US Politics: A Sinematic view on voting rights and the filibuster

[Altherion]

The corrected (and hopefully correct) results for the NYC mayoral primary are available. The difference between yesterday's wrong results and today's better checked one are actually not that large so it appears that the test ballots were more or less evenly distributed. The one huge effect is that the number of people whose vote is discarded has gone down by about a factor of two. Another potentially important difference is that the magnitude of the leads has shrunk in both of the key rounds. In the pre-last round, Garcia now leads Wiley by a grand total of 347 votes which is much smaller than her previous margin. If Wiley can win more of the absentee ballots than Garcia, she is almost certain to go to the last round.

However, if Garcia does make it to the last round, she will actually have an easier time there because Adams's lead is now only 14755 votes or a little under a thousand fewer than it was yesterday. Since the number of absentee ballots did not change, this effectively lowers the hill she needs to climb.

[Kalbear]

This whole thread is a great fun thing for non-lawyers like me to see what it's like, but holy crap this judge killed this person

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

I lol'ed.  

 

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

So the charges are going to include Weisselberg. WaPo is reporting he will surrender himself tomorrow.

[Zorral]

Well, here I see NEWS! Thanks all.  We had to go prospecting in this part of Miami food desert for dinner.  Sigh.  It's very weird here, particularly since it it is cooler and wetter than New York.  Not to mention the condo catastrophe.

~~~~~~

Capitol Riot: Who, When and Where

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/us/jan-6-capitol-attack-takeaways.html?

Quote

Inside the Capitol Riot: An Exclusive Video Investigation
The Times analyzed thousands of videos from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building to understand how it happened — and why. Here are some of the key findings.

 

[Fez]

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf

Supreme Court rules 6-3, in the way you'd expect, that Arizona's total bans on out-of-precinct voting and ballot harvesting are fine. The only silver lining, and it's weak tea for sure, is that at least they didn't fully toss out section 2 of the VRA.

[Fez]

Sure sounds like Breyer is NOT retiring. It's not a certain thing yet, Kennedy actually waited to announce his retirement until the afternoon of the final opinion day that year. But I don't think the court is having an in-person end-of-term lunch like that they did that year (and Kennedy wanted to tell all of them there first).

[Zorral]

Those we know connected to the legal chattering classes are certain Breyer is not stepping away.

~~~~~~~

The full story of how and why what happened with this Miami condo happened, and how it can happen many times.  Not a a small part of the problem is the building is a condo, meaning individual ownership of the units, not a single entity.  Getting all those individual owners to sign off on the expenses involved to correct the problems -- well those who want to call this the problem of socialism. Additionally then, the longer they refuse to accept the threat as real and ever more imminent, the greater the expenses grow.  Some might call this the problem of Florida.

https://slate.com/business/2021/06/miami-condo-collapse-florida-building-industry-crisis.html

 

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

The full story of how and why what happened with this Miami condo happened, and how it can happen many times.  Not a a small part of the problem is the building is a condo, meaning individual ownership of the units, not a single entity.  Getting all those individual owners to sign off on the expenses involved to correct the problems -- well those who want to call this the problem of socialism. Additionally then, the longer they refuse to accept the threat as real and ever more imminent, the greater the expenses grow.  Some might call this the problem of Florida.

https://slate.com/business/2021/06/miami-condo-collapse-florida-building-industry-crisis.html

 

When the story first broke I thought that if I lived in a building built by the same developer I’d be really nervous. And of course there is an identical building one building over on the same street, Champlain Towers North. But reporters have gone over there and had a good look at it. There is none of the water damage in that building that was found in the collapsed building. As one reporter said, their garage is so clean you eat your meal off the floor. They repaired their roof, they repaired cracks, they opened up ceilings and made sure everything was okay.

However, the basic premise of that story is correct - how do you deal with aging condo buildings? We have similar issues here in Toronto. Every new tower going up is a condo, and we too have a salt problem, not from an ocean but from the huge amount of salt that goes on the roads and sidewalks during the winter. I’ve been in underground parking lots where I’ve seen cracked and falling concrete and wondered if I’m safe.

Get a couple of real estate lawyers together and you’ll lots of stories about how they give written warnings to clients buying units in older buildings about potential repair costs that might get charged to a unit.

And yes, Florida has a big, big problem coming in the next decade.

But back to the difference between the North and South towers, as information comes out over the next year, I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out that there were several owners who simply objected to repair costs. There could easily be an investor who owned ten or twenty or more units in the building as an investment, and said no way am I going to pay $100,000 a unit for repairs.

[TrackerNeil]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Those we know connected to the legal chattering classes are certain Breyer is not stepping away.

He's making the same mistake as RBG. I know, I know...we're not supposed to criticize Ruth, but she screwed up and doomed the nation to an awful lot of bad jurisprudence. Breyer seems to want to double down on that mistake.

[Fez]

Breyer is falling into the trap of thinking he personally is more valuable to an institution than he actually is. There's plenty of accomplished liberal judges that could take his spot, and plenty of them would be just as capable of trying to find compromises with the conservative majority on the court.

