Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Seems like the GOP will go for it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

From a few state polls that came out just yesterday morning.Suggested in two swing states Biden had about a 10 point lead over Trump on Supreme Court choices. It was much closer in North Carolina, but Biden still ahead. A lot of swing voters are pro-choice and don't want to see the ACA abolished. Senators like Josh Hawley are already being explicit that the next justice must promise to overturn Roe.

I do get that the GOP thinks this will turn out the base but was the base really in danger of staying home?

[Hannibal]

Republicans would be very wise to ignore the “advice” coming from their enemies and either push through an appointment or at least make it an election issue. SC Judges is a much more high profile issue for the R base than for the D base. For some people, it’s literally the only issue that keeps them voting Republican.

[Jeff Buchanan]

We're going though the moving thing. It sucks as usual. Time for a break...... I write:

The Economist wrote a decent article called the 90% Economy Updated. In late June as economies started to open back up, the article titled the 90% Economy appeared. It was updated on Friday and appeared in my news feed today. Nothing startling but it points to the long term damage from the pandemic that will be done to some previously robust economic sectors - travel, leisure and transportation, for example. While tech, retail and even manufacturing have rebounded, some businesses within each of these sectors are doing better year on year than they did in 2019, some a lot better.

One of the major reasons economies are improving overall is governments and federal banks pouring money into them, the US leading the pack. America will probably end-up looking better economically than any of the G5. But, if there is any doubt, without a second stimulus package about the size the Ds are asking for, come October, when lay-offs and mortgage foreclosures start in earnest, there won't be. China is doing well but it's not a slam dunk recovery. Consumers remain fearful, the Party is struggling with membership which is key to obtaining grass roots support and damping unrest and there is Trump's trade war still being waged.

The pandemic is causing now and will continue to cause seismic changes in the global economy and how it is linked with parts previously thought to be inextricably intertwined getting remodeled. Supply chains, for example, won't just fall back in line as in pre-COVID times. Big changes and new efficiencies have emerged as a result of COVID's impact across the board in a very complex network. Jobs will be lost or gained, the face of many businesses will be changed forever.

In a related Economist article the author hypothesized that the Bubonic Plague that killed 50% of the population of Europe (COVID is a drop in the bucket), forced some rather unpleasant outcomes that have parallels to the SARS-COV-2 Pandemic. For example, the rich fled to enclaves out of cities and into a luxurious countryside constructed with their wealth. Serfs who worked the land, often in a sharecropper sort of way or built stuff consumed in those times were displaced and became service workers for the wealthy. That's happening with this pandemic although the author is keen on building on the current widening income gap narrative of today's left.

Another interesting similarity was how law and order broke down. After centuries of state building where cities became safe from marauders and criminals, where law enforcement was effective and present, during the Plague as cities emptied, with the wealthy taking their knights in armor, so to speak, with them, lawlessness broke out, civil order broke down and city chaos predominated. Sound similar to today? Different witch's brew, same outcome. The conclusion of this author was that civilization took a huge step back as a result of the Bubonic Plague. The author didn't suggest a step back now on the scale of what transpired in the Middle Ages but I can see the risk to gains obtained in the last two or three centuries as a result of the current virus.

[lineygoblue]

Another interesting similarity was how law and order broke down. After centuries of state building where cities became safe from marauders and criminals, where law enforcement was effective and present, during the Plague as cities emptied, with the wealthy taking their knights in armor, so to speak, with them, lawlessness broke out, civil order broke down and city chaos predominated. Sound similar to today? Different witch's brew, same outcome.

I saw a news report where one loud mouthed militant was quoted as saying, "If Trump gets his judge on the court, its time to burn the whole thing down".

Well, to that person, and anyone else with similar beliefs, I'd say a couple things.

First, why don't you burn your house first?

Secondly, the very day you bring that nonsense to the suburbs and rural areas, is the day the countdown begins to the end of your movement. Hank Williams Jr wrote and sung a song called "A Country Boy Can Survive". That song is becoming an anthem out here where I live. Folks are locked and loaded, and they aren't kidding. They talk about taking away assault weapons, hah... Who do you think has been buying all those weapons?

I'm really concerned for this country right now if cooler heads don't prevail soon.

[lineygoblue]

Just this past Wednesday, some stupid lunatic stabbed an 85 year old man at a Meijer store in Adrian Michigan. Killed the old guy. Police aren't saying why it happened.

