiatus was because Putin got all he wanted from Trump and rewarded him by not invading any of his neighbors.
Really?
Were Vladimir Putin and his advisors more or less delighted that their poodle Trump thankfully flooded the world with price-crashing oil? They were thankful Trump at least had killed Russian mercenaries in Syria?
Putin himself was content that the United States got out of his own advantageous missile deal? Was he thrilled that Trump sold once taboo U.S. offensive weapons to Ukraine? Did the Kremlin grow ecstatic when Trump upped the U.S. defense budget? And was Russia especially thankful that Trump jawboned NATO into spending another $100 billion on defense? Did Putin clap when Trump killed Soleimani and Baghdadi, and bombed ISIS out of existence?
We are left being lectured to now by the ubiquitous retired Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, the political operative remonstrating America on its anemic response to saving his native Ukraine. All this from one of the key operatives of impeaching the one president who, unlike his progressive presidential predecessor, along with the Biden Burisma consortia, really did arm Ukraine and send it offensive weapons embargoed by the Left.
The useful Vindman may have been offered to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. But he never grasped that any country naïve enough to believe the Left’s empty promises about autonomy and freedom reified by mere liberal fiat will be sorely left all alone by its utopian patrons—once a nearby powerful thug invades.”
——
“Biden
Now we hear that midterm Biden has played the crisis wonderfully. The surreal progressive take on this crisis is that Winston Biden has corn-popped the “killer” Putin, metaphorically taken “the bully” behind the proverbial gym and given him a whomping, slammed his head on the global lunch counter, and in Biden’s deterrent fashion, called him a chump, one of the dregs, a junkie, fat, and a lying dog-faced pony soldier—and capped it all off with “You ain’t white!”
Joe threatened the toughest sanctions in history that on Wednesday would deter an invasion and by Saturday were never meant to at all. But Biden promises someday a “conversation” to decide whether at some time he still will issue the toughest sanctions in history. Until then, he invites Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy safe passage out of Kyiv—the quickest way to destroy the dogged Ukrainian resistance.
Left unsaid are the years of rapacious Biden family profiteering in Ukraine, a decade of leftist passive-aggressive love and hate of Russia, from obsequious reset to greedy Uranium One to pathetic “tell Vladimir . . .” to unhinged vetoing of sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. ”
——-
The Biden Crime Family will have to find a new country to launder their money thru.
More commentary on Jackson (just in the interest of more opinions — and this one isn’t a hard-and-fast opinion on qualifications, but offers some additional information about the nominee)
Commentary was written by David J. Rivkin who served at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations; and Andrew Grossman, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Both practice appellate and constitutional law in Washington.
~ After reviewing so many of Judge Jackson’s judicial opinions, we have no doubt of her capabilities. We can’t discern whether she has any cognizable judicial philosophy that would guide her approach to the sort of fraught legal questions that the Supreme Court confronts term after term. Her loudest advocates are confident that she’ll serve them well, and her record supports that view. With 50 Democratic senators, that may be enough. ~
The 7:43 post has the right stats but its conclusion is off. America isn’t in decline because there’s migrants. Its in decline because of inequality. Over 40 years ago, the US went from a nation that realized there was a balance between individual rights and community needs to one that celebrates individual greed. Taxes plummeted and the government became reliant on the bond market to function. Without checks and balances, moral expectations and any redistribution; wealth coalesced among the few and the real wealth and income of the rest stagnated or grew worse. Feeding the poor and the migrants did not create American decline nor will starving them stop the decline. A return to 1970s tax rates and an understanding that those who benefit from the structures put in place by the gov’t have a moral responsibility to the community.
The US has the same Gini coefficient as Haiti. In the OECD only Chile, Turkey, Mexico and Costa Rica have a higher rate of inequality. The US rate is 41 (O is perfect equality and 100 is maximum inequality). Low income inequality is not necessarily a sign of a good middle class society – Belarus and Slovakia are low, but the Nordic range of 25 to 30 is healthy . The role taxes play in countries like France and Ireland in bringing down inequality is significant. None of these countries are in decline. And a look at US economic history also confirms that the US did better in an era of high taxation than after tax cuts. Don’t blame migrant children on food stamps blame those who hoard the country’s wealth.
The newsbusters writer engages in stereotypes when commenting on why women get an abortion – its not a teen mothers; in a survey where multiple answers are permitted 40% said they weren’t fininacially ready, 36% cited bad planning (including some who were too old or done with children) 31% cited partner related issues (including only 8% who wanted to avoid being a single mom) 29% want to focus on the children they already have, 20% interferes with future plans, 12% for health related reasons, etc. There’s a 7% who said they weren’t emotionally ready – probably the 8% who didn’t want to be single mothers. Hard to assess the accuracy of the survey but the largest reason is lack of money.
The stereotypical teenage girl is not the one getting an abortion – its the poor and middle age. As the article notes the heavy arm of the law hasn’t put a dent in the abortion rate. Pro-life won the moral battle a long time ago but now they need to put their money where their morals are. Alievate the cost of maternity and post natal, increase gov’t child support payments, etc. You will never get rid of abortion (12% health) but eliminating the 40% who do it because childbirth and children are too expensive will go a long way. And it’s much easier than using the long arm of the state.
Canada has an abortion rate of 12 per 1000 wheras the US has 20.8 per 1000. US has strict laws Canada has none. The disparity then isn’t the law but the financial assistance to parents and free health care. Want to lower the abortion rate, go to the money.
Gender dysphoria has been around a long time. Focusing strictly on science; people may be born with extra X or Y chromosones and people may overproduce hormones opposite their genitalia (the most famous being two female middle distance runners) . Sure there is a social contagion right now but the science is clear – gender isn’t strictly binary. I tend to see genetics or biology as the source for most if not all mental differences. It is nature not nurture. The DSM is a horrible resource -its diagnosed anything outside “WEIRD” as a disorder and is more social science than science. According to them we’re all suffering from something if we don’t conform to WEIRD norms (Western, Educated, Industrialized, rich and democratic societies) .
Elections do have consequences – stop electing politicians bankrolled by the NRA. Even if you built a wall, minefield, etc; you’d still have American citizens committing mass shootings.
Paul Stanley of KISS is not a drug-addled rock star. He is well known for not participating in the drugs and alcohol lifestyle; He is foremost a business person, for whom rock music was a way to get rich and as a business person, he’s fairly conservative.
I wonder if Flowers in the Attic is being banned. It was written in 1979 and was extremely popular with girls when I was in middle school – it featured incest, rape, and family murder. In other words, books of this type are nothing new. Let’s not forget Romeo and Juliet features explicit sexual content and suicide.
I know Israel has sentimental support among US evangelicals but in terms of strategic relations, Ukraine is more important.
I do wonder why the US stockpiles ammunition in Israel without Israel actually buying it. Bizarre – the Israelis get weapons and ammo and only have to pay for it if they use it? And some complain about money lost supporting Ukraine. In 2020, the US gave over 3 billion dollars in military aid to Israel and also gave over a billion to Egypt and Jordan. Hence the only border threat to Israel is Syria, Lebanon and Palistine . The first two can’t even run their own countries and the latter isn’t a real country. Iran, Saudi Arabia etc have long had unofficial relations with Israel.
And Israel’s claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East is slowly dying as Bibi Netanyahu attempts to turn Israel into an “illiberal democracy” as modelled by Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Russia, India etc.
