The Long Journey of the 27th Amendment

History 8 Minutes

I have always wondered about Congress voting for their own salary increases and so I researched the 27th Amendment.  Here’s what I found at the constitutioncenter.org website:

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment has one of the most unusual histories of any amendment ever made to the U.S. Constitution. Congress passed the Twenty-Seventh Amendment by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, in 1789, along with eleven other proposed constitutional amendments (the last ten of which were ratified by the states in 1791, becoming the Bill of Rights). The Amendment provides that: “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.”

During the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, congressional pay was a central topic, one that took up several days of discussion. Benjamin Franklin’s initial speech to the Convention was on the topic of public salaries: he was against them. Public servants should not get paid at all, Franklin argued, or we would get representatives with “bold and the violent” personalities, engaged in “selfish pursuits.” Franklin’s extreme argument did not prevail because the Framers wisely did not want only the wealthy to be able to afford to hold federal offices. This is a very good thing. 

Nonetheless, Franklin’s comments caused the Framers at the Philadelphia Convention to focus on the problem of making sure that people did not go into public office to make a lot of money. In England, at the time, the biggest problem of English democracy was the phenomenon known as “placemen.” Placemen were members of Parliament who the King simultaneously appointed to lucrative executive branch offices to buy their loyalty on votes in Parliament. The King had built up his power by corrupting these office holders, giving them easy and well-paid civil office jobs so that they would support him in Parliament. To prevent this problem, the Framers added Article I, Section 6’s Incompatibility Clause. That Clause says that “no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.” The Framers described the Incompatibility Clause as being “The Cornerstone of the Constitution.” But as to salaries for congressmen themselves, the Constitution simply said those salaries should be provided for by law—in other words, that Congress would set its own pay. This did not sit well with the general public, or with James Madison—it seemed like a big opening for Congress to pay itself too much.

In 1789, Madison proposed twelve amendments to the federal Constitution, the first ten of which were ratified in 1791 and became the federal Bill of Rights. One of the proposed amendments, which was not ratified at that time, was an amendment that became the Twenty-Seventh Amendment and which forbade congressional pay increases from taking effect until there had been an intervening election of members of Congress. Madison did not want Congress to have power over its own pay without limitation. But he also did not want the President to control congressional salaries, since that would give the President too much power over Congress. So instead, he proposed that an election had to happen before any pay raise could take effect. If the public opposed an overly generous congressional pay raise, the public could throw the offending congressmen out of office when they ran for re-election.

The congressional pay amendment was only ratified by 6 states initially. But the First Congress, which had passed the Amendment in 1789, had not attached a time limit within which the Amendment had to be ratified by the states. (Some subsequent constitutional amendments have provided for such time limits.) In the nineteenth century, one state joined this small group, and others in the twentieth, but no one thought it was going anywhere—or thought about it much at all.

In 1982, the Amendment was languishing before the states with only a tiny fraction of the number of states needed to ratify having ratified it. That year Gregory Watson, a sophomore at the University of Texas, was assigned to write a paper about a government process. He came across a chapter in a book on the Constitution, listing proposed constitutional amendments that had not been ratified. He wrote his paper on the congressional pay amendment, arguing that there was no time limit on when it could be ratified, and that it could be ratified now. He got a C on the paper. Maybe if he had received a better grade on his paper, the story would have ended there, but Watson was sure it was a better paper, so he appealed his grade, first to his T.A., then to his professor; and when he was unsuccessful, he decided to take the issue to the country. In an NPR report in May 2017, he said that after his teacher affirmed the C, “I thought right then and there, ‘I’m going to get that thing ratified.’”

Watson sent letters around the country to state legislators, who mostly ignored his idea. But Maine Senator William Cohen liked the idea—and he pushed it and it passed in Maine in 1983. After that, Watson kept pushing, and the Amendment picked up steam.

