Collins and Murkowski should abstain

Namely, both senators should abstain from the vote for confirmation if it is held before Election Day.  If their opposition is to the timing and not the nominee, why should they vote no?  Both senators have made clear that their opposition is to the timing.

American Thinker  "As the Holy War concerning filling Justice Ginsburg's seat begins in earnest, one question the Republican side and President Trump should certainly pose is, what would the Democrats do if the situation were reversed?  Without question, they would have a Democrat president nominate a new justice, and the Democrat Senate majority would rush to confirm that nominee.  In all likelihood, Democrat discipline would work to hold their majority together, and the nominee would be confirmed.

"Already, two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have indicated they would not vote to confirm a newly appointed justice before Election Day in November.  Collins has gone farther, indicating she would want the newly elected president to fill the seat.  If the winner is Trump, then in essence she is saying she would consider voting for Trump's nominee, probably to be announced this week, if the confirmation vote were held after Election Day.  

"Collins has never opposed a Supreme Court nominee proposed by a president from either party since she took office.  She has supported well over 90 percent of judicial nominees proposed by President Trump.  She may be trying to restore her reputation of independence among voters in Maine, who at the moment appear to favor her rival, Sara Gideon, for the Senate seat being decided in less than seven weeks.  Collins voted for Brett Kavanaugh and made a principled, comprehensive presentation of her reasons for doing so.  Her vote was the one that put Kavanaugh over the top. " . . .

Thanks, Fox News, for reminding us of the Soros role in creating America's riot-coddling DAs

One thing we do know, is that Soros is powerful, and he uses his money to wield power. He's also on record as trying to overhaul the justice system. It might not just be the district attorneys that he controls for this, based on this shabby treatment of Gingrich, he might just control at least some of Fox News. 

 Monica Showalter   "Fox News has drawn our attention to the fact that George Soros is bankrolling the leftist district attorneys who are fostering so much rioting in America's blue cities, based on their refusal to prosecute looters and rioters.  But probably not in the way the network meant to.

"Here's what went down over at the semi-cheesy news commentary show called Outnumbered, whose format is a group of leggy women sitting on a circular sofa with some man in the news and grilling him with chick-like excited shouts and exclamations.  It's now a Zoom thing without the leg business.  In this case, it led to a very unexpected outcome: 

. . . 

"What an amazingly insulting way to treat a supposedly honored guest, a former speaker of the House.  Look at the shock on Newt's face at that shutdown.  They invited him on, they asked him his take on the leftist riots in America's blue cities, and they got an answer: Gingrich pointed out that the  riots were happening because of district attorneys, financed by George Soros, who refuse to prosecute rioting.

"It wasn't really news.  Nor was it controversial.   It's been reported in detail by conservative outfits for years.  Fox News itself, news division, reported it.  What was strange was that bizarrely unprofessional reaction from this one show, and from hosts whom most viewers have trusted and respected, such as Harris Faulkner and Melissa Francis.  The leftist flak for the Obama administration, Marie Harf, no journalist, could be dismissed, given that she is no stranger to boldface lying for her bosses to sing for her supper.  But why was Francis the first to bring it up, only to have Harf as her growling dog backing her up with her absolutely adamant call not to engage Gingrich?  What did he say that was so evil and unfit for TV?  Note that Harf was unable to cite any reasons — she has none; she just wanted to play commissar censor and, like all commissar censors, had a whiff of fear of those above her.  Note that booming, croaking, dead-toned angry adamant voice, like that of an upset socialite or desperate high school principal.  Shut up, she explained.  It really was remarkable.  She really didn't want any discussion or even mention of Soros.  But why did Faulkner coolly move on after cutting Newt off?

"The strange behavior of Francis and Faulkner actually drew more attention to the issue because we expected better." . . .

. . .

People are never far away from the N-word or the label 'racist"

 

http://www.terrellaftermath.com/

Distrust in The Media Has Reached Unprecedented Levels, Poll

 Pippa Monroe   "The American public has lost trust in their media's capability of delivering unbiased news, a worrying development for any functioning democracy, according to a recent poll.

"The key finding of “low levels of public trust in the nation’s polarized media environment” arrived in a survey last month by the Knight Foundation and Gallup Inc., which tracks public sentiment about media.

