Jump to content

U.S. Politics: Next-ennials vs stamps


lokisnow

Recommended Posts

Great, Rapey Jesus.

Conservative Evangelical Leaders Want Senate to Dismiss Assault Charges and Confirm Kavanaugh Now

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/christian-right-leaders-dismiss-kavanaugh-assault-charges.html

Quote

 

“One of the political costs of failing to confirm Brett Kavanaugh is likely the loss of the United States Senate,” said Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition who is in frequent contact with the White House.

 

“If Republicans were to fail to defend and confirm such an obviously and eminently qualified and decent nominee,” Mr. Reed added, “then it will be very difficult to motivate and energize faith-based and conservative voters in November.”

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here’s what Franklin Graham had to say about the allegations against Kavanaugh in that CBN interview:

[

Quote

T]here wasn’t a crime that was committed. These are two teenagers and it’s obvious that she said no and he respected it and walked away–if that’s the case but he says he didn’t do it. He just flat out says that’s just not true. Regardless if it was true, these are two teenagers and she said no and he respected that so I don’t know what the issue is.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I more or less assumed that after the Merrick Garland experience that the new norm is no President is allowed to make appointments to the SC unless his/her party also controls the Senate.  Which sucks, because it is way easier for the Republicans to get to 51 in the Senate than it is for Democrats.  But there's simply nothing but "precedent" to keep the Senate from just never bringing a nominee up, even if it means 4 or 7 years with a vacancy. 

What particularly sucks is that in all likelihood, the appellate courts and then all courts will soon follow suit.  Republicans hadn't quite stripped Obama of court appointment power altogether, they just mucked things up so that it took preposterously long and Obama left office with a ton of vacancies.  But there's every reason to assume that next time a Democrat is in the WH, Republicans will be even less beholden to precedent than they were for Obama. 

My memory is failing me. Has a president ever tried to bypass a vote in the Senate and just placed someone on the Supreme Court?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, lokisnow said:

This is a very reasonable approach! I would only add that no person who attended undergrad as a legacy should be allowed on any federal court ever. 

Also, a fifty year ban on Harvard, Yale and Columbia law schools from the federal courts (judges and clerks) is a related and very pleasant thought.

If we're talking pie in the sky here, ban members of The Federalist Society. These hypocrites say we can't have activist liberal judges, i.e. left leaning judges regardless of their activism, while they actively push the most activist conservative lawyers to become judges.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Morpheus said:

Looks like Trump has his pretext for firing Rosenstein. In meetings last year he discussed getting the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment and suggested taping Trump to expose his stupidity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/politics/rod-rosenstein-wear-wire-25th-amendment.html

I doubt that Rosenstein will be in his position at the time the Mueller investigation is concluded, be it by its own conclusions or by Trump ending it. My only question is will his firing happen before or after the midterms? If he does it beforehand, he all but guarantees losing the House. If Republicans lose the House and/or the Senate, he can blame it on the Russia investigation and Republicans will nod accordingly and be fine with him ending it. If they keep both chambers, Trump will replace Sessions and his successor will find a way to nuke it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Martell Spy said:

Great, Rapey Jesus.

Conservative Evangelical Leaders Want Senate to Dismiss Assault Charges and Confirm Kavanaugh Now

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/christian-right-leaders-dismiss-kavanaugh-assault-charges.html

 

Wait... wouldn't having a Republican-dominated Senate be a reason for these guys to be motivated to vote? Do they not know how that works? Is it too much to have Evangelical leaders make sense? Judging by past history, AYEP. It is. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I have just one simple question for you. Just what in the hell do you want done?

You keep complaining about "elites", but are never very specific about what you want done about it.

Are you just mainly pissed off about "identity politics" or do you have something else in mind? And please get to the point and don't try to do the Texas Two step around the issue.

