Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 375: Joe Bidin' his time

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Suprak the Stud posted...

Affordable care act survives yet again! 7-2 this time with only Alito and Gorsuch dissenting.

ACA: I lived, bitch.

Surprised at the margin, if not the result. I saw this ranging from 4-5 ACA overturned to 6-3 best case.

Roberts giving Breyer the opinion too lol: https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1405527529838895113

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Stacey Abrams says she supports Manchin's voting rights compromise so maybe we'll see if he's serious about it or if she's called his bluff.

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If this country holds together it's going to be because supreme court justices are insulated from partisan bickering. One of the reasons I'm against court packing.

DC a state? Absolutely. Electoral college elimination? Sure. Court packing? The end of the supreme court being relevant at all.

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masterplum posted...

If this country holds together it's going to be because supreme court justices are insulated from partisan bickering. One of the reasons I'm against court packing.

DC a state? Absolutely. Electoral college elimination? Sure. Court packing? The end of the supreme court being relevant at all.

So you're against McConnell refusing to even consider Supreme Court appointments made by a Democratic president, right? Because that's court-packing too.

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https://twitter.com/drmistercody/status/1405293491110891520?s=21

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Not_an_Owl posted...

Do you have a couple million dollars to spend buying an asshole senator? Because I sure don't.

Not what I had in mind but sure, let's set up a Kickstarter and see what happens

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Suprak the Stud posted...

In less good Supreme Court news

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/17/politics/supreme-court-fulton/index.html

I havent read arguments for this one but I have no clue how it was unanimous

The Court's rationale seems to be as follows (skimmed, I didn't read all 110 pages this time lol):

Because the city's foster care contract allows for exceptions "at the sole discretion" of the Commissioner wrt to the requirement that the agency provide services to prospective foster parents wrt sexual orientation the city is therefore no longer able to deny relgious exceptions through that mechanism. Basically, in allowing for the possibility of exceptions to the rule, they cannot deny them against a claim of "religious hardship." (Alito points out in his concurrence in judgment that the city can merely close this loophole and claim they've fixed the problem but the case will likely run its way back up to them - more on this later)

Also, the broader non-discriminatory act of the city doesn't apply because, and I'm summarizing here, "qualifying as a foster parent is pretty complicated and obtuse" and the act only specifies things readily available to the public.

The more potentially alarming thing here is in the concurring opinions. Yeah, they somehow got the three liberals to agree in the end result here but you have a 1990 SCOTUS case - Employment v Smith - underpinning much of this which in summary says that a law that is neutral and applies to everyone equally (i.e. isn't targeting religion specifically) does not run afoul of religious free exercise.

Barrett, joined by Kavanaugh and Breyer, argues that Smith should probably be overturned but doesn't have a good replacement idea ready and says "Well, we've got a unanimous ruling here, so overturning Smith or not is moot so yeah thanks for reading my TED Talk."

Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, says "We should have overturned Smith and regrettably my colleagues refused to do so."

So there's up to 6 votes that want to upend the prevailing court opinion on this that protects these non-discrimination laws. If you want to put on your conspiracy hat I guess you could say Kagan and Sotomayor joined in the judgment to make this unanimous to placate the 3 softer anti-Smith votes and prevent them from very probably overturning the prior case law in its entirety. But eh who knows.

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Not_an_Owl posted...

So you're against McConnell refusing to even consider Supreme Court appointments made by a Democratic president, right? Because that's court-packing too.

Absolutely

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masterplum posted...

Absolutely

Then what are we supposed to do to undo the damage he has already done?

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masterplum posted...

Absolutely

Right, but given that he did it, you don't think there should be a counter-action?

I mean, the whole reason he made the calculations he did and continues to do is he doesn't anticipate any consequences for it. As is, he basically packed one-to-two seats. Expansion to 13 would be an action to restore the balance that would have existed had he not fucked it up. Doing nothing is letting him get away with it.

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Sanders and Schumer are working on the reconciliation package for if (when) the bipartisan deal falls apart.

$6t target. Lowers Medicare age to 60. Expands Medicare to cover dental/vision/hearing. Climate change included as well.

https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1405518618859868160

Probably gets sawed down by Manchin but at least this one is aiming kinda high to start to absorb that (sad that this qualifies as aiming high but hey)

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I am looking forward to the Bernie Sanders biopic that gets made someday.

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xp1337 posted...

Right, but given that he did it, you don't think there should be a counter-action?

I mean, the whole reason he made the calculations he did and continues to do is he doesn't anticipate any consequences for it. As is, he basically packed one-to-two seats. Expansion to 13 would be an action to restore the balance that would have existed had he not fucked it up.

I would go for this, if there was any chance he wouldn't push to expand to 17 the first chance he had.

I don't think going down that road is a winning strategy for country stability


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Personally what I think is we simply need judges to not serve lifetime appointments. I think 18 years was thrown out with each presidential term getting 2.