Alton Mills spent 29 years in jail for drug trafficking. The judge was forced to give him life due to mandatory minimums and three strike laws. Its an excessive sentence for the crime. If he was sentenced to a lesser term say 5 years would he have returned to drug dealing – perhaps. Did he emerge from 29 years of prison a more violent man? – most likely. Criminal justice reform is still needed.
A whistleblower who has disappeared alleges that a document exists which will prove the existence of the Biden “crime family”. Perhaps the FBI isn’t handing over the document because they don’t know if it exists or which FD 1023 document the whistleblower is referring to. I’d like to see them indict Wray over this – they would have to provide the evidence to prove their own allegations.
Comer admitted 9 out of 10 whistleblowers were missing, in court or in jail. Is the whistleblower referenced in Red State the one they could find? Although if you read the IRS Chief’s actual words, he has no idea who the whistleblower is or if they exist. The chief said “he would not intervene in any way that would impact the status of any whistle blower”. He’s making a general statement there. Then he said the whitsleblower the committee references “alleges that the change in work assignment came at the direction of the DOJ” Again its obvious the IRS chief has no idea who the whistleblower is or if they exist.
If the whistleblower has already been punished, he has nothing to lose by testifying so where is he? And where are the others?
Meanwhile Gaetz produced his whistleblowers but did not release the transcripts of the statements they gave the Republicans. Again not much of a blown whistle if they aren’t being released.
Gates, Bill Clinton, and Trump all hung out with Epstein. Trump liked to wander into the Miss Teen USA dressing room. Trump, Gates, and Clinton — the morality or lack of it is the same. The rich will exploit anyone they can, including the young.
FOX is just imitating typical urban corporate culture. FOX employees have always had a low opinion of their audience and their own guests. The Dominon lawsuit showed how hosts like Carlson actually thought of the people they interviewed and supported.
Comparing drag queens to priests and cops in terms of molesting children is an ongoing meme on the internet. The point of course is to show drag queens are less dangerous for children than youth pastors, coaches, police etc.
Complaining Jack Smith is indicting some for lying while others are not indicted is a classic “squirrel” or diversion. Smith indicted those who committed perjury in his jurisdiction. Others may have committed perjury elsewhere but that’s not Smith’s jurisdiction or problem.
I thought Mega Maga was a term coined by Boebert. Its a violation of the law to mock your opponent’s slogan?
Youtube has its own rules and algorithms which are occasionally ridiculous and over the top. Other organizations may differ.
Not sure why you posted the urban mall story. Urban malls were a bad idea from the start. It was an attempt to replicate what was popular in the suburbs, but was culturally inappropriate downtown and tore down what made downtowns unique.
There’s a downtown mall near my house. It’s as the kids say “sketch” but it has a large Asian oriented grocery store (cheaper than the chains) farmers market, a movie theatre with a couple recliner seats, and a public library. Many stores have their own security plus mall security. The police patrol the liquor store Friday and Saturday. It’s one of the few public libraries I know with security and a police presence.
It has its problems – prositution in the library, homeless sleeping in the food court, and frequent ambulance calls to pick up overdoses. Theft and fights are common. Do I blame my socialist city government? or conservative provincial government or liberal federal government? Or perhaps realize urban malls were a bad idea no matter who is in charge? Suburban malls have similar problems – malls have lost their appeal.
Personally I like it – it’s convenient and cheap and guaranteed I will never meet a student on the weekend shopping.
Slave labour, debt labour, child labour and exploitative labour practises in China are fairly well know. Not sure how this can be attributed to Biden – we can go all the way back to Reagan whose trade policies helped hollow out American manufacturing and helped corporations move factories to China. Uyghur slave labour has been well documented for at least a decade.
Solar panels have decreased in cost in a similar manner as all tech declines in cost. Biden has been fairly supportive of solan manufacturing within the US (both parties have become far more protectionists than previously). The main problem is to obtain subsidies so they can compete with China and others. Most of the opposition of subsidies comes from energy companies who donate mostly to Republican candidates. Solar energy decentralises power creation and large utility companies fear being made redudant by technology.
AJ – Trump challenged 200 years of tradition in the peaceful transfer of power. He questioned the outcome, lawyers launched challenges in court, and were denied. He exhausted all legal remedies so he and others sought to overturn the election through false electors, opening voting machines, asking a secy of state to find votes, etc. This never occurred in a US election – this broke tradition and convention and now consequences have occurred. A grand jury decided the evidence was sufficient for trial; the rules are being followed.
I would agree that there is a two tiered system though. Trump was in and out of the jail in record time. Yes, he had a mug shot but most of his paperwork was prearranged prior to arrival. If he had to wait like a regular criminal, he would have been there for a few hours and they would have weighed as opposed to taking his word that he was 215lbs. I’m 215lbs and 6 feet; I may have a dad bod but nowhere close to his body shape.
I mentioned this a few days ago. The electric company in the pursuit of profit neglected maintenance and safety protocol. It’s no surprise to see Maui County. Next they should go after the private company who controlled the water supply. Never trust the private sector with basic necessities of life.
If federal debt is important to MAGA, why did Trump champion tax cuts to the wealthy which increased the deficit and the debt? If the MAGA Republicans truly wanted fiscal conservatism they would demand taxes revert to the level seen in the Clinton administration – the last president to balance the budget.
The Republicans have spent the last four years bashing the FBI, DOJ and other law enforcement agencies. They are no longer the party of law and order.
Russia first attacked Ukraine in 2104. The war was limited to the Donbass and Crimea and continued off and on since that time, throughout Trump’s presidency. It was pretty much ignored by the West. As Ukraine slowly moved into the EU orbit, Putin decided a quick coup to replace Zelensky was in order. He failed. And the current war is the result. None of this has anything to do with US domestic politics or who was president. It had more to do with Ukraine’s aspiration to orient itself with the EU and not Russia.
I like the term uniparty. I’ve always argued there was very little difference between a Clinton/Obama Democrat and a Bush Republican. The only noticeable difference was social policy.
Ben Shapiro amuses me – the mug shot was unnecessary but that’s the normal process of booking and obtaining bail. To skip this because he was recognisable would create a two-tiered justice system. Giullani used to perp walk Democratic politicians in handcuffs when he was a DA. The sheriff was being nice – in and out, with pre-processing only took 30 mins or so.
It is a dark day in American history when a person refuses to accept the results and attempts to overthrow the election. Gore and Clinton may have whined and complained but when the legal means were exhausted they didn’t try different means. Thankfully a grand jury saw the evidence and made a decision, hopefully the trial will take place before elections so people can make an informed choice.
Does anyone think young black men will identify with a rich trust fund baby who rarely accepts responsibility? Who receives preferential treatment even in Fulton county? Who publicly went after the Central Park Five even after they were declared innocent?
It’s that type of naivety that led FOX and Republicans play the Oliver Anthony song at the debates. They don’t understand they are the elite and their policies over the last 50 years have created the poverty in rural and small town America. Btw, I like the song – my kind of country music as opposed to Nashville or Tyler Swift.
Dj – I may have strayed from the Reformed faith but the T in TULIP is still there; total depravity of humanity.
NJ – Incidents I’ve read indicate medical necessary abortions for the mother’s physical health has been limited or denied. A Texas woman testified to that effect in Congress (Cruz left the room). Apparently the delay resulted in her being unable to conceive again. The delay was due to the lack of Texas doctors willing to do the procedure due to the new law.
