Y'all hate me...but you know I'm right

[ThelmaLou]

This is a revealing and disheartening article in WaPo today. Sorry, not in the mood to summarize, but the headline kind of says it.

‘Rock bottom’: Supreme Court fight reveals a country on the brink

‘Rock bottom’: Supreme Court fight reveals a country on the brink

I think it’s time to watch All the President’s Men again.

[wolfpup]

@ThelmaLou

This is a revealing and disheartening article in WaPo today. Sorry, not in the mood to summarize, but the headline kind of says it.

‘Rock bottom’: Supreme Court fight reveals a country on the brink
https://wapo.st/2zXmfjv?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.4ed30ebfc607

I think it’s time to watch All the President’s Men again.

Excellent article, thanks. Here are a few paragraphs that I found most pertinent:
Should Democrats win the House majority, as now appears likely, there will be a major push among some members to impeach both Kavanaugh from the high court and Trump from the presidency, all as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is expected to finish parts of his work on the federal probe into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

… “This is the second most divided time in our history, and I’m worried about the legitimacy of the court,” conservative commentator William J. Bennett said, comparing the current moment to the breakdowns that preceded the Civil War.

… Public polling showed [that Americans reacted to the uncertainties about Kavanaugh] by overwhelmingly falling back on their political identities, a tribal response that tracks other evidence of increasing polarization. An August Pew poll found 78 percent of Americans say Democrats and Republicans disagree not only on “plans and policies” but on “basic facts.”

[Sherrerd]

@septimus

I’ve previously linked to an article about Paul Manafort in The Atlantic. Not only did the whole lobbying/consultancy business go through a dramatic (and corrupt) expansion a few decades back, but Paul Manafort — whom I’d never even heard of until recently — had a great deal to do with that expansion!

Thanks–perfectly on point.

[Sherrerd]

@k9bfriender

And that is why a “deep state” is useful. The people who are directing the plane where to go shouldn’t necessarily be the ones flying it. If in mid flight, the passengers all vote that we are going to Hawaii rather than to American Samoa, that’s fine. What shouldn’t happen though, is the passenger with the most votes gets to fly the plane. No, we should have people trained for that.

Politicians should be directing the government, not actually running it. As long as they are not actually part of the functionality of the govt, they are easily replaceable, and term limits would only be a good thing.

Makes a lot of sense. Many who object to ‘citizen legislators’ claim that there would be terrible problems with ‘inexperience,’ but I think your analogy is quite good as a counter.

@k9bfriender

…Honestly, I don’t know that there can be much done with the media that doesn’t involve serious violations of free speech. The only approach that I can see is that you make a law, similar to the one that requires broadcasters to air an hour of news every day in return for their license to use the airwaves, that also disallows news to be sponsored by advertising during the news broadcast, but is instead funded out of the budget for the rest of the day. Say, x% of advertising revenues are earmarked for news. Then at least, the news is no longer competing for eyeballs to make money from sponsors, I think that would fix some of the sensationalism in the news that does tend to polarize.
…

Good idea. It would face major opposition from well-heeled corporations who profit off the current “news = entertainment” system, but if the political will existed, who knows…

[Shodan]

From your article

Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), the second ranking Republican, attributed the divisions in Washington to wounds inflicted by Trump’s election in 2016, which he said “half the population can’t seem to get over.”

Seems pretty accurate to me.

Regards,
Shodan

[nightshadea]

as I posted on another u know its getting depressing out there …… went to the store and heard two older African American men (about 60 or so )(discussing the supreme court and politics and one of them espoused the belief that the only way things were going change for the better was a assassination or two 60s style ………

[E-DUB]

I wouldn’t advocate such a thing but given that it was only our heroes that bought it then, a few casualties on the other side might at least get a real gun debate going. They don’t care about your kids, maybe they’d care about their own leaders.

