Tag Archives: SCOTUS

BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show, Tuesday, 7-3-18

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Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to utilize their studio and hijack their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, thanks to my shameless contract — as well as appear on the Sack Heads: Against Tyranny Show every Wednesday night.

Tonight, as we were on the cusp of the 4th of July, BZ played the 1986 July 4th address by President Reagan in New York.

  • HOUR 1: Poland is proud; Chris Pratt mentions God; the SHR Media studios get their HVAC back; the SEC is skewered; Obama admonishes Republicans to “push to change it, but don’t break it; don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.” Advice that the LDAMM don’t want to take from anyone now, not even Obama. I also discussed: just who could halt a Trump SCOTUS nomination? Right. The GOP. I also read Kurt Schlichter’s article “Never Trumpers Suffer Yet Another Utter Humiliation.”
  • HOUR 2: Tucker Carlson talked to Leonard Leo about Trump’s SCOTUS nominee pool to include Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Tom Hardiman, Ray Kethledge, Joan Larson, Allison Eid and others. BZ played the flaying of Amy Barrett by Demorats Dick Durbin and Diane Feinstein in 2017 wherein they applied a religious test to her placement, as she is a Catholic. As Diane Feinstein smarmily stated “the dogma lives loudly within you.” And much more.

And isn’t it odd — John Kennedy being Catholic was a large issue way back in 1960. It’s 2018 and that’s still an issue? Are you kidding me? We’ve gotten nowhere past that in 58 years? So, to the LDAMM these days, nothing other than a pure Secularist is even remotely acceptable these days?

The common thread in Trump’s pool is Originalists, belief in the Constitution, stare decisis, who want to interpret the laws as written and not to create law, and belief in the rule of law itself.

For DISH subscribers: your Hopper has recently been wired to play YouTube videos. You can now toss ol’ BZ onto your massive flatscreen TV and watch him in all of his obese, biased and politically-execrable potty-mouthed goodness.

If you care to listen to the show in Spreaker, click on the yellow button at the upper left.

Listen to “BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show, Tuesday, 7-3-18” on Spreaker.

If you care to watch the show on the SHR Media YouTube channel, click on the red arrow in the middle of the video. Please SUBSCRIBE to the SHR Media channel.

If you care to watch the show on the SHR Media Facebook page (in glorious color), click right here. Kindly LIKE us on Facebook. You can FOLLOW us on Twitter @SHRMediaGroup. Please FOLLOW ol’ BZ @BZep. Thanks so much.

Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin (on Twitter @BZep, Facebook as Biff Zeppe and the Bloviating Zeppelin, and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.

As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening later via podcast.

Please remember that BZ can only monitor the SHRMEDIA.COM chat — though there is chat available on both Facebook and YouTube. If you wish to interact with myself and the bulk of the chatters, I heartily recommend and invite you into the SHR Media page. My thanks to those chatters who have migrated over to the upgraded chat room, thanks for Shaun. Instead of a paltry limit of 10 chatters, we can take up to 100. A bit optimistic, perhaps, but BZ can dream, can’t he?

  • Want to listen to all the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here.
  • You can listen to the show here on Dan Butcher’s High Plains Talk Radio page.
  • Want to watch the show live on Facebook? Go to the SHR Media page on Facebook here.
  • Want to watch past Berserk Bobcat Saloon shows on YouTube? Go here.
  • Want to watch the show on High Plains TV? Go here.

Thank you one and all for listening, watching and supporting the SHR Media Network: “Conservative Media Done Right.”

BZ

 

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Who could stop a Trump SCOTUS nomination? Democrats? No, Republicans

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And at this point there is at least one Republican who is vowing to do precisely that, if he doesn’t get his way.

It is Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona, a man doing justice to his last name. This should not be completely unexpected, as he learned at the lap of the Master Republican RINO himself, Senator John McCain, also of Arizona.

From RollCall.com:

Flake Confirms He’s Stalling Trump’s Judicial Nominees Over Tariffs

by Niels Lesniewski

Said Sunday he wants the Senate to respond to president’s trade policy

Sen. Jeff Flake has gone public with his threat to stall judicial nominations seeking action to rebuff President Donald Trump on tariffs.

