Amy Coney Barrett is sworn in as SCOTUS justice — 67 Comments
Oh What A Day !, or evening ! I am so pleased to watch this change in the Supreme Court and this might give those of us who have a bit of sense a bit more breathing room before they try to re-educate us. Of course I live in Texas and we have a tradition about that sort of stuff.
Congrats, Justice Amy!
I hope you will vote like Justice Thomas. Don’t turn into a squish!
I heard a bit of the pre-vote speechifying on RSBN. Sen Lindsay Graham mentioned that he voted for “Egg” McMullin not President Trump in 2016. Just imagine.
I’m so proud of what this Movement has done. PDJT was a providential candidate, to be sure. But there are literally millions who recognized a problem and worked together to solve it.
Of course the jury is out. The jury will ALWAYS be out, that’s life. But, considering the forces arrayed against us, we’ve done OK so far.
Always remember, if the NeverTrumpers had gotten their way it would have been Hillary Clinton appointing three Supreme Court Justices and creating a 6-3 liberal court. Those people should NEVER be able to say a single thing about politics again without having that thrown in their faces.
Mike
I was wondering why, considering the stakes, the Left largely left ACB alone.
My guess is that a Kavanaugh circus would have detracted from their efforts to drag Joe “Weekend at Bernie’s” Biden across the finish line. Priorities.
Congratulations Justice Barrett!
huxley:
They have decided that if they win the election they will pack the Court and ACB’s nomination will be meaningless.
From Instapundit:
Seen on Facebook: “Black man swears in woman appointed by racist misogynist.”
I’m glad. But 52-48, barring the change from 61 votes to be confirmed, is too slim of a margin for me. I guess it was a combination of things: The nomination being in the shadow of both the late-RGB and presidential election, and ABC being a relatively conservative judge – for now (e.g. Roe v Wade, ACA). Still, I think she should’ve garnered more “in favor” votes.
They have decided that if they win the election they will pack the Court and ACB’s nomination will be meaningless.
neo: But if they don’t win the election, they don’t get to pack the Court.
IMO they have got their hands full winning the election. Styling ACB as a lesbian dominatrix subjugating black women wouldn’t have helped.
A very good day. But the road is long.
@ Cap’n Rusty:
Let me fix that for you.
“Uncle Tom Swears In Handmaiden Appointed by Racist Misogynist”
There.
We need at least 1 more.
That’s why 4 more years matters more than anything.
We need at least 1 more.
Was John Roberts there? Who swears her in tomorrow, I wonder?
Re: ACB confirmation…
neo: I also think that the Dem leaders, for all their deceit and hypocrisy, are still canny operators who can learn from their mistakes. IMO they realize the deep smears of Kavanaugh not only failed to prevent his confirmation, but damaged their credibility somewhat.
The 2020 election is a week away. Admittedly Democrats have the Covid wind at their backs, but for all their hard double-downing, which I thought doomed them, they now have a serious chance of winning all the marbles next week and picking up further along from where Obama left off.
All that Chavez stuff we argued about in 2009 (me, the optimist) is much closer, in spite of Trump’s election.
It’s been precisely one month since Trump nominated ACB. Both the process and optics since that day have been utterly flawless. It culminated tonight in a simple, yet powerful swearing in ceremony. Of course, this was officially apolitical, but everyone knows it was carefully staged and oriented towards Trump’s base, particularly people of faith: be they traditional Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons or Orthodox Jews. Here is a justice of deep faith and moral principles based upon the same. She is on the Court because of Trump. Don’t forget that in one week (or anytime you fill out your mail-in ballot).
I have said many times Trump is going to win comfortably; not a landslide, but not a nail biter either: 1-3% plurality in the popular vote and 315-351 in the electoral college. Tonight’s ceremony, along with Trump’s aggressive, confident campaign schedule and Biden’s continually flailing, only reinforces my opinion.
My goodness Ackler I hope you are right about this and I am beginning to feel the same way, that Trump’s turn outs will be reflected in the votes. About eight more days and if the returns come in strong enough, in spite of late mail stuff, we might have a winner, chicken dinner !
Lots of humor bits.
Besides the Instapundit one noted above:
Seen on Facebook: “Black man swears in woman appointed by racist misogynist.”
There’s this–
“Sen Schumer, learn to grin and Barrett”
And this–
Bitterly disappointed Prog-Dem on Twitter: “Amy Coney Barrett will be sworn in on a copy of Handmaid’s Tale.”
Don Surber: “Do it, Amy. Do it.”
The court-packing question is interesting. There are plenty of Democrats in red and purple states who would fear the backlash and even some in blue states smart enough to understand how it would just break our political process. But Dem/liberal thought leaders have now flirted so openly with it, they’d risk civil war or utter demoralization if they don’t follow through.
Mike
I’m listening to the replay of the ceremony currently. What a poignant speech by the President – really nice.
There are Repubs who voted for Trump in 2016 but are repulsed by Trump who will this time around vote to get rid of him. But . . . there are also plenty of folks of all colors who have been watching the train wrecks in the blue cities, the defund movement, etc., and how the Dems have aided and abetted it all who are going to cross over to Trump.
How many of each we’ll soon know.
As much as I Like Clarence Thomas, I think he should retire soon. If Trump wins, this would be a great time to appoint someone younger for his seat. Don’t make the RBG mistake.
Thanks, OldTexan. Of course, I might be wrong. But I am optimistic; much more so than four years ago when, while I hoped for a Trump upset, I thought it was highly unlikely.
Yesterday, I saw videos of spontaneous Trump rallies in…Beverley Hills and Greenwich, Connecticut, about as deep blue country as one can imagine. The point is not that Trump has a remote chance in either area; the point is that they happened. Where are the spontaneous Biden rallies in Rexberg, Idaho or Enid, Oklahoma?
Rallies aren’t everything and I realize many on the left are still bewitched by Covid-19. Nonetheless, when one sees the tiny turnout, and minimal enthusiasm, for Biden and his surrogates, even within the parameters of social distancing and mask wearing, so fetishized by progressives, it is hard not to conclude the facts on the ground do not mesh with the stream of polls progressives hold sacred.
Something is going on. One can see it in the faces of many at the Trump rallies. There’s a buoyancy, an optimism…and perhaps…an excitement in being able to breathe. We have been lectured, fear-mongered, scolded, dictated-to, heckled, mocked and threatened pretty much non-stop for over seven months. It’s not so much that we’re mad as hell, but we are happy warriors who aren’t going to take it anymore. Being on the right is now inherently being a dissident. Embrace it.
Most importantly, stay upbeat, optimistic and happy. Nothing drives the left crazier than happy conservatives. When you walk into the voting booth (or cast your ballot in the mailbox), do so with a smile. Not a creepy “Joker” smile like Biden’s, but a confident, steadfast, yet non threatening, smile like Nick Sandman’s now iconic image.
We’ve got this.
JimNorCal,
Perhaps the greatest joke to come of this is that Justice Barret’s swearing in ceremony took place on Hillary Clinton’s birthday!
Good news indeed. I just returned from a trip across Perth to look at tiles for a bathroom renovation listening to Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning podcast episode 11 “The Flood and the Tower.” In it he directly maps the story of Noah and the Tower of Babel onto the current situation in American politics. Even as a lifelong Christian I took no offence and learned a lot. Your mileage may vary, but his commentary is well worth considering, in our attempt here at Neo’s blog, to better understand what is happening in the US election. A teaser – Scott Adam’s observation that the two sides in the US are watching ‘different movies’ is credibly connected to dynamic of the Tower of Babel as a recurring theme in human history. More generally I am with Peterson all the way on the idea that there no way forward for either left or right unless we reach back and reconnect with the deepest values of our civilisation. Postmodernism just won’t do – where all pathways are equal, but some are more equal than others.
“I guess it was a combination of things…”
But mostly it was Democratic Party unhinged, vitriolic insanity…of the “Of course we’re allowed to screw you—perfectly justified, in fact—but HOW DARE YOU FIGHT BACK!!
Three appointments to SCOTUS.
The defeat of ISIS.
