Sunday Funnies

Cazart! AP calls Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto the winner of the Nevada Senate race. Apparently a truckload of... wait for it... mail-in ballots arrived in the dark of night, putting the lady on top of Adam Laxalt [Where are you going with this? Ed.] by about 6666 votes. Hm. 

Apparently the truck came from Las Vegas. Hm. I can't help but thinking of the fictional Nevada Senator Pat Geary (played by G.D. Spradlin) in The Godfather Part II. 

Although AP shows the Senate standings tied at 48-48, with Alaska and Georgia to be finalized, in practice, counting in the "Independent" Bernie Sanders, and Vice-President Harris' casting vote in the event of a tie, it looks as if the Democrats will be in control of the Senate. So Americans can look forward to two years of Congressional stalemate.

Two years of wrangling, two years of stagnation, two years of frustration. Not a pleasant thought for a Sunday morning, so fuggedabahtit for now. Here's a brilliant bit of humour from English comic actors Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

Further viewing: The two starred in the cult classic Bedazzled, which you can find on YouTube if you look. It's worth watching just to see Raquel Welch as Lillian Lust!

Walt wishes Senator Warren good luck running for President!

The ladies who blab at The View and the lamestream media generally are gushing [Please don't go for a cheap joke... yet! Ed.] over reports that Senator Elizabeth Warren has formed an exploratory committee to see if it would be feasible to throw her headdress in the ring for the presidensity of the Excited States of America in 2020. She would presumably be vying for the Democratic nomination, along with at least a dozen other presidential wannabes including Senator Bernie Sanders [Isn't he an Independent, again? Ed.] and Senator Camela Harris. But Ms Warren is the first to announce, and that oughta count for something, right?

Senator Warren became a darling of the left in 2011 when she appeared in a viral video in which she defended federal taxes, which she spoke of as a form of "social responsibility", against the efforts of the newly-elected Republican majority in the House of Representatives to resist the efforts of the Prez [Who? Ed.] to raise taxes as an alternative to cutting out-of-control federal spending.

Before entering the Senate, Ms Warren had a job teaching bankruptcy law at Harvard. Her appointment had something to do with the university's affirmative action programme, but we'll come to that in a minute. In the aftermath of the financial meltdown of 2008, she was named by Guess Who to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel which oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the government's trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street.

Sadly for Ms Warren, her reach exceeded her grasp. She jumped the shark [for the first time? Ed.] when she proposed the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an agency that lacked congressional oversight, and which many conservatives contended was established in violation of the Constitution. Republicans in Congress blocked her appointment to lead the new agency, but she rose, phoenix-like, from the ashes of that defeat to become a Senator from Massatushetts.

During her campaign for the Senate, it was discovered that Ms Warren had somewhat overstated her claims of Cherokee heritage, made at a time when Harvard Law School was under severe pressure to hire and promote female and minority faculty members. Critics took to calling her "Pocahontas", after the famous 17th-century daughter of an Indian chief and a popular figure in American history and pop culture.

Donald Trump stuck the "Pocahontas" appellation on her during the 2016 presidential campaign and she has worn it, along with "Fauxcahontas" and "Focahontas" ever since. Obviously stung by suggestions that she was guilty of cultural appropriation [at least! Ed.], Senator Warren took a DNA test a few months ago, and thought it not unwise to publish the results showing that she might have 1/1024 Native American ancestry. (Apparently there aren't enough full-blood Indians in the database to give reliable result.)

Though Senator Warren and her supporters touted the results as proof of her family lore, critics noted that it may actually have proven the opposite, since she had no more Native American ancestry than a typical white American like, for instance, Joy Behar. Being a charitable person, Walt accepts Ms Warren's claim for what it's worth, and wishes her well in her quest to run against President Trump. Anyone wishing to place money on the outcome of a Trump-Warren race should contact me at the usual address. Your dollar gets 1000 of mine if Focahontas wins. Lifetime pct .989.

Senate confirms Kavanaugh, another win for POTUS!

By a 50-48 margin, the United States Senate has voted to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.



Further comment will follow, but you know already know what I'm going to say... right?

Worth watching: "How the left lost the Kavanaugh fight", Tucker Carlson on Fox News, 5/10/18. "Activists no longer try to convince anyone of anything. They just scream and bully."

VIDEOS: Trump emphasizes weakness of Ford's testimony. FBI report to find "no corroboration". Walt predicts Kavanagh confirmation

Triple headline today because I want to tie everything together so the inevitability of the confirmation of Brett Kavanagh as the next Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States will be apparent.