The fact of the Amendment’s passage through Congress in 1789 and of its non-ratification by the states came to public attention in the 1980s when there was tremendous popular disapproval of the performance of the Congress and the exorbitant salaries and fringe benefits members of Congress enjoyed. As a result, a campaign was launched to get three-quarters of the states to ratify the Amendment over the totality of the period between 1789 and the present day. In 1985, five states passed it, and by 1992, the 38 states needed for full ratification had all passed the Amendment. Thus, the three-quarters of the states’ consensus required by Article V of the Constitution was finally reached in 1992—more than 202 years after Congress had proposed the Amendment. The Archivist of the United States declared the Amendment to be legally ratified, and, subsequently, Congress on May 20, 1992, declared the ratification to be legal and the Amendment to be part of the Constitution.  As of today, forty-six states have ratified the Twenty-Seventh Amendment while four have not.

The main objection that has been made by scholars to the legality of the ratification process of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment is that Article V contemplates some kind of simultaneous approval of a proposed amendment between when Congress votes on it and when three-quarters of the states ratify it.  Proponents of this view point out that the size of the Senate and House of Representatives and the number of states in the Union have changed significantly between 1789 and 1992. Scholars who reject the Twenty-Seventh Amendment do so on the structural constitutional ground that there was never a “magic moment” consensus of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and three-quarters of the states when a national and federal supermajority agreed to add the Amendment to the Constitution. Speaker of the House Tom Foley initially called for litigation to challenge the legality of the Amendment’s ratification process, but he quickly changed his mind on that point once he saw how popular the Amendment really was.

Moreover, these scholars add that there are a number of constitutional amendments that Congress has approved but that the states have not yet ratified, which could become law if the Twenty-Seventh Amendment process were to be held valid. In an effort to avoid the outbreak of the Civil War, Congress passed a constitutional amendment called the Corwin Amendment, which would have forever preserved slavery in those states where it was legal in 1861. Could this horrible old amendment, to which Congress attached no time limit for its ratification, be resurrected and ratified in the future simply by state action and with no new attempt to get two-thirds of both Houses of Congress to ratify it?

The argument in favor of the validity of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment’s ratification is that Article V’s text only requires: 1) two-thirds of both Houses of Congress pass the proposed amendment, which happened here in 1789; and that 2) three-quarters of the states ratify the amendment as it passed in Congress, which they did here in 1992. From a strictly textual viewpoint, the terms of Article V were satisfied, and Congress had no choice but to accept the Amendment as being a valid addition to the Constitution.

It is important to note here that the “precedent” that was set when Congress “approved” of the unusual process by which the Twenty-Seventh Amendment was ratified meets not only the textual requirements of Article V; it also met the structural argument about the need for a “magic moment” when there is a popular national consensus of super-majority proportions. Congress on May 20, 1992 voted by a unanimous vote of the Senate and by a vote of 414 to 3 in favor of “accepting” the Twenty-Seventh Amendment as having been validly approved. Forty-six out of fifty states ratified the Amendment, and no state that had once ratified the Amendment tried to “unratify” it. Both the textual and the structural concerns that underlie Article V had been satisfied. There was an Article V consensus in 1992 to ratify this most unusual amendment.

It goes without saying that there would NOT be such a national supermajority consensus for many other “dead” constitutional amendments that have been ratified by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and sent to the states for ratification. In the unimaginable situation in which a state might try to ratify the Corwin Amendment constitutionalizing the right to own slaves, Congress would immediately rescind its approval of the Amendment as would most of the states, which had ratified it. It is thus important to note that the case of the 202 year-long ratification process of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment is really sui generis: It deals with a situation, which is very unlikely ever to rise again.

One final question is raised by the odd ratification process of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment: What role, if any, should the U.S. Supreme Court play in passing on the validity of the ratification of constitutional amendments? Such amendments are the supreme law of the land, as is Article V, and Chief Justice Marshall said in Marbury v. Madison (1803), “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is.” In Coleman v. Miller (1939), Justice Hugo Black wrote a concurrence joined by Justices Roberts, Frankfurter, and Douglas arguing that cases that go to the validity of the ratification of a constitutional amendment should be said to raise a political question and that only Congress can resolve that question.