"Pollsters found a general consensus that the media was necessary to ward off misinformation, but few Americans believe the press is doing it properly.

“ 'Most Americans have lost confidence in the media to deliver the news objectively,” said Sam Gill, Knight’s senior vice president and chief program officer.

“This is corrosive for our democracy.”

"According to the poll, more Republicans  (71%) than Democrats (22%) and independents (52%) have unfavorable opinions of the media." . . .

On Justice Ginsberg

 Justice Ginsburg's Last Words  "Nina Totenberg recounts Justice Ginsburg's final message to the public:

Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

"Ginsburg could have said, "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until after the election," or even "After the inauguration." Rather, she said she did not want to be replaced "until a new president is installed." If President Trump wins re-election, then a "new president" will not be "installed" until 2024. (Barring impeachment or resignation, of course.) If Ginsburg meant these words literally, then her seat would remain vacant throughout the entirety of Donald Trump's second term. Merrick Garland could not be reached for comment.

"I am disappointed, but not surprised by Ginsburg's parting shot. First, he has placed even more pressure on the Supreme Court, which was already under great stress. Second, she has placed a bullseye on whomever President Trump nominates. "Honor her wishes" will become the new "Win one for the Gipper." Third, if Trump does fill the vacancy, Ginsburg's words will be used as the rallying cry for Court Packing.

"Imagine for a moment that Justice Scalia, on his death bed, said that "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

"This is not the first time Ginsburg hoped a different President replaces her. In July 2016, she gave an interview to Mark Sherman of the Associated Press. Ginsburg said, in so many words, that she wanted Hillary Clinton to replace her:" . . .

No mercy for leftists: Fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat now  . . . "Some Democrats have brought up Merrick Garland, who was nominated by Obama but failed to become a SCOTUS judge.  The GOP objection was that Obama was in the last six months of his second term, so the upcoming election should decide.  Democrats will be quick to point out this occurrence, labeling it hypocrisy for conservatives to replace RGB when they rejected Garland.

Other leftists urged Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell to lead the way by not filling a SCOTUS seat this close to an election.  He concluded with: “You’d agree with this, especially in light of the Garland precedent, right?” 

Except, that’s not what happened.  The Merrick Garland circumstance was different because Obama was in his second term, and there would be a new president in six months, no matter the outcome.  In this instance, we might have the same president in six months.  What makes it worse is Democrats did not set any “precedent” by deciding it wouldn’t be fair to fill an open SCOTUS seat only months away from a new presidency — they tried to ram judge Garland down our throats anyways(sp)! " . . .

It's imperative that Congress immediately confirms a new Supreme Court justice  . . . "Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death didn’t just leave a vacant seat on the Supreme Court. It left a court evenly divided Supreme Court between four leftist justices and four strict constructionist justices. With his usual acumen and clarity, Ted Cruz explains why an evenly divided court is a recipe for a civil breakdown.

"We can all understand the reasonableness of having an uneven number of Supreme Court justices: It substantially diminishes the likelihood of a stalemate. However, Ginsburg’s death means that, as we head into the most contentious election process in American history, the Court has eight justices. Worse, the justices are split evenly along ideological lines.

"On the one side are the so conservative justices. In this context, conservative means that they believe that the Constitution as written, and as its authors intended it to be understood, must be the single-most-important document in any judicial analysis. Next in order of importance for analysis are acts of Congress, again to be interpreted as Congress intended when it passed the documents.

"Regarding that last analytical metric, Justice Gorsuch failed horribly when he imputed transgenderism to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, despite his monumental slip-up, Gorsuch has mostly been a reliably “strict constructionist.” The other strict constructionists on the Court are Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh."

Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news

Who knew that my love of that Emperor classic is just another expression of my fascination with strongmen like President Trump?

  Silvio Canto, Jr.  "This is going from insane to whatever the next level is.  The latest target of the cancel culture is ... Beethoven. 

"This is from Jonathan S. Tobin:    

Think some things are so beloved and essential to Western civilization they can’t be canceled? Think again.

 

If there’s anything we should have learned from months of “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter street protests, statue toppling and online mobs seeking to silence anyone who dissents against leftist narratives about “racism,” it’s that no one, living or dead, is safe from the attentions of woke fascists. Even Ludwig van Beethoven.

