Partisanship

Posted on 10 October 2018 by eehines

Chris Wallace interviewed Senator Ben Cardin (D, MD) on his Fox News Sunday program last Sunday.

Here are some of the claims Cardin made.

The change that Senator McConnell made to the rules on the Supreme Court really caused us to be much more partisan in this[.]

And

I don’t believe that Justice Kavanaugh’s in the mainstream of judicial thought.

And

Kavanaugh’s confirmation puts at risk “the progress we’ve made on health care issues, on women’s Constitutional rights, and on protecting the Mueller investigation.”

Not quite, although this is America, and Cardin is entitled [sic] to his spin.

This is a preview of Partisanship. Read the full post (306 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

The Dangers of Welfare

Posted on 9 October 2018 by eehines

These are illustrated by a Letter to the Editor in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. The letter-writer wrote of a pay raise his company gave its employees and a bit of Panic of 2008 history:

Despite high unemployment rates [during the Panic], we still struggled to find well-qualified employees. We were competing against the federal government’s repeatedly extended subsidy for unemployment programs. We interviewed dozens of people who flatly told us they were only interviewing to obtain another log entry to remain qualified for unemployment benefits, and that they didn’t need to work for us when they could get paid almost the same to not work at all—for 52 weeks or more.

This is a preview of The Dangers of Welfare. Read the full post (154 words, estimated 37 secs reading time)

The Supreme Court

Posted on 8 October 2018 by eehines

As I write this (Saturday morning), Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh has not been confirmed; although, that seems more likely than I had thought Friday morning before the cloture vote. Nevertheless, here’s why we need another textualist Justice on the Court—from the words of another Supreme Court Justice.

Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said Friday she fears the high court may lack a justice going forward who would serve as a swing-vote on cases….

And

Kagan said at a conference for women at Princeton University that over the past three decades…there was a figure on the bench “who found the center or people couldn’t predict in that sort of way.”

This is a preview of The Supreme Court. Read the full post (384 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Civility

Posted on 6 October 2018 by eehines

Congressman Andy Harris (R, MD) had an op-ed in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal in which he decried the quality of current discourse and its lack of basic norms of decency. He closed his piece with a bit of naïve hope:

We must return to civility. We need to be able to agree to disagree, and express our disagreements through the democratic process.

That would be nice. However, notice that it was persons of the Left attacking Conservatives and people of the center right whom he described. The Progressive-Democratic Party has become the party of character assassination and destruction. While they are not—yet—antifa dominated, the Party’s methods are those of the worst of the Left’s thugs.

This is a preview of Civility. Read the full post (185 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)

An Investigation

Posted on 2 October 2018 by eehines

No, not that one.

Senator Lyndsey Graham (R, SC) said on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo that he’s going to investigate [the whole program is interesting, but skip ahead to 15:28 for the Graham interview, which lasts for a bit in its own right] who “destroyed Dr Ford’s trust” by outing her after she had requested anonymity when communicating her charge to her Congresswoman, Anna Eshoo (D, CA), and her Senator, Dianne Feinstein (D, CA). Graham pointed out, too, that there were only three groups of people who knew about Dr Ford’s letter: Feinstein and her staff, Eshoo and her staff, and Dr Ford’s lawyers. Someone or some ones from those groups are the only ones who could have leaked Dr Ford’s letter and outed her. Yes, I’m omitting the obvious fourth—that Dr Ford outed herself.

This is a preview of An Investigation. Read the full post (198 words, estimated 48 secs reading time)

A Deported High School Student

Posted on 1 October 2018 by eehines

Recall the first debate between Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) and Beto O’Rourke, Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Texas Senator. Ol’ Beto told the tale of a mistreated Dreamer [emphasis added]:

the salutatorian at tiny Booker High School in the Texas Panhandle, recently deported to his country of origin, not even speaking the language.

Oops.

It didn’t happen [emphasis added].

The honor student in question was actually the valedictorian.
She spoke the language.
It happened a decade ago, not recently.
And most importantly, said Yamile Guerrero Rosales, “I wasn’t deported….”

This is a preview of A Deported High School Student. Read the full post (274 words, estimated 1:06 mins reading time)

The EU and Iran

Posted on 28 September 2018 by eehines

The European Union is busily working with Iran to develop a channel for payments that’s outside the normal flow of currencies so that the EU and Iran can continue to do business with each other outside the US sanction regime. The purpose of this is so the EU can facilitate Iran’s economy and so the EU can make money.

Nothing wrong with that last, at all. The EU should be working to support its businesses.

There are other ways of achieving that, though. With this path, the EU is making itself complicit in Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

This is a preview of The EU and Iran. Read the full post (287 words, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)

Feinstein’s Weapons Distortion

Posted on 25 September 2018 by eehines

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA) isn’t only dissembling in the course of her Progressive-Democratic Party’s shambles-making of the Judge Kavanaugh Supreme Court Justice confirmation process. She’s dissembling regarding our right to keep and bear Arms, also. Using the hoo-raw the Party created during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings (she’s the Ranking Democrat on that committee), she had this comment in the lead up to a question she had for Kavanaugh:

I’m talking about your statement on “common use.” Assault weapons are not in common use.

This is a preview of Feinstein’s Weapons Distortion. Read the full post (393 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Pompeo’s Correct Path

Posted on 25 September 2018 by eehines

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had this to say in a Sunday interview about team play at State and in the other Cabinets of the Federal government. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked Pompeo about The New York Times‘ manufactured story about Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wearing a wire and moving to invoke the 25^th Amendment:

This is a preview of Pompeo’s Correct Path. Read the full post (262 words, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)

Another Witness Demurs

Posted on 24 September 2018 by eehines

In an email to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Saturday, Leland Ingham Keyser, a former classmate of Ford’s at the Holton-Arms all-girls school in Maryland, said she doesn’t know Kavanaugh or remember being at the party with him.
“Simply put, Ms Keyser does not know Mr [sic] Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr Ford,” lawyer Howard J Walsh III of Bethesda, MD, conveyed in an email to the committee that was obtained by Fox News [and by Politico].

This is a preview of Another Witness Demurs. Read the full post (329 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

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