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A little-noticed casualty of Democrats’ impeachment push against President Donald Trump last year was gun control, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., says.

In an interview for my book, “Abuse of Power: Inside the Three-Year Campaign to Impeach Donald Trump,” Massie noted that the president was ready to pull the trigger on a federal law allowing orders to disallow possession of a gun because of extreme risk, commonly known as a “red flag law.”

“I’ve told my colleagues, the one good thing to come out of impeachment is that it knocked gun control in the head,” Massie said. //

Pelosi pushing for impeachment pretty much scuttled gun control efforts that appeared to be all but a done deal.

The Democrats in the House wanted it. President Trump signaled his willingness to sign it. Republicans in the Senate were ready to defer to the president. All the stars had aligned. We were going to get gun control.

Then Pelosi went after impeachment.

At that point, Trump no longer had any reason to work with Democrats. Republicans in the Senate were now free to oppose the bills and let them die from inattention. Gun control was no longer going to happen because the parties weren’t interested in doing anything.

Especially since every Democrat had to know that impeachment wasn’t going to go anywhere in a Republican-controlled Senate.

Pelosi caved to the more extreme elements of her party and the net result was nothing. Most Americans don’t even think about impeachment anymore. Sure, they might remember it happened if someone brings it up, but they don’t consider it on a day-to-day basis. Meanwhile, a national-level red flag law would have played on everyone’s minds as reports surfaced of just how many times it had been used.

That’s not likely to work out well for them come November.

I, for one, have to thank Pelosi for that. Her plan yielded Democrats absolutely nothing, but especially no gun control, something the party has campaigned on for ages to some degree or another.

Her self-preservation instincts worked out well for the pro-Second Amendment side.

We have become insanely driven by the idea that the other side is the enemy and that they must be defeated in court for a victory to have any real meaning.

And what is it that we’re fighting over, here? It’s a broken race for a broken court. We are, as a society, so dependent on lifetime political appointments because we have given up on things like legislating and negotiating. We would rather allow a group of nine people to tell us what is right and what is wrong than fight in the legislative chambers to get the most done for as many people as possible.

The Supreme Court’s job is to tell us what is constitutional and what is not, with the great irony being that the power to do so has no constitutional grounds whatsoever. It was invented by the Court early in its history, and ever since — though particularly in the modern era — we have deferred so much to it that we have created the power it wields. Power the Constitution never originally gave it.

The system, from our political values to our political system, is broken. That, in turn, has broken the branches of government and thrown out the balance of power the Constitution built.

This isn’t just empty rhetoric, they mean it. And packing the court with at least two additional seats—one for Ginsburg and one for Merrick Garland, whom Democrats feel is entitled to a seat simply because President Obama nominated him—is just the beginning of what Democrats will try to do if Biden wins the election. Schemes are now afoot to pack the court, abolish the Senate filibuster, and grant statehood to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.

What all these moves have in common is that they would erode the constitutional mechanisms in place that Democrats see as impediments to their complete control over the levers of government power.

Expanding the number of states, for example, is a work-around for what they would like to do but can’t quite bring themselves to say outright: abolish states’ equal representation in the Senate. Why, they ask, should sparsely populated conservative states like South Dakota get as many votes in the Senate as California and New York? By adding what Democrats believe would be permanently blue states, they could cement their control over the Senate and stop worrying about what Americans in South Dakota or Wyoming think.

The same logic applies to getting rid of the Senate filibuster. Once Democrats are in control of the Senate, why should a minority of GOP senators be allowed to stop them from carrying out their designs? The common thread here, from court-packing to new states to ending the filibuster, is that Democrats believe they have an obligation, once they gain power, to ensure they never lose it again. If that means shredding the parts of the Constitution that have held them back in the past, then so be it.

That, in turn, means there’s more at stake in November than the electoral fortunes of one Donald J. Trump. The Constitution itself is on the ballot.

Unlike pontificating career politicians pandering to the radical left, Trump doesn't talk at his supporters. He talks to them. //

One attendee after the next echoed similar sentiments. When asked what they consider to be the most important issue in 2020, voters didn’t reply with typical red-meat conservative talking points, such as abortion or the Second Amendment. They used big-picture words like “freedom,” “safety,” “law and order,” and “the future of the country” — big concerns on the minds of everyday citizens who truly believe America is great and want to keep it that way. //

Watching Trump at one of his rallies rounds out the profile of the enigma in the Oval and solves any remaining mysteries about how a reality TV star with little decorum became the commander in chief.