Its extremely rare for abortions to be performed after 24 weeks. The lack of doctors and the high insurance cost make it almost impossible. Even in Canada, with no criminal law on abortion, one can have difficulty accessing abortions after 12 to 24 weeks depending on the province and the provider. Less than 1% of abortions in Canada occur after 21 weeks.
Wandering Views 
Sorry DJ, but this is some weak tea.
“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Would Bring Rare Criminal-Defense Experience to Supreme Court
Judge Jackson, whom President Biden nominated to the Supreme Court Friday, would be the first justice in decades to have worked as a lawyer representing poor criminal defendants”
“Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson would, if confirmed, be the first justice in decades to have worked as a lawyer representing poor criminal defendants, a background that could add a new perspective to the high court’s deliberations.”
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That’s all? Talk about easily impressed.
How about just nominate a criminal, they would bring “new perspective” to the court too, and just cut out the activist middleman, or woman in this case….
Sheesh.
“Biden’s SCOTUS Pick: “Had A High Rate Of Decisions Being Overturned”…”
She’s unqualified.
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This is next level stupid. Like hide under your desk in the event of a nuclear attack stupid.
Remember kids, when the nuclear bomb hits maintain social distancing and keep your mask on…. as you melt from the heat and radiation, which by the way, the mask will do nothing for, just like Covid!
We. Are. Ruled. By. 🤡🤡🤡🤡
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1498058825819062275?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1498058825819062275%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fgregp-3534%2F2022%2F02%2F27%2Ffema-website-warns-americans-to-maintain-social-distancing-and-wear-a-mask-in-the-event-of-a-nuclear-explosion%2F
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https://twitter.com/elliotdordick/status/1498060910308511747?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1498060910308511747%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fgregp-3534%2F2022%2F02%2F27%2Ffema-website-warns-americans-to-maintain-social-distancing-and-wear-a-mask-in-the-event-of-a-nuclear-explosion%2F
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He’s doing more for Ukraine than most of the world.
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This is called stepping up. Biden should try it sometime.
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That’s crazy talk, right Joe?…. 🙄
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https://twitter.com/timb5274/status/1498018863388274701?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1498018863388274701%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fjacobb-38%2F2022%2F02%2F27%2Fpump-american-oil-on-american-land-what-larry-oconnor-proposes-is-called-american-energy-independence%2F
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Keep voting for idiot Democrats, you’ll keep getting what you voted for.
“California Residents Outraged Over Gas Prices: “I’ve Never Seen A $6 Price Point In My Life”…”
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Poof… gone.
It’s magic! 🙄
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MSDNC continues to pump out propaganda to prop up The Senile One.
https://twitter.com/Hamilton4TX/status/1497928456218234889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497928456218234889%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fsamj-3930%2F2022%2F02%2F27%2Fnext-level-crazy-blue-check-scholar-goes-full-out-blueanon-on-msnbc-with-batsht-rant-about-trump-and-ukraine-watch%2F
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“ON ENERGY, THE CHINESE-RUSSIAN ONE-TWO PUNCH”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/on-energy-the-chinese-russian-one-two-punch.php
“Steve has noted how America’s energy policies–suppressing fossil fuels and spending vast sums to develop inherently unreliable wind and solar energy–play into the hands of the Russians. While we waste trillions of dollars on expensive and unworkable energy sources, we simultaneously feed Russia’s export economy by buying Russian oil and gas. Meanwhile, if our “green dreams” are realized, we will allow them to run their economy on a far more efficient basis, with regard to energy, than our own.
There is a real irony in the fact that we purport to sanction Russia while at the same time we and our European allies are financing Putin’s adventurism:
[I]n just the 24 hours immediately following Putin’s recognition of the so-called People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk the European Union, U.S., and United Kingdom “bought a combined 3.5 million barrels of Russian oil and refined products, worth more than $350 million at current prices,” and “another $250 million worth of Russian natural gas.”
With respect to our strategic position vis-a-vis Russia, our current energy policies are literally insane. But they might be even worse with regard to China. China is a far more serious economic competitor than Russia. Russia is pretty much a basket case apart from its oil and gas exports. But if the U.S. actually does try to transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar, it will effectively give the Chinese Communist Party control over our economy.
Wind and solar consume a considerable amount of petroleum, but much more of other materials. Who produces or processes a large majority of the minerals that go into wind and solar energy production? China. But it gets worse. Wind and solar are weather-dependent, and neither will ever produce electricity as much as 50 percent of the time. If you ask a greenie how we are going to overcome this inherent problem of intermittency, his answer will be “batteries.”
Do batteries remotely adequate to the task exist? Of course not. The entire battery capacity of the world is a drop in the bucket compared to what would be needed to electrify everything, as environmentalists say they want to do. My colleague Isaac Orr created this simple chart to show the absurdity of the “battery” theory. It contrasts electricity consumption in just one of fifty states–Minnesota–in just one of many countries, with the total projected battery capacity of the world in 2030:”
https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2021-05-05-at-6.25.30-PM.png.webp?w=580&ssl=1
“And that is electricity consumption today, not electricity consumption if we “electrify everything,” starting with automobiles. Suffice it to say that batteries are not going to make the Green New Deal viable. But in the meantime, trillions of dollars will be wasted by the U.S. and other developed countries. If we want “green” energy, we need vast amounts of battery storage–vaster by many orders of magnitude than what has ever been produced.
So if there is to be an enormous increase in the production of lithium ion batteries, where will the lithium come from? Oh, guess what. The Chinese Communists are ready to sell it to us–or, more likely, produce the batteries and sell those to us, until such time as they decide to switch our economy off: “China targets lithium trove near Everest as battery demand soars.” The subhead: “Discovery comes as demand for electric car batteries soars.””
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“The Americans Who Voted For Joe Biden Owe The Rest Of Us An Apology”
“The first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem.”
https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/28/the-americans-who-voted-for-joe-biden-owe-the-rest-of-us-an-apology/
“We’re just more than one year into Joe Biden’s presidency, and already on his second foreign policy debacle, as my boss Mollie Hemingway pointed out this weekend.”
“That’s not even close to all the disasters consuming the United States and world as Biden repeatedly retreats to his basement in Delaware.
We have an affirmative-action Supreme Court nominee who will join the leftist wing of the court in attacking the U.S. Constitution for likely another 30 years. We have Congress contemplating eye-watering spending while the nation’s economy is not only extremely weak but also saturated with the most government debt in all of world history. We have historic levels of price increases especially harming the poor and working class.
We have the rise of authoritarianism around the globe as governments formerly considered self-governing turn on their own citizens, criminalize dissent as “terrorism,” and head towards Communist-style social credit systems under an inflated and now-permanent state of public emergency, while legislatures and courts mostly sit back and watch it happen. (If you don’t think it’s permanent, just ask yourself: Exactly when is it going to stop? There’s absolutely no criteria for a clearly defined endpoint anywhere in the formerly free world, and that’s the point.)
We have a southern border that has been opened wide to mass human trafficking by international drug cartels and a presidential administration flying unknown foreigners all around the country in the dead of night. The United Nations is even aiding this effort to end U.S. sovereignty, as it has for other manufactured migration “crises.”
Don’t forget the rising crime, deterioration of infrastructure, the self-destruction of our K-college education systems, the refusal of historic levels of able-bodied, working-age men to work, governments and employers doubling down on pitting Americans against each other based on race, the allowance of election systems that befit a banana republic, forcing predatory males into girls’ and women’s private areas, and the now-repeated deployment of the U.S. military against American civilians.
