Fellow blogger ‘Toritto’ is an insightful and excellent writer. Take a look here at what he’s saying about The Donald. Could not say it better than he does!
Well folks, Donald Trump rolls on toward obtaining the nomination of the party of Lincoln while his two main rivals Cruz and Rubio continue to split the Trump opposition between them. Now I conside…
Source: The Lust for Power
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[The President] shall nominate, and, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
So reads Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States.
The late Justice Scalia, as an originalist, would insist that the plain meaning of the original words in that document are and shall always be the meaning of those words. The word ‘President’ means and shall always mean ‘President.’ The plain meaning of that word cannot be construed to mean ‘President-elect’ any more than it can be construed to mean ‘former-President.’ It plainly meant and means the President in office at the time of a vacancy for which an appointment is called. Justice Scalia was very clear that the Constitution is not a living document to be changed by textual whim.
The current whining insistence by Senator McConnell and others, that the President in office ought not make an appointment to fill Scalia’s vacancy is plainly either a blatant statement of disrespect for originalist theory or a blatant disregard for law, the fundamental law of our nation.
The Senate Majority Leader apparently thinks disobedience of the law is a matter of political convenience. While I do think the Constitution is a living document (the document defines itself as such by anticipating amendments), it is not so animated a document that it can be given a leave of absence by legislators for their party’s convenience.
Do your job, Senator McConnel, or leave it undone, but do not think for a moment that by not fulfilling your elected Constitutional responsibility you are innocent of breaking the law!
Oh, but I forgot, politicians are exempt from obeying laws; shame on me.
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Well, it is looking like we will have two choices in left-of-center candidates.
Hillary Clinton invites us to trust the status quo, to settle into stasis.
Bernie Sanders incites us to revolution, to radical change.
Hillary suggests we settle for working in partnership with The System for what is probable.
Bernie foments an uprising against a rigged system for what is possible.
Hillary affirms we participate in practical incremental reform.
Bernie asserts we join a rebellion against the patient progress that has left us in this mess .
‘Delegate equivalents,’ whatever-the-hell ever those are, give Hillary the lead out of Iowa but actual votes in New Hampshire will probably give the lead to Bernie.
So, it appears that we can choose a future that is yet to unfold or a future that has already happened. Back to the future is not an option for me.
Of course, to even think of the other Party is to long for a nostalgic past that looks like Reaganomics, sounds like Jim Crow and resembles the ‘Mission Accomplished’ of ‘W,’ ‘shock and awe’ and all.
I find it almost incomprehensible to imagine that anyone would consider anything that even resembles what we’ve had in the Bush-Obama continuum.
OK, Hillary has served well as Senator and as Secretary of State, and I do really want a woman as our Chief Executive, but the former First Lady is not the female who portends any change in our national identity. I’ll take an ageing, male, liberal Jew who sounds like he dozed off when FDR was President and awakened only recently to discover that nothing has changed in half a century.
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Today I received an email from ‘Faithful America’ lamenting the fact that Ted Cruz has claimed that Christians gave him the victory in Iowa. ‘Michael,’ of Faithful America, begs me to ‘chip in’ some small contribution to reclaim the faith for the real followers of Jesus.
Did it ever occur to ‘Michael’ that ‘Faithful America’ is very much several days late and several dollars short? The South and ‘Bible Belt Christianity’ was lost to ‘Faithful America’ in the late 19th Century. I’d say it was about the time of the election of an Ohioan, James Garfield, to the Presidency. Only States above the Mason-Dixon line elected him. The South was left to the Jim Crow suppression, humiliation and subjugation of the newly freed slaves. With Nixon’s southern strategy, the Republican Party became equal to and coincident with the Jim Crow South, thus finally, in the 20th Century, abandoning the proud heritage of the Party of Lincoln.
My own denomination, Methodists, split over the issue of slavery in 1844 (a bishop was a slaveholder!), into the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church South. The reunion of that denomination did not happen until 1939 when the two ‘Methodist’ (Wesley turned over several time in his grave) denominations formed ‘The Methodist Church.’ That glorious reunion was accomplished by the apartheid separation of ALL black congregations into a ‘separate but equal’ ‘jurisdiction.’ This moral blasphemy was not amended until 1964 when the ‘Central Jurisdiction’ (the apartheid jurisdiction) was eliminated (on paper).
The fault, dear ‘Michael’ (the name identified as representing Faithful America) lies not in our stars but in ourselves (to coin a phrase). It is the fault solely of Christianity at-large. Christianity at-large has abandoned the poor, the LBGT among us, Blacks, Latinos and the working class in favor of helping the Christian Institution survive. Too bad, but too late with any appeal to save the Church. The Church is gone. Good riddance!
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Sanchismos 