That's it.
Well, we're beat.
At least we are going to wait until after the election, that is how these things work right?
Maybe Supreme Court needs to completely lose its legitimacy to be saved. Far too often it has gotten a pass while being a very active player in dismantling the democratic institutions.
Quote from: DGuller on September 18, 2020, 06:51:00 PM
Maybe Supreme Court needs to completely lose its legitimacy to be saved. Far too often it has gotten a pass while being a very active player in dismantling the democratic institutions.
Such as the time they overturned [My preferred judical position]
Quote from: chipwich on September 18, 2020, 07:00:29 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 18, 2020, 06:51:00 PM
Maybe Supreme Court needs to completely lose its legitimacy to be saved. Far too often it has gotten a pass while being a very active player in dismantling the democratic institutions.
Such as the time they overturned [My preferred judical position]
Plessy vs Ferguson?
Quote from: Valmy on September 18, 2020, 06:49:04 PM
At least we are going to wait until after the election, that is how these things work right?
That's right! :)
:cry: :bleeding:
I am sure the party of values, of decency, of waiting for the public to decide will do the best thing here.
RIP :(
Wow. I am sure of two things, and fairly sure of a third:
1. I am sure that the republicans will ram through a nomination for someone even worse than Kavanaugh.
2. I am fairly sure that the democratic response, when they take the Senate, will be to add more justices to the nine in place. They can ram that through, probably, on a party-line vote.
3. I am sure that, looking back, we will see this as the point when it irrevocably turned to shit. The stage will be set for a purely-partisan game of "add the justices" that will have no end.
RBG, you fought the good fight, and it is tragic that your death will be what you are known for in history.
Quote from: PDH on September 18, 2020, 07:06:40 PM
I am sure the party of values, of decency, of waiting for the public to decide will do the best thing here.
Moscow Mitch has already said that he believes USSC nominations are rightfully a purely partisan undertaking, and that he would confirm a Republican nominee up until the last day before the new Senate takes office.
Quote from: grumbler on September 18, 2020, 07:35:49 PM
Quote from: PDH on September 18, 2020, 07:06:40 PM
I am sure the party of values, of decency, of waiting for the public to decide will do the best thing here.
Moscow Mitch has already said that he believes USSC nominations are rightfully a purely partisan undertaking, and that he would confirm a Republican nominee up until the last day before the new Senate takes office.
I didn't say best for whom.
How many Republicans would it take to stop Mitch from getting a confirmation?
53 Republican Senators
If 3 vote no, then Pence can tie break to confirm
If 3 abstain, then I believe under the standing quorum rules, the vote would be 50 out of 97, so more than 1/2, which is enough to carry a motion
If 4 vote no, then either a Democrat has to vote to confirm, or they cannot confirm
If 4 abstain, then I believe 49/96 is enough to pass
So a lot will depend if these Senators like Grassley, Collins, Murkowski and (rumors at the moment) Romney who have indicated they would not vote in this scenario plan to vote no or plan to abstain.
On a high level you never really dislike having a new seat on the SCOTUS; but structurally I think this may be a rough political situation for the GOP. For one multiple incumbent, vulnerable Republicans, are probably not helped by this:
Cory Gardner
Susan Collins
Thom Tillis
Martha McSally
Are the four who are done no favors at all by this situation, and probably this alone could cost them reelection.
On the flipside, this situation likely helps the GOP Senators in Red States who are facing unexpectedly strong contests--Daines in Montana and Graham in South Carolina, because a majority of voters in those states are strongly pro-life and would be likely to be at least partially energized by this.
On some level the smart move would perhaps be for Trump to either slow roll the nomination or basically do some fake paeaen to bipartisanship and hold off on it, to keep the pressure off these guys. But there's actually big risks for Trump, he's in bad shape in all the polls and not coming out swinging with a new nominee risks alienating the one part of Trump's coalition that has the most transactional relationship to the President and who has been very loyal thus far--the pro lifers who vote based more or less entirely on the promise of Supreme Court justices.
What about those who are fighting for their jobs? Like McSally, Gardner, and Tillis? Think any of them will flip because of the election?
EDIT: Thanks, Otto. I agree, but wanted another opinion.
Even if there aren't enough Republican senators willing to vote on this before the election, there will certainly be enough during the lame duck period.
Grassley could vote against referring the nomination to the Senate in committee. That would set up an interesting scenario in which the majority in the Senate would have to vote to overturn their own committee rules and write new ones that allowed a vote on the nominee before the Judiciary Committee reports out on the nomination. That, in turn, would be disastrous to the republicans if they lose control of the Senate, because the democrats could apply those same rules on their own and cripple the chance of the minority to affect legislation.
Tyranny of the majority has always been avoided in the Senate, though the Republicans have whittled away at minority powers the whole time they have been in the majority. That makes this election in the Senate vital for the Democrats, and I think a high-handed approach by Moscow Mitch could sway the outcome of the senatorial races.
This is all so fucked up. Moscow Mitch has earned his 30 pieces of silver. If Putin had himself been named Senate Majority Leader, he couldn't have damaged the US more than Mitch McConnell has.
Quote from: grumbler on September 18, 2020, 09:22:14 PM
Grassley could vote against referring the nomination to the Senate in committee. That would set up an interesting scenario in which the majority in the Senate would have to vote to overturn their own committee rules and write new ones that allowed a vote on the nominee before the Judiciary Committee reports out on the nomination. That, in turn, would be disastrous to the republicans if they lose control of the Senate, because the democrats could apply those same rules on their own and cripple the chance of the minority to affect legislation.
Tyranny of the majority has always been avoided in the Senate, though the Republicans have whittled away at minority powers the whole time they have been in the majority. That makes this election in the Senate vital for the Democrats, and I think a high-handed approach by Moscow Mitch could sway the outcome of the senatorial races.
This is all so fucked up. Moscow Mitch has earned his 30 pieces of silver. If Putin had himself been named Senate Majority Leader, he couldn't have damaged the US more than Mitch McConnell has.
Hear! Hear!
He is truly the enemy of the people, and still will be re-elected in November. :ultra:
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on September 18, 2020, 09:21:11 PM
Even if there aren't enough Republican senators willing to vote on this before the election, there will certainly be enough during the lame duck period.
I think Grassley, Collins, and Murkowski won't regardless. If Romney doesn't vote to confirm, he won't during the lame-duck session, either.
Quote from: merithyn on September 18, 2020, 09:49:17 PM
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on September 18, 2020, 09:21:11 PM
Even if there aren't enough Republican senators willing to vote on this before the election, there will certainly be enough during the lame duck period.
I think Grassley, Collins, and Murkowski won't regardless. If Romney doesn't vote to confirm, he won't during the lame-duck session, either.
I'm willing to bet that Romney won't vote either before the election or during the lame-duck (unless the GOP retains the Senate and Trump is re-elected). Maybe one of Grassley, Collins, and Murkowski, but not enough to stop the nominee from going through. Collins looks likely to lose and has no reason not to vote for the nominee after her loss.
Quote from: merithyn on September 18, 2020, 09:30:00 PM
Quote from: grumbler on September 18, 2020, 09:22:14 PM
Grassley could vote against referring the nomination to the Senate in committee. That would set up an interesting scenario in which the majority in the Senate would have to vote to overturn their own committee rules and write new ones that allowed a vote on the nominee before the Judiciary Committee reports out on the nomination. That, in turn, would be disastrous to the republicans if they lose control of the Senate, because the democrats could apply those same rules on their own and cripple the chance of the minority to affect legislation.
Tyranny of the majority has always been avoided in the Senate, though the Republicans have whittled away at minority powers the whole time they have been in the majority. That makes this election in the Senate vital for the Democrats, and I think a high-handed approach by Moscow Mitch could sway the outcome of the senatorial races.
This is all so fucked up. Moscow Mitch has earned his 30 pieces of silver. If Putin had himself been named Senate Majority Leader, he couldn't have damaged the US more than Mitch McConnell has.
Hear! Hear!
He is truly the enemy of the people, and still will be re-elected in November. :ultra:
Dunno, man. Bloodbath McGrath had been amping up her radio ads.
Quote from: derspiess on September 18, 2020, 10:30:37 PM
Dunno, man. Bloodbath McGrath had been amping up her radio ads.
I like the nicknames present in that race.
So the nightmare scenario is now that they ram through a candidate worse than Kavanaugh, then Trump - losing the election - takes it to "his" Supreme Court and steals the presidency? That's not possible, is it? :unsure:
Quote from: Syt on September 18, 2020, 11:21:35 PM
So the nightmare scenario is now that they ram through a candidate worse than Kavanaugh, then Trump - losing the election - takes it to "his" Supreme Court and steals the presidency? That's not possible, is it? :unsure:
I mean he would only have three members and it is not like Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are quite that beholden to him. I guess it would depend on how the Supreme Court would do that. It is Congress that certifies the results usually, not the Supreme Court.
Quote from: derspiess on September 18, 2020, 10:30:37 PM
Quote from: merithyn on September 18, 2020, 09:30:00 PM
Quote from: grumbler on September 18, 2020, 09:22:14 PM
Grassley could vote against referring the nomination to the Senate in committee. That would set up an interesting scenario in which the majority in the Senate would have to vote to overturn their own committee rules and write new ones that allowed a vote on the nominee before the Judiciary Committee reports out on the nomination. That, in turn, would be disastrous to the republicans if they lose control of the Senate, because the democrats could apply those same rules on their own and cripple the chance of the minority to affect legislation.
Tyranny of the majority has always been avoided in the Senate, though the Republicans have whittled away at minority powers the whole time they have been in the majority. That makes this election in the Senate vital for the Democrats, and I think a high-handed approach by Moscow Mitch could sway the outcome of the senatorial races.
This is all so fucked up. Moscow Mitch has earned his 30 pieces of silver. If Putin had himself been named Senate Majority Leader, he couldn't have damaged the US more than Mitch McConnell has.
Hear! Hear!
He is truly the enemy of the people, and still will be re-elected in November. :ultra:
Dunno, man. Bloodbath McGrath had been amping up her radio ads.
Poll shows Mitch McConnell up double digits on Amy McGrath in Senate race (https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article245776680.html)
Quote from: Valmy on September 18, 2020, 11:29:37 PM
Quote from: Syt on September 18, 2020, 11:21:35 PM
So the nightmare scenario is now that they ram through a candidate worse than Kavanaugh, then Trump - losing the election - takes it to "his" Supreme Court and steals the presidency? That's not possible, is it? :unsure:
I mean he would only have three members and it is not like Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are quite that beholden to him. I guess it would depend on how the Supreme Court would do that. It is Congress that certifies the results usually, not the Supreme Court.
keyword being usually. It all depends on how close it is and how hackables or reliable the voting machines are. I don't have a lot of faith in these.
Yeah it would come down to what was being litigated, if a fight breaks out over certification of electors and the Congress is divided, the court has limited authority to really forcefully decide the issue.
That's one of the reasons the Hayes-Tilden election was so contentious, there really wasn't any clear authority who could just thump their fist down and say "THIS IS THE DECISION", the Supreme Court doesn't have that power, and whatever ruling it issues Congress isn't bound in its operations by it. Supreme Court decisions can neuter the government's ability to enforce laws that Congress passes if those laws are declared constitutional, but it can't really change how the Senate or House choose to conduct their business, constitutionally basically no one can--other than maybe the President through force of arms (and then we're in a constitutional crisis.) In that election the Republicans also controlled the Senate, with the Democrats controlling the House, and a huge fight broke out over certification. There was no clear cut resolution as a matter of "law", what instead happened is the political leaders of both parties agreed to create a commission, and there was a power sharing arrangement in terms of appointing members to the commission that sought to make it a somewhat neutral/fair body.
The commission ultimately decided on which elector slates from each State that was contested (this election had multiple states with contested electors) would be accepted and the parties in the respective houses of congress agreed on its decisions. So functionally one member of the commission was chosen because he was not a known member of any political party, and the rest of the commission was broken down 50/50. But the neutral member of the commission, during its deliberations, was nominated for the Supreme Court. He accepted, and withdrew from the commission to avoid an appearance of a "conflict of interest." The replacement for him was a partisan Republican--while not widely known by the public at the time, the reason the Democrats accepted this replacement is the Republicans promised that if the Democrats allowed it, the new Republican President (Hayes) would end Congressional reconstruction in the South, and basically let the South "redeem" its governments by passing a bunch of laws to get rid of all the carpetbaggers and blacks who had been elected to State offices throughout the old confederacy.
Now for this sort of scheme to work the first thing you would need is the political leadership of the two parties to even agree to such a thing--there was no external force or de jure rule that required this, it was a compromise the men involved came up with and agreed upon.
Bad news for the election right?
It'll bring some wavering anti trump Conservatives on side....
Quote from: grumbler on September 18, 2020, 07:33:56 PM
Wow. I am sure of two things, and fairly sure of a third:
1. I am sure that the republicans will ram through a nomination for someone even worse than Kavanaugh.
2. I am fairly sure that the democratic response, when they take the Senate, will be to add more justices to the nine in place. They can ram that through, probably, on a party-line vote.
3. I am sure that, looking back, we will see this as the point when it irrevocably turned to shit. The stage will be set for a purely-partisan game of "add the justices" that will have no end.
RBG, you fought the good fight, and it is tragic that your death will be what you are known for in history.
Sounds about right.
On the game of add the justices though.... There's already calls for reform right?
I wonder whether Biden would try that or it'll take a few years of bloating the court to get to the stage someone thinks they can manage it
So Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 87 when she died.
My question is, she was well in her 80s during the Obama years. Why didn't she resign when Obama was president?
Quote from: Monoriu on September 19, 2020, 03:40:09 AM
So Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 87 when she died.
My question is, she was well in her 80s during the Obama years. Why didn't she resign when Obama was president?
Any number of good reasons. But I don't know which one was most important to her.
Well, you can't start having justices choose which administation will replace them either. In the end, I think having justices serve for life is a bad idea. Imho, they should serve for a reasonably long, but fixed, term.
How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?
Quote from: Maladict on September 19, 2020, 04:25:21 AM
How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?
When you have judges being appointed by politicians, there's a risk they will end up appointing political judges. Not an easy needle to thread, since you want separation of powers but also some kind of accountability.
Quote from: Maladict on September 19, 2020, 04:25:21 AM
How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
Quote from: Maladict on September 19, 2020, 04:25:21 AM
How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?
It's crazy. I feel like more Brits or Irish would know how many justices there are on the US Supreme Court than the UK or Irish Supreme Courts.
Quotehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
Law is always political. But that's not the same as the courts being political.
I think it's the legislative appointment process that opens it to politics in this way.
I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political. :hmm:
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 19, 2020, 07:07:44 AM
I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political. :hmm:
Mortal Kombat?
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 19, 2020, 07:07:44 AM
I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political. :hmm:
Yeah - I mean I think even other countries where there is more politics in the appointment process than the UK or Ireland, such as Germany don't have it as a political issue. In the UK and Ireland it's largely the judiciary who do the appointing (or at least recommending appointments to politicians who can turn them down, but that's quite rare) - which creates its own issues, our judiciary is far less diverse than the US and I think it does lead to a small c conservative bias rather than appointing striking or original thinkers. Having said that, I'm not convinced a small c conservative bias is necessarily a bad thing in the judiciary.
I wonder if part of it is also that most countries have minimum qualifications/criteria for all judicial positions and for the Supreme Court. I don't think that exists at all in the US.
Quote from: Tyr on September 19, 2020, 01:13:04 AM
Bad news for the election right?
It'll bring some wavering anti trump Conservatives on side....
Most "Never-Trumpers" have already bent the knee or are basically Democrats now, and the people who are most likely to vote on Supreme Court Justices as a single issue are already 99.9% riding the Trump Train (Evangelicals hoping to overturn Roe).
It could also energize progressives who aren't in love with Biden to vote for him instead of a Bernie write-in. Honestly, it's impossible to say so I'm inclined to say it will have a negligible effect on the presidential election.
It'll have a much more powerful effect on Senate elections, though.
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 19, 2020, 07:07:44 AM
I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political. :hmm:
Maybe, but it could be a lot less political.
I couldn't name a single one of our SC judges, and their appointment barely makes the news. I don't think the political leanings of the judges are known, at least not to the general public. It just isn't a topic, apart from the Geert Wilders court case maybe, but that was bound to happen.
I had to look up our nomination process. Apparently the SC itself selects six candidates which are then narrowed down to three by the Second (Lower) Chamber of Parliament. The King then approves the number one spot, which is typically left unchallenged by the Second Chamber. So the SC chooses its own replacement, and they'll get their first pick unless parliament intervenes. Selecting nominees based on political affiliation is not allowed by the Constitution on grounds of discrimination.
Edit: SC judges are appointed for life (as are all judges) but have to step down at age 70.
Quote from: Maladict on September 19, 2020, 07:44:37 AM
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 19, 2020, 07:07:44 AM
I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political. :hmm:
Maybe, but it could be a lot less political.
I couldn't name a single one of our SC judges, and their appointment barely makes the news.
I'm not sure that is a good thing... :hmm:
But then it also seems like (or at least, we never hear about it) the SC's of other nations have as much power/influence as the USSC has inside its political system. If they did, you probably would hear more and know more about them.
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 19, 2020, 08:09:20 AM
I'm not sure that is a good thing... :hmm:
But then it also seems like (or at least, we never hear about it) the SC's of other nations have as much power/influence as the USSC has inside its political system. If they did, you probably would hear more and know more about them.
I'm not sure the UK one has had some big decisions recently and I couldn't name a judge (and I'm a lawyer :Embarrass:), but the most prominent members have recently stepped down so that's probably to be expected.
The German Constitutional Court also has a very important role in their system, but I don't get the impression it's as political as the US (despite being a very political court) or that the individual members are as well known? Not sure.
The Spanish Constitutional Court has had a large profile in the Catalan separatist crisis but I'll be damned if I can name any of the judges. Their mandates are short, anyway (9 years).
The court has an unwritten rule of avoiding split decisions in landmark cases, so that kinda tends to reduce political infight to dominate it.
Sweden doesn't have a Constitutional Court. We don't need one, the Riksdag promised to be good.
Quote from: celedhring on September 19, 2020, 08:33:09 AM
The Spanish Constitutional Court has had a large profile in the Catalan separatist crisis but I'll be damned if I can name any of the judges. Their mandates are short, anyway (9 years).
The court has an unwritten rule of avoiding split decisions in landmark cases, so that kinda tends to reduce political infight to dominate it.
Well, we do have an ongoing (two years at the moment, IIRC) block on the renewal of the "Consejo General del Poder Judicial", which affects the composition of the Supreme Court, because PP refuses to nominate new judges to it in order to maintain their current majority, so it's not an uniquely US thing, although our case is way less dramatic and AFAIK doesn't involve anyone dying off.
Quote from: Monoriu on September 19, 2020, 03:40:09 AM
So Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 87 when she died.
My question is, she was well in her 80s during the Obama years. Why didn't she resign when Obama was president?
IIRC it was proposed to her that she'd resign during the Obama presidency and with the Dems in control of the Senate, but she rejected it.
From wiki:
QuoteDuring the presidency of Barack Obama, some progressive attorneys and activists called for Ginsburg to retire so Obama could appoint a like-minded successor, particularly while the Democratic Party held control of the U.S. Senate. They pointed to Ginsburg's age and past health issues as factors making her longevity uncertain. Ginsburg rejected these pleas. She affirmed her wish to remain a justice as long as she was mentally sharp enough to perform her duties. Moreover, Ginsburg opined that the political climate would prevent Obama from appointing a jurist like herself. At the time of her death in September 2020, Ginsburg was, at age 87, the fourth-oldest serving U.S. Supreme Court Justice in the history of the country.
It's not unheard of Supreme Court judges to resign during a like-minded presidency to keep that spot on a particular political colour. For instance Sandra Day retired during the Bush II presidency, ensuring that Republicans would nominate another favourable judge, and apparently she had been wanting to retire for several years but held off during the Clinton presidency so it wouldn't be a Democrat president the one to nominate her successor (which ended up being Alito). Other retirements are not tied to a political strategy, for instance Stevens (nominally a Republican, and nominated by Ford) retired during the Obama presidency and his replacement was Kagan, nominally a Democrat.
Never ceases to annoy that the dems try their best to ow the pattern and keep the conservative /progressive balance but then the republicans just run over that.
Quote from: The Larch on September 19, 2020, 08:57:29 AM
Quote from: celedhring on September 19, 2020, 08:33:09 AM
The Spanish Constitutional Court has had a large profile in the Catalan separatist crisis but I'll be damned if I can name any of the judges. Their mandates are short, anyway (9 years).
The court has an unwritten rule of avoiding split decisions in landmark cases, so that kinda tends to reduce political infight to dominate it.
Well, we do have an ongoing (two years at the moment, IIRC) block on the renewal of the "Consejo General del Poder Judicial", which affects the composition of the Supreme Court, because PP refuses to nominate new judges to it in order to maintain their current majority, so it's not an uniquely US thing, although our case is way less dramatic and AFAIK doesn't involve anyone dying off.
Yeah, but that's the Supreme Court, not the Constitutional Court. The CGPJ also appoints a couple of justices to the Constitutional Court but those don't come up for renewal until 2022 (just checked).
The Spanish system ain't perfect, but CC appointments are not nearly as controversial and divisive as in the US. I think the short-ish terms help, since there's not so much at stake with each appointment.
Quote from: celedhring on September 19, 2020, 09:10:30 AM
Quote from: The Larch on September 19, 2020, 08:57:29 AM
Quote from: celedhring on September 19, 2020, 08:33:09 AM
The Spanish Constitutional Court has had a large profile in the Catalan separatist crisis but I'll be damned if I can name any of the judges. Their mandates are short, anyway (9 years).
The court has an unwritten rule of avoiding split decisions in landmark cases, so that kinda tends to reduce political infight to dominate it.
Well, we do have an ongoing (two years at the moment, IIRC) block on the renewal of the "Consejo General del Poder Judicial", which affects the composition of the Supreme Court, because PP refuses to nominate new judges to it in order to maintain their current majority, so it's not an uniquely US thing, although our case is way less dramatic and AFAIK doesn't involve anyone dying off.
Yeah, but that's the Supreme Court, not the Constitutional Court. The CGPJ also appoints a couple of justices to the Constitutional Court but those don't come up for renewal until 2022 (just checked).
The Spanish system ain't perfect, but CC appointments are not nearly as controversial and divisive as in the US. I think the short-ish terms help, since there's not so much at stake with each appointment.
Yeah, the fact that appointments here are for a fixed term rather than for life make them less impactful. Then again, the CGPJ's term has expired but they keep on truckin' until there's an agreement, so there's also that.
Btw, I'd say that over here it's the Supreme Court the top dog, rather than the Constitutional Court, but I'm no law talker so who knows.
I'm no law talker either, but I think it's more of a case of the Supreme Court being more involved in cases that will have a direct effect on political matters (being the court that has to judge sitting MPs and members of government, for example), than the Constitutional Court whose intervention is more exceptional.
To foreigners, the Spanish Supreme Court is the top appellate court in all matters except constitutional stuff.
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 19, 2020, 08:09:20 AM
Quote from: Maladict on September 19, 2020, 07:44:37 AM
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 19, 2020, 07:07:44 AM
I'm not sure it is possible for any selection/appointment process to not be political. :hmm:
Maybe, but it could be a lot less political.
I couldn't name a single one of our SC judges, and their appointment barely makes the news.
I'm not sure that is a good thing... :hmm:
But then it also seems like (or at least, we never hear about it) the SC's of other nations have as much power/influence as the USSC has inside its political system. If they did, you probably would hear more and know more about them.
While I agree that people should know more about their justice system, I think it is a positive sign that the members of the highest court are not household names. It signifies the role of an apolitical body is WAD.
For Canada at least, it is not that our Supreme Court of Canada does not make decisions that are just as impactful or influential as yours since the creation of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the 80s. For example it has ruled on abortion and any number of high profile social issues.
