Packing, schmacking
United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the longest-serving far-left jurist on the court, is not having any of the pack-the-court schemes espoused by 2020 Democratic presidential candidates on the far left.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, Kamala Harris, D-California, Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg all have posited plans to create as many additional Supreme Court seats as necessary to change the balance of power if one of them wins the White House.
"It would make the Court look partisan," Ginsburg told National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg.
It would allow either political party, she said, to claim, "When we're in power, we're going to ... have more people who would vote the way we want them to."
Ginsburg noted that the high court had a varied numbers of justices in its early years but had kept nine as its standard since Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1869. Since then, the only serious attempt at changing it came in the 1930s when President Franklin D. Roosevelt raised the possibility of changing the number because the court was striking down some of his New Deal legislation.
However, the American people saw the naked power grab for what it was and punished the president's party in the 1938 mid-term elections, with Democrats losing 76 seats.
That toddlin' gun-totin' town
It's become apparent that new Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will be a part of the Illinois city's mammoth gun problem than a part of its solution.
Following a weekend in which 41 people were shot, nine fatally, in a city with strict gun control, she blamed the problem on neighboring Indiana, where gun laws are not as strict. Instead, she said the city also needed more federal gun control and universal gun background checks from the top down.
Lightfoot didn't mention it if she knew, but Mexico has top-down gun control, universal background checks and one gun store which, according to CBS, is the "one place in all of Mexico where you can legally buy a gun." Yet, the country averages nearly three times as many gun homicide deaths per day as the U.S.
The mayor, in seeking a scapegoat, also likely knows that when the city enacted a ban on handgun ownership in 1982 (which lasted until 2010), homicides rose dramatically and that while law-abiding citizens may have given up their guns, thugs kept theirs and continue to use them, have them stolen or sell them.
Alas, another four-year term of Chicago being Chicago.
Doctor, Democrat, deceiver
A Democratic candidate for a Florida state House seat withdrew recently after admitting she fabricated her compelling story about how, as a cardiologist, she had worked feverishly on the victims of the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
"I personally removed 77 bullets from 32 people ... It was like an assembly line," said Elizabeth McCarthy, who had filed to run in the state's District 28.
Only problem was the Orlando Regional Medical Center has no record of her ever working there, the state Department of Health has no record of her being a licensed doctor, and neither the University of Central Florida nor Florida State University, where she said she received her degrees, has any such record.
Officials could confirm McCarthy had worked as a nurse until 2005 and had started a medical company that was in in business through 2014. Recently, though, she had worked as the legislative director for the Florida Democratic Party's LGBTA Caucus.
"I lied," she said in an affidavit released by the Florida Department of Health. "[That I worked as a surgeon] is a false statement. I just made it up."
McCarthy later said, "I wanted to be somebody in the community, and I'm sorry. ... I knew it was wrong and I should have stopped ... ."
The Department of Health has served her a cease-and-desist order, prohibiting her from telling anyone else she is a medical doctor, and fined her $3,094.95, which she has 30 days to dispute.
Stick to what you know
In the same way a majority of Americans didn't want to see former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's political kneeling stunt disrupting their football, neither Democrats nor Republicans want to see political commentary break out on ESPN.
According to the Washington Post, recent market research shows 84% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats want the network to stick to sports. Of avid fans polled, 85% say the network needs to cut it out.
The research came in the midst of outrage by many ESPN viewers when host Dan Le Batard recently went on a rant about President Donald Trump concerning his suggestion that four congresswomen go back where they came from and fix the problems there before coming to Washington, D.C.