Tag: Bill

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Senator Mitch McConnell Discusses Inflation Reduction Bill On Fox News’ Special Report Show

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appeared on Fox News Special Report w/Bret Baier (08/03/22) to discuss the Inflation Reduction Act currently being negotiated in the U.S. Senate. Senator McConnell said he found the way Democrats characterized the bill “laughable”, because in his opinion, the bill actually increases inflation. Senate Democrats appear poised to approve the measure on a straight party vote.

Senator McConnell said this about the Inflation Reduction Act (0:27): “First, I think all of us were somewhat shocked by Senator Manchin’s reversal of positions he’d taken as recently as last week, against raising taxes. This raises taxes, it increases the burden of taxation on lower income people significantly. Calling it inflation reduction bill is rather laughable. Independent analysis indicates it actually increases inflation in the next two years, and may have an impact over ten years, and their policies from last year have already produced 40-year high inflation, so it’s a terrible package. It appears as if they are all in line, but one, it will be up to Senator Sinema from Arizona, who’s quite independent, to determine what the final contours of the bill are.”

Asked about the charge by irate Republicans, that he was “played” by Democrats regarding the reconciliation bill, McConnell responded (1:28): “Reconciliation is something done by one party only. There’s nothing we could have done to prevent the Democrats from doing a bill that only they will vote for, so it’s not a question of being played here, what’s the story line here is that Senator Manchin had agreed to something that he had said publicly and privately over the last two weeks that he would never agree to. We’re not involved in the reconciliation bill. There won’t be a single Republican vote for it. There’s nothing we could do to deter it, other than to criticize it publicly, and that’s what we’re doing right here.”

Host Bret Baier then cornered Senator McConnell with a very interesting question as to why he has repeatedly cited renowned economists Larry Summers and Jason Furman on ways to tackle the current record inflation, yet now he refuses to follow their advice that the Inflation Reduction Act will help reduce inflation? Senator McConnell accused the economists of trying to appease President Biden. He specifically said (2:41):“The quotes they used me in, were Summers’ observations about what they [Biden Administration] did last year. Two trillion dollars they dumped on the economy, that both Furman and Summers predicted would produce rampant inflation, and it did. What they’ve done this year is kind of fall in line, and I assume they wanted to get back on the White House Christmas card list, but people who are not active Democrats, independent observers have said it has no impact on inflation, at all, over the long term, and actually increases it slightly in the short term. So Furman and Summers were certainly helpful as active Democrats in describing last year’s bill, but this year they’re sort of falling in line because I think they want to get back in the good grace of the White House.”

Asked about criticism from House Republicans, some of whom don’t want him as Senate Majority Leader any more, over what they perceive as him being “played” repeatedly by Democrats, and making President Biden look good, McConnell responded(3:55): “Well, I guess they’ve forgotten the Supreme Court that I’ve helped usher into–three new Supreme Court justices, the 2017 tax bill…I think just because you have closely divided government doesn’t mean you do nothing. The past two administrations tried to achieve bipartisan infrastructure, didn’t get it done, we needed to rescue the post office. Just because it’s a Democrat in the White House, I don’t think means Republicans should do nothing that’s good for the country. In the meantime, on the big issues, we are totally opposed to what this administration is trying to do, but on things like school safety, mental health, infrastructure, postal reform, why would we not want to make progress for the country no matter who’s in the White House?”

Asked about reservation by some Republicans, that expanding NATO to include Sweden and Finland, increases the likelihood of sending our troops into combat in Europe, Sen McConnell responded (5:08): “The NATO alliance is the most successful military alliance in world history. The way to prevent Americans from having to actively get involved in combat is to prevent it in the first place, and that’s what NATO is about. It won the cold war without firing a single shot. Putin has succeeded not only in actually expanding NATO and making it even more effective as a deterrent. Remember Reagan said peace through strength, and that’s what NATO is all about, and that’s why Finland and Sweden add a lot to NATO.”

Asked to pick between the Russia-Ukraine war, and the situation at our southern border, which one was a bigger national security threat to the United States, McConnell said both were threats that needed to be dealt with seriously–probably not the answer Fox News viewers obsessed with the southern border, wanted to hear.