 "Yes, think again, but it's the same old song:  Ludwig is now a racist, a beneficiary of white privilege and there was no diversity in his orchestra.

 

"Yes, Beethoven's music is everything that's wrong with Western civilization:

 ".....a stuffy elitist classical culture that bolsters the rule of white males and suppresses the voices of women, blacks and the LGBTQ community."

 "Who knew?  I used to buy my late father Beethoven CDs for Father's Day.  I love the "Piano Concerto No. 5" also known as the "Emperor."  Who knew that my love of that Emperor classic is just another expression of my fascination with strongmen like President Trump?

 

"This is all crazy and good people need to stand up and tell these "wokes" to stop it."

 

The Same Old, Same Old California Suicide

 Victor Davis Hanson

Tech titans and Bay Area Bourbons grow rich, the middle class flees, forests burn.  

Fall is almost here in California. So we know the annual script.

A few ostracized voices will again warn in vain of the need to remove millions of dead trees withered from the 2013–14 drought and subsequent infestations, clean up tinderbox hillsides, and beef up the fire services. They will all be ignored as right-wing nuts or worse.

"Environmentalists will sneer that the new forestry sees fires as medicinal and natural, and global warming as inevitable because of “climate deniers.”

Late-summer fires will then consume our foothills, mountains, and forests. Long-dead trees from the drought will explode and send their pitch bombs to shower the forest with flames." . . 

"Once can anticipate Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s next move because, beneath her self-righteousness, she will predictably be silly, often cruel, and entirely hypocritical. She may be the only House speaker in history to publicly tear up the president’s State of the Union address, after he customarily handed it to her on live television. She worries whether we are Christian enough in welcoming illegal aliens and sacrificing during the quarantine, while she shows off her designer ice cream in her designer Sub-Zero refrigerators in her designer wine-country palazzo — surrounded by the sort of “decorative” fences and “modest” gates we are assured are not walls to keep out those who, she lectures us, are California’s blessed future.

. . . How long can a state suffer the rich Bourbons of the Bay Area?  

"As long as its brave nobodies still drive ’dozers right into conflagrations to create lifesaving fire breaks, as long as its despised farmers continue to serve as the nation’s food basket, as long as unheralded pilots fly blind into smoke to drop fire retardant, and as long as there is something left for the parasitical elite of the rich inheritance from California’s brilliant and industrious but now long-dead past"

Did Biden Really Just Rehash the Story That Torched His 1988 Presidential Hopes Last Night?

 Townhall  "As Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist noted, some in the liberal media tweeted the excerpt out last night unaware of the devastating impact it had on Biden’s campaign in the 1980s. Also, it’s in keeping with other lies Biden has doled out about his academic record. He’s no scholar, folks. And at times when he’s spoken about his high IQ with regards to his supposed academic achievement—there’s no evidence to demonstrate that point at all. In fact, during his years in law school, Biden actually plagiarized some reviews there as well (via The Federalist) [Bold text indicates Biden’s rant]:

Biden’s first failed run for the presidency was ended by his dishonesty over his academic record and his plagiarism, including the biography and speeches of British Labor politician Neil Kinnock.

On a campaign stop in New Hampshire in 1987, a voter asked Biden where he attended law school and where he placed in his class.

Biden lashed out at the man angrily, making a series of claims that were not true:

BIDEN: I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship, the only one in my — in my class to have a full academic scholarship. In the first year in law school I decided didn’t want to be in law school and ended up in the bottom two-thirds of my class, and then decided I wanted to stay, went back to law school, and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I won the international moot-court competition. I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits — I only needed 123 credits. And I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours if you’d like Frank.

It turned out that Biden did not receive a full academic scholarship, but a half scholarship based on financial need. He did not end up in the top half of his class, but near the very bottom. There is no record of him winning the moot court competition. He did not receive the outstanding student award at the University of Delaware. And he graduated with only one degree.

Worse, a release of his academic records showed that Biden had plagiarized five pages of a law review article.

Tunnel Wall covered this some time back:

"A September 17, 1987 broadcast of the PBS NewsHour discusses how Joe Biden’s 1988 presidential bid was derailed by charges of plagiarism."