The assailant was stopped by a twenty-something lady shopper who pulled out her pistol and ordered him down to the ground until police arrived. She had a legal carry permit. The assailant is lucky he isn't dead today.

Folks out here aren't kidding around.

[Cody_Russell]

Trump is reportedly going to nominate a woman next week to fill RBG's seat.
I will be surprised if it's not Amy Coney Barrett. Thought she would be the nomination over Kavanaugh a few years ago.

Interested to see what accusations come out about the nomination this time around if the choice is a woman ...

[Jeff Buchanan]

Speaking of not fooling around, I saw an interesting video that demonstrates the time it takes a police officer making an arrest of an uncooperative suspect to recognize a threat (gun, knife) and defend himself. The ODA Loop, which is the brains normal see - interpret - react process, an executive function of the brain, takes 2.5 - 3 seconds. Think about the Jacob Blake shooting. Officer is making an arrest on an existing warrant. Suspect reaches into car, officer shoots Blake. There is a knife on the floor boards of Blake's car. The video that I can't upload because it's too large a file, dramatically illustrates what happens if the officer waits to see if Blake presents a threat, in this case a knife, before he shoots him. The suspect lands a potentially fatal blow with the knife. ODA Loop.

The video discusses police training and it involves making personal decisions about how you react as an arresting officer in situations like this. Explaining the ODA Loop is part of it. The training doesn't say you have to shoot but it shows the trainee what happens if you have not already made up your mind to shoot an uncooperative suspect if the potential of a life threatening circumstance exists. This is usually the situation when an officer shoots and wounds or kills a suspect but, to howls of the local community, charges are not pressed after an investigation reveals that a threat to life existed at the time of the shooting and the officer reacted according to his training.

Rarely is this circumstance presented like this. POLICE VIOLENCE!!!, MURDERERS!!! The reality is that police officers face these situations frequently and fortunately, but not always if politics prevail like they have recently, police officers aren't charged or if they are, the courts don't have a high rate of convictions here. The media alleges its the police unions and racial injustice that are preventing prosecutions. It's not. The prosecutors, the courts are carrying out justice.

[lineygoblue]

Trump is reportedly going to nominate a woman next week to fill RBG's seat.
I will be surprised if it's not Amy Coney Barrett. Thought she would be the nomination over Kavanaugh a few years ago.

Interested to see what accusations come out about the nomination this time around if the choice is a woman ...

Well, they can't wheel out their cache of faux rape/sex abuse victims to accuse her, so they'll have to try something else. If its the lady I'm thinking of, and she's the nominee, she'll be lambasted for her Catholic faith.

Of course, if she was a "Kennedy-type" Catholic, she'd probably be fine. The Kennedy's are considered "good" Catholics by the Democrat party because they routinely break all the rules of the Catholic faith. Strict adherents of the Catholic faith are "bad" because they actually live what they believe. Joe Biden is a "good" Catholic because he spurns his religious beliefs to gain political power.

[CGVT]

Susan Collins announces her opposition to voting on a Supreme Court nominee before election

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/susan-c...uG5d8ovw4JH7A8

Opposing it is different than actually voting.

The spineless piece of shit will change her mind and say that she thinks the Republicans learned their lesson...

[iam416]

Whatever Senator Collins does, she’ll always be a heroine for standing up the D LIE machine (or the Media) and voting to confirm Kav. God bless her willingness to do what’s right and not buy into the despicable smears. Talk about total pieces of shit.

[lineygoblue]

Susan Collins announces her opposition to voting on a Supreme Court nominee before election

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/susan-c...uG5d8ovw4JH7A8

Opposing it is different than actually voting.

The spineless piece of shit will change her mind and say that she thinks the Republicans learned their lesson...

I can actually see Collins and Romney going with the Dems on this one. No matter how qualified the candidate is.

[CGVT]

Let's see what these fucking hypocrites do.



