What is written:

United States Constitution
Article II

Section 1.
The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years….

Section 2.
….He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law….

Apparently the President of the United States holds office and exercises executive powers for a full four year term. Included in that is the power to nominate individuals to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

What is said – Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (March 4, 2008):

….I belong to a school of interpretation called ‘originalism’. Uh, sometimes people come up to me, screw up their faces and ask, ‘Justice Scalia. When did you first become an originalist?’ [laughter] Like it’s a terrible disease [laughter]….

….It used to be orthodoxy….

….The Constitution does not change. It means today what it originally meant when the people adopted it. Now, of course, you have to apply some of its provisions to new phenomena. In so far as it applies to existing phenomena, it’s the same. It does not morph….

“….In so far as it applies to existing phenomena, it’s the same. It does not morph….”

A press release from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (r), via Facebook:

….The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President…

We’d all have to wait at least another year. Evidently not an originalist.

Previously:

The world has changed (February 13, 2016)

I visited the Web pages of the entire Missouri Republican House delegation, Reps. Ann Wagner (R-2), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), Vicky Hartzler (R-4), Jason Smith (R-8), Sam Graves (R-6), and Billy Long (R-7). I wanted to see what they had to say about the President’s State of the Union Address (SOTU).

So how did the Missouri arm of the carping and always obstructionist Party of No react to the President pointing out a few facts. Are they embarrassed about how they behaved in the past now that Obamacare seems to be performing as intended, the United States economy is ginning up and putting the lie to the austerian economic policies still advocated by the GOP although they are failing dismally in Europe, slow and cautious foreign policy is showing signs of succeeding in a dangerous world where  military bluster of the sort advocated by the GOP has proven disastrous, and French economist Thomas Piketty has shown us that we need to rescue the middle class with a big dose of redistributive religion, which is just what the President has ordered?

The answer is not much. There was only one notable coinage; Rep. Wagner has dubbed the new GOP Congress The New American Congress. I think she hopes it’ll catch on. Otherwise our Republican guys and gals in Washington followed the rulebook and kept their statements short, simple, and on the tried and true message. The basic themes: Washington is the source of all bad, they are only going there to clean it up. Then they all thumbed their collective noses at the President’s hubris in suggesting that he could initiate any new programs since the Grand Old Poobahs have said no, and they were elected by the majority of the 33 percent of Americans who bothered to vote in 2014, an overweening mandate in their eyes. They conveyed this message with lots of repetition, using the same words and phrases almost interchangeably, with only minor stylistic fillips to distinguish them from each other. For instance:

— Phrases used to describe Obama, his goals and policies:

“expand the reach, size, and scope of the federal government”

“tax and spend”

“redistribute ” (i.e., income, prosperity, etc.)

“trying to divide us along class and income lines”

“same old, tired, Washington-based ideas”

“a top-down economy controlled from Washington”

“politics as usual”

” big-government policies”

“ill-conceived vision”

” failed policies”

“the American people deserve better.”

“political score-keeping”

“my way or the highway”

“the president wants to go at it alone”

“hurt our nation’s family farmers and small businesses”

“burdensome regulations”

“health-care costs are skyrocketing”

“premums skyrocket”

“Americans are struggling to find jobs”

“ignore the will of the people”

“policies and proposals that the American people rejected”

Phrases used to describe GOP, their goals and agenda:

“Government must get out of the way”

“job creation”

“a new direction”

“grow America’s economy – not Washington’s economy”

“remove burdensome regulations like Obamacare”

“unleash America’s energy resources”

“get Americans back to work”

“placing America’s priorities first”

“a healthy system marked by a legacy of opportunity”

“we can get Washington out of the way”

“we can do better”

“forge a new direction”

“a pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda”

“bipartisan solutions”

— Phrases used to describe what Republicans want from the President:

“work with us”

“work with this Congress ”

Obama must “stop issuing veto threats before common-sense pieces of legislation even get to his desk”

Given the relevant context it isn’t hard to interpret those last points. Translate “work with” into “roll over” and you’ve got the gist. As for the rest, I know, I know. You’ve heard them all before. And there’s lots of obvious fibs, misrepresentations, and wrong-headedness. Obamacare is doing just fine, jobs are being created faster than since before Bush, healthcare costs are going down, etc., etc. I’m sure you’re all getting as tired of trying to set these folks straight as I am, especially since it doesn’t do any good.  

