Monday, March 9, 2020

Have I been Successful? Critical Thinking Is Not Only OK But Necessary.



Be careful what you buy on eBay.
If you buy stuff online, check out the seller carefully.
A friend has just spent $95, plus postage, on a penis enlarger.
Bastards sent him a magnifying glass.
The only instructions said, "Do not use in sunlight."
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It should be obvious, based on the above, my intent was to offend most everyone.  Have I been successful?+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A black spokesperson for Biden would have us believe Biden cares about the underclass and accuses Trump of not caring about those in  lower socio- income levels. He was reminded employment levels were very high. His response was 'salaries remained low.'

An aggressive interviewer would have responded income levels were rising as a higher % than those in the upper levels.

As they spoke the following went through my mind:

a) The higher % rise is, in part,  because the base is lower and with respect to higher income levels the base is higher but it still is true those in lower socio-economic levels are making excellent income strides.

b) Another response to the Biden supporter is that Democrats have presided over America's educational decline and in a technology world incomes cannot improve as long as educational opportunities and curricula remain abysmal.  And what is the educational impact of a society with increasing broken families?

c) During his entire tenure in D.C what has been Biden's response to China's growing control of critical ingredients necessary for our drug industry, expansion in trade imbalances and the shuttering of America's production capabilities across the board? These events did not occur in the past three years. Where was Biden? (See 3/9/2020, WSJ, front page article entitled: " Chinese Supply Chains Snarl.")


d)  The list of Biden's failure to address so many of our festering problems does not build my confidence.  Yes, Biden is not alone in his indifference but he is the one seeking The Oval Office.

Sen. Booker, attacked Biden when he was playing Spartacus, now he attacks Trump and says he should shut up when it comes to discussing the Corona-virus matter. However, were Trump to remain silent he would then be accused of not being out front.  Every day statistics, pertaining to the virus issue,  change so what Trump says one day, obviously, is no longer valid  because the tide of infections etc.  moves swiftly.

I point out these matters simply to urge critical thinking.  There is nothing wrong in challenging what we hear.  We have the ability and every right to re-think what we are told .  Would it not be nice if those in the media did the same but they are too preoccupied in covering more 
issues because their time is limited.  The mass media's ultimate goal is entertainment not enlightenment. 

What would Biden do about SCOTUS seems a legitimate question? What does he think of Schumer's performance, of Pelosi the ripper?

The Senate and the Judiciary

A Democratic majority threatens judicial independence.

The Editorial Board

Chuck Schumer says he regrets the words he used to threaten Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh last week, but perhaps we should thank him for the moment of candor. The Senate Minority Leader has reminded the country of the threat that a Democratic Senate poses to judicial independence.Mr. Schumer’s threats were cruder than most, but they are part of a larger Democratic-progressive project to politicize the judiciary and delegitimize the current Supreme Court. The effort has included opposing nearly all of Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, threatening Justices with punishment if they issue certain rulings, stigmatizing judges who belong to the Federalist Society, and even threatening to change the structure of the High Court.

This goes well beyond the familiar criticism of Supreme Court rulings they don’t like. And well beyond the popping off that President Trump has done about specific judges in specific cases. Mr. Trump is wrong to do so, but like so much of what he says it has had no legal effect. The judges ignore him, as they should, and so do Senate Republicans.


The GOP has reshaped the federal judiciary in the last three years the constitutional way. Mr. Trump has nominated competent judges, and the Senate has confirmed most of his choices. No one should be surprised since Mr. Trump promised to do this during the 2016 campaign, relying on the advice of conservative legal advisers.Democrats are still angry that Mitch McConnell denied a Senate hearing to Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia, in 2016. That was political hardball. But no less than Mr. Schumer tipped in 2007 that he would have done the same had George W. Bush had a Supreme Court opening to fill in his final year as President.
“We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court, except in extraordinary circumstances,” Mr. Schumer declared in a July 2007 speech to the American Constitution Society. Mr. McConnell followed that Schumer precedent. He gambled the seat on the results of the 2016 election, when voters knew the future of the courts was on the ballot.
That future is again at stake, and Senate control arguably matters more to the judiciary than does the presidential race. Even if Mr. Trump is re-elected, a Senate Democratic majority would end the confirmation of judges who believe in constitutional originalism. Senate Democrats would refuse to confirm anyone associated with the Federalist Society or other conservative groups. And a Democratic President and Senate might not settle merely for nominating and confirming liberal judges.
The best indicator of Democratic intent is Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island Senator famous for excavating Brett Kavanaugh’s high-school yearbook. In January 2019, Mr. Whitehouse wrote to Chief Justice John Roberts to protest that the Court accepted friend-of-the-court briefs from “special interest groups that fail to disclose their donors.” He said if the Court didn’t cease and desist, “a legislative solution may be in order.” That’s a political threat.
Mr. Whitehouse repeated the charge last month in an amicus brief with three other Senators in a case challenging the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The brief includes an appendix list of “a small and powerful cabal of self-interested entities” that dare to file amicus briefs disagreeing with Mr. Whitehouse on legal and policy issues.
Meanwhile, the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the U.S. Judicial Conference issued a draft opinion in January that would bar judges from belonging to the Federalist Society but not to the American Bar Association. A member of that committee is John McConnell, a federal district judge in Rhode Island who was promoted for the bench by none other than Sheldon Whitehouse.
In August last year, Mr. Whitehouse and four other Senators—three on the Judiciary Committee as he is—escalated the political intimidation. “The Supreme Court is not well,” they wrote in an amicus brief on a gun-regulation case. “Perhaps the Court can heal itself before the public demands it be ‘restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.’”What does “restructured” mean? It could mean packing the Court by creating seats for more than nine Justices. Democrats would have to kill the Senate’s legislative filibuster so they could pass legislation without 60 votes. But that is what Senate Democrats did in 2013 to the filibuster rule for judicial nominees. They did so in order to pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with a liberal majority to protect Mr. Obama’s aggressive use of regulation.
Why would anyone think Senate Democrats wouldn’t do it again if they had the power? Elizabeth Warren promised during her presidential campaign to kill the legislative filibuster, and the party’s left might insist on it. One reason Mr. Schumer went off the deep end last week is that he knows he may face a primary challenge in 2022 from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Would he stand in the way of the Senate left on a filibuster change?
The Democratic goal here isn’t merely to rebalance the courts with more liberal nominees the democratic way. The goal is to intimidate the judiciary into ruling the way Democrats want—or else.
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Dick
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