When Trump uses MAGA verbiage or tells unpresidential jokes, he isn’t “playing to his base.” He’s just talking to them in their language. When Trump jokes about the Wisconsin weather and how many TVs are on Air Force One — “I said, ‘How about giving me a coat?’ They have everything on Air Force One, that’s the great thing, got more televisions than any plane in history. They’ve got televisions in closets, on floors, on ceilings” — the people laugh and joke along because those are just the sorts of comments they would make around the dinner table about the presidential plane. //

“I made one mistake. I should have said, ‘We will not build a wall!’ Then they would have insisted that we build it. I could have saved two years of litigation,” the president declared. “‘We will not build a wall under any circumstances,’” Trump continued, imitating himself. “Then Pelosi would say, ‘We demand that you build a wall!’ These people are terrible.

One hundred years ago, the United States faced an ugly reality that anticipated ours in 2020. The aftermath of World War I included economic depression and turmoil. A flu epidemic added to the chaos and struck down hundreds of thousands of Americans in the space of a few months.

Wages for working men had remained stagnant during wartime, but the removal of wartime controls meant prices of regular goods and services were skyrocketing. The popularity of communism and anarchism appeared to be growing. Riots and strikes in major American cities — from Boston to Seattle — were described with horror in the daily newspapers. //

In such a moment, Calvin Coolidge’s firm opposition to lawlessness as governor of Massachusetts made him famous. Voters rewarded his resiliency during the Boston Police Strike of 1919, along with his combination of courage and integrity. In two years, he was vice president. Two years later, he was president.

The parallels between his time and our own are instructive. If ever there were a need to recover his constitutional and political vision and apply it to our own day, that time is now. Constitution Day is an appropriate time to start. By recovering Coolidge’s understanding of the Constitution, we can begin to move in the right direction. //

Coolidge responded to such critics indirectly. Rather than quibble about economic data or dispute the endlessly disputable details of the Constitution, he underscored its religious foundation. It was important to remember these facts, he explained, because “No people can look forward who do not look backward. The strongest guarantee of the future is the past.”

According to Coolidge, America’s political principles were logical developments from its history, and at the center of American history is the story of religion. The earliest colonies were carved out of the wilderness so the colonists might worship God according to conscience. They were born in a desire for freedom, and this desire matured with time. //

Coolidge asserted that the Great Awakening was influential in expanding the American view of individual liberty and rights. The Awakening and its truths were essential in the success of the American Revolution and the formation of the Constitution. He explained: “The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them.”

For Coolidge, it was the Constitution that brought the principles of the Revolution to full maturity and practical significance. The adoption of the Constitution of 1787 opened the doors to American progress such as the world had never seen. //

“That which America exemplifies in her Constitution and system of government is the most modern, and of any yet devised gives promise of being the most substantial and enduring.”

Coolidge, however, was careful to caution against trusting the Constitution to do more than it promised. It was not “a machine that would go of itself”—quite the contrary. Coolidge was well-aware of the fact that the Constitution imposed the duties of self-government upon every generation of Americans.

While “the men who founded our government” had built carefully and well, “we should be deluded if we supposed [our institutions] can be maintained without more of the same stern sacrifice offered in perpetuity,” he said. Free self-government requires sacrifice, requires recurrence to first principles, requires Americans to know, understand, and defend their way of life and form of government.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the silent majority is ready to make some noise. If you thought that was a beating, wait ’til November 3rd when Donald Trump gets his hands on Sleep Joe. That’s gonna be a landslide.” //

Kelb Hull
@CalebJHull
Trump literally just called him while he was on the post-show ... //

“I’m gonna bring you the new belt to the Oval Office soon after you win November 3rd by a landslide.”

China’s campaign of forced labor has been widely exposed and documented over the past year, and the U.S. government is now taking concrete efforts to address it.

On Monday, Customs and Border Protection issued withhold release orders on four Chinese companies and a Communist Party subsidiary that are known to use forced labor. The orders block any products made by these entities from entering the United States. //

We put out a business advisory with respect to doing business in the Xinjiang province and we put American businesses on notice and businesses around the world that if you want to keep importing into the United States, you really need to disentangle yourself from these slave labor practices. And businesses have begun to respond. That doesn’t mean they all have, but the ones that are slow on their feet are going to find their products seized at U.S. ports if they don’t make the adjustments needed to avoid entangling themselves from a business standpoint with Xinjiang slave labor.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) encapsulated in 384 pages of his new book “The Violence Inside Us” one central theme: America can’t be trusted with freedom.