It comes more than a week after the Arizona Republican first held up the nomination of Britt Grant to be a judge on the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals at the Judiciary Committee.

“We’ve approved a number of judges. That is important,” Flake said Sunday. “But, Article I — the Congress, Article II — the executive, are important as well.”

“I do think that unless we can actually do something other than just approving the president’s executive calendar, his nominees, judges, that we have no reason to be there,” Flake said. “So, I think myself and a number of senators, at least a few of us will stand up and say let’s not move any more judges until we get a vote for example on tariffs.”

This, you see, is perfectly in keeping with the McCain Doctrine, which distills down to this: “It’s all about me, it will always be about me and, when in doubt, see the first part of this sentence.” Perhaps BZ is not the fondest friend of John McCain. Veritas.

Luckily, a dime was dropped and somehow Flake got back in line. Would loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation. From AZCentral.com:

Jeff Flake says he won’t stall Supreme Court pick over tariff dispute

by Ronald J. Hansen

U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake said Wednesday he would not try to strong-arm the Trump administration on tariffs — or other issues — by withholding his support from a Supreme Court nominee.

A lame duck about to piss in the champagne? Narrowly avoided.

But let’s go back in time for a moment and revisit just how it might be that the Demorats got into their current predicament — back to, say, 2013 and some little thingie called a filibuster involving then-Senator Harry Reid.

Who was it that said “elections have consequences?” Or: “don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.” Isn’t that what Obama heralds us to do? Win an election? And what happens if we do?

Are we to actually wield the power we acquire from said elections?

Too late Obama. You were right, there are consequences. On both sides. Some go along. Other just like to pinch a loaf in the punchbowl.

Yes, there are consequences to losing an election. They have visited the Demorats. But instead of taking Obama’s advice and not attempting to break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building, the LDAMM would rather just, well, break it.

Oh; and a few others as well. Altogether too many of them have an (R) behind their names.

Back to the original question: if Flake is eliminated as an obstructionist, who is left? Or Left?

Would it perhaps be some female Republicans?

From Politico.com:

The fate of the Supreme Court could ride on these 2 senators

by Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan

Sen. Susan Collins took a notable phone call Thursday as she enters the eye of the Supreme Court confirmation storm: It was White House counsel Don McGahn, sounding out the moderate Maine Republican in what she called a “preliminary discussion” of the high court vacancy.

Republicans control the Senate by a single seat and Arizona Sen. John McCain has been absent for months. That means any single GOP senator has enormous sway over President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick.

Which is why Jeff Flake was of concern. One vote. Here’s two more.

I have admitted many times since 2016 that I voted for Donald John Trump, the guy with the dead orange cat on his head, for two very specific reasons. I hold to that two years later, as firm or firmer than ever:

  • President Trump is not Hillary Rodham Clinton, and
  • President Trump will make infinitely better SCOTUS nominations than HRC.

I and many others like me are being proven quite correct. We already are witness to the positive effects of Neil Gorsuch.

None matter more than Collins and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who also received her own call from McGahn on Thursday. Then on Thursday evening, the two were part of a small group of bipartisan senators to meet directly with the president himself.

How critical a handful of votes potentially become.

A year ago, the two moderate Republicans, along with McCain, stopped Obamacare repeal in its tracks while helping to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Now, as they weigh how to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, the two are about to be squeezed more than ever — by liberals seeking a Republican to stop the court from outlawing abortion rights, among other potential conservative rulings, and by their fellow Republicans looking for a show of party unity on a hugely consequential vote.

But after all, it’s about politics and most everything is a negotiation in DC. So let’s examine some of the top Trump SCOTUS candidates.

From the NYPost.com:

Women are frontrunners on Trump’s list of Supreme Court nominees

by Mary Kay Linge

Trump has winnowed down his short list of candidates to “about five,” two of them female, he said Friday.

He promised to make his selection from the same list of 25 jurists that he publicized during his 2016 campaign, which includes six women.

What about names? And what about age? If given the chance, any president would rather install someone who would potentially sit for years on the court.