I’m tempted to suggest that the GOP needs to convene some new focus groups, get some new material. They don’t have to make it complicated; we know slow, simple and familiar works with the folks they try to please. But do they have to be so predictable? But then, who reads press releases anyway – apart from bloggers with OCD.

*Corrected; last item from 2nd list moves to last list.

Just finished watching the State of the Union Address and the President did us proud. He took a well-deserved victory lap on the topic of the economy, and gave a few specifics about what he would, ideally, like to achieve in the next two years. And those specifics were perfectly consistent with the vision of our country that he also managed to convey. It’s a good vision of an America where pragmatic people work to solve problems without reference to stale ideologies, and where the least of us matter as much as the wealthiest.

Of course, cynics might observe that it’s easy to put such a populist vision forward when the other guys are going to make sure that none of the initiatives that the President promised he would be pushing in the coming days are ever realized. The Kochs and their ilk don’t need to worry – they’ve got their guys just where the want them for the time being, and they are in a position to stalemate anything they don’t like. Just remember, everything changes and our time will come. Meanwhile, it’s good to see a Democrat clearly defining the progressive agenda we must pursue when that time does come.

The Republican response to the SOTU, which was delivered by newbie Illinois Senator Joni Ernst, was lots of fun too. I can honestly say that I found it as amusing as the President’s speech was aspirational. Stylistically, if I didn’t know better, I would  have thought Ernst was going in for irony. She immediately dinged the President for resorting to what she termed “talking points,” just before she regurgitated a litany of GOP talking points. I will agree, though, that for a woman who has been described as being as  nutty as Sarah Palin, she kept it on the mild side.

There was the obligatory, lugubrious Obamacare (ACA) trolling. Ernst couldn’t be expected to respond to the President’s verifiable observation that thanks to the ACA, health care costs, spiraling out of control just a few years ago, are beginning to stabilize, or the crucial point that millions are now insured for the first time. There was the dog-whistle to the anti-abortion contingent, as you might expect, although Ernst, a supporter of personhood amendments in the past, avoided anything too fanatical. Finally, she offered up lots of love for the military, thumbs down for terrorists, and a few not too subtle reminders that the GOP is going to call the shots when it comes to what legislation makes it to the President’s desk so they want him to be a good boy and go along to get along – which seemed to be what she meant when she talked about “working together.” We’ve  heard most of it all before, except for the implied triumphalism, and I’m pretty sure we’ll hear it a few gadzillion times more before 2016.

Ernt’s presentation was, however, truly remarkable for one thing. Her teeth. David Brooks noted on the PBS follow-up that she smiled more than  necessary. That’s an understatement. She never stopped smiling, even when expressing her sympathy for the victims of terrorism – or those whose lives have been, she believes, blighted by Obamacare. I can only conclude that she wanted everyone to see how truly beautiful her teeth are. And she has a point. They are admirable teeth. Just like Little Red Riding Hood confronted with the big, bad wolf, I found myself thinking what fine, big teeth you have, Joni Ernst.

It is true that I learned something from Ernst tonight that reinforces my beliefs about where the Republicans would like to take the country. She told a story about her childhood. It seems she had only one pair of “good” shoes and when it rained, her mother covered them with plastic bags for the trip to school. But our heroine was not ashamed to wear the plastic bags in public. No, not she. Because, you see, when she got on the school bus, most of the other children had plastic bags on their feet too. The moral? There no shame in shared poverty. Indeed, Ernst presented it as something that might even represent an aspirational goal, an apt message from a Republican since GOP policies are apt to send us to the economic bottom poste haste.