“You know, it’s called ‘The Violence Inside Us’ because the conclusion I come to is that America is a violent place. We have always been a violent place,” Senator Murphy explained to MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt.

: The problem is Senator Murphy didn’t arrive at that conclusion, he started with it. He got there by cherry-picking historical facts, isolating them out of context, and wedging them to fit a narrative that American freedom is bad and must be restrained by a benevolent and all-knowing government made up of people like him. //

Now, I don’t believe Americans are inherently violent. I believe some individuals are, but Americans as a whole? Not so much.

But let’s say that Murphy’s contention is correct, that America is a nation that is mired in violence and always has been. If that’s the case, then it would seem imperative that good, decent, law-abiding citizens have the means to defend themselves from the violent criminals that exist everywhere.

See, while guns do make up a large portion of the weapons used to take human life every year, somewhere around a third of all homicides currently use something other than a firearm, according to the FBI. For some, that’s somehow evidence that gun control is needed, but only a fool would believe that the other two-thirds of all homicides would simply not happen.

(It should be noted that many, if not most of the guns used for these homicides are obtained illegally in the first place.)

Because most of those murders would still likely be attempted regardless of the existence of guns, let me ask Sen. Murphy just what the hell their law-abiding victims are supposed to do to prevent these murders?

We’re talking about aggressive predators in many of these cases, people who will pounce on those they perceive as weaker and will capitalize on their advantages. They’ll prey on people and not think twice about it. It won’t matter if they have a gun, a knife, or a freaking rock, they’ll try to victimize other people because that’s what they do.

So where does that leave us?

Murphy would leave us to the mob. He’d leave us unarmed to face the predators. These are the same predators that lead him to believe that this country is inherently violent, but he’d leave us to them.

With sincere apologies to William Shakespeare:

Friends, Americans, fellow defenders of liberty, lend me your ears.

I come to bury Ginsburg, not to praise her.

The very little and well-disputed good she has done will be celebrated, living long after her.

The evil she has enabled shouldn’t be ignored by interring it with her bones.

Let that not be so with Ginsburg.

One of my long time Army buddies put it this way (with minor edits for innovative language):

What’s all this RIP stuff coming from Conservatives? How about BIH?

Have y’all even read Lady Creepo’s decisions, or evaluated the Luciferian effects of them on our society? WTH?

Oh! I see; You are trying to show human decency for the opposing team. You are above the fray. Hearts & Minds (how’d that work out in Iraq) Love thine Enemy, etc.

Do you think this “kindness” is really gonna put a dent in the thinking of the Left that is intent on destroying this country?

This is the same mentality that got Bush 1 unelected, got Romney and McCain slaughtered in elections, for their “above it all” attitude—and also why Iraq is now fully in the hands of Iran. //

But when you balance the books, she’s not fit to be viewed as some sort of respected American judicial icon.

For one thing, the philosophy that Ginsburg actively promoted and defended has been and continues to be responsible for the deaths of more Black babies than the Holocaust or Soviet pogroms. Some folks might assert that she never directly ordered the murder, rendering asunder, or later sale of “usable parts” of unborn children. I agree. However, when you review her advocacy and later rulings from the bench, the best thing you could say about her is that she hid behind the artificial construct of Stare Decisis while others did and profited from the dirty work. //

They don’t want Roe versus Wade overturned. That is their single-minded purpose. Pure and simple evil.

Reconciliation and empowerment is a surefire way to resecure the consent of the governed and end the policing crisis in many American communities.
By Bryan Baker

Since 2015, George Soros has been executing a plan to reshape the country through local district attorney elections by pumping unprecedented amounts of money into races that typically only see candidates spend in the low five figures.

Here’s why he has an interest in these local races. Soros is exploiting the reality that all politics are local in some way. To transform America, you have to transform the way towns and cities operate. //

Since 2015, Soros has pumped tens of millions of dollars into local races in Texas, Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, and New York, as well as swing states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Arizona. In 2016, Soros spent $2,000,000 on a single sheriff race in Maricopa County, Arizona, helping the leftist candidate, Paul Penzone, win.

In Philadelphia, Soros spent an insane $1,700,000 to elect Larry Krasner DA. Soros has also given millions of dollars in grants to candidates in other states. These enormous contributions have a correspondingly enormous impact. //

In 2018 The Los Angeles Times reported that Soros spent $2,700,000 on California DA races alone, and another $16 million on 17 DA races in other states. //

San Francisco’s new DA, Chesa Boudin, is a perfect example of the ideological temperament of the candidates Soros has been backing. Boudin is a former translator for the late Venezuelan socialist dictator Hugo Chavez.