Importantly, when asked about his earlier prediction that there would be a “red wave” in this year’s midterm elections, McConnell appears to have had a change of mind (probably due to Kansas), saying now that it will be a “very tight” election. McConnell specifically said (7:02): “I think it’s going to be very tight, we have a 50-50 Senate now, we have a 50-50 nation, and I think when the Senate race smoke clears, we are likely to have a very, very close Senate still, with either up slightly, or the Democrats up slightly”–a far cry from the “red wave” talk we heard earlier in the year from McConnell and his fellow Republicans.

Asked about the Kansas abortion vote heard around the world, McConnell responded (7:35): “I think what the Supreme Court has done is said people who are elected by the American people are going to deal with this highly sensitive issue, and it will be playing out all year, and I don’t think we really know until the end of the year, what kind of an impact putting this issue back into the hands of those of us who are elected, as opposed to nine unelected judges, will have on the country. We’re in the process of finding that out…It tells us that there are a lot of people interested in the issue in Kansas, there’s no question about that.”

Asked whether he would survive his leadership role if “Trumpified” candidates(J.D. Vance, Oz, Blake Masters, Ted Budd etc) win this November, Sen McConnell responded (8:37): “I’ve been elected eight times without opposition. I don’t own this job, and there’s always an election every two years for leader. If anybody wants to challenge me, have at it.” McConnell added that he will still hang on as Minority Leader if Republicans don’t take over the Senate this Fall.

Asked whether, given his lengthy career in the U.S. Senate, there is a single issue the modern Republican Party gets right, which the old Republican Party got wrong, McConnell was all over the place. He didn’t give an answer that specifically answered the question.

Bottom line folks, the key takeaway from Senator McConnell’s interview on Fox News is that the “red wave” fantasy is gone. Republicans now acknowledge that even with the challenging economic times, and President Biden’s low approval numbers, the 2022 midterm elections will be very competitive. Reasonable politicos will agree that given historical trends re midterms, the fact that Dems are even still in the ball game, tells you all you need to know about the state of affairs at Trump’s GOP. 

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CIA Director William Burns Addresses Havana Syndrome Probe And Compensation At Aspen Security Forum

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MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviewing CIA Director William Burns at the Aspen Security Forum((07/21/22)

CIA Director William Burns recently attended the Aspen Security Forum, where he sat down for a lengthy interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Among the notable topics that came up during the interview was the status of the Havana Syndrome investigation and the criteria the agency will use to decide which victims get compensated and which ones don’t.

The CIA has taken a lot of incoming from critics over what many perceive as their reluctance or even unwillingness, to get to the bottom of the Havana Syndrome mystery, so it was quite refreshing to see Director Burns openly addressing Andrea Mitchell’s questions without unnecessarily hiding behind classification issues.

Andrea Mitchell(video at 37:42):“I want to ask you about something that has been going on for six years since the first known case, and that is what the government calls anomalous health incidents(AHI), and which is commonly known as Havana Syndrome. So six years later, do we know anything more about what caused these illnesses?”

CIA Director Burns(38:49):“I think we’ve made significant progress in ensuring people get the care that they need and deserve. We tripled the number of full time personnel in our medical office that deals with this issue. We’ve worked out very important relationships not just with Walter Reed, but with private medical systems to make sure people got the care. On the investigation side, over the course of the last year and a half, we’ve thrown some of our very best officers at this, working closely with partners across the U.S. intelligence community and the U.S. government. It’s fair to say that we’ve learned a lot over that time. There’s still more to learn, it’s a frustrating process, but I have great confidence in the professionalism of the people who are carrying this out, and in their commitment to objectivity. You know, a few months ago, the intelligence community across the board, made public some preliminary findings, the broadest was that we don’t assess that a foreign player, whether Russians or anyone else, is behind, or is responsible for a sustained global campaign, the scale of what has been reported, to harm U.S. personnel with a weapon or some kind of external device. We further stated publicly several months ago, that in the majority of incidents, and we’ve investigated each one as throughly as we possibly can, we’re still working on a number of them, that you could find reasonable alternative explanations, whether it was other environmental factors, or preexisting medical conditions, or other kinds of medical explanations. None of that detracts from the real nature of what people have gone through. We still have work to do despite the progress that has been made in the investigation. This is not something that CIA only is doing, as I said we work very closely with other partners, and I owe it to my officers and their families to be straight about first making sure that they get the care that they deserve, but also being straight about what we find and what we don’t find.”