I think the difference is the fundamentally different way our justices are selected. Yours go through a vetting system that is expressly political - the Senate. Ours goes through a purposefully non political vetting system.
The results are strikingly non partisan compared to your system. We spend a lot more time analyzing the divisions on the court regarding particular legal issues. The government who appointed a particular justice is not a useful factor to consider in that analysis. As an example Justice Karkastanis and Justice Brown (both appointed during the Harper years) are almost always on different sides of an issue. The only time they seem to agree is when the Court makes a unanimous decision.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 19, 2020, 08:29:46 AM
The German Constitutional Court also has a very important role in their system, but I don't get the impression it's as political as the US (despite being a very political court) or that the individual members are as well known? Not sure.
It's very political and e.g. ruled multiple times and very controversially on abortion. But our constitution regulates that half are elected by the lower house, half by the upper house. And you need a 2/3 majority. You have some former politicians (governors, ministers) serving as judges. There are occasionally nominees being rejected. There is also a fixed term length of twelve years (or age 67, whichever is earlier). Some of the members, typically the president, have a higher profile, but they are not as well known as their US counterparts. And they seem to have much less clear partisan alignment.
Quote from: Valmy on September 18, 2020, 11:00:14 PM
Quote from: derspiess on September 18, 2020, 10:30:37 PM
Dunno, man. Bloodbath McGrath had been amping up her radio ads.
I like the nicknames present in that race.
I'm the only one I know who calls her that. Has nothing to do with her character, and everything to do with Wild Wild West.
Apparently she was planning to resign under the first female president, as she was convinced Hillary would win :(
Quote from: merithyn on September 18, 2020, 09:12:13 PM
What about those who are fighting for their jobs? Like McSally, Gardner, and Tillis? Think any of them will flip because of the election?
EDIT: Thanks, Otto. I agree, but wanted another opinion.
I think Tillis just announce his colors, in a very (not) surprising way.
There isn't many republicans who will challenge Trump, especially if they fight tough battles.
If the GOP and Trump were really clever...they'd appoint someone who is staunchly pro-life, but is otherwise moderate in their political appeal (e.g. someone like a Mitt Romney). Such a person might be a unicorn...but it'd definitely push to highlight a national debate, and potentially the election...on those terms.
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 19, 2020, 11:18:32 AM
If the GOP and Trump were really clever...they'd appoint someone who is staunchly pro-life, but is otherwise moderate in their political appeal (e.g. someone like a Mitt Romney). Such a person might be a unicorn...but it'd definitely push to highlight a national debate, and potentially the election...on those terms.
Voters overwhelmingly care about abortion and no other judicial issue.
Romney isn't staunch enough to have been pro-life when he wanted to be governor of Massachusetts.
It's Trump, it is going be both stupid and ruthless for a pick.
Quote from: viper37 on September 19, 2020, 11:35:06 AM
Quote from: The Brain on September 19, 2020, 08:47:48 AM
Sweden doesn't have a Constitutional Court. We don't need one, the Riksdag promised to be good.
That famous Swedish discipline, in force ever since Carolus Rex took power? ;)
If you can't trust the government blindly, who can you trust?
Quote from: The Brain on September 19, 2020, 08:47:48 AM
Sweden doesn't have a Constitutional Court. We don't need one, the Riksdag promised to be good.
Swedish discipline at its best. Wether it'd be attacking a Russian redoubt or a controversial bill, you can count on the Swedes to hold their ranks and push forward toward the ennemy. ;)
Quote from: The Brain on September 19, 2020, 11:37:03 AM
Quote from: viper37 on September 19, 2020, 11:35:06 AM
Quote from: The Brain on September 19, 2020, 08:47:48 AM
Sweden doesn't have a Constitutional Court. We don't need one, the Riksdag promised to be good.
That famous Swedish discipline, in force ever since Carolus Rex took power? ;)
If you can't trust the government blindly, who can you trust?
Obedience is virtue.
Quote from: Syt on September 18, 2020, 11:21:35 PM
So the nightmare scenario is now that they ram through a candidate worse than Kavanaugh, then Trump - losing the election - takes it to "his" Supreme Court and steals the presidency? That's not possible, is it? :unsure:
The President cannot simply ask the USSC to overturn an election whose outcome he doesn't like. He has to file a case, and John Roberts has been surprisingly resistant to Trumpism (surprising because Roberts is definitely in the "courts should protect money before they protect speech" camp). Adding another justice won't change that.
Quote from: Maladict on September 19, 2020, 04:25:21 AM
How did the Supreme Court become so political anyway? Has it always been like that?
The explicit linkage of Supreme Court nominations to political parties was made by Newt Gingrich as part of his Contract on America during the Bill Clinton presidency. He courted the religious reich by promising to overturn Roe v Wade by attriting the non-reactionary wing of the Supreme Court if the RR could just give the republicans the presidency. Democrats responded in kind (though they never had quite the mindless judicial nominees of the republicans) and the US was off on a race to the bottom.
Ultimately no institution can survive if politics is viewed as a zero-sum game. For whatever reasons, we live in the times when internal divisions trump any external threat, and thus all politics are zero-sum.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 19, 2020, 11:27:30 AM
Romney isn't staunch enough to have been pro-life when he wanted to be governor of Massachusetts.
Running for office and being a sitting USSC Justice with life tenure result in two completely different calculations on issues.
Sure. But that kind of flexibility isn't going to assure wavering voters.
Quote from: Tyr on September 19, 2020, 09:07:22 AM
Never ceases to annoy that the dems try their best to ow the pattern and keep the conservative /progressive balance but then the republicans just run over that.
:huh: What in the world are you talking about?
How the Dems keep appointing non-communist, therefore moderate judges. ;)
Why on earth would they appoint a communist judge? :blink:
Could you even find a communist judge in the US?
I recall when Obama was appointing he judges he made an effort to appoint moderates that would not upset the status quo and would get some republican support.
Trump.... Has not acted in such good faith.
Obama had a Republican Senate to deal with.
Quote from: DGuller on September 19, 2020, 12:28:41 PM
Ultimately no institution can survive if politics is viewed as a zero-sum game. For whatever reasons, we live in the times when internal divisions trump any external threat, and thus all politics are zero-sum.
Well the Republicans do need to be destroyed root and branch.
Quote from: viper37 on September 19, 2020, 11:06:52 AM
Quote from: merithyn on September 18, 2020, 09:12:13 PM
What about those who are fighting for their jobs? Like McSally, Gardner, and Tillis? Think any of them will flip because of the election?
EDIT: Thanks, Otto. I agree, but wanted another opinion.
I think Tillis just announce his colors, in a very (not) surprising way.
There isn't many republicans who will challenge Trump, especially if they fight tough battles.
McSally has said she'll confirm whomever is selected.
The Supreme Court has always been extremely political--the Marshall court was very controversial and political because he was an extremely powerful Chief Justice, representing bedrock Federalist ideals, and his justiceship continued for actual decades past the collapse of his political faction and he thwarted several Democratic-Republican initiatives. The court was incredibly controversial from the 1850s-1880s, and again from the 1920s-1940s, and then again from basically 1955-Today.
There have been a few brief windows where, for historical/cultural reasons it has receded from prominence, but most people alive today have never seen those times.
What has tremendously changed is our process for selecting Supreme Court justices has become much more partisan. In times past for example it was broadly understood the President should only nominate someone who could relatively easily get confirmed in the Senate. Anything less than 65 votes was seen as a bit of a "bad pick." Some of this was cultural, and some of it was because of Senate rules--a really unpopular nominee would be very difficult to get through the Senate. Another aspect was there used to be the concept of a "blue slip", while its form varied significantly over its history, what it typically meant was a Senator from a state in which a judicial nominee resided, could basically put out a "blue slip" saying they disapproved of a judicial nominee, and the judiciary committee would basically immediately end consideration of that nominee. Both parties respected blue slips from the other party.
Additionally it used to be even if a judicial nominee was controversial in committee, even if the majority party could ram it through, they'd strongly consider pushing back. The thing was you could almost always find a judge of your "leaning" who could sail through the Senate with bipartisan approval, so the decision to try someone who was controversial was looked upon skeptically by many of the Senators of both parties. The whole culture around that changed immensely in the past 30-35 years and most of this stuff just doesn't exist anymore. No one cares about a nominee who only gets out of committee with a strict majority party vote, or gets confirmed with 51 votes in the full Senate.
Statement from Senator Grassley:
https://twitter.com/ChuckGrassley/status/1307421592411156482?s=19
Are Democrats really talking about packing the court?
Yes. At least at the grassroot level.
My honest hope is if Biden wins and the Dems win the Senate they instead choose to negotiate some kind of detente on judges, but I'm not sure it's possible in our country any longer. Simple court packing is a brute force tool that will just end up with us having a Venezuela style Supreme Court that is linked to whomever controls the political branches and has dozens of members.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 19, 2020, 06:21:55 PM
My honest hope is if Biden wins and the Dems win the Senate they instead choose to negotiate some kind of detente on judges, but I'm not sure it's possible in our country any longer. Simple court packing is a brute force tool that will just end up with us having a Venezuela style Supreme Court that is linked to whomever controls the political branches and has dozens of members.
So, no change except the numbers of members?
The problem with a détente on USSC nominations is that they know full well that the Republicans will throw out détente the instant they get a senate majority, just as they did last time.
Quote from: Razgovory on September 19, 2020, 05:45:14 PM
Are Democrats really talking about packing the court?
I don't know about talking, but if they're not planning to pack the court, they have no business being in politics. Not packing the court in 2021 would be like issuing another diplomatic protest in September 1939.
Packing the Court seems like a nuclear option. I suppose it could be used as a deterrent, like real nukes, but also like real nukes I don't think I would like to live in a world they have been used.
There is nothing to be gained by making this suggestion before the election.
Eliminating the filibuster was and is the nuclear option. That's the last thing distinguishing the Senate from the House other than length of terms.
The Republicans exercised the nuclear option on the judicial filibuster; the Democrats will nuke the legislative filibuster.
Quote from: Razgovory on September 19, 2020, 08:02:37 PM
Packing the Court seems like a nuclear option. I suppose it could be used as a deterrent, like real nukes, but also like real nukes I don't think I would like to live in a world they have been used.
Sometimes it's not up to you what world you'll live in. If the other side has already launched nukes at you and scored some hits, I'd rather live in the world where my side responds with its own nukes, while we still have some that survived the first strike.
I'd rather live in the world where political infighting in a democracy isn't likened to nuclear war.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 20, 2020, 01:07:24 AM
I'd rather live in the world where political infighting in a democracy isn't likened to nuclear war.
I'd rather live in the world where I have 100 billion dollars, all the important politicians in my pocket, and where everyone is interested in discussing statistics. This "rather live in" game can get quickly out of hand if you don't limit it to realistic worlds.
I want a toilet of solid gold.
Sure you wouldn't rather have uranium?
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 20, 2020, 01:38:35 AM
Sure you wouldn't rather have uranium?
Vasectomy would be cheaper and will have fewer side effects.
Quote from: DGuller on September 20, 2020, 01:11:54 AM
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 20, 2020, 01:07:24 AM
I'd rather live in the world where political infighting in a democracy isn't likened to nuclear war.
I'd rather live in the world where I have 100 billion dollars, all the important politicians in my pocket, and where everyone is interested in discussing statistics. This "rather live in" game can get quickly out of hand if you don't limit it to realistic worlds.
Interesting that your preferred world has you as a corrupt individual.
Quote from: garbon on September 20, 2020, 01:58:17 AM
Quote from: DGuller on September 20, 2020, 01:11:54 AM
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 20, 2020, 01:07:24 AM
I'd rather live in the world where political infighting in a democracy isn't likened to nuclear war.
I'd rather live in the world where I have 100 billion dollars, all the important politicians in my pocket, and where everyone is interested in discussing statistics. This "rather live in" game can get quickly out of hand if you don't limit it to realistic worlds.
Interesting that your preferred world has you as a corrupt individual.
:rolleyes: Yes, I value free speech, you got me there.
All the important politicians in my pocket?
Quote from: garbon on September 20, 2020, 02:07:33 AM
All the important politicians in my pocket?
Free speech is not just for non-billionaires.
Maybe we should send some nation building experts from Europe to help you guys become a civilized and functioning democracy.
I understand where DG is coming from (on packing the court), but such action makes me uncomfortable. Democrats have a choice between continuing the escalate or being left behind and ruled by people who hate them. Politics is going to have to break before it gets better, but I don't know how or when politics will completely break. We already have people killing each other in the streets.
Hell, we are in this situation were the courts are so important because the legislature has broken and things are decided by the Presidency or the Courts.
Quote from: Hamilcar on September 20, 2020, 04:38:37 AM
Maybe we should send some nation building experts from Europe to help you guys become a civilized and functioning democracy.
I think that you guys need to send those experts to Europe, first. It will be cheaper and the need is just as great.
Quote from: grumbler on September 20, 2020, 10:33:13 AM
Quote from: Hamilcar on September 20, 2020, 04:38:37 AM
Maybe we should send some nation building experts from Europe to help you guys become a civilized and functioning democracy.
I think that you guys need to send those experts to Europe, first. It will be cheaper and the need is just as great.
I'll be sitting here enjoying my stable democracy while I watch your country go up in flames.
Some old judge lady dies and people are ready to burn half the country. But sure, tell me more about how America is a shining city on a hill.
Quote from: Hamilcar on September 20, 2020, 11:01:41 AM
Quote from: grumbler on September 20, 2020, 10:33:13 AM
Quote from: Hamilcar on September 20, 2020, 04:38:37 AM
Maybe we should send some nation building experts from Europe to help you guys become a civilized and functioning democracy.
I think that you guys need to send those experts to Europe, first. It will be cheaper and the need is just as great.
I'll be sitting here enjoying my stable democracy while I watch your country go up in flames.
Well, good for you! I will be sitting here in my calm state while I watch emo Euros like you fantasize about the destruction of my country while ignoring Europe's problems. We both win.
Quote from: Hamilcar on September 20, 2020, 11:04:21 AM
Some old judge lady dies and people are ready to burn half the country. But sure, tell me more about how America is a shining city on a hill.
Oooh! The emo is strong in this one!
A stable can't be a democracy. That way lies madness.
Quote from: The Brain on September 20, 2020, 11:12:01 AM
A stable can't be a democracy. That way lies madness.
It's a mare dictatorship.
Quote from: Hamilcar on September 20, 2020, 11:04:21 AM
Some old judge lady dies and people are ready to burn half the country. But sure, tell me more about how America is a shining city on a hill.
Pfft, people will burn half the country just to show off their ultrasound.
Quote from: Razgovory on September 20, 2020, 10:30:19 AMHell, we are in this situation were the courts are so important because the legislature has broken and things are decided by the Presidency or the Courts.
Yes, and the current Republican leadership has made it clear that its purpose is to prop up a powerful executive, and ram through partisan nominations, at. any. cost.
That leadership needs to be destroyed; in the meantime, they cannot be relied to act honorably according to unwritten traditions.
But even if they were to be convincingly destroyed, by alinging themselves with the apocalyptic propaganda machine of Fox News, their base has become convinced that ruthlessness and strong-arm tactices is the only way to go to save America. They would be replaced by the same, copies of Matt Gaetz (the stupid variety) or Jeff Hawley (the smart variety).
My belief is that if Biden wins and the Democrats take the Senate, if the GOP pushes this nominee through, they will both eliminate the legislative filibuster and pack the court. But I do not think Biden wants to campaign on those topics.
Trump is now saying he wants his nominee voted on before the election, probably in small part as a hedge in case the election goes to the courts, but probably more so because the Republicans realize if the nominee hasn't been voted on but Trump has lost, Biden then can very easily make a public promise that if they pull the trigger he will pack the courts. It gives him a big opportunity to justify doing it, and then a lot of existing Republicans have to decide if they want to see that happen. I think their hope is it's harder for Biden to pull the trigger on packing the court if the court is already seated at 6-3. But I don't think it'll make much of a difference either way.
Quote from: Hamilcar on September 20, 2020, 11:04:21 AM
Some old judge lady dies and people are ready to burn half the country. But sure, tell me more about how America is a shining city on a hill.
:mellow:
"Some old judge lady"? Beyond what this means in terms of the USSC, RBG was so much more than just "some old judge lady".
Nevermind. It's Hamilcar. :glare:
Quote from: Oexmelin on September 20, 2020, 11:44:42 AM
Yes, and the current Republican leadership has made it clear that its purpose is to prop up a powerful executive, and ram through partisan nominations, at. any. cost.
That leadership needs to be destroyed; in the meantime, they cannot be relied to act honorably according to unwritten traditions.
But even if they were to be convincingly destroyed, by alinging themselves with the apocalyptic propaganda machine of Fox News, their base has become convinced that ruthlessness and strong-arm tactices is the only way to go to save America. They would be replaced by the same, copies of Matt Gaetz (the stupid variety) or Jeff Hawley (the smart variety).
I don't think that the Republican party is salvageable, but a new party could split off the elements that are not locked into the Faux Snooze fantasy and, over time, gain credibility. There's pretty much nothing the Republicans can do to reclaim any credibility outside of their fantasyland.
I think our one last hope for sanity in politics is for majority of Republicans to create their own "clean Wehrmacht" myth and put all of their ugliness at the feet of Trump. As long as they actually get rid of their ugliness, it would probably be prudent to let them get away with that sophistry.
That's the party yes, but what about the 40-45% of your citizens who are a-ok with Trump?
My hope is that some day interstellar travel will make it possible for those who want to live in a good society to build new radiant burgs on topographic extrema.
Quote from: Zoupa on September 20, 2020, 02:08:08 PM
That's the party yes, but what about the 40-45% of your citizens who are a-ok with Trump?
I think a chunk of those aren't a problem. You won't be waiting that long for them to die.
But the not insignificant minority of younger people who support trump.... They're a real worry. Especially once Trumpism is gone and starts becoming a byword for all that is bad. I could well see a significant number of them turning violent.
Quote from: Oexmelin on September 20, 2020, 11:44:42 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on September 20, 2020, 10:30:19 AMHell, we are in this situation were the courts are so important because the legislature has broken and things are decided by the Presidency or the Courts.
Yes, and the current Republican leadership has made it clear that its purpose is to prop up a powerful executive, and ram through partisan nominations, at. any. cost.
That leadership needs to be destroyed; in the meantime, they cannot be relied to act honorably according to unwritten traditions.
But even if they were to be convincingly destroyed, by alinging themselves with the apocalyptic propaganda machine of Fox News, their base has become convinced that ruthlessness and strong-arm tactices is the only way to go to save America. They would be replaced by the same, copies of Matt Gaetz (the stupid variety) or Jeff Hawley (the smart variety).
What does destroying the leadership look like?
Quote from: The Brain on September 20, 2020, 11:12:01 AM
A stable can't be a democracy. That way lies madness.
Would you prefer hippocracy?
Quote from: DGuller on September 20, 2020, 01:53:45 PM
I think our one last hope for sanity in politics is for majority of Republicans to create their own "clean Wehrmacht" myth and put all of their ugliness at the feet of Trump. As long as they actually get rid of their ugliness, it would probably be prudent to let them get away with that sophistry.
The only hope for that, I think, is for the party to turn back to the idea of "what is good for business is good for the USA." Trump has been very good to the rich in America, but not good for business in America, especially small business. Small business owners and employees used to be the most reliable and effective part of the Republican base, but the republican Party has, over the last 20 years or so, pursued the policy of bankrupting small business and letting big box corps take their place. A split between the pro-business and pro-ultra-wealthy sides of the party might bring about the development of something like the old republican party, leaving behind the pro-wealth Faux Snooze types.
Quote from: Razgovory on September 20, 2020, 02:47:32 PM
What does destroying the leadership look like?
In the absolute, it would require McConnell and co. need to lose. Utterly. The sort of politics they stand for needs to be denounced, and appropriately villified.Their money flows to be investigated, and drained; their character to be dragged in the mud; their post-politics career prospects to be crushed. You can't shit on the politics of respectability and hope to benefit from it.
It practice, it would require Democrats to be much stronger on the ground than they are, and willing to be much more aggressive, and media-savvy than they currently are. A lot of the current conservative movement in the US has turned to the apocalyptical ("they are coming for you, your country, your suburbs, your religion, your meat), and therefore, the worship of strength. You can't fight that just by being compassionate, much as we'd like it to be.
It also requires committment on the ground. I have repeated it since the Trump election: get involved. If you haven't done shit about it for the last four years, you can't complain that there is nothing to be done, or meekly voice fears that the cure may be unpleasant. This shit is not going to fix itself - and if it does, it means it's likely the rot still persists. And if you think that it's not so bad, you haven't been paying attention.
Quote from: DGuller on September 20, 2020, 01:53:45 PM
I think our one last hope for sanity in politics is for majority of Republicans to create their own "clean Wehrmacht" myth and put all of their ugliness at the feet of Trump. As long as they actually get rid of their ugliness, it would probably be prudent to let them get away with that sophistry.
What do they get out of it? I mean there are votes in being anti-Trump but, from what I can see, the Democrats are doing pretty well hoovering them up. I can't think of a time since I've followed US politics (so since W) when Republican politicians get rewarded for some of form of "moderation" or "sanity in politics". I think that's structural in how the party works now.
Because even if that happens, I think if you're an ambitious Republican there's a lot more fertile ground in positioning yourself as sort of continuity-Trump attacking the establishment Republicans who betrayed him. Gaetz and Hawley could do this, I think Tom Cotton is the most impressive of the sort-of ideological loyalists.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 20, 2020, 04:21:22 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 20, 2020, 01:53:45 PM
I think our one last hope for sanity in politics is for majority of Republicans to create their own "clean Wehrmacht" myth and put all of their ugliness at the feet of Trump. As long as they actually get rid of their ugliness, it would probably be prudent to let them get away with that sophistry.
What do they get out of it? I mean there are votes in being anti-Trump but, from what I can see, the Democrats are doing pretty well hoovering them up. I can't think of a time since I've followed US politics (so since W) when Republican politicians get rewarded for some of form of "moderation" or "sanity in politics". I think that's structural in how the party works now.
Because even if that happens, I think if you're an ambitious Republican there's a lot more fertile ground in positioning yourself as sort of continuity-Trump attacking the establishment Republicans who betrayed him. Gaetz and Hawley could do this, I think Tom Cotton is the most impressive of the sort-of ideological loyalists.
Obviously Republicans need to lose badly to begin with. If that happens, they then need to do soul-searching. And then if that happens, the search actually has to be successful. Lots of ifs there.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 20, 2020, 04:21:22 PM
What do they get out of it? I mean there are votes in being anti-Trump but, from what I can see, the Democrats are doing pretty well hoovering them up. I can't think of a time since I've followed US politics (so since W) when Republican politicians get rewarded for some of form of "moderation" or "sanity in politics". I think that's structural in how the party works now.
Because even if that happens, I think if you're an ambitious Republican there's a lot more fertile ground in positioning yourself as sort of continuity-Trump attacking the establishment Republicans who betrayed him. Gaetz and Hawley could do this, I think Tom Cotton is the most impressive of the sort-of ideological loyalists.
Yes. The current Republican Party has three wings; the few billionaires who own it, the few thousand political leaders who take the money and sell the snake oil, and the millions of dupes who really think that making billionaires richer will Make America Great Again. If you can successfully separate the dupes from the billionaires, you can be a successful and intellectually honest republican. Not many want to take the chance that they can achieve that separation, though, so most just take their money and drink heavily to salve their consciences.
Quote from: grumbler on September 20, 2020, 04:55:28 PM
[snip}...so most just take their money and drink heavily to salve their consciences.
But I drink heavily because of their choices, and nobody is giving me money. I think I might be getting screwed...
Quote from: Hamilcar on September 20, 2020, 11:04:21 AM
Some old judge lady dies and people are ready to burn half the country. But sure, tell me more about how America is a shining city on a hill.
Did you post this from 2003? No one says that about America anymore.
