Well…it’s been 10 days since my last update so’s I guess I oughta catch ya’ll up on happenin’s.

You probably seen on the news about Justice Ginsburg…the notorious SCOTUS associate justice RGB passed away from her cancer. I’m actually surprised that she lived as long as she did.

You probably noticed that within hours the political Bovine End Product or BEP… euphemism for what eventually exit from the south end of a northbound bull started. All sorts of claims, counter claims, threats, counter threats, statements about what would and would not happen…and oh yeah…let’s not forget the unlimited frothing at the mouth from various talking heads and such.

Ima gonna ‘splain all of that to you in just a minute…well, actually probably more than just a minute since I gotta catch up first.

Connie and Neil had Date Nite twice…sushi the first time which was ok but not really spectacular and chicken wings from Hogbody’s last night…which again were ok but not really spectacular either. In the interim…he’s been cookin’ all sorts of outstanding vittles. Haven’t really been out much…we did make a Walmart grocery pickup run as well as a stop at Winn Dixie for Connie to get a few things and produce while Neil got more booze. We also went down to the Elks Lodge on last Thursday evening for tacos and Show Me The Money…which is sort of like bingo for dummies as it only takes 3 cards to win…it costs $5 for each 3 games and she played the first two rounds. Won one game for $15 so she made a profit. Neil talked to the ER (Exalted Ruler…head honcho) about providing photo services for initiations, meetings, and such as Wes who used to do it and his wife moved back to Kentucky. Roger was fine with that and will make sure he knows when he needs to show up and do his thing.

Lessee…what else. That’s about it…Neils eyelid infection is all cleared up and he goes for new contact prescription next Monday. He’s riding every other day mostly. It’s been raining…a lot…but all of the big storms have pretty much bypassed us. Hurricane Sally that eventually made landfall up along the Gulf Coast in LA (lower Alabama ya know) passed over the Keys as just a tropical storm and stayed well offshore from us with max 40something winds. It had a very slow forward speed so we spent most of 2 weekends back stying dry. Once it went by…all was good…the temps have started to abate a little although its still hot. It looks like we’ll be able to cook outside on the grill tomorrow but then we’re getting another storm Thursday and Friday so it will likely be raining again.

Still working on selling the rig…got a couple of nibbles but nothing firm so far.

And…that’s about it as far as the home life goes…so on to Justice Ginsburg.

First up…we respect her dedication to her job and her willingness to…sometimes…actually do what the Constitution says instead of what she wants it to say like most liberals do. We almost universally disagree with her judicial and political philosophy…but she always stuck to her positions and argued passionately for what she thought was right and what she decided the Constitution meant.

Anyway…she passed away last week and almost immediately the recriminations started.

• Mr. Shumer and his other Democratic Senate and House colleagues demanded that her replacement not be named until after the inauguration of whoever wins the election next January 20s. Their demand was based on the premise that justices should not be approved in an election year so that the people can decide…using the exact (according to Mr. Shumer) words the Mr. McConnell used to “egregiously delay the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the court in 2016.
• Ms. Pelosi threatened to impeach the President again in order to hold up any replacement.
• NPR announced that Justice Ginsburg dying words to her daughter were “My fondest hope is that my replacement not be named until after the inauguration”.
• Mr. Biden said it would be a gross miscarriage of justice to appoint and confirm a new justice now.
• Mr. Schumer said that it would be a catastrophic error for the Senate to confirm a new justice…and that if one was confirmed the first action of a potentially New Democrat controlled Senate will be to abolish the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices…because it is just intolerable that a conservative majority exist on the court.
• Various pro abortion organizations have gone on and on about the critical to “women’s reproductive health and rights” because Roe v. Wade might be overturned.
• “News articles”…and I use that word very loosely as they’re really just articles trying to browbeat Republican Senators into giving the left their way…started talking about the Republican Senators that might vote against a confirmation and those that might be replaced by righteous Democrats in the upcoming election who would vote the right way.

And so on and so on.

OK…as I said we respected her for her work ethic and general sticking to what she believed in but didn’t agree with her politics or judicial philosophy. That gets back to the whole loose versus strict construction of the Constitution. Proponents of the former keep stating that a document written in the 1700s cannot possibly be relevant today and thus modern courts have an obligation to reinterpret it based on the “intent of the founding fathers” but updated with today’s moral, legal, scientific, medical, and various other standards. In other words…those folk…who are almost entirely liberals…say the the Constitution means what we think it means and not what it says. Strict constructionists on the other hand…who are almost entirely conservatives…believe the the Constitution is written in English and pretty understandable English at that…and the it should be read for what it actually says. Along the lines of technical and all those other advancements…strict folk either believe that those determinations should remain with the state as the Constitution prescribes or are obvious from the original text.

