Posts Tagged ‘joe biden’

If Dianne Feinstein is suffering from cognitive decline and is unfit to serve, then why she still a senator?

Posted: January 29, 2023 by John Ruberry in congress, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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Feinstein official Senate photo, retrieved from her website on January 29, 2023

By John Ruberry

Nearly overlooked earlier this month because of the drawn-out vote for speaker of the House was the breaking of seven decades of precedent in the upper chamber of Congress in the election for largely ceremonial post of president pro tempore of the Senate. Largely ceremonial only up to a point, that is. The holder of that position is third-in-line in presidential succession. Every president pro tempore elected since 1949 had been the longest-serving senator from the majority party. The dean of the Senate is 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein, she has been representing California since 1992. But Patty Murray of Washington, who is a relatively spry 72, was elected president pro tempore, which ups her salary a bit and earns her a security detail.

Feinstein reportedly declined to run for president pro tempore.

Concerns about Feinstein’s mental acuity go back to 2020, when she praised then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsay Graham (R-SC) when the confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett concluded. “This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” she told Graham before hugging him, “I want to thank you for your fairness.” 

Personally, I think Graham did a decent job during those hearings, but Feinstein overlooked–or should I say she couldn’t remember–that during the Donald Trump presidency it was the duty, in the eyes of the Democrats’ hard-left base, for every Democratic member of Congress to RESIST Trump and the Republicans.

Shortly afterwards, Feinstein stepped down as the ranking Democrat of the Judiciary Committee.

Last spring, her hometown newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, spoke to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as ex-Feinstein staffers, about her mental state. And all of them, anonymously, told the Chronicle that because of memory issues, Feinstein appears unable to serve as senator.

More bluntly, in my words, it looks like Feinstein can’t do her job.

“I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn’t resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea. All of that is gone,” a California House Dem admitted to the Chronicle about Feinstein. “She was an intellectual and political force not that long ago, and that’s why my encounter with her was so jarring. Because there was just no trace of that.” 

The same article offered up this damning quote, “There’s a joke on the Hill, we’ve got a great junior senator in Alex Padilla and an experienced staff in Feinstein’s office,” a former staffer said.

Last year the New York Times described an experience that will be familiar to anyone who has witnessed a friend or relative suffering from cognitive decline.

One Democratic lawmaker who had an extended encounter with Ms. Feinstein in February said in an interview that the experience was akin to acting as a caregiver for a person in need of constant assistance. The lawmaker recalled having to reintroduce themself to the senator multiple times, helping her locate her purse repeatedly and answering the same set of basic, small-talk questions over and over again.

Tellingly, a visit to Feinstein’s Senate website offers up a photo of her that appears to be a couple of decades old. That’s the pic you see in this entry. Click here for a more recent photograph.

This month, two Democratic southern California members of the House, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, announced they are running for Feinstein’s seat–her term expires in 2025. Schiff, who repeatedly lied about having evidence proving Trump-Russia collusion, claims he informed Feinstein of his intentions. Believe that if you want to. 

Other candidates are expected to declare their candidacy. Feinstein hasn’t said anything yet, but she’s expected to announce that she will not be running for reelection. 

Clearly, Feinstein should have resigned for health reasons at least three years ago. 

One way to minimize the chances of having senators–and House members–suffering from cognitive decline is to enact congressional term limits, even though that may mean amending the Constitution. Besides, serving in Congress should be a highlight of someone’s career–not the entire career.

Feinstein’s sad situation is not unique in Washington. Two Republicans who served with Feinstein, Strom Thurmond, who ended his 48 years in the Senate at 100, and Thad Cochran, who resigned after 39 years in the Senate, suffered cognitive challenges late in their careers, as well as one Democrat, Robert Byrd–he died in office when he was 92.

For five months in 2001, at the age of 98, Thurmond was president pro tempore. And when Byrd died, he was president pro tempore of the Senate. Hey, hats off to the Democrats for bucking tradition by electing Murray over Feinstein for that post.

Besides congressional term limits, America also needs smarter voters. Although by all accounts Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is a healthy 89-year-old man. Last year he was just elected to his eighth term. Grassley is a former president pro-tempore.

Having wiser and less selfish members of Congress is probably too much to hope for.

Mental issues can burden younger persons too.

