US Politics: “How did we come to this...”

[ThinkerX]

Okay...good news I suppose...but what the bloody bleep is 'Twitch' - some sort of Twitter clone?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/29/21307145/twitch-donald-trump-ban-campaign-account

 

Twitch has temporarily banned President Donald Trump, in the latest surprise and high-profile suspension from the streaming service. Trump’s account was banned for “hateful conduct” that was aired on stream, and Twitch says the offending content has now been removed.

One of the streams in question was a rebroadcast of Trump’s infamous kickoff rally, where he said that Mexico was sending rapists to the United States. Twitch also flagged racist comments at Trump’s recent rally in Tulsa.

“Like anyone else, politicians on Twitch must adhere to our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. We do not make exceptions for political or newsworthy content, and will take action on content reported to us that violates our rules,” a Twitch spokesperson told The Verge. The statement was originally issued last year when Trump’s channel was launched.

[Ran]

Twitch is an Amazon-owned video streaming platform, primarily used by gamers, e-sports organizers, and gaming companies to broadcast live games. It's the biggest such platform right now; ATM there's something like 1.5 million people watching Twitch streams at this moment. (Our former advertising tech provider, Curse, was for a time owned by Twitch before they were spun off and acquired by Wikia/Fandom.)

I had no idea the Trump campaign was using Twitch for anything.

[ThinkerX]

27 minutes ago, Ran said:

Twitch is an Amazon-owned video streaming platform, primarily used by gamers, e-sports organizers, and gaming companies to broadcast live games. It's the biggest such platform right now; ATM there's something like 1.5 million people watching Twitch streams at this moment. (Our former advertising tech provider, Curse, was for a time owned by Twitch before they were spun off and acquired by Wikia/Fandom.)

I had no idea the Trump campaign was using Twitch for anything.

impressive.  probably means Trump will launch a hate filled diatribe against the outfit, maybe working Bezos into the picture...

 

[sologdin]

The Louisiana law was nearly identical to a Texas law that the court found unconstitutional in 2016. Roberts voted against blocking the law at that time

roberts reveals himself to be a professional n his concurrence: 

Quote

I joined the dissent in Whole Woman’s Health and continue to believe that the case was wrongly decided. The question today however is not whether Whole Woman’s Health was right or wrong, but whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case.

(roberts, concurring, slip op. at 2).

thomas' dissent is childish, stating that there is no jurisdiction for the suit and, even if there were, the court was wrong in griswold to find a constitutional right to privacy--even though no one challenged that rule or what followed in roe.; gorsuch and alito less so, but they are still wrong--and they focus on a justiciability argument that the state raised for the first time on appeal.  kavanaugh comes across as not crazy in his dissent--and makes a very good point about the precedential value going ahead:

Quote

Today, five Members of the Court reject the Whole Woman’s Health cost-benefit standard.  A different five Members of the Court conclude that Louisiana’s admitting privileges law is unconstitutional because it “would restrict women’s access to abortion to the same degree as” the Texas law in Whole Woman’s Health.

(kavanaugh, dissenting, slip op. at 2). we have five votes to kill the statute, and five votes declining to apply the WWH revision to casey.  curious.

 

some NRA type freaks

like the st. louis guncrazies who act like my dog anytime someone is on the sidewalk?

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

 

 

some NRA type freaks

like the st. louis guncrazies who act like my dog anytime someone is on the sidewalk?

The real culprit in St. Louis is our DIY culture.  These hapless upper-crusters are clearly inexperienced with basic firearm safety and should have hired some local professional mercenaries.  

[Martell Spy]

John Roberts’ Opinion Preserving Abortion Rights Is Also a Threat to Abortion Rights
The chief justice begrudgingly upheld precedent while rolling back the constitutional right to choose.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/john-roberts-abortion-june-medical.html

Quote

 

But the chief justice then whittled down the holding of Whole Woman’s Health, replacing its balancing test with a stingier rule that may give states broader leeway to restrict abortion. Roberts expressly disavowed Breyer’s test, which weighed a law’s benefits to patients against its burdens. “There is no plausible sense in which anyone,” he wrote, “let alone this Court, could objectively assign weight to such imponderable values” as “the potentiality of human life” and a woman’s “own concept of existence.” Rather, he declared, the court must retreat back to Casey’s cramped standard, which asks only if an abortion restriction imposes an “undue burden,” and does not permit courts to consider the benefits, or lack thereof, in making that determination.

Roberts’ revision marks a retreat from Whole Woman’s Health, effectively overruling its expansion of Casey and preventing courts from invalidating moderately burdensome abortion limitations. Consider this hypothetical example: A state requires patients to wait one week between requesting an abortion and obtaining one. During that period, she must visit the clinic at least three times to view multiple anti-abortion documentaries, ostensibly to ensure she understands the consequences of her decision.

Under Breyer’s balancing test, this law would obviously be unconstitutional: It provides no actual medical benefits to patients while imposing at least some real burdens. But under Roberts’ version of the Casey standard, it might be constitutional: Yes, the law would put an obstacle in patients’ path to abortion, compelling them to make repeated visits to a clinic that might be hundreds of miles away and spend hours viewing propaganda. But it is, at least in theory, a surmountable obstacle (even though in reality many women would just give up). So Roberts may well find that it is not an undue burden.

