Cheating for Justice

The Battle Over Ginsburg’s Seat Is Set to Be All About Raw Power.  But There’s Still a Way to Show Principles Matter
David French / TIME

The Republican argument for immediately nominating and confirming a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now stripped of all pretext. It’s about raw power. In fact, it can be boiled down to three words – “Elections have consequences.” The Republicans won the presidency in 2016, they held the Senate in 2018, and there is nothing unconstitutional or illegal about wielding that power now, even when Americans are already voting in a presidential election that will end in less than seven weeks. The argument has a certain Machiavellian simplicity about it ….

Cheating for justice is like f**king for chastity: an oxymoron perpetrated BY oxymorons. As in “decent Republican” and “patriotic GOP.”**

I would like to direct your attention to the preamble of the Constitution, not much regarded by jurists, but the words OUGHT to carry the same weight as the other words: the mission statement, the statement of purpose.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Cheating is not justice. Cheating is not just. But cheating seems OK with the liars of the GOP if they can get their way … on judges?

What IS cheating? you might ask.

Oh Nooessss! It’s Salongate! (GOPaganda)

Yes, Virginia, the network that didn’t say a WORD about the blatantly illegal use of Federal resources for Trump’s RNC “Festival of Narcissism” has found a … DEMOCRATIC SCANDAL!

Pelosi used shuttered San Francisco hair salon for blow-out, owner calls it ‘slap in the face’
Brooke Singman / Fox News

—  ‘We have been shut down for so long,’ owner says  —  EXCLUSIVE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited a San Francisco hair salon on Monday afternoon for a wash and blow-out …

Oh MY STARS!!!!

White kid with illegal weapon after curfew shoots two unarmed men dead and the Righties put up crickets.

But a DEMOCRAT gets a haircut … why it’s the END OF THE WORLD!!!!

Let’s dig deep into this deathless scandal, on whose outcome hinges the fate of our nation:

The Festival of Mendacity™ — Law & Order Edition

Trump set to skewer Biden in convention address
Alex Isenstadt / Politico

“We have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years,” the president will say, according to excerpts provided to POLITICO. President Donald Trump will unload on Joe Biden in a blistering convention speech Thursday night, according to two people familiar with the address…

There MUST be a certain horror attendant to a “media” who collectively watch a blatantly criminal conspiracy and flouting of law by using Federal property (The White House, the White House [formerly] Rose Garden, Fort McHenry, the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium*) to enhance their pursuit of “reelection” of a man who shows not the slightest interest in law, in serving the people or anything, frankly, other than serving himself.

A blatant crime (the Hatch Act — which my parents obeyed during their entire professional lives as civil servants) is being committed in broad daylight, but that selfsame Quisling press that betrayed us in 2016 is hard about it again. Good ghod: Pompeo flakking Trump’s re-election from Jerusalem?!?? (An actual crime.) We need to REMEMBER that once the complicit senators “acquitted” Trump of killing people to rig this election … er, withholding military aid in time of war to shake down the President of Ukraine … that’s when Trump knew that no law could constrain him and HE’S RUBBING OUR NOSES IN IT!

[* A federal building. NAFTA was signed there, ironically. “In April 1930, President Herbert Hoover proposed building a $2 million “Departmental Auditorium” to connect the Labor and ICC buildings. President Hoover laid the cornerstones for the Labor/ICC building on December 15, 1932.” Wikipedia]

But the Quisling press can’t seem to find their outrage. Perhaps because for the first time in a American history, six major corporations own most media outlets.

The Trouble With Statues

Here’s a story for you:

Wilson Center [Princeton University]:

Statement from The Wilson Center  —  The Wilson Center was chartered by Congress in 1968 as the official memorial to President Wilson.  The namesake of our institution – while a visionary in international affairs – held racist views and implemented racist policies as President of Princeton University and as President of this country…

And here’s a word for you: iconoclast.

Wild in the Streets

Ah, a poll! Just the thing for a news story when you don’t have any news to report:

 Mark Murray / NBC News:

Poll: 80 percent of voters say things are out of control in the U.S.  —  WASHINGTON — Eight out of 10 voters believe that things are out of control in the United States, with majorities still concerned about the spread of the coronavirus, pessimistic about the economy returning to normal before next year and down on President Donald Trump’s ability to unite the nation.…

Yes. The train is off the rails, but I wonder if people actually realize just how far that actually is.