Barack Obama and Merrick Garland.Ron Sachs/CNP via ZUMA Wire

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It’s likely just a matter of when, not if, President Donald Trump nominates a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday of pancreatic cancer. He held a ceremony at the White House just last week to unveil a short list of future nominees, and at the same time the rest of the country was processing the news of Ginsburg’s death, an apparently oblivious Trump was onstage at a rally in Bemidji, Minnesota, talking about nominating Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to the bench. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had previously gone around the country telling donors that Ginsburg’s death would be his party’s “October Surprise,” pledged Friday that “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”

It’s a far cry from four years ago. When this same situation unfolded in 2016, after Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of that year, many Senate Republicans—most of whom are still in the chamber—drew what purported to be a principled line in the sand, insisting that it was too close to the presidential election for President Barack Obama to choose a replacement. It should be up to the voters to decide in November, they argued. Some of them even invoked the words of then-vice president Joe Biden, who as a senator several decades earlier had offered similar logic. They called it the “Biden Rule.” (Biden, in 1992, was not responding to any actual vacancy, but merely a hypothetical one.) When Obama nominated Merrick Garland anyway, no one led the charge as stubbornly as McConnell:



But it wasn’t just McConnell. This was the default position at the time. Here’s what a not-comprehensive look at what 17 active Republican senators said.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Col.): “I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision.” (source)

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas):

“I believe the American people deserve to have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice, and the best way to ensure that happens is to have the Senate consider a nomination made by the next President.

Confirming a new Supreme Court Justice during a presidential election year for a vacancy arising that same year is not common in our nation’s history; the last time it happened was in 1932. And it has been almost 130 years since a presidential election year nominee was confirmed for a vacancy arising the same year under divided government as we have today.

In 1992, while serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and with a Republican in the White House, Vice President Joe Biden said his committee should “seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings” on any potential nominees until the campaign season was over.” (source)

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.” (source)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election” (This was actually what he said in 2018, doubling down on his previous stance. )

Sen. Lindsey Graham justifies his treatment of Merrick Garland: "If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump's term, and the primary process has started, we'll wait to the next election" pic.twitter.com/E8N7a8IlIG

— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) October 3, 2018

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.): “I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term — I would say that if it was a Republican president .” (source)




Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.): “It makes the current presidential election all that more important as not only are the next four years in play, but an entire generation of Americans will be impacted by the balance of the court and its rulings. Sens. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid have all made statements that the Senate does not have to confirm presidential nominations in an election year. I will oppose this nomination as I firmly believe we must let the people decide the Supreme Court’s future.” (source)

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): “A lifetime appointment that could dramatically impact individual freedoms and change the direction of the court for at least a generation is too important to get bogged down in politics. The American people shouldn’t be denied a voice.” (source)

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa): “We will see what the people say this fall and our next president, regardless of party, will be making that nomination.” (source)

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.): “Vice President Biden’s remarks may have been voiced in 1992, but they are entirely applicable to 2016. The campaign is already under way. It is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of our republic to not launch our nation into a partisan, divisive confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are casting their ballots to elect our next president.” (source)

Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.): “The very balance of our nation’s highest court is in serious jeopardy. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will do everything in my power to encourage the president and Senate leadership not to start this process until we hear from the American people.” (source)

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.): “The next President must nominate successor that upholds constitution, founding principles.”

Saddened by Justice Scalia's passing. The next President must nominate successor that upholds constitution, founding principles.

— Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) February 13, 2016

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.): “I strongly agree that the American people should decide the future direction of the Supreme Court by their votes for president and the majority party in the U.S. Senate.” (source)

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.): “The next Court appointment should be made by the newly-elected president.” (source)
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Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.): “In this election year, the American people will have an opportunity to have their say in the future direction of our country. For this reason, I believe the vacancy left open by Justice Antonin Scalia should not be filled until there is a new president.” (source)

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.): “The Senate should not confirm a new Supreme Court justice until we have a new president.”

The Senate should not confirm a new Supreme Court justice until we have a new president. (2/2)

— Senator Roy Blunt (@RoyBlunt) February 14, 2016

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.): “There is 80 years of precedent for not nominating and confirming a new justice of the Supreme Court in the final year of a president’s term so that people can have a say in this very important decision.” (source)

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio): “I believe the best thing for the country is to trust the American people to weigh in on who should make a lifetime appointment that could reshape the Supreme Court for generations. This wouldn’t be unusual. It is common practice for the Senate to stop acting on lifetime appointments during the last year of a presidential term, and it’s been nearly 80 years since any president was permitted to immediately fill a vacancy that arose in a presidential election year.” (source)

Pointing out all the hypocrisy won’t get Democrats very far in what will be one of the most contentious nomination fights in the court’s history. But it should at least clarify who they’re dealing with.

[iam416]

I don’t see any quotes from Ds. I guess only one party took a position.

[CGVT]

One side got their way and are in a position to do what they said in 2016 was right thing to do this year. Of course, it was only the right thing to do then.

If it was the"right" thing to do then, it should be the right thing to do now.

Of course, integrity is not a Republican strong suit