Peace between the Sunnis and Israel.
The roaring stock market.
The USMCA.
The exposure of the deep state.
Well done DJT.
The LEftists got so distracted by Big Guy jo, Hunter, Q, and Trump impeachment, they actually let her through.
This is like letting a pawn promote to Queen, humans in America.
This is more important than many here realize.
Well done DJT.
Not merely the Donald. This over emphasis on one man is a human weakness.
We’ve got this.
Don’t worry, I got this.
I’m glad. But 52-48, barring the change from 61 votes to be confirmed, is too slim of a margin for me. I guess it was a combination of things: The nomination being in the shadow of both the late-RGB and presidential election, and ABC being a relatively conservative judge – for now (e.g. Roe v Wade, ACA). Still, I think she should’ve garnered more “in favor” votes.
And on whom do you lay the obligation incorporated in the use of the term ‘should’?
NB, 10 of the 11 Democrats who voted to confirm Clarence Thomas were temporizers who ordinarily voted with the Republicans 1/3 to 1/2 the time. The same was true of two of the four Democrats who voted to confirm Samuel Alito. The list of Democrats in the Senate who have that disposition today begins and ends with Joe Manchin. (Manchin was one of the two Democrats who voted in favor of Neil Gorsuch). David Souter got lots of Democratic votes; you can see what that got for the rest of us.
Donald Trump is personified in Orwell’s observation that:
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
There are those who understand this. Trump is prepared to be rough and prepared to be forceful in defense of the Republic, which is under clear threat from the “moral” mob of perfectionists and those who crave power at any and all cost to their country, to its citizens—and to themselves. Thus he needs the firm support and understanding of all decent people, no matter their hesitations about his “character”, much of which has been maligned and besmirched, smeared and slandered, misrepresented and murdered by a malevolent, misguided and—it must be said—in too many cases, an evil opposition.
Those who wallow in his perceived “weaknesses” and who seek to amplify them, even to manufacture them, are unrelenting in their treachery, intensity and “creativity”.
These “perfectionists” and “arbiters” of morality MUST stress perceived faults over his abilities, exaggerate his perceived failures while dismissing or ignoring totally his accomplishment, manufacture faults and then amplify them ceaselessly, while imputing to him all manner of moral bankruptcy, most of which is sheer projection on their part.
The battle lines are clear. Or ought to be…
I appreciated this part of ACB’s speech: “… The confirmation process has made ever-clearer to me one of the fundamental differences between the federal judiciary and the United States Senate, and perhaps the most acute is the role of policy preferences. It is the job of a senator to pursue her policy preferences; in fact, it would be a dereliction of duty to put policy goals aside. By contrast, it is the job of a judge to resist her policy preferences. It would be a dereliction of duty for her to give in to them. Federal judges don’t stand for election, thus they have no basis for claiming that their preferences reflect those of the people. This separation of duty from political preference is what makes the judiciary distinct among the three branches of government. A judge declares independence not only from Congress and the president, but also from the private beliefs that might otherwise move her. The judicial oath captures the essence of the judicial duty; the rule of law must always control. My fellow Americans, even though we judges don’t face elections, we still work for you. It is your Constitution that establishes the rule of law and the judicial independence that is so central to it., The oath that I have solemnly taken tonight means at its core that I will do my job without any fear or favor and that I will do so independent of both the political branches and my own preferences. I love the Constitution and the democratic republic that it establishes, and I will devote myself to preserving it. Thank you.”
Oh how I wish they taught this in school.
I voted for Trump in 2016 because he was the Republican candidate running against Hillary Clinton. My favorable vote for Trump in 2016 was based on his list of potential judicial nominees. Based on those 2 preceding statements I will never understand Never-Trumpers. Especially considering all the ugliness that has been exposed regarding our political adversaries over these last 4 years. They clearly align with the Left.
Amy, thank you for that quote. I was babysitting my granddaughter yesterday and had no time for news. “It’s about the Constitution and the Rule of Law” has been my response when asked about my support of President Trump. Not that I have been asked that very often over the last 4 years.
I’m really glad the GOP got this done! She may end being our last hope.
However, being the eternal pessimist that I am, I’m still quite afraid of the night of Nov 3 into the 4th. Rallies in Beverly Hills and Greenwich CT are interesting, but I also see left/liberal friends on FB who already voted, and see reports of early ballot requests favoring Democrats by a 30% margin. The enthusiasm to vote is high on both sides, and early reports also indicate a record turnout. And, registered Ds outnumber the Rs. In other words, I think the numbers are on the Dems side if the enthusiasm to vote against Trump I see plays out. There are just too many brainwashed people out there thanks to the education system doing their utmost over the past 20 years. CW2 starts Nov 4 if Trump manages to win or the election is too close to call. Antifa and BLM have already telegraphed their plans for violence, including infrastructure. CW2 starts a few months into the Harris administration if she wins and they start their plans for revenge and the transition to Marxism. I just don’t see any scenario which avoids massive violence. Please convince me otherwise.
physicsguy, I don’t know that I can convince you of anything positive. My husband and I voted on Saturday, arriving at the moment the polls opened (a few vote centers opened 6 days early, 1 of them around the corner from our home at California State University, Northridge. The line was huge. A number of people opted to drop off their ballots and were admitted without needing to stand in the line. We wanted to cast our vote in person so from start to finish it took 1 hour from the time we lined up. Our son and his wife voted yesterday at Cal State Long Beach–no line.
I want to thank Kate & JimNorCal for their voting advice. I had used the information they provided in the comments on the 9th and sent out a mass email to my conservative friends/family. At this point for me personally it was about “due diligence” regarding my vote. I’m a natural pessimist, but believe the President would win handily, apart from voter fraud. That for me is the big potential game-changer. Beginning 3 weeks ago, the focus of my daily prayers where the election is concerned centers on opposing election fraud. It is my belief that if the President does not win reelection, it is the hand of God subjecting us to the reaping, a product of the sowing that has been going on for a long time. As AG here in California, Kamala Harris was responsible for going after David Daleiden who exposed Planned Parenthood selling baby parts. That so many of our citizens, a number of them professing Christians, are fine with placing her in one of the highest public offices is a bruising truth. Trusting in God’s mercy no matter how things play-out.
As for those dumbpublicans who voted against ACB;
do they actually believe that if Obama was up for re-election , the Senate was majority demokrat, and the election was a few short weeks away, that the demokrats would NOT nominate a SCOTUS ?
do they actually believe that by voting against ACB that, in the future, the demokrats will remember this “decent” act and reciprocate?
The stupidity of some (many?) republicans is astounding.
In case they have not noticed, the dems ALWAYS stick together; they never waver, they are always out for blood, and they mean to prevail using any and all methods.
Given their disgusting and repugnant treatment of Kavanaugh, Bork and Thomas the republicans should reciprocate by never again voting for any SCOTUS nominated by the demokrats, regardless of his/her qualifications.
They simply should not show up to any committee hearings and vote against that candidate; no attempts should be made to slander or denigrate the character of the candidate.
After all, qualifications mean nothing to the demokrats if it’s a republican nominee; so the dumbpublicans should not even bother considering any demokrat nominee to the SCOTUS.
Just the other day another demokrat spilled the beans and let us all know what they believe; introducing Robert Reich, the new demokrat party Stalinist Truth Commissar (as if hearing the poison emanating from the vocal pie holes of AOL and Bernie Sanders isn’t enough).
The Shrek sized POS Reich must have as his role model Lavrentiy Beria; Stalin’s NKVD head (basically the Russian Gestapo).
Beria was a fanatical Stalin worshiper, but I will speculate that he too was physically of small stature, thus giving Commissar Robert Reich two reasons to admire him; his ideology and his minature physical stature.
And oh yea, while Shrek is more likely the size of Reich, he, Shrek is a cartoon character, but Beria was the real deal; a murderous thug responsible for the extermination of millions of people.
Back in the “glory” days ( 1960s or so ) of the SDS – the radical leftist student group, an FBI agent had infiltrated the radical leftist group, SDS. This agent recalled that once in power, SDS planned to have “re-education” camps in the SW USA to handle those American citizens who needed to be re-educated and for those that refused to be re-educated, they would be exterminated; 25 MILLION was the estimate of those who ultimately would be “terminated” according the SDS.