In Pennsylvania, 53-year-old Democrat John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke last year, successfully ran out the clock in his successful Senate election, despite speaking struggles in his few public appearances and a disastrous debate performance. 

Joe Biden turned 80 last year and he’s expected to run for reelection. Biden has had many mental miscues in his two years at president. But that’s a problem well worth another discussion.

Please don’t call me ageist. If heart ailments, cancer, accidents, or infectious diseases don’t conquer me first, I am certain that one day I will suffer from cognitive issues. 

UPDATE February 14: Today Feinstein announced that she won’t seek reelection. Call me ableist, agist, or whatever. But Feinstein should have quit at least two years ago. She can still resign.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

A Federal Government powerful enough to take our gas stoves was not the government created by our Constitution

Posted: January 19, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Last week the internet exploded with outrage over the federal government’s proposed banning of gas stoves.  The justification for this contemptible behavior is the same tired excuse all of the petty Coronavirus tyrants used to justify the trampling of everyone’s rights and freedoms. As you can see from this Chicago Tribune article, they claim to be doing this for our health.

Gas cooking in the home was linked to a 42% higher risk that children would have asthma, in a 2013 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The study, a meta-analysis combining the results of 41 previous studies, also suggested a 24% increase in children’s lifetime risk of asthma.

A subsequent study found that longer use of gas stoves caused higher nitrogen dioxide levels, which in turn were linked to increased nighttime inhaler use in children with asthma.

Homes with gas stoves have nitrogen dioxide concentrations 50% — 400% higher than homes with electric stoves, according to a report by the clean energy nonprofit RMI.

A 2022 study in Environmental Science and Technology found hazardous air pollutants, including the carcinogen benzene, in natural gas used in Boston-area homes, and a 2020 report by RMI found that gas stoves often create indoor levels of nitrogen dioxide that exceed EPA standards for outdoor air.

Just as with climate change and the Coronavirus tyranny, the proposed gas stove ban is based on junk science.  The authors of the study used to justify this outrage are climate change fanatics.

Several listed coauthors are affiliated with groups pushing net-zero and decarbonization. Talor Gruenwald is a research associate with Rewiring America, a self-described “leading electrification nonprofit, focused on electrifying our homes, businesses, and communities.” Another listed author is Brady A. Seals, manager of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Carbon-Free Buildings program (a backer of the study). Seals isn’t a scientist or health professional. Her RMI department advocates constructing zero-carbon buildings, retrofitting 5% of buildings each year, and ensuring “electric and efficient appliances.” 

The authors used fabricated data and dishonest methods such as this.

 another expert told a separate media outlet that the researchers had encased the kitchens in a Mylar tent to “trap and concentrate the emissions, and then measure the concentration. ” No one cooks in a kitchen like that! He said it would “incorrect” to draw any health conclusions from the paper.

Thankfully for us, the outrage generated by the proposed gas stove ban was so overwhelming that the ban was rescinded, for now.

The federal government created by the US Constitution was never granted the authority to regulate the commercial activity of businesses and individuals in any way.  It was never granted the power to ban any product, let alone gas stoves. 

In the 1940s the federal government granted itself the authority to micromanage all aspects of the United States economy by rewriting the plain meaning of the Commerce Clause.  As you can see from this excerpt from the Preface from the transcripts of the debates that occurred during the writing of the Constitution, the Interstate Commerce Clause was written only to prevent the States from imposing taxes and tariffs on the large-scale transportation of goods between the States.

The want of authy. in Congs. to regulate Commerce had produced in Foreign nations particularly G. B. a monopolizing policy injurious to the trade of the U. S. and destructive to their navigation; the imbecility and anticipated dissolution of the Confederacy extinguishg. all apprehensions of a Countervailing policy on the part of the U. States.

The same want of a general power over Commerce led to an exercise of this power separately, by the States, wch not only proved abortive, but engendered rival, conflicting and angry regulations. Besides the vain attempts to supply their respective treasuries by imposts, which turned their commerce into the neighbouring ports, and to co-erce a relaxation of the British monopoly of the W. Indn. navigation, which was attemted by Virga. the States having ports for foreign commerce, taxed & irritated the adjoining States, trading thro’ them, as N. Y. Pena. Virga. & S–Carolina. Some of the States, as Connecticut, taxed imports as from Massts higher than imports even from G. B. of wch Massts. complained to Virga. and doubtless to other States. In sundry instances of as N. Y. N. J. Pa. & Maryd. the navigation laws treated the Citizens of other States as aliens.

