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2 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

Can the Dems force a government shutdown?  Any extreme measure they can take?  Everything has to be on the table at this point or we are all fucked.

I am not completely sure on this, but I think budget bills require both the House and Senate to pass. I hope they can force a government shutdown, but I am not sure if that will actually do anything to stop it.

If we do lose Ginsburg's seat, I think our next best short term option is to expand the Court to nine Justices, but that is a huge political undertaking and it may backfire against us, since the Republicans just as easily do the same and up it to eleven.

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Because her seat would've been kept open too. McConnell has made it perfectly clear that his main goal is to pack the courts with conservative judges that will more likely be in favor of corporations and the rich to maintain the issues from Citizens united. That statement is just more evidence in what should've been clear to anyone paying attention: The man is an ideologue who's full of shit and will only be stopped by loss of the Senate majority, being voted out or his death.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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Rest in power.

I'm pretty sure court packing would be politically unfeasible, depending on how popular it would be with the public

I'm also unsure about Trump stealing the election. I think Gorusch at least would join the liberals and Robert's wants to uphold the idea that the court is non partisan (which lol but whatever).

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Assuming a new guy gets confirmed, that means 5 out of 9 sitting supreme court justices have been appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Stunning how much the electoral college had failed us in just one generation.

It's nights like tonight I'm reminded of every time I've been told the election results won't matter. Every time somebody told me their third party vote was "safe". That they wanted to keep their "voter integrity". That stayed home because they didn't get their egos massaged just right by Hillary. Tonight goes out to you guys.

1 hour ago, UNLEASH IT said:

Why didn't she just retire under Obama?

Can we, for just one night, not blame a woman for her own cancer-ridden death?  It wasn't hubris, if the only alternative was giving up. She did the right thing, regardless of the unforeseen consequences. I've spent a decade feeling anxious about today, but I refuse to blame her for it

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5 hours ago, XRay said:

I am not completely sure on this, but I think budget bills require both the House and Senate to pass. I hope they can force a government shutdown, but I am not sure if that will actually do anything to stop it.

If we do lose Ginsburg's seat, I think our next best short term option is to expand the Court to nine Justices, but that is a huge political undertaking and it may backfire against us, since the Republicans just as easily do the same and up it to eleven.

I think this is what they should do.

1. Threaten government shutdown if Mitch decides to go forward with hearing and vote for justice, oh and if the hearing starts, follow through and shut it all down. 

2. If that is somehow not feasible, or the GOP finds a way around it and jams in a new SC justice then if Biden wins Presidency and Dems flip the Senate, up the amount of justices to 11 and nominate and confirm 2 more justices.  

I don't know if people realize how big a deal this is.

Roe vs Wade.  ACA is going to courts with a very weak legal case, but with supermajority that won't matter.  Gay marriage.  Allowance of discrimination, other LGBTQ+ rights/laws.  Any Democratic bills that pass or Executive Orders.  

Essentially Democrats will have zero power, they won't even exist really.  They will be in Congress, maybe even President.  However anything they pass will be overturned cause the courts will just be an arm of the GOP.  

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And yet another thing that could go wrong and give Trump a next term.

We have Republican voter repression
A pandemic that Trump's base thinks is a hoax and Biden's base fears
Kanye trying to split the vote for his buddy
And now the whole supreme court might motivated any hesitant Republican

I've always assumed Trump would win. The deck is rather stacked against Biden.

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10 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Kanye trying to split the vote for his buddy

I'm not convinced Kanye will do anything to Biden's support.

 

The only thing the Dems have is court packing if they win the Senate in 2020 or 2022.

Edited by Lord Raven
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On 9/19/2020 at 2:01 AM, Excellen Browning said:

I don't think they can

Damn!  Courts are supposed to be apolitical, not tools for one party.  It originally took 2/3 vote to get confirmation meaning the nominated justice had to be very centrist since you needed many votes from the minority party.  Then that changed long ago to 3/5 vote, well still the nominee had to be pretty close to center cause you needed still some votes from the minority party.  However in 2017 Mitch made it so you only need a simple majority.  Meaning the nominee needs NO votes at all from the minority party, which means it can be a far right or far left judge.  This fucking sucks, justice is supposed to be blind.  Expect Republicans to challenge every bill by the Dems they can on legal grounds regardless of how flimsy the reasoning is. ACA, Roe vs Wade, Environmental laws, LGBTQ+ rights, minority rights/protections, Social Security, Medicare, whatever.  They don't have to repeal in Congress not with a supermajority in the courts.  

Trump's list is far right pro life nominees.  So highly partisan.  As an added bonus Trump himself, that slippery snake that gets away with anything, well he always appeals everything over and over and over again to the Supreme Court, now with a 6-3 majority much much less likely they hold him accountable for anything, and if he wins re election that could become a 7-2 majority.  Trump is the luckiest person I've ever seen, this will shift election focus.

As if 2020 couldn't get any worse.

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2 hours ago, Lewyn said:

  However in 2017 Mitch made it so you only need a simple majority. 