Recall that SDS was composed of American born and raised students, many of whom attended the finest universities in the country.
Leftists want us all dead.
And the demokrat party is well on it’s way in that direction.
If Bidet wins, the demokrats will rig the voting system, and utilize executive orders, “environmental” rules, punitive taxation of guns, ammo, gasoline, etc. and pack the SCOTUS, etc. etc. to guarantee that never again will they lose any national election.
Oh yea, and don’t forget that the new NKVD Stalinist Commissar, Robert Reich, will be convening “truth re-education” hearings near you, so stay posted folks.
Not to be too grim but consider donating whole blood. The real doctors and EMS will be needing it to save people. The LARPing Antifa “Medics” won’t be able to save anyone.
The left has plans for after the election.
Ackler: “Something is going on.”
I should be with physicsguy. I really should.
But I can’t help feeling a rising tide of optimism.
JimNorCal, a small bit of hope: CNN, of all places, reporting Biden in trouble in PA due to his debate oil statements.
On polls, the Real Clear Politics polling average has dropped from Biden up over 10 points on October 12 to up 7.6 points now.
And while I’m not one to “unskew” polls, if you click the link you should look at all the polls projecting that not only will Trump get substantially less of the vote than in 2016 but that Joe Biden will get MORE of the vote than Barack Obama got in 2012.
I can see Trump losing but some of these polls have Trump’s share of the popular vote going down by over 10% while Biden gets basically the same as Obama in 2008. That makes no sense to me and seems contrary to literally EVERYTHING visible about both campaigns.
Mike
Oh yea, forgot to mention;
How ironic is it that Robert Reich, the hopeful Stalinist Truth Commissar, has REICH as his last name !!
How fitting.
He probably mutters each night before he goes to bed the Russian equivalent of :
“Ein volk, Ein REICH, Ein Fuhrer;” though he may substitute Ein Bidet for Ein Fuhrer.
JohnTyler As for those dumbpublicans who voted against ACB
There was ONE Republican who voted against ACB: Susan Collins of Maine. Maine votes Democrat. She is in a tight reelection fight. Probably she and her advisors polled and decided that a NO vote would get her more votes. Her speech on the mud that the Demos slung at Kavanaugh helped him get confirmed. I am inclined to give her a pass.
@physicsguy on October 27, 2020 at 8:13 am
I know personally at least one registered democrat that has already voted for Trump and the republican senate candidate. I know one other registered democrat that I believe will vote for Trump if not the senate candidate.
I think Trump has pealed off a not small percentage of center democrats. The crazy people that seem to be running the democrat party is also pushing them away.
Although, frankly who knows.
Clarence Thomas swearing in ACB was a very nice thumb in the eye of Joe Biden. Biden’s behavior with Thomas was despicable.
decided that a NO vote would get her more votes.
I think you mean would limit her net losses. I assume she has some sort of understanding with Sleaza Murkowski where they cover for each other.
Physicsguy, well I don’t think I can convince you. I will say that Democrat advantage in early voting is not unusual and likely (hopefully) balanced out by the GOP advantage in election day voting. I have heard some conspiracy theories suggesting Democrat governors will randomly shut down polling places because of Covid-19, but this seems fairly unlikely (I hope).
As to what comes after the election…well…I largely agree with you. The left simply will not accept a Trump victory. A narrow victory means endless lawfare; a comfortable victory means maybe more limited lawfare but then endless investigations by the (likely still Democrat) House, a score of new Russia conspiracy theories, and, almost certainly, another impeachment. A victory of any size will result protests and riots, likely twice or thrice the size, scope and intensity of 2020’s
I don’t know if I would go so far as saying civil war will break out. But I do agree, a Trump victory only provides us a delay from seguing into full authoritarianism backed by the federal government; in the meantime, there will be much violence.
So, I’m optimistic about the election; realistic about what comes next
Fürst Bismarck said (or not) “There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.” It might be true you know.
“I will say that Democrat advantage in early voting is not unusual”
It’s apparently time to remind everyone that early voting is meaningless. Literally. People voting early, especially when they’re being overtly encouraged to do so, doesn’t say anything about an election or who is going to win. Voting a week or a month before Election Day is exactly the same as voting on Election Day. There is no such thing a “banking” votes by getting them in early.
The theory of early or mail-in voting is that is would lead to greater voter turnout. I don’t believe there’s any evidence to support that theory. The state of Washington started to move to all-mail-in ballots in 2005 and, according to their Secretary of State’s website, the impact on voter turnout appears to have been negligible.
The mania for early voting is one of the great non-rational conceits of modern U.S. politics.
Mike
In case it was missed in a prior post, JimNorCal who went through precinct training this year, recommended voting as early as you can after downloading the app that tracks your ballot. The first ballot cast will be the only one counted. In a time when mail-in ballots are out there this could be an issue. In California, we downloaded the app “Where is my ballot?” and received the text indicating that it was mailed. We went to the vote center and cast our ballot. Upon doing so we received a text stating our ballot was cast in person. We will receive one more text when our ballot is counted. According to JimNorCal, if a ballot is received in your name but you didn’t drop it off, there is no way to refute it or retrieve it.
@ Physics guy,
There is no reason to be pessimistic regarding the negative spill over effects of a Trump victory.
Nothing, Nothing … the left can do in terms of social upheaval can match the potentially violent and martial oppression a corrupt, vindictive, and amoral crypto-Stalinist political party might mete out if given full control.
All you have to do to confirm that, is to listen to their mouthpieces: official, unofficial, and in-between.
It will not only be court packing, but a slew of procovatively intended administratively repressive actions; designed to break the spines, once and for all, of the traditional American middle class, and scatter whatsoever survivors there may be to the wind. I would further expect ideologial tests and indoctrination in the military which would dwarf what is going on now, along with Obama era style officer class purges; and, a possible congressional attempt at repeal of the posse comitatus act. All this done, in expectation that as they ratchet down, some areas of the country will appear to resist. This, along with various attempts to further regulate commerce and the use of money, in order to track and preempt any attempts to set up parallel or independent micro societies within the larger polity.
As Marxists repeatedly said to me, “socialism is an all society proposition” no limits. You may theoretically [speaking figuratively here] be allowed to “hoe your own row” in your little garden plot, but where are you going to get seeds, tools, and mason jars to make it work?
At any rate, federal response to local community resistance to centralized attempts to deconstruct the lives of the locals – i.e., those people Democrat leaders have already publicly deemed deplorables, Neanderthals, chumps, and bitter clinging racists – could result in near Civil War era repression, minus any organized state of insurrection.
And remember what someone so benign as Lincoln did with regard to declaring martial law in areas not actually in a state of rebellion. It would not be morally beyond Biden to petulantly order napalm strikes if he calculated the certainty of getting away with it. Better of course, to just send in armor and blast the local sheriff’s office with .50 cal, as helicopters hover above.
No, any potential civil unrest upon the election of Trump, should we be so blessed, is nothing when compared to the, ideologically at least, conceiveable alternative.
DNW, one of those outcomes sounds like a worst case scenario. Shirley you are mistaken. 🙂
DNW, I did mention what could happen next year if Harris/Biden take power. I was thinking exactly along the lines you list.
physicsguy:
Indeed.
I definitely think that Susan Collins voted “no” because she calculates it will get her more votes. It’s Maine, after all. Whether she will get enough to win, I don’t know. But I do think it will help her, and it doesn’t hurt ACB.
“I definitely think that Susan Collins voted “no” because she calculates it will get her more votes.”
She’s the political pro but spitting in the face of your voters to try and make the other side happy is a dubious strategy. If Collins were ahead it might make some sense but she’s apparently behind. Who is going to remember and be motivated more: Democrats who decide they want to keep Collins in the Senate or Republicans disgusted with her?
Mike
Oh that Susan Collins might have some understanding of the voters in her state. Nope, can’t be. A Susan Colins would be a improvement over Patty Murray or Maria Cantwell, not good, but better than those two. Politics is like that.