He’s also the son of two Weather Underground domestic terrorists who were convicted of murder for their roles in a Brink’s armored car robbery that resulted in the killings of three people. Due to the incarceration of his parents, Boudin was raised by former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers. //

After watching the Fox News exchange involving Gingrich, Francis, Harf, and Faulkner, I wondered how anyone who works in the news business could be so uninformed about what Soros has been up to. The left-wing billionaire’s plan clearly operates on the understanding that all politics are local and takes advantage of small-ball local DA races to remake the American justice system — and, by extension, remake all of America into the far-left world of his dreams.

That leap from remaking our justice system to remaking America may seem like a long jump to some, but law and order is the core of America’s existence. Without law and order, you don’t have a country.

Most New Yorkers love New York, but does New York love most New Yorkers? It doesn’t seem so.

Gov. Cuomo treats them like children, and Mayor de Blasio like idiots. That’s why you could roll a bowling ball down many Midtown sidewalks these days, in broad daylight, and not hit more than an overflowing trash basket or a nodding-out junkie.

This is merely one symptom, of course. The true dysfunction resides in City Hall and Albany. But there are many more symptoms, and people are noticing. //

New York will probably muddle through. It’s a magical place. But what if too many of the folks who help make the magic happen decide the accompanying heavy lift isn’t worth the ­effort? That could happen, you know. And then what?

Ted Cruz
@tedcruz
On SCOTUS, Dems & GOP are arguing exact opposite of what both sides argued in 2016. Doesn’t that mean both sides are hypocrites?

Actually, no. WATCH this clip to hear the historical FACTS & constitutional checks & balances that MSM ignores.

Learn more: http://onevoteaway.com

RNC Research
@RNCResearch
.@tedcruz: “29 times there has been a vacancy in a presidential election year. Now, presidents have made nominations all 29 times. That's what presidents do. If there's a vacancy, they make a nomination”
https://youtu.be/JuZqomU5EHQ

But he also explained that of those times, when the president and the Senate are of the same party, the nominee has been confirmed 17 out of 19 times. But when the president and the Senate are of different parties, the other 10 times, they’ve only confirmed the nominee twice. //

One of the big reasons that the people voted in Donald Trump, Cruz said, was to ensure “principled Constitutionalists on the court.” For 2014, 2016, and 2018, Cruz said, what people were saying with their Senate votes is that they wanted those Constitutionalists that the GOP would bring/guarantee, that’s why they kept increasing the Republican majority in the Senate. So, the Republican position was not in fact inconsistent, but totally in keeping with history and norms.

“Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.” — Proverbs 18:2

We love to share our own opinions and thoughts on all manner of things; we are loath to listen, much less understand those of others. And the pointed question from the Pastor: “Does that do the Kingdom any good? Does it do your insides any good?”

He then pivoted to the perfect analogy — Statler and Waldorf (of Muppet fame — I expect most readers are old enough to recall these curmudgeonly fellows.) As he noted:

We live in this anxious world…angry world…we’ve talked about that. What I want to do for just a second…I want to see if I can explain to you just how it is that we — if we’re not careful — fall into a trap and start dancing a dance that is presented to us, and before you know it, we are like those angry muppets in the balcony….Some of you are old enough to remember Statler and Waldorf — they’re the two old guys, you know, they’re cynical, they’re cranky…they’re always lobbing judgment bombs and zingers and one-liners over the edge of the balcony, but here it is — they’re always spectators.

As climate change becomes a focus of the US election, energy companies stand accused of trying to downplay their contribution to global warming. In June, Minnesota's Attorney General sued ExxonMobil, among others, for launching a "campaign of deception" which deliberately tried to undermine the science supporting global warming. So what's behind these claims? And what links them to how the tobacco industry tried to dismiss the harms of smoking decades earlier?

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The truth is—and should be—frightening: the overwhelming majority of police officers are not competent shooters.