International betting sites taking wagers on the eventual nominee see Amy Coney Barrett as a front-runner.

“There’s a lot of buzz about her, with good reason,” legal pundit John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog told The Post.

If you recall, she was mercilessly grilled by Demorats over her religion — illegally, I might add — when she was in contention for a 2017 federal circuit judgeship.

Then Diane Feinstein decided it was time to lump up Amy Barrett’s faith. “The dogma lives loudly in you.”

Funny how the religion of Demorats is never questioned because, these days, people like Nancy Pelosi pull the Religion Card frequently. But that’s just fine.

Bush question: is there a Harriet Meir amongst them?

Joan Larsen, 49, is also in the running, Hinderaker said.

“She was confirmed to the federal bench in November without a lot of fireworks, on a 60-38 vote,” he said. “She passed so easily such a short time ago, you’d have to ask why anyone who voted for her would oppose her now.”

This is an interesting point.

Murkowski opposed President Barack Obama’s appointee Elena Kagan, but otherwise she and Collins have voted for nominees under presidents of both parties. Collins and Murkowski both met with Obama nominee Merrick Garland, who never received a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

The two senators said this nominee will be no more important than any other Supreme Court votes they’ve cast. But each acknowledged that the political stakes might be higher than ever, given their party’s narrow majority, the approaching midterms and the potential for the Supreme Court to be reshaped for a generation.

“This is what goes on in the Senate. Sometimes you’re in the pressure cooker,” Murkowski said. Asked whether a pressure campaign could backfire, as it did on Obamacare repeal, she paused and replied: “I could just say something flip, like ‘Watch me.’”

Then she added: “I don’t mean to be flip. … I take it very, very seriously.”

They both enjoy the spotlight focused upon them. They enjoy the fact that perception indicates they possess sufficient power to obstruct a very serious vote. They enjoy the recognition of their power however intermittent it may be. Alaska and Maine don’t customarily acquire power in terms of states. They have to grab for their 15 Minutes of Ring when it comes around.

Alan Dershowitz weighs in:

In addition, there is this: what will happen to the Demorats who are in possession of areas that, in the 2016 presidential election, voted for Donald John Trump? Dare they piss off their constituents and slay every nomination Trump makes? Can they afford to do that politically?

Danger, Will Robinson.

BZ

 

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Sack Heads: AGAINST TYRANNY, Wednesday, 6-27-18, the “Are You Tired of Winning Yet?” episode

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The Sack Heads Radio Show on the SHR Media Network is no more; in its stead — same time and day — is the Sack Heads: AGAINST TYRANNY Show (an actual SHAT Show) helmed by Sack Heads Clint and Sack Heads BZ.

As per normal Clint and BZ tore through the gristle of today’s screaming headlines and ripped out the sinewy Tendons of Truth ensconced within, all from the Hoary Streets of Shatramento, Fornicalia, exposing the trembling toadies, sniveling jackanapes and fripperous fopdoodles infesting Leftist and Progressive ant farms nationally.

Tonight we featured the “Are You Tired of Winning Yet?” episode of the SHAT Show, in consideration of recent SCOTUS rulings regarding abortion, cell phone data, the Trump travel ban and mandatory union fees. All wins. All Trump.

For DISH subscribers: your Hopper has recently been wired to play YouTube videos. You can now toss the SHAT Show onto your massive flatscreen TV and watch him in all of his obese, biased and politically-execrable potty-mouthed goodness. Quarter in a hat.

If you care to listen to the show in Spreaker, click on the yellow button at the upper left.

Listen to “Sack Heads: AGAINST TYRANNY, Wednesday, 6-27-18” on Spreaker.

If you care to watch the show on the SHR Media YouTube channel, click on the red arrow in the middle of the video. Please SUBSCRIBE to the SHR Media channel.

If you care to watch this episode on the SHR Media Facebook page (in glorious color, like any of the Quinn Martin productions), click right here. Kindly LIKE us and FRIEND us on Facebook.

Please FOLLOW the SHAT Show on Twitter @2againsttyranny.