Where was the smear campaign against AC Barrett? I’m pretty sure the Dems felt that their smears against Kavanaugh were counter-productive for gaining votes among the independents or Reps.
It occurred to me today that when Trump was asked about ACB to replace Scalia, he replied that he’s “saving her to replace Ginsburg”. So the Dems were well aware of who the likely nominee was going to be, and how hard it would be to smear her. That is part of the unspoken, and perhaps even unknown to themselves, reason that the Dems were freaking out over Kavanaugh. They knew then that they couldn’t stop ACB to replace Ginsburg, so they HAD to pull out all the stops to stop Kavanaugh.
Perhaps the cleanest big cream-puff, clean Boy Scout, clean family man, clean diary-keeping (one of the 7 habits of Highly Successful People) (which I don’t do. Perhaps blog posts sort of count?), clean speaking, and ok, clean beer drinking but not to excess as an adult man in Washington DC. The Dems shot two wads of dirt at Mr. Clean, and really didn’t have much left against ACB. And
They went thru Kavanaugh Derangement, but not Barrett Derangement.
And perhaps the fervor of the pro-abortion feminists, who fear a reduction in abortions from their cherished faux-amendment Roe opinion, that fervor is getting dissipated. The pro-life side “lost”, but the war is not over until the losing side stops fighting. I think the anti-gay marriage side has lost, and has mostly stopped fighting. That gay marriage fight was always more of a proxy for the long term pro-life, anti-Roe, anti-elites deciding fight.
I also think there’s a LOT of angry college graduated women who have high paying careers that they don’t love and realize they’re unlikely to become VP. And they’re not married, or married w/o kids, and their bio-clocks (unfair! but not quite unjust) are ticking. Loudly. They’ve chosen work over families, becoming a wage-slave working for the rich owners of the corporation, rather than a housewife working to raise happy kids and keep a loving husband in love with them.
They are angry.
With justification.
Many are outwardly angry at Trump, but it’s really the incomplete truths of Feminism, and the unhappiness and lack of real fulfilment in their own lives that is the justification for their anger. Their own choices. Plus systemic promiscuity, not Trump.
Last year I met an old college girlfriend near DC, who’s now been twice divorced and is without kids and hates Trump. We had a nice dinner, almost no politics. I feel sorry for her.
“Abortion rights” doesn’t lead to more love, tho it might mean more sex, especially by making it harder for a women to say “no” when she’s not really sure. And more women are starting to question whether that reduced ability de facto to say “no” is really the freedom they were looking for.
Not to mention how colleges are turning out 56%+ women as grads, who want husbands who are as educated as them, or more; and who make as much as them, or more…
The Reps not allowing the quick confirmation to become a circus (thanks Mitch!) was also a factor, and there are many others. But the Dems undersmearing now because of oversmearing vs Kavanaugh seems underdiscussed.
Happy Birthday Hillary! (Hope a Special Prosecutor looks at your illegal email server and the FBI obstruction of justice.)
The Democratic Party treated Brett Kavanaugh shamefully, and then six weeks later took home a passel of congressional seats which handed the gavel back to Nancy Pelosi. Neither their base nor the swing voters appear to care much about gross misbehavior.
Kavanaugh was as clean as a hound’s tooth, but that didn’t stop people from coming out of the woodwork to smear him. Two of his obtrusive accusers were women who with scant doubt never met him or Mark Judge either. The only reason you’d pay them a scintilla of attention is that they’d been residents of Montgomery County, Md. in 1982. The third was his roommate from Sept. 1983 to January of 1984 (who hadn’t spoken to him since). In re Barrett, the Democrats had a problem in that people who are frauds and a**holes with that degree of brazenness and intensity are unusual and they may be proportionately less common among those native to the New Orleans suburbs as opposed to those native to the Washington suburbs and among alumni of Rhodes College as opposed to alumni of Yale. Also, Barrett is female, so people do not give assent to calumny with the same alacrity; that in turn reduces the propensity of vicious yarn pullers to do so in public fora. (Recall the mental world of Sabrina Rubin Erdely and her editors, who were conned by a super-girly ditz from Stafford, Va and who ignored a half-dozen different red flags which suggested that her tale was a fabrication).
“Last night, we made history and confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court! Justice Barrett will defend our rights, our liberties, and our God-Given FREEDOM!”-Donald T
I notice he isn’t going with the whole conservative, textual, nothing changes, line of thought on the Justice.
She is a chess piece as important as Trump, if not more so.
“Oh that Susan Collins might have some understanding of the voters in her state.”
Remember, always use lots of lotion to avoid chafing.
Mike
om on October 27, 2020 at 9:40 am said:
Not to be too grim but consider donating whole blood. The real doctors and EMS will be needing it to save people. The LARPing Antifa “Medics” won’t be able to save anyone.
The left has plans for after the election.
You got so many positive comments. You’re throwing me off here, son. I haven’t seen this many positive comments from you from 2015-2019, in total.
What changed in your life that lifted the fear and terror and angst?
MBunge:
I think she calculates the Republicans in Maine will understand that that’s the way she had to vote, for practical purposes. They’ve been understanding that sort of thing from her for a long time. It was her Kavanaugh stand that undermined her with the Democrats in Maine who ordinarily vote for her. Collins stood by Kavanaugh when it counted. She didn’t have to stand by ACB; she was in without Collins’ vote.
“According to JimNorCal, if a ballot is received in your name but you didn’t drop it off, there is no way to refute it or retrieve it.”
Yes, that’s what we were told in training. Once they’ve “verified the signature”, which is NOT as rigorous a process as one might hope!, your outer envelope is saved (for 16 months?) and the ballot is counted and archived. Your ballot has no ID mark on it and it cannot be matched to the outer envelope any more. They can’t “back it out”.
I don’t think that there is much danger of people pretending to be you and submitting an early ballot that cancels your later, legitimate ballot. But I do advise handing in your ballot at a Vote Center or at the Registrar’s office instead of trusting to the US Postal service (sorry, letter carriers!). If at all possible. Plenty of mailed ballots come through just fine but why take the chance?
Bunge:
Is that the best you can do? No growth since junior high school? Sad.
And Yammer is puzzled; don’t play with Occam’s Razor, it’s a tool you aren’t familiar with.
Ackler: “I have heard some conspiracy theories suggesting Democrat governors will randomly shut down polling places because of Covid-19, but this seems fairly unlikely (I hope).”
There’ve been ads running on different sites saying CA-ex-Gov Wilson is warning that Newsom has shut down lots of polling places, so find out what is open and when, near you. I live in a small town at the edge of the Mojave Desert, and according to the ad printout, we only have two places to vote, at odd times on 3 separate days. It may get worse.
No one answers the phone at what pretends to be our City Hall, or at our library, which plays a message that the library only has curb service. (This is ridiculous. When I go to a library, I wander and take out books whose titles beguile me.)
They’re destroying everything.
Sharon W.: “It is my belief that if the President does not win reelection, it is the hand of God subjecting us to the reaping, a product of the sowing that has been going on for a long time. As AG here in California, Kamala Harris was responsible for going after David Daleiden who exposed Planned Parenthood selling baby parts.”
Sharon, I, also, have been thinking along those lines. Moreover, I remember that Harris didn’t win on election night, and it took days to ballot harvest her “win”. Perhaps a Reckoning may move against ballot harvesting itself in some way. I’d cheer.
Chases Eagles – I’ve always seen that maxim attributed to the Iron Chancellor, but you seem to have short-changed him one rank.
“Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen, ab 1865 Graf von Bismarck-Schönhausen, ab 1871 Fürst von Bismarck, ab 1890 auch Herzog zu Lauenburg, war ein deutscher Politiker und Staatsmann” – Wikipedia (DE)
Wikiquote says he didn’t say it, but it’s got a lot of other interesting things he DID say. Always such fun to look into the “received truth” — I might grow up to be a fact-checker.
Oh What A Day !, or evening ! I am so pleased to watch this change in the Supreme Court and this might give those of us who have a bit of sense a bit more breathing room before they try to re-educate us. Of course I live in Texas and we have a tradition about that sort of stuff.