The Democrats spend a lot of time talking about America's (genuine) structural inequalities. The Republicans, or at least Trump, repeatedly have described Americas as a hellscape that "only they can fix" (please disregard they are calling it a hellscape in spite of having controlled it for the last 3.5 years.)
Quote from: PDH on September 20, 2020, 05:43:19 PM
Quote from: grumbler on September 20, 2020, 04:55:28 PM
[snip}...so most just take their money and drink heavily to salve their consciences.
But I drink heavily because of their choices, and nobody is giving me money. I think I might be getting screwed...
Yeah, me too. I think we're doing it wrong. :(
Nobody thought Mitch and his senate allies were being honest and genuine with the 'principles' they said they were adopting in 2016. Everybody knew the only precedent they were setting was disregarding unwritten rules around USSC nominations. I am a little suprised the lie got so dramatically exposed so soon.
There are really only two ways then Democrats can respond: either do the post-FDR running for President four times thing where you make the previously unwritten rule a written one OR you just rip off the gloves and get dirty as well. Well I guess the third way is to just turn the other cheek and take it but that doesn't seem likely. So if the Democrats manage to win this election will they try to pass laws established new rules for USSC nominations or just move forward ready to match dirty tricks with dirty tricks so long as the letter of the law is upheld? I sure hope I get to find out as that means we won.
On Earth-2 right now, President Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are still fuming about not being able to fill Scala's seat more than 4 years after his death.
Murkowski and Collins have said they'll vote against confirmation.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 20, 2020, 11:34:36 PM
Murkowski and Collins have said they'll vote against confirmation.
Against confirmation before the election, or before the new President?
"I would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. We are 50 some days away from an election," [Murkowski] said.
I have zero confidence those two will stick to that principle.
Quote from: Maximus on September 21, 2020, 08:56:20 AM
I have zero confidence those two will stick to that principle.
Well Collins is headed for sure certain defeat. Before the election, she can use this as an attempt to appear more moderate and independent. After the election if she's defeated she has nothing to lose by standing by principle.
Murkowski is less dependent on overall GOP support - remember she was as a write in candidate in 2010 after losing the GOP primary.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 09:34:06 AM
Quote from: Maximus on September 21, 2020, 08:56:20 AM
I have zero confidence those two will stick to that principle.
Well Collins is headed for sure certain defeat. Before the election, she can use this as an attempt to appear more moderate and independent. After the election if she's defeated she has nothing to lose by standing by principle.
Murkowski is less dependent on overall GOP support - remember she was as a write in candidate in 2010 after losing the GOP primary.
Murkowski is also not up for re-election. She's not doing this as an election stunt, so there's no reason to guess that she'd change her stance if Biden wins. I may not disagree with her ideology, but I respect her integrity. She's never been anything but above-board on things.
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 10:10:53 AM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 09:34:06 AM
Quote from: Maximus on September 21, 2020, 08:56:20 AM
I have zero confidence those two will stick to that principle.
Well Collins is headed for sure certain defeat. Before the election, she can use this as an attempt to appear more moderate and independent. After the election if she's defeated she has nothing to lose by standing by principle.
Murkowski is less dependent on overall GOP support - remember she was as a write in candidate in 2010 after losing the GOP primary.
Murkowski is also not up for re-election. She's not doing this as an election stunt, so there's no reason to guess that she'd change her stance if Biden wins. I may not disagree with her ideology, but I respect her integrity. She's never been anything but above-board on things.
Both of course voted against impeachment as well however.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 09:34:06 AM
Quote from: Maximus on September 21, 2020, 08:56:20 AM
I have zero confidence those two will stick to that principle.
Well Collins is headed for sure certain defeat. Before the election, she can use this as an attempt to appear more moderate and independent. After the election if she's defeated she has nothing to lose by standing by principle.
Murkowski is less dependent on overall GOP support - remember she was as a write in candidate in 2010 after losing the GOP primary.
Also the GOP can afford to lose two-three votes and still get a nomination. So they have their own reasons and Collins is politically vulnerable, so they can take this view without it threatening the nomination. There'll be far more pressure on the rest.
Anyways it's widely reported that Trump is likely to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat - Trump was quoted as saying he was "saving her" for RGB's seat.
Dems have strong arguments to make on the procedural fairness issue - in particular if done during a lame duck session (why do they even have these?). But I've all ready seen some stuff on Twitter that makes me fear Dems will go after Judge Coney Barrett for her religious faith (she's a practicing Catholic), which would be quite damaging and could drive some voters into Trump's arms.
Dems and left-wing people in general don't give a shit about other people's faith, BB. That's a tired old horse you're flogging.
They care about statements like "life begins at conception" which have zilch to do with faith.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 10:32:21 AM
Anyways it's widely reported that Trump is likely to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat - Trump was quoted as saying he was "saving her" for RGB's seat.
Dems have strong arguments to make on the procedural fairness issue - in particular if done during a lame duck session (why do they even have these?). But I've all ready seen some stuff on Twitter that makes me fear Dems will go after Judge Coney Barrett for her religious faith (she's a practicing Catholic), which would be quite damaging and could drive some voters into Trump's arms.
Uhm, she's the most protestant catholic i've ever heard of
QuoteMs. Barrett told the senators that she was a faithful Catholic, and that her religious beliefs would not affect her decisions as an appellate judge. But her membership in a small, tightly knit Christian group called People of Praise never came up at the hearing, and might have led to even more intense questioning.
Some of the group's practices would surprise many faithful Catholics. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a "head" for men and a "handmaid" for women. The group teaches that husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority over the family.
Current and former members say that the heads and handmaids give direction on important decisions, including whom to date or marry, where to live, whether to take a job or buy a home, and how to raise children.
Legal scholars said that such loyalty oaths could raise legitimate questions about a judicial nominee's independence and impartiality. The scholars said in interviews that while there certainly was no religious test for office, it would have been relevant for the senators to examine what it means for a judicial nominee to make an oath to a group that could wield significant authority over its members' lives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/amy-coney-barrett-nominee-religion.html
Biden is also Catholic. The objection to Amy Coney Barrett's religiosity is that she wants to impose it on others.
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 11:24:28 AM
Dems and left-wing people in general don't give a shit about other people's faith, BB. That's a tired old horse you're flogging.
They care about statements like "life begins at conception" which have zilch to do with faith.
Zoupa, just google her name and read up on her nomination to the whichever district court of appeals. It was all about her religion.
HMBob - she very much denies she wishes to impose her religion on others. But she does say her decisions are "informed" by her faith.
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 11:29:56 AM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 10:32:21 AM
Anyways it's widely reported that Trump is likely to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat - Trump was quoted as saying he was "saving her" for RGB's seat.
Dems have strong arguments to make on the procedural fairness issue - in particular if done during a lame duck session (why do they even have these?). But I've all ready seen some stuff on Twitter that makes me fear Dems will go after Judge Coney Barrett for her religious faith (she's a practicing Catholic), which would be quite damaging and could drive some voters into Trump's arms.
Uhm, she's the most protestant catholic i've ever heard of
QuoteMs. Barrett told the senators that she was a faithful Catholic, and that her religious beliefs would not affect her decisions as an appellate judge. But her membership in a small, tightly knit Christian group called People of Praise never came up at the hearing, and might have led to even more intense questioning.
Some of the group's practices would surprise many faithful Catholics. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a "head" for men and a "handmaid" for women. The group teaches that husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority over the family.
Current and former members say that the heads and handmaids give direction on important decisions, including whom to date or marry, where to live, whether to take a job or buy a home, and how to raise children.
Legal scholars said that such loyalty oaths could raise legitimate questions about a judicial nominee's independence and impartiality. The scholars said in interviews that while there certainly was no religious test for office, it would have been relevant for the senators to examine what it means for a judicial nominee to make an oath to a group that could wield significant authority over its members' lives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/amy-coney-barrett-nominee-religion.html
She sounds like a fruit loop who has no chance of impartiality.
But BB says she'll be impartial. Who should i trust?
Also, BB how dare you ignore my post :P
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 11:29:56 AM
Uhm, she's the most protestant catholic i've ever heard of
White, American, "traditional", conservative Catholics are all insanely Protestant - seriously it's an entire movement of people with access to Wikipedia lecturing the Pope because they, personally, disagree with his take on theology :blink:
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 11:57:24 AM
But BB says she'll be impartial. Who should i trust?
Also, BB how dare you ignore my post :P
I have no idea if she's impartial or not. I'm not exactly up on members of the 7th District Court of Appeals. Now if you want opinions on the Alberta Provincial Court - Criminal division (Edmonton) I'm your man. :contract:
I read your post - still sounds like it's all about her religion.
But anyways the politics of the thing - even if you disagree it's an attack on her religion, you know that's how the GOP and right-wing media will spin it.
So strategically - why give them that opportunity? Make it about the process / Merrick Garland and play that quote by Lindsay Graham where he explicitly promised they'd never nominate a USSC Justice during an election year about a billion times.
But she's not a "normal" catholic. In general, at least in canada and europe, they seem to be less pushy about their beliefs (when compared to the various protestant' variations). But she's not normal, she's in a weird catholic cult. i would very much question her beliefs and her judicial integrity (plus her over all decision making skills).
also, what the hell America, even your Catholics are weird. What's in the water down there.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 12:01:32 PM
But anyways the politics of the thing - even if you disagree it's an attack on her religion, you know that's how the GOP and right-wing media will spin it.
So strategically - why give them that opportunity? Make it about the process / Merrick Garland and play that quote by Lindsay Graham where he explicitly promised they'd never nominate a USSC Justice during an election year about a billion times.
So I suppose - is the Merrick Garland precedent a good thing? It's 1 year now, given how polarised the US is it doesn't strike me as implausible that it becomes two years if the President's party loses mid-terms and the Supreme Court is institutionally weakened. It doesn't strike me as particularly unlikely that it actually sits with only 7-8 members for extended periods of time. The last thing the American system needs in my view is another sort of paralysed limb of government.
From the perspective of defending the instituion I think there's an argument to saying the Garland argument was bogus then and it's bogus now and try to defeat the nomination on its own basis.
I don't think it's crazy to push the "Roe v Wade" issue with her. It's a known quantity. It's not a question. It's come up with every USSC nominee since the 70s.
The woman believes that other women should adhere to her religious morals, regardless of their own. That's enough to not sit her on the Supreme Court.
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 12:04:29 PM
But she's not a "normal" catholic. In general, at least in canada and europe, they seem to be less pushy about their beliefs (when compared to the various protestant' variations). But she's not normal, she's in a weird catholic cult. i would very much question her beliefs and her judicial integrity (plus her over all decision making skills).
also, what the hell America, even your Catholics are weird. What's in the water down there.
So only people who belong to the right sort of religions get to sit on the Supreme Court? That sounds... dangerous.
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 12:20:24 PM
I don't think it's crazy to push the "Roe v Wade" issue with her. It's a known quantity. It's not a question. It's come up with every USSC nominee since the 70s.
The woman believes that other women should adhere to her religious morals, regardless of their own. That's enough to not sit her on the Supreme Court.
You know that overturning Roe v Wade wouldn't make abortion illegal, right? The issue would be left up to the states.
Overturning Roe v Wade I think would be like a dog that catches a car - Republicans would have no idea what to do with it. They've gotten a lot of mileage over the right to life issue, but there's very little public support for a blanket ban on abortion.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 12:30:31 PM
So only people who belong to the right sort of religions get to sit on the Supreme Court? That sounds... dangerous.
I do think the lack of Protestant representation on the 6 Catholics and 2 Jews Supreme Court is an issue :lol: :P
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 12:30:31 PM
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 12:04:29 PM
But she's not a "normal" catholic. In general, at least in canada and europe, they seem to be less pushy about their beliefs (when compared to the various protestant' variations). But she's not normal, she's in a weird catholic cult. i would very much question her beliefs and her judicial integrity (plus her over all decision making skills).
also, what the hell America, even your Catholics are weird. What's in the water down there.
So only people who belong to the right sort of religions get to sit on the Supreme Court? That sounds... dangerous.
"Some of the group's practices would surprise many faithful Catholics. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a "head" for men and a "handmaid" for women. The group teaches that husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority over the family.
Current and former members say that the heads and handmaids give direction on important decisions, including whom to date or marry, where to live, whether to take a job or buy a home, and how to raise children."
(see HVS's post above)
I'm fine with religious people being in positions of government authority. This, however, sounds more like a cult than just another Christian sect.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiPJEwMXcAE7PS4?format=jpg&name=large)
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 21, 2020, 12:33:43 PM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 12:30:31 PM
So only people who belong to the right sort of religions get to sit on the Supreme Court? That sounds... dangerous.
I do think the lack of Protestant representation on the 6 Catholics and 2 Jews Supreme Court is an issue :lol: :P
Or the fact that with the passing of RGB, every sitting Supreme Court Justice went to either Harvard or Yale for Law school (and RBG went to the only slightly less prestigious Columbia).
In this at least Barrett would be an improvement, having gone to Notre Dame.
It would be great if they could get someone who entire personhood doesn't revolve around their misguided spin on the catholic faith.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 12:30:31 PM
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 12:04:29 PM
But she's not a "normal" catholic. In general, at least in canada and europe, they seem to be less pushy about their beliefs (when compared to the various protestant' variations). But she's not normal, she's in a weird catholic cult. i would very much question her beliefs and her judicial integrity (plus her over all decision making skills).
also, what the hell America, even your Catholics are weird. What's in the water down there.
So only people who belong to the right sort of religions get to sit on the Supreme Court? That sounds... dangerous.
The right sort of mentality. You want to go to church on sunday and pray to god, but can differentiate your wants from the wants of the majority? More power to you. You want to join a cult where you pledge loyalty and accountability to a leader? Yeah, no, you're not fit to be a judge that can decide serious outcomes.
Btw, i don't care about people religion for the most part. I was raised catholic, and some of my good friends are religious ( :P ), but when it comes to a point where you have power over peoples lives i can't trust someone when i don't think they'll acquiesce to the majority/their constituents view because of their religious view.
It becomes more complicated when i think the majority are wrong, but i'm not a judge in the superior court, so i don't have to deal with it lol
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 12:38:44 PM
Or the fact that with the passing of RGB, every sitting Supreme Court Justice went to either Harvard or Yale for Law school (and RBG went to the only slightly less prestigious Columbia).
In this at least Barrett would be an improvement, having gone to Notre Dame.
And geographic spread! Which used to be really important and I think might have strange effects on expected votes. I know that lots of people said Gorsuch's surprising opinion on Indian country laws were linked to him being a Westerner both by his own background the district he worked in before the Supreme Court.
I think most of the current justices are overwhelmingly DC and North-East.
Edit: Also it's different here because Northern Irish and Scots law is an equal legal system so we need Scots and Northern Irish judges on the UK Supreme Court but geographic diversity is the one bit of diversity the UK Supreme Court actually manages to do :Embarrass:
I assume BB would have no issue with a Supreme Court candidate from the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church then?
No questions are to be asked about the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!! It's my religion!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 11:42:54 AM
HMBob - she very much denies she wishes to impose her religion on others. But she does say her decisions are "informed" by her faith.
And that doesn't scare you?
Shouldn't a judge's decisions be informed by the laws of the country, not his/her personal faith?
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 01:53:16 PM
I assume BB would have no issue with a Supreme Court candidate from the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church then?
No questions are to be asked about the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!! It's my religion!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
FSM is such obvious parody I wouldn't give it a moments thought.
Better hypothetical would be a Scientologist. :ph34r:
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 01:58:29 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 01:53:16 PM
I assume BB would have no issue with a Supreme Court candidate from the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church then?
No questions are to be asked about the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!! It's my religion!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
FSM is such obvious parody I wouldn't give it a moments thought.
Better hypothetical would be a Scientologist. :ph34r:
How dare you. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as real as your God :)
I think it's possible to be a kook and still be a good judge, but it certainly warrants careful consideration.
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 01:59:51 PM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 01:58:29 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 01:53:16 PM
I assume BB would have no issue with a Supreme Court candidate from the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church then?
No questions are to be asked about the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!! It's my religion!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
FSM is such obvious parody I wouldn't give it a moments thought.
Better hypothetical would be a Scientologist. :ph34r:
How dare you. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as real as your God :)
YOu see, I try and deflect and turn this into a more interesting debate, and instead you just have to go and insult me. :cry:
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 02:03:14 PM
YOu see, I try and deflect and turn this into a more interesting debate, and instead you just have to go and insult me. :cry:
I have no issues with a Scientology religious test :ph34r:
What if jurisprudence is your religion? I'm asking for a friend.
Quote from: garbon on September 21, 2020, 11:53:16 AM
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 11:29:56 AM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 10:32:21 AM
Anyways it's widely reported that Trump is likely to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat - Trump was quoted as saying he was "saving her" for RGB's seat.
Dems have strong arguments to make on the procedural fairness issue - in particular if done during a lame duck session (why do they even have these?). But I've all ready seen some stuff on Twitter that makes me fear Dems will go after Judge Coney Barrett for her religious faith (she's a practicing Catholic), which would be quite damaging and could drive some voters into Trump's arms.
Uhm, she's the most protestant catholic i've ever heard of
QuoteMs. Barrett told the senators that she was a faithful Catholic, and that her religious beliefs would not affect her decisions as an appellate judge. But her membership in a small, tightly knit Christian group called People of Praise never came up at the hearing, and might have led to even more intense questioning.
Some of the group's practices would surprise many faithful Catholics. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a "head" for men and a "handmaid" for women. The group teaches that husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority over the family.
Current and former members say that the heads and handmaids give direction on important decisions, including whom to date or marry, where to live, whether to take a job or buy a home, and how to raise children.
Legal scholars said that such loyalty oaths could raise legitimate questions about a judicial nominee's independence and impartiality. The scholars said in interviews that while there certainly was no religious test for office, it would have been relevant for the senators to examine what it means for a judicial nominee to make an oath to a group that could wield significant authority over its members' lives.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/amy-coney-barrett-nominee-religion.html
She sounds like a fruit loop who has no chance of impartiality.
Her group literally has "handmaids"? Sounds like a step towards my aunt's book. 😄
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 12:33:15 PM
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 12:20:24 PM
I don't think it's crazy to push the "Roe v Wade" issue with her. It's a known quantity. It's not a question. It's come up with every USSC nominee since the 70s.
The woman believes that other women should adhere to her religious morals, regardless of their own. That's enough to not sit her on the Supreme Court.
You know that overturning Roe v Wade wouldn't make abortion illegal, right? The issue would be left up to the states.
Overturning Roe v Wade I think would be like a dog that catches a car - Republicans would have no idea what to do with it. They've gotten a lot of mileage over the right to life issue, but there's very little public support for a blanket ban on abortion.
Don't. Just don't.
States are already gutting women's reproductive rights with RvW on the books. So fuck you and your semantics.
So fucking tired of men saying shit like that.
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 02:32:17 PM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 12:33:15 PM
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 12:20:24 PM
I don't think it's crazy to push the "Roe v Wade" issue with her. It's a known quantity. It's not a question. It's come up with every USSC nominee since the 70s.
The woman believes that other women should adhere to her religious morals, regardless of their own. That's enough to not sit her on the Supreme Court.
You know that overturning Roe v Wade wouldn't make abortion illegal, right? The issue would be left up to the states.
Overturning Roe v Wade I think would be like a dog that catches a car - Republicans would have no idea what to do with it. They've gotten a lot of mileage over the right to life issue, but there's very little public support for a blanket ban on abortion.
Don't. Just don't.
States are already gutting women's reproductive rights with RvW on the books. So fuck you and your semantics.
So fucking tired of men saying shit like that.
Honestly, I'm curious what the states would do if RvW was overturned. Support for abortion is approx 70% in the US.
Edit:
The "You know that... right?" formulation was condescending and I apologize.
The overall point stands though.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 02:03:14 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 01:59:51 PM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 01:58:29 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 01:53:16 PM
I assume BB would have no issue with a Supreme Court candidate from the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church then?
No questions are to be asked about the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!! It's my religion!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
FSM is such obvious parody I wouldn't give it a moments thought.
Better hypothetical would be a Scientologist. :ph34r:
How dare you. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as real as your God :)
YOu see, I try and deflect and turn this into a more interesting debate, and instead you just have to go and insult me. :cry:
I'm not insulting you... I'm saying the empirical evidence is equivalent.
I don't think much would change initially if RvW got overturned. The states that are against abortion aready make it amost impossible to get one without crossing state lines. But it would open the door to federal legislation.
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 02:42:44 PM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 02:03:14 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 01:59:51 PM
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 01:58:29 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 01:53:16 PM
I assume BB would have no issue with a Supreme Court candidate from the Flying Spaghetti Monster Church then?
No questions are to be asked about the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!! It's my religion!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
FSM is such obvious parody I wouldn't give it a moments thought.
Better hypothetical would be a Scientologist. :ph34r:
How dare you. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as real as your God :)
YOu see, I try and deflect and turn this into a more interesting debate, and instead you just have to go and insult me. :cry:
I'm not insulting you... I'm saying the empirical evidence is equivalent.
Facts can't be insulting? Have you seen katmai's weight?
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 02:42:44 PM
I'm not insulting you... I'm saying the empirical evidence is equivalent.
It actually isn't. You're equating evidence with proof. :)
We have very good evidence for the existence of Jesus - namely written accounts (which were just the writing down of previous oral histories) written within a few decades of Jesus's life on earth. Today we know them as the gospels.
Very few historians are of the opinion than no one named Jesus ever existed and that the events told in the gospels are entirely fictional.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 02:50:27 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 02:42:44 PM
I'm not insulting you... I'm saying the empirical evidence is equivalent.
It actually isn't. You're equating evidence with proof. :)
We have very good evidence for the existence of Jesus - namely written accounts (which were just the writing down of previous oral histories) written within a few decades of Jesus's life on earth. Today we know them as the gospels.
Very few historians are of the opinion than no one named Jesus ever existed and that the events told in the gospels are entirely fictional.
Er... the evidence for spaghetti is overwhelming.
I miss Catholic fahdiz. Guy was a riot. :(
I think he's a Trumpist now.
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
Oh no :o
QuoteI don't think much would change initially if RvW got overturned. The states that are against abortion aready make it amost impossible to get one without crossing state lines. But it would open the door to federal legislation.
Maybe, but what would be the basis of federal legislation.
The old Irish constitutional amendment on abortion was passed with a lot of support from American groups (in 1983) and the campaign for repealing it was opposed by lots of American groups, so it may give an idea of what could be proposed: "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right."
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 02:50:27 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 02:42:44 PM
I'm not insulting you... I'm saying the empirical evidence is equivalent.
It actually isn't. You're equating evidence with proof. :)
We have very good evidence for the existence of Jesus - namely written accounts (which were just the writing down of previous oral histories) written within a few decades of Jesus's life on earth. Today we know them as the gospels.
Very few historians are of the opinion than no one named Jesus ever existed and that the events told in the gospels are entirely fictional.
I also have evidence of a dude down my street shouting that's he's the messiah. That's not evidence of God.
Man I didn't expect a historicity of Jesus debate in this thread.
Quote from: Barrister on September 21, 2020, 02:50:27 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 21, 2020, 02:42:44 PM
I'm not insulting you... I'm saying the empirical evidence is equivalent.
It actually isn't. You're equating evidence with proof. :)
We have very good evidence for the existence of Jesus - namely written accounts (which were just the writing down of previous oral histories) written within a few decades of Jesus's life on earth. Today we know them as the gospels.
Very few historians are of the opinion than no one named Jesus ever existed and that the events told in the gospels are entirely fictional.
Believing in Jesus the man, the preacher is one thing. I do believe in that. He wasn't the only Jew describing himself as a prophet, speaking for God. Believing the gospel as they are is another. There might have been a very, very strong guy in ancient Greece, going around and brawling with his friends. There might have been people who said he was so strong he must be the son of Zeus and maybe he believed it himself. Did he kill an hydra? Not too sure about it. ;)
I believe some of the events described actually happened but were heavily romanced. But that's equivalent to saying the Illyad is real because we found the real Troy and there was a conflict there at the time describe in the book.
