Long Live The SCOTUS , (just not too long)

 While the likes of McConnell and Graham try to  ram rod a character out of The Hand Maid's Tale on to the SCOTUS bench, and Pelosi tries to lobby support to  pack the court with liberals after the Trump train leaves town,  I say we double down and institute age limits for justices so that a lifetime isn't so long . 

The Supreme Court of the United States is a weird animal. Nine people are selected to be the highest judges of the land, but by Constitutional edict, they have no requirements for education, age or even nationality. Trump could nominate Putin himself to be a justice on the Supreme Court and in all likelihood, McConnell would fall all over himself to get him a hearing. 

Putin, currently a vivacious youngster by our current political standards at the tender of 68, could serve at least twenty or more years and truly turn this Nation into the Oligarchy he has engineered  through Trump for years to come if he sat there. 

What if we said however, that you had to be 70 to take the bench, so in all likely hood no one could do more than 18 years of damage. If they do survive into their Hundreds however, we will get the advantage of their wisdom. Rash dictators like Putin and Nazi marionettes like A.C.B. would never get the chance to  sew women's vagina's shut? 

If we are going to lift the Constitutional  hood and turn the volume of the Court up to eleven, why not stick an age limit on appointees to the highest court in the land that says they can't put the robe on until they are 70. 

People are Living longer 

With seniors living well into their 90's and 100's these days and the idea that the Baby Boomers will run this airline for the rest of eternity, the political elites of both parties are working to engineer a SCOTUS that will serve the needs of the 60 plus crowd for decades to come 

Trump's pick, Amy Coney Barrett is 48 years old. If she is appointed, which from all appearances is going to happen, she will serve a minimum of 30 years.  Kavanaugh is a tender 55 years old, and will more than likely, serve as long or eve longer than RBG, who died at 87 years and served for 27 years. 

If you look at it, the average time served by the current court is just over 15 years and that is because Trump has had two nominees appointed in the last term with a third likely to get the nod. The expectation is that these three justices will have a say in what happens in American juris prudence for the next three decades. 

If that doesn't scare you, then that explains why you send your kids to the Freddy Kruger Day Care and Education Center for Gifted youth. That's a freaking nightmare of the tenth degree to think the these three people, will make up a majority with Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, for at least the next decade and likely longer. 

So then the liberals want to pack the court with at least two or maybe maybe four justices when the Dems get the gavel this Spring and that is just as scary. 

The court could take a liberal sway for the next fifty years, where we are all taxed 50 percent and have to attend historical reeducation camps because they finally wake to the the fact that the Kennedy and Clinton were not heroes, but instead philandering womanizers who turned tricks in the oval office.

We are at a cross roads in our world, where the future is, for the first time in the history of the world, looking more bleak than ever and we are engineering the court to resist change as much as possible by allowing the extending age of people to slow the winds of change. It is happening exactly at a time when we need to speed up our action on key issues like social justice, global warming and fair access to technology. 

What's Good For Two Branches, Should Be Good For The Third

Presidents can't take office until they have maintained a residence here for 14 years and reached the age of 35. Senator's have to be 30 and Representatives have to be 25. Now that I am in my 40's, I think those age limits are a bit too young, but  when the founding fathers came up with them, life expectancy wasn't what it is today. 

In those days, you could die from strep throat or even a rough bout with food poisoning. People were dropping like flies, so they had to get them while they were old enough to not be assholes, but not so old that would die in office. 

No one thought to do that for the third branch though, as their concern was not getting too old, but not living long enough to make a difference. For the first twenty years of the nation no justice served longer than 20 years with shortest service coming from Thomas Johnson who only made for 163 days. It was all the first Presidents could do to fill the court, because they all kept dying off.

It wasn't until 1798 that they would appoint the first justice who would serve 30 years in Bushrod Washington.  If you think about it, he witnessed the Revolutionary War and the advent of modern travel with the invention of the steam train. The world where he started with looked very different than the world he finished with and the law changed considerably over that time. 