Congrats, Justice Amy!
I hope you will vote like Justice Thomas. Don’t turn into a squish!
I heard a bit of the pre-vote speechifying on RSBN. Sen Lindsay Graham mentioned that he voted for “Egg” McMullin not President Trump in 2016. Just imagine.
I’m so proud of what this Movement has done. PDJT was a providential candidate, to be sure. But there are literally millions who recognized a problem and worked together to solve it.
Of course the jury is out. The jury will ALWAYS be out, that’s life. But, considering the forces arrayed against us, we’ve done OK so far.
Always remember, if the NeverTrumpers had gotten their way it would have been Hillary Clinton appointing three Supreme Court Justices and creating a 6-3 liberal court. Those people should NEVER be able to say a single thing about politics again without having that thrown in their faces.
Mike
I was wondering why, considering the stakes, the Left largely left ACB alone.
My guess is that a Kavanaugh circus would have detracted from their efforts to drag Joe “Weekend at Bernie’s” Biden across the finish line. Priorities.
Congratulations Justice Barrett!
huxley:
They have decided that if they win the election they will pack the Court and ACB’s nomination will be meaningless.
From Instapundit:
Seen on Facebook: “Black man swears in woman appointed by racist misogynist.”
I’m glad. But 52-48, barring the change from 61 votes to be confirmed, is too slim of a margin for me. I guess it was a combination of things: The nomination being in the shadow of both the late-RGB and presidential election, and ABC being a relatively conservative judge – for now (e.g. Roe v Wade, ACA). Still, I think she should’ve garnered more “in favor” votes.
They have decided that if they win the election they will pack the Court and ACB’s nomination will be meaningless.
neo: But if they don’t win the election, they don’t get to pack the Court.
IMO they have got their hands full winning the election. Styling ACB as a lesbian dominatrix subjugating black women wouldn’t have helped.
A very good day. But the road is long.
@ Cap’n Rusty:
Let me fix that for you.
“Uncle Tom Swears In Handmaiden Appointed by Racist Misogynist”
There.
We need at least 1 more.
That’s why 4 more years matters more than anything.
We need at least 1 more.
Was John Roberts there? Who swears her in tomorrow, I wonder?
Re: ACB confirmation…
neo: I also think that the Dem leaders, for all their deceit and hypocrisy, are still canny operators who can learn from their mistakes. IMO they realize the deep smears of Kavanaugh not only failed to prevent his confirmation, but damaged their credibility somewhat.
The 2020 election is a week away. Admittedly Democrats have the Covid wind at their backs, but for all their hard double-downing, which I thought doomed them, they now have a serious chance of winning all the marbles next week and picking up further along from where Obama left off.
All that Chavez stuff we argued about in 2009 (me, the optimist) is much closer, in spite of Trump’s election.
It’s been precisely one month since Trump nominated ACB. Both the process and optics since that day have been utterly flawless. It culminated tonight in a simple, yet powerful swearing in ceremony. Of course, this was officially apolitical, but everyone knows it was carefully staged and oriented towards Trump’s base, particularly people of faith: be they traditional Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons or Orthodox Jews. Here is a justice of deep faith and moral principles based upon the same. She is on the Court because of Trump. Don’t forget that in one week (or anytime you fill out your mail-in ballot).
I have said many times Trump is going to win comfortably; not a landslide, but not a nail biter either: 1-3% plurality in the popular vote and 315-351 in the electoral college. Tonight’s ceremony, along with Trump’s aggressive, confident campaign schedule and Biden’s continually flailing, only reinforces my opinion.
My goodness Ackler I hope you are right about this and I am beginning to feel the same way, that Trump’s turn outs will be reflected in the votes. About eight more days and if the returns come in strong enough, in spite of late mail stuff, we might have a winner, chicken dinner !
Lots of humor bits.
Besides the Instapundit one noted above:
Seen on Facebook: “Black man swears in woman appointed by racist misogynist.”
There’s this–
“Sen Schumer, learn to grin and Barrett”
And this–
Bitterly disappointed Prog-Dem on Twitter: “Amy Coney Barrett will be sworn in on a copy of Handmaid’s Tale.”
Don Surber: “Do it, Amy. Do it.”
The court-packing question is interesting. There are plenty of Democrats in red and purple states who would fear the backlash and even some in blue states smart enough to understand how it would just break our political process. But Dem/liberal thought leaders have now flirted so openly with it, they’d risk civil war or utter demoralization if they don’t follow through.
Mike
I’m listening to the replay of the ceremony currently. What a poignant speech by the President – really nice.
There are Repubs who voted for Trump in 2016 but are repulsed by Trump who will this time around vote to get rid of him. But . . . there are also plenty of folks of all colors who have been watching the train wrecks in the blue cities, the defund movement, etc., and how the Dems have aided and abetted it all who are going to cross over to Trump.
How many of each we’ll soon know.
As much as I Like Clarence Thomas, I think he should retire soon. If Trump wins, this would be a great time to appoint someone younger for his seat. Don’t make the RBG mistake.
Thanks, OldTexan. Of course, I might be wrong. But I am optimistic; much more so than four years ago when, while I hoped for a Trump upset, I thought it was highly unlikely.
Yesterday, I saw videos of spontaneous Trump rallies in…Beverley Hills and Greenwich, Connecticut, about as deep blue country as one can imagine. The point is not that Trump has a remote chance in either area; the point is that they happened. Where are the spontaneous Biden rallies in Rexberg, Idaho or Enid, Oklahoma?
Rallies aren’t everything and I realize many on the left are still bewitched by Covid-19. Nonetheless, when one sees the tiny turnout, and minimal enthusiasm, for Biden and his surrogates, even within the parameters of social distancing and mask wearing, so fetishized by progressives, it is hard not to conclude the facts on the ground do not mesh with the stream of polls progressives hold sacred.
Something is going on. One can see it in the faces of many at the Trump rallies. There’s a buoyancy, an optimism…and perhaps…an excitement in being able to breathe. We have been lectured, fear-mongered, scolded, dictated-to, heckled, mocked and threatened pretty much non-stop for over seven months. It’s not so much that we’re mad as hell, but we are happy warriors who aren’t going to take it anymore. Being on the right is now inherently being a dissident. Embrace it.
Most importantly, stay upbeat, optimistic and happy. Nothing drives the left crazier than happy conservatives. When you walk into the voting booth (or cast your ballot in the mailbox), do so with a smile. Not a creepy “Joker” smile like Biden’s, but a confident, steadfast, yet non threatening, smile like Nick Sandman’s now iconic image.
We’ve got this.
JimNorCal,
Perhaps the greatest joke to come of this is that Justice Barret’s swearing in ceremony took place on Hillary Clinton’s birthday!
Good news indeed. I just returned from a trip across Perth to look at tiles for a bathroom renovation listening to Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning podcast episode 11 “The Flood and the Tower.” In it he directly maps the story of Noah and the Tower of Babel onto the current situation in American politics. Even as a lifelong Christian I took no offence and learned a lot. Your mileage may vary, but his commentary is well worth considering, in our attempt here at Neo’s blog, to better understand what is happening in the US election. A teaser – Scott Adam’s observation that the two sides in the US are watching ‘different movies’ is credibly connected to dynamic of the Tower of Babel as a recurring theme in human history. More generally I am with Peterson all the way on the idea that there no way forward for either left or right unless we reach back and reconnect with the deepest values of our civilisation. Postmodernism just won’t do – where all pathways are equal, but some are more equal than others.
“I guess it was a combination of things…”
But mostly it was Democratic Party unhinged, vitriolic insanity…of the “Of course we’re allowed to screw you—perfectly justified, in fact—but HOW DARE YOU FIGHT BACK!!
(You know, the usual…)
Might be a bit too early—I most certainly hope not; still, one must celebrate the country’s, and civilization’s, victories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va55VwsSX8U
Three appointments to SCOTUS.
The defeat of ISIS.
Peace between the Sunnis and Israel.
The roaring stock market.
The USMCA.