Amid all this, we have idiots at the wheel as the world careens into what could turn into World War III, as any international conflagration could, if everyone isn’t very, very careful.
So it’s no wonder that Biden is seeing rock-bottom approval ratings. It’s a bit horrifying the ratings aren’t even lower.”
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“It also surfaces at least one clear conclusion: The allegedly 81 million Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 got played, hard. And they owe the rest of us a big apology, and a promise to never screw our nation over like this again.
Yes, Trump was a jerk. You know what he wasn’t? Dangerously incompetent. Or barely kept motoring with a personalized daily slushie of embalming fluid.
It’s time for the Americans who saddled us with this embarrassment of a president to realize that they did exactly what they self-righteously accepted from mass media they were saving our nation from: voting for a four-year national disaster.
We all realize there was massive social pressure from every corrupt institution in this nation to vote a certain way. It’s hard to resist that. But once it’s obvious that you made a terrible decision, the only way to move forward is to come clean.
The first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem. It’s the only way. As everyone knows deep in their hearts somewhere, denial only makes matters worse. So, for the sake of the country, we need Biden voters to please just admit it: Voting for Joe Biden was a horrific mistake.”
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This is Nazi level stuff.
“Michigan School District Allegedly Spied on Parents’ Social Media Posts and Reported Them to Their Employers”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/02/michigan-school-district-allegedly-spied-on-parents-social-media-posts-and-reported-them-to-their-employers/
“This is warfare.
John Rigolizzo reports at the Daily Wire:
Michigan School District Spied On Parents’ Facebook Groups, Reported Them To Their Employers, Lawsuit Alleges
The superintendent of a school district in Michigan monitored the social media posts of parents who criticized the district’s COVID-19 policy, then reported those parents to their employers, and in at least one case, the police, according to a lawsuit filed by a parent in the district.
The Detroit News first reported Tuesday that Robert Shaner, the superintendent of Rochester Community Schools, made the calls to police because he was “concerned and scared” about the “aggressive” social media posts from parents, some of which suggested staging protests outside school board members’ homes, and an email he allegedly received from another parent that stated that the parent was going to “wreak havoc.” Shaner made the comments as part of a deposition made on February 3 in connection with the lawsuit.
The suit, originally filed in May 2021, but amended earlier this month, was brought by Elena Dinverno, a parent of two children at Rochester Community Schools. The suit alleges that Shaner and another high-ranking member of the school board contacted Dinverno’s employer and falsely claimed that she had made threats against the board, which resulted in her being fired from her job.
Scott McClallen of the Center Square has more on the particulars of the lawsuit:”
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https://www.thecentersquare.com/michigan/rochester-schools-collect-dossier-call-employers-on-critical-parents/article_30d0a1fa-94d5-11ec-9b61-7b529ef63c01.html
“Rochester Community School (RCS) officials were sued for compiling a dossier on parents who commented negatively on the school’s virtual learning policy. One official even called a parent’s employer, which possibly resulted in the parent’s termination.
Parent Elena Dinverno sued the district in 2021, claiming school officials called her place of work in the fall of 2020, and told her employer Dinverno was part of a group threatening the school district. She was fired in December 2020.
The Detroit News first reported the story.
A lawsuit filed on May 3, 2021, claims Dinverno advocated on two separate Facebook groups to reopen schools in-person: “RCS Parents for In-Person Education” and “Conservative Parents for Rochester.” Dinverno asked other parents for video testimony of how virtual school was hurting kids.
In a February 3 deposition, Superintendent Robert Shaner admitted he called the parent’s employer over a parent’s social media post encouraging protesting private homes over virtual learning because he was “scared.””
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Haha, I don’t even like tea.
It wasn’t an argument AJ — it was posted as an added perspective on the nominee. Lower your weapons, now and again. This is also be a place to share different ideas and perspectives, right?
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What is unfortunate is how the court — designed to be an independent, non-political body — has been weaponized by both parties in the past decades. It’s viewed as a way to boost one side’s — or the other side’s — legislative and political agenda.
I don’t know how we undo that, we probably don’t. We should all be concerned at how the foundations of our government are being twisted and used for political ends.
In this climate, I’d say complaining that she’s “too political” is a very weak — and almost amusing — argument. Both sides are playing that game. Supreme Court nominees are among the leading issues in any presidential campaign now. The court is thoroughly politicized in our day and will continue to be used as a tug-of-war for conservatives and liberals as they try to gain leverage.
So. Here we are.
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Regarding her personal history, a good friend of mine — a family who live on a farm in NY I’ve known for years — was the lead public defender in their nearby city for years. I remember some of our talks about how sometimes hopeless that job was, but as a Christian he was also able, on the side, to help many of his clients on a personal level.
Their caseloads alone were impossible — he said it was like the ocean waves washing ashore, one after another after another … and handling each case with an individual focus was nearly impossible. I sat in on one of his cases in Albany when I was visiting one time.
I also remember seeing the public defenders shuffling into courtrooms when I was covering a story, lugging huge stacks of files wheeled behind them and looking, typically, pretty frazzled.
They also usually weren’t as well dressed as the other attorneys. 🙂
I don’t think many of them do it for “the money” (as the money isn’t there on that side of the legal system).
But it’s always an interesting sidelight to know what folks are doing for a living, why they’re doing it, what’s motivating them.
Sometimes politics, yes, but sometimes faith, a calling to a vocation.
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A friend’s granddaughter, who went to school with my son, is a DA in a mid-sized town handling abuse cases.
She’s emotionally worn out, isn’t paid much, just had a second child, has a long commute, and it never ends.
(She has to stay out of the town where she prosecutes for her own safety. She avoids any mention of her husband’s name, same reason).
Top-notch law school grad, she does it for the mission.
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I think it’s good to try see the humanity and personal sides of these “political” figures we can only know as cardboard cutouts (making them easier to “hate,” of course).
We may still wind up disagreeing with their positions, but too often in today’s political climate it’s easy to lose sight of the humanity we all share, all of us made in God’s image.
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Another case where political bias turns into a very sad story. This is a dark and disgraceful chapter in our nation’s history…
https://www.theepochtimes.com/jan-6-defendant-takes-his-own-life-died-of-broken-heart-family-says_4305919.html
“Matthew L. Perna, a Pennsylvania man prosecuted for his 20-minute walk through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, took his own life on Feb. 25 due to “a broken heart” and a justice system that “killed his spirit and his zest for life,” his family said.
Perna, 37, of Sharpsville, was due to be sentenced on April 1 in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in a plea agreement on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding, aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. One charge is a felony and the others are misdemeanors.
Perna learned that prosecutors would seek an even longer jail sentence based on “domestic terrorism deterrence,” Julie Kelly of American Greatness wrote on Twitter on Sunday night.
“His community (which he loved), his country, and the justice system killed his spirit and his zest for life,” his online obituary reads.
“He didn’t break, touch, or steal anything. He did not harm anyone, as he stayed within the velvet ropes taking pictures,” the obituary said. “For this act, he has been persecuted by many members of his community, friends, relatives, and people who had never met him.””
“Dozens of defendants charged with alleged Jan. 6 crimes have been held in jail for more than a year while awaiting trial. Inmates at the Central Detention Facility in DC have said they suffered beatings by guards, been denied food, made to march around the jail carrying their mattresses, punched for singing the National Anthem, and placed in solitary confinement for months.”