Very briefly, in this thread I'm mainly trying to convince people that identity politics as practiced by the modern American left is a bad idea. I don't have a What is to be done? pamphlet for you; if it was obvious (or at least as attractive as the original was to its contemporaries), somebody would have publicized it already.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Very briefly, in this thread I'm mainly trying to convince people that identity politics as practiced by the modern American left is a bad idea. I don't have a What is to be done? pamphlet for you; if it was obvious (or at least as attractive as the original was to its contemporaries), somebody would have publicized it already.

One thing that could be done is to forbid people shooting other people because they are black, and when they do shoot people for being black, punish them.

There's also a whole lot that could stop being done like calling cops on people for existing while being black, for sitting in their own cars, inhabiting their own apartments, eating lunch in their own unversity's dorm common room, for doing paid lawn work, delivering newspapers, o so much could be done to get rid of identity politics when white people stop doing these things, doncha think?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I like that so many people who are putting forward the idea that if this works against KAVANAUGH any dem nominee can be hit by this ignore one small thing. 

 

Judges aren't all men. 

And while it certainly is possible for women to sexually assault others, it is significantly less likely, and even less likelier to have any credibility. 

Fear not, they can always be accused of improper behavior towards children. :)

More seriously, I don't know how much less credible accusations can be. Consider:

  1. Despite the fact that the alleged event can only have happened more than three decades ago, the allegations only come out after the hearings are finished.
  2. Neither a concrete time nor a concrete place is specified. In fact, there is no physical evidence whatsoever.
  3. The lone alleged witness claims he recalls nothing of the sort and is confident that Kavanaugh would never do this.
  4. The accuser's own description from 2012 is of an event with a different number of witnesses.

It's possible to concoct less plausible allegations by including even more disprovable details, but if the above content-free set is your idea of credible, I would like to offer you a great bargain on a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan that I happen to own. Trust me, President Trump would really hate it if somebody like you bought this bridge. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Six of AZ rethug dentist candidate Paul Gothar's siblings got together and made a political message endorsing his Dem opponent, because, they know their brother is a racist.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/407832-gop-lawmakers-siblings-endorse-dem-opponent-difficult-to-see-my-brother-as

Quote

 

Six of Gosar's sblings — Tim Gosar, Jennifer Gosar, Gaston Gosar, Joan Gosar, Grace Gosar and David Gosar — decry his views on policies such as health care and immigration, adding that their brother's positions have torn the family apart. 

"It would be difficult to see my brother as anything but a racist," Grace Gosar says in one advertisement. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Fear not, they can always be accused of improper behavior towards children. :)

More seriously, I don't know how much less credible accusations can be. Consider:

  1. Despite the fact that the alleged event can only have happened more than three decades ago, the allegations only come out after the hearings are finished.
  2. Neither a concrete time nor a concrete place is specified. In fact, there is no physical evidence whatsoever.
  3. The lone alleged witness claims he recalls nothing of the sort and is confident that Kavanaugh would never do this.
  4. The accuser's own description from 2012 is of an event with a different number of witnesses.

It's possible to concoct less plausible allegations by including even more disprovable details, but if the above content-free set is your idea of credible, I would like to offer you a great bargain on a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan that I happen to own. Trust me, President Trump would really hate it if somebody like you bought this bridge. :)

You have missed that at the time this assault took place many of Dr. Blasey's classmates noted how different she now was, and that she basically just disappeared from the scene.  Other of her classmates recall that at the time at the school the kids talked about it.  You also seem to miss there is no statute of limitations on accusations of sexual assault against boys by Catholic priests.  So why is there supposed to be one on an older boy at school assaulting a younger female classmate, hmmmmmm?  Also you are missing that the rethugs are ramming this through without due process of investigation, when there is NO REASON to do so.  At least no non-political reason that shows the rethugs terrified of not having a sexist, racist, cruel, corrupt and mean sexual assaulter on the SCOTUS bench for 50 years.

ALSO YOU MISSED THAT THIS FELLOW HAS REPEATEDLY LIED UNDER OATH, making him unfit already, even without bringing up sexual assault, that he won't even look at a black person or shake his hand, has said disgusting things about the kids killed at Parkland -- so much else, all PROVING HIM UNFIT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Fear not, they can always be accused of improper behavior towards children. :)

Seriously mate, super sad when upstanding individuals like Roy Moore can't even cruise the mall any more.