ADDENDUM: It seems Ernst wasn’t the whole story when it comes to the GOP response to the SOTU. There was a Spanish version – delivered by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) who claimed that immigration reform was on the GOP agenda – a topic that Ernst carefully avoided except to “pledge that the GOP would “work to correct executive overreach,” which we all know means undoing any reform steps taken by the President:

As Mother Jones reported, whether Curbelo’s Spanish-language response would be a direct translation of Ernst’s was a matter of some confusion prior to the speeches.

In the end, a House Republican spokesperson told the magazine that Curbelo and Ernst would deliver “the same Republican message” — but “with their own unique stories and experiences to shape that narrative.”

Indeed. And of course there’s the fact that Ernst has actively opposed any pandering to Spanish speakers when it comes to official communications like the GOP response to the SOTU. An all around great pick to present the GOP’s governing face to the public.

ADDENDUM 2: More on Joni Ernst’s plastic breadbag shoe covers from “Breadbags of Empathy” by Paul Waldman in TAP. Great deconstruction of the contradictions inherent in the subliminal message; this hilarious sentence sums it up:

… And it’s inspiring that someone like Joni Ernst can start life in the most modest of circumstances, fitted as a baby with tiny booties made from Hostess Twinkie wrappers, then graduate to bread bags as she learned to castrate hogs (they do help keep the blood off your one good pair of shoes), and eventually grow up to do the bidding of the nation’s noblest plutocrats. It shows what’s possible in this great country of ours.

Ari Fleischer, republican hack and former press flack for dubya’s administration posted a whine via Twitter today:

Ari Fleischer ‏@AriFleischer

Question to @gov: how come @BarackObama ‘s last tweet was more than 140 characters? Does he play by different rules??? 5:28 PM  24 Sep 13

It was all about this:

Barack Obama ‏@BarackObama

“Not only are premiums lower than they were, they’re lower than the most optimistic predictions.” -President Obama on Obamacare #CGI2013 4:44 PM  24 Sep 13

Much hilarity ensued in the responses to Ari Fleischer (r):

Adam Henry ‏@viewofadam

@AriFleischer It’s only 136…? 5:29 PM  24 Sep 13

Eli Yokley ‏@eyokley

@AriFleischer it wasn’t? 5:31 PM  24 Sep 13

neil ‏@neilkli

@AriFleischer @BarackObama the four extra characters are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.5:42 PM  24 Sep 13

jeremy scahill ‏@jeremyscahill

@AriFleischer is our children learning? 5:48 PM  24 Sep 13

Jesse LaGreca ‏@JesseLaGreca

Anyone who wants to see what Stupid Right Wing Tweets look like should check out @AriFleischer ‘s feed, math fail results in hilarity 5:58 PM  24 Sep 13

UP Pastry Plate ‏@UPPastryPlate

@AriFleischer I didn’t go to Harvard or Princeton but I can count to 136. @gov @BarackObama 5:59 PM  24 Sep 13

Elijah Zarlin ‏@elijahion

@AriFleischer wait – so you are telling me Republicans are bad at math? who could have known. 5:58 PM  24 Sep 13

Denis McGrath ‏@heywriterboy

Mission Accomplished, Ari! @AriFleischer @gov @BarackObama 6:40 PM  24 Sep 13

Epic fail.

The Keystone Pipeline would cross the central United States carrying environmentally “dirty” tar sands oil to refineries on the Gulf. Environmentalists oppose it on numerous grounds. Those who support it it usually do so on the grounds that it would create jobs in the U.S. and would lessen our energy dependence on the Middle East. Both claims have been convincingly disputed. The jobs claim, however, has been a constant talking point among Missouri’s Republican delegation to Washington D.C.:

I wrote last week that Rep. Ann Wagner (R-4) was getting all worked up that the president had had the gall to call Republicans out on the topic of the economy while delaying approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Right now, President Obama can approve the Keystone XL pipeline and create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs while ushering in a new era of energy independence.