Let's start with President Trump's speech Tuesday night at a rally in Southaven MS. In the style of a trial lawyer addressing a jury, Mr Trump summarized the key questions and answers in the sworn testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, line by line, to show the total inadequacy of her recollection of the alleged assault for which Judge Kavanagh is being pilloried by the anti-Trumpers (whose real agenda is protecting Roe v. Wade and "abortion rights"). In case you missed it, here's the clip they're all talking about.



For speaking plainly and forcefully about the gaping holes in Ms Ford's story, POTUS is being criticized for being insensitive, callous, misogynist, yada yada yada. A Republican senator called his remarks "just plain wrong", without specifying (because she couldn't) what was wrong with what he said. Here's the response from the President's Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.



This morning it appears that President Trump was not wrong to suggest that the whole Ford assault affair, the whole he-said-she-said circus is nothing more than a Democratic Party tactic to delay the confirmation of Judge Kavanagh, and, in spite of all the sturm und drang, a dog that won't hunt.

The New York Times claims to have spoken late last night with an unnamed official (surprised?) who was briefed on the FBI's investigation into the allegations of Ms Ford (and two others), who told them that the report, now in the hands of the White House, found no corroboration of the sexual assault allegations.

The unnamed official said the FBI contacted ten people but interviewed nine in total, and that the White House concluded that the interviews didn't support the allegations. The Wall Street Journal, citing people who it said were "familiar with the matter" also reported that the White House found no corroboration.

Seems to me that should be about the end of it, even for the Republican ladies and Senator Flakey. Ms Ford has had her 15 minutes of fame. The Democrats got their investigation, and it came up with nothing. Nada. Zip. It will be hard, now, for the doubters to vote against confirmation, which could come as soon as the day after tomorrow. Lifetime pct .988.

Further viewing: Down in The Remnant Underground, Michael Matt has a wholly different take on the Kavanaugh nomination hearings. What he calls the "witch hunt" is all about one thing: liberal America's commitment to human sacrifice and moral chaos. Watch and think!

Here come da judge!

Three cheers and a tiger for Judge Roy Moore!!! To no-one's surprise (except perhaps the Republican establishment), the firebrand former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court soundly defeated Senator Luther Strange in a special primary runoff yesterday.

Since Alabama is about as solidly Republican as it's possible to be, Judge Moore's election to the United States Senate in December is now just a formality.

The New York Times calls the outcome of the closely watched race "a humbling blow to President Trump and other party leaders days after the president pleaded with voters in the state to back Mr. Strange." It is not.

To be sure, Judge Moore was opposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican grandees who have opposed and obstructed President Trump. What was strange (pun intended) was Mr Trump's endorsement of Senator Strange. It's never easy to read the President's mind, but I think we can put this down to loyalty. During his short term in the upper house of Congress, Senator Strange was a strong supporter of the President, voting the right way as and when required. The President's endorsement recognized that.

But... a couple of days ago President Trump uttered an aside -- almost a throw-away line -- to the effect that his endorsement of Judge Moore might have been a mistake. I don't think it was. I think (and I am waiting for Scott Adams to say something similar) that Mr Trump gave Senator Strange his stamp of approval knowing that doing so would: a) placate the Republican establishment and show himself to be a team player, b) confuse the progressives and snowflakes who can't imagine voting for anyone that Mr Trump likes, and c) fire up the populists and hard right (Hello, Steve Bannon!) and make them work even harder to get Judge Moore elected. Which is exactly what happened!

To me, the selection of Judge Roy Moore bodes well for the future of the USA since it shows that voters are not as concerned as the liberals, SJWs and lamestream media... not to mention the United States Supreme Court... about the separation of church and state. Judge Moore stood up for Christian values -- the values on which America was founded -- on issues such as "gay marriage". In 2014, in an interview with AP, he declared, "The moral foundation of our country is under attack," and that the "government has become oppressive, and judges are warping the law."

Judge Moore is also famous for his refusal to remove from his courtroom a plaque showing the Ten Commandments. (The statue shown in the picture came later.) He told the Montgomery Advertiser that his intention in hanging the plaque was to indicate the importance of the laws given by God to man. It was not his intention to create controversy, he said, but "I wanted to establish the moral foundation of our law."

What is law but the expression of a set of principles and beliefs? Certain things are right; certain things are wrong. The question to be answered is which set of principles and beliefs should have the force of law in our society.

Do you want to live your life according to the customs and practices of Islam? Then you have no problem with Sharia law (but see "Sharia Law: Saudi king pardons gang-rape victim", WWW 26/9/17). Do you think the code of laws which govern our daily behaviour should have no reference to any religious creed? What you want then, is a legal code based on secular humanism, which is just as much a religion (belief system) for the liberals and progressives as Islam is for the Muslims or Christianity for traditional Catholics and evangelical Protestants.

