I see they are praising Patty Murray (D-WA) for casting her 10k vote (only Female Senator to reach that number)....
All it points out to me, people stay in politics way too long.....

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, April 22, 2023 - 11:07 am: Edit

I say:
3 terms as CONGRESSMAN
2 terms as a Senator
2 terms as President.

AND you may not run for one office whilst holding another Federal elected office. Mandatory breaks in service... You could run for re-election to the same office though.

And I'd reduce the number of political APPOINTEES by 50%. They tend to get into mischief.

Finally, I'd have a constitutional amendment to change how the Supreme Court is appointed & led. In April of every odd numbered year a new justice would be appointed by the President. The Senate must vote on confirmation within 90 days; a failure to vote is considered approval. The Chief Justice is elected from among the justices at the beginning of each term. The number of justices can vary; if there are more than 10 at any given time, the Senior most justice must retire. Retiring justices may assume Senior status if they wish.

Note that this would get rid of court packing, threats to enlarge the court, give each President 2 appointees in his term, and get some turn over (slow) in the court... As far as I can tell the Presidency tends to be GOP about half the time, and Dem the other half.

In my life time: Kennedy, Johnson, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Clinton, Bush II, Bush II, Obama, Obama, Trump, and Biden. So that should prevent one side from being too controlling of the court.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, April 22, 2023 - 11:36 am: Edit

What if the current President likes the senior justice?

Could he reappoint a senior judge back to fill his own position?

A couple of scenarios to consider:
1. Control of the Senate is held by opposition political party. (Unlikely to get a new appointee confirmed, see what happened to Garland at the end of the Obama administration.)

2. The Presidents own party might not want to retire a popular jurist. (An example of the might be Scalia.)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, April 22, 2023 - 09:13 pm: Edit

Ahem...

Before I say "no more of that" I would comment that a certain political pundit wrote a book a decade ago with a dozen proposed constitutional amendments, one of which was that the 9 justices (no larger number allowed) would serve 18 year terms. That way, ever president gets two per term. I don't recall how he would replace those who die, retire, or are impeached but I suspect it would be something about filling the unexpired term to keep the every-second-year cadence. No one could be appointed twice. I think that would be a better system than what we have how and corrects a technical fault in my esteemed colleague's proposal. As for an unfriendly senate, you'd have to appoint someone who would be acceptable to both sides, which isn't a bad thing. That said (as a technical clarification only) ...

NO MORE OF THAT.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, September 15, 2023 - 04:39 pm: Edit

JEFFREY EPSTEIN UPDATE
I am going to put this down here as (however fascinating it is) any discussion would wander into politics in eleven seconds.

We all know the story. Jeffrey Epstein had serious money, and had an island stocked with women of various ages, and invited the high and mighty (and the assorted mobster, syndicatist, oligarch, and so forth) to drop by for an interlude of fun and ... "bonding".

Turns out, that isn't even 10% of it.

Several intelligence agencies had connections to Jeffrey, sending undercover operatives to his island to gather dirt on spies, criminals, high, mighty, and whoever else. They provided Jeffrey with some protection in exchange for access to the wealth of information gained. That does explain to some extent just why he got away with as much as he did. Fortunately, he didn't think game designers were worth inviting to the island.

That's just a start. Jeffrey ran a gigantic money laundering operation, arranged for arms shipments, drug shipments, transfers of various types, and no end of other things. If you really wanted dirt on your rival in whatever field you are in, you could pay Jeffrey to manufacture it for you.

Many of those "charitable foundations set up by the high and mighty" (on all sides of every aisle) were in fact set up by Jeffrey (something of an expert) and were used by him and others to launder no end of dirty money.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 26, 2025 - 11:26 am: Edit

THE BIDEN SCANDAL
I am going to put this down here because we are NOT allowing discussion of this explosive topic.
Everyone needs to pay attention to this. Go do some reading from all sides and decide for yourself if the "prevailing wisdom" below is true or not.

The gist is that President Biden was not mentally competent to be president, so the actual decisions were made by a group of five top aides, all of whom were Obama people inserted into the Biden Administration. You could fairly say that the Biden Administration was Obama Term 3. (Note for record: After Woodrow Wilson had a stroke, he was not president. His wife ran the country by pretending to take questions to him for decisions and documents to him for signature. Nobody was fooled, but what else was there to do?)

Just when Biden became incapable is debated. No one thinks he was competent during 2024. Some think he was not competent during the G7 meeting in June 2021. The fact that he was not competent was well known, but anyone who said so was villified, as proven by the subsequent books by the people who were part of the cover up. From the campaign in 2020, his staff kept Biden away from the press.

Kamela Harris was (generally felt) picked as VP because she was not likely to become president, and that would mean that the single Biden term was just a breathing spell to get a new generation to win the 2024 primary. When Jill Biden wanted to stay First Lady and pushed Joe to run, she used the threat that you couldn't force Joe out as Kamela could not be elected.

The first debate was set very early as a means of getting rid of Biden early enough to pick a replacement.

A word about the "autopen" (a machine capable of producing a copy of a signature). This was invented for routine correspondence and those "happy birthday" letters the White House sends a thousand times a week. It was never supposed to be used for legal matters requiring an actual signature (executive orders, legislation, pardons, appointments). It was used (legally) for minor official documents (like 10,000 military commissions every year). Biden used it (legally) because his Parkinson's made his hand shake and as long as he was the guy ordering it used there was no problem. Debate rages how many pardons were signed without his knowledge and are thus technically illegal. (He did sign Hunter's pardon with his own hand).

Biden's cancer diagnosis was revealed to cover up the recent book revelation and was used as "you have to drop this because Biden is sick". Nobody believes this was not known about years earlier, meaning it was another cover up. Biden would not have survived a second term, putting the easily controlled Harris in office. Many doctors have suggested that the various treatments for cancer and Parkinsons reduced Biden's mental alertness, and that the cabal running the show increased or decreased his medication based on what they needed Biden to do in public. One note, Biden never had any kind of stutter and attacking critics as unfairly making fun of this non-existent stutter was just a smear defense.

The Democrat defense is the "Trump mental decline" hoax which has no evidence to support it, just like the Russia Hoax and the Fine People Hoax. (Note for record, such hoaxes are not new. Sarah Palin never said "I can see Russia from my house.")

Go, read, study, be an informed voter. Decide if this is a problem to be solved and what solutions should be considered.

In the end, we all know, the Congressional Hearings will have no real results. Nothing will happen, no one will go to jail, nothing will change.

More is the pity.