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The American Supreme Court and the process to appoint someone continues to both puzzle and amuse me. Clearly, Jackson is as qualified as Barrett. Only her perspective annoys some, but the final court should have different perspectives if only to keep each other on their toes and thinking. Its too easy to fall back on the “usual” if everyone has the same perspective. And if Jackson brings some experience others don’t have then even better. Republicans claim they are the party of the working class — here’s some who knows how the working class and poor are treated by the justice system.
On one hand, happy to see Musk help out. On the other hand, should one man have this much power?
O’Connor’s tweet ignores the simply reality — the US doesn’t buy Russian oil. It can supply itself and if necessary will purchase oil from Canada, the Middle East and Venezuela. Only the Europeans rely on Russia. Even if the US were to dig and pump more oil, the quality, price and convenience won’t match Russia. As the Democratic tweet you posted yesterday suggested; its time for the Saudis to prove they are allies (my guess; they’re not but at 100$ a barrel they will step up)
Trump did weaken NATO. The main problem was a lack of trust — the Europeans simply did not trust him, they thought he was compromised, he was too careless with secret information (some were seen on a Mar-a-lago dinning table). And he didn’t nothing to repair or correct this perception and in fact his rhetoric (eg “why should we protect Montenegro?) and his relationship with Putin made it worse. Ironically, the present crisis in Ukraine has united NATO, Putin did more for NATO unity than Trump.
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Your federalist post at 8:52 am is amusing; partly because its ridiculous and also because it throws everything but the kitchen sink in the argument.
The comments on the budget ignore the fact the deficit is projected to go down in terms of % to GDP and non defence spending is going down. Would the author prefer Biden cut defence spending? After all, defence is roughly half of the discretionary spending.
To complain about decaying infrastructure after one year pre-supposes it can decay in a year? Most infrastructure lasts longer than that. The decline goes back to Reagan (cut taxes and thus hamper the state’s ability to build). However, Trump only had infrastructure weeks — Biden’s plan appears to be more ambitious, and time will tell if it happens. Unfortunately some people are so eager to see him fail, they would rather block infrastructure spending.
Until now, inflation and price increases have almost matched increases in corporate profits. It appears corporations are taking advantage of supply chain issues and use it as an excuse to raise prices. However, if gas prices go up, actual inflation will occur but that will be Putin’s fault not Biden. And if you wanted SWIFT to exclude Russia, its the natural result.
The rise of authoritarianism? He’s just noticed that? Its been happening for at least a decade if not the beginning of the 21st century and has accelerated in the last five years. Right wing populism and Mussolini style regimes are popular in Latin America, Eastern European and elsewhere. Hardly Biden’s fault
Criminalize dissent as terrorism? Again did he just notice this. The Palmer Raids in the 1920s. COINTERPOL. The criminalization of the Black Panthers. We go back to the Anti-Sedition Acts; Criminalizing dissent as terrorism is as American as apple pie.
The UN can barely hold its own conferences without creating a train wreck let alone take away American sovereignty. The World Food Program and UNICEF are probably the only agencies that are run well.
American education has been in decline since, you guess it, Reagan was the governor of California. He destroyed the once great and almost free California university system. As for public school — the disparity in funding reflects the disparity in results; some American public schools are absolutely incredible and others could be mistaken for the third world. Hard to blame Biden for something that is inherent in the system.
The Great Resignation is an interesting phenomenon that’s common in many countries not just the US. Its the result of young people not seeing an achievable end goal. Why work like your parents or grandparents when you won’t succeed like them despite the same effort? People need a reason to devote 25 years of their short lives to a career; a stable family with a mortgage, pension, and heath care will do that. Take this away and the question is why work. It was common place to hear when I was young, “he will settle down once he gets a good wife and a mortgage” – a somewhat outdated ideal but one that accurately describes what happens to young people in their 20s or used to. House prices are now 10 times a yearly income here whereas it used to be below 4. House prices have risen almost 200% since the ’60s but income only about 305. Rent is similar. With this in mind, why work any more than you have to — live with your parents, make enough to help out, save up to travel or do other things, and wait for your parents to die so you will have a house. And I don’t blame them. I don’t know how the author links this Biden — if Biden did all this in one year he’s an incredible man.
There’s a few more points I could make but I’m getting bored as is anybody who made it this far. The fact is many accused people of Trump Derangement Syndrome and while I’ve seen and heard cases of it; nothing comes close to this author and Biden.
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The Michigan school Facebook post is interesting. First its not spying if its on a public Facebook site and especially if the group is linked to the school. Schools do monitor parent groups if possible. Frequently, parents and students will come to the admin with print outs and screenshots of social media posts and conversations — its public and the poster is responsible for it.
Now that being said, reporting someone’s posts to their employer crosses the line. If the posts involved the school, then contact the person who posted it. If the post indicates a possibility that harm will come to the school and/or students due diligence must be done. If there’s a threat or even just a planned picket/protest calling the police to monitor the situation is reasonable. Planning to stage protests outside private residence would necessitate a call to the police. Freedom speech, right to protest, etc should not extend to harassment.
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The Perna case posted by Tychicus actually demonstrates why having a public defender and criminal lawyer on the Supreme Court may be helpful. The complaints by many Jan 6th are not uncommon for people in the system. A common technique is to hold a person who can’t make bail and then delay the trial over and over again. After a period of time, the DA will offer time served in exchange for a guilty plea. This is the most famous example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder
I agree this is a tragedy but almost entirely predictable. And many on the left will point this out as an example of people wilfully ignoring the abuse of the system until it happens to them or somebody they can relate to.
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And finally here’s a better article on China-Russia relations as it relates to Ukraine.
Foreign Policy is a relatively conservative popular-style academic journal https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/26/china-and-russias-friendship-in-ukraine-is-without-benefits/?fbclid=IwAR38HmaJw5RXi0QFXFkJNVcy6Ud8Wd1YfgYPBm0KNqps-udbabIuKNegbHA
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And my post from yesterday on Jackson’s career, as HRW accurately pointed out, was, of course, focused on her bringing a different background and legal experience to the court — which I don’t think is a bad thing, either.
The focus is first and foremost on qualifications and character — with the understanding that, in this era, liberal presidents will appoint liberal nominees; conservative presidents will appoint conservative nominees. It’s an established fact that shouldn’t really come as a big surprise. Obama phrased it correctly when he said that “elections have consequences.” It works in both directions.
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Looking at a message from the Ukraine Library Association concerning the cancellation of their forthcoming conference. i
It basically says “We will reschedule just as soon as we have finished vanquishing our invaders”.
Ukrainian Librarians, I salute you
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ditto to the librarians.
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“In this climate, I’d say complaining that she’s “too political” is a very weak — and almost amusing — argument.”
I’m not complaining she’s too political, I’m saying she’s unqualified because a judge who repeatedly has their decisions overturned, as she has, is not SC material.
And she shouldn’t be political at all in this position, but as her overturned decisions show, she is. Which makes her unqualified.
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They got what they asked for, and the rest of us have to suffer too.
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Allegedly………
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Frauds.
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Truth?
You need to lower your expectations…..