BZ asks to remind everyone that the hosts only monitor the Shat Room here at SHRMEDIA.COM — though there are Shat rooms on Facebook and YouTube. We can only monitor one Shat room at a time so, please, we ask that you partake of the SHR Media Shat room. Heavy sigh: if only BZ had a producer.

-Want to listen to the SHAT Show archives in podcast? Go here.
-Want to watch the show live on Facebook? Go to the SHR Media Facebook page here.
-Want to watch past SHAT Shows on YouTube? Go here.

“SHAT is where it’s at.”

Thank you one and all for listening to, watching and supporting the SHR Media Network: “Conservative Media Done Right”!

BZ

 

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SCOTUS: go get a warrant for cell phone location data

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I served for 41 years in law enforcement, retiring in 2016.

As an officer I labored for the federal side and the local side. Whilst in Detectives I happened to work in Theft, Warrants, Child Abuse, Sex Assaults, Robbery and finally Homicide. I had to get arrest warrants. I had to get search warrants. I had to write and submit affidavits and warrant requests with my hero pages. If I had to do it, the rest of law enforcement should have to do it. I had to respect the 4th Amendment. All of law enforcement should have to respect the 4th Amendment.

From the WashingtonTimes.com:

Supreme Court rules warrant required for cellphone location data

by Alex Swoyer

The Supreme Court on Friday said the government must obtain a search warrant before demanding an individual’s cellphone location records from a telecommunications company.

In the 5-4 decision, the court said it’s a violation of the 4th Amendment for police to search a suspect’s cell-site location information (CSLI), which is stored by a telecommunications company, without a warrant.

The case arose when a defendant was convicted of a series of robberies based on his cellphone location data. He moved to suppress the evidence, saying the records were obtained without a warrant and thus violated his 4th Amendment protection.

The lower courts sided with the government, but the high court decided the 4th Amendment’s guarantee to privacy extends to new age technology.

“A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote in the court’s opinion.

Yes, I was in law enforcement. But I had to obey the law. On the federal side I could acquire pen registers and Title IIIs. With warrant requests and applications. And they came with serious limitations “back in the day” when you had reel-to-reel recorders. You couldn’t just activate the recorder and perch all day. You could only listen for a brief time and then switch off if you heard nothing. Timing was everything.

Technology is confounding, certainly. But law enforcement can get lazy and can’t afford to. My advice to cops: don’t get lazy. On homicide scenes, depending on the case, I may have had possession of a house or a certain scene but in order to buttress my case I also went to a judge and acquired a search warrant to make my investigation more bulletproof.

The government had argued the information was kept by a third party, the telecommunications company, so it did not violate the suspect’s 4th Amendment rights.

This isn’t rocket science. Everyone knows that most people leave the GPS activated on their cell phones and by doing so the cell provider knows, generally, where the phone — and hence you — are located. Truly, you don’t even have to activate GPS. The cell towers just know.

But the court said a company’s constant tracking of an individual carries concerns.

“In light of the deeply revealing nature of CSLI, its depth, breadth, and comprehensive reach, and the inescapable and automatic nature of its collection, the fact that such information is gathered by a third party does not make it any less deserving of Fourth Amendment protection,” Justice Roberts wrote.

He was joined by the courts’ four Democratic appointed justices, but the court’s four Republican appointed justices disagreed with the holding.

This next bit of information aligns with my way of thinking and the analogy is proper and correct.

The ruling follows a case six years ago where the court said a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s vehicle without a warrant is unconstitutional.

Allow me to go a bit further. Your cell phone is much more than a simple communications device that allows you to talk to people. It is a texting machine, a camera, an audio recorder, a video recorder and, frankly, a computer. People have their lives in their cell phones these days. Breaking into someone’s cell phone is not unlike breaking into their personal computer at home.

Also, quite a number of law enforcement agencies have Stingrays these days. This is a device called an IMSI catcher. It can be used to track and locate cell devices and users, block signals, intercept communications content, force cell phones to disconnect from their standard carriers and connect to it — and a host of other functions. See the graphic.

If you’re in or near an urban center and not under the flight pattern of a military base or commercial airport, you know that air traffic is a fraction of what it used to be when I was growing up. To even see a military aircraft these days is an uncommon occurrence. But have you ever heard a small plane buzzing about at night in what seems to be some kind of a pattern for a lengthy period of time?