Bushrod Washington was only one of only six justices most of whom barely served a couple years. It wasn't until the the twentieth century that it became common place for justices to make to 30 years and no one has ever served more than 36  and that was William O. Douglas who lived until 1980 and died at the age of 82. 

If ACB is appointed and lives to a common life expectancy, we will have Mrs. Waterford in the highest court of the land for at least the next 40 years, if she lives as long as RBG. Odds are however she will be in her 90's when she calls it quits and we will have a cool half century of  "Blessed be" and "Under his Eye". 

If Biden gets the job and stacks the court, he is going  create a court full of Billie Eilish and Justin Bieber and we will have 2020 green-haired popstars with barely dry law degrees running the land until 2080. None of it is good and it seems like we're heading that direction at a million miles an hour. 

Now I am not saying I am a fan of either party or either direction for the court. What I do think though is to change the makeup of the court, which I think we must do if ACB gets the nod, we have to get both houses and the president on board. 

Marco Rubio wants to fix the court at nine and that would require a Constitutional amendment which if Trump gets to preside over the next session may be inevitable. But as I think the Trump train is leaving town, either voluntarily or involuntarily come January, it might behoove all involved to foster the spirit of cooperation in the new congress. 

Maybe we give the Republicans a bone by giving them the votes to fix the court at nine, as long as we institute an age limit on the justices  in the amendment to minimize future damage. Of course, if the libs offered Rubio his bone now, in exchange for tanking the ACB nomination, we could avert 50 years of Mrs. Waterford. Oh to dream. 

Thanks for reading and remember, I'm just a sailor. 

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I'm Mad as Hell- So I voted

I wrote this blog back on March 9th, 2020. Very little has changed other than the fact that we are just days from the election. This should make us all mad as hell. So vote. 

 

 It's Monday. The weekend news was filled with stories of Corona Virus, Democrats hailing the status quo and Trump driving our country right off the edge. The moment couldn't be any better summed up than the photo of Ted Cruz quarantining himself in his home after he brushed up against a CPAC goer who tested positive for the virus. Can things get any worse?

Kamala Harris inexplicably jumped on the Biden bandwagon this weekend after calling Joe Biden out on his  racist stance on cross town bussing for black kids in the early debates. And she joins a list of former candidates and other Dem insiders who have piled on Joe's coat tails with little more justification than he isn't Donald Trump. The ceaseless media blitz in favor of Joe Biden coupled with  Democratic version Arthur Miller's The Crucible, have all but proven that this game is so rigged and this Democratic Nomination is so in the bag for Joe Biden that it would blow Hillary's hair back.

There is pestilence in Africa as locust scour the landscape clean, the brush fires of Australia seem like something out of the Old Testament and plague in the form of corona virus seems to be yet another harbinger that bodes the end of days. The anti Christ Trump has evangelicals creaming in their sweat-stained Sunday best and Climate change has me thinking the seas will turn to blood before long.

Is fair to say "Now is the winter of our discontent?"

But I truly don't believe that the world is ending because hope remains that the second coming of FDR in the form of Bernie Sanders is still possible. The question is, will we put him in power to counter act these signs of Apocalypse or will Biden's Pity Party put us into rewind when all we really need is a hard fast forward.

My thoughts harken back to another time and place, where the people were at their wits end and a feeling that all was lost was in air. It was 1976, the year of my birth.

The country was still reeling from the 1960's, the Cold war was raging across the planet and Oil was at the center of concern when OPEC shut off the tap and caused a world panic. But a breath of hope was in the air as our Nation had it's Bicentennial and God himself seemed to waive the Red, White and Blue. I of course wasn't there, but I have heard the tales of the year I was born in all its faded glory and tales of horror. It was truly a time when we were at a cross roads and that was the year America was given the phrase in the movie Network,  "I am Mad as Hell and I don't want to take this anymore."