Edit: And seeing as how your so concerned about credibility I assume you support a full investigation? We know this isn't a two person story so Mark Judge clearly needs to testify, in addition to all other corroborating witnesses. This would include Ford's and Kavanaugh's classmates, Ford's therapist, etc. By all means...let's get to the bottom of the situation for everyone involved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GOP Bill ‘Covers’ Preexisting Conditions, But May Have Million-Dollar Premium

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/gop-preexisting-conditions-bill-may-have-usd1-million-premium.html

Quote

Republicans have spent the entire health-care debate since 2009 making demagogic attacks on every method Obamacare takes to make health care affordable for people who are too poor or sick to pay for their own care. Republicans oppose new taxes, and they oppose regulations that shift costs from the sick to the healthy. That means that they oppose what actually makes it possible for people with preexisting conditions to afford access to modern medicine. They are still desperately trying to hand-wave away the contradiction, and a phony bill to give “access” to insurance with a million-dollar premium is merely the latest step.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Fear not, they can always be accused of improper behavior towards children. :)

More seriously, I don't know how much less credible accusations can be. Consider:

  1. Despite the fact that the alleged event can only have happened more than three decades ago, the allegations only come out after the hearings are finished.
  2. Neither a concrete time nor a concrete place is specified. In fact, there is no physical evidence whatsoever.
  3. The lone alleged witness claims he recalls nothing of the sort and is confident that Kavanaugh would never do this.
  4. The accuser's own description from 2012 is of an event with a different number of witnesses.

It's possible to concoct less plausible allegations by including even more disprovable details, but if the above content-free set is your idea of credible, I would like to offer you a great bargain on a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan that I happen to own. Trust me, President Trump would really hate it if somebody like you bought this bridge. :)

What's any of that matter?  The GOP has already demonstrated, as has been pointed out ad nauseum in this thread, that they already will do anything possible to sabotage a Dem SC pick.  The Dems have nothing to lose, and everything to gain from using whatever means necessary to stall this confirmation.  Because no matter what they do they'll be stonewalled next time around.  Whether it's accusations of pedophilia, or a refusal to even consider the nominee, the Republicans will resist kicking and screaming.  

It doesn't matter if the accusations are credible or not.  It's a strange argument for you to make after you've defended Trump's lies as quality propaganda (I remember you describing yourself as a 'connosieur of propaganda').  If you don't believe the accusations against Kavanaugh, you must at least appreciate the pragmatic political consequences, no?

The hardcore right is already convinced all major Dems are pedophiles.  There is a large amount of evidence supporting this.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A Conservative Judge Takes Aim at Roe v. Wade in Face of a Shifting Supreme Court

Judge Bobby Shepherd of the Eighth Circuit has upheld, for now, two Missouri laws restricting abortion that are virtually identical to those struck down in 2016 by the Supreme Court.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/a-conservative-judge-takes-aim-at-roe-in-face-of-a-shifting-supreme-court/571006/

Quote

Shepherd is trying to “distinguish something that’s indistinguishable,” because he sees a personnel change on the high court, said Heather Shumaker, the senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. “That threat is not hypothetical. We see a real road map.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Altherion said:

Yes. More specifically because deliberately hires contractors that waste public money because this wasted money is going to the right people.

It wouldn't make any difference besides the labeling. Public sector services (e.g. police) are also more expensive and famously inferior.

Maybe this is something that you don't have to such an extent in France, but in the US, the leaders of the public and private sectors come from largely the same set of people and in fact switch places every once in a while. The New York City examples are probably not well-known, but this happens at all levels of the system under both Democrats and Republicans. Robert Rubin went from Goldman Sachs to the Treasury under Clinton, Dick Cheney went from Halliburton to be Vice-President to G.W. Bush, Larry Summers was at so many public and private places that it's hard to pick two, but let's say from D.E. Shaw to the National Economic Counsel under Obama and even if we ignore Trump himself, Rex Tillerson was CEO of Exxon-Mobil before becoming Secretary of State. And even when there isn't anyone who is obviously from a given industry in a position of power, industry always has a seat at the table when major changes are discussed.