There’s no other way to interpret Director Burns’ remarks other than(I’ll be happy to stand corrected of course), the CIA probe has confirmed that some of the victims have indeed suffered brain injuries that would be consistent with some kind of external attack, but the agency is not there yet on a definite attribution–that is, reasonable people could reasonably disagree on the causes of such injuries, whether that be directed energy weapons, other environmental factors, preexisting medical conditions etc. In other words, the CIA has not yet singled out directed energy weapons as the definite cause of the brain injuries to U.S. personnel.

The debate then turned to the thorny issue of who to compensate and who not to

Andrea Mitchell:“Congress has authorized compensation. How do you compensate if you don’t know what it is?”

Director Burns:“We are very careful to implement the spirit of that law, which talks in very specific terms about the kind of injuries that people have suffered, and so it’s not a question of causation, it’s a question of what people have gone through, and so we’ve already began the process of implementation and we are going to work very hard at doing that because that’s what people deserve, and that’s what Congress expects.”

Director Burns’ response, that the compensation decision will be based on the type of injury the victim suffered, and not necessarily the cause of the injury, was quite interesting because it plays right into the hands of CIA critics who say the agency is not being candid about Havana Syndrome and its real cause—RF pulsed microwaves/ directed energy weapons. In other words, a lot of skeptics will raise the same question Andrea Mitchell posed to Director Burns—how the government quickly devised a handsome compensation scheme for victims of Havana Syndrome, whose cause the government does not know. No reasonable person believes that the United States, the most technologically advanced nation on earth, does not know what caused the injuries to U.S. diplomats in Cuba and elsewhere.

As usual, the interview never touched on the taboo question as to whether the CIA is looking into claims by regular civilians in the United States(not U.S. government personnel) who started complaining about directed energy attacks way before the reported incident at our Embassy in Cuba. This is a question the corporate media has made a conscious decision not to ask, but need to be asked. Are claims of directed energy attacks only credible when they are made by current or former government officials?

Bottom line folks, it was refreshing to see Director Burns openly discussing Havana Syndrome, but at some point the corporate media will have to drop its self-imposed embargo, and ask the taboo question as to who/what is behind directed energy attacks on regular civilians. There is absolutely no reason why the media cannot pose this question to the CIA, or any other government agency. None!!

Also, if Director Burns can openly talk to Andrea Mitchell about the Havana Syndrome probe, then he surely can entertain similar questions from members of Congress in an open forum.

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Senator Collins Slams Justices Kavanaugh & Gorsuch Over “Inconsistent” Roe v Wade Decision

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An interesting segment on Fox News’ The Story w/Martha MacCallum(06/24/22) delved into the feud brewing between Senator Susan Collins(R-Maine) and conservative Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch over the decision by the high court to overturn Roe v Wade, a 1973 precedent that legalized abortion in the United States. According to Fox News Congressional Correspondent Aishah Hasni, Senator Collins is not just upset because she was misled during the Senate confirmation hearings on questions about respecting precedents, but also because this bombshell decision comes at a time of great division in the country, and she fears the decision will only widen the divisions.

Senator Collins issued a statement saying:“This ill-considered action will further divide the country at a moment when, more than ever in modern times, we need the Court to show more consistency and restraint. Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative. It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government.”

Senators Collins and Lisa Murkowski(R-Alaska) have apparently introduced a bill which aims to codify Roe v Wade, so we’ll see how far that goes.

Bottom line folks, Republicans routinely dismiss criticisms of the out-of-touch Roberts Supreme Court as simply “rantings of the radical left.” it will be interesting to see how they deal with the very sharp criticisms leveled at the high court by moderate Republican Susan Collins, and especially, her written assertion–not AOC’s or The Squad’s–that what the court engaged in re Roe v wade was “not conservative” but rather, “a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government”, which essentially translates to an extremist court.

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Senator Jeanne Shaheen Introduces Additions To The HAVANA Act Of 2021

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President Biden signing the HAVANA Act on 10/08/2021

There were some interesting developments this week in the directed energy weapons front, the biggest one being news that Senator Jeanne Shaheen(D-NH), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has introduced additions to the HAVANA Act of 2021, seeking to make it easier for victims of the attacks to get the medical care they deserve. Details of Sen Shaheen’s additions are included in this 06/16/22 press release sent out by her office.

