Reflections From a Murky Pond

Are you ready to ride again, without wearing a federally mandated face-mask (PPE)? A lot of us are, and some of our Senators recognized this, including 8 Senate Democrats know this. They, with no help from Romney, sided with Republican Senators to kill off Biden’s mask mandate for public transportation. The Senate passed the bill 57-40 on Tuesday, March 15, 2022.

More Than Ready To Return To Beautiful Normalcy

I, like most Americans, really want to end the various travel restrictions and move back towards normative, non-panicdemic behaviors. Sadly, even with those 8 Democrat Senators actually doing their jobs and representing the will of the Americans that they’re paid to represent, it’s not going to happen now. Firstly, the bill would need to be ratified by the House – highly unlikely but not impossible; and, secondly, Biden would have to not veto the bill when it reached his desk, something that the White House has already said that Biden’s handlers would have him do.

So, whether we’re ready to ride again or not, it’s not happening. The Legislature is not going to curtail the Executives’ overreach into matters of public transit across the states. And, even then, this bill would not in any way – nor should it – affect State and local restrictions upon mass transit.

Tags: America | Coronavirus | COVID-19 | Democrats | Masks | Panicdemic | Politics | PPE | Public Transportation | Senate

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 24th, 2022 at 9:55 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Boom? No Boom! The Senate Dems led by Schumer – may he drown in pigs’ blood – actually took that fateful step towards armageddon and tried to effectively, if not technically, end the filibuster. But they got “filibusted,” and it was friendly fire since their attempt to destroy the functionality of the Senate was blocked by two of their own, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who chose not to cross that rubicon.

Tags: America | Democrats | Filibuster | Manchin | Nuclear Option | Politics | Schadenfreude | Schumer | Senate | Sinema

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 20th, 2022 at 8:17 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The US Senate has confirms Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the SCOTUS. They did so in record time and, unsurprisingly in the extreme, without a single Democrat vote. This secures the safety and efficacy of the Supreme Court for decades to come.

To me, the most interesting and important part of this is that Barrett’s confirmation as a SCOTUS Justice is a critical event but is not truly news. Her confirmation and the timeliness of it were never in doubt. Nor was the total opposition to both by the Democrats, who were, are, and will continue to be seething over not being able to “Bork” her nomination.

Barrett’s confirmation is important to America’s future but that it happened and happened now is just another case of Republicans playing by the Democrats’ “rules” and beating them at their own game. It’s just another day in the death spiral of Congressional politics.

Tags: America | Barrett | Congress | Democrats | Politics | Realpolitik | Republicans | SCOTUS | Senate | US Senate | US Supreme Court

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2020 at 7:38 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The one thing Americans can count on the Democrats for is that we can’t count upon them for any consistency or any adherence to long-standing norms, mores, or values, but we can count upon them for viciousness, false equivalencies, and general malfeasance. Their stance upon the respective nominations of Merrick Garland by their boy, Obama in 2016 vs. their stance on President Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 is another perfect example of this pernicious behavior.

False Equivalency For the Loss

Democrats, especially those in the Senate, have been quick in their anger to claim that Republican Senators are being hypocritical by having refused to allow Obama’s Garland nomination to move forward while “rushing” President Trump’s Barrett nomination through. But this is just semi-hysterical false equivalency on their part. The underlying situation between the two nominations is fundamentally different, though quite similar on the surface.

That fundamental difference is that, when Obama nominated Garland near-ish the end of his time in the White House, he was not up for reelection; he was term-limited and would definitely be leaving office despite some quasi-hysterical and spurious claims to the contrary.

Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell’s oft willfully misinterpreted statement was true then and non-applicable now.

I believe the overwhelming view of the Republican Conference in the Senate is that this nomination should not be filled, this vacancy should not be filled by this lame duck (emphasis added) president.

The American people are perfectly capable of having their say on this issue, so let’s give them a voice. Let’s let the American people decide. The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next president nominates, whoever that might be.

— Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell

Yeah, sane and rational people can understand the difference between a POTUS who can’t serve another term in office and one who might not do so. Democrats and the sorts who vote for them? Not so much.

In other words, the Dems are behaving as we, the People have been forced to accept as the norm for them, stupidly, inconsistently except in their quest for either power or destruction, and despicably.

Some Complaints And Tangential Caveats

Sadly, it’s not all righteousness and roses on our side either. There is some rank hypocrisy and cynical realpolitik being spun out by our politicians this shit show. Despite having a firm and steady grasp of the necessities of realpolitik, some things rankle.

I’m not pleased at all that Mitch McConnell cited the “Biden Rule” in 2016 while blocking Garland nomination, but ignores that he did so now. Then-Senator Joe Biden didn’t want any SCOTUS Judges to confirmed during any Presidential election season, not just during the end of a lame duck’s tenure in office.

It also rankles that the 2nd “reason” commonly cited for the difference in behavior in Senate between Garland’s and Barrett’s nomination is that the Senate majority in 2016 was the opposition party to the POTUS, whereas it isn’t in 2020.

Call me naive and/or delusional, I actually agree with Obama’s statement that, “[confirmation of nominees to the] … Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics, not an extension of politics.” The Senate being in the hands of the “other” party shouldn’t make so much of a difference that it is blithely stated as one of the two reasons for a SCOTUS nomination being blocked.

Tags: 2020 Elections | America | Barrett | History | Obama | Politics | SCOTUS | Senate | Trump | US Senate | US Supreme Court

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2020 at 6:32 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Confirmation bias is a real thing. The Democrats just have an extreme case of it that presents in a specifically pernicious and destructive manner. Then, they are et al insane, some of them congenitally, so this is not shocking.

It is, however, just a sign of these degenerate times.

Tags: #Antifa | #BlackLivesMatter | America | Civil War | Democrats | Mob Violence | Republicans | SCOTUS | Senate | Trump | US Supreme Court | Violence

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2020 at 6:45 am and is filed under 2020 Elections, Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.