Ok. I hear what you're saying and understand why there would be mistrust in government.

But the paradox here is that in the US it's generally believed that people who are successful in the private sector are the right people to manage the public sector. Trump's cabinet is a pretty good example of that, "draining the swamp" notwithstanding.

I dunno how you can fight corruption while keeping faith in the magic of the free market, and thus value the private sector that much. One might even say that a "deep state," and by that I mean an extremely strong public sector and bureaucracy, combined with appropriate judicial oversight, would be far better at dealing with the problem. But hey, what do I know...

23 hours ago, Altherion said:

No, I dismiss "scientific" research that is unfalsifiable or otherwise fails basic tests separating science from pseudoscience. However, this has little to do with US politics to I'll make a separate thread about it.

I'm curious.

23 hours ago, Altherion said:

Not in the US. Several people in this thread have made this kind of reference to the Trump administration, but if you think about it, he has not done many things that a proper authoritarian would quite likely do.

What I meant by "nazi" was people who believe in a hierarchy of races, what Harari calls "evolutionary humanism."
(though I have to say I dislike the terms he uses, to say the least)

Technically, by that definition a government doesn't have to be totalitarian or authoritarian to be nazi. We tend to use fascism and nazism inter-changeably because historically speaking the nazis were also fascists (and still are). But if you look at the ideologies, nazism and fascism can be separated. Or to be more specific, the fascist elements of nazi ideology can be separated from its social darwinism. In fact, that's the truly terrifying thing about nazism: it's an ideology that can seduce enough people to work within what we generally see as a "democratic" framework. Because we live in representative democracies, nazis can seize power with little modification of the institutions in place. It's especially easy in countries that have a strong executive like the US and France.

Arguably, you could even imagine a form of ethno-nationalism that doesn't even involve an ethnic hierarchy (or at least, not officially or openly), thus adopting nazi policies without the nazi ideology. All it takes is a global situation that is so bad that people start thinking that it's normal to favor the historically dominant ethnic group within their nation. Which might happen because of climate change, when the refugees start numbering in the hundreds of millions.

I've wondered for a while now whether all this talk about walls doesn't hide an actual belief in climate change. Climate change denial only makes xenophobia more palatable. But in the next decades one could imagine political parties that advocate ethno-nationalism precisely because they believe in the worst-case scenarios resulting of climate change. That is the darkness that I fear might engulf the West. Soon.

23 hours ago, Altherion said:

Alright, what does she represent? As far as I can tell, it's a less intellectual variant of an ideology that is rejected in the US by the vast majority mixed together with identity politics, but that's probably not what you see.

Indeed I don't see Ocasio-Cortez as coming out that strongly in favor of identity politics. It's mainly because she is latina that she is viewed as a champion of minorities. But unless I'm badly mistaken, her main message has been about defending the poor and the vulnerable generally speaking, not latinos specifically. It seems to me that, like Obama, she can use her own identity to seduce minorities without basing her message on identity politics. Paradoxical, I know, but that's what makes her such an appealing character.
Basically, politicians who are themselves members of minorities could end up being the ideal champions of progressivism. Or to put it differently, politicians who are themselves members of minorities can tone down identity politics, especially if they advocate socialism. The opposite movement, that is, ethno-nationalist neo-liberalism, appears hardly sustainable in the US, given the predicted demographical evolutions.
The sobering thing here, from my perspective, is that ethno-nationalist neo-liberalism can work far better in Europe. If I had to make a wild guess, I'd say trumpism should be temporary in the US. But the comparable movements in Europe will remain on the political scene for the foreseeable future.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

The Dems have nothing to lose, and everything to gain from using whatever means necessary to stall this confirmation. 

I'd written a long text to try to explain why this is wrong, but I don't think I'll convince anyone who isn't already, so I'll just say that in the current context, such thinking is very dangerous.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...