Many police officers own few, if any, handguns, and many more own only a shotgun or a .22LR rifle of some kind. They rarely, if ever, practice on their own, and only a tiny portion of all police officers use their own time and money to attend advanced shooting or tactical schools, things a great many citizens routinely do. Far too many officers have only a single firearm: their issued duty handgun. Often, that handgun, as in the case of New York City, is a serious problem in and of itself. //

A major contributing factor is the NYPD requires 12-pound triggers on their officer’s issued handguns. Twelve-pound triggers greatly complicate accurate shooting, particularly when repeat shots are required. The heavier and longer the trigger pull, the more difficult it is to obtain consistent shot to shot accuracy. Triggers in the 12-pound range predictably cause officers to miss, and to miss badly. Consider that standard Glock triggers, those sold to the public, require only a 5.5 pound pull. Combine extremely heavy triggers with the mediocre training common to police agencies, and it would only be surprising if the police didn’t shoot innocents.

Many Law Enforcement Organizations (LEOs) are inherently anti-gun. They don’t trust their officers, and they fear accidental discharges far more than the consequences of accidently shooting citizens. Rather than spending the time and money necessary to maximize shooting accuracy and effectiveness, they focus on trying to prevent accidental discharges through mechanical means. //

Consider my experience. At the last law enforcement agency where I worked, I was given my handgun, a S&W Model 686 in .357 magnum, at my basic state academy. I was told the weapon was “sighted in,” but the sights were badly misaligned for me, and I qualified–barely–by employing artillery-like Kentucky windage. I had to hold about a foot right and about 8 inches high. The instructors wouldn’t allow me the time or tools necessary to properly align the sights; we had only a day for training and qualification. People unfamiliar with handguns had no idea why they couldn’t hit anything, and many failed to qualify.

I saw the gun again at my first LEO qualification shoot. There, I had the time and tools to sight in the weapon and managed a 100% score. To that point, all shooting was done with light-loaded .38 special wadcutter ammunition. I wouldn’t shoot full-charge duty ammo in qualification for another year, though I shot considerable duty ammo on my own.

I was one of only about five people in a 100-person agency capable of 100% shooting. At least 10 struggled to make a minimally passing score whenever they qualified. About 50 were average and the rest somewhat better or worse.

Because virtually no one did anything to improve their abilities on their own, those averages never changed. //

Officers that don’t regularly train, that are unfamiliar with their weapons and ammo, are more dangerous to the public than to criminals. The NYPD, with its 12-pound trigger mandate, illustrates the problem.

In 1990, NYPD officer hit potential was only 19%. Eighty-one percent of the rounds they fired at criminals missed. At less than three yards, they hit only 38% of the time. From 3-7 yards, 11.5% and from 7-15 yards, only 9.4%. //

The lessons, for the police and the public alike, are obvious:

1) Shooting accurately at any distance with a handgun takes regular, correct training and practice.

2) Hit probabilities of most police officers are mediocre at best, even at inside-a-phone-booth ranges.

3) Only correct, professional training increases office hit probability. Mere qualification shooting does not.

4) The greater the distance, the lower the police hit probability. The lower the ambient lighting, the lower the hit probability.

5) Most police officers are much more likely to miss than hit their targets.

6) The idea that officers can shoot well enough to incapacitate criminals by shooting to wound is Hollywood nonsense. In most cases, they can barely hit their targets at ridiculously close ranges.

7) The more officers involved in a shooting the more likely a greater number of rounds will be fired and the higher the probability of misses. The Dorner case, where eight LAPD officers–including a supervisor–unleashed 103 rounds at two innocent women delivering newspapers, is a case in point. They only wounded both women, but bravely shot seven nearby homes and nine parked, and thankfully unoccupied, cars.

One of the most common lies of anti-Second Amendment forces is that the police not only have the duty to protect everyone, they have the skill and the means. No one needs guns; leave it to the professionals.

The truth is the police have no legal duty to protect anyone, only to deter crime by their presence, and investigate it after it happens. As I’ve just demonstrated, most police officers don’t have the ability to reliably protect citizens with their weapons, even though most sincerely want to do so. //

No one can rely on the police to protect them. They are few, and when danger threatens, almost always far away, too far to save lives. Anyone claiming otherwise is either mistaken, or lying to take American’s liberty, and ultimately, their lives. Unlike on TV, the police aren’t going to be our salvation, and often, they’re the opposite. We’re ultimately responsible for our safety; no one else.

For decades, foreign policy experts—the blob—assumed much about the Middle East that has turned out to be completely wrong.
By John Daniel Davidson //

Writing earlier this year in the Texas National Security Review about the Good Friday Agreement that ended Northern Ireland’s civil war, James B. Steinburg, a former deputy national security advisor and State Department official in the Clinton administration, noted the importance of what he calls “ripeness” in international diplomacy and conflict resolution. In the case of Northern Ireland, the parties adopted in 1998 what they had rejected in 1973. Changed circumstances, says Steinburg, played a major role, but so did the recognition that circumstances had changed:

While policymakers are often limited in what they can do to create the conditions that make a conflict ripe for settlement, it is a vital tool of statecraft to be able to spot an opportunity when it is emerging. It is equally important to understand when a conflict is not ripe for negotiation: It can be argued that the premature effort leading to the Sunningdale agreement in 1973 actually contributed to prolonging the conflict.