Also, the "biographies" of the time were not like today were authors (generally) try to stick to facts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Genre_and_historical_reliability
There are also some versions of the gospels that contain translation errors, and some gospels who were rejected, or simply lost until very recently. We can not judge on the existence of Jesus the son of God who died on a cross to save us from our sin based on the partial, non contemporary texts we have. I can not determine the validity of all that is written with certainty. I have no way of knowing if he walked on water, if Moses parted the Red Sea, if he could feed a crowd with just a few fishes and bread and if he could make wine from water. I'm especially interested in that last part... :sleep:
Now, I do not disrespect your faith, or anyone else faith. I feel you should be free to exercise your religion as you are of your political activities: independent of your work.
If an officer of the law is unable to separate its faith from its decision making, like say, not believing a Jewish witness because he is a devout Muslim and his particular branch of faith it dictates that Jews are all liars, there that person incompetent to my eyes. Same as if a judge would put more faith in the testimony of a Christian than a non Christian.
In the end, I do not feel that I would have to live by the guidelines established by someone else faith. A judge saying her rulings are inspired by her faith instead of the law is a sure sign of religious radicalism. It is just as detestable as political radicalism and should be frowned upon coming from any candidate.
Quote from: Valmy on September 21, 2020, 03:34:36 PM
Man I didn't expect a historicity of Jesus debate in this thread.
You never know what to expect on Languish. That's the beauty of this forum. :P
Would anti-abortion laws prevent another late seasons GoT?
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
I thought he had gone full Portland. :unsure:
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 21, 2020, 03:46:00 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
I thought he had gone full Portland. :unsure:
Yeah - I thought he had gone full Bernie Bro...
(though I haven't seen him on FB for a long time)
Maybe that's the right way to play when you're not playing with a full deck.
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 04:01:55 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 21, 2020, 03:10:14 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
Oh no :o
Got to hand it to the guy, when he plays he always goes all in.
Are we sure he's a Trumpist? I just don't see that being possible.
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 12:04:29 PM
But she's not a "normal" catholic. In general, at least in canada and europe, they seem to be less pushy about their beliefs (when compared to the various protestant' variations). But she's not normal, she's in a weird catholic cult. i would very much question her beliefs and her judicial integrity (plus her over all decision making skills).
also, what the hell America, even your Catholics are weird. What's in the water down there.
Her little cult isn't Catholic. It's a cult open to Christian nutjobs of every persuasion.
I'd focus, if I were the Democrats, on Mitch's deceits and her own shallow legal background. She hasn't been a judge even three years yet, and she has made statements about judicial decisions (like RvW) that indicate that she does not understand legal thinking and only agrees with decisions based on her personal beliefs.
I think that there are enough decent jurists in the US that we don't need to scape as low in the barrel as Notre Dame Law grads.
Quote from: Malthus on September 21, 2020, 02:26:16 PM
Her group literally has "handmaids"? Sounds like a step towards my aunt's book. 😄
Her group inspired your aunt's novel. No shit.
QuoteMembers of People of Praise are assigned to personal advisers of the same sex—called a "head" for men and "handmaid" for women, until the rise in popularity of Atwood's novel and the television series based on it forced a change in the latter.
Atwood herself has indicated that the group's existence motivated her to write The Handmaid's Tale, set in the fictional Gilead, where women's bodies are governed and treated as the property of the state under a theocratic regime.
"I delayed writing it for about three years after I got the idea because I felt it was too crazy," Atwood told The New York Times Book Review in 1986.
'Then two things happened. I started noticing that a lot of the things I thought I was more or less making up were now happening, and indeed more of them have happened since the publication of the book."
She added: "There is a sect now, a Catholic charismatic spinoff sect, which calls the women handmaids. They don't go in for polygamy of this kind but they do threaten the handmaids according to the biblical verse I use in the book—sit down and shut up."
https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293 (https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293)
Quote from: grumbler on September 21, 2020, 04:28:25 PM
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 12:04:29 PM
But she's not a "normal" catholic. In general, at least in canada and europe, they seem to be less pushy about their beliefs (when compared to the various protestant' variations). But she's not normal, she's in a weird catholic cult. i would very much question her beliefs and her judicial integrity (plus her over all decision making skills).
also, what the hell America, even your Catholics are weird. What's in the water down there.
Her little cult isn't Catholic. It's a cult open to Christian nutjobs of every persuasion.
I'd focus, if I were the Democrats, on Mitch's deceits and her own shallow legal background. She hasn't been a judge even three years yet, and she has made statements about judicial decisions (like RvW) that indicate that she does not understand legal thinking and only agrees with decisions based on her personal beliefs.
I think that there are enough decent jurists in the US that we don't need to scape as low in the barrel as Notre Dame Law grads.
D4H4USSC!
Quote from: derspiess on September 21, 2020, 04:20:02 PM
Quote from: HVC on September 21, 2020, 04:01:55 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 21, 2020, 03:10:14 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
Oh no :o
Got to hand it to the guy, when he plays he always goes all in.
Are we sure he's a Trumpist? I just don't see that being possible.
Not at all sure. I'm speculating based on limited information. My understanding was that he was definitely full-on Bernie Bro, but may have gone to the Dark Side based on Bernie's loss.
Hmmm,
They will not get a justice through. The moderate GOP will screw Trump. McConnell will not have the votes.
The election will be a squeaker for either side and contested.
The USSC will split 4-4
21 Jan Pelosi will be the interim Pres.
Sean Hannity and the rest of state tv will melt down.
Quote from: grumbler on September 21, 2020, 04:35:24 PM
Quote from: Malthus on September 21, 2020, 02:26:16 PM
Her group literally has "handmaids"? Sounds like a step towards my aunt's book. 😄
Her group inspired your aunt's novel. No shit.
QuoteMembers of People of Praise are assigned to personal advisers of the same sex—called a "head" for men and "handmaid" for women, until the rise in popularity of Atwood's novel and the television series based on it forced a change in the latter.
Atwood herself has indicated that the group's existence motivated her to write The Handmaid's Tale, set in the fictional Gilead, where women's bodies are governed and treated as the property of the state under a theocratic regime.
"I delayed writing it for about three years after I got the idea because I felt it was too crazy," Atwood told The New York Times Book Review in 1986.
'Then two things happened. I started noticing that a lot of the things I thought I was more or less making up were now happening, and indeed more of them have happened since the publication of the book."
She added: "There is a sect now, a Catholic charismatic spinoff sect, which calls the women handmaids. They don't go in for polygamy of this kind but they do threaten the handmaids according to the biblical verse I use in the book—sit down and shut up."
https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293 (https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293)
Holy crap!
And I mean that somewhat literally.
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
He's not. He's a big Bernie Bro.
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 05:39:12 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
He's not. He's a big Bernie Bro.
Yeah I thought he and Ank were the co-presidents of the Languish Bernie appreciation society.
Quote from: grumbler on September 21, 2020, 04:35:24 PM
Quote from: Malthus on September 21, 2020, 02:26:16 PM
Her group literally has "handmaids"? Sounds like a step towards my aunt's book. 😄
Her group inspired your aunt's novel. No shit.
QuoteMembers of People of Praise are assigned to personal advisers of the same sex—called a "head" for men and "handmaid" for women, until the rise in popularity of Atwood's novel and the television series based on it forced a change in the latter.
Atwood herself has indicated that the group's existence motivated her to write The Handmaid's Tale, set in the fictional Gilead, where women's bodies are governed and treated as the property of the state under a theocratic regime.
"I delayed writing it for about three years after I got the idea because I felt it was too crazy," Atwood told The New York Times Book Review in 1986.
'Then two things happened. I started noticing that a lot of the things I thought I was more or less making up were now happening, and indeed more of them have happened since the publication of the book."
She added: "There is a sect now, a Catholic charismatic spinoff sect, which calls the women handmaids. They don't go in for polygamy of this kind but they do threaten the handmaids according to the biblical verse I use in the book—sit down and shut up."
https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293 (https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293)
Yeah, that's the kind of crazy we need on the USSC. :glare:
Hod, I despise McConnell.
Quote from: Valmy on September 21, 2020, 05:41:11 PM
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 05:39:12 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
He's not. He's a big Bernie Bro.
Yeah I thought he and Ank were the co-presidents of the Languish Bernie appreciation society.
Shouldn't the president/s actually post here?
Quote from: Valmy on September 21, 2020, 05:41:11 PM
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 05:39:12 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
He's not. He's a big Bernie Bro.
Yeah I thought he and Ank were the co-presidents of the Languish Bernie appreciation society.
According to him, I'm the biggest insult to womanhood because I am voting for Biden. Anyone with any integrity whatsoever would vote third party (probably Libertarian, because you know, they're so great for women, too :rolleyes: ) and show those useless Democrats who are clearly out of step with the mass majority of liberals in this country who really runs this country: THE PEOPLE!!
I stopped speaking to him after that diatribe. :rolleyes:
Oh Christ
Quote from: The Brain on September 21, 2020, 02:48:49 PM
Facts can't be insulting? Have you seen katmai's weight?
how did I get dragged into this
Just realized with a 6-3 court that we'll likely see the ACA ruled unconstitutional in the middle of a global pandemic and millions of Americans still out of work.
What a time to be alive.
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 05:48:44 PM
Quote from: Valmy on September 21, 2020, 05:41:11 PM
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 05:39:12 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
He's not. He's a big Bernie Bro.
Yeah I thought he and Ank were the co-presidents of the Languish Bernie appreciation society.
According to him, I'm the biggest insult to womanhood because I am voting for Biden. Anyone with any integrity whatsoever would vote third party (probably Libertarian, because you know, they're so great for women, too :rolleyes: ) and show those useless Democrats who are clearly out of step with the mass majority of liberals in this country who really runs this country: THE PEOPLE!!
I stopped speaking to him after that diatribe. :rolleyes:
:hmm: I guess he's just approaching Trumpism going the long way round the circle.
Quote from: katmai on September 21, 2020, 05:57:54 PM
Quote from: The Brain on September 21, 2020, 02:48:49 PM
Facts can't be insulting? Have you seen katmai's weight?
how did I get dragged into this
[Brain]Dragged? Is anything actually capable of dragging you since all the dinosaurs died out? [/Brain]
I'm fairly certain we have machines stronger than dinosaurs. :hmm:
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 21, 2020, 06:47:23 PM
I'm fairly certain we have machines stronger than dinosaurs. :hmm:
I would think that grumbler would know better than anyone how the dinosaurs stack up against machines.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 21, 2020, 06:47:23 PM
I'm fairly certain we have machines stronger than dinosaurs. :hmm:
Messerschmitt
Budweiser!
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 05:45:48 PM
Quote from: grumbler on September 21, 2020, 04:35:24 PM
Quote from: Malthus on September 21, 2020, 02:26:16 PM
Her group literally has "handmaids"? Sounds like a step towards my aunt's book. 😄
Her group inspired your aunt's novel. No shit.
QuoteMembers of People of Praise are assigned to personal advisers of the same sex—called a "head" for men and "handmaid" for women, until the rise in popularity of Atwood's novel and the television series based on it forced a change in the latter.
Atwood herself has indicated that the group's existence motivated her to write The Handmaid's Tale, set in the fictional Gilead, where women's bodies are governed and treated as the property of the state under a theocratic regime.
"I delayed writing it for about three years after I got the idea because I felt it was too crazy," Atwood told The New York Times Book Review in 1986.
'Then two things happened. I started noticing that a lot of the things I thought I was more or less making up were now happening, and indeed more of them have happened since the publication of the book."
She added: "There is a sect now, a Catholic charismatic spinoff sect, which calls the women handmaids. They don't go in for polygamy of this kind but they do threaten the handmaids according to the biblical verse I use in the book—sit down and shut up."
https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293 (https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-people-praise-group-inspired-handmaids-tale-1533293)
Yeah, that's the kind of crazy we need on the USSC. :glare:
Hod, I despise McConnell.
Now you see how wrong you were to despair just last week?No matter how bad things may appear right now, they will always get worst until January 21st 2021. No need to despair right now, there'll be plenty of time left to despair even more ;)
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 05:48:44 PM
Quote from: Valmy on September 21, 2020, 05:41:11 PM
Quote from: merithyn on September 21, 2020, 05:39:12 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on September 21, 2020, 03:03:29 PM
I think he's a Trumpist now.
He's not. He's a big Bernie Bro.
Yeah I thought he and Ank were the co-presidents of the Languish Bernie appreciation society.
According to him, I'm the biggest insult to womanhood because I am voting for Biden. Anyone with any integrity whatsoever would vote third party (probably Libertarian, because you know, they're so great for women, too :rolleyes: ) and show those useless Democrats who are clearly out of step with the mass majority of liberals in this country who really runs this country: THE PEOPLE!!
I stopped speaking to him after that diatribe. :rolleyes:
Ah, yes, that sort of Trumpism. I was a bit off. :(
Signs point to this being in the Dems electoral favor, but it's early
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1308138172791107584
Quote from: Nate SilverIf voters prefer waiting until after the election by a 13-point margin *and* D's are more fired up about the Supreme Court, this starts to look like a challenging issue for Republicans. Which is not to say they won't confirm someone, just that it could come at an electoral price.
Quote from: Morning Consult
According to our new poll with Politico, 37% of voters said President Trump should pick Justice Ginsburg's replacement regardless of who wins on Nov. 3, while 50% said the winner of the November election should make the pick.
Quote from: grumbler on September 21, 2020, 06:45:23 PM
Quote from: katmai on September 21, 2020, 05:57:54 PM
Quote from: The Brain on September 21, 2020, 02:48:49 PM
Facts can't be insulting? Have you seen katmai's weight?
how did I get dragged into this
[Brain]Dragged? Is anything actually capable of dragging you since all the dinosaurs died out? [/Brain]
:mad:
Quote from: FunkMonk on September 21, 2020, 06:36:53 PM
Just realized with a 6-3 court that we'll likely see the ACA ruled unconstitutional in the middle of a global pandemic and millions of Americans still out of work.
What a time to be alivedead.
FYP.
(https://i.postimg.cc/MHbWzgx6/mittens.png)
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on September 18, 2020, 10:07:23 PM
I'm willing to bet that Romney won't vote either before the election or during the lame-duck (unless the GOP retains the Senate and Trump is re-elected). Maybe one of Grassley, Collins, and Murkowski, but not enough to stop the nominee from going through. Collins looks likely to lose and has no reason not to vote for the nominee after her loss.
Just saw Romney post on FB that he favors a vote.
Damn it, Syt. Beat me by 12 seconds!
There hasn't been a liberal court for decades.
Ah yes. The good old "it's not actually that conservative it's just the world is sooo left wing" nonsense.
These are the people who think that O'Connor or Kennedy were liberals because they were a bit to the left of Atilla the Hun.
There is no justice as left as Thomas or Alito is right and there hasn't been one for a very, very long time. The right of the Court is very far right - Thomas' judicial views in particular are way out of the mainstream.
I also saw the Ross Douthat piece complaining about what's the democratic fairness of Souter or Stevens having a combned 54 years on the court. Which is kind of beside the point - the democratic legitimacy is that they were nominated by Presidents and approved by the Senate (90-9 and 98-0) - but it's a court. It's not like other institutions where there's a sort of on-going democratic element that lets you discipline your party (e.g. through primaries).
There's nothing inherently unfair about Republican presidents nominating judges who act as judges and develop their interpretation/approach to the law rather than ideologues or politicians who kind of have to satisfy the base. That's the way courts work :mellow:
Interesting that he uses the examples of Souter and Stevens, both nominated by Republican presidents.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 22, 2020, 09:46:54 AM
Interesting that he uses the examples of Souter and Stevens, both nominated by Republican presidents.
I think that's his point:
QuoteHow the G.O.P. Might Get to Yes on Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg
There's no escape from juristocracy except through political conflict.
Ross Douthat
Sept. 20, 2020
Imagine a Republican senator uncertain whether to vote for the Supreme Court nominee that President Trump is poised to put forward. He is part of a select group, our senator; perhaps we can even guess how many children and grandchildren he has, how steeply his hair still rises from his brow, how close he once came to being president himself.
Here is how he might consider the problem. On the one hand there is the threat of what keeps being called a "legitimacy crisis" should Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday, be quickly replaced by a conservative jurist. It would be Donald Trump's third appointment following a presidential election in which Senate Republicans declined to vote on Barack Obama's final nominee. Trump did not win the popular vote in 2016; his Senate coalition doesn't represent a popular majority. In replacing Ginsburg he would be altering the balance of the court more decisively than with his previous picks, both of whom took seats from Republican appointees.
And he would be doing so in a country that's already polarized, maddened, suffused with hysteria. The madness around Supreme Court battles has been building steadily since Robert Bork's defeated nomination in 1987, and at some point it has to be defused. If someone — which means some Republicans, at the moment, because the power is in their hands — doesn't find a way to de-escalate, to concede some ground, then the court and even the Constitution could be in the gravest sort of peril.
That's the situation as understood on the left and much of the center. But our senator is a Republican senator, mindful of his own coalition's views. He knows there is more than one way for an institution to lose legitimacy, and that for many conservatives the high court eviscerated its own authority decades ago, when it set itself up as the arbiter of America's major moral controversies, removing from the democratic process not just debates about sex and marriage and school prayer but life and death itself.
Those "many conservatives" include this columnist. Since I became opposed to abortion, sometime in my later teens, I have never regarded the Supreme Court with warmth, admiration or patriotic trust. What my liberal friends felt after Bush v. Gore or after Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation or in imagining some future ruling by Amy Coney Barrett, I have felt for my entire adult life.
And our Republican senator knows that this feeling has sustained itself because the conservative effort to change the courts was balked and limited, over and over again, despite many seemingly no-doubt electoral victories and sweeping presidential mandates. For decades, conservatives elected Republican presidents, Republican presidents appointed Supreme Court justices — and yet about half of those justices turned out to be either outright judicial liberals or "swing" votes who always seemed to swing toward social liberalism.
So if it seems unfair and delegitimizing to liberals today that a president without a popular-vote mandate should be able to appoint the successor to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, conservatives might respond by asking what democratic "fairness" delivered David Souter and John Paul Stevens to a combined 54 years on the court as Republican appointees? Or what "fairness" made Anthony Kennedy rather than Antonin Scalia the dominant judicial figure for the decades that followed Ronald Reagan's presidential landslides?
And further, what would it say to the millions of voters who have supported the Republican Party almost exclusively because of judicial politics for decades, for a situation to come along where there is no constitutional bar to appointing Ginsburg's successor, and then Republican senators simply cede the opportunity, extracting at most a vague no-future-court-packing promise in return? At least with Souter, the seat wasn't ceded to liberals on purpose.
That's what our senator encounters when he inclines his ear rightward. But if he has wisdom, he can also sense in the clashing arguments a substrate of agreement — a shared recognition that a system in which the great questions of our country are settled by the deaths of octogenarians is too close to late-Soviet Politburo politics for comfort, a shared acknowledgment that too much deliberation that belongs in other branches is being shunted to the Supreme Court.
The question is what, if anything, would need to happen to make that substrate the foundation for a better system, a decisive change in judicial appointments and a step back from juristocracy.
One answer, the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" answer, is that a brave stand in favor of bipartisanship by a few Republican senators might set the stage for a return of wise-man politics, in which various reforms proposed for the Supreme Court — shorter terms, rotating appointments, a larger bench appointed by bipartisan committee — could be pushed through by Republicans and Democrats together, in a Joe Biden presidency or thereafter.
The message of the stand would be, let's not do this, but its goal would be to get both parties to say, let's never get in this situation again.
But that might be an idealist's fancy. Suppose that Ginsburg isn't replaced this fall, Biden is elected, and he fills her seat and then replaces at least one conservative justice as well, flipping the court back to liberal control. The Democratic incentive to reform our juristocracy would diminish or evaporate, and liberalism's self-understanding as the party of hyper-educated mandarins would come back to the fore, making progressives enthusiastic about judicial power once again.
Meanwhile, conservatives would have all of their suspicions about establishment Republicans confirmed yet one more time, and they could add the Supreme Court to the lengthening list of elite institutions in which cultural liberalism's power seems more consolidated every day.
The likely result would be a right-wing coalition that's angrier and Trumpier than the G.O.P. that nominated Trump himself four years ago. So our imagined Republican senator's reward for his high-minded vote could easily be a longer-term defeat for moderate conservatism: The judiciary would be handed over to ambitious liberals, and his own party would become more populist, paranoid and hostile to any form of compromise.
Whereas if he voted to confirm, then the worst-case scenario, the threat that Democrats are waving, would probably be an attempt at court packing in a Biden presidency, or perhaps in a Kamala Harris presidency down the line.
Such a development would no doubt make Twitter unbearable and inspire Republicans to their own round of angst about legitimacy and norms. But once you recognize the current system's brokenness, it's not clear it would be all that terrible a fight to have.
For one thing, to fight a battle over the court on those terms would commit the Democrats decisively to the position that the courts should be under small-d democratic control, rather than allowing them to replace Ginsburg, breathe a sigh of relief and revert to a liberalism of philosopher kings (and queens).
For another, if an era of court packing tit-for-tat weakened the high court, making its members more cautious and its decisions appear more overtly political, then that could have one of two positive consequences: It could push some power back toward the legislative branch, where under our constitutional schema it still formally belongs, and it could eventually push the warring parties toward an exhausted stalemate, from which bipartisan court reform might be more likely to emerge.
Of course I am speculating, but my point is to suggest the inherent unknowability of some "what's best for the republic" outcome as our Republican senator contemplates his vote. It might be that a high-minded renunciation of power saves us from a crisis ... but it might just as easily be that the only way out of the crisis is through, meaning for both sides to contest frankly for the power to change a broken system, and to look for new norms on the other side rather than propping up old ones that clearly don't work anymore.
And the unknowability means that the decision is probably better reduced to its simplest form. All that our senator knows about this vote for certain is that it will give one of the (unfortunately) most powerful offices in America to either the person nominated or some person chosen by the current Democratic nominee.
If the person nominated seems like a better choice to be entrusted with that power, then despite all the atmospherics, there's a clear case for voting yes.
I mean it's a case - but it's basically just another bit of "they did it first" grievance politics on the right so taking any steps necessary to fight back is acceptable.
The rationale matters not at all. The 'principles' will mutate to whatever is needed to provide political cover capture another court seat. You must control the Senate or you are screwed. That is all there is to it.
I literally don't understand his point.
His argument seems to be that the only thing the Supreme Court justices do or matter for is voting in cases about abortion and that the only political question that matters in the country is one position on abortion.
But even then I still don't understand the point. The "legitimacy" question doesn't stem from the fact that a President (or Senate) with a sizable popular vote minority is changing the complexion of the Court.
The legitimacy question stems from the fact that the Senate denied a vote to a prior nominee based on a principle that is applied here would compel even more strongly denying a vote to this proposed nominee. The legitimacy problem that is raised goes to the heart of rule of law. American law is based on precedent and adherence to reasons applied neutrally and universally. If different sets of rules are applied by the same group of office holders based solely on partisan advantage, then the rule of law is undermined and what is left is both of the appearance and reality of exercise of unprincipled raw power.
Quote from: Valmy on September 22, 2020, 11:52:42 AM
The rationale matters not at all. The 'principles' will mutate to whatever is needed to provide political cover capture another court seat. You must control the Senate or you are screwed. That is all there is to it.
Bingo that is the problem.
And that is why Douthat is twisting himself into knots as a "principled conservative" trying to justify the open repudiation of principle. It reduces to a plea for the right to avenge grievance - I had to suffer because GHWB nominated Souter so it only fair now "you" should all suffer as well.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 22, 2020, 11:57:54 AM
Quote from: Valmy on September 22, 2020, 11:52:42 AM
The rationale matters not at all. The 'principles' will mutate to whatever is needed to provide political cover capture another court seat. You must control the Senate or you are screwed. That is all there is to it.
Bingo that is the problem.