Senator Shaheen said this about her additions:“No American injured in the line of duty should be forced to fight for or justify their need for medical attention. That’s why I’ve worked across the aisle for years to secure medical benefits for those suffering from ailments as a result of directed-energy attacks. I appreciate the desire from members on both sides of the aisle to make this a priority in the fiscal year 2023 defense legislation cleared by the committee, which will provide substantial funding to investigate the nature of these injuries so we can better care for those afflicted. I also appreciate the inclusion of my provision requiring the Pentagon to produce a report on anomalous health incidents to inform and improve our military’s ability to respond to the threat of AHIs. We need to have confidence in the safety we provide to U.S. personnel and their loved ones when we station them around the globe, which is why it is paramount that we get to the bottom of these attacks to prevent future instances and ensure care to those recovery.” 

The press release from Senator Shaheen’s office comes on the heels of news reports that a piece of legislation introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, seeks to impose criminal penalties on the harmful use of drones. The lawmakers involved are Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Peter Meijer (R-Mich). Among the harmful conduct the bill seeks to penalize, is weaponizing drones with firearms and electromagnetic pulse devices or using them to interfere with aircraft, cars and boats.

This of course raises a whole host of interesting questions, chief among them, whether members of Congress have known all along, that drones armed with electromagnetic pulse devices, could be used to assault civilians? Or are these weaponized drones only used to assault government employees? Hmm, certainly a line of inquiry that the mainstream media could pursue further.

Another interesting development this week, was the unsurprising revelation by a leading national security lawyer, Mark Zaid, that the CIA is not helping out very much with the effort to get to the bottom of directed energy attacks. This prompted the frustrated Zaid to send out a tweet asking, ” What is the CIA hiding?”. Zaid has previously asserted, and backed up his assertions with a document bearing an NSA letterhead, that the agency has been aware of microwave attacks on political dissidents, way before the attack on our diplomats in Cuba.

Bottom line folks, any news that efforts are being made to get to the bottom of directed energy weapons attacks, like we got this week from Sen Shaheen’s office, is welcome news. It cannot be left unsaid however, that there are serious questions among members of the public, as to whether the Pentagon in particular, and our national security establishment generally, are totally clueless about directed energy weapons, and who may be using them for nefarious purposes. It would be very helpful if the government, to the extent possible given classification issues, would level with the public about some of these concerns. Another issue the government seriously needs to level with the public about, is whether regular civilians(not government employees) have also been victims of directed energy weapons attacks, and who’s behind such attacks. Radio silence on this issue is not helpful at all, and is instead spawning wild conspiracy theories.

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Dahlia Lithwick: 1/6 Hearing Established Requisite Intent For Trump’s Criminal Prosecution

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Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick appeared on MSNBC’s The Beat w/Ari Melber(06/10/22) where she made the most compelling legal case yet, for criminally prosecuting Trump. Lithwick told host Ari Melber that the televised January 6th hearings established the mens rea–the requisite intent for such criminal prosecution. Put another way, DOJ has enough evidence to initiate a criminal prosecution against Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 elections because he was told by people he trusts that what he was doing was wrong, potentially criminal, but he proceeded to do it anyway. The only question left is whether AG Merrick Garland wants to criminally prosecute him.

Dahlia Lithwick(1:30):“When[Rep] Liz Cheney said he lit the match, he set the fuse, that is Donald Trump, and it seemed to me the entire organizing theme of last night’s hearing was, this starts at the top…this starts with Trump. And I think it’s almost impossible to look at the videos you just sort of showed in that montage, and not see this animating theme, which is, everyone around Donald Trump told him no. Mark Short, Joint Chiefs, Vice President Pence, his own Attorney General said this is unlawful, you have no basis for this, and he went forward, and so to the extent that there is mens rea–the intent to do something that you know is illegal–we’ve always heard, ‘Oh, Donald Trump can’t form the requisite intent, he didn’t know what was going on, he’s delusional’, well now we know, that’s why Ivanka is important, that the one person he listened to, evidently told him no, and when you have everyone around him telling him no, he can no longer say, ‘I’m not culpable because I didn’t understand what was happening’…”

It cannot be restated enough just how significant, Lithwick’s legal analysis is. The decision by most prosecutors on whether or not to pursue criminal charges against someone, almost always comes down to that Latin phrase–mens rea. If they can show that you knew the conduct you are about to engage in is illegal, and you did it anyway, then that is a case they can secure a conviction for, and you are almost definitely getting prosecuted/charged with a crime. This by the way, is also the reason insane people get off the hook even for serious crimes–prosecutors can’t establish the requisite intent(that the insane person knew what they were doing was wrong). 