. . . . . . "But Biden’s exit from the 1988 race is worth recalling in detail, because his transgressions far exceeded Obama’s own relatively innocent lifting of rhetorical set pieces from his friend Deval Patrick, which occasioned a brief flap last February. Biden’s misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect. In some ways, the 1988 campaign—in which scandal forced not just Biden but also Gary Hart from the race—marked a watershed in the absurd gotcha politics that have since marred our politics and punditry. But unlike Hart’s plight, Biden’s can’t be blamed on an overly intrusive or hectoring press corps. The press was right to dig into this one.." . . .

Joe Biden Plagiarized Neil Kinnock’s Life Again . . . Joe has Lost his Grip on Realilty and That is Dangerous  . . . "everyone in the media younger than 45 seems to lack any recollection of the events of 1987 when Biden declared his candidacy for President in June, only to withdraw from the race in September after it was revealed by the New York Times and Des Moines Register that Biden’s biography as delivered in his Iowa stump speeches that summer included significant events from the life of Kinnock – as described by Kinnock in his own speeches." . . . And it led to his withdrawing from that presidential race.

There are still Fox News shows worth viewing

 American Thinker   "Okay, Fox News is changing.   I hear the complaints.  But for me, I change with the times.  When it comes to Fox News, I now apply a concept in medicine called debridement.  Debridement is  the selective removal of damaged tissue from a wound.  Fox News is now wounded and infected by liberalism.  Still, as a consumer of news, I have the freedom, and the duty, to remove programs infecting this news network from my viewing 

schedule.  That's why God invented the DVR.  There are still parts of the Fox News network worth saving, and I have that power in my personal viewing.

"So here's my list of programs between Fox News and Fox Business I record and selectively view every day:

• Varney & Company
• Fox and Friends
• Lou Dobbs Tonight
• Evening Edit
• Tucker Carlson Tonight
• Hannity
• The Ingraham Angle

"I quit watching Fox News daytime programming after 9:00 A.M. E.T. and Fox Business after noontime quite some time ago.  Frankly, I have a mix of news and opinions that I want and have the time to view.  After all, time is a finite resource, and we all have the personal responsibility to manage it well." . . .

CNN is busy rewriting history to blame Trump for the riots

 Bookworm

The polls show that the public hates the “mostly peaceful” riots, so CNN published a deeply dishonest “article” blaming Trump for the riots.

. . . "With lock-stepped, statist precision, the Democrats in the media and in political positions turned on a dime. Suddenly, Biden was no longer talking about peaceful protest. Instead, in one of the most dishonest speeches in American political history, he accused Trump and an imaginary horde of right-wing militias of causing the violence in America. As was the case at the convention, the words Antifa and BLM never passed his lips.

"CNN, which was at the forefront of the “peaceful protest” meme, has now published a hysterical screed that is, if possible, even more dishonest than Biden’s speech. Let’s start with the title: “Trump’s depraved plan to try to win reelection.”

"Over the years of blogging, I have read many media articles that played with the truth or presented an alternative view of facts. In my entire life, though, I have never seen anything like this. The author, Frida Ghitis, a former producer and correspondent for CNN who also writes for the Washington Post, is delusional. Or if she’s not delusional, she’s evil, for only an evil person could lie with such fervor and aplomb.

"The remainder of this post fisks her article. There’s a lot of dishonest filler, which I’ll ignore. I’m just going to go for her purported “facts,” each and every one of which is a lie or something that mutilates a small core of truth:

That Trump wants chaos and mayhem is not a secret. It has been confirmed repeatedly by his team. In one of her last Fox News appearances, his now-former strategist Kellyanne Conway confirmed what we all knew: “The more chaos, anarchy and vandalism reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order,” she said. Lara Trump, daughter-in-law and campaign adviser, later told Fox that the violence is bringing voters to Trump.

"Breitbart debunked this. I’ll just summarize. Pete Buttigieg was one of the first to blame Trump for the violence. When Conway appeared on Fox and Friends, someone asked her about this claim. Conway referred to this video, where the speaker is obviously a Democrat furious that the mob’s violence will undoubtedly push people into Trump’s camp:" . . .

