Category: partisanship

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partisanship U.S. Constitution

Constitutional Defects

Trump, filibuster, law, nuclear option

“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” 

That’s what President Trump posted on Truth Social back during the shutdown, adding, “WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN.’”

This was prior to Democrats, off-​year election over, suddenly deciding to agree to the same deal to reopen the government that Republicans had been offering for weeks. 

The 60-​vote supermajority the United States Senate needs to end debate and vote on legislation is a small‑r republican measure, not a small‑d democratic one. Reasonable people can disagree over its merits, certainly, but I like the greater consensus it requires. 

What I don’t like is that the party in control of the Senate can at any time change the filibuster rule in any way it wishes, including ending it altogether. 

Rules shouldn’t be this easy to junk. 

Make the Senate filibuster not just a rule, but constitutional law. 

Another major matter of constitutional change is sorely needed. The stability and independence of one of the three branches of the federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court, hangs by a thread.

The number of justices, now nine, is nowhere set in the Constitution. 

Congress and the White House, when held by the same political party — even short of 60 votes in the Senate, because they could simply end the filibuster — could immediately add ten new justices.

Or 20. 

And then confirm all the president’s picks.

All something Democrats mused about doing years ago: packing the High Court with many new justices to magically engineer a new Democratic Party majority on the SCOTUS. 

The number of justices, like the Senate’s super-​majoritarian filibuster, aren’t written in stone.

But should be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies partisanship

Independent of the Box

Karine Jean-Pierre, Democratic Party, media, news, outside the box

Today, Karine Jean-Pierre’s “long-​awaited” Independent, a book on her recent transformation into an “independent” political activist/​theorist/​shill, hits the bookstores, with Amazon promising to deliver the tome on the 24th.

I write about it now hoping never to have to write about it later. You guessed it: I’m not planning on reading the thing.

I did, however, cover her turn-​of-​coat re-​alignment/​what-​have-​you in June. “I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes,” I quoted her in “Rats-​a-​Jumpin’.” 

Whatever else, she had certainly not resisted cliché!

But can we be sure of her sincerity? It’s hard to imagine a paid fibber writing a book and expecting it to be taken at face value. Still, the story is her story, not the full story, so there may be some truth in it.

“The Democratic Party had defined my life, my career,” The Epoch Times quotes her in apparent sincere mode. “Everything I’d done to make people’s lives better had been connected to it. The party was the vehicle that allowed me not just to have a front seat to history, working first on [President Barack] Obama’s presidential campaign then in his administration, but also to make some history of my own as the first Black woman and openly queer person to ever be a White House press secretary. Never had I considered leaving the party until now.”

This may possibly be seen as galling to long-​term independents: much ado about a latecomer’s anguish.

Tellingly, there’s no mention, in the pre-​publication buzz, of Russiagate or the Epstein case — that is, something that might make the book worthwhile. Only her in-​the-​box account of Biden’s competence provides any interest at all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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budgets & spending cuts national politics & policies partisanship

How Massive a Mistake?

Chuck Schumer, AOC, CR, budget, power

When the Heritage Foundation published Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, the volumes were large-​sized — around 8.5 x 11 inches, like a textbook.

When Democrats produced oversized pseudo-​replicas of the 900-​page policy blueprint as visual props to mock Republicans during the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, they made the tomes much, much larger, as if hauled off a monastery shelf.

Why? Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow on August 19, and Pennsylvania Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta on August 20 — and others each night — sought to symbolize its “weighty” and “extreme” nature.

The giant scale of the replicas amplified the visual gag, with McMorrow quipping about it being “heavy” as she dragged it out.

That is how seriously Democrats said they were taking Project 2025.

So when Donald Trump got elected, and the document’s author, Russ Vought, took on his current position as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget on February 7 — sworn in by the left’s very noirest of bêtes noir, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — you might think that Democrats would be very careful dealing with anything Vought touched.

