Kennedy stepping down

   As I write this it is Sunday evening. All expectations are that tomorrow, Justice Anthony McLeod Kennedy will retire. The Hon. Judge Kennedy was appointed by none other that Ronald Regan but did not share all of Regan's conservative values. Many will remember Kennedy as the less divisive candidate offed up after Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg became nonviable. A similar battle is expected for his replacement.
   Justice Kennedy's tenure has earned him a reputation as the "swing vote" in many of the landmark cases he has seen. He is considered a reliable vote for all things Gay Rights having voted with the majority in  Romer v.Evans, Lawrence v. Texas, United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v.Hodges. It is hard to imagine his replacement will continue that support.
  Kennedy's other major decisions included:
Citizens United v. FEC
  Kennedy found that you cannot restrict free speech from corporations and unions. This overturned a law that limited/banned them
Texas v. Johnson
   siding with the majority that flag burning was protected as free speech.
Boumediene v Bush
   siding with the four liberal judges that detainees at Gitmo and those designated as enemy combatants have a right to habeas corpus 
District of Columbia v. Heller
  Kennedy sided with the conservatives and ruled DC's ban on handguns was unconstitutional
Florence v. County of Birlington
   Kennedy ruled that people detained and admitted to the general population in prison were subject to strip searches.

If you want to know why all the snowflakes are melting down it is this: Kennedy was a moderate. He could not ever be claimed by either side as a dependable vote for Liberalism nor Conservatism.Liberals will want an identical candidate to replace him and quite frankly, Justice Kennedy proved over and over he was one of a kind.

Obamacare stroll down memory lane

   Some folks seem to either not know or perhaps conveniently are forgetting how "Obamacare" became law. I thought I would help bring some of it back for your perusal. 

   The Democrats controlled all three branches of legislature and were driving this forward against the Republican resistance to a one payer system. Nancy Pelosi could not get their version of a healthcare bill past the Republican opposition. the Senate had a Democratic super majority. They could pass anything against any Republican opposition. Since all revenue bills have to start in the house, The senate grabbed HR3590 a bill about military housing, stripped it of all its original language and stuffed Obamacare into its corpse.

  The Senate usually then sends their version back to the house, a bit of arm wrestling and negotiating happens and a compromise piece of legislation gets passed by both houses. Well, the unthinkable happened during this process. The voters in MA handed "Ted Kennedy's" seat over to Republican Scott Brown. As painful as this was for the Democrats on principle, it was more damaging in its reality. They were about to lose their super majority in the Senate. Harry Reid (D-NV) was in a hard place. If they sent the bill to the House any change made would require a new Senate vote, one he could not get the required 60 votes on. 

   What happened next is why Obamacare failed. rather than iron out a bipartisan bill, Reid met with his House counterpart Pelosi and agreed to pass the unfinished, unpublished, unread bill into law without changes by a party line then the Senate would pass a separate bill called the Reconciliation Act of 2010. That is how Obamacare became law. Sadly had the legislation gone through channels, many of the glaring mistakes would have been repaired and the costs could have been potentially reduced or contained.But, at least we did get perhaps the most absurd political statement of all time from it:

All Amendments Matter

     Most of us heard at least one of Aesop's tales growing up. These fables are by design supposed to make us think and learn. One that I personally think needs more repeating is the story of The Trees and the Axe:
     A Woodman went into the forest and begged of the Trees the favor of a handle for his Axe. The principal Trees at once agreed to so modest a request, and unhesitatingly gave him a young ash sapling, out of which he fashioned the handle he desired. No sooner had he done so than he set to work to fell the noblest Trees in the wood. When they saw the use to which he was putting their gift, they cried, "Alas! alas! We are undone, but we are ourselves to blame. The little we gave has cost us all: had we not sacrificed the rights of the ash, we might ourselves have stood for ages."
    We have to stand when our rights are endangered. Even if you do not own a gun, you need to support the rights of those who do. Look no further than the creep of "Eminent Domain" from taking of private property for public use to the taking of private property for commercial use. This is the nature of decay. It starts with a tiny cut. Unattended, it festers until the host has died. Make no mistake there is an agenda of removing all or part of that pesky Constitution.

“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”
 - Mahatma Gandhi

Who was in charge?

Can anyone, anywhere explain why the DNC would not turn over a compromised email server to find out who was in fact responsible for the hack?  Jeh Johnson had no answers in court today as to why the DNC refused the offer to help. I guess my question is if this was a matter of national security and election integrity (as Democrats now claim it to be) Why were they given an option to deny that help? Who was running the FBI then? Who was President? WHO WAS IN CHARGE???

Karen Handel

Have you noticed that each election since the one that Trump won is going to be a statement against him? Right up until the Trump supporter wins? Then it was a local race with no national significance. Congratulations to Ms. Handel who not only beat her challenger but beat back the liberal special interest money from around the nation! Turns out all the money in the world cant give a California snowflake a chance in Georgia

Feeling the Bern...

I got a kick from the post on FB from the Socialist Senator from Vermont. "The House passed health care bill is the worst piece of legislation I have seen in my lifetime. Now you have a process where maybe a dozen Senate Republicans even know what the bill will look like. Not only is this is a disgrace to the Senate, to the Congress, but it is an insult to the American people. We must stand up and fight back immediately." I find it amazing, astounding even that Mr Sanders has such a short memory. He voted for The Affordable Care Act without ever having read a page of it. I am afraid his offended act on this is as solid as his convictions against corruption in politics. ( Enjoying that big new home, Bern?)

The Unhappy Handshake

    America was built on the art of the unhappy handshake. People of differing views getting together long enough to iron out an agreement that both sides dislike but can tolerate. Somewhere in my lifetime we have lost that art or at least stopped electing people who were willing to practice it.

New Sheriff in town

From both the twitter and FB accounts of Donald Trump comes the following message:
"While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help w/ North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!" That most certainly does not sound like any desire or intent to engage North Korea but rather resolve that we have turned a corner and those options are now gone.
    For those living under a rock, North Korea had held an American, Otto Warmbier,  He was returned to the US in a coma and subsequently died. The grievous charge he was held on? Stealing a propaganda poster to keep as a souvenir. Between the continued provocations of missile launch after missile launch and the declaration that he can now hit American soil, this march has been coming since the 1950s. It is a long popular saying from Voltaire that "Nature abhors a vacuum" but I think that Tennessee  Williams got it right when he said that "A Vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with." We have had a kick the problem down the road attitude with Korea since the end of the conflict. We have supported South Korea in arms and talk but failed to stop North Korea from the slippery descent into the dark minds of the Kims. I feel that the can is about to be kicked in a whole new direction.

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tennesseew138009.html?src=t_vacuumThere

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/vacuum_2.html

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/vacuum_2.html

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/vacuum_2.html