Chances are pretty good that its occupants work for a federal, state or local law enforcement agency and that they are employing a Stingray or a variant.

This, then, is of note from Engadget.com:

Court rules Stingray use without a warrant violates Fourth Amendment

by Mallory Locklear

The ruling could have widespread implications for the technology.

Today, the Washington DC Court of Appeals overturned a Superior Court conviction of a man who was located by police using a cell-site simulator, or Stingray, CBS News reports. The court ruled that the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when law enforcement tracked down the suspect using his own cell phone without a warrant.

Stingrays work by pretending to be a cell tower and once they’re brought close enough to a particular phone, that phone pings a signal off of them. The Stingray then grabs onto that signal and allows whoever’s using it to locate the phone in question. These sorts of devices are used by a number of different agencies including the FBI, ICE, the IRS as well as policeofficers.

The use of cell-site simulators, especially without a warrant, has come under question a few times in recent years. In 2016, a federal judge suppressed DEA evidence obtained via such a device, the first time a federal judge had done so. Last year, members of Congress called for legislation that would protect citizens’ privacy and require a warrant before Stingrays could be used by law enforcement. Two such bills were introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this year.

Obviously, this is my Libertarian side coming out. I am a great advocate of privacy — and why I say:

When I was a law enforcement officer, I had to acquire search warrants. There is no reason current law enforcement shouldn’t do the same thing. It will help your case to acquire even more strength. If you lack PC for said warrant, you’d best start rethinking your case.

BZ

 

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SCOTUS gives President Trump power over key jobs in federal agencies

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Mostly UNcovered by the LDAMM (Leftists, Demorats and American Media Maggots). Translated: more power ceded to the president to fire.

From Reuters.com:

SEC judge appointments unconstitutional, U.S. high court says

by Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court gave presidents more control over key jobs in federal agencies on Thursday, ruling that the way the Securities and Exchange Commission selected in-house judges who enforce investor protection laws violated the U.S. Constitution.

The justices agreed with President Donald Trump’s administration that the SEC, in having low-level staff install administrative law judges, infringed upon powers given to the president in the U.S. Constitution’s “appointments clause” regarding the filling of certain federal posts.

Oh, but wait. It gets better.

The (7 – 2) ruling could reverberate through the federal government, which has nearly 2,000 administrative law judges who decide matters as varied as unfair trade practices, veterans benefits and patent infringement.

Gulp. You mean what is done can be undone by the president? All those sitting Admin Law judges who were perhaps ordained simply by arcane incantations and incense in swinging thuribles?

And perhaps best yet?

The ruling, authored by liberal Justice Elena Kagan, could also make it (BZ’s emphasis) easier for these in-house judges to be fired by a president’s political appointees in agencies rather than being protected from such action, as is currently the case.

An interesting point by Justice Kagan:

Kagan said administrative judges wield powers extensive enough to qualify under the Constitution as “inferior officers” subject to appointment by the president, a federal department head or a court.

Who then focuses on abuse of power next:

Just “as armies can often enforce their will through conventional weapons, so too can administrative judges,” Kagan said.

Another in a continuing series of reasons the Deep State and DC Swamp want President Donald John Trump, the guy with the dead orange cat on his head, to completely disappear. He is upsetting the status quo, bringing light where no light is desired and causing the cockroaches to scatter. Trump is even using pointy cowboy boots to kill said cockroaches when they skitter to once-safe corners.

Yes, I still don’t care for a percentile of what Trump does or says. Still and all, the more he is attacked for doing his job and upholding his campaign promises — and the more the LDAMM insult, minimize, delegitimize or actually attack me and other Conservatives (becoming more physical these days) — the more I stand with President Trump.

He’s crass, he’s rude, he’s an egomaniac (name one president who wasn’t), he’s a bull in a china shop where delicate sensitivities have clearly been offended. “Presidents don’t act that way.” Get over it, you wienies.

What presidents really do is put the United States first.

Just like every other nation does with themselves.

I can smell the LDAMM bed-wetting from here.

BZ

 

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