Like scuttling the Continuing Resolution at the beginning of the month, thereby shutting down the federal government. For lack of funding.

As covered yesterday in a Weekend Update on this site, Vought’s axe, poised to gut the EPA or Treasury, was at the ready, sharpened to make substantial and semi-​permanent cuts to many departments.

The Democrats’ nightmare come true.

So, why did they blunder into it?

Smart money has it that the party, made unpopular by its far left, is now running scared of that very same far left. Senator Chuck Schumer (D.-NY), once a dealmaker, now cowers like a schoolboy before a possible 2028 challenge from AOC, the Squad’s top brand and a Bernie bro.

Democratic leadership couldn’t risk containing the political ambitions of the leftist radicals in the party.

A breathtaking moment, especially if Vought truly plies his Project 2025-​branded axe. Those monastery-​sized tomes, brandished like holy relics to smite Trump, a year ago, now stand as tombstones for the Democrats’ own strategy. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies partisanship

Who Is the Lawfare King?

Rand Paul, Senate, honor

Last Sunday on Meet the Press, Sen. Rand Paul (R‑Ky) addressed two areas where President Trump has stumbled in recent days, losing many conservatives and civil libertarians: censorship and lawfare. 

“Senator,” Kristen Welker asked, “do you believe that President Trump is sending the message that he only supports free speech when it’s speech that he agrees with?”

“Well, I can’t control everything the president says. And I don’t think that having the FCC weigh in on licenses is right. I will fight that,” the junior senator from Kentucky declared. “But I can tell you that throughout government, the censorship apparatus that Biden had put in place is gone.”

Under President Biden, the senator explained, employees and ex-​employees of both the FBI and Department of Homeland Security set up offices inside Twitter, while “Facebook was told to take down information concerning the origins of the Covid virus” under threat of “being broken up by antitrust. So we have had official censorship going on for many years now, and everybody on the left just looked the other way. 

“They actually had an office, an office of censorship.”

Welker then inquired if he thought it was “appropriate for the president to direct the attorney general to go after his political opponents”?

“I think lawfare in all forms is bad,” Rand Paul replied. “What they did to Donald Trump was an abomination. But yes, it is not right for the Trump administration to do the same thing.

“We need to get politics out of the judicial system as much as we can. But we can’t do it without acknowledging that the king of lawfare was Biden.”

True enough, with the full title: Marionette Censor Joe, King of Lawfare, First of His Name If Not of His Kind.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption partisanship scandal

The Salience of the Switch

Jeffrey Epstein, blackmail, Epstein Island, corruption, power

From the moment the Jeffrey Epstein story appeared, an outrageous quality attached itself to it, like slug-​slime on the heel of your naked foot.

Now, as the case is allegedly closing, it’s only getting weirder.

It’s needless to run through the arc of the story again: the rumors, the financing, the arrests, the trials, the documentaries, the books and articles, the “suicide.” Most people are aware. And most know that it was MAGA folks who were most exercised about the issue. 

“Epstein didn’t kill himself” was not a meme of the left.

The idea that Mr. Epstein had fronted a honey-​pot blackmail ring to exert control over politics and science and culture was a story that even the mainstream didn’t pooh-​pooh much, because, in part, there was so much circumstantial evidence.

Then came the switch, when Dan Bongino and Kash Patel assured us that Epstein did indeed commit suicide. When I commented a week ago, it was Trump switching sides — after years milking MAGA anger over it — that stood out. 

And now it got bigger. In two ways. Trump’s switch got bigger. And the evidence for Epstein’s self-​offing got shakier.

The latter is explosive evidence that our leaders may have lied to us. And done a lousy job of it.  The taped evidence said to prove that no one had been to visit Epstein in his cell was first shown to have been clumsily edited, and then all-​the-​sudden more footage came out!

Meanwhile, Trump took to calling the Epstein File issue a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats — Comey, Obama and Biden specifically!