Also given that I would be OK with not needing congress to approve these judges at all under this system. Every term gets 2, move it right along if a president picks a sucky one you pick a non sucky one yourself.

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Yeah, I think we need serious constitution changes in the future to fix some of this.

So we'll see if we ever get to that level of consensus

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We're on that road already though! We've already gone down it!

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masterplum posted...

don't think going down that road is a winning strategy for country stability

Neither is doing nothing when the entire issue is that our institutions are inherently unstable, and there will NEVER be a consensus agreement on how to fix them.

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Even if there is a good solution we would never see the effects of it quickly enough and the general public would become "outraged that nothing was fixed" and the other party would recover power to un-fix anything that happens.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

Also given that I would be OK with not needing congress to approve these judges at all under this system. Every term gets 2, move it right along if a president picks a sucky one you pick a non sucky one yourself.

No thanks to any years of Don Jr and Ivanka as SCOTUS justices.

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Dancedreamer posted...

No thanks to any years of Don Jr and Ivanka as SCOTUS justices.

I mean, couldn't they have been SCOTUS justices anyway if Trump had nominated them? <_<.

Maybe not literally but it seems like it given current congress!

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why not literally? there's no necessary qualification other than having the votes in the senate

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A few Senators voted to impeach him, those people probably aren't voting for literally ANY SC nomination.

Wasn't sure about the exact votes.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

I mean, couldn't they have been SCOTUS justices anyway if Trump had nominated them? <_<.

Maybe not literally but it seems like it given current congress!

I wonder what would happen if Trump tried to appoint the same person to multiple SCOTUS seats. Like, say, if he had nominated himself 3 times. Would he have 3 votes on SCOTUS?

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I love you so much, red sox 777.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

I mean, couldn't they have been SCOTUS justices anyway if Trump had nominated them? <_<.

Maybe not literally but it seems like it given current congress!

I feel like he didn't nominate them because strategy-wise it would've been a disaster because as soon as Susan "Concerned" Collins and Lisa "No Backbone" Murkowksi voted to confirm a justice with zero experience, that even moderates would see through the Republican bullshit and vote them out. Moderates have their limits, and it would've killed them in purple states.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

A few Senators voted to impeach him, those people probably aren't voting for literally ANY SC nomination.

Wasn't sure about the exact votes.

The second time, sure! But the first time was just Romney (and only on one charge!) and the Senate GOP could have afforded to lose 1 vote!

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Exactly so let's just skip congress

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https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1405568756038971397?s=19

[shoots legislation]

Why would Stacey Abrams do this?

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Biden signed Juneteenth into law as a federal holiday and now i have tomorrow off.

Hell yeah.

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Alright well I guess we can put an end to the debate about the border camps being cages or not because we're just going to start throwing people into prison

https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1405554185232322564?s=19

Abbott has really gone completely fucking insane these past few months, even once you factor in that his baseline is already set to "monstrous ghoul."

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Can he even legally do that? Wtf?

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Can he even legally do that? Wtf?

Probably? I dont think there are federal rules on jail conditions that would apply.

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Also if you're a republican you can just break the law and nothing happens, so it doesn't really matter if it's legal or not

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masterplum posted...

Probably? I dont think there are federal rules on jail conditions that would apply.

I more meant the putting undocumented immigrants in prison part specifically, I assumed they were governed by the Fed.

In other news, Biden Administration put out their new Domestic Terrorism strategy, and I dunno, enhanced funding for even more domestic surveillance sounds like something that will almost certainly be used dangerously by a future Republican President:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/National-Strategy-for-Countering-Domestic-Terrorism.pdf

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xp1337 posted...

Right, but given that he did it, you don't think there should be a counter-action?

I mean, the whole reason he made the calculations he did and continues to do is he doesn't anticipate any consequences for it. As is, he basically packed one-to-two seats. Expansion to 13 would be an action to restore the balance that would have existed had he not fucked it up. Doing nothing is letting him get away with it.

Ive never understood the argument that 13 would just be undoing what McConnell did. He unquestionably stole one seat, but not two; Trump filling Ginsbergs seat was a brazen act of hypocrisy, sure, but it was only a theft if you accept McConnells original logic that a president cant fill a seat in the last year of their term.

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Galaxy brain: Trump stole all three seats because he wasn't a legitimate president

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Ive never understood the argument that 13 would just be undoing what McConnell did. He unquestionably stole one seat, but not two; Trump filling Ginsbergs seat was a brazen act of hypocrisy, sure, but it was only a theft if you accept McConnells original logic that a president cant fill a seat in the last year of their term.

It can be both. Prior to filling Scalia's seat congress had never taken more than 125 days to vote on a nomination and they vastly exceeded that to refuse Obama a nomination. They let Garland's nomination linger for 293 days. Meanwhile RBG's spot was filled within 27 days, a mere 8 days before a presidential election.