[Little_Nemo]

@Textual_Innuendo

Ha! It’s cute you think the Democrats haven’t gone bad. In any federal-level election, our two choices are:

Candidate 1. Somebody who is a multi-millionaire and needs to raise tens of thousand of dollars every few days, and whose policies are going to favor big corporations and the 1% while hurting the middle class, and is pro-huge military, pro spying on all US citizens, and pro “tough on crime”
vs
Candidate 2. Somebody who is a multi-millionaire and and needs to raise tens of thousand of dollars every few days, and whose policies are going to favor big corporations and the 1% while hurting the middle class, and is pro-huge military, pro spying on all US citizens, and pro “tough on crime”

Guess which one is D and which one is R? Oh that’s right, it doesn’t matter. Neither one is going to try to solve any of the large systemic problems we have as a country.

Nope, I’m not buying this nonsense. Obviously the Democrats aren’t perfect but they are not in the same ballpark as the Republicans. If you think the two parties are anywhere near equal then you’ve been drinking too much right-wing kool-aid. And that includes if you think Ralph Nader or Bernie Sanders or somebody like that is the true answer. The right wing just finances people like that to divert votes away from the Democrats and keep the Republicans in power.

[Leaper]

@k9bfriender

Hope is useful. Hope means that there is a way out. Hope does not mean that we will survive this, it only means that it is possible to do so, if things go the right way. If we are in a burning building, we can hope to fight the fire, we can at least hope to get out.

Faith is what is useless. Faith means that we will find the way out. Faith means that we will survive this. Faith means that things will go the right way. If we are in a burning building, Faith means that we expect to be rescued, and will sit on our asses till we die.

We need hope, but faith, not so much.

Lucky that I’ve never personally seen a single non-conservative advocate or express the latter, though. May just be that some people are so sure about the right way to go about this that they’re mistaking disagreement on how to proceed for apathy?

[madsircool]

@E-DUB

I wouldn’t advocate such a thing but given that it was only our heroes that bought it then, a few casualties on the other side might at least get a real gun debate going. They don’t care about your kids, maybe they’d care about their own leaders.

Ummm…George Wallace…Gerald Ford…Ronald Reagan. Not successful but attempted.

[Ravenman]

@Shodan

From your article Seems pretty accurate to me.

2008: Obama beats the pants off of McCain. Then, 30% of the country spends eight years thinking that 70% of the country hates the seekrit Muslim. In reality, 60% of the country are like, “This dude is pretty good!”

2016: Trump loses the popular vote by three points. Again, 30% of the country thinks 70% of the country voted for him, and they also think that 50% of the country should just get over it. The heads of mathematicians explode.

[E-DUB]

Some further thoughts on the assassination business. It’s quite likely to backfire. Either through generation of sympathy or through being used as the excuse for a crackdown or both. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see them sacrifice one of their own (Ted Cruz comes to mind) just for that result.

[asahi]

@E-DUB

Some further thoughts on the assassination business. It’s quite likely to backfire. Either through generation of sympathy or through being used as the excuse for a crackdown or both. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see them sacrifice one of their own (Ted Cruz comes to mind) just for that result.

I want to be clear (NSA): I have never advocated assassinations or anything like it. In fact, the example of Julius Caesar is a classic, textbook example of why radical violence fails. It outraged people and led to more chaos.

When I refer to domination, I refer to domination of the mind. Shaming the ignorant gibbons into silence through collective social force. Easier said than accomplished, I acknowledged.

[Guinastasia]

@E-DUB

Some further thoughts on the assassination business. It’s quite likely to backfire. Either through generation of sympathy or through being used as the excuse for a crackdown or both. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see them sacrifice one of their own (Ted Cruz comes to mind) just for that result.

Not to mention then we’d end up with Pence. shudder

[Little_Nemo]

Should Democrats win the House majority, as now appears likely, there will be a major push among some members to impeach both Kavanaugh from the high court and Trump from the presidency, all as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is expected to finish parts of his work on the federal probe into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

This probably won’t be a popular opinion but I think people at this point should accept Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.

Do I think he should have been named to the court? No. But he was and the legal process was followed. It was a bad decision but not an illegal one. The response now should be to vote the people who made that bad decision out of office.