For example…strict folk believe that the 2nd amendment right that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged means just that. True…back when it was written muzzle loading muskets were the weapon of choice and today there are semiautomatic rifles and handguns, pistols, shotguns as well as those scary looking “military style assault rifles” that the left decries. Now those weapons are most definitely not assault rifles…they do not fire in full automatic and actually work exactly the same as the brown hunting semiautomatic rifles used for hunting deer or plinking varmints. Loose folk believe the that the 1st amendment on freedom of speech means the women can abort their unborn children or gay folk can get married…but their loose interpretations only apply so far as they apply to things they want and most definitely do not apply to the 2nd amendment. To be fair…the strict folks can be rightfully accused of a lot of the same sins.

We happen to be strict constructionists…but in some cases can actually agree with the liberals on certain things…for instance we don’t agree with gay marriage but they should be allowed to have a civil union with the same rights and protections that a male/female married couple have…it’s just not marriage.

Now politicians…how can you tell when they are lying? Simple…their lips are moving. And politicians will say or do whatever they need to say or do today to advance their demands today with little regard for the fact that last week or last year they said the exact opposite. And if you are a Democrat the press will let you get away with it while if you’re a Republican they will incessantly talk about your different stance today as opposed to before.

So…let’s examine those bulleted items above.

• Mr. Shumer and his other Democratic Senate and House colleagues demanded that her replacement not be named until after the inauguration of whoever wins the election next January 20s. Their demand was based on the premise that justices should not be approved in an election year so that the people can decide…using the exact (according to Mr. Shumer) words the Mr. McConnell used to “egregiously delay the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the court in 2016.

I’m sure that you’ve all seen the sound bites on TV where Mr. McConnell said “the people should have a vote on the next SCOTUS justice” from 2016 and know the whole Merrick Garland story…but what you’ve seen on the TV just might not be completely accurate. On the Senate floor…what he said was that since at least 1900 no SCOTUS justice has been approved when the President and Senate were the same party but that opposing party nominations were not approved. It is probable…although I can’t tell for sure since the unedited sound bites never made it to the news…that he made this same point in public, interviews, and on TV. Also…at the time he referred to his decision as following the “Biden rule” since Mr. Biden himself said years before that justices should not be confirmed in the last year of a presidential term. But actually…way before Mr. Biden said that…Mr. Shumer told President Bush 18 months before his term ended that the President should not submit any court nominees because they would not be taken up…he said the in 2007.

Mr. Shumer has also flip flopped on the court nominee in an election year as well…in 2016 he was demanding that Mr. Garland be voted on while in 2020 he’s saying that no nominee by this corrupt President should be considered.

So…what’s the real precedent in this case and who does it favor? Amazingly enough…although both sides are guilty of gross hypocrisy over the issue of justices…the actual confirmation process being completed in an election year is heavily in favor of the Republican “same party” guideline.  According to the Wall Street Journal at this
link…and I think that all will agree that the WSJ is about the only fair and unbiased news organization remaining although they do generally rate as leaning slightly right which isn’t out of order with a center right country…this history of breaking judicial nomination norms started with the Democrats with Robert Bork and Democrats continued with character assassination against nominees by Republican Presidents while Democrat nominees were given fair hearings by Republican Senates and actually received some votes from Republican Senators. The whole fight over whether or not justice nominees could be filibustered…again, started by the Democrats according to the article. 

In another WSJ article
here…which refers to a National Review article
here…and yes, I know the National Review is conservative but the WSJ wouldn’t have tarnished their reputation by linking to a non truthful article…there have been 29 open SCOTUS seats during an election year or in the lame duck session following the election. All 29 of those seats received a nomination by the sitting President. 10 of those vacancies had President and Senate of opposite parties…of those only 1 was confirmed and the other 9 were not. Of the remaining 19…15 were confirmed by a sea party Senate and 1 was withdrawn and then resubmitted/confirmed after the nominee was no longer a member of Congress. 

So…looking back…should Mr. McConnell have given Merrick Garland a vote? I have 3 different opinions on this…the what would have been the most right thing to do opinion…a political opinion…and a personal opinion.

To be scrupulously fair…Mr. McConnell should have given him a vote in my opinion…but that’s only a 51/49 decision. I can see why he followed the President but more importantly was the political decision he had to make.

Politically…Mr. McConnell knows that his Senators are much more likely to vote for a Democratic justice nominee than the other way around…and since he knew that…he was sure that enough Republicans would vote to confirm Garland since he was clearly qualified for the job. That would have replaced a firm conservative vote (Scalia) with a moderate liberal…thus handing the majority on the court to the liberals and politically this was the wrong thing to do.

Personally…we believe that without a conservative court to rein in the Democrat liberals…they’ll spend the country into bankruptcy and turn us into a socialist country…and that has never, ever worked.

You know who else thought that Presidential power to appoint extended into the 4th year of his Presidency…and the while the Senate should consider carefully he retained the power to appoint and the Senate to confirm? Why none other than the recently departed Justice Ginsburg…who said that back in 2016 to a law school class. What she actually said was “the President is elected for 4 years, not 3…and his powers extend from the 3rd year into the 4th.

• Ms. Pelosi threatened to impeach the President again in order to hold up any replacement.