And perhaps that is what we need right now, a good dose of pissed off populism with people screaming out their car windows to the world, "I AM MAD AS HELL AND I DON'T WANT TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE." If they could waive a Bernie flag or stick a Bernie Logo on their YouTube Video when they post it, that would be helpful. But really what we need is a rally cry to get people a little more motivated and a little less defeatist. So why not us this to phrase because it all seems to fit so well.

If enough people complained that this is bull shit and that the DNC is pulling a 2016 do-over, the media would talk about that and the stories of how everyone in the DNC and their mother is supporting Joe Biden would be drowned out. But if nothing else, a whole bunch of crazy people posting videos in support of Bernie saying that we are mad as hell and we don't want to take this anymore, would brighten our Monday and give us a little bit of hope that the world is not ending.

Here is mine:

If its the end of the World, I feel fine

 

Just in case the news on CNN has you humming REM to yourself non-stop, and you're like me, reading the Book of Revelations for pointers while you sit in self-isolation considering the possibility that this is the end of days, doesn't mean we have to be so down in the mouth.

Ok sure, the Anti-Christ is in the White House, pestilence in the form of Covid-19 has the Earth by the short and curlies, and UTAH just had an earthquake. Maybe climate change is causing mass famine and Iran, North Korea, Russia and the USA are lining up to take us head long into World War III. And if that's not enough, the Pale Horse Rider is following with his buddy Hades in tow and death is taking a third of the world population right now.

If your Bible is handy, flip to the end of the New Testament and you'll see I'm not making this stuff up. It does seem like, though we are short of seven lamps and a bunch of white-robe wearing elders sitting around worshipping God, that Jesus gave us a road map to the end of times and current events have a eerie similarity.

It's somewhat liberating I guess, because I won't have to pay off my car or my student loans, if I truly think the end is near. But I am not so sure it IS IN FACT going to happen, even if it looks that way today.  So we will be sending payments as soon as our federal bail out check shows up.

But there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, Bernie is working to save the "F-ing world" right now.  And now more than ever, I see a growing crowd of activists beating the drum for progress, even if Biden does manage to steal the nomination.

The people who are fighting for the cause that Bernie started are fighting on the side of the angels, I think. And if there are this many good people in the world. working to fight the forces of Armageddon, I can't really believe all is lost.

Could God really smite the world now, when so many of his children have awoken to the plight of the middle and lower class? Would God really pull the plug now, when we are on the eve of salvation as a Nation?

I was joking with my wife when I finished reading the Bible this morning and told her I was reviewing The Book of Revelations and here's how the conversation went:

I read the book of the book of revelations this morning for shits and giggles

What is wrong with you?

I wanted to see if the world was ending

Watch fucking CNN

Book of revelations is more uplifting

You will KNOW it is more uplifting....and you know the ending.... Eternal life

She has a very astute way of observing the obvious. The Book of Revelations starts with the story of the four horsemen, but ends with the Jesus telling us everything will be OK. It's that kind of assurance you get with faith that you don't get with the nightly news.

If Bernie loses the nomination, which it seems more likely every day,  I think everything will be alright. Sure it seems like it will all end in a sulfur and fire, but in truth, he has set the seed in us and if you need any proof of that, look at the way Biden is twisting towards the progressive agenda.

Oh sure, I know a Biden nomination means a Trump second term. I am sure of that. But there is a ground swell of progressive leadership at the state and local levels and even Trump is picking up the socialism flag with a cash payments to ensure his re-election. It's tough to bad mouth hand outs when you just bankrupted the US with payola to the entire US electorate (except for Millionaires of course).

So maybe the Four Horsemen are rounding the bend and maybe our savior Bernie is ringing out.  But I believe a few things to be true.  Jesus died for our sins so that we might live forever and Bernie has a lit a fire around the World and its up to us to carry the torch through the storm that now rages on. The world is not ending, it's just being reborn and it is ours to rebuild. So smile, it ain't over. Let's get to work.

Besides,  I wasn't such a huge fan of putting Bernie in the hot seat. Look what it did to Obama- it aged him 20 years.   Does any one want to see what 8 years of Presidency would do to our beloved Bernie, who is already the Grandpa of the Millennium?