C’mon, these are Democrats.
https://twitter.com/HB_beachbum_/status/1498328863746629633?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1498328863746629633%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fsamj-3930%2F2022%2F02%2F28%2Foof-sam-steins-attempt-to-drag-trump-over-his-statement-reminding-everyone-he-armed-ukraine-when-obama-refused-backfires%2F
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Let’s hope she unseats the ungrateful, un-American hack…..
https://twitter.com/ShuForCongress/status/1498296940735307778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1498296940735307778%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fsarahd-313035%2F2022%2F02%2F28%2Fi-am-a-survivor-a-refugee-a-black-muslim-meet-shukri-abdirahman-the-proud-somalian-american-who-hopes-to-defeat-ilhan-omar-video%2F
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unqualified
ŭn-kwŏl′ə-fīd″
adjective
Lacking the proper or required qualifications.
Not modified by conditions or reservations; absolute.
Not qualified, ineligible, unfit for a position or task.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-supreme-court-frontrunner-ketanji-brown-jackson-faces-scrutiny-over-string-of-overturned-decisions
“”Judge Jackson’s record of reversals by the left-leaning D.C. Circuit is troubling for anyone concerned about the rule of law,” Judicial Crisis Network president Carrie Severino told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. “For example, in Make the Road New York v. Wolf, a D.C. Circuit panel composed of a majority of Democratic nominees concluded that Jackson had set aside a Trump administration rule where there was no legal basis to do so.”
“Cases like these suggest that Jackson might be willing in politically charged cases to ignore the law to deliver a particular policy outcome, and that’s not what we want to see from a Supreme Court justice,” she continued.”
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https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/d-c-circuit-nominee-ketanji-brown-jackson/
“This morning President Biden named ten individuals he intends to nominate to Article III judgeships (along with one to a D.C. municipal seat). As expected, Biden has selected federal district judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill one of the two existing vacancies on the D.C. Circuit. I’ll offer just a few thoughts for now on Jackson’s selection.
1. Jackson, 50, has a strong background, including eight years as a district judge, service on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, a clerkship for Justice Stephen Breyer, and double degrees from Harvard.
Yet, as I first noted five years ago when she was being talked about as a possible candidate to fill the Scalia vacancy, Jackson is not highly regarded as a judge. Inquiries I have made recently of folks knowledgeable about her work confirm that she continues to have a middling reputation. This criticism, I’ll emphasize, is on grounds of quality, not ideology. Indeed, she is not regarded as ranking high among the ten or so district judges that President Obama appointed to the federal district bench in D.C. (If any informed reader has a different take on Jackson’s quality or reputation, I’d be eager to hear it.)
For what it’s worth, I don’t mean to present this as an argument against Jackson’s confirmation. Indeed, conservatives might be happy that Biden didn’t select someone more formidable.
2. Jackson has a striking record of reversals by the D.C. Circuit—including by liberal judges—in her high-profile rulings:
a. In 2019, Jackson issued a 122-page opinion in support of her preliminary injunction (in Make the Road New York v. McAleenan) barring the Department of Homeland Security from enforcing its decision expanding the reach of its expedited-removal process to the statutory limit. Jackson ruled (among other things) that plaintiffs had sufficiently established that her court had jurisdiction over the challenge to the decision; that Congress “did not intend to commit implementation of the expedited removal process it authorized entirely to agency discretion”; that plaintiffs had procedural claims under the Administrative Procedure Act; and that the DHS decision was arbitrary and capricious.
The D.C. Circuit reversed Judge Jackson. All three judges on the panel agreed that she got things very wrong. They differed only on which error required vacating her injunction.
In her majority opinion, Judge Patricia Millett, joined by Judge Harry Edwards—both are liberals appointed by Democratic presidents—held that Congress did indeed commit to DHS’s “sole and unreviewable discretion”—that’s the statutory language—the judgment whether to expand expedited removal to the statutory limit. The DHS decision was therefore not subject to review under the APA, and Jackson’s preliminary injunction was improper.
In a separate opinion, Judge Neomi Rao determined that Jackson made an earlier threshold error in exercising any jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ challenge. (Rao’s opinion is styled a dissent, rather than a concurrence in the judgment, because she would require that the district court dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.)
b. In 2018, in what the Washington Post hailed as a victory for federal-employee unions, Jackson wrote a 119-page opinion enjoining executive-branch officials from implementing provisions of three of President Trump’s executive orders that (in the Post’s summary) “aimed at making it easier to fire employees and weaken their representation.”
But in a unanimous ruling by an ideologically diverse panel (in American Federation of Government Employees v. Trump), the D.C. Circuit held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to decide the case, as a federal statute vests adjudication of federal labor disputes in the Federal Labor Relations Authority, subject to direct review only in the D.C. Circuit. Judge Thomas Griffith wrote the panel opinion, which was joined most notably by Obama appointee Sri Srinivasan as well as by Bush 41 appointee Raymond Randolph.”
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Garbage product from a garbage source.
In both cases….
“NY Times uses same misleading edit of Zimmerman’s 911 call that got two NBC journalists fired”
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2022/02/28/ny-times-uses-same-misleading-edit-of-zimmermans-911-call-got-two-nbc-journalists-fired-n451872
“Over the weekend the NY Times published an opinion video about the 10th anniversary of Travon Martin’s death. The video features interviews with Henry Louis Gates, Al Sharpton and Barack Obama. It starts off on a controversial note with Gates arguing that the modern Civil Rights movement really started after the “murder” of Martin. There was of course a trial of George Zimmerman for murder back in 2013 and he was acquitted on grounds of self defense. In any case, the video quickly shifts into telling the story of the shooting starting with the 911 call which Zimmerman placed that night. Here’s a transcript of the audio as presented by the Times: [emphasis added]
Dispatcher: Sanford Police Department, this line is being recorded. This is Sean.
Zimmerman: Hey, we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood and there’s a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. He looks black.
Dispatcher: Did you see what he was wearing?
Zimmerman: A dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie. He’s got something in his hands. I don’t know what his deal is. These assholes, they always get away. Shit, he’s running.
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.
Dispatcher: Okay, we don’t need you to do that.
This has been edited in a way that is intentionally misleading. The Times has removed a question the dispatcher asked which prompted his statement about Martin’s race. Here’s the actual call:”
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Of course they lied, it’s what they do.
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https://twitter.com/kylenabecker/status/1497400574299549698
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And there’s plenty more….
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Here.
It’s long, but historically accurate and informed.
VDH nails it again.
“The Crowded Road to Kyiv
To retain our deterrence abroad, we must tighten our belts at home, pump oil and gas, start to balance our budget, junk wokeism as a nihilist indulgence, and recalibrate our military. ”
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“On cue, an embarrassed Left now offers some surreal takes on why Putin went into Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014 and again into all of Ukraine in 2022—while mysteriously bookending the four invasion-free Trump years. We are told that hiatus was because Putin got all he wanted from Trump and rewarded him by not invading any of his neighbors.
Really?
Were Vladimir Putin and his advisors more or less delighted that their poodle Trump thankfully flooded the world with price-crashing oil? They were thankful Trump at least had killed Russian mercenaries in Syria?
Putin himself was content that the United States got out of his own advantageous missile deal? Was he thrilled that Trump sold once taboo U.S. offensive weapons to Ukraine? Did the Kremlin grow ecstatic when Trump upped the U.S. defense budget? And was Russia especially thankful that Trump jawboned NATO into spending another $100 billion on defense? Did Putin clap when Trump killed Soleimani and Baghdadi, and bombed ISIS out of existence?
We are left being lectured to now by the ubiquitous retired Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, the political operative remonstrating America on its anemic response to saving his native Ukraine. All this from one of the key operatives of impeaching the one president who, unlike his progressive presidential predecessor, along with the Biden Burisma consortia, really did arm Ukraine and send it offensive weapons embargoed by the Left.