Professor Calabresi agrees with Justice Black on this point because over the last 228 years of American history the federal courts have never been in the business of reviewing the legality of the process by which an amendment was ratified, and there is no reason they should get into that process now. There were serious questions about the legality of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment since the eleven rebel states were compelled to ratify the Amendment before they were allowed back into the Union. Congress declared this was legal and that the Fourteenth Amendment had been validly ratified, and Professor Calabresi heartily agrees. Suffice it to say that no court has ever or should ever question Congress’s judgment and decision on that measure.

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment was accepted as a validly ratified constitutional amendment on May 20, 1992, and no court should ever second-guess that decision. Constitutional amendments are one of the few checks and balances that “We the People” have on the Supreme Court, and it would thus be unconstitutional for the Supreme Court to adjudicate the legality of the ratification of an amendment that might be overturning a Supreme Court decision. That would violate a fundamental axiom of Anglo-American law, which is that no man should ever be a judge in his own cause.

SOURCE: CONSTITUTIONCENTER.ORG

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Published by pat frederick

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153 thoughts on “The Long Journey of the 27th Amendment”

  1. THE LAW OF THE LORD IS PERFECT….PSALM 19

    Psalm 19 

    1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
    2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
    3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
    4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
    5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
    6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
    7 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
    8 The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
    9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
    10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
    11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
    12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
    13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
    14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The USA (to our shame) is the only country that allows unborn infants to be cruelly killed with salt, beheaded, dissected, removed and sold for parts and tissue up to the last moment – even after the baby is born.

      We are also guilty of forging laws that allow us to break all of GOD’s COMMANDMENTS – and some laws that would force us to do so.

      America – the USA – and all Western nations – and even some of our churches have descended into blasphemy, heresy, apostasy, syncretism, barbarism, paganism, inhumanity, decadence and depravity.

      Only true Christians and true MAGA patriots are standing up against the abandonment of reason and humanity – the descent into utter depravity.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. – Proverbs 9:10

        Amplified Bible
        The [reverent] fear of the LORD [that is, worshiping Him and regarding Him as truly awesome] is the beginning and the preeminent part of wisdom [its starting point and its essence], And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding and spiritual insight.

        The Law of the Lord proceedeth out of Zion – Isaiah 2:3

        NET Bible
        many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the LORD’s mountain, to the temple of the God of Jacob, so he can teach us his requirements, and we can follow his standards.” For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; the LORD will issue edicts from Jerusalem. 

        Isaiah 2:2-4 – KJV
        2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
        3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
        4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Good morning, Miss Pat! Yes – the PA showed us the xrays and sent a copy home for Sally’s Dad to see. Said she was healing fine and there was no need for a follow up. She’s got rods inside the entire length of those femurs and lots of nails or screws holding the rods in place. They put pain killers in the surgery site to minimize pain immediately after the surgery and she did well. Amazing techniques in orthopedics these days.
        I made new leg pieces for her lift to also help minimize stress on the breaks in her femurs and to better balance and support her weight. I still haven’t figured out how to make something to hold her arms down in the lift.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Good morning, Pat! I’ve got 64 this morning, still cloudy, w/more rain on the horizon. Last night was wild – thankfully, the wind didn’t get bad at all. At one point, I could see lightning flashes in all of the clouds surrounding me, N/S/E/W – looked kind of ethereal, with the clouds lighting up like fireworks going off in the distance but in silence w/no thunder!

      It’s started to rain again now. We have definitely moved out of the drought! Literal downpours, with rain so heavy I almost couldn’t see my neighbor’s house and incredibly loud on the metal patio roof! Thankfully, the hail that fell sporadically was very small and didn’t last long.

      Of course, the jelly feeder was filled with nothing but grape-colored water this morning! The Orioles kept coming around, cocking their heads, looking at the water, before flying off again. They are flocking to it now that I’ve dumped the water and refilled it.