But should the Democrats seek to overturn his confirmation? I feel that would be wrong. There was one occasion when a Supreme Court Justice was impeached for political differences with the incoming political party; Samuel Chase in 1805. But in the end, the Senate chose not to remove him from office.

This established a precedent; a new administration with a majority can’t just clear the Supreme Court by impeaching the justices appointed by past administrations and appointing new ones from their own party. It’s one of the few standards that are still being upheld in politics.

[ThelmaLou]

@Little_Nemo

Should Democrats win the House majority, as now appears likely, there will be a major push among some members to impeach both Kavanaugh from the high court and Trump from the presidency, all as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is expected to finish parts of his work on the federal probe into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

This probably won’t be a popular opinion but I think people at this point should accept Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.

Do I think he should have been named to the court? No. But he was and the legal process was followed. It was a bad decision but not an illegal one. The response now should be to vote the people who made that bad decision out of office.

But should the Democrats seek to overturn his confirmation? I feel that would be wrong. There was one occasion when a Supreme Court Justice was impeached for political differences with the incoming political party; Samuel Chase in 1805. But in the end, the Senate chose not to remove him from office.

This established a precedent; a new administration with a majority can’t just clear the Supreme Court by impeaching the justices appointed by past administrations and appointing new ones from their own party. It’s one of the few standards that are still being upheld in politics.

This is very sensible.

[Del]If[/del] When the Dems win the House, they will have bigger fish to fry than Kav.

[Drunky_Smurf]

Yeah, like trying to figure out how Trump murdered every non-white male on the planet all by himself.

That sneaky bastard.

[septimus]

@RTFirefly

Legislation can fix that.

Not with this Supreme Court. If/when humans regain control of the White House and Congress, the first order of business is to up the SCOTUS size to 13 (or 15 if 13 is “unlucky”).

@Textual_Innuendo

Ha! It’s cute you think the Democrats haven’t gone bad. In any federal-level election, our two choices are:

Candidate 1. Somebody who is a multi-millionaire and needs to raise tens of thousand of dollars every few days, and whose policies are going to favor big corporations and the 1% while hurting the middle class, and is pro-huge military, pro spying on all US citizens, and pro “tough on crime”
vs
Candidate 2. Somebody who is a multi-millionaire and and needs to raise tens of thousand of dollars every few days, and whose policies are going to favor big corporations and the 1% while hurting the middle class, and is pro-huge military, pro spying on all US citizens, and pro “tough on crime”

Guess which one is D and which one is R? Oh that’s right, it doesn’t matter. Neither one is going to try to solve any of the large systemic problems we have as a country.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. There are many politicians who want to help America and solve problems. Note the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) of 2002. Note Obamacare.

Focus on the positive. We humans are almost outnumbered by ape-brains allowed to vote by their photo-id gun permits issued without DNA test to see whether they’re H. fatuus or H. sapiens. Do NOT spread the pro-Trumpist message “It doesn’t matter anyway; just stay home on Election Day.” :mad: :mad:

[JKellyMap]

An excellent Radiolab podcast/broadcast, on whether humans are capable of becoming less aggressive/jerkish/selfish (nowadays, “Republican”): https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91693-new-normal

Part 1 is a fascinating study of a baboon group that develops a gentler culture. Part 2 is about a transgender mayor in a conservative Oregon town. Part 3 is about a decline in hope for a future without war, and an amazing fix breeding experiment.

The overall effect of the episode is uncertain — it left me right on the fence between optimism and pessimism.

[Paranoid_Randroid]

@septimus

Not with this Supreme Court. If/when humans regain control of the White House and Congress, the first order of business is to up the SCOTUS size to 13 (or 15 if 13 is “unlucky”).

I don’t know if that’s intended as a serious prediction or an aspirational statement of desire concerning what should be done. Either way it won’t happen: it would be immensely unpopular on the left as well as the right, and destroy the legitimacy of one whole branch of government. If you want to continue – accelerate, even – Trump’s match toward instability and susceptibility to authoritarianism, though, be my guest.