Netflix needs to pay a price for Cuties, its pedo sexploitation movie

The young actresses in Cuties will never regain their childhood innocence. Their only path is to try to follow Cardi b and become rich through rapping and dancing porn. But most likely, they will just gyrate for drunks in a sleaze joint.

 Bookworm Room  "Lulu, a mental health therapist specializing in children, wrote this essay to explain everything that’s wrong with Netflix showing Cuties."

. . . "Much has been said already, but not nearly enough, about the perverseness of Netflix and this grotesque film, Cuties, which masks itself as art but is, instead, for those too

sophisticated to side with Trump supporters, a socially-acceptable presentation of child porn and the sexualization of pre and pubescent female bodies (11 years old). This is dangerous stuff.

"Bookworm has written many times about the Left’s sexualization of children, from little boy drag queens performing before adult men stuffing money in their pants, to drag queens reading storybooks to preschoolers in libraries, to the sexual transitioning of elementary (and younger) aged school children, to the recent advocacy for loosening restrictions on adult/child sex in California. Netflix, however, has touted this film as a celebration of female empowerment and exploration of sexuality. Sure it is.

"There should be no surprise that this film closely follows Cardi b’s number one song about female genitalia and overt sexual activity. Who is listening to her music? Where are their parents?

"No doubt, the little girls in the film imitating Cardi b’s dancing style have learned that this is what our society expects of them. But we are not empowering women. We are debasing them. We all know Joe Biden granted his first interview to Cardi b, singer of female genitalia porn songs. Maybe someone could ask Joe about this and why Cardi b is allowed to divorce her occupation from her interview.

"But perhaps Joe actually is among the designated audience of Cuties. Netflix, can you clarify who the designated audience is?" . . .

A few last thoughts: What do Netflix content power consultants Michelle Obama and Megan Markle have to say about this film? Do they want to be associated with a streaming site that exploits the sexuality of prepubescent children of color? Does their continued association and silence mean they value money over the safety of children? Isn’t silence consent?  And what of Prince Harry? Should he speak out? He has a moral platform since his uncle Prince Andrew has been tainted by his visits to Epstein’s pedo-island. And what about you, Barack Obama, father of two young women?

Five Quick Things: The Most Shamefully Dishonest Campaign in Political History

 "Lying is all Biden & Co. are cut out to do."

http://www.terrellaftermath.com/

Jack Cashill  "Did you happen to see, by any chance, the interview Bret Baier did on Fox News with a soy-eater named T.J. Ducklo, who serves as the national press spokesman for the Joe Biden campaign?

"If you didn’t, you really missed out, because it was pretty destructive. And with that, we’ll launch into our Five Quick Things, which all fall under the category of evidence that the Biden campaign is the most shameless pack of liars ever unleashed on the American people.

"This is by no means whatsoever an exhaustive list. It’s simply the first five things that came to mind. We could easily come up with 25 more. You’re welcome to put your own nominations into the comment thread below.

"1. Joe Biden never opposed the China travel ban.

"Seriously. That’s Ducklo’s statement in the Baier interview on Wednesday. He actually said that Biden never opposed it.

"Biden said Trump’s ban on travel from China, which was more or less the first thing the president did when the full scope of COVID-19 began to unfold in late January, was racist.

" 'This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia, hysterical xenophobia, and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science,” he said on the very day Trump announced the ban.

"Two months later, when it was obvious the travel ban was the right call and the American people fully recognized just how awful the Chinese communists were in spreading COVID-19 around the globe, Biden quietly jumped on board with the travel ban." . . .

"It’s laughable, but it isn’t the most laughable thing Biden has going." . . . Summary follows:

2. Biden wouldn’t really end fracking. Honest!

3. It’s really Trump who’s pushing those riots in Democrat-run cities, folks.

4. Mask mandate? Who said anything about a mask mandate?

5. Whaddya mean, defunding the police? Trump is the one who wants to do that!

And how about this?  Biden Promises to Control the Weather

"Even as demagogic campaign rhetoric goes, Joe Biden’s speech earlier this week about Trump as a “climate arsonist” was exceptionally absurd. He blamed Trump in effect for not controlling the weather, implying that a Biden presidency would eliminate extreme weather events. Barack Obama famously said that he could stop the rise of the oceans. Biden is making similarly grand claims."