The useful Vindman may have been offered to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. But he never grasped that any country naïve enough to believe the Left’s empty promises about autonomy and freedom reified by mere liberal fiat will be sorely left all alone by its utopian patrons—once a nearby powerful thug invades.”
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“Biden
Now we hear that midterm Biden has played the crisis wonderfully. The surreal progressive take on this crisis is that Winston Biden has corn-popped the “killer” Putin, metaphorically taken “the bully” behind the proverbial gym and given him a whomping, slammed his head on the global lunch counter, and in Biden’s deterrent fashion, called him a chump, one of the dregs, a junkie, fat, and a lying dog-faced pony soldier—and capped it all off with “You ain’t white!”
Joe threatened the toughest sanctions in history that on Wednesday would deter an invasion and by Saturday were never meant to at all. But Biden promises someday a “conversation” to decide whether at some time he still will issue the toughest sanctions in history. Until then, he invites Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy safe passage out of Kyiv—the quickest way to destroy the dogged Ukrainian resistance.
Left unsaid are the years of rapacious Biden family profiteering in Ukraine, a decade of leftist passive-aggressive love and hate of Russia, from obsequious reset to greedy Uranium One to pathetic “tell Vladimir . . .” to unhinged vetoing of sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. ”
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The Biden Crime Family will have to find a new country to launder their money thru.
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More commentary on Jackson (just in the interest of more opinions — and this one isn’t a hard-and-fast opinion on qualifications, but offers some additional information about the nominee)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ketanji-brown-jackson-judicial-record-supreme-court-nominee-public-defender-dc-circuit-biden-11646001770?st=7379e3hrjlf62x5&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Commentary was written by David J. Rivkin who served at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations; and Andrew Grossman, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Both practice appellate and constitutional law in Washington.
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From above link:
~ After reviewing so many of Judge Jackson’s judicial opinions, we have no doubt of her capabilities. We can’t discern whether she has any cognizable judicial philosophy that would guide her approach to the sort of fraught legal questions that the Supreme Court confronts term after term. Her loudest advocates are confident that she’ll serve them well, and her record supports that view. With 50 Democratic senators, that may be enough. ~
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I’m sure the confirmation hearings will be loud, robust, passionate — and probably not at all polite. 🙂
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The 7:43 post has the right stats but its conclusion is off. America isn’t in decline because there’s migrants. Its in decline because of inequality. Over 40 years ago, the US went from a nation that realized there was a balance between individual rights and community needs to one that celebrates individual greed. Taxes plummeted and the government became reliant on the bond market to function. Without checks and balances, moral expectations and any redistribution; wealth coalesced among the few and the real wealth and income of the rest stagnated or grew worse. Feeding the poor and the migrants did not create American decline nor will starving them stop the decline. A return to 1970s tax rates and an understanding that those who benefit from the structures put in place by the gov’t have a moral responsibility to the community.
The US has the same Gini coefficient as Haiti. In the OECD only Chile, Turkey, Mexico and Costa Rica have a higher rate of inequality. The US rate is 41 (O is perfect equality and 100 is maximum inequality). Low income inequality is not necessarily a sign of a good middle class society – Belarus and Slovakia are low, but the Nordic range of 25 to 30 is healthy . The role taxes play in countries like France and Ireland in bringing down inequality is significant. None of these countries are in decline. And a look at US economic history also confirms that the US did better in an era of high taxation than after tax cuts. Don’t blame migrant children on food stamps blame those who hoard the country’s wealth.
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The newsbusters writer engages in stereotypes when commenting on why women get an abortion – its not a teen mothers; in a survey where multiple answers are permitted 40% said they weren’t fininacially ready, 36% cited bad planning (including some who were too old or done with children) 31% cited partner related issues (including only 8% who wanted to avoid being a single mom) 29% want to focus on the children they already have, 20% interferes with future plans, 12% for health related reasons, etc. There’s a 7% who said they weren’t emotionally ready – probably the 8% who didn’t want to be single mothers. Hard to assess the accuracy of the survey but the largest reason is lack of money.
The stereotypical teenage girl is not the one getting an abortion – its the poor and middle age. As the article notes the heavy arm of the law hasn’t put a dent in the abortion rate. Pro-life won the moral battle a long time ago but now they need to put their money where their morals are. Alievate the cost of maternity and post natal, increase gov’t child support payments, etc. You will never get rid of abortion (12% health) but eliminating the 40% who do it because childbirth and children are too expensive will go a long way. And it’s much easier than using the long arm of the state.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3729671/
Scroll halfway done to find Table 2.
Canada has an abortion rate of 12 per 1000 wheras the US has 20.8 per 1000. US has strict laws Canada has none. The disparity then isn’t the law but the financial assistance to parents and free health care. Want to lower the abortion rate, go to the money.
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Gender dysphoria has been around a long time. Focusing strictly on science; people may be born with extra X or Y chromosones and people may overproduce hormones opposite their genitalia (the most famous being two female middle distance runners) . Sure there is a social contagion right now but the science is clear – gender isn’t strictly binary. I tend to see genetics or biology as the source for most if not all mental differences. It is nature not nurture. The DSM is a horrible resource -its diagnosed anything outside “WEIRD” as a disorder and is more social science than science. According to them we’re all suffering from something if we don’t conform to WEIRD norms (Western, Educated, Industrialized, rich and democratic societies) .
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Elections do have consequences – stop electing politicians bankrolled by the NRA. Even if you built a wall, minefield, etc; you’d still have American citizens committing mass shootings.
Paul Stanley of KISS is not a drug-addled rock star. He is well known for not participating in the drugs and alcohol lifestyle; He is foremost a business person, for whom rock music was a way to get rich and as a business person, he’s fairly conservative.
I wonder if Flowers in the Attic is being banned. It was written in 1979 and was extremely popular with girls when I was in middle school – it featured incest, rape, and family murder. In other words, books of this type are nothing new. Let’s not forget Romeo and Juliet features explicit sexual content and suicide.
Here’s the list of the top 50 banned books -some are LGBQT and may be explicit but some only dealing with racial relations. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-50-most-banned-books-in-america/23/
Ironically one of the most banned books of all time in the US is 1984 by George Orwell.
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I know Israel has sentimental support among US evangelicals but in terms of strategic relations, Ukraine is more important.
I do wonder why the US stockpiles ammunition in Israel without Israel actually buying it. Bizarre – the Israelis get weapons and ammo and only have to pay for it if they use it? And some complain about money lost supporting Ukraine. In 2020, the US gave over 3 billion dollars in military aid to Israel and also gave over a billion to Egypt and Jordan. Hence the only border threat to Israel is Syria, Lebanon and Palistine . The first two can’t even run their own countries and the latter isn’t a real country. Iran, Saudi Arabia etc have long had unofficial relations with Israel.
And Israel’s claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East is slowly dying as Bibi Netanyahu attempts to turn Israel into an “illiberal democracy” as modelled by Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Russia, India etc.
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Alton Mills spent 29 years in jail for drug trafficking. The judge was forced to give him life due to mandatory minimums and three strike laws. Its an excessive sentence for the crime. If he was sentenced to a lesser term say 5 years would he have returned to drug dealing – perhaps. Did he emerge from 29 years of prison a more violent man? – most likely. Criminal justice reform is still needed.
