USA & Canada : News, Updates & Discussions


The thing with news like this , these days is one can't determine the difference between news & parody. Coupled with Trump being elected & I can see the whole LeLi establishment committing mass suicides but not before taking down half of the US with it.

Hell, the same ones still orgasm to Obama winning the Nobel which he promptly acknowledged by bombing the ME & Africa sending millions of refugees into Europe , a few of whom turned suicide bombers in their host nations. That's par for the course for these lobbies.
 

Real life can be stranger than fiction. BTW, watched Blade Runner 2049, Paddy? A 200 million USD art film masquerading as a mainstream pot boiler. Terrific stuff, great acting, production design, cinematography , script , etc though tediously slow at times. @BMD ; @Ginvincible

The wild fires in California and Oregon are crazy. The pictures look like some apocalyptic movie for sure. Its hard to believe that these images are taken without any filter and that the sky is just red. The air quality must be impossibly bad. Makes me appreciate living in the midwest.

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It's that time of the year now.
I, once read, a long time ago ( around 2001) that once every 20-30 years Americans as a ritual undergo a period of madness .



The last such occasion was in 2001-03 wherein the US in its war on terror launched the invasion of Afghanistan ( justified) & then launched the invasion of Iraq ( unjustified) whereas 2 nations whose citizens were directly or indirectly responsible for the 9/11 attacks & much of what happened later viz KSA & Pakistan escaped scot free & collected billions in aid ( at least in the case of Pakistan) .

Cut to the present day & no to mask, BLM, AntiFa, etc are ruling the roost. As the informed commentator said this madness - it's once every 2-3 decades.
 
I wonder why don't US SC judges ever retire.

They often do. For example Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman on the Supreme Court and she retired and is still alive today! The problem with RBG was her hubris... something that has really plagued the Democrats lately.

She had 5 different cancers and has had failing health for most of the last 20 years. Obama and the Senate Democrats begged her to retire between 2012 and 2014, when they had a clear majority and could have safely replaced her. She refused because she expected Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election and she desired a symbolic gesture of the first women President appointing her successor. Besides there's no way the Republicans can win the Senate let alone the presidency right?!? The Republicans won the 2014 mid-term elections and gained a majority in the Senate and so she lost her opportunity. Now someone ideologically opposed to her will take her seat and make the Supreme Court a conservative veto on any socially progressive issue.

Harry Reid is another politician who should be blamed for all of this. Before him, Senate required a 3/5 majority to confirm a Justice, but he implemented the "nuclear option" during Obama's term and changed it to a simple majority. At the time they justified it by the assumption that Republicans could never win a majority in the Senate again. A "big beautiful Brown wall" will prevent them from ever returning to power in the near future afterall... Normalizing the "nuclear option" allowed Democrats to swear in many new judges, but is now being used by Republicans to stack the Supreme Court.

Worse, the Democrats are going to make another mistake that might actually be the end of the Republic. All morning I've been hearing various Democratic Senators, Representatives, and think tanks threatening to change the number of Supreme Court Justices. See the thing is, removing a Supreme Court Justice requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate, which is tough. But with control of the Presidency and simple majority of the Senate, they can theoretically add as many new Supreme Court Justices as they want. The 1869 legislation that defined appointments said nothing about the exact number of Justices in the Supreme Court at any time, it merely suggested no more than 9 which has been honored since then. The Democrats are saying that they (assuming they win the Presidency and flip the Senate this year) will just stack the court with 2 or more new Justices if Trump appoints a new Justice. Some are even saying to rush 6 Justices and completely disrupt the Supreme Court in the Democrats favor. Then the Democrats need to secure a 2/3 majority in both House and Senate, as well as have control the Presidency and they can amend the constitution to limit the numbers of Supreme Court Justices, give Puerto Rico statehood (assuming they are a Democrat stronghold) and whatever else they need to cover their tracks.....

The problem with this is obvious. This threat is being made with the assumption that the Republicans wont win the Presidency & control the Senate at the same time before Democrats can secure a 2/3 majority in both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. They are again falling for the fallacy that Republicans have no future and that immigration or a brown wave or women or whatever will prevent a meaningful Republican return. If they are wrong, and a Republican presidency with a Republican Senate happens, there is nothing stopping them from simply flooding the Court with Conservative judges. Eventually the court will be so flooded that it will be rendered impotent and will never be able to meaninfully rule on anything. The system of Checks & Balances will collapse as there will be no review on laws passed by Congress or Executive Orders written by Presidents. What Congress can get by the President, and whatever Executive Orders the Presidents pass will be the de facto laws, as the lower Federal Courts are highly partisan and will constantly be in a state of bouncing appeals among themselves, and the Supreme Court will become a lobotomized kangaroo court, incapable of delivering final judgement on anything. The unchecked rise of authoritarians and the end of the Republic.