 

A bit more complicated than just that. What you are effectively talking about is Cloture which brings the debate to an end and forces a vote. This is done to defeat filibusters and has a fair bit of history. Note that the actual confirmation just needs a majority to accept or reject the nominee, but blocking the vote via filibuster was a way to force the much stiffer requirements onto the table. The threshold has been reduced again and again due to it being too hard to make. And both parties have been playing a role in this. In 2013 the Democrats changed the rules for the lower courts to be simple majority, setting the precedent for the Republicans to extend it to the Supreme Court in 2017. A bit further back in 1975 the Democrats reduced it from the 2/3 to break the filibuster to 60. Oddly they had exactly 61 seats on the senate when they made that move to block filibusters. This is a classic case of being careful what you allow your side to do, because in doing so you arm your opposition the same way.


All that said though, requiring a super majority would be nice for a lot of things. Or you know even just a majority of over 50 percent of voters for presidential elections. As far as I am concerned 2016 should have been a wash and redone since neither candidate could claim to even represent half the country. I would say a 60 percent floor would be nice, but that would actually be almost never met. Not many presidents manage that. But you wouldn't think a 50 percent floor would be too much to ask. Of the 20 times presidents have failed to get at least 50 percent of the popular vote, only 10 times was there not a strong 3rd party present to cause that. Most of the time those additional parties consumed at least 10 percent of the vote. Twice it was 8 percent. So without a strong 3rd party consuming lets say at least 5 percent of the vote(since that is the threshold for federal funding) a 50 percent requirement doesn't seem like too much to ask.

But I am getting off topic here. Just a bit of a pet peeve of mine that you can get elected to represent the people even when more than half of the people you 'represent' want you gone, cause lets be honest these days it is often less of I prefer this person's policies and more that person can't be allowed to win. If you can't manage to get at least 50 percent in a system heavily limited to two parties, then too bad too sad, but you don't actually represent the people and shouldn't be in office.

Edited by Usana
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23 minutes ago, Usana said:

But I am getting off topic here. Just a bit of a pet peeve of mine that you can get elected to represent the people even when more than half of the people you 'represent' want you gone, 

The solution to this will always be compulsory voting. And I suppose an infrastructure that ensures everybody who wants to vote, and is legally elligible, can. We're having a few issues there. Unless you can find the magic spell that gets people to suddenly give a shit, compulsory voting is the fastest way to get better representation in general elections. It's not just the US, either. Brexit was decided on by just 26% of eligible voters, which is very similar to the 27% of Americans that got Trump into office. Although technically, those voters didn't get Trump into office, a bunch of anonymous electors did, but the electoral college doesn't need to be the star of every crisis of democracy does it?

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On 9/19/2020 at 4:48 AM, Alistair said:

 

I'm also unsure about Trump stealing the election. I think Gorusch at least would join the liberals and Robert's wants to uphold the idea that the court is non partisan (which lol but whatever).

Roberts was on the court when bush v gore was decided, and essentially, the scotus got to decide who would be president. He voted for bush.

We don't have that kind of experience with Gorsuch, but he is deeply conservative and has had zero problems with making things up to justify his legal opinions/votes, if they align with his political agenda. (This applies to Roberts as well, actually)

I wouldn't rely on either.

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Collins out as a [no] on replacing RBG with a Trump nominee before the election.
Murkowski out as a [no] on replacing RBG with a Trump pick before the election.

Thats 2 more Republicans that need to break ranks to stop Trump from ramming a nominee through without getting elected to a second term.

Romney's the obvious one that comes to mind as a potential #3, as the only guy with enough of a conscience to break with the party on the impeachment vote.

...not particularly hopeful that there's a #4...but hey...stranger things have happened...
  

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22 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

The solution to this will always be compulsory voting. And I suppose an infrastructure that ensures everybody who wants to vote, and is legally elligible, can. We're having a few issues there. Unless you can find the magic spell that gets people to suddenly give a shit, compulsory voting is the fastest way to get better representation in general elections. It's not just the US, either. Brexit was decided on by just 26% of eligible voters, which is very similar to the 27% of Americans that got Trump into office. Although technically, those voters didn't get Trump into office, a bunch of anonymous electors did, but the electoral college doesn't need to be the star of every crisis of democracy does it?

What about tying tax returns to voting? People have to give a shit then, since if they do not vote, they are not getting their tax return.

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48 minutes ago, Excellen Browning said:

Collins and Murkowski have said one thing and done another before. The Kavanaugh confirmation and Trump impeachment come to mind. 

 

I'm not out beat down on people's hopes here, but things look really bleak.

I'm seeing vague threats of court packing and Pelosi threatening impeachment to delay everything.

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16 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

I'm seeing vague threats of court packing and Pelosi threatening impeachment to delay everything.

I am kind of worried about court packing, since if we do that, Republicans can also court pack in the future.

I think I like impeachment better as a method to delay things. Trump is only surviving impeachment due to most Republicans covering his ass. Biden is nowhere as impeachable as Trump, and even if Democrats lost the House and Senate, Biden is not so corrupt that he needs his ass covered (or at least I hope so).

