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Is the era of Big Judicial Activism over? It might just be. Supreme Court Justic Neil Gorsuch, in a ruling about denying green cards to migrants who come here to be "public charges," something that's plainly laid out in U.S. law as illegal, threw in a special warning to activist judges, all leftists, who have been beavering away to rule from the bench, warning them that he's tired of their shenanigans. It's a specter to behold - a big lion on the Supreme Court who not only cares about rule of law, but is now warning the leftists out there...

About 4,515 cases of the illness have been recorded across the country, including almost 1,000 people in critical condition, according to state media. Though the number of cases appears to have risen quickly, from 2,887 on Monday, this was likely to be due to better reporting, and the numbers remain small compared with the population.

The last time Republicans held a majority on this state's Supreme Court was in the 1920s.  Its Court of Appeals has never had a Republican majority. The last time Republicans held a majority in both houses of the state Legislature at the same time was 1930.  In the 89 years from 1931 to the present, Democrats have held a majority of both houses of the state Legislature for 79 of the 89 years. Since 1931, Democrats have held the governor's office for 69 of the 89 years.  Even when a Republican has been governor, his powers have been greatly limited because he...

Contrary to the expectations of many environmental scientists, a new model has predicted a likely boom in tropical phytoplankton abundance as the century progresses. Phytoplankton anchor the aquatic food web. Most scientists assumed this community of photosynthesizing bacteria and plant-like diatoms would struggle in the tropics as the oceans become increasingly stratified, with heavier cold water situated deep beneath the surface and lighter warm water isolated on top. "All the climate models have this mechanism built into them, and it has led to these well-established predictions that phytoplankton productivity, biomass and export into the deep ocean will all decline with...

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, President Donald Trump again talked positively about negative interest rates. That's not a very good idea considering negative interest rates are a warning signal of deflation, which can be as bad for an economy as runaway inflation. But Trump was right to herald this era of low nominal interest rates and inflation. If you want to understand how the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen from a low of 800 to a high of 29,000 in four decades, look at the Federal Reserve's graph of the 10-year treasury rate showing...

The masked woman nervously approaches her target, shuffles into position and then unleashes a flurry of lashes -- proving herself as the newest member of the first female flogging squad in Indonesia's Aceh province. The new recruit initially needed some coaxing to punish the offender -- an unmarried woman caught in a hotel room with a man. Such behaviour constitutes a morality crime in Aceh, the only region in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation that imposes Islamic law -- known as Sharia.

In recent years, the "Not The Onion" moments from leftists have been coming at us so fast it seems like they're being fired from a Gatling gun. Today's example is a politician from Quebec named Luc Ferrandez, who seems to have found the silver lining to the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. From The Post Millennial: Quebec politician and radio talk show host Luc Ferrandez has suggested that the coronavirus has had one “positive” outcome for the city of Wuhan, China—it’s reduced the carbon footprint. On Saturday, he tweeted: “Wuhan. No automobile traffic. No air flights. The only city on...

From 1934 we have Hold Him Down by the Sons of the Pioneers. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Senate Impeachment Trial LIVE - day 7

Everett, WA – A convicted rapist and kidnapper who murdered a Monroe Prison correctional officer as an inmate will no longer face execution for his brutal crime.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has announced a plan to prevent, contain and treat infectious diseases as a new viral illness spreads in China. The Massachusetts senator on Tuesday unveiled a plan that includes fully funding the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic prevention and response programs. The agency has faced stiff budget cuts under President Donald Trump, including to emergency funds and global health programs that were established following West Africa’s Ebola epidemic in 2014. “Like so much else, Trump’s approach to keeping us safe from disease outbreaks is a mess,” Warren wrote...

I’ve been hearing the word ‘debunked’ a lot lately on Capitol Hill. To Debunk is roughly the opposite of ‘bunk,’ which according to an old dictionary I own (Webster's New Peerless Dictionary & Atlas, circa 1941) is slang for ‘misleading speech’ or 'humbug'. While covering the U.S. Senate one obviously hears his fair share of bunk on a daily basis – but only now does it's photo-negative counterpart arise to assume center stage in the dreary yet at times slapstick, the impeachment of President Trump. ‘Debunked’ is supposed to mean an idea is disproved, but I’ve noticed it’s lost much...

