Allen's Weblog

Five liberal US Senators have threatened the Supreme Court to drop a hearing of a New York gun case, or face an effort to “restructure” the Court!

This is probably a threat to “pack the Court” as was FDRs intention when the Court of his administration angered him. Packing the Court appears to be a Democratic Party response since I do not recall any attempt or treat to do so during the leftist Warren Court.

I do recall billboards calling for “Impeach Earl Warren” dotting across the landscape, but as ThinkProgress remarked this is a “Declaration of War” against what they perceive as a conservatively political Supreme Court, driven by the concepts of the Federalist Society.

(For the record, I hope they are right, because I support an original reading of the Constitution. As the deceased Justice Scalia brilliantly said, “The Constitution says what it says, and it doesn’t say what it doesn’t say.”

A NYC law is the case that has caused the five leftist Senators to “warn” the SCOTUS. The law forbids the bringing of handguns into city limits, even unloaded and in a locked container separated from ammunition.

Fearing a judicial review that would give SCOTUS another bite of the gun control issue, the progressives worry the gun rights might actually be expanded, as in “…shall not be infringed.”

NYC doesn’t want the law reviewed and has made changes so that the progressives can claim the SCOTUS will be reviewing a law that doesn’t exist, and perhaps drop their review.

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It is in this toxic environment that one branch of the government threatens another. We will see what happens on or before Oct. 1 when SCOTUS is scheduled to hear the case. I suspect that this “warning” will amount to nothing, unless the Senate and President goes Democratic in the next election.

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As impossible as it may appear, a member of the Polish Underground volunteered to infiltrate Auschwitz!

It had NOT been the intent of Witold Pilecki to spend two and a half years in that death camp, but he had volunteered to be captured before the camp had become a death camp, and found he could not easily escape as every day the camp became the death camp for which it became known.

Witold Pilecki was “fortunate” in that many of the initial Polish prisoners became the workers in the infirmary, the woodworking shop, the bakery, the Taylor shop etc. and while millions died around him, Witold Pilecki organized a Resistance within and got messages out about the slaughter of Jews, Poles and Russian POWs.

I am now reading the book, “The Volunteer” by Jack Fairweather. Pilecki’s Couriers took as long as six months to reach London, where their message was largely ignored, particularly the plea to bomb the camps. Higher authority apparently believed the best way to help the Jews was to end the war quickly, but the Vatican, London and Washington knew.

And that is the tragedy. They knew!

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One Washington Post columnist’s headline today reads “Arsonist Condemns Inferno,” which is certainly a catchy phrase. With the caveat that Columnists seldom if ever write their own headlines, the phrase illustrates the political divide.

The president condemned White Supremacy today, the first time in my knowledge that he has done so in that term, but he is so late in doing so as to let opponents say, “R I g h tttt….”

I believe it is certainly true that Trump has created a climate into which marginal idiots, who always exist in a 350 million population, feel more psychological comfortable. Trump has not eased laws, or law enforcement, but his rhetoric, “is not helpful” is the term of art in diplomatic circles.

Right from the start Trump lost me with his first pronouncement on illegal immigration. “They’re (Mexico) sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” June 16, 2015

I have known literally hundreds of illegal Mexican aliens, and I doubt Trump has known any, and I know Trump’s assertion is deeply flawed. Most are good people, and some are not. My opinion is easily proved…there are 22 million illegal aliens, and if most were bad our country would be in continuous riot. Of course most should be deported, but most were simply seeking better economic opportunity just as you and I would do under their circumstances.

I have always believed (because it is true), that almost everything Republicans say about Democrats has some truth to it, and visa versa. Democrats claim the president himself is racist, which I doubt, but there is this whiff of racism in his rhetoric. He is late in correcting that.

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I have a question: if what the president says is undeniably true, how does that make it racist?

Baltimore is corrupt at the top and a festering sore at the bottom. That is true. Bernie Sanders agrees. A former Mayor agrees. It is true, and it is also true that the worst parts of Baltimore have been represented in Washington by Rep. Elija Cummings for decades.

The only problem is that it is not a responsibility of a Congressman to clean up his district…that belongs to local government. It is obvious that local government hasn’t done diddly squat in Baltimore but other than jawing with the Mayor and City Council members, a Congressman has no power at home.

It is not racist, however, to point out that a Congressman represents a pestilence infested area. That is true in this case, regardless of whether the District is represented by White, a Black, a Latino or an Asian.

Baltimore is more dangerous than Chicago.

Puerto Rico just demonstrated a fact right before our eyes…they filled the streets with people to demand their Governor resign, a Governor they had elected. Baltimore keeps electing folks who must resign for corruption, as well. In the meanwhile Baltimore put the brakes on their police, and the murder rate skyrocketed.

Trump has no filter on his mouth, and everything he does will be met with cries of “Racism.” His comment on Cummings is more likely just political sparring but Democrats will cry “Racism” regardless because they believe it serves their political purpose, and it does…until it doesn’t.

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I awakened early to watch the whole thing, and there are a bunch of hours I’ll never get back. At my age I should not have wasted so many!

We learned nothing new, other than to see why Mueller didn’t want to testify. He may have read the 400+ pages for the first time just to bone up before testifying, because although the report had his name it was obviously staff written.

Anything Mueller didn’t know, and there was a lot, he simply referred to the report. He should have done even more of that because every time he didn’t, he fumbled. His staff should have testified, because it was apparent that Mueller only signed the report.

It was embarrassing. Mueller requested and received a week’s extension before he testified.

It was not enough!

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I saw an ad on my FB page from someone called writerslife.com offering to help people write their Biography. With no knowledge of the company, or their competence, the idea of writing your Bio is first rate! Everyone has a story to tell, because your family 100 years hence will be interested in your life.

I wrote my Bio years ago, and even though I had received many awards, they have continued after my Bio was “complete.” Fortunately, I wrote and published more than 2,000 newspaper columns, so I am a writer, and as a professional computerist I know my way around a Keyboard. My Autobiography is only for my family, so I don’t worry about having it printed…it is on DVD.

But you don’t have to have any skills at all to write an Autobiography…you have the most knowledge of anyone about your life, and that is the primary, I would say the ONLY requirement. If you can hunt and peck a keyboard, every word processor has so much automation that you can a do a serviceable job. If you can’t bring yourself to write, have someone videotape you telling stories. That’s what an Autobiography is…stories. You do need some organizational skills, or you can wing it as I did

In the Navy, things out of the norm are reported as “Incident Reports” so I did my chapters as Incident Reports. Some were as short as half a page, a few reached three pages. I wrote them as they came to mind, or more accurately, popped into my head.

After writing many Incidents I started t think of how to arrange them, but even a series of unrelated stories is better than having the knowledge lost.

Start it. Then do it. No one can do it better than you. You could write outlines of chapters, then have someone tape each story on your phone when you are ready.

So many options, but the story is the thing, not your spelling ability. Content, not process.

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Lazy Sunday in the garden, 80 degrees. Put a lot of Water Hyacinths in the pond this last week. In many states the plant is banned because it is so invasive, and it can double in size in just days. Fine, as I have killed my last Koi, at least for this year.

We have four resident Butterflies and one resident pond Dragonfly, with one visiting Butterfly and one visiting Dragonfly today. Since Dragonfly are territorial, the visiting one must be a female. Our garden is 75 feet long, plus another 30 feet of pond and greenery, and four tiers deep, including flowers, 17 huge Sago Palms, 75 feet of San Diego Red Bougainvillea and 12 fruit trees. And that is just one side of the house!

Laid up by a major muscle sprain, sitting in the garden and drinking iced tea, is not a bad Sunday

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