The exposure of the deep state.
Well done DJT.
The LEftists got so distracted by Big Guy jo, Hunter, Q, and Trump impeachment, they actually let her through.
This is like letting a pawn promote to Queen, humans in America.
This is more important than many here realize.
Well done DJT.
Not merely the Donald. This over emphasis on one man is a human weakness.
We’ve got this.
Don’t worry, I got this.
I’m glad. But 52-48, barring the change from 61 votes to be confirmed, is too slim of a margin for me. I guess it was a combination of things: The nomination being in the shadow of both the late-RGB and presidential election, and ABC being a relatively conservative judge – for now (e.g. Roe v Wade, ACA). Still, I think she should’ve garnered more “in favor” votes.
And on whom do you lay the obligation incorporated in the use of the term ‘should’?
NB, 10 of the 11 Democrats who voted to confirm Clarence Thomas were temporizers who ordinarily voted with the Republicans 1/3 to 1/2 the time. The same was true of two of the four Democrats who voted to confirm Samuel Alito. The list of Democrats in the Senate who have that disposition today begins and ends with Joe Manchin. (Manchin was one of the two Democrats who voted in favor of Neil Gorsuch). David Souter got lots of Democratic votes; you can see what that got for the rest of us.
Donald Trump is personified in Orwell’s observation that:
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
There are those who understand this. Trump is prepared to be rough and prepared to be forceful in defense of the Republic, which is under clear threat from the “moral” mob of perfectionists and those who crave power at any and all cost to their country, to its citizens—and to themselves. Thus he needs the firm support and understanding of all decent people, no matter their hesitations about his “character”, much of which has been maligned and besmirched, smeared and slandered, misrepresented and murdered by a malevolent, misguided and—it must be said—in too many cases, an evil opposition.
Those who wallow in his perceived “weaknesses” and who seek to amplify them, even to manufacture them, are unrelenting in their treachery, intensity and “creativity”.
These “perfectionists” and “arbiters” of morality MUST stress perceived faults over his abilities, exaggerate his perceived failures while dismissing or ignoring totally his accomplishment, manufacture faults and then amplify them ceaselessly, while imputing to him all manner of moral bankruptcy, most of which is sheer projection on their part.
The battle lines are clear. Or ought to be…
I appreciated this part of ACB’s speech: “… The confirmation process has made ever-clearer to me one of the fundamental differences between the federal judiciary and the United States Senate, and perhaps the most acute is the role of policy preferences. It is the job of a senator to pursue her policy preferences; in fact, it would be a dereliction of duty to put policy goals aside. By contrast, it is the job of a judge to resist her policy preferences. It would be a dereliction of duty for her to give in to them. Federal judges don’t stand for election, thus they have no basis for claiming that their preferences reflect those of the people. This separation of duty from political preference is what makes the judiciary distinct among the three branches of government. A judge declares independence not only from Congress and the president, but also from the private beliefs that might otherwise move her. The judicial oath captures the essence of the judicial duty; the rule of law must always control. My fellow Americans, even though we judges don’t face elections, we still work for you. It is your Constitution that establishes the rule of law and the judicial independence that is so central to it., The oath that I have solemnly taken tonight means at its core that I will do my job without any fear or favor and that I will do so independent of both the political branches and my own preferences. I love the Constitution and the democratic republic that it establishes, and I will devote myself to preserving it. Thank you.”
Oh how I wish they taught this in school.
I voted for Trump in 2016 because he was the Republican candidate running against Hillary Clinton. My favorable vote for Trump in 2016 was based on his list of potential judicial nominees. Based on those 2 preceding statements I will never understand Never-Trumpers. Especially considering all the ugliness that has been exposed regarding our political adversaries over these last 4 years. They clearly align with the Left.
Amy, thank you for that quote. I was babysitting my granddaughter yesterday and had no time for news. “It’s about the Constitution and the Rule of Law” has been my response when asked about my support of President Trump. Not that I have been asked that very often over the last 4 years.
I’m really glad the GOP got this done! She may end being our last hope.
However, being the eternal pessimist that I am, I’m still quite afraid of the night of Nov 3 into the 4th. Rallies in Beverly Hills and Greenwich CT are interesting, but I also see left/liberal friends on FB who already voted, and see reports of early ballot requests favoring Democrats by a 30% margin. The enthusiasm to vote is high on both sides, and early reports also indicate a record turnout. And, registered Ds outnumber the Rs. In other words, I think the numbers are on the Dems side if the enthusiasm to vote against Trump I see plays out. There are just too many brainwashed people out there thanks to the education system doing their utmost over the past 20 years. CW2 starts Nov 4 if Trump manages to win or the election is too close to call. Antifa and BLM have already telegraphed their plans for violence, including infrastructure. CW2 starts a few months into the Harris administration if she wins and they start their plans for revenge and the transition to Marxism. I just don’t see any scenario which avoids massive violence. Please convince me otherwise.
physicsguy, I don’t know that I can convince you of anything positive. My husband and I voted on Saturday, arriving at the moment the polls opened (a few vote centers opened 6 days early, 1 of them around the corner from our home at California State University, Northridge. The line was huge. A number of people opted to drop off their ballots and were admitted without needing to stand in the line. We wanted to cast our vote in person so from start to finish it took 1 hour from the time we lined up. Our son and his wife voted yesterday at Cal State Long Beach–no line.
I want to thank Kate & JimNorCal for their voting advice. I had used the information they provided in the comments on the 9th and sent out a mass email to my conservative friends/family. At this point for me personally it was about “due diligence” regarding my vote. I’m a natural pessimist, but believe the President would win handily, apart from voter fraud. That for me is the big potential game-changer. Beginning 3 weeks ago, the focus of my daily prayers where the election is concerned centers on opposing election fraud. It is my belief that if the President does not win reelection, it is the hand of God subjecting us to the reaping, a product of the sowing that has been going on for a long time. As AG here in California, Kamala Harris was responsible for going after David Daleiden who exposed Planned Parenthood selling baby parts. That so many of our citizens, a number of them professing Christians, are fine with placing her in one of the highest public offices is a bruising truth. Trusting in God’s mercy no matter how things play-out.
As for those dumbpublicans who voted against ACB;
do they actually believe that if Obama was up for re-election , the Senate was majority demokrat, and the election was a few short weeks away, that the demokrats would NOT nominate a SCOTUS ?
do they actually believe that by voting against ACB that, in the future, the demokrats will remember this “decent” act and reciprocate?
The stupidity of some (many?) republicans is astounding.
In case they have not noticed, the dems ALWAYS stick together; they never waver, they are always out for blood, and they mean to prevail using any and all methods.
Given their disgusting and repugnant treatment of Kavanaugh, Bork and Thomas the republicans should reciprocate by never again voting for any SCOTUS nominated by the demokrats, regardless of his/her qualifications.
They simply should not show up to any committee hearings and vote against that candidate; no attempts should be made to slander or denigrate the character of the candidate.
After all, qualifications mean nothing to the demokrats if it’s a republican nominee; so the dumbpublicans should not even bother considering any demokrat nominee to the SCOTUS.
Just the other day another demokrat spilled the beans and let us all know what they believe; introducing Robert Reich, the new demokrat party Stalinist Truth Commissar (as if hearing the poison emanating from the vocal pie holes of AOL and Bernie Sanders isn’t enough).
The Shrek sized POS Reich must have as his role model Lavrentiy Beria; Stalin’s NKVD head (basically the Russian Gestapo).
Beria was a fanatical Stalin worshiper, but I will speculate that he too was physically of small stature, thus giving Commissar Robert Reich two reasons to admire him; his ideology and his minature physical stature.
And oh yea, while Shrek is more likely the size of Reich, he, Shrek is a cartoon character, but Beria was the real deal; a murderous thug responsible for the extermination of millions of people.
Back in the “glory” days ( 1960s or so ) of the SDS – the radical leftist student group, an FBI agent had infiltrated the radical leftist group, SDS. This agent recalled that once in power, SDS planned to have “re-education” camps in the SW USA to handle those American citizens who needed to be re-educated and for those that refused to be re-educated, they would be exterminated; 25 MILLION was the estimate of those who ultimately would be “terminated” according the SDS.