Bottom line folks, as Dahlia Lithwick brilliantly laid it out on MSNBC’s The Beat show, after only one public hearing by the January 6th Committee, the mens rea requirements for a potential criminal prosecution of Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have already been met and surpassed, meaning DOJ can easily secure a conviction against Trump if it chooses to criminally prosecute him. The only question left is whether AG Garland has the fortitude, or desire, to do so. 

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Elie Mystal Says If Rep Marjorie Taylor Green Wasn’t A White Republican She’d Be Charged With Perjury

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Elie Mystal on MSNBC’s Cross Connection Show(04/23/22)

Elie Mystal, Justice Correspondent for The Nation and Author of the New York Times bestselling book “Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide To The Constitution”, appeared on MSNBC’s Cross Connection show on 04/23/22. Mystal dropped a bombshell on the show, telling host Tiffany Cross that the only reason Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene(R-GA) has not been charged with perjury for her highly evasive court deposition on 04/22/22, was because she is a White Republican woman. He added that if Reps Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, or Ayana Pressley(all women of color), had engaged in similar conduct, they would have been hit with perjury charges before they validated their parking. Whoa!!

Host Tiffany Cross(video at 1:06):“She[MTG]was clearly involved and I’m just curious your thoughts on what repercussions this case might have on other pro-insurrectionists who are currently in office, or currently running for office?”

Elie Mystal: “Well, I don’t think there are going to be repercussions because she is a White Republican woman, quite frankly. Black people cannot get away with this. The evasiveness that we saw at her hearing yesterday, where she all but perjured herself versus the tape that you just played, Black people cannot get away with that. Everybody at home knows that. Everybody at home knows that if[Reps]Rashida Tlaib, if Ilhan Omar, if Ayanna Presley had tried what Marjorie Taylor Greene tried yesterday, they would have caught a perjury charge before they validated their parking…At the end of the day, what Marjorie Taylor Greene did was perjury and if she was a non-White person, she would be at least been investigated for that. In fact, if she was just a Democrat, she would be at least investigated for that. You know how I know that? Because I’m old enough to remember when Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for less. The evasiveness that Bill Clinton did in his deposition was less than what we all saw Marjorie Taylor Greene do yesterday…Republicans, and White people get away with this all the time.”

There is no other way to interpret Elie Mystal’s remarks other than race and class, even in 2022, are still major factors when it comes to how our criminal justice system makes decisions about who to prosecute and who not to. According to Elie Mystal, White Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the biggest beneficiaries of such decisions because they are almost always let off the hook for conduct that Blacks and Browns would almost certainly be prosecuted for–a sad state of affairs indeed.

Bottom line folks, it’s not a lot to ask that “equal justice under law” mean exactly that–equal justice under law. It doesn’t take a genius to realize, given her numerous public utterances, that Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene serially lied under oath on Friday 04/22/22.

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Harris County Cop Accused Of Robbing Local Asian Businesses While in Uniform

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Harris County Precinct 4 Deputy Constable Bobby Espinoza running away from KPRC2 Reporters in what appears to be an industrial Tyvek suit(04/16/22)

A shocking report by Houston’s KPRC2 TV station(04/16/22) says a Deputy Constable with the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s office, was arrested and charged with felony theft over a months-long scheme(09/2021-03/2022) that involved him harassing and robbing four local Vietnamese businesses. What has shocked Houston residents even more, is the fact that he is alleged to have committed these crimes while in his uniform, and using his patrol unit–all reasonable indicators of a hardened criminal.