Mike Gonzalez’s new book, 'The Plot to Change America,' provides penetrating analysis of the inherent dangers of identity politics, as well as ways to fight its creeping influence. //

In her 1989 landmark decision in City of Richmond v. Croson, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor criticized identity politics by pointing out the behavior of black politicians who had become a majority of that city’s council seats. Richmond certainly had an ugly history of discrimination against blacks, but now had created 30 percent contracting quotas for minority businesses. O’Connor declared that strict judicial scrutiny was required whenever a political majority used race to disadvantage a political minority.

If that were not the law, she concluded: “The dream of a Nation of equal citizens where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently immeasurable claims of past wrongs.” Although there were ongoing disputes about specific contracting policies, there were few public disagreements in that era about the fundamental principle that Americans of every race should have equal rights. After all, that is how the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment is written and that principle is the framework of all subsequent civil rights law.

Mike Gonzalez’s timely new book, “The Plot to Change America,” describes how our aspiration of granting all persons equal rights has been submerged by a form of identity politics that transforms some citizens into political, legal, racial, and ethnic categories demanding proportional representation and sometimes reparations.

The Return of Tribalism //

it can be argued that identity politics is just the current name for what was historically thought of as tribalism.

Karma: Harry Reid

In November 2013 Harry Reid had rewritten the Senate Rules mid-session in order to confirm appellate court judges he was not able to confirm under the old rules requiring 60 votes to end debate on a judicial nominee. The Senate Democrats had used the same rule to hold up confirmation of appeals court judges while they were in the minority during the Bush 43 Administration. And in the elections the next fall, the Democrats in the Senate paid the price.

The GOP gained 9 seats in the senate in 2015, beating 5 Democrat incumbents //

In the same three elections, the GOP had defeated 8 Democrat incumbent Senators and taken over the seats of 5 others who retired to go from a minority of 41 to a majority of 54. Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate went from a near filibuster proof 59 votes to only44 Democrats and 2 Independents.

THAT is the factual context surrounding the refusal in 2016 by the GOP in the Senate to grant to Barack Obama the opportunity to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

The voters HAD spoken AGAINST the idea of allowing Barack Obama — leader of a Democrat Party thoroughly and soundly rejected — the make the selection. That was the reason for holding the seat open until the 2016 election when the voters could decide whether it would be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump who would make the choice and whether that choice would be confirmed by a friendly or hostile Senate Majority.

The same dynamic does not exist today.

McConnell relied upon the very checks and balances built into our Constitutional Republic. The people had given the power of the Presidency to the Democrats and the power of the Senate to the Republicans. As a result, the true intentions of the people were clouded. On one hand, had he confirmed Garland, Republicans would have squandered the power with which they had been trusted. With the denial of the confirmation of Garland, McConnell made Democrats angry, but the Democrats’ power in that regard ends at the nomination. The issue is that McConnell’s actions aren’t hypocritical at all. He took his case to the people. Not to delay the vote for the sake of delaying the vote, but rather to clarify with the people, what they wanted to be done with that seat. The people chose Trump, Republicans, and the path to a different nominee. The Republic functioned exactly as it is intended.

Democrats want to make this hypocrisy, but it isn’t, as the people HAVE spoken. There is no longer any question as to the intention of the people. They gave Republicans the control of the Senate and the Presidency. When the people granted that power, they were aware of the potential consequences of that decision. They were aware that that power in the hands of both Trump and McConnell could lead to the confirmation of any judges Republicans deem acceptable. They knew this and yet, they still gave that power. If, as the Democrats want to believe, people are opposed to this move, why would they have given that power to Senate Republicans, not once but twice since 2016?

Democrats simply wanted the Scalia seat filled because it gave them an edge in the court, that’s it. That’s why they had demanded it be filled. Had Schumer made the case to the American people that McConnell is right and that the people needed to vote the power to his party, he may have won that debate and subsequent election. He, instead, cried foul about checks and balances built into the Constitution of the United States. Schumer isn’t mad that the Senate Republicans didn’t hold a vote on Merrick Garland. He is mad that the American people rejected his