      Guess I’ll have to call my furnace people since the heat won’t come on this morning – it just blows cold air. This is the 2nd time that’s happened recently so a service call is in order. I’m not going to wait until fall and end up sitting here freezing while I wait for them to get here.

      Wheezer came and ate a lot again last night and, when I was filling the jelly feeder, I saw him/her curled up in the garden bed – stalking birds most likely. (S)he jumped down and came in to eat again once I went back inside.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Morning Filly!
        we finally are at 50*. no birds this morning–no singing–nothing–just the hummers huddled on the 2 feeders we left out last night. poor things. it was dang cold this morning!
        we turned on our heat too. soon it will be turned off again, but it takes the chill out of the house on days like this

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Catturd ™
    @catturd2
    Dear Republican Party @GOP
    …

    I don’t want to hear another damn word about Ukraine.
    I don’t want to hear another damn word about Israel.
    I don’t want to hear another damn word about GAZA.
    I don’t want to hear another damn word about Taiwan.
    I don’t want to hear another damn word about any other country except the USA, you America-last war pigs.

    The fascist Democrat Party has completely destroyed our country from within, we have a wide open border, and they’re shitting on the Constitution while you spineless, coward losers get rich on insider trading, rage tweet, and talk about your “principles.”

    They’re literally arresting their political opponents and their lawyers and having kangaroo communists show trials – and you pitiful, worthless losers are doing absolutely nothing.

    If you don’t have balls to fight for freedom – RESIGN !!!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. landestine

      @WarClandestine

      The Deep State just signed their own death warrant. Trump’s poll numbers are about to skyrocket. He is still going to win, and now he has the precedent established to bring the full letter of the law down on every single corrupt bureaucrat and politician in DC. Game on 😈

      Liked by 2 people

    1. They (the globalist, commie-nazis) hate Russia because Putin has removed the communist persecution of the Faith of Jesus Christ and has backed the Russian Ruble and economy with tons of GOLD. They want to control the world economy, resources and people.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Putin wants to make Russia a great country–not a subjugate one. who can blame him for wanting that for his people?
        as long as you don’t poke at him, he will leave you be.

        Liked by 2 people

  12. Matt Walsh

    @MattWalshBlog

    A former president and current presidential candidate was just convicted of 34 felony charges by a jury of his political opponents during an election year based on a novel legal theory where the underlying alleged crime was never clearly explained and without requiring the jury to even reach a unanimous conclusion about it. This was the very definition of a show trial.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. Val1

    May 31, 2024 1:58 am

    Reply to  Charlotte99

    President Trump’s Truth

    “Not only did this HIGHLY CONFLICTED, BIASED Judge, Juan Merchan, prevent me from presenting the fact that I did not take a Tax Deduction on the Legal Expense (which was marked, correctly, as a Legal Expense), the Judge also did not allow my lawyers to get Tax Records from the former attorney, whose name I am not allowed to mention due to the UnConstitutional Gag Order imposed upon me.
    ELECTION INTERFERENCE! WITCH HUNT!”

    https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/112531797445934111

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Val1

      Val1

      May 31, 2024 2:13 am

      Reply to  Charlotte99

      “I DIDN’T HAVE A FIXER, I HAD A LAWYER WHO, AT THAT TIME, WAS FULLY ACCREDITED AND ACCEPTED WITHIN THE LEGAL COMMUNITY, BUT THE JUDGE IS NOT ALLOWING ME TO USE THE RELIANCE ON COUNSEL DEFENSE. I MAY BE THE ONLY PERSON IN THE COUNTRY NOT ALLOWED TO DO SO AND, THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS A VERY UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND RESTRICTIVE GAG ORDER. NOT FAIR — FREEDOM!”
      May 29, 2024

      https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/112522427830343851

      Liked by 1 person

  17. leik

    leik

    May 31, 2024 5:46 am

    Reply to  Troublemaker10

    What Biden, Bragg, & crooked corrupt court jester Merchan did is wake a sleeping giant. I heard from ppl who never liked or voted @realDonaldTrump who told me today they sent money & will do everything they can to elect him Nov 5. It’s no longer about Trump. It’s about US!

    — Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) May 31, 2024

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Jenevive
    May 31, 2024 7:06 am

    From Twitter
    Victor Orban (yes THAT Victor Orban)

    I’ve known President @realDonaldTrump
    to be a man of honour. As President, he always put America first, he commanded respect around the world and used this respect to build peace. Let the people make their verdict this November! Keep on fighting, Mr. President!

    Liked by 1 person

  21. wokeness bullshit on steroids! West Point to award obummer the Thayer award…

    FTA

    As much as I think Barack Obama was a plague on the prosperity of America, one must give him his due. He said he would “fundamentally change America” and he did.

    Yes, all Presidents pledge to alter America’s course for the better. Reagan had a significant impact and so did Trump. But compared to the lasting legacy of Obama, Reagan and Trump are just pleasant fleeting memories.

    To forcefully punctuate the woke infection that continues to spread throughout America, the United States Military Academy at West Point has now announced that it will award Obama the 2024 Thayer Award. The Thayer Award is the highest honor West Point can bestow on an American. It is given to those who have truly exemplified “Duty, Honor, Country” in service to America. Will we now honor a man who:

    • In 2010, fired 197 generals and admirals to make way for more woke officers to fill their jobs;
    •  Forced a Naval Academy graduating class to not wear sabers at their graduation ceremony because he feared for his personal safety;
    •  Traded five senior terrorists for one U. S Army deserter;
    •  Slashed military budgets, thus depriving the services of much needed training, maintenance, and modernization; and,
    •  Showed outright contempt for the military on many occasions.: 

    Is this the sort of man that makes us want to think about “Duty, Honor, Country”? 

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/don_t_bring_a_knife_to_a_gunfight.html

    Liked by 1 person

  23. sync

    May 31, 2024 7:21 am

    @shipwreckedcrew

    So — today everyone in the GOP got a first hand look at what J6 defendants have faced with juries in the District of Columbia for more than two years since the first jury trial in March 2022.

    If anything, the juror pool in the District of Columbia is even more hostile to Trump supporters than was the jury in Manhattan.

    As I’ve said here many time, jurors in DC do not care what the defense is. They do not listen to or believe defense favoring testimony — even when it comes from FBI or other Govt witnesses on cross-exam.

    They accept uncritically every word that comes out of the mouths of FBI witnesses mouths, and no argument made by prosecutors is too extreme or too tenuous to reject.

    Donald Trump was convicted because he’s Donald Trump.

    Many J6 defendants have been convicted because they are Donald Trump supporters.

    Today’s result is going to energize Trump supporters and the broader GOP.

    But it is going to do the same with jurors in DC as well as DOJ.

    I’ve picked up two more new cases this week – that’s 18 since Jan 1. Not only is the work continuing, the work load is growing.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. sync

    May 31, 2024 7:23 am

    @elonmusk

    Indeed, great damage was done today to the public’s faith in the American legal system.

    If a former President can be criminally convicted over such a trivial matter – motivated by politics, rather than justice – then anyone is at risk of a similar fate.

    @Geiger_Capital

    The first felony conviction of a former US President wasn’t for the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, illegal CIA coups, drone striking weddings, or spying on Americans…

    It was because Trump misclassified a $130,000 payment for a porn star’s NDA.

    Tells you everything you need to know.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. “Friday Funnies: The Rule of Law in a Kangaroo World”

    ROBERT W MALONE MD, MS, MAY 31, 2024

    “Today’s verdict represents the culmination of a legal process that has been bent to the political will of the actors involved: a leftist prosecutor, a partisan judge, and a jury reflective of one of the most liberal enclaves in America—all in an effort to “get” Donald Trump.

    That this case—involving alleged misdemeanor business records violations from nearly a decade ago—was even brought is a testament to the political debasement of the justice system in places like New York City. This is especially true considering this same district attorney routinely excuses criminal conduct in a way that has endangered law-abiding citizens in his jurisdiction.