Here’s another quote from NBC news from the past 24 hours, and it OUGHT to scare hell out of you:

They said they came with shotguns, rifles and pistols to protect their downtown businesses from outsiders. They had heard that antifa, paid by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, were being bused in from neighboring cities, hellbent on razing their idyllic town.

That’s the NBC news story about the “Black Lives Matter” protest in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

President Kafka does his Orwell Impression

 

Here comes the tantrum:

The White House

Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship

—  By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:  —  Section 1.  Policy.  Free speech is the bedrock of American democracy.

“Free speech”?  The Trumpkin is whining because Twitter added two fact check tags to his outrageous lies that voting by mail was massively fraudulent.

The Wall Street Journal defines ‘media bias’ — OOPS!

How corrupt is the Wall Street Journal?

Today, an “op-ed” with “former CBS News” chief Gordon Van Sauter decried media bias. (Except for the little intentionally suppressed fact below).

WSJ.COM

Opinion | The ‘Liberal Leaning’ Media Has Passed Its Tipping Point

A return to balance would be commercially unviable [sic]. The best solution may be an honest embrace of bias.

Van Gordon Sauter
May 25, 2020 2:21 pm ET

The WSJ pushes Sauter’s CBS bona fides, without mentioning his actual tenure (Wikipedia):

Sauter was a two-time president of CBS News, serving as president of CBS News from 1982 until 1983 and again in 1986…. In 1992, he was hired to be the president of the new Fox News division.

America Achieves Herd Inanity

Dear Posterity:

You won’t believe this when you read about it in the history books, so let me assure you, it actually happened.

Trump created a false dichotomy and ordered churches open today, as “essential” — just like meat packing plants and their workers. Yes, it was pandering to the evangelical “base.”

Behind Trump’s demand to reopen churches: Slipping poll numbers and alarm inside his campaign
Gabby Orr / Politico

—  A sudden shift in support for Donald Trump among religious conservatives is triggering alarm bells inside his reelection campaign, where top aides have long banked on expanding the president’s evangelical base …

To safeguard his relationship with religious conservatives, Trump on Friday demanded that America‘s governors permit houses of worship to immediately reopen, and threatened to “override“ state leaders who decline to obey his directive ….“Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential, but have left out churches and other houses of worship. It’s not right. So, I’m correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential,“ Trump said.

“Essential“?

Hold that  thought a minute.

There’s a classic film noir movie that I keep thinking of entitled “D.O.A.”

The lead character has been poisoned and has a few days before he dies.  He has to untangle the mystery of his own murder — D.O.A. meaning “Dead On Arrival.”

No more plot is needed. Amazing film if you want to watch it. My point being:

It’s official! USA now a Banana Republic!

Associated Press:
AP Exclusive: Justice Dept dropping Flynn’s criminal case  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Thursday said it is dropping the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, abandoning a prosecution that became a rallying cry for Trump …

Funny how a “president” installs a “fixer” and suddenly investigations, prosecutions and other legal problems go away. History is rewritten and pardon me because I have to go and throw up now.

Remember, Flynn tried to weasel out of his “guilty” pleas, and the judge asked him straight up: “Did you DO the crimes you pled guilty to?”

The Frankening of Joe Biden

For two days, the Right held a blogswarm, shedding voluminous crocodile tears for one “Tara Reade” over a position that they themselves DO NOT HOLD! Now this:

Kevin Drum / Mother Jones:

So, Tara Reade . . .   —  Did Joe Biden sexually assault Tara Reade in 1993, as she claims?  I don’t know.  As is so often the case, there were no witnesses and no physical evidence, so it’s literally her word against his.

Meet the new Leeann Tweedon, the Sean Hannity contributor who kicked off the media and political frenzy that drove Al Franken from office without even the semblance of due process, but which panicked the Democratic establishment so much that THEY crucified Franken, saving the GOP the trouble.

Then-Sean Hannity regular, Leeann Tweedon
who initiated the “charges” against Al Franken

Rather than Jeff Sessions being referred for criminal prosecution for his perjury in Senate testimony, his questioner, Al Franken, was unceremoniously exiled to Minnesota.