BALTIMORE, Maryland February 16, 2016 - You would think that somebody who is expected to end up the Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, would have a little bit better momory of the things he said in front of a microphone. In Schumer's case, the latest glaring example of inconvenient forgetfulness came when - with one and one-half years left in the Bush administration, and having just confirmed two Bush Supreme Court Nominnees, Schumer took to the microphone to say that there would be no more Bush appointees going on to the Supreme Court. He said, in addition, that confirming any more conservative nominees would throw the Supreme Court out of kilter. Now, the leading conservative on the Court has died with only ten months left in the Obama regime. No Supreme Court nominee has been confirmed in the last year of a presidency during the last 20 Presidential Election cycles, a span of 80 years. So when Mitch McConnell, the current Senate President, said within hours of Anton Scalia's death that Obama would not be appointing Scalia's replacement, he was well within the bounds of Senate practice. Obama can appoint all he wants, his choice will not go anywhere unless the GOP goes completely spineless.
Some would say, "don't rule that out." I couldn't blame them for saying that with the GOP's record on standing up to Obama. But that spinelessness has now been pounced on by a very angry electorate. In the GOP race, so-called renegade candidates have a decisive lead in the Republican race and a complete outsider is giving the consensus Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton, a run for her money and then some. Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary by a landslide, and came within a whisker of winning in Iowa; it was so close that the leading newspaper in the state wants the entire Democratic Caucus audited. It should be.
A key GOP primary is set for Saturday in South Carolina, with Super Tuesday looming in early March. If Donald Trump and Ted Cruz continue to pull away from the pack in the GOP race, the final nail will be put into Obama's chances of actually naming Scalia's replacement. He, of course, has the Constitutional right to name anyone he wants, but that choice will remain in suspended animation until next January, when he or she will go back to the life they had before Obama called. In other words, if you are the Obama pick, I'd stay away from the Washington Real Estate market.
Many wonder what the fall-out will be from Saturday's voting in South Carolina. Will candidate's like Ben Carson and John Kasich formally drop out? Will Jeb Bush if he finishes a poor fourth or fifth? Will Marco Rubio begin to see the writing on the wall or will he continue his campaign of bridge burning. Cruz and Trump are also burning the bridges of party unity, but they won't stop until one or the other cries uncle. A CBS poll released Sunday showed Donald Trump with support from 42% of likely voters, compared to 20% for Cruz and 15% for Marco Rubio. John Kasich was fourth with 9%, followed by Ben Carson and Jeb Bush with 7% each. An internal poll said to have been taken by workers for Bush showed Cruz much closer to Trump, possibly as close as just 2%. Those results are completely unconfirmed and, in addition, key numbers such as the size of the sample or whether the respondents are likely voters or merely voters, were not revealed.
In an interview late this afternoon with Sean Hannity, Trump tried to downplay the animous between him and the family of Jeb Bush. At the Saturday debate, Trump alleged that President Bush knew in advance of invading Iraq that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. He has also hinted that Bush had information that could have allowed him to intercede before the 9/11 attacks. Today, he backed away from both allegations, and defended himself by citing the heated rhetoric coming from the Bush campaign. He also backed away from saying he would nominate his sister for the Supreme Court. Trump's sister is on the federal Court of Appeals, the court immediately below the Supreme Court. She was appointed by President Reagan, but has been very liberal in her rulings.
In another development, Sally Miller, now 77, and a former Miss Arkansas, is reported to claim in a forthcoming book that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian and Bill Clinton, one of her former lovers, snorted cocaine and once donned a woman's frilly neglige and danced around her bedroom playing his saxophone. Miller makes these revelations in a recent edition of the Daily Mail in London. They are also said to be in the soon-to-be-published book.
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