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The so called 'nos' are probably just for show.  Mcconnell lets the most vulnerable Senators vote no, knowing he has at least 50 votes (Pence is tie breaker) to push through whatever Neo Nazi climate denying far right nutjob Trump appoints.  

I'll believe it when I see it, we heard all this during the vote for witnesses or evidence during the Senate impeachment trial. 

Court packing is a must.  Do it dramatically.  I was thinking just doing 2 more justices, so it is 6-5 GOP majority.  However that doesn't punish the Republiscum enough.  Make it 4 justices so liberals have the majority.  Then do all the voter suppression and crap that GOP do to keep winning elections and keep packing courts so the conservative justices will be so outnumbered to be meaningless.  

Then fucking Mcconnell will have that damn smirk wiped off his face and regret his actions.

 

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On 9/18/2020 at 9:48 PM, Glennstavos said:

Assuming a new guy gets confirmed, that means 5 out of 9 sitting supreme court justices have been appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Stunning how much the electoral college had failed us in just one generation.

It's nights like tonight I'm reminded of every time I've been told the election results won't matter. Every time somebody told me their third party vote was "safe". That they wanted to keep their "voter integrity". That stayed home because they didn't get their egos massaged just right by Hillary. Tonight goes out to you guys.

Can we, for just one night, not blame a woman for her own cancer-ridden death?  It wasn't hubris, if the only alternative was giving up. She did the right thing, regardless of the unforeseen consequences. I've spent a decade feeling anxious about today, but I refuse to blame her for it

Hahah, depends on who you mean. It's definitely worked out for the folks still defending it because they know their party is increasingly unpopular.

On 9/18/2020 at 9:32 PM, Hylian Air Force said:

Then the liberals need to retaliate by expanding the court to 15 like FDR wanted to. That is something the Republicans could not ignore or undo.

Unlikely and doing so also arms the Republicans with a free pass to do the same, should they come into power again. Let's not forget that Trump's first half of his term had the Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress and the Presidency and I'm not seeing enough corrupted Democrats being voted out yet.

I wouldn't put too much attention on the Republicans currently saying no to ramming a Trump appointee to the Supreme Court because in the case of Collins for example, it's an effort to mitigate the damage to her reelection that came from some of Kavanaugh's votes and if she ends up thinking that she has no hope for reelection, she may just take the L and vote with her party either out of "Party over Country" approach that the Republicans have been doing or she may just get blackmailed or something to that effect into obeying McConnell's wishes. I don't think it's about a Trump appointee getting in, it's more about what's going to happen if they go through with it, will the Republicans be sufficiently punished?

  

49 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

Court packing is a must.  Do it dramatically.  I was thinking just doing 2 more justices, so it is 6-5 GOP majority.  However that doesn't punish the Republiscum enough.  Make it 4 justices so liberals have the majority.  Then do all the voter suppression and crap that GOP do to keep winning elections and keep packing courts so the conservative justices will be so outnumbered to be meaningless.  

In which case, you're making the GOP's return to power easier and if this is the play they're going for and it gets revealed before the election, you may just end up motivating more voters to the GOP side.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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2 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

 

In which case, you're making the GOP's return to power easier and if this is the play they're going for and it gets revealed before the election, you may just end up motivating more voters to the GOP side.

Don't reveal it before the election.  Only if Biden wins and Dems flip the Senate do it.  Otherwise ACA, abortion rights, affirmative action, all environmental protections are going to be gone.  Poisoned sludge drinking water (which will effect the poor the most), terrible air quality, rising temperatures, acceleration of more natural disasters, 20 million no longer medically insured resulting in thousands of deaths and untold amounts of suffering, women having to get illegal abortions or doing it themselves leading to lots of suffering and death.  Rape victims who get pregnant committing suicide at alarming rates.  Racial bias allowed and unpunished (it is very difficult to prove discrimination since so many factors go into hiring) no more serparation of church and state, maybe striking down of minimum wage laws, no more medicare (so retirees can just die I guess unless they saved a ton of money), and much more.

America will change dramatically for the worse and Democrats would have no power, any law Republiscum don't like they just say it is 'unconstitutional on some bullshit grounds' and regardless of how flimsy their case the supermajority of far righties will strike down the Dem laws.  Oh yeah and criminals like Trump and co that keep kicking their cases up to Supreme Court will continue to get away with it, laughing all the way.  When Trump and GOP try to cut funding to blue states and cities (something he has tried several times and claimed countless times) the Supreme Court will support it and those states and cities (many of them which contribute tons of tax money much more than most other states) will be paying the BS federal government for nothing.  

The Democrats have to level the playing field, and suppress the GOP as much as possible.  Stack the courts with liberal majority, and make it easier to vote, do the dumbass Trump thing of telling states how they can vote, thereby forcing red states to have mail in votes, more voting poll stations in poor areas.  Learn to play the game, or keep losing and become irrelevant to the cost of us the regular people.  

I also hope Democrats have invested a lot of funding in  armed groups for poll watching to make sure GOP doesn't use voter intimidation.  It's going to be a shitshow but the Democrats really don't have any other choice.  

Edited by Lewyn
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