And that is why Douthat is twisting himself into knots as a "principled conservative" trying to justify the open repudiation of principle. It reduces to a plea for the right to avenge grievance - I had to suffer because GHWB nominated Souter so it only fair now "you" should all suffer as well.
Yeah. I think it's a solid attempt to set out a principled approach, but ultimately I think it does boil down to grievance and power. This does seem to be the line that's influencing Romney though.
Edit: E.g.:
QuoteMore Romney: "My liberal friends over many decades have gotten very used to the idea of having a liberal court, but that's not written in the stars."
He says a center-right court is appropriate "for a nation that is if you will center right."
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 22, 2020, 11:57:54 AM
Quote from: Valmy on September 22, 2020, 11:52:42 AM
The rationale matters not at all. The 'principles' will mutate to whatever is needed to provide political cover capture another court seat. You must control the Senate or you are screwed. That is all there is to it.
Bingo that is the problem.
And that is why Douthat is twisting himself into knots as a "principled conservative" trying to justify the open repudiation of principle. It reduces to a plea for the right to avenge grievance - I had to suffer because GHWB nominated Souter so it only fair now "you" should all suffer as well.
It all comes back to the original sin of Roe v Wade though, a case that creates a constitutional right to an abortion out of thin air (abortion certainly isn't mentioned in the Bill of Rights).
So ordinarily if you don't like a certain public policy, you go and lobby congress, you fund raise and elect politicians. You engage in electoral politics.
But because of RvW, your only outlet is to get the case overturned. Which right-to-lifers have tried to do for 40+ years. They've gone out and helped elect Republicans who have in turn appointed USSC Justices. Over the last 40 years Republicans have appointed 10 Justices, compared to 4 by Democrats. Yet RvW remains because a number of Justices just haven't been willing to vote down RvW when given a chance.
Look, I oppose trying to ram through an appointment during a lame duck session after what happened with Merrick because I don't think they understand the long-term implications. But there's a perhaps understandable frustration from the right to life movement.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 22, 2020, 12:13:15 PM
Yeah. I think it's a solid attempt to set out a principled approach, but ultimately I think it does boil down to grievance and power. This does seem to be the line that's influencing Romney though.
I don't think it is a solid attempt at all. It is weaseling on the principles in order to be able to support an outcome that ignores principles in favor of righting some vague historical grievances. "Stab in the back" justifications don't promote principled behavior.
You know what, sorry Beeb - but the "right to life" movement is, mostly, a fucking lie. It is something people can hold up and justify their support for racists, bigots, and "build that wall". It has nothing to do, for most of them, with actually caring one bit about abortion.
I agree about Roe v Wade - but I would note it was a 7-2 decision. The two dissenters had been appointed by Nixon and Kennedy, while the 7 had been appointed by FDR, Ike, Johnson and Nixon.
I think the key judgement is actually Planned Parenthood v Casey because that starts the sort of meme of treachorous Republican-appointed judges. Because it went 5-4 and the majority included judges appointed by Reagan (2), Nixon, Ford and Bush while the four dissenters were appointed by Reagan, Bush and Nixon (2). So even an all Republican-appointed bench was not sufficient to overturn it.
At a certain point surely you query not if it's the judges that are the problem but the law. So just making more and more Republican judges might not be enough, you might need to campaign for a constitutional amendment to clarify that there is no right to privacy. Because surely if the courts keep coming back with the same answer you need to ultimately change the text to make it clear.
Of course one of the reasons people don't want to do that and focus on judges instead is that only about 30% of Americans want it overturned (even 68% of Catholics don't want it overturned):
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/03/with-religion-related-rulings-on-the-horizon-u-s-christians-see-supreme-court-favorably/
Quote from: grumbler on September 22, 2020, 12:27:21 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 22, 2020, 12:13:15 PM
Yeah. I think it's a solid attempt to set out a principled approach, but ultimately I think it does boil down to grievance and power. This does seem to be the line that's influencing Romney though.
I don't think it is a solid attempt at all. It is weaseling on the principles in order to be able to support an outcome that ignores principles in favor of righting some vague historical grievances. "Stab in the back" justifications don't promote principled behavior.
I mean, what's the better principled approach? :P
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 12:19:49 PM
It all comes back to the original sin of Roe v Wade though, a case that creates a constitutional right to an abortion out of thin air (abortion certainly isn't mentioned in the Bill of Rights).
It all comes back to the original sin that conservatives pretend that the ninth amendment to the US constitution simply does not exist. On the contrary, the right to privacy was so commonly accepted that the founders didn't see the need to explicitly mention it (nor the right to walk freely in public spaces, to claim parental authority over one's children, etc).
And, of course, there is no "right to abortion" no matter how the conservatives howl about it. The state can restrict aborton under specified circumstances, after its interest in the fetus becomes manifest at viability.
QuoteSo ordinarily if you don't like a certain public policy, you go and lobby congress, you fund raise and elect politicians. You engage in electoral politics.
But because of RvW, your only outlet is to get the case overturned. Which right-to-lifers have tried to do for 40+ years. They've gone out and helped elect Republicans who have in turn appointed USSC Justices. Over the last 40 years Republicans have appointed 10 Justices, compared to 4 by Democrats. Yet RvW remains because a number of Justices just haven't been willing to vote down RvW when given a chance.
Like any other right, the right to privacy isn't subject to a legislative over-ride. The state must make a compelling case that restrictions on the right to privacy are necessary and justified. What conservatives want is to have the court eliminate the right to privacy to serve their own religious needs.
QuoteLook, I oppose trying to ram through an appointment during a lame duck session after what happened with Merrick because I don't think they understand the long-term implications. But there's a perhaps understandable frustration from the right to life movement.
The anti-choice movement would be better-served if they focused their efforts on medical advances that allowed the extraction f a viable fetus from an unwilling mother, rather than on forcing the unwilling mother to carry the fetus to term.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 22, 2020, 12:32:25 PM
Of course one of the reasons people don't want to do that and focus on judges instead is that only about 30% of Americans want it overturned (even 68% of Catholics don't want it overturned):
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/03/with-religion-related-rulings-on-the-horizon-u-s-christians-see-supreme-court-favorably/
Which is why I talked about the dog catching the car. The implications of repealing RvW are... unclear.
Quote from: Berkut on September 22, 2020, 12:28:23 PM
You know what, sorry Beeb - but the "right to life" movement is, mostly, a fucking lie. It is something people can hold up and justify their support for racists, bigots, and "build that wall". It has nothing to do, for most of them, with actually caring one bit about abortion.
Those in the actual right to life movement generally seem pretty sincere in their beliefs.
There are those who are happy to use people in the right to life movement in order to advance whatever other policy goals they have.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 22, 2020, 12:32:46 PM
I mean, what's the better principled approach? :P
The better principled approach is to concede that the rules that applied to Scalia's replacement should apply to RBG's. There is no principled approach to "the Constitutional duties of the senate depend on the partisan advantages to be gained by fulfilling or failing to fulfil them.
I have a question about legalizing abortion in a legislative setting: can it actually be done without getting Supreme Court involved anyway? If Democrats get all three branches and legalize abortion legislatively, can be it overruled by Supreme Court on account of it violating some constitutional protection?
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 12:38:09 PM
Those in the actual right to life movement generally seem pretty sincere in their beliefs.
There are those who are happy to use people in the right to life movement in order to advance whatever other policy goals they have.
I know I always reference it but there's a really good Talking Politics episode on this with historian Sarah Churchwell:
https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2020/214-the-great-abortion-switcheroo
QuoteIn the final episode of our American Histories series, Sarah Churchwell tells the incredible story of the politics of abortion during the 1970's. How did evangelicals go from supporting abortion to being its die-hard opponents, what did the switch have to do with the politics of race and what have been the lasting consequences for American democracy?
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 22, 2020, 12:45:42 PM
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 12:38:09 PM
Those in the actual right to life movement generally seem pretty sincere in their beliefs.
There are those who are happy to use people in the right to life movement in order to advance whatever other policy goals they have.
I know I always reference it but there's a really good Talking Politics episode on this with historian Sarah Churchwell:
https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2020/214-the-great-abortion-switcheroo
QuoteIn the final episode of our American Histories series, Sarah Churchwell tells the incredible story of the politics of abortion during the 1970's. How did evangelicals go from supporting abortion to being its die-hard opponents, what did the switch have to do with the politics of race and what have been the lasting consequences for American democracy?
Can't listen to a podcast at work, but I did note the weird switcheroo some of them have done on birth control over that time period.
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 12:53:14 PM
Can't listen to a podcast at work, but I did note the weird switcheroo some of them have done on birth control over that time period.
It's interesting. Basically in 1968 Teddy Kennedy and other Democrats (a party with a lot of Catholic immigrants) are pro-life, while Christianity Today (then still Billy Graham's magazine and the premier magazine of Evangelicals) prints that abortion wasn't sinful and that ending a pregnancy was a matter of individual health, family welfare and social responsibility. By 1978 those positions are reversed.
And some of that change reflects real evangelical feelings after Roe v Wade, but some of it is also the result of quite cynical political entrepreneurship by Evangelical leaders and conservatives who were looking for a way to activate/unite social conservative voters against an over-reaching progressive Federal government/Federal courts (in part because of issues around segregated Christian academies) and on the other side Democrats moving from the party of Catholic immigrants to the party of women.
It's not about abortion, it's about women deciding to have an abortion. Agency is the issue.
I consider myself pro-life and always have, but how that intersects with the law is a different thing. One of the great lies of the politicized pro-life movement is more or less that abortion was invented out of whole cloth when Roe was decided. In fact of course, abortion has been practiced in varying ways for thousands of years. While the numbers are obviously very speculative, I've read that in some years in America immediately prior to Roe, they think anywhere from 200,000 to 1.2m illegal abortions were happening every year.
In modern times something like 40% of all abortions in America are done via the two-pill combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, there is strong reason to believe barring the effects of Roe v Wade, it would be even more difficult for red states to prevent its citizens acquiring these drugs than they could prevent women from getting in-person abortions in the 1960s. You have to do some really draconian shit to really go after the practice of abortion, things like raids, mass arrests of women and doctors and nurses etc. It almost certainly will happen some early on, and cause such profound political blowback it will cease very quickly, and we will get to a point where in red states you have about as much trouble acquiring an abortion as you do acquiring marijuana, which is to say it's not trivial if you don't already know someone, but it's not exactly hard either.
To some degree I almost wonder if Roe being overturned would be a net good. I actually don't agree with the jurisprudence of Roe, I do agree there is a right to privacy, and I do agree the state should be very limited in its ability to inject itself into the doctor patient relationship. However I also think when you start doing things like breaking down the trimester framework established in Roe, or the rights-weighing/viability framework laid out in Casey, the courts got pretty deep in the weeds on this issue and it's a sticky issue. I'm not at all convinced it was correct law, and I'm quite certain it was societally better for America had it been decided by legislatures instead of judges.
On some level the Fascists that took over my former political party should probably fear a real overturning of Roe, from a craven political standpoint the GOP actually benefits more from the "issue" than they do "winning" it. Unlike tax reforms and other political issues where winning is the reward and you reap benefits, the party actually loses a lot from winning the abortion debate because the boogeyman of Roe is gone and you're left having to advocate far more unpopular policies--like laws that try to force blue states to ban abortions, and efforts to try to criminalize crossing state lines to get abortions and etc.
I guess the GOP has the votes then.
In a scenario where the Dems win the WH and a majority in the Senate, I hope they pack the court. It's no use trying to find common ground with an arsonist.
The work of the Supreme Court involves a lot more than deciding abortion cases, it decides other matters of great consequence. The right's obsession with overturning Roe has had significant and malign impact on the Court. For a while it means finding justices who not only strongly believe Roe was wrongfully decided but are willing to break with decades of established and elaborated precedent. It means finding someone who is hardline and ideological and activist, because a regular small "c" conservative judge like Souter, O'Connor, Kennedy or Roberts won't do that. And that means packing the Court with hardline activist, right wing ideologues who are right wing ideologues on everything from speech rights to religion and state to guns.
And what you get when you do that is a Court that will say that states have the right to force women to carry all pregnancies to term even if it literally kills them, but will also rule that the same states are helpless to prevent corporations funneling millions in bribes to politicians or from preventing everyone from carrying AR-15s onto a crowded subway.
Quote from: Zoupa on September 22, 2020, 02:19:00 PM
I guess the GOP has the votes then.
In a scenario where the Dems win the WH and a majority in the Senate, I hope they pack the court. It's no use trying to find common ground with an arsonist.
I dunno - court-packing is pretty dangerous as it can be used the next time the GOP is in power.
The more interesting possibiity is statehood for PR and DC. :ph34r:
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 02:24:02 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 22, 2020, 02:19:00 PM
I guess the GOP has the votes then.
In a scenario where the Dems win the WH and a majority in the Senate, I hope they pack the court. It's no use trying to find common ground with an arsonist.
I dunno - court-packing is pretty dangerous as it can be used the next time the GOP is in power.
It's going to be pretty GOP-packed regardless. If you're going to have an illegitimate Supreme Court, it's much better to have an illegitimate court that is used for good rather than for evil. Of course it would be better to have a legitimate court than either of these two options, but that's not on the cards.
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 02:24:02 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 22, 2020, 02:19:00 PM
I guess the GOP has the votes then.
In a scenario where the Dems win the WH and a majority in the Senate, I hope they pack the court. It's no use trying to find common ground with an arsonist.
I dunno - court-packing is pretty dangerous as it can be used the next time the GOP is in power.
The more interesting possibiity is statehood for PR and DC. :ph34r:
The Dems have to use the same dirty tricks as the GOP has for decades. Redistricting, statehood, expanding the SC, nothing should be off the table. The "when they go low, we go high" means absolutely nothing if it gets you Trump, a Senate led by McConnell and insane Qanon types in the House. Time to go low, dems.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 22, 2020, 02:12:21 PM
In modern times something like 40% of all abortions in America are done via the two-pill combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, there is strong reason to believe barring the effects of Roe v Wade, it would be even more difficult for red states to prevent its citizens acquiring these drugs than they could prevent women from getting in-person abortions in the 1960s. You have to do some really draconian shit to really go after the practice of abortion, things like raids, mass arrests of women and doctors and nurses etc. It almost certainly will happen some early on, and cause such profound political blowback it will cease very quickly, and we will get to a point where in red states you have about as much trouble acquiring an abortion as you do acquiring marijuana, which is to say it's not trivial if you don't already know someone, but it's not exactly hard either.
Yeah. Can confirm from the many abortion cases in Ireland and Northern Ireland that I think moved to repealing the constitutional ban and radicalising a lot of people. Such as the case tha made global news of a woman who was denied an abortion after an incomplete miscarriage (the heart of the foetus was still beating) and subsequently died of a septic miscarriage.
Or the very famous case (as they had to have "due regard" to the woman's equal right to life) of a girl who was raped and became pregnant and suicidal, her family planned to take her to England to get an abortion. The rapist (a neighbour) was denying responsibility and the family asked the police if DNA from the aborted foetus could be used in evidence, this led to the police reporting it up the chain and an injunction forbidding her from leaving the state. It went all the way to the Supreme Court who ruled that abortion was permitted if there was serious suicidal intention because that would end both lives anyway, by that point I think she had miscarried.
I'm not convinced that getting rid of Roe v Wade removes the courts from these issues or produces the sort of results that leads to a settled pro-life majority.
Quote from: Zoupa on September 22, 2020, 02:29:22 PM
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 02:24:02 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 22, 2020, 02:19:00 PM
I guess the GOP has the votes then.
In a scenario where the Dems win the WH and a majority in the Senate, I hope they pack the court. It's no use trying to find common ground with an arsonist.
I dunno - court-packing is pretty dangerous as it can be used the next time the GOP is in power.
The more interesting possibiity is statehood for PR and DC. :ph34r:
The Dems have to use the same dirty tricks as the GOP has for decades. Redistricting, statehood, expanding the SC, nothing should be off the table. The "when they go low, we go high" means absolutely nothing if it gets you Trump, a Senate led by McConnell and insane Qanon types in the House. Time to go low, dems.
Wrong. Just encourages the next guy to go even lower. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Biden is doing very well in the polls by being the candidate of honour and integrity. Don't know why you'd want to mess that up.
Besides, Trump was a freak aberration who got lucky and pulled just enough votes in just the right states.
Besides, the reason why PR and DC statehood is an interesting move is becausethe Republicans have no counter. There's no GOP leaning territory they could some day make a state as well, and statehood can't be revoked.
I would actually argue that while the GOP needs to be neutered, it's important to try and do so in a form that is democratically legitimate, both in a broader sense and in a constitutional sense.
Packing the courts is constitutional, but it's never been associated with good behavior, and in fact every time we've either attempted to or actually have changed the composition of the courts for partisan purposes, it's related to dark times in American history. I also think the Democrats will implode a lot of potential good will, and be setting themselves up for a voter backlash from such a nakedly partisan power grab.
I think a few other options on the table are much more viable, much harder for Republicans to message against, and much more (and in some cases impossible) to reverse:
1. Statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico. While the D.C. part is a little controversial, Puerto Rico is not. The District has more American citizens living in its borders than a number of states, and Puerto Rico's status is a true relic of the days of colonialism. There is no just cause to deny citizens their representation in Congress and in the electoral college. The people of these territories largely seem to want this, and they should be granted it as a pure moral good. The fact that it will accrue benefit to the Democrats is simply a side effect. With the District, I think you get around any of the structural concerns by classifying a small area around the White House / Congress and a few other prominent Federal buildings as the "Federal District of Columbia" which will have basically only residents of the White House living within its borders, and a "State of Columbia" (or whatever) that will hold the 700,000+ residents of the District.
2. Increase the House of Representatives by around 100 seats. The House is supposed to represent people--very deliberately population, it is one thing for Idaho to be disproportionately represented in the Senate (which is by design), and quite another for it to be disproportionately represented in the House, which is solely because in the 1920s we chose to fix the House seats at a static number and never changed them. Over the years this has caused out of bounds growth in the over-representation of rural states that only have one congress person. This one is actually literally harking back to following original constitutional intent, the House was never supposed to favor low population rural states, it was supposed to represent population.
I didn't pull 100 from a hat entirely, some years ago when I was discussing this very proposal I came up with the idea that the number of members of the House should be set by taking the population of the smallest state and using it as a divisor, however many whole number of times your state can be divided by that divisor, that is how many seats in congress your state gets. That would give California around 68 congressmen and 70 votes in the electoral college. While I've since lost the spreadsheet I used for this years ago, at the end of the day the net addition of seats got the House to around +100 versus its current size. Because of the makeup of the state demographics I believe a majority of these new seats would accrue to Democrats, but some would accrue to Republicans--who would be loathe to in the future vote their seats out of existence (I also believe changes like this can only occur in sessions after the decennial census, so the GOP wouldn't have any fast remedy period.) But again, this is a decision that I think helps to undermine the pernicious nature of the modern GOP without engaging in a "race to the bottom."
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 02:24:02 PM
I dunno - court-packing is pretty dangerous as it can be used the next time the GOP is in power.
Been there and done that.
QuoteThe more interesting possibiity is statehood for PR and DC. :ph34r:
PR is fairly easy procedurally, but DC would require a constitutional amendment, and that's not happening any time soon. It'd be easier to split California or New York.
Quote from: Grey Fox on September 22, 2020, 01:47:09 PM
It's not about abortion, it's about women deciding to have an abortion. Agency is the issue.
That is correct. I am pro-life
and pro-choice.
Quote from: grumbler on September 22, 2020, 03:08:06 PM
PR is fairly easy procedurally, but DC would require a constitutional amendment, and that's not happening any time soon. It'd be easier to split California or New York.
The existence of DC is in the constitution, but it says nothing about the size of DC. DC has shrunk once, returning the parts on the other side of the Potomac to Virginia.
The proposals I've seen would shrink the District of Columbia to just the area of the handful of capitol buildings right in the middle. The other 99% would form the new state.
In fact DC might be easier because for Puerto Rico you'd need to get the Puerto Ricans to agree to become a state.
Correct, you would just change the size of the "Federal District", no constitutional amendment was required for the retrocession of the Virginia land west of the Potomac given to the new district. You could even fairly rapidly follow the same process--retrocess all but a small amount of land around key Federal buildings to Maryland, and then Maryland quickly would apply to the Congress to divide off that portion of land as a new state (West Virginia has set the legal standard of this being allowed, as per the constitution you can sub-divide states as long as the legislature of the state in question is in favor of it.) I'm not even sure you'd need the Maryland intermediary step, but if you did politicians in Maryland have always been mostly on the side of statehood so would likely be pliant. If Larry Hogan tried to resist I suspect he'd face veto overrides.
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 03:15:37 PM
Quote from: grumbler on September 22, 2020, 03:08:06 PM
PR is fairly easy procedurally, but DC would require a constitutional amendment, and that's not happening any time soon. It'd be easier to split California or New York.
The existence of DC is in the constitution, but it says nothing about the size of DC. DC has shrunk once, returning the parts on the other side of the Potomac to Virginia.
The proposals I've seen would shrink the District of Columbia to just the area of the handful of capitol buildings right in the middle. The other 99% would form the new state.
In fact DC might be easier because for Puerto Rico you'd need to get the Puerto Ricans to agree to become a state.
Yes, but you are talking about the District of Colombia (that's what DC stands for) which is constitutionally mandated. You could resize the district (and they should, IMO) to include just the Federal District, with no inhabitants, and return the rest to Maryland. You could, in theory, resize the same way and make the rump a state. But you can't make the District of Colombia into a state without changing the constitution.
I think getting the rump of Washington designated a state is still going to be a huge challenge for the Democrats. After the original states, only California and Texas have become states without being either territories or parts of other states, and the cases of California and Texas were quite particular to their times. The new state would dilute the representation of other states in the Senate, but would not be an economically viable entity on its own.
Is there a limit to states dividing themselves? Why can't Wyoming petition to divide itself into 100 states?
There is no limit. In fact one of the more silly/dangerous schemes I've heard of is a proposal to admit DC not as one, but 100 states, and use the newfound majority to basically fully rewrite the constitution, since you'd be able the ram amendments through.
And this is coming from people who think it's a good idea to fix things or conspiracy nuts who think their opponents are going to try it to ruin things?
Probably conspiracy nuts who think it's a good idea.
It's an article from Harvard Law Review so judge for yourself:
Pack the Union: A Proposal to Admit New States for the Purpose of Amending the Constitution to Ensure Equal Representation (https://harvardlawreview.org/2020/01/pack-the-union-a-proposal-to-admit-new-states-for-the-purpose-of-amending-the-constitution-to-ensure-equal-representation/)
I read that article back when it came out, and don't plan to read it again, so my memory of it may be hazy--but I actually think at least the core of its proposition is sound--the extreme anti-democratic nature of the U.S. Senate is in fact, a major problem.
The Senate made great sense when the country was founded, and the Senate was developed as a compromise. We finished adding the lion's share of our country's States in an era when no one was really concerned that much about equal representation, the 19th century not being a time of a particularly liberal franchise or particularly democratic views. So no one ever seems to have thought as we kept adding states of widely disparate sizes that we were contributing to a particular problem.
Additionally in the 19th century, when we still frequently operated as a "strong confederation" with a Federal government only rising to preeminence as needed, an equally weighted body like the Senate also seemed to make more sense, and the troubles that could arise due to that weighting seemed less concerning since most important government went on at the State level anyway.
In the modern context of how our country has developed, the Senate is really just not an appropriate element for a modern democratic country. I think we either need to roll back the Federal government quite a bit and become little more than a confederation of independent nations (in which case the Senate's form is fine), or we need to acknowledge the weaknesses of the Senate and consider ways to work around it. The Harvard Law Review suggestion just seems like a fast track to civil war, so probably is not a wise path, but at least getting the dialogue out there and percolating is something that should be done, and perhaps in a few centuries it will materialize into action.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 22, 2020, 03:28:52 PM
Correct, you would just change the size of the "Federal District", no constitutional amendment was required for the retrocession of the Virginia land west of the Potomac given to the new district. You could even fairly rapidly follow the same process--retrocess all but a small amount of land around key Federal buildings to Maryland, and then Maryland quickly would apply to the Congress to divide off that portion of land as a new state (West Virginia has set the legal standard of this being allowed, as per the constitution you can sub-divide states as long as the legislature of the state in question is in favor of it.) I'm not even sure you'd need the Maryland intermediary step, but if you did politicians in Maryland have always been mostly on the side of statehood so would likely be pliant. If Larry Hogan tried to resist I suspect he'd face veto overrides.