If there is a point at which it is too close to an election to fill a seat, and if that range falls between 27 and 293 days then it can be viewed that two seats were stolen. One because the range as applied unfairly to Garland's nomination, and the second because the range was not considered at all with ACB's nomination.

If there is no consideration period at all, then a single seat was stolen as only Garland's nomination was handled incorrectly by applying the restriction.

If there is a consideration period, but it's larger than 293 days then a single single seat was stolen as only ACB's nomination was handled incorrectly by NOT applying the restriction.

But in between there is a very wide range of days in which both might have been handled wrong because the restriction was applied to a nomination that was too far out and then NOT applied to a nomination that was much too close.

But republican senators insist they did nothing wrong in EITHER case because they are full of shit. Logic dictates that at least one of the situations was handled incorrectly. There is no possible scenario in which both were handled right.

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Gorsuch was the only stolen seat. Barrett getting confirmed is the government operating properly.

Now we can talk all day long about how the entire process is dumb, sure, but its how its supposed to happen
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I think Mitch has already amended his position. It is now that if the President and Senate are controlled by the same party, they can do whatever they like. If they aren't, the Senate can refuse all of the President's nominations for any reason or no reason at all.

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TBH we need to escalate. Because we know Republicans are going to do it whether we do or not.

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Forceful_Dragon posted...

But in between there is a very wide range of days in which both might have been handled wrong because the restriction was applied to a nomination that was too far out and then NOT applied to a nomination that was much too close.

I guess this is logically consistent, but it would seem to be a pretty weak rationale to go as far as to court-pack as if both were stolen in response!

Forceful_Dragon posted...

But republican senators insist they did nothing wrong in EITHER case because they are full of shit. Logic dictates that at least one of the situations was handled incorrectly. There is no possible scenario in which both were handled right.

For sure

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And I agree.

But the 3 schools of thought are either:

1) There is a long range at the end of a presidents term that it is not appropriate to fill a seat.

2) There is a range, but it's not as long as was enforced in 2016

3) There is no range at all and any seat should be filled at any time.

I lean towards option 3 myself and believe only 1 seat was directly stolen by McConnel/Trump.

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Dancedreamer posted...

TBH we need to escalate. Because we know Republicans are going to do it whether we do or not.

This is flagerantly untrue. Democrats have demographics on their side which means they can attempt to bide until they have a stronger position of power. The last thing you want to do is to incite a stronger insurgency by shooting first.

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FWIW, despite their personal politics, Gorsuch and Barrett seem to be perfectly competent and qualified for the job.

Kavanaugh not so much
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I lean towards "we should do whatever will fuck over Republicans the most, because they have shown they'll do whatever fucks over everyone else the most".

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Not_an_Owl posted...

I lean towards "we should do whatever will fuck over Republicans the most, because they have shown they'll do whatever fucks over everyone else the most".

I honestly believe the best way to fuck over Republicans is to starve them out. Authoritarian anti-Republican measures don't have the popular support to be effective.

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masterplum posted...

This is flagerantly untrue. Democrats have demographics on their side which means they can attempt to bide until they have a stronger position of power. The last thing you want to do is to incite a stronger insurgency by shooting first.

Voter suppression means Republicans can just keep stacking the deck in their favor such that demographics don't matter. And in doing so, they're already shooting first.

Also this is completely ignoring the millions of people who will be terribly hurt by Republican policy in the years Democrats are waiting until magical demographics usher them into an unbreakable majority.

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Jakyl25 posted...

FWIW, despite their personal politics, Gorsuch and Barrett seem to be perfectly competent and qualified for the job.

Kavanaugh not so much

Really? I've read quite a bit about Kavanaugh and found him extremely qualified.

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Jakyl25 posted...

Now we can talk all day long about how the entire process is dumb, sure, but its how its supposed to happen

The issue here is that how it's "supposed" to happen is completely meaningless. This goes well beyond the process being dumb.

This is an aspect of government that is held together entirely by informal norms and propriety. If you can maneuver around those norms so that they benefit you with no consequences, then it's pointless to worry about what the rules say. They're useless. Kill them and fix the problem.

If there is no rule a dog can't play basketball you don't keep the dog grandfathered into the team after you write a new rulebook.

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Not_an_Owl posted...

Voter suppression means Republicans can just keep stacking the deck in their favor such that demographics don't matter. And in doing so, they're already shooting first.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-republican-push-to-restrict-voting-could-affect-our-elections/

There just isn't evidence right now that attempts at voter suppresion are going to actually supress the vote enough to matter. It's horrendous they are making an attempt of course, but it doesn't appear like that will actually work so far.

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a man who uses his calendars as diaries is not qualified for this job

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

a man who uses his calendars as diaries is not qualified for this job

What about someone who didn't keep a calendar or a diary?

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