GOP Senator Roy Blunt also thinks Keystone XL is a great idea according to a press release on his Website:

Blunt cosponsored bipartisan legislation – which was introduced by U.S. Senator John Hoeven (N.D.) and is cosponsored by 44 Senators – to authorize the construction and operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline would create an estimated 20,000 jobs.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3) claims that if the President endorses the pipeline, “the end result will be the creation of 20,000 jobs and the reduction of our dependence on foreign oil.”

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4) also likes that 20,000 number, claiming on her Website, that “TransCanada, the builder of the pipeline, plans to spend  $7 billion in the U.S. and create 20,000 jobs.”

Ever the team player, Rep. Billy Long (R-7) goes along with the idea that it’s all about jobs, claiming that “the Keystone pipeline is a privately funded jobs project.” Imagine! I bet TransCanada thinks it’s significantly more that a “jobs project” when it comes to their bottom line.

On the other hand we have President Obama who recently indicated the criteria he would use to judge whether or not to okay the pipeline project. In his statement, he discounted the jobs argument that has become an article of faith among his Republican detractors, who were moved to near hysterical levels of invective when he delayed his decision on the pipeline last year. Instead, the President observed that:

“Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” Obama told the Times. “There is no evidence that that’s true. The most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline, which might take a year or two, and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs in an economy of 150 million working people.”

On one side: right-wing, free-market ideologues, many of whom are in hock to the energy industries that fund their campaign with big donations. On the other side: a famously cautious, centrist politician with nothing to gain from Big Oil who has taken the time to review all the arguments – and who has no ideologically implanted hostility to environmentalism baked into his genetic makeup.

The real indication that something is amiss with the GOP job estimates, however, is a fact that our pols ought to be aware of. The company that wants to build the pipeline, TransCanada itself, has been backing off the earlier estimates of large numbers of jobs:

In January of 2010, Trans-Canada CEO Russell Girling claimed that the project would produce 13,000 construction jobs.  In April of 2011 the number grew to 20,000, which the Canadian Ambassador reiterated in August 2011.  In January 2012 the number was revised back down to 13,000 and this past April the company revised that number even lower, to 9,000 construction jobs.

Nine thousand jobs are still more than the estimates prepared by the State Department and those offered in another study done by Cornell University, but it’s getting closer and closer to the ball park in which opponents of the pipeline have been playing. This fact alone suggests that our Republicans should be worried that they’re promising lots more than TransCanada can deliver.

ADDENDA:  TransCanada is sending mixed messages, apparently backtracking again to the 20,000 jobs figure – at least for public consumption – and claiming disingenuously that “there is no reason for us to overinflate our numbers, we have to answer to our board, we have to answer to our shareholders.”  The 9,000 number comes as noted above from the TransCanada CEO, Russell Girling in April of this year; the reiteration of the 20,000 number comes from a company “spokesperson,” one James Miller apropos the “political” situation that he posits as the rationale behind the President’s comments. Draw your own conclusions.  

Yesterday in Warrensburg President Obama tried to raise once again the issue of economic growth and its corollaries such as infrastructure investment, education and energy. The response from Missouri’s GOP politicians can only have been inspired by the fact that they’re secretly trying out their stand-up comedy routines before getting together and hitting open-mike night at some comedy club:

Back in Washington, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said on the Senate floor that he was glad the president is visiting Missouri. “But these speeches sound an awful lot like the 2012 campaign speeches. I think we need to move beyond that. We need to not just pivot to the economy, but we need to stick with the economy.”

And:

“Our nation would be in a better place if, instead of spending all his time giving speeches filled with unrealized rhetoric about a better America, President Obama would actually work with Republicans to address the enormous problems facing our nation,” Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, said in a statement.