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A whistleblower who has disappeared alleges that a document exists which will prove the existence of the Biden “crime family”. Perhaps the FBI isn’t handing over the document because they don’t know if it exists or which FD 1023 document the whistleblower is referring to. I’d like to see them indict Wray over this – they would have to provide the evidence to prove their own allegations.
Comer admitted 9 out of 10 whistleblowers were missing, in court or in jail. Is the whistleblower referenced in Red State the one they could find? Although if you read the IRS Chief’s actual words, he has no idea who the whistleblower is or if they exist. The chief said “he would not intervene in any way that would impact the status of any whistle blower”. He’s making a general statement there. Then he said the whitsleblower the committee references “alleges that the change in work assignment came at the direction of the DOJ” Again its obvious the IRS chief has no idea who the whistleblower is or if they exist.
If the whistleblower has already been punished, he has nothing to lose by testifying so where is he? And where are the others?
Meanwhile Gaetz produced his whistleblowers but did not release the transcripts of the statements they gave the Republicans. Again not much of a blown whistle if they aren’t being released.
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Gates, Bill Clinton, and Trump all hung out with Epstein. Trump liked to wander into the Miss Teen USA dressing room. Trump, Gates, and Clinton — the morality or lack of it is the same. The rich will exploit anyone they can, including the young.
FOX is just imitating typical urban corporate culture. FOX employees have always had a low opinion of their audience and their own guests. The Dominon lawsuit showed how hosts like Carlson actually thought of the people they interviewed and supported.
Comparing drag queens to priests and cops in terms of molesting children is an ongoing meme on the internet. The point of course is to show drag queens are less dangerous for children than youth pastors, coaches, police etc.
Complaining Jack Smith is indicting some for lying while others are not indicted is a classic “squirrel” or diversion. Smith indicted those who committed perjury in his jurisdiction. Others may have committed perjury elsewhere but that’s not Smith’s jurisdiction or problem.
I thought Mega Maga was a term coined by Boebert. Its a violation of the law to mock your opponent’s slogan?
Youtube has its own rules and algorithms which are occasionally ridiculous and over the top. Other organizations may differ.
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Not sure why you posted the urban mall story. Urban malls were a bad idea from the start. It was an attempt to replicate what was popular in the suburbs, but was culturally inappropriate downtown and tore down what made downtowns unique.
There’s a downtown mall near my house. It’s as the kids say “sketch” but it has a large Asian oriented grocery store (cheaper than the chains) farmers market, a movie theatre with a couple recliner seats, and a public library. Many stores have their own security plus mall security. The police patrol the liquor store Friday and Saturday. It’s one of the few public libraries I know with security and a police presence.
It has its problems – prositution in the library, homeless sleeping in the food court, and frequent ambulance calls to pick up overdoses. Theft and fights are common. Do I blame my socialist city government? or conservative provincial government or liberal federal government? Or perhaps realize urban malls were a bad idea no matter who is in charge? Suburban malls have similar problems – malls have lost their appeal.
Personally I like it – it’s convenient and cheap and guaranteed I will never meet a student on the weekend shopping.
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Slave labour, debt labour, child labour and exploitative labour practises in China are fairly well know. Not sure how this can be attributed to Biden – we can go all the way back to Reagan whose trade policies helped hollow out American manufacturing and helped corporations move factories to China. Uyghur slave labour has been well documented for at least a decade.
Solar panels have decreased in cost in a similar manner as all tech declines in cost. Biden has been fairly supportive of solan manufacturing within the US (both parties have become far more protectionists than previously). The main problem is to obtain subsidies so they can compete with China and others. Most of the opposition of subsidies comes from energy companies who donate mostly to Republican candidates. Solar energy decentralises power creation and large utility companies fear being made redudant by technology.
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AJ – Trump challenged 200 years of tradition in the peaceful transfer of power. He questioned the outcome, lawyers launched challenges in court, and were denied. He exhausted all legal remedies so he and others sought to overturn the election through false electors, opening voting machines, asking a secy of state to find votes, etc. This never occurred in a US election – this broke tradition and convention and now consequences have occurred. A grand jury decided the evidence was sufficient for trial; the rules are being followed.
I would agree that there is a two tiered system though. Trump was in and out of the jail in record time. Yes, he had a mug shot but most of his paperwork was prearranged prior to arrival. If he had to wait like a regular criminal, he would have been there for a few hours and they would have weighed as opposed to taking his word that he was 215lbs. I’m 215lbs and 6 feet; I may have a dad bod but nowhere close to his body shape.
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I mentioned this a few days ago. The electric company in the pursuit of profit neglected maintenance and safety protocol. It’s no surprise to see Maui County. Next they should go after the private company who controlled the water supply. Never trust the private sector with basic necessities of life.
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If federal debt is important to MAGA, why did Trump champion tax cuts to the wealthy which increased the deficit and the debt? If the MAGA Republicans truly wanted fiscal conservatism they would demand taxes revert to the level seen in the Clinton administration – the last president to balance the budget.
The Republicans have spent the last four years bashing the FBI, DOJ and other law enforcement agencies. They are no longer the party of law and order.
Russia first attacked Ukraine in 2104. The war was limited to the Donbass and Crimea and continued off and on since that time, throughout Trump’s presidency. It was pretty much ignored by the West. As Ukraine slowly moved into the EU orbit, Putin decided a quick coup to replace Zelensky was in order. He failed. And the current war is the result. None of this has anything to do with US domestic politics or who was president. It had more to do with Ukraine’s aspiration to orient itself with the EU and not Russia.
I like the term uniparty. I’ve always argued there was very little difference between a Clinton/Obama Democrat and a Bush Republican. The only noticeable difference was social policy.
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Ben Shapiro amuses me – the mug shot was unnecessary but that’s the normal process of booking and obtaining bail. To skip this because he was recognisable would create a two-tiered justice system. Giullani used to perp walk Democratic politicians in handcuffs when he was a DA. The sheriff was being nice – in and out, with pre-processing only took 30 mins or so.
It is a dark day in American history when a person refuses to accept the results and attempts to overthrow the election. Gore and Clinton may have whined and complained but when the legal means were exhausted they didn’t try different means. Thankfully a grand jury saw the evidence and made a decision, hopefully the trial will take place before elections so people can make an informed choice.
Does anyone think young black men will identify with a rich trust fund baby who rarely accepts responsibility? Who receives preferential treatment even in Fulton county? Who publicly went after the Central Park Five even after they were declared innocent?
It’s that type of naivety that led FOX and Republicans play the Oliver Anthony song at the debates. They don’t understand they are the elite and their policies over the last 50 years have created the poverty in rural and small town America. Btw, I like the song – my kind of country music as opposed to Nashville or Tyler Swift.
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Dj – I may have strayed from the Reformed faith but the T in TULIP is still there; total depravity of humanity.
NJ – Incidents I’ve read indicate medical necessary abortions for the mother’s physical health has been limited or denied. A Texas woman testified to that effect in Congress (Cruz left the room). Apparently the delay resulted in her being unable to conceive again. The delay was due to the lack of Texas doctors willing to do the procedure due to the new law.
Its extremely rare for abortions to be performed after 24 weeks. The lack of doctors and the high insurance cost make it almost impossible. Even in Canada, with no criminal law on abortion, one can have difficulty accessing abortions after 12 to 24 weeks depending on the province and the provider. Less than 1% of abortions in Canada occur after 21 weeks.
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