Ding Dong.....the US Politics Thread (Part 1)

murica GIF by FirstAndMonday

There are lots of ideas about how to restructure the courts, but I think they are all critically undermined by the requirement of all sides to operate in good faith interest in the court and what it is there to do. And I just dont think that is a tenable conclusion from what we’ve seen.

For instance, one of the popular ideas is that rather than going down to majority vote for judicial appointments, we should go up as a high as 75%, meaning that only moderate justices could be appointed. But the idea that you could work with the GOP to get stuff done at this level of cooperation just flies in the face of what we’ve seen. McConnell allowed the Federal Courts to be critically understaffed during Obama’s presidency by simply stopping to process of allowing his nominees to be voted on. They were content to undermine the role the court is supposed to play in the interest of a political power play. Now they are in control of the courts, they would be content to ride this out for as long they can, a generation or more, and simply never allow another appointment to be made.

I dont know what the solution is to a problem of one party in a 2 party system not being interested in democracy or even in enabling any form of functional government.

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Well we knew it was gonna happen…

I guess at least New York and California will still allow it

Do you know where?

One of the interesting things about the Conservative strategy over overturning Roe is they played on the idea that if cases are coming in front of the court it is by definition not a settled issue. That’s true only if there is no political games being played over the cases that going in front of the court, and the conservative power brokers who drive this strategy are very clear that they were content to put up losing case after case. Because the idea was not to win them, but to create the pretense that it was not settled law and thus give an eventual conservative enough court enough leeway to overturn the decision.

It’s just another example of a conservative strategy being ran in bad faith, them being brazenly open about it and then everyone pretending we’re supposed to take the arguments legitimately.

I’ve been told to go back to my country before - pretty racist - doubt she’s about to lose her job though.

Clarence Thomas has written that he wants the court to reconsider Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell next. The rights to contraception, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.

“The Left” such as it is, needs to hit the panic button now. We are rolling the laws back into a Christo-facist nightmare right under the noses of the Democrats who seems too paralyzed with fear of far-right media outlets to actually do anything about it.

Clarence fucking Thomas. The man whose wife is a QAnon nutjob and was attempting to instigate a coup through Mark Meadows. Shouldn’t even be on the court the facist wanker.

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What the fuck?!?!

What’s next!!

Going back to Arminius’ point about the incoherence of the judicial philosophy from one decision to the next, the stated argument for this abortion decision is because it is not explicitly mentioned in the constitution…it not an enumerated right. Well, self-defense is not mentioned in the second amendment, yet their decision on the gun rights issue this week explicitly stated we have a right to use guns to defend ourselves because of the second amendment. 2 decisions in 2 days agreed upon by the same group of justices with a complete 180 on what is required for the constitution to grant something as a right.

The supposed philosophy being used to justify these decisions is just completely incoherent. We are where we are now, but the very first thing everyone, mostly main stream press, need to do is stop taking these people seriously.

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Some general info on the Muslim view on abortion. There are various positions, and some allow up to 120 days gestation, at which point the soul is believed to enter the fetus/baby.

Even in strict settings there is provision for abortion when the mother’s health is threatened.

In considering 47 different Muslim nations, the laws are all over the map.

Suffice to say, the current Supreme Court ruling on abortion is ripe for challenge on religious grounds.

Wow, front page of the lancet…

Women will die

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We also have this entire 9th amendment that all “originalists” seem to conveniently just ignore as existing. Originalism is complete and utter bullshit. It’s the only available means to roll back the rights added over the last 80 years. But it’s just selective garbage.

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A pretty astute observation, in my opinion, that I just found in the NYT.

From an Alaskan, no less…

If you read the Supreme Court opinions closely, you will see that abortion is still OK provided it is performed with a gun.

This is a dark day, indeed.

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A big shout out to Mitch McConnell, too.

None of this would have been possible without his sterling work as one of the most odious cunts to have ever drawn breath.

I hope he burns in that hell he pisses his adult nappies about.

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Truly one of the worst human beings in existence.

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Feels like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, like Orwell’s 1984, is coming true.

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For anyone who is aware of the Jimmy Dore v Sam Seder feud following the 2016 election…remember when that dumb cunt Dore was banging on and on that Trump wouldn’t have that much of an impact via the SC??

FMD

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It sounds like he’s qualified to write for the Washington Post or NYT. One of the things that has come to fascinate/depress me over the past 20 years is the utter lack of consequence for experts getting it wrong.

Iraq. 2008 Financial Crisis. Trump’s election, The consequences of Trump’s presidency, the Pandemic.

It’s just a constant stream of opportunities to be loudly and proudly wrong, in ways that results in people dying and they just keep going ready to air their shit take on whatever the next big issue is.

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There was actually a pretty compelling article released today about how the Supreme Court’s decision will actually restrict some religious freedoms.

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A lot of the states that were preparing bills ready to go into effect as soon as Roe was overturned include provisions to prosecute anyone who aids in someone getting an abortion. That includes helping them travel out of state to go to somewhere where they can get a legal one. Yet today, a ton of big corporations have come out and said that’s exactly what they are going to do. They are adding in out of state travel payments to their health insurance plans to cover the cost of any of their employees who need an abortion and need to travel of out state to get it.

I wonder if the prospect of having to go up against big corporations like this will result in a moderating effect on this pending legislation and encourage them to roll back the criminalization of it?

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Yeah…Dore is def good at being wrong.

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