The way Mike Bloomberg tells it, after Donald Trump was elected president and before he assumed office, the fellow New York City businessman "let it be known that he wanted a call from me." Bloomberg obliged. The two "had a pleasant conversation," the Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City mayor said, adding that Mr. Trump gave Bloomberg his personal cellphone number. But, Bloomberg said, he didn't bother to write it down. "I said, 'Look, you've got to get people that have knowledge of each of these areas: defense and finance and commerce and all of these things that...

Happy New Year, everyone!! Here's hoping 2020 is the best year yet!! President Trump should take the win in the Senate trial without dragging it out, then concentrate on winning the 2020 election with wide coattails, then bide his time as the cases against the various coup plotters wind their way through the justice system. Win the election, hold the senate, take back the house!! And then continue the work of making America great again: Build the wall, enforce the law, deport them all!! End DACA!! End sanctuary cities!! End anchor babies!! Continue cutting regulations, cutting government, cutting spending and...

Scandal-ridden Senate candidate Roy Moore is suing a conservative media outlet for $40 million alleging "fake news," as he runs his second campaign in three years for the same Alabama seat. The Alabama Republican lost to Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., in a 2017 special election, after facing multiple accusations during the campaign that he had pursued romantic relationships with teenage girls while he was in his 30s. Moore filed the suit against Washington Examiner on Monday. “Like the people of Alabama, I am sick and tired of ‘fake news’ by media organizations which pretend to print the truth but in...

One of the biggest arguments for paid leave for new parents has been an economic one: Research has repeatedly shown that women with paid time off after childbirth are more likely to keep working. But a new study, the largest to be done in the United States, found the opposite. In California, which in 2004 became the first state to offer paid family leave, new mothers who took it that year ended up working less and earning less a decade later. They averaged $24,000 in cumulative lost wages, it found. “I could feel the air going out of the room...

I love Ireland for its natural beauty, its people, its food (some of it), its music, its writers and especially its elections, which are shorter, less costly and designed to engage citizens and boost voter turnout. On January 14, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar called a general election for February 8. That means a campaign of slightly more than three weeks. In the process, the Irish Parliament was dissolved. What a delightful thought. If only the U.S. Congress could be at least occasionally dissolved. It could use some dissolving, or at least disinfecting, after the toxic impeachment and trial of...

Project Veritas Action released a new undercover investigation today that includes footage of two Bernie Sanders operatives. It just keeps getting worse and worse for Bernie Sanders and his supporters. It seems like anyone and everyone who works for the Bernie Sanders campaign is all about promoting violence, extreme action, even “Republican reprogramming camps.” Two South Carolina Field Organizers for the Sanders Campaign, Mason Baird and Daniel Taylor, are secretly recorded admitting that the Sanders campaign attracts “truly radical people.” https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1222167846790352897 Full video:

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s unfavorable ratings among women in the Granite State have ballooned by five points since she accused rival U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of saying a woman can’t win the White House, a new poll shows. Warren has also lost support from both male and female voters in New Hampshire despite a new campaign push focusing on the Bay State senator’s electability and female electability in general(snip) “Can we just address it right here? Women win,” Warren said at a 300-person rally in Davenport, Iowa, Sunday. “Women candidates have been outperforming men candidates — since Donald Trump was...

... The Tseycum Nation claims the pair’s rented $18-million mansion is built on land “stolen” by British colonizers almost two centuries ago. “We get no money from the land now, nothing. But for us, it’s just not right houses like that are built there,” Chief Tanya Jimmy told the Sunday Mirror. Brits settled on Vancouver Island around 1843. Harry and Meghan spent six-weeks over the Christmas holidays at the posh palace, believed to be owned by a Russian oligarch. And since the couple severed their ties with the Royal Family, it appears that Vancouver Island will be the pair’s base...