Somebody needs to remind Senator Blunt about the priorities of his GOP congressional colleagues. Although perhaps he’s aware of some big economic impact that adheres to outlawing all abortions at 20 weeks; votes to ban gender-based abortion (which is not a problem in the U.S.); 38 (I believe that’s the current count) purely symbolic votes in the House to defund Obamacare, numerous set-to’s over shutting the down the government over such a routine matter as raising the debt limit to cover the nations already incurred obligations (all spending approved by congress, by the way); this summer’s unending hearings over poorly manufactured and managed non-scandals, etc. and etc. (And, by the way, don’t forget, all this useless activity costs us money.)

As for Speaker Jones, he actually has the right of it. Of course, God himself couldn’t “work with” Republicans. After all, as we have learned over the course of the past few years, working with Republicans to achieve almost any goal means meekly bowing your head and meeting their every demand, and, God forbid, never, ever criticizing them for acting like thugs – all while ignoring the druthers of the folks who elected President Obama with a rather resounding majority to do just those things that throw the excitable GOPers into a frenzy of tantrums.

Both Senator Blunt and Rep. Jones seem to want us to think that the President is all talk and no action. However, I do seem to remember numerous initiatives that the president has put forward while the GOP has done nothing at all but obstruct and fulminate. Specifically in response to columnist Josh Kraushaar, Economist Jared Bernstein managed to point out the weakness of these types of GOP talking points when used to counter the President’s new offensive on the economy:

There’s no hint in Kraushaar’s column about the Jobs Act that Obama proposed in September 2011. Nothing about the economic plan he pushed in fall 2010, either. Nothing about Dodd-Frank. Nothing even about the proposals Obama made in his State of the Union this year, most of which he’s still repeating (and House Republicans are still ignoring). For that matter, nothing about Obama’s deficit-cutting over the last couple of years. […]

Not to mention that there’s a very screwy giving-speeches-and-passing-things focus here. What Obama did for the economy in 2009-2010 was mainly implementing the stimulus passed in early 2009. That’s really not ignoring the economy.

I don’t think any sane person could deny that we’re recovering from the Bush recession  – and from where I stand the President deserves the credit. And also from where I stand, the folks who deserve the blame for the fact that this same recovery is less vigorous than it could be are the folks who insisted on a series of stupid budget cuts that culminated in the sequester – which all by itself is costing us plenty in terms of growth:

Forecasting firm MacroEconomic Advisers has lowered its second-quarter forecast for GDP growth from 1.8% to 1.3%. That’s very weak growth that will probably hold back hiring and spending, and depress confidence. “The sequester is expected to slow growth this year, and largely accounts for the weak second-quarter growth and lackluster third-quarter growth,” the firm said in a recent report.

Of course I read yesterday that Senator Blunt thinks he has the solution to all our economic problems. While – to his credit – speaking out against a mind-numbingly stupid GOP threat to hold the debt limit hostage to an effort to defund Obamacare, he added:

… Where we ought to be now is – we need more spending cuts. They need to be probably on the mandatory side rather than the discretionary side. I think that’s the formula that obviously allows us to move forward most easily here.

You know what that means. If the President decides, apropos Speaker Jones wishes, to “work with” Republicans, it will mean cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Just what the GOP has wanted all along.

Heh. The beauty of a billboard like this is that everyone else is reminded of the failure of their sentiment long after the election has passed. At least for as long as the billboard stays up. 0-3, baby, 0-3.

We still don’t know who paid for this.

On U.S. 50 westbound, east of Powell Gardens in west central Missouri.

And still counting…

Election 2012: Results

President

[Barack] Obama [D] – 62,615,406 votes – 51%

[Mitt] Romney [R] – 59,142,004 votes – 48%

[emphasis added]

U. S. Senator (3387 of 3387 Precincts Reported)

Claire McCaskill Democrat 1,484,700 54.7%

Todd Akin Republican 1,063,702 39.2%

[….]

U.S. Representative – District 5 (387 of 387 Precincts Reported)

Emanuel Cleaver II Democrat 196,467 60.2%

Jacob Turk Republican 121,437 37.2%

[….]

[emphasis added]

Now what?

Previously: Uh, who’s paying for this? (August 17, 2012)