Do they think we’re stupid?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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deficits and debt partisanship too much government

Upstart?

Elon Musk, Donald Trump, MAGA, duopoly, third party

The spectacular fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk over the Big Beautiful Bill in particular (but deficit spending and debt accumulation in general) promises political watchers a big, ugly brawl.*

Now, billionaire Musk appears to be serious about his proposed “third party,” the “America Party.” A name perfectly designed to ruffle Trumpian feathers. It might steal some of the thunder of “America First” and “Make America Great Again.”

The president mocks the notion, saying that third parties “have never succeeded in the United States.”

Well, that is not exactly true. For a long time, it was second parties that had problems. 

The first party, the Federalists, basically lost for a generation, finally withering away against the onslaught of that most American party of all, the Democratic-Republican. 

When the victorious party reformed under the leadership of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren to become the Democratic Party, the Whig Party emerged to counter-​act Jackson’s imperial presidency. The Whigs had some success — if with a string of presidents almost no one remembers — only to lose ground to Democrats and then a whiggish replacement, the Republican Party.

Yes, Trump’s own party was a “third” party once.

And it achieved power largely because the Democrats split into two for the 1860 election, leaving a sectional plurality candidate (Abraham Lincoln) to win the Electoral College as a Republican.

In modern times, Republicans and Democrats have ably squelched challenger parties. 

So Trump’s right — in spirit.

Now enter Andrew Yang, enthusiastic for the upstart. But how can his Universal Basic Income agenda fit with Elon’s fight against over-spending? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Though, some wonder if the Trump-​Musk feud isn’t all an act.

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partisanship

No-​Play Partisanship

Gretchen Witmer, MIchigan, special election, democracy

In the Great Lakes State, the governor is entrusted to call special elections when a legislative seat is left vacant. Last November, the senator representing the 35th state senate district was elected to the U.S. Congress, leaving her state senate seat officially vacant. 

“With McDonald Rivet heading to Congress,” a Michigan Advance headline asked last November, “who will fill her open Michigan Senate seat?”

When the Legislature convened in early January, Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, had yet to call the election. 

“After 85 days with no action, Whitmer still won’t call special election to fill McDonald-Rivet’s former Senate seat,” reads a January 30th headline in The Midwesterner.

“If there’s an opening on the Democrat side,” GOP chairman and State Senator Jim Runestad said of Gov. Whitmer in February, “she’s ‘Johnny on the spot,’ appointing someone within days.” 

In the past, Whitmer has averaged just 17 days to set a special election, in one case calling it within 24 hours of the vacancy … when it helped Democrats. 

“Whitmer confirms 35th district special election will happen,” WCMU Radio titled its early April story … showing remarkable restraint not to add the word “someday.”

“At some point there will be one,” the governor had offered, “but I don’t have an announcement to make yet.”

“145 Days and Counting” topped a Michigan News Source article in late May. The state’s Lieutenant Governor explained that he had “spent time in the district” and thinks “people are certainly ready for it.”

It’s now July, 186 days counting and still no representation for Michigan’s 35th state senate district. 

Michigan Democrats have a one-​seat Senate majority at present, 19 – 18. If the 35th goes Republican, it would even up the Senate. While the district did vote for a Democrat for Congress last November, it also went for President Trump. Gov. Whitmer does not trust those people to vote her way.

Deny political representation to 270,000 people? Whitmer’s up for it if doing so serves her partisan interests. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: The Michigan Freedom Fund website, RestoreMiVoice​.org, asks: “How long will the Great Lakes Bay Region be without a voice in the State Senate?” Call Governor Witmer at (517) 335‑7858 or email her at Gretchen.​Whitmer@​michigan.​gov and demand an answer.

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national politics & policies partisanship

Unserious Resolution

Donald Tump, Iran, impeachment

Impeachment is serious business, but the folks in Congress who advanced the most recent impeachment agendum are anything but.

