Global Warming and the World Series

The pseudo-scientists of the climatistas say that the rain delay between the 9th and 10th innings of last Wednesday’s Game 7 was caused by global warming.

Seriously, the science wizards behind the party’s Twitter account asserted that it “should” be snowing in Cleveland on November 3. It’s November, it’s Cleveland…it’s called science, people.

It’s November. It should be snowing in Cleveland, not raining! Blame global warming for the delay. #WorldSeries

    — Green Party US (@GreenPartyUS) November 3, 2016

Science, indeed.  Here’s a table of temperatures in the latter two-thirds of November 1908, the last year the Cubs won a Series, via the same Watts Up With That link above [highlight in the original]:worldseriesglobalwarmingIt would be funny, if this weren’t so serious.  As it is, it’s risible.

Right on the Law

Great Britain’s High Court has ruled that Prime Minister Theresa May may not and can not trigger, on her own initiative, Article 50 and begin negotiations with the European Union about the mechanisms and details of Great Britain’s going out from the EU.  The Parliament must first vote in favor of invoking the Article.

Great Britain’s Supreme Court likely will hear an appeal of the ruling.  Upholding the High Court’s opinion likely will spell the end of Brexit for the near future and possibly permanently and the end of May’s government.  The former is because a majority of MPs want to stay in the EU and so can be expected to vote against invoking the Article.  The latter is because May (who opposed Brexit, also, but said she’d abide by the people’s vote) would be forced, if she’s a lady of her word, to seek a new set of MPs by dissolving her government and forcing early elections in an effort to get a collection of MPs more favorably disposed.

Likely, the High Court is right on the law.  The EU is a collection of treaties which Great Britain’s Parliament has ratified, and only the Parliament, not a popular referendum, can abrogate the treaties.  But the High Court is not right on law, and it’s not right on justice.

The people have spoken.  The courts may be bound by the letter of the law (though not as tightly so as American courts are, in theory at least), but the Parliament, if it must vote, would do well to remember that they work for the people, and so the MPs should vote accordingly rather than on the basis of their own petty opinions.

Democrats’ View of Rules

Here, the Senate’s rules, and Democratic Party Vice Presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine (VA) is exposing Democrat disdain for them.

Here’s the relevant part of  Senate’s rule for changing a Senate Rule, from Rules of the Senate XXII, para 2, regarding a cloture vote to end debate on a motion, including a motion to change a Senate rule [emphasis added]:

…that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn—except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting….

Here’s how Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) was able to railroad through the nuclear option that ended filibusters on Presidential nominee confirmation votess for all offices other than Supreme Court Justices, from a Congressional Research Office paper.  In essence, it relies on the fact that an appeal of the Senate’s presiding chair on a point of order ruling is non-debatable, and the appeal is decided by a simple majority vote of the Senators present.

[I]f the chair rules…against the point of order embodying the new interpretation [here, to eliminate (most of) the filibuster of appointee confirmations], it is supporters of change who would have to appeal the decision. There is little likelihood that they could be prevented from doing so, for the right of appeal is understood to be an essential element of the power of the Senate to determine its own rules. The Senate could then potentially overturn the old precedent, and establish the new interpretation, by a simple majority vote on the appeal.

All strictly legal, and all wholly outside the spirit of the rules for changing a rule.  This is the cynicism with which Reid implemented the nuclear option.

And this is the cynicism with which Kaine intends to abolish the filibuster of Supreme Court Justice confirmation votes, too, so as to allow a Democrat-majority Senate to stack the Court with Justices having no respect for the Constitution, but only loyalty to the Democratic Party.

I am a US Senator. I have a prediction—this is not a guarantee—and I’m not revealing inside intel.  I was in the Senate when the Republicans’ stonewalling around appointments caused the Senate Democratic majority to switch the vote threshold on appointments from 60 to 51. And we did it on everything but a Supreme Court Justice.

If these guys think they’re going to stonewall the filling of that vacancy or other vacancies, then a Democratic Senate majority will say, “We’re not going to let you thwart the law.” And so we will change the Senate rules to uphold the law that the court will be nine members.

Notice one thing: the Senate Democratic majority changed the Senate’s filibuster rule—a wholly partisan attack, with no semblance of the Rule’s original two-thirds majority requirement, which would have been too bipartisan to suit the Democrats.  And Kaine is proud of that.

Notice one other thing.  Kaine—proudly—will impose a simple majority action to destroy the ability of a minority party to protect the interests of its minority constituents.  Those folks, who disagree with the majority, simply don’t matter.

Notice one last thing.  Blocking a particular Supreme Court Justice confirmation is in no way a thwarting of the law.  The President has the obligation to offer nominees that satisfy the Senate’s (not the majority party’s) advice and consent—here, it is the President who has the legal obligation to offer nominees to fill the Court’s vacancy.  The Senate has no obligation to rubber stamp any of those nominees, vacancy or no.  Kaine knows this full well.

This is the Democratic Party arrogance and the Democrats’ disdain for American citizens that’s at stake in the Senate elections next week.

Hand on the Scale

But, whose hand?

The Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee and Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton apologist Adam Schiff (D, CA) insists it’s FBI Director James Comey’s hand because Comey had the temerity (or found the courage, take your pick) to update the Congress on his reopening the FBI’s investigation into Clinton and her private, unsecured email server on which she routinely conducted State Department official business.

…Comey put an “enormous hand on the scale in a political contest” by publicizing investigators’ review of a new batch of emails that might be relevant to Hillary Clinton.

Schiff went on:

Clearly here the [FBI] director did not have the facts.  He had not read the emails. He didn’t know if they were significant or not, and I think we are seeing in all of its graphic character just why these DOJ policies exist.

He did have a salient fact though: the metadata clearly showed that many of those 650,000 Abedin emails on Weiner’s laptop were related to the Clinton investigation Comey suspended last July.  The “hadn’t read” bit is just a cynical red herring.  Of course the MFWIC hadn’t personally read all that stuff.  Equally of course, the MFWIC relied on his agents to advise him.

One salient fact Comey didn’t have, true enough: how those emails got onto the Abedin-Weiner shared, unsecured laptop.  The point of reopening the Clinton case is to answer that question and to determine the extent of the breach regarding Clinton’s abuse of State official business and her abuse of the nation’s secrets.

Schiff plainly misunderstands.  It’s his desired withholding of information that would be the hand on the scale, not its exposure.

This

…about sums it up.  In a Wall Street Journal op-ed about FBI Director James Comey’s missteps, US Attorney General and Federal judge Michael Mukasey had this bit that summarizes Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s criminal behavior while Secretary of State and since:

…Mrs Clinton had classified information on a private nonsecure server—at least a misdemeanor under one statute; and although she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information such that it was exposed to hacking by hostile foreign nations—a felony under another statute; and apparently had caused the destruction of emails—a felony under two other statutes.

And regarding one likely outcome of this reopening of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s crimes, Muckasey had this:

Mr Comey reportedly wrote his letter to Congress over the objection of the attorney general and her deputy. Thus, regardless of what is in the newly discovered emails, the current Justice Department will not permit a grand jury to hear evidence in this case. And because only a grand jury can constitutionally bring charges, that means no charges will be brought.

Keep it in mind as you vote next week.