 

 

[DMC]

55 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

John Roberts’ Opinion Preserving Abortion Rights Is Also a Threat to Abortion Rights
The chief justice begrudgingly upheld precedent while rolling back the constitutional right to choose.

Yeah, here's a similar piece - Why conservative Chief Justice Roberts just struck down an anti-abortion law:  Roberts didn’t save abortion rights, he told future litigants how to bury them.

Quote

Roberts ultimately concludes that he cannot uphold a law that is nearly word-for-word identical to another law that the Court struck down four years ago. But his opinion is laden with hints that, in a future case, he is likely to vote to restrict — or even eliminate — the constitutional right to an abortion.

Roberts opens his opinion by declaring that he still believes that Whole Woman’s Health was “wrongly decided.” He notes that “neither party has asked us to reassess the constitutional validity” of the Court’s seminal abortion rights decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) — a hint that, if future litigants directly attack Casey, Roberts will welcome such a challenge. And he spends as much of his opinion attacking Breyer’s approach to this case as he does explaining why he reluctantly voted to honor stare decisis.

Conservatives may be whining about Roberts today, but it appears simply he's playing chess while they're playing checkers when it comes to abortion cases.

[HoodedCrow]

From the court who gave us citizens united....rich people or corporations can buy elections, or legislation. Apparently, they can sneak money into pacs, and it doesn’t matter if they are foreign.

[Fragile Bird]

Well, damn.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Speculation that Trump may drop out of this race. Given Joe Biden's whole strategy is to pretend he isn't running, Trump has nothing to lose by participating in debates with him. If he drops out, Joe's probably in more trouble. The Democrats can't see past next week.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

25 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Speculation that Trump may drop out of this race. Given Joe Biden's whole strategy is to pretend he isn't running, Trump has nothing to lose by participating in debates with him. If he drops out, Joe's probably in more trouble. The Democrats can't see past next week.

Trump won't drop out. 

[Guy Kilmore]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Trump won't drop out. 

I could see it, but odds are, he wants to beat Obama and if he drops out he dosen't.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, Guy Kilmore said:

I could see it, but odds are, he wants to beat Obama and if he drops out he dosen't.

I'd view it more as a statute of limitations issue, but I'd ask the lawyers here before trusting me. I've always been given the impression he can dodge a lot of hypothetical stuff if he served out a full second term.
 

[S John]

I would consider it an unequivocal victory if Trump dropped out.  Fight the next battle when it comes.  I may have strong policy disagreements with conservatives but I suspect that Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and even Ted freakin’ Cruz would at least read their damn intelligence briefings.  Articles like this one from CNN today I find really upsetting.  Maybe I’m naive, but if even a fraction of this is true can it really get any worse?  I think we can always claw our way out of 4 years of less than ideal domestic policies but the damage being done to US standing internationally is something I find both frightening and highly embarrassing.

[S John]

1 minute ago, Triskele said:

Another way to ponder it:  as disastrous as Trump is could the GOP really salvage anything by dumping him?  Lots of Trumpists would be crushed.

Yea, that’s the other thing.  I’m not sure Trump dropping out actually helps the GOP anyway.  Biden has a head start on any new challenger and the R’s don’t have anyone on deck that can generate Trump level enthusiasm.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, S John said:

I would consider it an unequivocal victory if Trump dropped out.  Fight the next battle when it comes.  I may have strong policy disagreements with conservatives but I suspect that Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and even Ted freakin’ Cruz would read their damn intelligence briefings.  Articles like this one from CNN today I find really upsetting.  Maybe I’m naive, but I think we may have just about the worst possible person in the position of POTUS right now.  I think we can always claw our way out of 4 years of less than ideal domestic policies but the damage being done to US standing internationally is something I find both frightening and highly embarrassing.

In this implausible scenario, Pence would be the nominee. 

I'd gamble that Haley would step in as the new VP, or dare I even say it, Liz Cheney.....

[Ormond]

If Trump could really be convinced that he was definitely going to lose the election by a wide margin, his narcissism would tempt him to drop out so that he could maintain his self-image of always being a "winner." If he leaves on his own terms, declaring he was the greatest President ever and had no more to accomplish, he could salvage some self-esteem.

However, I think that is a really big "if". His narcissism is also so extreme that it will be hard for him to believe that he really can lose the election. It would take almost everyone around him telling him the same thing -- and probably especially his adult kids -- before there would be a chance of him believing it. And if there is even a chance that the election can be seen as "close" by him in any way, he will probably prefer to have the election and then just scream he was robbed by the corrupt Democrats. So although I would not totally dismiss him dropping out, I think the chance of it happening are no more than 5%.

[S John]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

In this implausible scenario, Pence would be the nominee. 

I'd gamble that Haley would step in as the new VP, or dare I even say it, Liz Cheney.....

For the record, I also don’t think Trump will drop out.  If America is going to purge itself of Trumpsim it will have to be at the ballot box.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, S John said:

For the record, I also don’t think Trump will drop out.  If America is going to purge itself of Trumpsim it will have to be at the ballot box.  

Assuming there are free and fair elections in November. 

[DMC]

30 minutes ago, S John said:

I would consider it an unequivocal victory if Trump dropped out.

Trump isn't dropping out, but if he did, it would guarantee a Biden victory.  Make taking back the the Senate nearly assured as well.  It'd be an unequivocal loss for the GOP.  Anyone that thinks otherwise doesn't understand American politics.