The man to be impeached is President Trump, of course. And it was Rep. Al Green (D.-Tx.) who formally filed the paperwork. Trump, Rep. Green accused, had failed to “notify or seek authorization from Congress before the U.S. launched strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend,” explains Sarah Fortinsky of The Hill. 

The resolution, dated June 24, 2025, is limited to a single article: “Abuse of Presidential Powers by Disregarding the Separation of Powers — Devolving American Democracy into Authoritarianism by Unconstitutionally Usurping Congress’s Power to Declare War.” 

The bit about authoritarianism is the real stretch. 

“President Trump’s unilateral, unprovoked use of force without congressional authorization or notice constitutes an abuse of power when there was no imminent threat to the United States” — that part is certainly arguable. 

But the rest, which alludes to “January Sixth” and criticizes that Trump “called for the impeachment of federal judges,” is mere partisan foolishness.

Rep. Green must have known it would go nowhere. One hundred twenty-​eight Democrats sided with all 216 Republicans, leaving a mere 79 Democrats voting to move forward with impeachment.

Meanwhile, Republicans and the Administration are calling the bombing strike a success, a grand example of Trump’s “peace through strength” game-plan.

An impeachment might be believable, even commendable, if it came from a member of his party, or — if from Green or another Democratic supporter of the move, such as Alexandria Ocasio-​Cortez — had been brought against a sitting Democrat president, such as Obama or Biden.

As it is? Just another partisan ploy.

The kind of thing Americans are rightly sick of.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people partisanship

Rats A‑Jumpin’

rats, sinking ship

When the ship starts sinking, the rats start jumping.

In politics, when a party or movement is soundly demolished at the polls, you can expect to see stalwarts flake off and go the way of the opposition, or “their own way.”

But the honorable time to do that is before the insider position becomes untenable. Not after. 

Late timing smacks of opportunism.

Case in point: Karine Jean-​Pierre, former Press Secretary to President Joe Biden.

Ms. Jean-​Pierre was the African-​American woman hired to obfuscate for the Democrat cabal who ran the federal government’s executive wing while the Man Sworn In was out — to lunch.

Now she’s formally left the Democratic Party and is shilling a book, Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines, scheduled for publication this fall. It sports a great cover.

Like CNN’s Jake Tapper, Jean-​Pierre focuses on a critical period in Joe Biden’s administration. “She takes us through the three weeks that led to Biden’s abandoning his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision,” her publisher blurbles.

Also like Tapper, she has no standing to preach any virtuous sermons on verity or clarity or even non-​insularity. She was absolutely in the thick of Democratic insider corruption.

Her spin is in her title: she’s going independent, not switching sides. 

“I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes,” she posts on Instagram, “and not be so partisan.”

Now that her PR for her president’s party has been repudiated.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law partisanship

Pennsylvania Steal

Pennsylvania

We must hope that a Democratic effort in Pennsylvania to steal the election for U.S. senator has indeed been thwarted. A new state supreme court ruling with its concurring opinions is definitive.

Problem is, a previous ruling from the same court had already been definitive.

Yet not only have election officials been counting unsigned or undated or improperly dated mail-​in ballots in an effort to rescue incumbent Democrat Bob Casey from defeat at the hands of his Republican challenger, Dave McCormick, via a rejiggering recount, at least some of the election officials breaking the law weren’t even bothering to try to obscure the effort with an “Aw geez, this is perfectly compatible with a reasonable interpretation of election rules and the supreme court ruling” fig leaf.

In Bucks County, county commissioners voted 2 – 1 to proceed with an attempted election-​stealing despite the advice of their own counsel.

Bad as this is, get this: Diane Ellis-​Marseglia, one of the two Democratic commissioners who determined that it was okay to count bad ballots, announced that she didn’t care about whether she was violating the law. Even though her job is to apply it, not to flout it with revolutionary (or corrupt insider) fervor.

“I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws anytime they want,” she said. “So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”

Attention has been paid. We hope it’s enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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