    It is often said that no one is above the law, but it is also true that no one is below the law. If the defendant were not Donald Trump, this case would never have been brought, the judge would have never issued similar rulings, and the jury would have never returned a guilty verdict.

    In America, the rule of law should be applied in a dispassionate, even-handed manner, not become captive to the political agenda of some kangaroo court.” -Ron DeSantis

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Just The News: “Former President Donald Trump on Friday announced a sizeable fundraising haul in the wake of his guilty verdict in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money case.

    A New York jury on Thursday found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records after a weeks-long trial. The verdict appears to have energized his supporters, however, as the campaign’s donation page crashed, evidently due to the volume of traffic.

    The campaign on Friday announced it had brought in $34.8 million in small dollar donations, marking a near-doubling of its single largest day total on WinRed.

    “From just minutes after the sham trial verdict was announced, our digital fundraising system was overwhelmed with support, and despite temporary delays online because of the amount of traffic, President Trump raised $34.8 million dollars from small dollar donors,” said Trump Campaign Senior Advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.

    “Not only was the amount historic, but 29.7% of yesterday’s donor’s were brand new donors to the WinRed platform,” they continued. “President Trump and our campaign are immensely grateful from this outpouring of support from patriots across our country. President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November 5th is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict.”

    Trump faces sentencing on July 11 and is likely to appeal his convictions.”

    Liked by 1 person

              1. No, thank you, dear! That’s sweet but no – I’ve got so many t-shirts now, I don’t know what to do with them all. I have one whole bin in my storage in the garage filled with t-shirts! And a drawer-full inside! LOL

                Liked by 1 person

              3. I already have a Trump 2024 Make Great Again flag….I browsed thru the merchandise and didn’t see anything that interested me, tbh. I already have a Trump mug that Piper gave me for Xmas when he was first elected and 2 Trump ball caps.

                Liked by 1 person

              5. Besides, I still have the black flag holder in the cupboard since the white one is still solid. Seriously! Your friendship and acceptance are all I need! 😊😊😊🥰🥰🤗🤗

                Liked by 1 person

  35. SMH – now the notification bell is fucked up!!! Just an outline of a bell now.

    “Three Jersey Shore beaches are under swimming advisories due to high levels of fecal bacteria found in water samples. The three beaches had high levels of enterococci bacteria, a pathogen common in the feces and intestines of animals. They’re closing the beaches because fish shit in the water…”

    Liked by 1 person

  44. Patience

    May 31, 2024 11:08 am

    Reply to  Patience

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

    @repmtg
    16h
    ·
    ·
    I agree with every single word here.

    Republicans have done NOTHING to stop the Democrats from destroying our justice system and our freedoms.

    Many Republicans would just quote the constitution as they are marched to the firing squad.

    When good men do nothing, evil prevails.

    Liked by 1 person

  46. Finally….after many repeated attempts – Imgur uploaded the pic of my peonies I took early yesterday, before the storm moved in! Things are royally fucked up everywhere on the net!!!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I just spent 30 minutes deleting a TON of pictures from my old opens, hoping that would fix it….it didn’t!!! Grrrrr…..

      Liked by 1 person

      1. A few years ago, I thought they were dying but they’ve come back now. I’m beginning to realize that a lot of this was caused by the extended drought. I have a Blue Spruce to the west of the house that looked like it was dying for years; I hadn’t looked at it this year since I’m not doing my own mowing/weed eating now. But I stopped and looked at it yesterday and it has totally filled out and is thriving again. Had to be the drought.

        Liked by 1 person

  47. Weaponization Committee
    @Weaponization
    #BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan
    will demand Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo to appear for hearing on June 13, 2024 to testify about the unprecedented political prosecution of President Trump.

    Liked by 1 person

  48. Benny Johnson

    @bennyjohnson

    Every single one of the Founding Fathers was a felon. Some went to jail, some were executed, some died penniless. There is *always* a cost to being a revolutionary against an evil system. Persecution is part of the process. In the end, the revolutionaries change the world.

    Liked by 1 person

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