KPRC2 reporter Bill Barajas specifically said: “Not only is Bobby Espinosa alleged to have taken thousands from area businesses, he is alleged to have done it while in uniform and in his patrol unit…Espinosa, a Deputy Constable with the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s office, was arrested and charged with felony theft…He has bonded out on a $30,000 bond…Espinosa, wearing a mask and in all white, was quiet. He refused to answer my questions before disappearing underneath a nearby bridge. Court documents obtained by KPRC say Espinosa was with the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s office for seven and a half years. He is accused of demanding a total of $5,700 from four Vietnamese businesses in our area, the scheme allegedly starting in September of 2021, and lasting through March of this year. A probable cause court judge said Espinosa would make customers at the businesses leave, unplug surveillance cameras, and force employees to open up the cash register. He is also alleged to have pried open a game machine.”

Reasonable people will agree that given the fact that this was a months-long scheme, plus done while in his official uniform, there is reason to believe deputy constable Espinosa may have engaged in other criminal conduct during his seven year tenure at Harris County Pct4. It also raises some serious questions about the state of affairs at the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s office. Often times shocking stories like these involving police officers, are usually symptoms of much bigger problems at the police department. Did his peers, for example, know what he was doing, but chose to look the other way? Prior to these criminal charges, was Espinosa ever the subject of a complaint from the public and/or disciplinary action? Was it for similar conduct?

Bottom line folks, these are questions that need to be raised with the Harris County Constable’s office as this shocking case plays out in the courts. Yours Truly, a resident of Precinct 4, will certainly keep up with this shocking case to make sure that Deputy Constable Espinosa is not a symptom of much bigger problems at the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s office. And if it turns out that he is, then other heads need to roll.

**Updated on 04/19/22 to include formal response by Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman, to the news of Bobby Espinosa’s arrest**

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Trump Lashes Out At AG Barr For Not Going After Hunter Biden

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Former President Donald Trump called into Fox News’ Sean Hannity show(04/13/22) where he among other things, lamented the weaponization of law enforcement for political purposes. Trump joked that in the last five years, he has gone through “more investigations than Al Capone, Jesse James and Billy the kid put together.” Yours Truly found this quite interesting because even though weaponization of the criminal justice system for political purposes is a legitimate topic of concern, Trump’s DOJ was brazenly political, especially under Attorney General William Barr. As a matter of fact, Trump admitted to host Sean Hannity that he was frustrated with AG Barr’s refusal to prosecute President Biden’s son Hunter, during the 2020 campaign season.

Trump specifically told Hannity(video at 32:00 onwards): “I’ve gone through in five years, more investigations than Al Capone, Jesse James and Billy the kid put together…They’ve weaponized law enforcement essentially, they’ve weaponized the AGs in the states..and district attorneys…I mean, it’s such a horrible thing that they are doing, and I just don’t think the people of the country are going to take it. but I just, based on past, I think probably nothing will happen[to Hunter Biden]. Look, we also had a chance, but Bill Barr, the Attorney General, didn’t want to be impeached, they[Democrats] were vicious with him…How do you not get impeached? You just sit back and relax and wait out for your term to end, and that’s what he did, and it was a sad thing and a sad day for this country, then he writes his crummy book, which was so false…He was so afraid of being impeached, that he refused to do his job.”

There’s no other way to interpret Trump’s remarks on Hannity other than, he was infuriated by his own AG Bill Barr, for not prosecuting Hunter Biden during the runup to the 2020 presidential elections, a move that Trump knew would give him political advantage over his opponent Joe Biden. This, needless to say, would have been the quintessential weaponization of the criminal justice system. Put another way, Trump is not concerned about the legitimate problem surrounding the weaponization of the criminal justice system, he is just mad that his own AG refused to go along with it when it came to Hunter Biden.

Bottom line folks, as we have seen with many other issues involving former President Trump, projection is always a major theme. As Trump is now complaining about weaponization of the criminal justice system, it must not be left unsaid that his own DOJ was notorious for that. Trump’s remarks also raise serious questions about the Hunter Biden criminal investigation. If Bill Barr was against the investigation while he was AG, why is he now saying on cable TV that Hunter should be investigated?

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Sen Cassidy Says SCOTUS Decision Gutting Voting Rights Act Justifies Restrictive State Election Laws

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Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) appeared on CNN’s State of The Union show (01/16/22) to put forward the Republican position on the push for a federal voting rights legislation(John Lewis Voting Rights Act), and also discuss the related question as to whether the U.S. Senate should change its filibuster rules to allow for the passage of the said voting rights law via a simple majority vote. When asked by host Jake Tapper why Republicans are now opposed to keeping key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act(VRA) intact, when as recently as a decade ago they were all for it, Sen Cassidy gave a strange response which appeared to suggest that because the Roberts Supreme Court gutted key provisions of the VRA in Shelby County v Holder(2013), there is no need to be concerned about discriminatory state election laws–that this is not 1965 anymore, things have changed.