It isn't clear that the land abandoned by the District would automatically go back to Maryland, but clearly Maryland would have to agree to any such change.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 22, 2020, 05:55:01 PM
There is no limit. In fact one of the more silly/dangerous schemes I've heard of is a proposal to admit DC not as one, but 100 states, and use the newfound majority to basically fully rewrite the constitution, since you'd be able the ram amendments through.
:hmm: Might not be a bad idea. In the end you should just ram through an amendment to merge DC back into one state and make state splitting illegal. Or maybe first ram through an amendment to convert US into a parliamentary democracy. The civil war might be a bit of a downer, though.
You're due for another anyway, might as well make it worth your while
Quote from: DGuller on September 22, 2020, 05:07:57 PM
Is there a limit to states dividing themselves? Why can't Wyoming petition to divide itself into 100 states?
Portions of Wyoming could petition for statehood but Congress wouldn't be likely to pass bills creating such new states.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 22, 2020, 06:12:22 PM
It's an article from Harvard Law Review so judge for yourself:
It's a "Note" - i.e. a student written article at the end written by a member of the current staff.
Wouldn't get too twisted up about it.
Quote from: grumbler on September 22, 2020, 03:51:29 PM
but would not be an economically viable entity on its own.
Not sure what this part means or what the significance is.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 22, 2020, 06:22:52 PM
I read that article back when it came out, and don't plan to read it again, so my memory of it may be hazy--but I actually think at least the core of its proposition is sound--the extreme anti-democratic nature of the U.S. Senate is in fact, a major problem.
The Senate made great sense when the country was founded, and the Senate was developed as a compromise. We finished adding the lion's share of our country's States in an era when no one was really concerned that much about equal representation, the 19th century not being a time of a particularly liberal franchise or particularly democratic views. So no one ever seems to have thought as we kept adding states of widely disparate sizes that we were contributing to a particular problem.
Additionally in the 19th century, when we still frequently operated as a "strong confederation" with a Federal government only rising to preeminence as needed, an equally weighted body like the Senate also seemed to make more sense, and the troubles that could arise due to that weighting seemed less concerning since most important government went on at the State level anyway.
In the modern context of how our country has developed, the Senate is really just not an appropriate element for a modern democratic country. I think we either need to roll back the Federal government quite a bit and become little more than a confederation of independent nations (in which case the Senate's form is fine), or we need to acknowledge the weaknesses of the Senate and consider ways to work around it. The Harvard Law Review suggestion just seems like a fast track to civil war, so probably is not a wise path, but at least getting the dialogue out there and percolating is something that should be done, and perhaps in a few centuries it will materialize into action.
Yeah, I've never been a fan of upper chambers with territory-based representation since it leads to this kind of issue. The US isn't alone among democratic countries having one, but it seems an extreme case given the powers wielded by it (the Spanish Senate is pretty powerless, for example, and it's best that it remains that way imho).
I think you guys kinda suffer from being early adopters of this whole liberal democracy thing and a lot of your institutions just are not fit for the current world, but alas there's no national consensus for reform. My fear is the necessity of consensus will only present itself after things truly hit shit creek. Hope I'm wrong.
It's a giant catch 22. Our problem is the blocking minority, and the only way we can eliminate the problem is with the cooperation of the blocking minority.
On a Federal level in the German legislative, the states' chamber are represented by members of the state governments, between 4 and 6, depending on number of citizens. This tries to strike a balance between making sure smaller states aren't sidelined while also taking into account larger populations in bigger states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesrat_of_Germany#Today
Then again Germany's federal parliament also has a fun mix of first past the post and party lists. :D
I don't think the idea of giving historical regions with their own identities some level of representation above and beyond strictly based on population, especially in a confederation/Federal style system is a bad idea--in fact I find it necessary. But I think there needs to be some caveats:
1. You can still weight to population to a degree, like for example the German upper chamber does
2. You can make it so the chamber which represents the States has different, and typically should be weaker, day to day legislative powers than the chamber which represents people. You could even restrict the upper chamber so that it can only delay normal legislation, but its consent is required for legislation that say, alters the fundamental relationship between the states or the Federal government and the states.
In the American system the Senate functionally has identical legislative power to the States, and is ultimately the more important body because it also controls confirmation of appointments to high executive offices and to Article III judgeships.
Also I would note that Germany as we all know was a union of small independent kingdoms each with centuries of history, their own monarchs, legal systems etc, that was only unified in the 19th century. To some degree a confederation/Federal system was the only appropriate path for them. I think for our Thirteen Colonies we were in a similar situation. But a number of states are just largely not logical, like there was no special reason for Wyoming / North Dakota / Montana / South Dakota / Idaho (which collectively have 10% of the Seats in the senate and represent only 1.5% of the country's population. These states are largely just large surveyed land areas that were basically empty at the time they were drawn, acting like these states had some sort of rich history and identity isn't true, at the time each was admitted as a state the vast majority of their residents were not even native born in those states but were transplants from other areas.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 23, 2020, 07:28:12 AM
2. You can make it so the chamber which represents the States has different, and typically should be weaker, day to day legislative powers than the chamber which represents people. You could even restrict the upper chamber so that it can only delay normal legislation, but its consent is required for legislation that say, alters the fundamental relationship between the states or the Federal government and the states.
This is already the case in Germany. There's laws that require approval by the states' chamber, and some that don't. Rule of thumb is if the constitution is changed or if the law affects state finances or their administrative matters (which is state responsibility and can differ between states and from federal administration) then the states get a say.
Of course that line can be blurry sometimes.
What's interesting is by the numbers I think the Dems may have a long term advantage in the Senate, albeit a narrow one. If you break down the current states into what we could reasonably expect the future to be, so basically a list of not just red and blue states, but states that are actually trending in a certain way (like Georgia, Texas and Arizona are quite clearly and for a number of obvious reasons trending blue, and while the GOP has been ignoring the signs of this in Texas for about 10 years the reality is getting closer every election cycle now)--you get something kinda like this:
D States: AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, GA, HI, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OR, RI, TX, VA, VT, WA = 25
R States: AK, AL, AR, IA, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, MT, ND, NE, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, UT, WV, WY = 22
Unsure: FL, PA, WI = 3
Of course the reality is it takes a long time for stuff like this to sort out. For example West Virginia basically went red when it rejected Gore in 2000, but it had been trending culturally red for many years, but it took another decade for Republicans to take control of the State legislature and even longer to take the Governor's mansion. They still have a Democrat Senator who won reelection in 2018. Ohio is a state that also has basically gone red, and shares similar reasons for this with West Virginia--it is a state that has its best days in the rear view mirror, and it is growing older and whiter than the rest of the country largely as a function of low birth rate + educated young people are moving to other places like Texas and the Carolinas with hotter economies, or even further afield to the cities of the coastal "elites." But there's still a Democrat Senator in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, who likewise was reelected fairly convincingly in 2018 because he has a strong personal brand and appeal to white working class voters, he will be hard to unseat. The Republicans have several Senators who may be ensconced in States that are blue or turning blue for many years.
But, with partisanship becoming so severe, I do think voters are getting less and less likely to look at Senators as individuals, they are more often now voting on what that Senator represents nationally. That is why Joe Manchin and Sherrod Brown, while they won in 2018, did so with smaller margins than in their previous elections. It's why Susan Collins and Cory Gardner are in bad trouble right now, and why Doug Jones is a dead man walking. People really are voting for control of the national legislature, which is not actually how America voted in a lot of these races for most of our history of electing Senators. I suggest that means over the next 20 years "color mixing" of red and blue states with opposite color Senators will gradually become less common.
But even as you see a slight shift to the Democrats from the state realignments, it likely does not make the country meaningfully more governable, and in fact may make it less so even. The Republicans appear to be far worse as the minority party than the Democrats, and much more willing to do grave damage to the country just to impede basic ability of a person with a (D) beside their name governing.
Quote from: Syt on September 22, 2020, 09:06:28 AM
(https://i.postimg.cc/MHbWzgx6/mittens.png)
What the fuck is he talking about? Since the Conservatives screwed LBJ out of the Chief Justice Appointment in 1968 the Democrats have appointed four total justices since 1968, 52 fucking years. In what way are we used to having our partisans stack the court?
I swear they will just come up with whatever bullshit they can pull out of their ass to justify their actions.
Quote from: Valmy on September 23, 2020, 02:01:04 PM
What the fuck is he talking about? Since the Conservatives screwed LBJ out of the Chief Justice Appointment in 1968 the Democrats have appointed four total justices since 1968, 52 fucking years. In what way are we used to having our partisans stack the court?
I swear they will just come up with whatever bullshit they can pull out of their ass to justify their actions.
I had to read up on Abe Fortas to remind myself of the details, but how did Conservatives "screw" LBJ out of the appointment? They fillibustered appointing him. Fortas was apparently a confidant of LBJ, so it sounds like there was some reason for this. After that was done LBJ decided (it was October in an election year) not to push for a new candidate, leaving it to the next President.
Right, Fortas was one of the rare instances before the modern state of affairs where a President nominated someone who was probably too involved in politics and too controversial, especially to expect to get through any sort of Senate other than one your party had a filibuster-proof majority in. LBJ had a failed nomination, but he could have had a successful one had he chosen someone else, which is different from Obama in '16. I think Obama could've nominated Gorsuch and the Republicans would have still not had hearings on him.
Fortas was also already on the Court. He was just promoting him to Chief Justice, which I guess the "conservatives" thought was a move too far.
The attempt to elevate Fortas to Chief Justice was one of Johnson's most profound errors in judgement. There had already been serious ethical questions raised about Fortas and some speeches he gave, so Johnson had to know it was a weak nomination. Combined with the subsequent need, even if Fortas's elevation was successful, to name a new Associate Justice, and given that the process was starting in June of an election year, Johnson should have known better. Johnson couldn't afford delay if he was going to make a new appointment to the court.
Reading about impeachment of SC justices, I've read that there's an ongoing investigation on Kavanaugh. Maybe they can find grounds to impeach him.
Well ok Johnson screwed up or whatever, the point is that Nixon made that pick and the Democrats have only chosen Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan since the 1960s but it seems Romney feels it was stacked in our favor somehow?
He said liberal, not Democrat.
Quote from: viper37 on September 23, 2020, 03:32:42 PM
Reading about impeachment of SC justices, I've read that there's an ongoing investigation on Kavanaugh. Maybe they can find grounds to impeach him.
I'm sure there would be no problem getting 15-20 Republicans on board.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 23, 2020, 03:56:41 PM
He said liberal, not Democrat.
Ok well that makes his rationalization of all the dirty tricks even worse. We are going to rip up precedent in a partisan fashion for something that wasn't even partisan to begin with.
Quote from: Valmy on September 23, 2020, 03:33:36 PM
Well ok Johnson screwed up or whatever, the point is that Nixon made that pick and the Democrats have only chosen Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan since the 1960s but it seems Romney feels it was stacked in our favor somehow?
:huh: It's Mitt Romney. Since when have you expected him to be anything but a republican schill? He was their candidate for president a short 8 years ago. That he doesn't like Trump doesn't make him a genius or any less of a partisan. He wants to lock that USSC seat down and fuck precedent.
Romney is a reminder to everyone to not normalize Republicans that have once in a while done the bare minimum expected of any decent citizen. That goes for McCain as well; he may have given thumbs down to gutting Obamacare, but he sure as hell gave thumbs up to plenty of other skulduggery by his party.
Quote from: DGuller on September 23, 2020, 07:00:26 PM
Romney is a reminder to everyone to not normalize Republicans that have once in a while done the bare minimum expected of any decent citizen. That goes for McCain as well; he may have given thumbs down to gutting Obamacare, but he sure as hell gave thumbs up to plenty of other skulduggery by his party.
Such as?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 23, 2020, 07:30:45 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 23, 2020, 07:00:26 PM
Romney is a reminder to everyone to not normalize Republicans that have once in a while done the bare minimum expected of any decent citizen. That goes for McCain as well; he may have given thumbs down to gutting Obamacare, but he sure as hell gave thumbs up to plenty of other skulduggery by his party.
Such as?
All of the stunts that McConnell pulled with unanimous support of GOP senators, such as blocking Garland. Unanimous means including McCain when he was alive.
Quote from: DGuller on September 23, 2020, 09:21:26 PM
All of the stunts that McConnell pulled with unanimous support of GOP senators, such as blocking Garland. Unanimous means including McCain when he was alive.
I googled a bit and can't find anything about unanimous support of GOP senators. I did find one CNN story that talked about a letter signed by all GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that said they would vote against. Do you have some documentation?
Quote from: grumbler on September 22, 2020, 03:08:50 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on September 22, 2020, 01:47:09 PM
It's not about abortion, it's about women deciding to have an abortion. Agency is the issue.
That is correct. I am pro-life and pro-choice.
Same
Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 23, 2020, 09:34:04 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 23, 2020, 09:21:26 PM
All of the stunts that McConnell pulled with unanimous support of GOP senators, such as blocking Garland. Unanimous means including McCain when he was alive.
I googled a bit and can't find anything about unanimous support of GOP senators. I did find one CNN story that talked about a letter signed by all GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that said they would vote against. Do you have some documentation?
I don't think you are quite grasping DG's concept of demonizing the enemy. There's no significant difference between being an active enemy of the American people, like McConnel, and an active friend of the American people, like McCain. Republican = evil, simple as that. Evidence and documentation are irrelevant when making an emotional argument.
When GOP is trying to end democracy as we know it, I think it is indeed reasonable to write off anyone who is still a part of GOP. It didn't start with Trump, he just accelerated the process. If you helped pack the courts with fascist judges that would then dismantle democracy one pillar at a time, you're with the enemy. No, I'm not interested in documenting it, that sounds tedious and pointless.
We've already established that we have a different opinion on whether a GOP self-coup is in progress or at least being considered. I don't think your optimism is borne out by facts yet, and frankly I think you're thinking that way partly because you just can't imagine it happening in the US. I hope your optimism will be validated soon, or that we'll get lucky and the opening for self-coup just won't materialize.
Quote from: DGuller on September 24, 2020, 09:08:27 AM
When GOP is trying to end democracy as we know it, I think it is indeed reasonable to write off anyone who is still a part of GOP. It didn't start with Trump, he just accelerated the process. If you helped pack the courts with fascist judges that would then dismantle democracy one pillar at a time, you're with the enemy. No, I'm not interested in documenting it, that sounds tedious and pointless.
We've already established that we have a different opinion on whether a GOP self-coup is in progress or at least being considered. I don't think your optimism is borne out by facts yet, and frankly I think you're thinking that way partly because you just can't imagine it happening in the US. I hope your optimism will be validated soon, or that we'll get lucky and the opening for self-coup just won't materialize.
I understand demonizing perfectly well. Between you and trump, we have the stereo version of it. The fact that you can't shw examples of McCain acting as you claim he acts doesn't surprise anyone, because facts don't matter in the world of the demonizer.
:jaron:
I mean McCain is dead so hardly needs to be of some concern as a Trumpist wolf in moderate sheep clothing.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 23, 2020, 09:34:04 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 23, 2020, 09:21:26 PM
All of the stunts that McConnell pulled with unanimous support of GOP senators, such as blocking Garland. Unanimous means including McCain when he was alive.
I googled a bit and can't find anything about unanimous support of GOP senators. I did find one CNN story that talked about a letter signed by all GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that said they would vote against. Do you have some documentation?
In any case, just to address your point without going into the weeds of searching through the Senate records that frankly no one gives a shit about, here is one easily-confirmed documentation: in a period between Scott Brown's election and 2010 Senate elections, Republicans had exactly 41 Senators. Therefore, any wholesale sabotaging that McConnell was perpetrating by filibuster had to have every one of the 41 Senators on board, because no Democrat or Independent was in on the wholesale filibuster. If you think that GOP descent to anti-democracy started in 2016, and thus everything happening before it is just fair political play, this may not be convincing, but in that case we're too far apart in any case.
Quote from: Valmy on September 24, 2020, 11:28:21 AM
I mean McCain is dead so hardly needs to be of some concern as a Trumpist wolf in moderate sheep clothing.
My point was that we shouldn't forget that Trump was enabled by non-Trumpist Republicans chipping away at democratic institutions long before he came on the scene. Just because some of those Republicans later recoiled once or twice at their creation doesn't clear them of their complicity. If you took part in the scheme to infilitrate the courts with Federalist Society mafia which would then rubber stamp all further anti-democratic measures, you're still very guilty. You may not be Hitler, but you're at least Hindenburg.
Newt Gingrich *is* kind of Ludendorffy
You documented that there were 41 Senators, but not that they did anything in particular.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 24, 2020, 11:57:32 AM
You documented that there were 41 Senators, but not that they did anything in particular.
Read up on filibusters then.
Quote from: DGuller on September 24, 2020, 11:29:56 AM
In any case, just to address your point without going into the weeds of searching through the Senate records that frankly no one gives a shit about, here is one easily-confirmed documentation: in a period between Scott Brown's election and 2010 Senate elections, Republicans had exactly 41 Senators. Therefore, any wholesale sabotaging that McConnell was perpetrating by filibuster had to have every one of the 41 Senators on board, because no Democrat or Independent was in on the wholesale filibuster. If you think that GOP descent to anti-democracy started in 2016, and thus everything happening before it is just fair political play, this may not be convincing, but in that case we're too far apart in any case.
Sure, for approximately 1 year any GOP filibuster had to have McCain's vote. That's not exactly the same thing as saying McCain supported not confirming Garritt.
Quote from: Zoupa on September 24, 2020, 01:04:18 PM
Quote from: Eddie Teach on September 24, 2020, 11:57:32 AM
You documented that there were 41 Senators, but not that they did anything in particular.
Read up on filibusters then.
Nah. Tell me what they filibustered and I'll believe you.
The Republicans threatened to filibuster ACA and attempted to do so; they failed because Arlen Specter switched parties and gave the Democrats 60 votes. All Republicans voted against cloture bar one who did not vote (Jim Bunning who got a no decision as his team lost in extra innings). After the Brown election the House couldn't make changes in conference because of the filibuster.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 24, 2020, 11:40:03 AM
Newt Gingrich *is* kind of Ludendorffy
His recent spree of anti-Soros paranoia is kind of reminiscent of post-WWI Lundendorff.
Hus whole career and style sort of fits.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 24, 2020, 01:33:29 PM
Hus whole career and style sort of fits.
Well except Ludendorff was a successful general of considerable skill and courage in addition to being a paranoid nutcase.
Edit: Well ok I guess by definition he wasn't a successful general...but an effective general. He did lose the only war he was a general in.
Gingrich did lead his party to a huge victory in 1994 and for a time was a very powerful Speaker. 94 was like his Tannenberg. They both had the bombast and inflated sense of self-importance. They both lost the war after winning some big early battles. They both had sktechy late carrers.
Opposing the ACA isn't anti-democratic.
I'm someone who left the GOP entirely because of what it's become, and I honestly think John McCain's heart was really in the right place. I think it was clear he was not on board with this direction the country has gone, and would be even less on board today. But he was an old man and these changes came upon him probably with relative speed, I think he started to realize some elements of the country were going in the wrong direction when he had to spend a significant portion of all of his town halls in 2008 correcting his voters who kept asking him extremely racist questions about Barack Obama, and like me and other conservatives who jumped off the Republican ship at some point between 2010-Now, you eventually reach a point where you realize it's not a conservative party that has to allow some level of crazy idiot in it in order to be viable in elections, but a fascist party that is ran by those crazies, and where we constitute the ranks of the "swamp creatures and RINOs." I think to a degree the Bush family is going through the same thing. For these public political figures it's much harder to totally break those ties.
I would say if McCain was alive today he would probably say he should've found more ways to work with Obama and he would probably regret his decision to contribute to the toxic hyperpartisanship of the Obama era.
I'm a John McCain fan, but he was after all a politician. After his 2000 primary battle he knew he couldn't run as a moderate to win the GOP nomination. I think he also went sharply to the right in one or two of his Senate primary battles.
All I know about McCain is from Family Guy, I understand he wanted to be president.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 24, 2020, 02:10:11 PM
I'm someone who left the GOP entirely because of what it's become, and I honestly think John McCain's heart was really in the right place. I think it was clear he was not on board with this direction the country has gone, and would be even less on board today. But he was an old man and these changes came upon him probably with relative speed, I think he started to realize some elements of the country were going in the wrong direction when he had to spend a significant portion of all of his town halls in 2008 correcting his voters who kept asking him extremely racist questions about Barack Obama, and like me and other conservatives who jumped off the Republican ship at some point between 2010-Now, you eventually reach a point where you realize it's not a conservative party that has to allow some level of crazy idiot in it in order to be viable in elections, but a fascist party that is ran by those crazies, and where we constitute the ranks of the "swamp creatures and RINOs." I think to a degree the Bush family is going through the same thing. For these public political figures it's much harder to totally break those ties.
I would say if McCain was alive today he would probably say he should've found more ways to work with Obama and he would probably regret his decision to contribute to the toxic hyperpartisanship of the Obama era.
Agree with a lot of this.
Of course the other point on 2008 is that he chose Sarah Palin who is arguably key in unlocking a lot of where the Republicans are now. I imagine that was a cause of regret for McCain, but arguably it's a big part of his legacy. The things that he disliked his party becoming were partly caused by a decision he made - and one based on his character flaws, from everything I've read he didn't do much research, he liked the sound of her and he went with his gut (things that, in other context, people liked about him).
I think you're also in a rough position when you have political positions that don't have much acceptance in the Democratic party.
Like I view myself as pro-life, although I don't believe in criminalization of abortion generally, I mostly believe it should be heavily restricted after 12-14 weeks and we should have robust programs to try to give people different options, at least when the abortion in question is an elective abortion (i.e. not being done for medical reasons.)
I generally am skeptical of the social welfare ideas of Bernie Sanders and AOC, and I'm even more skeptical of their foreign policy.
Part of what helped me with leaving the GOP is realizing as much as I disagree with the far left, the GOP actually barely has any serious policy positions anymore. From what I can tell the only policies we plan to take action on approach in a coherent way is:
-Tax cuts for the wealthy, at any cost and regardless of broader concerns
-The appointment of as many Judges who belong to the Federalist society and are willing to be Republicans first and jurists second
I don't really think that's a very good deal, especially when the party is also outright promoting an atmosphere of greater racial strife, authoritarianism, political violence etc. For the Republicans who have been paying attention it's hard not to conclude at some point in the past ten years there is no more "there" there, the party isn't a big collection of competing right of center to far right policy preferences, but just a bunch of angry white people mad about the passage of time and willing to fuck things up as bad as possible over it.
I would appreciate your efforts in the Democratic Party to keep AOC and Bernie and their like from taking over the party. I mean views like theirs do have a constituency that deserves to be heard but having them run wild would ultimately be a bad thing.
I mean, this year the Republicans officially don't have a platform. That says it all, really.
Quote from: Malthus on September 24, 2020, 03:06:46 PM
I mean, this year the Republicans officially don't have a platform. That says it all, really.
Yeah. I mean I remember all the early 2000s stuff about how Republicans were the "party of ideas" :lol:
My view of the last few years is similar on left/right politics generally.
The extreme left embraces many things I find harmful or absurd. However, at the end of the day, these things are merely irritations. They don't directly threaten society. The extreme right these days appears to be embracing outright authoritarianism and racism. The risks are not evenly balanced. The extreme right is a far greater risk, they must be stopped.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 24, 2020, 02:43:02 PM
Of course the other point on 2008 is that he chose Sarah Palin who is arguably key in unlocking a lot of where the Republicans are now. I imagine that was a cause of regret for McCain, but arguably it's a big part of his legacy. The things that he disliked his party becoming were partly caused by a decision he made - and one based on his character flaws, from everything I've read he didn't do much research, he liked the sound of her and he went with his gut (things that, in other context, people liked about him).