Recall that SDS was composed of American born and raised students, many of whom attended the finest universities in the country.
Leftists want us all dead.
And the demokrat party is well on it’s way in that direction.
If Bidet wins, the demokrats will rig the voting system, and utilize executive orders, “environmental” rules, punitive taxation of guns, ammo, gasoline, etc. and pack the SCOTUS, etc. etc. to guarantee that never again will they lose any national election.
Oh yea, and don’t forget that the new NKVD Stalinist Commissar, Robert Reich, will be convening “truth re-education” hearings near you, so stay posted folks.
Not to be too grim but consider donating whole blood. The real doctors and EMS will be needing it to save people. The LARPing Antifa “Medics” won’t be able to save anyone.
The left has plans for after the election.
Ackler: “Something is going on.”
I should be with physicsguy. I really should.
But I can’t help feeling a rising tide of optimism.
JimNorCal, a small bit of hope: CNN, of all places, reporting Biden in trouble in PA due to his debate oil statements.
On polls, the Real Clear Politics polling average has dropped from Biden up over 10 points on October 12 to up 7.6 points now.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
And while I’m not one to “unskew” polls, if you click the link you should look at all the polls projecting that not only will Trump get substantially less of the vote than in 2016 but that Joe Biden will get MORE of the vote than Barack Obama got in 2012.
I can see Trump losing but some of these polls have Trump’s share of the popular vote going down by over 10% while Biden gets basically the same as Obama in 2008. That makes no sense to me and seems contrary to literally EVERYTHING visible about both campaigns.
Mike
Oh yea, forgot to mention;
How ironic is it that Robert Reich, the hopeful Stalinist Truth Commissar, has REICH as his last name !!
How fitting.
He probably mutters each night before he goes to bed the Russian equivalent of :
“Ein volk, Ein REICH, Ein Fuhrer;” though he may substitute Ein Bidet for Ein Fuhrer.
JohnTyler
As for those dumbpublicans who voted against ACB
There was ONE Republican who voted against ACB: Susan Collins of Maine. Maine votes Democrat. She is in a tight reelection fight. Probably she and her advisors polled and decided that a NO vote would get her more votes. Her speech on the mud that the Demos slung at Kavanaugh helped him get confirmed. I am inclined to give her a pass.
@physicsguy on October 27, 2020 at 8:13 am
I know personally at least one registered democrat that has already voted for Trump and the republican senate candidate. I know one other registered democrat that I believe will vote for Trump if not the senate candidate.
I think Trump has pealed off a not small percentage of center democrats. The crazy people that seem to be running the democrat party is also pushing them away.
Although, frankly who knows.
Clarence Thomas swearing in ACB was a very nice thumb in the eye of Joe Biden. Biden’s behavior with Thomas was despicable.
decided that a NO vote would get her more votes.
I think you mean would limit her net losses. I assume she has some sort of understanding with Sleaza Murkowski where they cover for each other.
Physicsguy, well I don’t think I can convince you. I will say that Democrat advantage in early voting is not unusual and likely (hopefully) balanced out by the GOP advantage in election day voting. I have heard some conspiracy theories suggesting Democrat governors will randomly shut down polling places because of Covid-19, but this seems fairly unlikely (I hope).
As to what comes after the election…well…I largely agree with you. The left simply will not accept a Trump victory. A narrow victory means endless lawfare; a comfortable victory means maybe more limited lawfare but then endless investigations by the (likely still Democrat) House, a score of new Russia conspiracy theories, and, almost certainly, another impeachment. A victory of any size will result protests and riots, likely twice or thrice the size, scope and intensity of 2020’s
I don’t know if I would go so far as saying civil war will break out. But I do agree, a Trump victory only provides us a delay from seguing into full authoritarianism backed by the federal government; in the meantime, there will be much violence.
So, I’m optimistic about the election; realistic about what comes next
Fürst Bismarck said (or not) “There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.” It might be true you know.
“I will say that Democrat advantage in early voting is not unusual”
It’s apparently time to remind everyone that early voting is meaningless. Literally. People voting early, especially when they’re being overtly encouraged to do so, doesn’t say anything about an election or who is going to win. Voting a week or a month before Election Day is exactly the same as voting on Election Day. There is no such thing a “banking” votes by getting them in early.
The theory of early or mail-in voting is that is would lead to greater voter turnout. I don’t believe there’s any evidence to support that theory. The state of Washington started to move to all-mail-in ballots in 2005 and, according to their Secretary of State’s website, the impact on voter turnout appears to have been negligible.
https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/research/voter-turnout-by-election.aspx
The mania for early voting is one of the great non-rational conceits of modern U.S. politics.
Mike
In case it was missed in a prior post, JimNorCal who went through precinct training this year, recommended voting as early as you can after downloading the app that tracks your ballot. The first ballot cast will be the only one counted. In a time when mail-in ballots are out there this could be an issue. In California, we downloaded the app “Where is my ballot?” and received the text indicating that it was mailed. We went to the vote center and cast our ballot. Upon doing so we received a text stating our ballot was cast in person. We will receive one more text when our ballot is counted. According to JimNorCal, if a ballot is received in your name but you didn’t drop it off, there is no way to refute it or retrieve it.
@ Physics guy,
There is no reason to be pessimistic regarding the negative spill over effects of a Trump victory.
Nothing, Nothing … the left can do in terms of social upheaval can match the potentially violent and martial oppression a corrupt, vindictive, and amoral crypto-Stalinist political party might mete out if given full control.
All you have to do to confirm that, is to listen to their mouthpieces: official, unofficial, and in-between.
It will not only be court packing, but a slew of procovatively intended administratively repressive actions; designed to break the spines, once and for all, of the traditional American middle class, and scatter whatsoever survivors there may be to the wind. I would further expect ideologial tests and indoctrination in the military which would dwarf what is going on now, along with Obama era style officer class purges; and, a possible congressional attempt at repeal of the posse comitatus act. All this done, in expectation that as they ratchet down, some areas of the country will appear to resist. This, along with various attempts to further regulate commerce and the use of money, in order to track and preempt any attempts to set up parallel or independent micro societies within the larger polity.
As Marxists repeatedly said to me, “socialism is an all society proposition” no limits. You may theoretically [speaking figuratively here] be allowed to “hoe your own row” in your little garden plot, but where are you going to get seeds, tools, and mason jars to make it work?
At any rate, federal response to local community resistance to centralized attempts to deconstruct the lives of the locals – i.e., those people Democrat leaders have already publicly deemed deplorables, Neanderthals, chumps, and bitter clinging racists – could result in near Civil War era repression, minus any organized state of insurrection.
And remember what someone so benign as Lincoln did with regard to declaring martial law in areas not actually in a state of rebellion. It would not be morally beyond Biden to petulantly order napalm strikes if he calculated the certainty of getting away with it. Better of course, to just send in armor and blast the local sheriff’s office with .50 cal, as helicopters hover above.
No, any potential civil unrest upon the election of Trump, should we be so blessed, is nothing when compared to the, ideologically at least, conceiveable alternative.
DNW, one of those outcomes sounds like a worst case scenario. Shirley you are mistaken. 🙂
DNW, I did mention what could happen next year if Harris/Biden take power. I was thinking exactly along the lines you list.
physicsguy:
Indeed.
I definitely think that Susan Collins voted “no” because she calculates it will get her more votes. It’s Maine, after all. Whether she will get enough to win, I don’t know. But I do think it will help her, and it doesn’t hurt ACB.
“I definitely think that Susan Collins voted “no” because she calculates it will get her more votes.”
She’s the political pro but spitting in the face of your voters to try and make the other side happy is a dubious strategy. If Collins were ahead it might make some sense but she’s apparently behind. Who is going to remember and be motivated more: Democrats who decide they want to keep Collins in the Senate or Republicans disgusted with her?
Mike
Oh that Susan Collins might have some understanding of the voters in her state. Nope, can’t be. A Susan Colins would be a improvement over Patty Murray or Maria Cantwell, not good, but better than those two. Politics is like that.