Judge Moore stands for and stands up for the old-time religion, the Christian values on which the USA was founded, which, if restored to their rightful place in its courts and legislatures can indeed Make America Great Again. God bless him!

Walt's take on the Comey "revelations"

James Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee (seriously, that's what they call it) was kind of a damp squib, wasn't it. I'm so glad I didn't get up at sparrow fart and join the crowd at Shaw's Tavern to watch the proceedings on TV. The only good thing about it was that in some areas it pre-empted The View. Here's my immediate, ultra-simplified reaction to the clips I saw on the news.

According to Mr Comey, President Trump lied. So what? Every president, every politician lies. President Obama lied. And President Clinton lied under oath. When it comes to lying, Mr Clinton retired as the undisputed champeen. There's not a lie he didn't tell. "I never had sex with that woman." Hah! Q. How can you tell when a politician is lying? A. His mouth is open.

According to Mr Comey, President Trump said that he hoped Mr Comey would "let it go", referring to an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his alleged ties to Russia. So what? Presidents hope a lot of things. President Obama probably told somebody he hoped the Democrats would let Hellery Clinton go. Did Mr Comey believe the President was trying to obstruct justice with that comment? Mr Comey said he did not believe he was being ordered to drop the probe, but he did take Trump's comments "as a direction" that was meant to be obeyed.

Speaking of which, how about the "direction" from former Attorney General Loretta Lynch that the investigation into Mrs Bill Clinton's e-mails was to be called a "matter", not an "investigation". And speaking of President's trying to influence (if not obstruct) the course of justice, what do you suppose was said in the lengthy meeting between Ms Lynch and President Bill aboard his airplane in June 2016? Could the phrase "let it go" have been used? Last month, Mr Comey said that purely chance meeting forced the FBI to distance itself from the Justice Department.

Read more about the Lynch-Clinton meeting: "Comey: Lynch's Private Airplane Meeting With Clinton Spurred Email Disclosure", US News & World Report, 3/5/17.

My take on the whole foofaraw: It doesn't matter who's President or which party is in power. If you think the Deep State doesn't exist, or if you believe everything done by America's "justice" department and security "system" is apolitical, I have some land in central Florida I'd like to talk to you about.

Footnote: Some of Mr Comey's testimony raised questions about his own actions. For example, he admitted leaking a memo he wrote describing his conversations with President Trump, via a friend. His excuse was that he needed to get that "out into the public square", that he didn't do it himself "for a variety of reasons," but thought that his leak might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. A pretty surprising statement, given that Mr Comey himself was highly critical of other leaks.

Mark Rozell, dean of George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, told CBC News that Mr Comey, by admitting to the leak, "doesn't come out looking entirely clean." "Rather than giving the information out himself and bearing direct responsibility for that action, he snuck it through a personal friend, a university professor, knowing that he would leak it to the New York Times."

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, wrote in his blog that he found Comey's admission about the leak "deeply troubling from a professional and ethical standpoint." "If Comey was sure of his right to release the memo, why use a law professor to avoid fingerprints?"

Further reading: Rex Murphy explains why American politics is an embarrassing mess: National Post, 9/6/17. Hint: It's not only Donald Trump's fault!

House votes to stop taxpayer-funded abortions

Those who have doubts about the power of prayer were surprised, or reassured, or both last week when the US House of Representatives passed a comprehensive ban on the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions.

Bill H.R.3, called the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” was approved on May 4 by a vote of 251 to 176. Every Republican Congressperson [or whatever they're called now. Ed.] voted in favour, but Democrats voted against it, 175-16. Former speaker Nancy Pelosi, who claims to be a Catholic, argued against the bill, especially the "conscience clause".

If passed by the Sentate, the vote would make permanent the ban on public funding for abortion known as the “Hyde Amendment,” which now requires annual renewal. The bill would bar the use of federal funds to pay for abortions under the new national health-care plan. The legislation also includes the aforementioned “conscience clause,” preserving the right of health-care workers to refuse to be involved in abortions.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has welcomed the House passage of the act.

“By passing the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, the House has taken a decisive step toward protecting human life, reflecting the will of the American people,” said Deirdre McQuade, of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.

“H.R. 3 also protects the civil rights of health care providers who conscientiously object to involvement in abortion,” she added. “The great majority of doctors, nurses and hospitals do not perform elective abortions. Catholic health care, the largest and highest quality nonprofit health care network in the country, rejects all direct abortions. To penalize these providers or push them out of the system would cause great harm to patients most in need.”

The act now moves to the Senate, where "analysts" expect that it will be defeated. But remember the power of prayer...and the power of popular protest. I would write to my Senator, if he could only read. If your Senator can read, send him/her a letter. Send a copy to the editor of your local newspaper. Make your voice heard by man as well as by God.