McCain didn't contribute to anything by picking Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin as VP didn't change the GOP unless you want to argue that she cost McCain the election (which I don't).
There is a huge market for conservative nonsense tellers. It long predates Palin and post dates her as well. She resigned as governor of Alaska to cash in on the market and became just another republican talking head. That general conservative echochamber may very well be responsible for where we are, but Sarah Palin didn't create it or really contribute to it in any meaningful way.
McCain was a candidate that was going to lose and made a bad VP choice. I really think the story ends there. If anything, it shows that McCain may have not realized how vacuous and superficial politics had become. He saw an attractive woman as governor of a state, who was quite popular there, and took a chance on her. In an earlier generation, governors may have been corrupt, but there was more of a party level vetting process to keep out people who were effectively brain dead. He had a team to vet potential ethics violations, but apparently nothing in the process to identify if she read a book.
Quote from: Barrister on September 24, 2020, 02:27:48 PM
I'm a John McCain fan, but he was after all a politician. After his 2000 primary battle he knew he couldn't run as a moderate to win the GOP nomination. I think he also went sharply to the right in one or two of his Senate primary battles.
That's the way I see it, as well. He did sell his soul to the devil to a large degree to try to get elected President in 2008. His cozying up to the religious right in Arizona was just an example. But, as you say, he had his heart in the right place for almost his entire career, and some of the late stuff may have been more the party than the man. Late-career blunders are dismayingly common in politicians, and one of the things I admire about Bernie Sanders is that he seems fairly immune to this, as was also, for instance, true of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.
maybe it is desperation, and maybe senility. It's hard to say.
Quote from: alfred russel on September 24, 2020, 03:13:13 PM
McCain was a candidate that was going to lose and made a bad VP choice. I really think the story ends there. If anything, it shows that McCain may have not realized how vacuous and superficial politics had become. He saw an attractive woman as governor of a state, who was quite popular there, and took a chance on her. In an earlier generation, governors may have been corrupt, but there was more of a party level vetting process to keep out people who were effectively brain dead. He had a team to vet potential ethics violations, but apparently nothing in the process to identify if she read a book.
I'm fascinated by how these two sentiments sit next to each other :lol:
I think you're right. The difference pre-Palin the barbarians were at the gate, after Palin they're inside. There is a difference between a conservative media nonsense teller and the party itself, especially your nominee for one of the two nationally elected roles. We are living Palin's style of politics still.
I always remember the difference between McCain who was confronted with racists saying Obama wasn't a real American and taking the mic off them and saying that it wasn't true, they disagreed but Obama was a good family man and he was a good American trying to win office. Then you had Palin who I think was running a dog whistle campaign "Obama is not a man who sees America the way you and I do" was one line I always remember. For what it's worth I don't think that was deliberate on the part of the McCain campaign, but the crowds started responding to Palin more and she started playing it up more, as you say into the conservative media echo chamber. I think Palin finds an enthusiastic group of voters who I don't think were necessarily a core part of the Republic electorate (as opposed to consumers of conservative media) and who I don't think necessarily turn out for Romney.
The crowds cheering Palin are the crowds packing out Trump rallies is why I think it's a key inflection point even if maybe there are bigger structural points and we end up here anyway. But I'm genuinely not sure if we do if it's McCain-Liberman/Romney/Ridge/Pawlentey.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 24, 2020, 02:43:02 PM
Agree with a lot of this.
Of course the other point on 2008 is that he chose Sarah Palin who is arguably key in unlocking a lot of where the Republicans are now. I imagine that was a cause of regret for McCain, but arguably it's a big part of his legacy. The things that he disliked his party becoming were partly caused by a decision he made - and one based on his character flaws, from everything I've read he didn't do much research, he liked the sound of her and he went with his gut (things that, in other context, people liked about him).
there ws also a lot of pressure in her favor from the party and his advisors. But it was a blunder, for sure.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 22, 2020, 02:21:01 PM
The work of the Supreme Court involves a lot more than deciding abortion cases, it decides other matters of great consequence. The right's obsession with overturning Roe has had significant and malign impact on the Court. For a while it means finding justices who not only strongly believe Roe was wrongfully decided but are willing to break with decades of established and elaborated precedent. It means finding someone who is hardline and ideological and activist, because a regular small "c" conservative judge like Souter, O'Connor, Kennedy or Roberts won't do that. And that means packing the Court with hardline activist, right wing ideologues who are right wing ideologues on everything from speech rights to religion and state to guns.
And what you get when you do that is a Court that will say that states have the right to force women to carry all pregnancies to term even if it literally kills them, but will also rule that the same states are helpless to prevent corporations funneling millions in bribes to politicians or from preventing everyone from carrying AR-15s onto a crowded subway.
That is such a great point. I am definitely stealing it.
100% agree with AR that McCain was always going to lose 2008. I don't believe there's a Republican alive today or then that could have beaten Obama in 2008, they were running into the proverbial buzzsaw. Obama was also a once in a generation campaigner and 2008 was the best campaign he ever ran--all the way from systematically dismantling the party apparatus built to anoint Hillary up through more or less rolling McCain like a world champion prizefighter fighting a ham and egger local guy.
Palin also only was really bad in hindsight. Like at the time she was selected she was seen as a real rising star, she was really well liked in Alaska, people broadly felt she was doing a good job up there. The GOP of that era was really desperate to try to be something other than the "old white" party, and she checked a lot of those boxes. Another thing about Alaska is it's the literal hinterland, so I think a lot of it was she had never been scrutinized much by the national party or the press. McCain probably assumed that someone who got through the Republican primary process and such for a statewide office like Governor wasn't an actual mental invalid, and I actually think even the first week or so of Palin being picked most considered it a good move for McCain. But then she started coming more into focus and it was quite obviously a bad pick.
Oh yeah - I'm not arguing that Palin cost McCain the election, or that that matters. And for the first few weeks she was a terrific pick - engaging, charismatic etc. She turned out as a hindrance for McCain. But every gaffe she made and every time the media pointed out her ignorance and us, here, recoiled, her crowds kept turning out and cheering her as she doubled down. Remind you of anyone :P
Quote from: Barrister on September 22, 2020, 02:24:02 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on September 22, 2020, 02:19:00 PM
I guess the GOP has the votes then.
In a scenario where the Dems win the WH and a majority in the Senate, I hope they pack the court. It's no use trying to find common ground with an arsonist.
I dunno - court-packing is pretty dangerous as it can be used the next time the GOP is in power.
That is actually not even true.
You have to pass laws to do that. Which means you have to
1. Control the Senate
2. Control the House
3. Control the Presidency
That doesn't happen THAT often.
Further, you also have to have some kind of reasonable excuse for doing so - this is still a political process. Right now, there is enough outrage at how unpresentative the SC is with America, and enough people pissed off at the GOP just taking a shit all over any kind of norms and basic ethical governing that there is political will to reform what nearly everyone sees as a badly broken system.
If the Dems replace is with something like the Buttigeig plan, something that most reasonable, moderate people see as not a way to yank the court from a right wing disaster to a left wing disaster, but rather a way to make the court actually represent what most moderate, sober people actually think the court SHOULD represent, then there won't be the political will to change it again except among the most radicals.
There is a will right now to fix it because only the crazy right wingers think it isn't broken. If they fix it so that only the crazy right wingers think it is broken, then it will not be easy to re-break it legislatively. Which is why it wasn't legislation that broke it to begin with.
Quote from: Valmy on September 23, 2020, 02:01:04 PM
Quote from: Syt on September 22, 2020, 09:06:28 AM
(https://i.postimg.cc/MHbWzgx6/mittens.png)
What the fuck is he talking about? Since the Conservatives screwed LBJ out of the Chief Justice Appointment in 1968 the Democrats have appointed four total justices since 1968, 52 fucking years. In what way are we used to having our partisans stack the court?
I swear they will just come up with whatever bullshit they can pull out of their ass to justify their actions.
In the same way the main stream media is completely left wing partisan.
If you define your tribe as right wing, and everyone NOT your tribe "left wing" then in fact, yes, the media by and large is left wing.
ALl you have to do is reject the idea that there is anyone not as partisan as you - that means that unless you are Fox News, you MUST be MSNBC, since those are the only possible options.
The SC is "liberal" because it isn't completely right wingers who don't actually care about the law.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 24, 2020, 03:27:06 PM
I'm fascinated by how these two sentiments sit next to each other :lol:
I see the incongruity, but that is the way the game has been played for more than a century. A candidate picks a VP that will balance the ticket--ideologically and/or geographically in most instances. McCain went for ideology and, more progressively, gender. That is superficial--but in a way that politics had always been superficial.
The candidate often doesn't closely know the VP he chooses and is dependent on third party reports. Half the function of a state party is to make sure the candidates aren't total shit. A party is supposed to shut people like Sarah Palin down, and at the very least raise an alarm. To use your analogy, a barbarian took over Alaska, and McCain was probably ignorant that was even a possibility.
QuoteI think you're right. The difference pre-Palin the barbarians were at the gate, after Palin they're inside. There is a difference between a conservative media nonsense teller and the party itself, especially your nominee for one of the two nationally elected roles. We are living Palin's style of politics still.
I always remember the difference between McCain who was confronted with racists saying Obama wasn't a real American and taking the mic off them and saying that it wasn't true, they disagreed but Obama was a good family man and he was a good American trying to win office. Then you had Palin who I think was running a dog whistle campaign "Obama is not a man who sees America the way you and I do" was one line I always remember. For what it's worth I don't think that was deliberate on the part of the McCain campaign, but the crowds started responding to Palin more and she started playing it up more, as you say into the conservative media echo chamber. I think Palin finds an enthusiastic group of voters who I don't think were necessarily a core part of the Republic electorate (as opposed to consumers of conservative media) and who I don't think necessarily turn out for Romney.
The crowds cheering Palin are the crowds packing out Trump rallies is why I think it's a key inflection point even if maybe there are bigger structural points and we end up here anyway. But I'm genuinely not sure if we do if it's McCain-Liberman/Romney/Ridge/Pawlentey.
Palin didn't become VP, resigned as governor, and is now doing reality TV. She didn't take over. The crowds cheering Palin and Trump have a lot of the same people, but they weren't passed from Palin to Trump as an inheritance. There is apparently a decisive block in a lot of Republican primaries that values ignorance as a virtue. Palin didn't create that block. It just paid her $25 each to see her speaking tour. Trump got them to elect him president. A lot of establishment republicans are now pandering to them, and a few new politicians have gotten elected following Trump's lead.
Quote from: DGuller on September 19, 2020, 07:51:07 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on September 19, 2020, 05:45:14 PM
Are Democrats really talking about packing the court?
I don't know about talking, but if they're not planning to pack the court, they have no business being in politics. Not packing the court in 2021 would be like issuing another diplomatic protest in September 1939.
Thinking about this, the court won't get packed. Joe Manchin announced he will not support a packing scheme. That means the democrats need to get to 51 senators to have a chance. To flip the senate you need candidates currently running in places like Montana and North Carolina. Those candidates are going to be under a lot of pressure to promise not to vote to pack the court. You also have senators in places like Indiana and North Dakota. It seems unlikely there won't be more defectors, and if the democrats need to get to 53+ senators it just doesn't seem likely until at least 2022.
Joe Manchin may not be the swing vote. But I also don't think the Dems should try to immediately pack the court--I also think that unless Biden changes his very public rhetoric on the topic, it's extremely unlikely.
I think court packing is probably at its most likely point basically since the last time we actually modified the court's composition for specific partisan reasons, but I also think it will still need another volley of delegitimization for this to occur. For example the 6-3 Trump court ruling in a way that is broadly seen as partisan and illegitimate, by most moderate legal minds and by a significant majority of the Democratic party. I suspect that on some level John Roberts recognizes this to be true. I think if the court quashed the ACA in its entirety for example, even Joe Manchin would vote to pack the court. The ACA is responsible for the healthcare of 20m Americans, if the court so breaks with precedent to immediately imperil that many American's healthcare in the midst of a pandemic, Manchin would be an easy vote to pack the court--he represents one of the poorest states in the country and one of the few red states that has passed Medicaid expansion (which would be instantly ended if they fulfilled Republican dreams and did a blanket repeal of the entire law.) A scenario where Joe Biden sits in the White House and Charles Schumer is Senate Majority leader, and they stand for the court behaving in this fashion, does not exist.
However barring a catastrophic and manifestly partisan and illegitimate ruling, I don't think the Dems actually need to engage in a partisan court pack, and I think there's good reasons not to do so. The Dems have an obligation, in my opinion, to prioritize policies that will limit the ability of the authoritarian GOP to continually run the country in a way in which only the angriest and most unreasonable subset of their minority party, gets to express its views in legislation and policy. I believe there are ways to do that which are consistent with both the text and goals of our constitution, and our national principles. Court packing simply because Trump gets to 6-3, is not quite there, but it could be justified if the court does something really unhinged.
Quote from: alfred russel on September 24, 2020, 05:04:25 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 19, 2020, 07:51:07 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on September 19, 2020, 05:45:14 PM
Are Democrats really talking about packing the court?
I don't know about talking, but if they're not planning to pack the court, they have no business being in politics. Not packing the court in 2021 would be like issuing another diplomatic protest in September 1939.
Thinking about this, the court won't get packed. Joe Manchin announced he will not support a packing scheme. That means the democrats need to get to 51 senators to have a chance. To flip the senate you need candidates currently running in places like Montana and North Carolina. Those candidates are going to be under a lot of pressure to promise not to vote to pack the court. You also have senators in places like Indiana and North Dakota. It seems unlikely there won't be more defectors, and if the democrats need to get to 53+ senators it just doesn't seem likely until at least 2022.
Democrats really are the Republicans in this iteration of the Spanish Civil War, aren't we? :(
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 24, 2020, 02:43:02 PM
Of course the other point on 2008 is that he chose Sarah Palin who is arguably key in unlocking a lot of where the Republicans are now. I imagine that was a cause of regret for McCain, but arguably it's a big part of his legacy. The things that he disliked his party becoming were partly caused by a decision he made - and one based on his character flaws, from everything I've read he didn't do much research, he liked the sound of her and he went with his gut (things that, in other context, people liked about him).
I thought in 2008, the story was that his gut told him to pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate, but his advisors talked him out of it because it would have been such a controversial pick.
Quote from: alfred russel on September 24, 2020, 04:24:49 PM
I see the incongruity, but that is the way the game has been played for more than a century. A candidate picks a VP that will balance the ticket--ideologically and/or geographically in most instances. McCain went for ideology and, more progressively, gender. That is superficial--but in a way that politics had always been superficial.
I always remember - and I could be wrong - that Palin was announced the day after Obama clinched the nomination. So I think it was the day after Clinton conceded. So part of it I think was a desire to get attention back on McCain after the long primary (I always thought the long primary helped the Democrats because it basically sucked the oxygen from McCain's campaign). If he announced, say, Ridge or Romney that would still be the third story on the news. Lieberman or Palin make McCain the story again and he went for Palin.
QuoteThe candidate often doesn't closely know the VP he chooses and is dependent on third party reports. Half the function of a state party is to make sure the candidates aren't total shit. A party is supposed to shut people like Sarah Palin down, and at the very least raise an alarm. To use your analogy, a barbarian took over Alaska, and McCain was probably ignorant that was even a possibility.
Sure but I think it was a character trait of McCain that was flaw and something people liked about him that he was a risk-taker. So I remember reading about Obama personally interviewing all of the nominees multiple times and there being a very prolonged, kind of agonised decision-making process. McCain took a risk. It worked for a few weeks and then it failed.
QuotePalin didn't become VP, resigned as governor, and is now doing reality TV. She didn't take over. The crowds cheering Palin and Trump have a lot of the same people, but they weren't passed from Palin to Trump as an inheritance. There is apparently a decisive block in a lot of Republican primaries that values ignorance as a virtue. Palin didn't create that block. It just paid her $25 each to see her speaking tour. Trump got them to elect him president. A lot of establishment republicans are now pandering to them, and a few new politicians have gotten elected following Trump's lead.
Yeah - I don't really understand what you think I'm saying about Palin because I more or less agree with all of that.
I've heard rumors to that effect and it wouldn't shock me, McCain and Lieberman always liked each other. But I think Lieberman may have even been a worse pick (politically) than Palin, McCain actually did need someone to help him with the more extreme elements of the party, which Palin ostensibly did. A McCain-Lieberman ticket I think would've had serious issues with the Republican base, because you already had a portion of the GOP base that wasn't entirely enthusiastic for McCain (remember a lot of them supporting figures like Huckabee and Santorum in the 2008 primaries, long after their viable path to a delegate majority was gone), and then he goes and nominates a former Democrat / independent Senator who was previously the running mate of Al Gore.
Lieberman also oddly for a bipartisan type person, was deeply unpopular with Democrats by the time 2008 rolled around, so not only would McCain risk alienating some of his own voting base with that pick, he likely wouldn't have materially changed his standing with the Democrats. To them, Lieberman's willingness to be on a Republican Presidential ticket 8 years after appearing on the Democratic Presidential ticket would be broader confirmation he was a DINO that isn't to be trusted.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 25, 2020, 08:02:03 AM
I've heard rumors to that effect and it wouldn't shock me, McCain and Lieberman always liked each other. But I think Lieberman may have even been a worse pick (politically) than Palin, McCain actually did need someone to help him with the more extreme elements of the party, which Palin ostensibly did. A McCain-Lieberman ticket I think would've had serious issues with the Republican base, because you already had a portion of the GOP base that wasn't entirely enthusiastic for McCain (remember a lot of them supporting figures like Huckabee and Santorum in the 2008 primaries, long after their viable path to a delegate majority was gone), and then he goes and nominates a former Democrat / independent Senator who was previously the running mate of Al Gore.
Lieberman also oddly for a bipartisan type person, was deeply unpopular with Democrats by the time 2008 rolled around, so not only would McCain risk alienating some of his own voting base with that pick, he likely wouldn't have materially changed his standing with the Democrats. To them, Lieberman's willingness to be on a Republican Presidential ticket 8 years after appearing on the Democratic Presidential ticket would be broader confirmation he was a DINO that isn't to be trusted.
I totally agree. She was a choice that made a lot of sense and that worked for a short period of time. But as I say I just wonder if Republican politics develop in the same way after a McCain-Lieberman/Romney/Ridge/Pawlentey ticket.
I'm not saying it was a bad decision especially in its immediate circumstances, I just think it had long-term consequences in empowering the wing of the party and the attitude that I think McCain came to really dislike. It's sort of an irony/tragedy of his late career.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 25, 2020, 08:17:45 AM
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 25, 2020, 08:02:03 AM
I've heard rumors to that effect and it wouldn't shock me, McCain and Lieberman always liked each other. But I think Lieberman may have even been a worse pick (politically) than Palin, McCain actually did need someone to help him with the more extreme elements of the party, which Palin ostensibly did. A McCain-Lieberman ticket I think would've had serious issues with the Republican base, because you already had a portion of the GOP base that wasn't entirely enthusiastic for McCain (remember a lot of them supporting figures like Huckabee and Santorum in the 2008 primaries, long after their viable path to a delegate majority was gone), and then he goes and nominates a former Democrat / independent Senator who was previously the running mate of Al Gore.
Lieberman also oddly for a bipartisan type person, was deeply unpopular with Democrats by the time 2008 rolled around, so not only would McCain risk alienating some of his own voting base with that pick, he likely wouldn't have materially changed his standing with the Democrats. To them, Lieberman's willingness to be on a Republican Presidential ticket 8 years after appearing on the Democratic Presidential ticket would be broader confirmation he was a DINO that isn't to be trusted.
I totally agree. She was a choice that made a lot of sense and that worked for a short period of time. But as I say I just wonder if Republican politics develop in the same way after a McCain-Lieberman/Romney/Ridge/Pawlentey ticket.
I'm not saying it was a bad decision especially in its immediate circumstances, I just think it had long-term consequences in empowering the wing of the party and the attitude that I think McCain came to really dislike. It's sort of an irony/tragedy of his late career.
I think that's putting credit where it isn't due. I feel like the Tea Party movement and its crazies would have come to the fore even if McCain had picked a different running mate.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 25, 2020, 08:02:03 AM
I've heard rumors to that effect and it wouldn't shock me, McCain and Lieberman always liked each other. But I think Lieberman may have even been a worse pick (politically) than Palin, McCain actually did need someone to help him with the more extreme elements of the party, which Palin ostensibly did. A McCain-Lieberman ticket I think would've had serious issues with the Republican base, because you already had a portion of the GOP base that wasn't entirely enthusiastic for McCain (remember a lot of them supporting figures like Huckabee and Santorum in the 2008 primaries, long after their viable path to a delegate majority was gone), and then he goes and nominates a former Democrat / independent Senator who was previously the running mate of Al Gore.
Lieberman also oddly for a bipartisan type person, was deeply unpopular with Democrats by the time 2008 rolled around, so not only would McCain risk alienating some of his own voting base with that pick, he likely wouldn't have materially changed his standing with the Democrats. To them, Lieberman's willingness to be on a Republican Presidential ticket 8 years after appearing on the Democratic Presidential ticket would be broader confirmation he was a DINO that isn't to be trusted.
I dunno, I always liked Lieberman and I thought Palin was a complete crackpot, so had he picked Joe I think I would have voted for him.
I think so, I think it's possible if a non-Obama Democrat had won in 2008 that the simmering issues in the GOP would've remained at a high simmer instead of boiling over, long enough that demographic changes may have forced some moderation and behavior change. But Obama's election caused it to boil over for too big a portion of the GOP base, and we can clearly see the party which admittedly had sheltered white grievance voters for many years become a white grievance party. I think a black President made it a certainty. I do not know if it would have happened under say, a President HRC who won in 2008, but it may still have frankly, it's hard to say.
If any of you followed Stuart Stevens--he's a former party insider/Republican operative who made media rounds a few months ago talking about the ideological failure of the party and its degeneration, he actually pointed out that the party leadership can help cool off the worst sentiments of the party and shape the party's direction. But they collectively chose to not do that, instead they fanned those elements of the party because they became enthralled with how those voters were showing up at rowdy protests and seeming really 'activated', and by fanning those flames they unleashed a conflagration. Now it's too late, and they no longer have the power to shape what they've unleashed.
I think there is some evidence he is correct, party leadership, and I use that term broadly to include its actual leaders at the RNC, high ranking members of congress, and Republican "influencers" have a big impact on what the base cares about and gets riled up about. Notice how the party basically quit talking about gay marriage, they realized this issue was a long term loser and not worth pursuing. But they could've kept fighting about it, it could've become like a "mini-Abortion" issue where it was long decided in the courts but still a part of the grievance messaging of the party. Instead the party decided to move on, and the base doesn't talk much about gay marriage now either. I think you could have had more responsible Republicans in leadership push the party away from white grievance, 10-15 years ago, and I think it would have had a real impact on the direction of the party.
I think at least part of the reason this hasn't happened can be traced directly to Fox News. A lot of their opinion programming is based on stoking paranoia and fear, and racial dog whistling and things of that nature, and I think that was just too attractive for them to give up because it was creating some of their most popular programs, and the outsize influence of those opinion programs and the prattle they talk about on the direction of the party, especially when party leadership is working in lock step with them, was significant.
Quote from: garbon on September 25, 2020, 08:34:05 AM
I think that's putting credit where it isn't due. I feel like the Tea Party movement and its crazies would have come to the fore even if McCain had picked a different running mate.
Yeah - as I say I'm not sure and there may be the sort of structural causes happen.