Where was the smear campaign against AC Barrett? I’m pretty sure the Dems felt that their smears against Kavanaugh were counter-productive for gaining votes among the independents or Reps.
It occurred to me today that when Trump was asked about ACB to replace Scalia, he replied that he’s “saving her to replace Ginsburg”. So the Dems were well aware of who the likely nominee was going to be, and how hard it would be to smear her. That is part of the unspoken, and perhaps even unknown to themselves, reason that the Dems were freaking out over Kavanaugh. They knew then that they couldn’t stop ACB to replace Ginsburg, so they HAD to pull out all the stops to stop Kavanaugh.
Perhaps the cleanest big cream-puff, clean Boy Scout, clean family man, clean diary-keeping (one of the 7 habits of Highly Successful People) (which I don’t do. Perhaps blog posts sort of count?), clean speaking, and ok, clean beer drinking but not to excess as an adult man in Washington DC. The Dems shot two wads of dirt at Mr. Clean, and really didn’t have much left against ACB. And
They went thru Kavanaugh Derangement, but not Barrett Derangement.
And perhaps the fervor of the pro-abortion feminists, who fear a reduction in abortions from their cherished faux-amendment Roe opinion, that fervor is getting dissipated. The pro-life side “lost”, but the war is not over until the losing side stops fighting. I think the anti-gay marriage side has lost, and has mostly stopped fighting. That gay marriage fight was always more of a proxy for the long term pro-life, anti-Roe, anti-elites deciding fight.
I also think there’s a LOT of angry college graduated women who have high paying careers that they don’t love and realize they’re unlikely to become VP. And they’re not married, or married w/o kids, and their bio-clocks (unfair! but not quite unjust) are ticking. Loudly. They’ve chosen work over families, becoming a wage-slave working for the rich owners of the corporation, rather than a housewife working to raise happy kids and keep a loving husband in love with them.
They are angry.
With justification.
Many are outwardly angry at Trump, but it’s really the incomplete truths of Feminism, and the unhappiness and lack of real fulfilment in their own lives that is the justification for their anger. Their own choices. Plus systemic promiscuity, not Trump.
Last year I met an old college girlfriend near DC, who’s now been twice divorced and is without kids and hates Trump. We had a nice dinner, almost no politics. I feel sorry for her.
“Abortion rights” doesn’t lead to more love, tho it might mean more sex, especially by making it harder for a women to say “no” when she’s not really sure. And more women are starting to question whether that reduced ability de facto to say “no” is really the freedom they were looking for.
Not to mention how colleges are turning out 56%+ women as grads, who want husbands who are as educated as them, or more; and who make as much as them, or more…
The Reps not allowing the quick confirmation to become a circus (thanks Mitch!) was also a factor, and there are many others. But the Dems undersmearing now because of oversmearing vs Kavanaugh seems underdiscussed.
Happy Birthday Hillary! (Hope a Special Prosecutor looks at your illegal email server and the FBI obstruction of justice.)
The Democratic Party treated Brett Kavanaugh shamefully, and then six weeks later took home a passel of congressional seats which handed the gavel back to Nancy Pelosi. Neither their base nor the swing voters appear to care much about gross misbehavior.
Kavanaugh was as clean as a hound’s tooth, but that didn’t stop people from coming out of the woodwork to smear him. Two of his obtrusive accusers were women who with scant doubt never met him or Mark Judge either. The only reason you’d pay them a scintilla of attention is that they’d been residents of Montgomery County, Md. in 1982. The third was his roommate from Sept. 1983 to January of 1984 (who hadn’t spoken to him since). In re Barrett, the Democrats had a problem in that people who are frauds and a**holes with that degree of brazenness and intensity are unusual and they may be proportionately less common among those native to the New Orleans suburbs as opposed to those native to the Washington suburbs and among alumni of Rhodes College as opposed to alumni of Yale. Also, Barrett is female, so people do not give assent to calumny with the same alacrity; that in turn reduces the propensity of vicious yarn pullers to do so in public fora. (Recall the mental world of Sabrina Rubin Erdely and her editors, who were conned by a super-girly ditz from Stafford, Va and who ignored a half-dozen different red flags which suggested that her tale was a fabrication).
“Last night, we made history and confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court! Justice Barrett will defend our rights, our liberties, and our God-Given FREEDOM!”-Donald T
I notice he isn’t going with the whole conservative, textual, nothing changes, line of thought on the Justice.
She is a chess piece as important as Trump, if not more so.
“Oh that Susan Collins might have some understanding of the voters in her state.”
Remember, always use lots of lotion to avoid chafing.
Mike
om on October 27, 2020 at 9:40 am said:
Not to be too grim but consider donating whole blood. The real doctors and EMS will be needing it to save people. The LARPing Antifa “Medics” won’t be able to save anyone.
The left has plans for after the election.
You got so many positive comments. You’re throwing me off here, son. I haven’t seen this many positive comments from you from 2015-2019, in total.
What changed in your life that lifted the fear and terror and angst?
MBunge:
I think she calculates the Republicans in Maine will understand that that’s the way she had to vote, for practical purposes. They’ve been understanding that sort of thing from her for a long time. It was her Kavanaugh stand that undermined her with the Democrats in Maine who ordinarily vote for her. Collins stood by Kavanaugh when it counted. She didn’t have to stand by ACB; she was in without Collins’ vote.
“According to JimNorCal, if a ballot is received in your name but you didn’t drop it off, there is no way to refute it or retrieve it.”
Yes, that’s what we were told in training. Once they’ve “verified the signature”, which is NOT as rigorous a process as one might hope!, your outer envelope is saved (for 16 months?) and the ballot is counted and archived. Your ballot has no ID mark on it and it cannot be matched to the outer envelope any more. They can’t “back it out”.
I don’t think that there is much danger of people pretending to be you and submitting an early ballot that cancels your later, legitimate ballot. But I do advise handing in your ballot at a Vote Center or at the Registrar’s office instead of trusting to the US Postal service (sorry, letter carriers!). If at all possible. Plenty of mailed ballots come through just fine but why take the chance?
Bunge:
Is that the best you can do? No growth since junior high school? Sad.
And Yammer is puzzled; don’t play with Occam’s Razor, it’s a tool you aren’t familiar with.
Ackler: “I have heard some conspiracy theories suggesting Democrat governors will randomly shut down polling places because of Covid-19, but this seems fairly unlikely (I hope).”
There’ve been ads running on different sites saying CA-ex-Gov Wilson is warning that Newsom has shut down lots of polling places, so find out what is open and when, near you. I live in a small town at the edge of the Mojave Desert, and according to the ad printout, we only have two places to vote, at odd times on 3 separate days. It may get worse.
No one answers the phone at what pretends to be our City Hall, or at our library, which plays a message that the library only has curb service. (This is ridiculous. When I go to a library, I wander and take out books whose titles beguile me.)
They’re destroying everything.
Sharon W.: “It is my belief that if the President does not win reelection, it is the hand of God subjecting us to the reaping, a product of the sowing that has been going on for a long time. As AG here in California, Kamala Harris was responsible for going after David Daleiden who exposed Planned Parenthood selling baby parts.”
Sharon, I, also, have been thinking along those lines. Moreover, I remember that Harris didn’t win on election night, and it took days to ballot harvest her “win”. Perhaps a Reckoning may move against ballot harvesting itself in some way. I’d cheer.
Chases Eagles – I’ve always seen that maxim attributed to the Iron Chancellor, but you seem to have short-changed him one rank.
“Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen, ab 1865 Graf von Bismarck-Schönhausen, ab 1871 Fürst von Bismarck, ab 1890 auch Herzog zu Lauenburg, war ein deutscher Politiker und Staatsmann” – Wikipedia (DE)
Wikiquote says he didn’t say it, but it’s got a lot of other interesting things he DID say. Always such fun to look into the “received truth” — I might grow up to be a fact-checker.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck
The ONLY thing I expect and demand of any US Judge when applying a ruling is to follow the US Constitution as WRITTEN.
Not as dreamed or wished.