Yours Truly, and I suspect a lot of other viewers too, found Senator Cassidy’s Response quite strange because while liberals agree that this is not 1965, and that progress has been made on the civil rights front, we need to restore key aspects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act because Trump’s GOP is taking us back to 1965. In other words, Senator Cassidy, and by extension the Roberts Supreme Court, are totally wrong in their assessment that simply because this is not 1965, Republican states are no longer capable of crafting discriminatory election laws. The facts on the ground clearly show that after the 2020 election, relying on former President Trump’s “big lie“, many Republican-controlled states have hurriedly enacted election laws that reasonable people agree, disenfranchise voters of color.

Senator Cassidy specifically said on CNNSOTU(video @ 2:20 onwards): “The Supreme Court decided[paused for effect], the Supreme Court decided that the conditions in 1965 are different than the conditions now. Imagine that. We’ve had an African-American elected President of the United States, we’ve had an African-American elected to the Vice Presidency, an African-American elected to the[U.S.]Senate in South Carolina. Now, if anyone can’t see that circumstances have changed, they’re just not believing their lying eye…There’s more to do, absolutely, we need safeguards, but to argue we are still the same as we were in 1965 is to deny facts that are clearly before us.”

There’s no other way any reasonable person presented with Senator Cassidy’s response(including his pause for effect), would arrive at any other conclusion other than, because the Roberts Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 citing changed conditions, the voter suppression laws currently popping up in red states are justified. Think about that, the new Republican rationale for voter suppression, as articulated by Senator Cassidy, is that it’s not a big deal because if it was, the Roberts Supreme Court would never have gutted key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act–a sad state of affairs indeed.

Bottom line folks, Dems must use every tool at their disposal to get holdout Senators Kyrsten Sinema(D-AZ) and Joe Manchin(D-WV) to agree to a filibuster carveout for a federal voting rights legislation before the 2022 midterms because if they don’t, all the gains we’ve witnessed thus far as a result of the 1965 Voting Rights Act will be lost, and the Roberts Supreme Court will not lift a finger to assist. Simply put, it’s now or never for a federal voting rights law that restores key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

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Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick Defends State’s Controversial Abortion Law

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick(R-TX) appeared on Fox News’ Ingraham Angle show(09/02/2021) to defend the controversial Texas abortion bill(SB8), which the U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed to stand. Lt. Gov Patrick told fill-in host Jason Chaffetz that SB8 is simply meant to punish doctors in Texas who perform abortions after detecting a heartbeat.

Lt. Governor Patrick specifically said: “The Supreme Court said in Roe v Wade…that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of life, and that’s what SB8 does. When we pass this bill, we want to give that little Texan in the womb, who has a heartbeat, a chance to see their full potential. And so everyone who is speaking against this bill, obviously for whatever their reason, [is] very comfortable with taking the life of a little Texan who has a heartbeat. Our bill, which has everyone apoplectic on the left, simply says that any doctor who performs an abortion once that doctor detects a heartbeat, can be sued by any citizen in Texas, for up to $10,000, and anecdotally…what we hear now, our Planned Parenthood abortion centers around the state, have stopped doing abortions on little Texans with a heartbeat. That’s the purpose of SB8.”

Abortion has been, and continues to be, a very charged topic in U.S. politics. Yours Truly, the consummate “gentleman and scholar”, believes that it is in the public’s best interests, that the contours of the SB8 debate be clearly defined–that people know exactly what each side is arguing. It is very clear, that according to Lt. Governor Patrick, SB8 is meant to punish doctors in Texas, who perform an abortion, even after detecting a heartbeat. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that point of view is not the issue here. The important thing is that the public is very clear as to the Republican stance re SB8 versus the Dem/liberal stance. Everybody benefits from an informed debate.

It will be interesting to see how the fight over SB8 will play out in the months and years to come, and whether the conservative U.S. Supreme Court will ever entertain a challenge to SB8 on the merits. Until then, as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”

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