This is a meaningless threat. Once the President makes a nomination then it is up to the Senate to confirm or not…the President no longer has any function in the proceedings. Yes…she could probably ram through another impeachment article as she controls the House…but she would have to have hearings first and then a floor vote before sending it along to the Senate. In that case…the Senate controls the trial and not the House…and Mr. McConnell would likely say “the term ends in weeks, it would take us the long to agree on the rules for the trial and have hearings and that would extend past the end of the term”…and essentially ignore impeachment articles.

• NPR announced that Justice Ginsburg dying words to her daughter were “My fondest hope is that my replacement not be named until after the inauguration”.

Again…irrelevant. I can guarantee that every judge or justice wants their replacement to have the same judicial philosophy as they did…and the hope for after the inauguration is a hope for a Biden victory. The real problem with that bit of “news” is…did it really happen? NPR reported it as her dying words and then it turned out the it was supposedly said to her granddaughter two days before. Assuming her granddaughter is a liberal like she was…this is clearly designed to try and pressure Republican Senators to do what liberals want. Is there a video or is this just some political stunt? Given the dishonesty of both NPR and most politicians…unless there’s video then I take the truth of this supposed declaration with several grains of salt.

• Mr. Schumer said that it would be a catastrophic error for the Senate to confirm a new justice…and that if one was confirmed the first action of a potentially New Democrat controlled Senate will be to abolish the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices…because it is just intolerable that a conservative majority exist on the court.

More BEP…they might abolish the filibuster in order to ram liberal legislation through…but at least in the Senate I think cooler heads might prevail since the Senate is supposed to be the more deliberative and compromising body. In fact…even Mr. Biden is on record as getting rid of it would be a bad idea…and to recall the words of Mr. McConnell when the Democrats abolished it for appellate justices but not for SCOTUS justices…be careful what you wish for because you won’t always be in power and it will come back to bite you in the butt.

As to packing the court…this has been tried before and failed. Yes…Congress has the power to change the number of justices but with the filibuster not abolished this has no chance of becoming law…and since again Mr. Biden has said it is a bad idea I would not be surprised to see him veto such a bill.

And they’ve never explained why a conservative majority is such an inherently evil thing while a liberal majority is like manna from heaven…and the court has been liberal majority more than conservative majority since 1783.

You know who else says that doing this would politicize the court far worse than any confirmation fight has to date? Again…the recently departed Justice Ginsburg.

• Various pro abortion organizations have gone on and on about the critical to “women’s reproductive health and rights” because Roe v. Wade might be overturned.

This is another straw man argument…most liberals think that this case established the right to abortion…when in fact what it actually did was established that states lost control of the process so the it was uniform across the country. Now I realize the abortion is a sensitive topic and might have a post on it at some point…there are several things I’ve always wondered about it? Why didn’t the woman use birth control and not get pregnant in the first place? Why isn’t the permission of the father to be required as well as the permission of the mother…after all she didn’t get pregnant on her own…as far as I know that’s only happened once in the history of the human race? Should all abortions be outlawed or only some? How about when in pregnancy…does the mother have the same right the day before her delivery as she does three weeks after fertilization? When did this become the federal government’s right to decide? All other non mentioned rights go to the states…it says that right in the Constitution…so why don’t we let the individual states figure it out? I understand the thought that a woman in say ID might not have the same rights as one in NY…but I’m not sure how that all ties into a federal right to an abortion or that her rights in ID might be different…after all the drinking age is different in some states…so why isn’t that covered under the “right to privacy”. Hard questions…and I do actually have an opinion on all of them but they’re not relevant to today’s post.

My personal guess…the Senate will start holding hearings and will vote after the election but before the expiration of the current Congress and before the swearing in of a potential Democratic Senator Kelly from Arizona who will naturally fall in lockstep with his party and oppose any nomination by the President. Since the death of Senator McCain…this is a special election and if he wins he will be eligible (assuming the Majority Leader allows it) to be sworn in before the other Senators are sworn in on Jan 6 and thus have a month or so of seniority on them and potentially vote on a justice nominee…but that ain’t gonna happen. Mr. McConnell is a lot of things but stupid isn’t one of them.

The President wants a vote before the election…but politically it seems better to give Senators cover until after the election…if the at risk ones win then they can vote yes confidently and if they lose they can vote yes as a parting shot to help keep the liberals from ruining the country (as conservatives would think).

OK…just one image today…on Neil’s bike ride the other day he spotted 3 Sandhill Cranes…these are about 4-1/2 feet tall and are really loud birds. Like geese and albatrosses…they can’t take off and fly from a standing start…they need to run and flap their wings until they get enough airspeed to generate lift to take off.

Yeah…I know it ain’t a very good shot…but all he had was his iPhone and he was out of breath from riding…not to mention he thought they would flyaway if he got any closer than the hedge.

Interesting things found on the net…just a few as this is already long and its almost Happy Hour.

I like the way this kid thinks.

One very, very smart police officer.

This one reminds me of an old Seinfeld joke where they were talking about a woman’s cleavage and Jerry said “It’s like the sun…you just glance at it and then look away.”

Cyas.