Good Monday morning. First I thought I’d share a picture of my dog, Dusty, playing with Harry. They have only been out in the back yard together a few times, and Harry is a bit intimidated by this dog that is much more energetic than Poppy, Harry’s former canine friend, had been.
Dusty likes to run in large circles around the backyard, and he is fast. Too fast for Harry most of the time, who heads for high ground on the back porch. I was really pleased to get this great shot of the two of them, before Harry ran to the porch.
Now, on to some items from the news.
The Senate hearings to approve Brett Kavanaugh as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice get underway this week. Kavanaugh is a conservative, firmly entrenched in the Republican Party, and a loyal supporter of Trump. Those alone may not be reasons that many people hope that his appointment is not approved, but recent comments from Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) raise more concerns. She was a recent guest on Meet the Press, responding to questions regarding pages of documents about Kavanaugh’s years in the White House working for President George W. Bush that have been withheld.
Basically, she said that she is not able to disclose what is in the 148,000 pages of documents that are being withheld, but when responding to a question from Aubree Eliza Weaver at Politico, Klobuchar said,
“You have a nominee who had one of the most expansive views of presidential power that we’ve seen in history. This is a guy that says, one, ‘A president should be able to declare a statute constitutional all by himself.’ That he, in writing, has said, ‘You should throw out the special counsel statute.’ This is all very relevant. And no, it’s not normal.”
No matter what political party you support, those points should raise your concerns. Should Kavanaugh be approved, would his loyalty to Trump color every decision he makes? A Supreme Court Justice should be first and foremost, loyal to the court that is the third arm of the U.S. Government. Not to a president. Not to Congress. And not to a political party.
Personally, I wish that we could get “party politics” out of this process of Senate hearings, and maybe do away with it altogether. I’m sure that is a very naive idea. I’ve been accused of being naive in the past and will probably continue to run that risk. I just think our government could run so much more smoothly if party loyalty did not rule in Washington and across the country.
Apparently, Trump is all a “twitter” about Hillary and the emails again. Last week on Wednesday and Thursday, he Tweeted about Hillary’s email being hacked by the Chinese while she was Secretary of State. He claims that the original investigation into the issue was blocked by officials in the FBI who were loyal to Clinton.
FBI officials deny that there was any impediment to the investigation, and they continue to report that there was no evidence of a breach in Clinton’s private servers.
According to a story at Daily KOS by Mark Sumner,
“Trump has often deliberately confused the server that Clinton’s staff maintained while she was secretary of State with the server at the DNC which was breached by Russian hackers, who went on to steal thousands of emails. Clinton’s server, and the emails it contained, were the subject of multiple investigations by the FBI and congressional committees. None of those investigations turned up the slightest scrap of evidence that the security of the server had been violated by China or anyone else.”
More on the story at The Washington Post
That’s all for me for today, folks. That stupid Ramsay Hunt Syndrome has been kicking my butt big time this past week. Pushing through the pain when I can, but I still have to limit computer time.
Have a great week. Be safe. Be happy.