Maybe he thinks he's safe for one more year. But that's putting an awful lot of faith in the Democratic senate that they could get some through in the months leading up to the midterms. He's also putting way too much trust on the line that none of the Democratic senators die/otherwise leave office from states where a Republican would name their successor.

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

He's making the same mistake as RBG.

Indeed he is.  There's still the hope he retires next year of course.  Interestingly, looking at recent justices' retirements, a lot of them announced they were retiring at the end of the SCOTUS session in June well before then.  Stevens, Souter, Blackmun, and White.  White announced in March.  So, maybe hopefully he just wants one more year and will do that.  He's also of course free to retire before the next session starts in October, but that'd be rather weird compared to recent retirements if he hasn't by now (and kind of screw over his clerks).

7 minutes ago, Fez said:

But that's putting an awful lot of faith in the Democratic senate that they could get some through in the months leading up to the midterms. He's also putting way too much trust on the line that none of the Democratic senators die/otherwise leave office from states where a Republican would name their successor.

Meh, obviously it's a huge risk in terms of losing a senator, but if the Dems still have 50 votes next summer I have every confidence they'd fill the seat before the midterms.

[Larry of the Lawn]

At least the pair of words "Breyer" and "retire" lend themselves well to easily digestible and understood slogans that require little to no explanation.  

 

"Breyer, retire!"

"Retire Breyer!"

"Give it a fuckin rest, Stephen"

[Week]

45 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

At least the pair of words "Breyer" and "retire" lend themselves well to easily digestible and understood slogans that require little to no explanation.  

 

"Breyer, retire!"

"Retire Breyer!"

"Give it a fuckin rest, Stephen"

Take a reprieve, Steve!

[Martell Spy]

Global tax deal reached despite vocal opposition
Major economies like France and the US signed up, while low-tax regimes including Ireland and Barbados balked.

https://www.politico.eu/article/oecd-global-tax-deal-reached-g20/

Quote

 

"Today is an historic day for economic diplomacy," U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. "Today’s agreement by 130 countries representing more than 90 percent of global GDP is a clear sign: the race to the bottom is one step closer to coming to an end."

The European Commission's tax chief, Paolo Gentiloni, also welcomed the deal in a tweet, calling it "great news."

The global proposal — aimed at stopping the likes of Google, Amazon and other corporate giants from stashing their global earnings in low-tax regimes or tax havens — became bitterly divisive on Thursday in the last-minute negotiations overseen by the Paris-based OECD.

A handful of countries refused to sign up to a global minimum tax threshold, fearing that such proposals would undermine their ability to entice international companies to their shores and would represent a direct threat to their national sovereignty. The other opposing countries include Estonia, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru, Sri Lanka, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados, one of the officials said. The OECD statement did not name the hold-outs.

An Irish official, on condition of anonymity, explained their opposition to the deal: “The government of Ireland supports rational global tax reform. But Ireland cannot sign on to generalized language that does not include cast-iron assurances on specific issues and policies that matter to us.”

Still, with the backing of the world's largest economies — including the U.K., Germany and India — these low-tax regimes are now in a rearguard battle to hold on to their domestic rates amid threats from other countries' officials that they will impose the new regime, globally, no matter what the hold-outs decide to do next.

 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

19 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

He's making the same mistake as RBG. I know, I know...we're not supposed to criticize Ruth, but she screwed up and doomed the nation to an awful lot of bad jurisprudence. Breyer seems to want to double down on that mistake.

My worst fear is that this man retires due to health complications or dies under a Republican senate and president.

He will be loathed then, he won’t be made an icon like Ruth, he’ll just be greeted as the old liberal idiot who didn’t know when to fuck off

19 hours ago, DMC said:

Meh, obviously it's a huge risk in terms of losing a senator, but if the Dems still have 50 votes next summer I have every confidence they'd fill the seat before the midterms.

I legitimately hope you’re right, but Breyer so far has met my worst expectations for him.

18 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

At least the pair of words "Breyer" and "retire" lend themselves well to easily digestible and understood slogans that require little to no explanation.  

 

"Breyer, retire!"

"Retire Breyer!"

"Give it a fuckin rest, Stephen"

Yeah this will probably just encourage the man to dig in his heels.

[Varysblackfyre321]

19 hours ago, Fez said:

Breyer is falling into the trap of thinking he personally is more valuable to an institution than he actually is. There's plenty of accomplished liberal judges that could take his spot, and plenty of them would be just as capable of trying to find compromises with the conservative majority on the court.

But he has a qualification none of them have; his name is Stephan Breyer.

[Ormond]

36 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

But he has a qualification none of them have; his name is Stephan Breyer.

Pedantic name point. His name is Stephen Breyer. In English Stephen is normally pronounced like Steven but Stephan is usually pronounced like Steffan.

[Kalbear]

Don't worry, the dems aren't going to obstruct a Republican nominee like Republicans would, so really Breyer just needs to die under a Republican POTUS. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 6/28/2021 at 11:03 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Do you expect the average person to be able to figure that out? Because I don't.

It doesn't matter what the average person can figure out--they could figure it out, yes, but no matter what you call it, those against it will call it "abolishment." Much like they call someone like Mcaskill a socialist. They know better--they want to be against reform. It doesn't matter what you call it.