Tuesday October 27, 2020
7 Days until the election on November 3rd
87 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
I was on the way out to an appointment. I turned on the radio. A person was speaking about the night of the election in 1960. That would have been the night of November 8, 1960. I think the person recalling those events was Ted Sorensen. He was talking about being with Jack and his family watching the results on TV. It was too close to call and Kennedy went to bed. Sorensen stayed up and watched. Early in the morning Nixon gave a half way concession speech.
Nixon was in a room with his wife Pat. She was crying. Nixon said that if the results in California kept coming in as they were then Kennedy would be the next President.
He didn’t concede. And why Sorensen wondered would you stand up there with your wife and family members and say what you did? Why put them through that?
By morning it was clear Kennedy had won. Sorensen went to where Kennedy had been sleeping. One of the servants had said that they had heard him moving about. Sorensen went in and said, “Mr. President, you won the election,” or words to that effect.
Kennedy asked about California. He was told about Nixon’s semi-concession speech, or he saw it replayed. His comment?
“That’s Nixon. No class.”
And how far we have come from that day. How far we have fallen. Where “You Suck” is considered appropriate. Where the phrase “Me and him” is used as the subject of a sentence. (ie Just in case you don’t understand the reason for the lament. Both pronouns are the objective case and therefore should never be used as the subject of a sentence. It shows a lack of education – ie class.) But that’s the world we now live in.
On to the events of the recent week:
The Republican Senate rammed through their pick for Supreme Court justice. This makes the third pick Satan has had. The first one was really Obama’s pick that McConnell refused to seat. The second one occurred when Justice Anthony Kennedy suddenly decided to retire, which was odd because he already had his interns all picked out for the season. It turned out that his son had been the guy at Deutsche Bank who had signed off on giving Satan piles of money. Kennedy didn’t want to be the deciding vote in a possible upcoming case that would send his son to jail.
So we got Brett Kavanaugh. Now Kavanaugh lied to the Senate. Accused the proceeding to be somehow trumped up by the Clintons and insulted Senator Klobuchar. I should note that Senator Harris made him cry. I wish that the senators had pressed him a bit more on the lie about “a drinking game.” I mean I guess if you get a woman on her knees and one guy enters her from behind and the other sticks his penis in her mouth you could argue that you were drunk and hence it’s a drinking game, but otherwise – I don’t think so.
Kavanaugh used to hang out with Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Ann Coulter back when they were fresh faced young up and comers (can I say that? “Comers?” ) They went to parties in Georgetown, but who cares? Good fun. I wonder if Laura or Ann … never mind.
So now we get to Amy Coney Barrett. She’s 48 years old, has two years of being a judge, and was rated the least forthcoming of any prospective justice at her hearing. She has written about her opposition to abortion, the ACA, and knows nothing about cases involving race (one of the few things she did concede). It is possible that doctors who practice invitro fertilization could be charged with murder or manslaughter if she gets her way. But let’s not dilly dally on such trivialities. Let’s not talk about her being in a cult religion that says women are to be subservient to men, especially their husbands. Or that she had the title of Handmaiden in her church. Or that she wore the color of a handmaiden the first day of her hearing. No, let’s let all that go, for the moment and let’s see how the conservative justices on the Supreme Court twist themselves in knots as originalists when faced with an emerging set of facts that would – theoretically – disqualify ACB (Hey, cool huh?) from even being considered to sit n the court.
There’s this little thing called “The Religious Test” that says a person can not be considered for a position based on their religion. It goes back to the early 1800s. So to say that this is “settled law” is an understatement.
The Republicans have been jumping up and down saying, “You can’t hold her nutty religious beliefs against her for this pick.” Okay, fair enough. And no one did.
However, it turns out this was not the president’s first pick. No he wanted a Cuban American woman. The religious right wanted a person that they knew would be against Roe v Wade and that was Barrett. Trump had looked at the polls and saw that he was slipping mightily with evangelicals, like 11%. He was desperate to try and get them back, so he went with Barrett.
That’s a no-no. Remember the religious test? Oh yeah. You can’t appoint someone based on their religion and for political purposes.
Well, we’ll have to see what happens.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has said that ballots mailed in that aren’t received by election day can’t be counted in the state of Wisconsin. Nice. Seeing as how the election is underway and the ballots have been mailed and the Postmaster General has done all he could to make sure the ballots don’t arrive in time. But then again the right winger in Wisconsin have a history of pulling these kind of stunts.
Remember Scott Walker? The nebbishy Governor? Yeah, just before the 2016 election he got all the student IDs declared not legal ID for voting. Fishing and hunting licenses – sure. Student IDs – no way. The result? 68,000 students in Wisconsin couldn’t vote and tah-dah the state went to Trump. Good work Scott.
Then as the new governor was coming in, Walker and his Republican buddies tried to strip the governorship of any power. Kind of what Satan’s folks have done in the court system and now trying to do with government employees. Stuffing unqualified toadies in positions of power to gum up the works for the next administration.
I have never seen some commentators so angry, or Senators, or Nancy Pelosi. They are no longer mincing words.
Angus King said it best. In regards to Barrett he said that the Republicans had cheated, no respecting the traditions or rules of the Senate or our democracy and now they want to make sure the Democrats and he an Independent are going to play nice?
Ha.
Let’s hope the outrage lasts.
Oh and then there are the folks putting up Trump 2020 things on facebook and saying stupid stuff like “I bet none of your snowflake friends have the balls to post this.”
Yeah? Here ya go. I bet YOU don’t have the cojones to post this. Go ahead. Make my day.
PS Trump boat at the bottom of a lake in Texas. One of four that sank that day. Not counting the boat that caught fire due to a Trump flag being set on fire by the Trump supporter. Hey, I get it. Accidents happen. Especially, to stupid people.
dean jordan says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wapGhUGxAc&t=197s