Has the Left Demoted Joe Biden from “Useful Idiot” to Just Plain “Idiot”?

Posted: January 14, 2023 by datechguy in politics, Uncategorized
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A couple of days ago I theorized that the reason you are seeing all this document stuff is that it’s a way to push Biden aside without implicating anyone else in the administration or the party.

The media’s sudden interest in the story suggests I wasn’t just whistling dixie. Ed Morrissey:

 the coverage of Joe Biden’s classified-documents scandal has shifted in tone — noticeably. Until yesterday’s appointment of a special counsel by Merrick Garland, every major media outlet treated this scandal as a cynical GOP-generated distraction from Donald Trump’s legal fight over classified material held at Mar-a-Lago.

At CNN this morning, however, Don Lemon — Don Frickin’ Lemon! — scolded Chuck Schumer for trying to blow off serious questions about Biden’s behavior

Surely you jest but there’s more

Let’s take a look at the coverage on CBS News this morning, where the hosts expressed considerable frustration with the White House and especially  press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “For the second straight day,” anchor Errol Barnett notes, “[s]he has not answered a single question, outside of a prewritten statement by the president’s lawyers.”

And that was before still more classified documents were found in his home (hopefully he keeps it locked too)

Our side has had a real field day with this stuff:

The Biden classified documents scandal is not a serious scandal. The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan is a serious scandal. Biden’s refusal to faithfully execute his duties as president of the United States by securing the southern border is a serious scandal. The Biden family pay-to-play escapades are a serious scandal. And the weaponization of the FBI and the intelligence community to interfere in the 2020 election and hand Biden the presidency is a serious scandal. This is not.

Laughable. Delicious. Outrageous. It is all those things and becomes more so by the day, with news that more classified documents are reposed in a residential garage, in addition to the closet at a D.C. think tank. And the story just becomes funnier the more the corrupt press tries to distinguish Biden’s possession of classified documents from Trump’s because Biden himself on video declared the possession of classified documents in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home to be “just totally irresponsible.”

Newsweek smells a rat:

But the timing of the leak from various federal law enforcement actors now, just as Biden is beginning the second half of his term, suggests there is real internal turmoil over at the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Perhaps someone at the DNC instructed Deep State spooks that now would be a particularly propitious time to leak sordid details to the media. Perhaps someone at the DNC thought that Joe Biden did his job by shepherding his party through the midterms without succumbing to the much-feared “red wave,” but that he is now disposable and should be replaced at the ballot in 2024 by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). Loath though I am to speculate, it is difficult to think of a sounder explanation as to why, only now, all of this is coming out.

Biden was useful in his time but in the end the marxist left is a group who believes in utility. As soon as a useful idiot is no longer useful they are discarded (see Cheney Liz). The only thing Joe Biden is really skilled at besides collecting his 10% is going after his enemies so if you are the left and want Biden to go quietly into the sunset you need something like this to get it done.

It’s a sad thing to watch a useful idiot be demoted to just plain idiot but nobody deserves it more than Joe Biden.

An un-elective despotism is exactly the government we have now

Posted: January 12, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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As I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed I came across the following fragment of a quote from Thomas Jefferson, “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.”  It appeared to me that Jefferson accurately predicted a couple hundred years into the future because his quote almost perfectly sunned up conditions existing here in the United States now.  The only discrepancy in the quote is the fact that the Biden regime is unelected, thanks to the theft of the 2016 presidential election from Trump.

Despotism is one of those words I’ve encountered over and over again and was 99 percent sure I knew what it meant.  I looked it up to be sure.  Here is a definition of despotism from Google.  It corresponds with my understanding of the term.

A country or political system where the ruler holds absolute power.  The exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel an oppressive way.

I looked up the original source of the quote and found it here, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia written in 1784.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. 

The Constitution properly distributed government power between three federal branches, with proper checks and balances.  Also government power was distributed between the states and the federal government.

Progressives began transforming the United States from a constitutional republic into a full-fledged despotism over a hundred years ago by concentrating the majority of all government power into an enormously overblown executive branch of the federal government. The United States is now completely a despotism.

In his farewell address George Washington also warned that the concentration of power would lead to despotism.

The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

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