My view is she tapped into it and enabled what we see now. I'm not sure if it wouldn't have happened any way - I'm far less certain about that, I have no idea. It might have happened anyway. But I just wonder, in a world where there was an establishment Republican ticket, let's say McCain-Ridge, what happens. So Palin doesn't become the star of that campaign for conservatives, there isn't someone who spent the campaign doing the "palling around with terrorists"/Obama just doesn't love America the way we (white people in the heartland do) routine and drawing bigger and more enthusiastic crowds than McCain. If someone doesn't tap into that, do the GOP decide to or know to tap into the Tea Party - or is the Tea Party just like a 2010s version of Pat Buchanan, because those weren't "our" voters in 2008 in they were they actually were.
Now maybe there are enough political entrepreneurs in the GOP who realise in 2010 that there's a market for a specific type of politics and those voters can make a difference in the GOP if they're sufficiently enthused.
Basically I don't know if it all still happens anyway, but I sort of think that in sort-of post-truth, barely dogwhistle politics, Palin is the Goldwater to Trump's Reagan.
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 25, 2020, 08:01:23 AM
Yeah - I don't really understand what you think I'm saying about Palin because I more or less agree with all of that.
That she was consequential (beyond her direct impact on the 2008 presidential race).
My take is the current populist takeover in the GOP has its foundation in the tea party movement, which arose as a more or less grassroots reaction to early Obama initiatives, stoked by talk radio and the conservative echochamber. Sarah Palin showed that the establishment republican edifice was weaker than it had been, but that is all.
Even giving the tea party credit for trumpism's foundation may be too much. His campaign was effectively a hostile takeover of the GOP--he got very few endorsements and never really bothered to organize. He just said stupid stuff every day and that got him nonstop media and big crowds at rallies.
Yeah, I tend to take the view that Palin benefited from the Tea Party movement, in terms of marketing herself, getting TV time, become a conservative "celebrity" (meanwhile her political standing as a viable politician ended completely), like she probably personally made significant amounts of money from the Tea Party movement. But I do not think she was much of a driver of it, I think she's basically Ann Coulter, Coulter didn't "drive" anything really, she just found herself in the right place at the right time to make money off of a right wing movement.
Sheilbh, I hate the card "I live here so I know better" but I'm going to play it anyway. :P
The "Tea Party" as a collection of people wasn't new in 2010. I went to high school in the early 90s and when we got to vote on what radio station to listen to during lunch, Rush Limbaugh won 2 days a week (though the school nullified that vote). The right wing talk radio faction has been massive for a very long time. Rush Limbaugh gets a lot of flack, but if you go one click down on the right wing talk radio spectrum, a lot of the popular local guys are much more open to race baiting and conspiracy theories.
What changed isn't the size of that audience. What changed is that the GOP had been getting that audience to reliably vote for whatever Romney type candidate they put up, and at the time of the tea party they revolted. I'd summarize it more as, "you guys told us we needed to be moderate to accomplish our goals, and here we are with a democratic house, senate, and president and horrors such as obamacare are being enacted."
Quote from: alfred russel on September 25, 2020, 09:05:28 AM
Sheilbh, I hate the card "I live here so I know better" but I'm going to play it anyway. :P
The "Tea Party" as a collection of people wasn't new in 2010. I went to high school in the early 90s and when we got to vote on what radio station to listen to during lunch, Rush Limbaugh won 2 days a week (though the school nullified that vote). The right wing talk radio faction has been massive for a very long time. Rush Limbaugh gets a lot of flack, but if you go one click down on the right wing talk radio spectrum, a lot of the popular local guys are much more open to race baiting and conspiracy theories.
What changed isn't the size of that audience. What changed is that the GOP had been getting that audience to reliably vote for whatever Romney type candidate they put up, and at the time of the tea party they revolted. I'd summarize it more as, "you guys told us we needed to be moderate to accomplish our goals, and here we are with a democratic house, senate, and president and horrors such as obamacare are being enacted."
:lol: Fair.
I'm not saying she created it or anything like that. My point is she's the sort of political entrepreneur here. Deliberately or otherwise she discovers this market in the electorate that you can play to. And you're absolutely right that they probably voted occasionally and unenthusiastically for the GOP, generally. But Palin is the first politician who explicitly targets them rather than through dog whistles or "respectable moderates"/Romneys with the smart hair who want their votes but sort of look down on them. Palin leaves the election as a VP candidate with more enthusiastic crowds and more excitement on the base than she started (when she was unknown) or than the Presidential candidate. To me that's kind of exceptional - I can't think of anyone else who achieves that - Ryan, Edwards, Kaine, Leberman etc.
After Palin there are a slew of politicians who, like her, explicitly pander to that part of the electorate which turn out more for those candidates and begin to realise they actually have enough way that they don't just have to accept the thin gruel that "respectable moderate Republicans" dole out. So you get your Joe Millers and your witches in Delaware. There's no candidate who really panders to them in 2012 and you end up with Romney and I think at the same time the Republican establishment realise they might not have the grip on their party that they'd hope.
Then in comes Trump who, in Martin Amis's phrase, as the "defining asset: a crocodilian nose for inert and preferably moribund prey." Someone who can sense an entity that isn't strong or lithe enough to resist him. In this case the GOP. I just think there's a line from Palin clocking this underserved market, to Trump leveraging it for his hostile takeover.
Edit: So in a way this is what I mean by the barbarians are in the gates. There's this group that have been feeding off the conservative media but there was like a line between them and the GOP (though they were in some weird symbiotic relationship). Palin is the start of the takeover.
Edit: And I'm unsure if she's consequential or if it happens anyway, or if she's just sort of indicative she is the best example of what happens later on a bigger scale.
Sheilbh--what do you think about this premise?
Donald Trump is just George Wallace in 1968, but rather than running 3rd party, used those third party voters to win the republican primary. He won the general with a coalition of those third party voters plus republican die hards and those that couldn't stomach a democrat/Hillary Clinton.
Quote from: alfred russel on September 25, 2020, 09:47:24 AM
Sheilbh--what do you think about this premise?
Donald Trump is just George Wallace in 1968, but rather than running 3rd party, used those third party voters to win the republican primary. He won the general with a coalition of those third party voters plus republican die hards and those that couldn't stomach a democrat/Hillary Clinton.
I think there's something to it-ish and I think there are definitely echoes, but there's a big difference of 50 years so it's no those voters. It's the people who might be those voters now (which is probably slightly different). But I think the interesting part is what happens to those George Wallace "third party voters" between 1968 and now because I think a big chunk of that sort of bloc became part of the GOP electorate, but they were sort of the ginger step-child of the Republican Party.
So you want them riled up and on side and you throw them the odd dog-whistle/Neshoba County "states' rights" speech, but you don't let them sit at the grown up table and you always want plausible deniability. I think some Republicans were probably uncomfortable with any of those voters supporting them, and I think McCain was in that category.
Moving back to the Supreme Court--I think things we as a society and Democrats as a party should pursue before resorting to court packing would be:
1. Expanding all of the lower courts. This isn't court packing, this is governance. The number of lower court judgeships generally do get increased every so often, and the reality is caseloads in the Federal courts have increased 30% since 1990--the last time we significantly increased their number. The Judicial Conference of the United States (a rarely reported on body made up of the Chief Justice, the Chief Judge of each of the circuit courts, Chief District judges from a selection of judicial districts, and the Chief Judge of the Court of International Trade) has regularly issued recommendations for increasing judgeships. Their most recent recommendation was to create 65 new district judges and 5 new circuit judges. Due to the fact this conference operates relatively apolitically, and is headed by the current Republican Chief Justice and has many other Republican judges on it, its recommendations would serve as a strong basis for implementing what is actually just a needed process. It would have the obvious additional effect of giving the Democrats a number of unexpected new judgeships to fill in addition to the ones that will naturally open up during a hypothetical Biden term.
2. We need to have a broad national reckoning that judges were not intended to settle our most contentious issues. The fact that it's even a big deal that a 87 year old four time cancer survivor died, with huge impacts across a range of important national policy issues, is a grave defect in the system. One of the most significant reasons it has gotten to this point is a 40 year drought in serious legislation on many matters of consequence in the United States. The supermajority nature of the U.S. Senate is the single biggest reason for this, and the legislative filibuster simply needs to go, period. When you have figures like Barack Obama bothering to mention this as a former President, I think the writing is on the wall this needs to happen.
3. Above and beyond that, we've basically come to gradually accept what I call "judicial supremacy" in the United States. The idea that not only is the judiciary able to review and reject and reshape our laws, but that they are the only valid interpreters of our laws and our constitution. I actually think this is far out of step with the text of the constitution and the historical practice in the United States. Certainly the courts have a major role to play in this area of governance, but the idea that their ruling on any issue is always and must always be final, and that there are no valid political or legal alternatives to that state of affairs is broadly out of step with our history as a country, and really only became accepted almost universally from the 1950s and onward (coincidentally or perhaps not, right around the time the courts started issuing important touchstone liberal legal decisions, prior to that the courts were almost always seen as regressive barriers to progressive change and were actually the most unpopular with progressive movement types, going back to the earliest days of the republic.) There's actually a lot of ways to work around, counter, and dismiss the idea that the court has unlimited authority on any issue that makes it into its halls.
On point 3 I just made--frankly--the court needs its balls clipped much more than it needs packed.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 25, 2020, 10:14:16 AM
On point 3 I just made--frankly--the court needs its balls clipped much more than it needs packed.
Agreed. The Supreme Court is not supposed be some kind of super Senate with a veto power over everything of substance. Is there anything the SC can do in response to open defiance? For example, what will happen if the SC rules Obamacare unconstitutional, but no one in the federal or state governments does anything different after the decision?
Quote from: DGuller on September 25, 2020, 10:30:10 AM
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 25, 2020, 10:14:16 AM
On point 3 I just made--frankly--the court needs its balls clipped much more than it needs packed.
Agreed. The Supreme Court is not supposed be some kind of super Senate with a veto power over everything of substance. Is there anything the SC can do in response to open defiance? For example, what will happen if the SC rules Obamacare unconstitutional, but no one in the federal or state governments does anything different after the decision?
Besides the constitutional crisis bit, you have the fact that ultimately you can't enforce a law that the courts have struck down. Nobody will be punished for flouting it.
Our Constitutional Court, incidentally, has punitive powers to enforce its rulings (from fines to disqualification from office). Does the SCOTUS have something like that, too?
Virtually none. Brown v. Board is one of the most famous supreme court decisions but is a good example of this, a few black students were (with the support of the military) enrolled in a few colleges in the immediate aftermath of Brown. The vast majority of southern school districts continued what was then unconstitutional race segregation for another decade. It took legislation from Congress and a Justice Department willing to really go at the States to force the issue.
The Supreme Court specifically has almost no defined constitutional powers (it has some, I said almost), most of the powers of the judiciary have evolved out of historical practice / norms and statutes empowering them to do specific things.
A huge portion of court rulings that go beyond just the issue before the court, and for example make broader constitutional pronouncements, are often not "self-enforcing", meaning the court is arguably just giving advice to the political branches about what's acceptable. Take for example if the Supreme Court quashed the entire ACA, but the executive continued to fund Medicaid expansion and the states continued to participate, and the exchanges continued to operate. The court cannot "create" criminal law, it would be difficult to go after any of the officials criminally (not least because you would need a lot of executive help to do so--a big part of why the Trumpers have gotten away with a lot of bad behavior is the President actually controls to a significant degree the Federal law enforcement apparatus, even though by "norms" the DoJ is supposed to lean towards being apolitical.)
What you could have is people suing as individuals basically saying they don't want to pay into this unconstitutional system, but even that would be hard to enforce.
It would obviously create levels of chaos, but it would also depend heavily on what we're talking about. On a case by case basis ignoring the Supreme Court could have anything from "national catastrophe" to "nothingburger" consequences.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 25, 2020, 10:44:07 AM
The Supreme Court specifically has almost no defined constitutional powers (it has some, I said almost), most of the powers of the judiciary have evolved out of historical practice / norms and statutes empowering them to do specific things.
A huge portion of court rulings that go beyond just the issue before the court, and for example make broader constitutional pronouncements, are often not "self-enforcing", meaning the court is arguably just giving advice to the political branches about what's acceptable. Take for example if the Supreme Court quashed the entire ACA, but the executive continued to fund Medicaid expansion and the states continued to participate, and the exchanges continued to operate. The court cannot "create" criminal law, it would be difficult to go after any of the officials criminally (not least because you would need a lot of executive help to do so--a big part of why the Trumpers have gotten away with a lot of bad behavior is the President actually controls to a significant degree the Federal law enforcement apparatus, even though by "norms" the DoJ is supposed to lean towards being apolitical.)
What you could have is people suing as individuals basically saying they don't want to pay into this unconstitutional system, but even that would be hard to enforce.
It would obviously create levels of chaos, but it would also depend heavily on what we're talking about. On a case by case basis ignoring the Supreme Court could have anything from "national catastrophe" to "nothingburger" consequences.
I'm really not familiar with the US legal system, but if that happened here, besides the Constitutional Court's own enforcement powers you could be prosecuted for contempt of the court (has happened several times, like in the Catalan referendum of 2014). Of course, as you say, this probably wouldn't matter if you had a noncompliant federal government willing to go to the last mile.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 25, 2020, 10:14:16 AM
On point 3 I just made--frankly--the court needs its balls clipped much more than it needs packed.
I don't disagree with any of those and I think it's kind of a symptom of a system that has basically abdicated doing things. I think this is a consequence of paralysis in the legislature is that the court system becomes a focus of policy decisions because if you can get it to hear you they will make a decision one or the other but also, probably, the executive is going to push the limits of what they can do which will also end up in the court.
I don't know how you de-escalate the legislature so that law making can happen in a normal way.
Also and this is a total aside I remember a really weird moment when Ireland had the referendum on gay marriage and I saw lots of progressive Americans who were very happy but basically saying this is a right so it should be something you have as a right and you do that through a court case and that it's wrong for rights to be subject to a democratic vote like that. And, maybe it's just being from the UK where we don't have constitutional rights and the ultimate accountability is always democratic, but I found that weird and in my head a right that is based on a court ruling is weaker and more contingent than one that's based on a democratic process and vote.
Also just outright ignoring its rulings is along a spectrum of activities that could be done to reduce the court's power--and I think in some instances it is actually appropriate, and there's historical precedent for it. But there's other less ambiguous things, like jurisdiction stripping clauses in legislation (depending on the scope of the law this sometimes won't be a valid option.) Like take the recent tussle with TikTok, some people questioned how the President can legally just shut down a private company like that. So a combination of laws was actually at play, the Defense Production Act (a 1950s era law which broadly codified the sort of national security based economic interventions FDR did during WW2), and CFIUS (a committee that reviews foreign involvements in companies that do business in the United States (it does not matter where they are domiciled); an interesting thing about the statutes giving the President the power to intervene in the economy is that his decisions by statute are specifically exempt from judicial review.
Jurisdiction stripping isn't carte blanche to go crazy--even with CFIUS actions the courts have noted that while their jurisdiction is indeed significantly limited due to the statutory language jurisdiction stripping them, there are areas on which they can rule. For example there is a judicial precedent that unless the language of the law as passed by congress, clearly and convincingly intends for the jurisdiction stripping, or blocking of judicial review, to include precluding review of constitutional due process claims, the assumption is that even in statutes that limit judicial review such claims can still be reviewed. So a company negatively impacted by a Presidential order pursuant to a CFIUS determination isn't "ordinarily reviewable", since the statutes do not take the extraordinary step of clearly precluding even constitutional due process claims, its decisions can be reviewed on those grounds. The courts cannot review its decisions on the merits, i.e. the court can't dig into the issue of "is this company really a national security threat because it shares data with the Chinese Government", that is basically a disallowed role for the judiciary in such matters.
I'd also note jurisdiction stripping probably can't solve like, the abortion debate. If the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade, it would be very difficult for any entity to stop say, the entire South from criminalizing abortion. No judge would rule that a prosecution could not proceed if there was a valid state law supporting the charge. You could maybe pass a "National Right to Abortion" law and try to preclude it from judicial review, but I don't really believe that would work.
But a lot of "process based" issues, which some of them get into corporate and economic regulation by executive branch agencies and appointed bodies, some of which I think Joan was alluding to when he mentions the courts do more than rule on abortion, a lot of desired progressive "process changes" and things of that nature, you could very much have significant limitations to the authority of the courts to apply judicial review to things like NLRB, FCC, FEC, CFPB etc decisions, and you could create new bodies like that in other areas and significantly limit the authority of the courts to review their actions. What this does is shifts the playing field to the executive--which I think is fine, that's an elected office, and most regulatory and policy decisions need to be made by the branch of government that is beholden to the electorate.
OvB, I think there is more power to the USSC in the modern world than you give it credit for.
Presume that a court overruled ACA. The government could continue to go along with funding the ACA, but private companies could be exposed to private action if working with it. It could also be quite chaotic in the civil service, with individuals refusing to cooperate on constitutional grounds, and courts taking their side/preventing termination.
The Brown vs. Board decision you mention was set up perfectly to be ignored. It was telling states that were politically unified against something to do it, plus integration required actual legislation that the courts couldn't make. Similarly Northern states ignored Dred Scott before the Civil War.
My understanding is that Lincoln basically ignored the courts habeas corpus rulings during the civil war in part by taking advantage of the court taking time to act. Ie, he suspended habeas corpus in a moment of crisis and by the time the court said "you can't do that" the moment of crisis had passed.
Ignoring a ruling the way Jackson did in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia would be extremely difficult today--the aggrieved party could privately sue for damages and a restoration of property. That is almost certainly the most notable moment that the USSC was ignored.
I actually don't really know that the court can strike down the ACA, to be frank. There is not a singular insurance market in the United States, there's one for each state, and the implementation of the ACA involves a huge number of executive orders and state laws implementing it, it would be almost impossible to unwind them all in a single decision. Like the lower court ruling that said basically "the reason this law was constitutional is that the individual mandate is issued under congress's taxing authority, and since congress has set the mandate at $0 there is no longer a mandate and so the law in its entirety is unconstitutional" is actually such a deeply bizarre and incomprehensible bit of jurisprudence it would be almost impossible to follow a Supreme Court decision that upheld it.
There are elements of the ACA that could be struck down, but most of the low hanging fruit was already purged out--Roberts quashed the mechanism that compelled states to participate in Medicaid expansion and now it is voluntary, and congress/Trump have gutted the individual mandate (which could be struck down.) The popular assumption that without the individual mandate the law can't function, actually has proven to not be true, it ends up the exchanges are still mostly working fine and the individual mandate has more or less never really been enforced.
The ACA is a federal statute so yes a federal court can rule on its constitutionality. The challenge is that the individual mandate in the ACA exceeds the Article I powers of Congress. The argument is then that the mandate is inseverable from the rest of the ACA and thus if it the mandate is not constitutional the entire law falls. The 5th circuit accepted the 1st argument and punted the second back to the district court instead of deciding on the law.
As you say the whole thing makes no sense - Congress amended ACA to remove all substance from the mandate (there is a theoretical exhortative requirement to buy insurance but no consequence for ignoring it) and thus the constitutional challenge is essentially taking aim at a nullity - i.e. the petitioners are effectively saying that Congress lacks Article I authority to include language in a law that does nothing. And they are then saying that the portion of the law that does nothing is so essential that the entire law must therefore go. This "inseverability" argument is based on trying to stick the defendants with arguments made by defenders of ACA in 2011-12, ignoring the fact that the ACA has changed and evolved significantly since then, especially given the 2017 amendments nullifying the mandate.
The court could rule anything they want, there is no real limit to their ability to put words in a ruling. I am saying that given the practicalities involved I am not sure that they can functionally just erase the insurance exchanges and medicaid expansion. There's a lot of implementing political acts that would have to be taken there.
Another thing they could potentially strip away would be the regulations on employer health policies, though, since it would obviously let employers offer policies disallowed presently and the government would not be able to effectively litigate against companies doing that.
Just promoted by the Republican Senate Majority:
(https://am14.mediaite.com/med/cnt/uploads/2020/09/Screen-Shot-2020-09-26-at-5.35.46-PM.png)
"She has 3 initials, right? So let's Photoshop her as Biggie Smalls and call her notorious." "Genius! Where do you come up with this stuff?"
Why are people photoshopping old/middle aged white women as rappers?
And I don't mean that as in "cultural appropiation!!!" I just find the connection really odd. :lol:
"ACB, easy as 1-3-2...."
Quote from: celedhring on September 27, 2020, 01:27:51 PM
Why are people photoshopping old/middle aged white women as rappers?
And I don't mean that as in "cultural appropiation!!!" I just find the connection really odd. :lol:
In this case it's just a play on the "Notorious RBG" meme.
Quote from: celedhring on September 27, 2020, 01:27:51 PM
Why are people photoshopping old/middle aged white women as rappers?
And I don't mean that as in "cultural appropiation!!!" I just find the connection really odd. :lol:
As Beeb said, Ginsburg had, in her later years, an online meme going on that renamed her as "The Notorious R.B.G.", playing on her assumed badassness as a judge. You can find tons of stuff online about that, mostly her picture with the photoshopped crown, but it has been used for books, exhibitions and other more "serious" uses. Apparently Gisnburg enjoyed it and said she was ok with it because after all The Notorious B.I.G. and her were both from Brooklyn.
In this case, the Republicans simply took that and copy/pasted it for the new judge, who also happens to be known by a three word name.
Fair enough, didn't know RBG had long been associated with that picture. Thought it just popped up all of a sudden after she died.
Quote from: celedhring on September 27, 2020, 01:59:21 PM
Fair enough, didn't know RBG had long been associated with that picture. Thought it just popped up all of a sudden after she died.
IIRC it started out several years ago through a tumblr page that some law students that were fans of her created.
Quote from: The Larch on September 27, 2020, 01:56:01 PM
As Beeb said, Ginsburg had, in her later years, an online meme going on that renamed her as "The Notorious R.B.G.", playing on her assumed badassness as a judge. You can find tons of stuff online about that, mostly her picture with the photoshopped crown, but it has been used for books, exhibitions and other more "serious" uses. Apparently Gisnburg enjoyed it and said she was ok with it because after all The Notorious B.I.G. and her were both from Brooklyn.
In this case, the Republicans simply took that and copy/pasted it for the new judge, who also happens to be known by a three word name.
One of the weirdest and maybe actually consequential trends is people stanning politicians/judges/political figures. It's so weird. Probably just another symptom of the internet becoming the real world.
Yeah, when it first happened I thought it was quite cool that people started fanboing about people that had consequential jobs and lives instead of footballers or whatever, but I think I might have been a bit wrong on that one... :hmm:
Quote from: Sheilbh on September 27, 2020, 03:33:50 PM
Quote from: The Larch on September 27, 2020, 01:56:01 PM
As Beeb said, Ginsburg had, in her later years, an online meme going on that renamed her as "The Notorious R.B.G.", playing on her assumed badassness as a judge. You can find tons of stuff online about that, mostly her picture with the photoshopped crown, but it has been used for books, exhibitions and other more "serious" uses. Apparently Gisnburg enjoyed it and said she was ok with it because after all The Notorious B.I.G. and her were both from Brooklyn.
In this case, the Republicans simply took that and copy/pasted it for the new judge, who also happens to be known by a three word name.
One of the weirdest and maybe actually consequential trends is people stanning politicians/judges/political figures. It's so weird. Probably just another symptom of the internet becoming the real world.
I mean, she had her own impersonation on SNL, and appeared in late shows (she once did her workout routine with Stephen Colbert, for instance). I don't think many Supreme Court Justices have done that.
Quote from: The Larch on September 27, 2020, 03:44:59 PM
I mean, she had her own impersonation on SNL, and appeared in late shows (she once did her workout routine with Stephen Colbert, for instance). I don't think many Supreme Court Justices have done that.
Maybe Scalia?
I just find it weird seeing politicians and judges etc moving from people you agree or disagree with to people you are fans of - like Neymar, Messi and Ronaldo.
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi?
Yeah, politicians have always had cults of personality.
"The Notorious RBG" is probably the most popular figure in the history of ever among white liberal American women.
"Notorious ACB" is a deliberate thumbing of the nose at these people.