Nothing About the Supreme Court Is Democratic May 4, 2022 at 10:23 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 175 Comments
Mark Barabak: “The Supreme Court may be arguably the country’s most important branch of government…
The Supreme Court is also inarguably the least democratic of the three branches, and not just because its members enjoy lifetime tenure and never have to face voters.
“By the narrowest of margins, five justices appear ready to overlook nearly 50 years of precedent and reverse the court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide — a ruling, polls have consistently shown, is favored by a majority of Americans.
“Three of those justices were nominated by President Trump, who failed to win the popular vote.
"Each was then approved by a Senate that Republicans controlled, despite the fact the party has represented only a minority of the population for the past quarter-century.”
TIME FOR A RETURN TO DEMOCRACY, NOT A DICTATORIAL OLIGARCHY, AUTOCRACY, AND KLEPTOCRACY IN AMERICA.
Nothing About the Supreme Court Is Democratic May 4, 2022 at 10:23 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 175 Comments
Mark Barabak: “The Supreme Court may be arguably the country’s most important branch of government…
The Supreme Court is also inarguably the least democratic of the three branches, and not just because its members enjoy lifetime tenure and never have to face voters.
“By the narrowest of margins, five justices appear ready to overlook nearly 50 years of precedent and reverse the court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide — a ruling, polls have consistently shown, is favored by a majority of Americans.
“Three of those justices were nominated by President Trump, who failed to win the popular vote.
"Each was then approved by a Senate that Republicans controlled, despite the fact the party has represented only a minority of the population for the past quarter-century.”
TIME FOR A RETURN TO DEMOCRACY, NOT A DICTATORIAL OLIGARCHY, AUTOCRACY, AND KLEPTOCRACY IN AMERICA.
They are keenly watching Vladimir Putin’s public appearances for further signs of ill health, amid rumours attributed to a Kremlin insider that the Russian president is due to undergo surgery, possibly for cancer.
The rumours appear to have originated with the hugely popular Russian Telegram channel General SVR, which claimed that Mr Putin’s doctors have warned him the surgery might incapacitate him for “a short time”, and that during this period the president will briefly hand over the reins of power to an aide.
There has been no official confirmation regarding Mr Putin’s alleged ill health — the Kremlin has not commented on the reports, either to confirm or deny them — but recent videos and pictures showing him shaky, fidgeting and puffy-looking have fuelled speculation that the 69-year-old may be suffering from one of a number of conditions including dementia, Parkinson’s or cancer.
“Mr. Vance’s win will likely come as a disappointment to some Republicans who have been quietly hoping that Mr. Trump’s grip on the party is slipping. They see the midterms as an existential moment for the party. They are acutely aware that if the candidates he endorsed do well, the feeling of inevitability that he will be the party’s nominee in 2024 increases, annihilating any hope of reconstituting a political coalition around anything other than fealty to Mr. Trump…”
“Yet conservatives must be honest. At this time, there is no moving past Mr. Trump. He has remade the Republican Party in his image, and many Republican voters now crave his particular brand of combative politics.”
“In races across the country, Republicans who have won Mr. Trump’s endorsement mention it constantly. Even those who didn’t win his endorsement still mention him constantly. Mr. Trump might not have endorsed them, but they all endorse him.”
QAnon promoter who turned his lawn into a giant Trump sign wins Ohio primary
May 04, 2022
An Ohio man who turned his back yard into a tribute to former President Donald Trump has won a Republican congressional primary race.
J.R. Majewski, a Port Clinton Republican, will challenge Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a 40-year veteran lawmaker, in a congressional district redrawn by GOP legislators to lean slightly to the right after years of being staunchly Democratic, reported the Toledo Blade.
“What I have learned over the past year is that Ohioans are ready to start putting America First,” Majewski said in a statement. “Our grassroots movement across northwest Ohio intensified with every terrible mistake the Biden administration continued and still continues to make. I am more energized than ever to unite the Republican base.”
The 42-year-old Majewski, who defeated state Sen. Theresa Gavarone (R-Huron) and state Rep. Craig Riedel (R-Defiance), painted his lawn twice in 2020 to look like a huge Trump campaign sign and took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, "Stop the Steal" rally but says he did not go to the U.S. Capitol afterward, although he stops short now of saying the election was stolen.
Majewski wore a QAnon T-shirt during a Fox News interview and has used hashtags associated with the conspiracy theory, but he has later said he did not fully understand the right-wing movement and claims he has donated the shirt to the Salvation Army.
Kaptur's district had long been reliably Democratic, and the Ohio General Assembly had fused together Democratic strongholds in Toledo with the west side of Cleveland to form the so-called "Snake on the Lake," but the GOP legislature redrew her district to include more conservative counties to tip the district to the right.
Ms. Kaptur’s district until now had been staunchly Democratic. Following the 2010 census, the Ohio General Assembly redrew it to become even more so, connecting the bluest parts of metro Toledo with the west side of Cleveland as the so-called Snake on the Lake. In so doing, that district map combined the Democratic Party cores of Ms. Kaptur’s district with that of former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whom she then defeated in a primary in 2012.
Ms. Kaptur, now the longest-serving woman in Congress, faced no primary rival this time around, but she now is running for a district deemed by the political journal Politico to lean slightly to the right. More geographically compact than the Snake, it includes all of Williams, Fulton, Defiance, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Erie counties along with Lucas and northern Wood County.
The possibility of unseating the currently longest-serving woman in Congress drew more than $1 million in outside spending to the GOP primary race.
He won't win but the Republican Party is slipping into a culture wars game cult instead of conservative movement.
You guys used to agree with George W Bush but not anymore. It's really dangerous 😳
Ot but fun I remember on Mother's Day in about 1968?? when we got over two feet of snow overnight. We lived on 4104 Minnekahta drive . Four houses from Canyon Lake Drive. Our street got plowed clean because the Mayor of Rapid City at the time, lived at the corner of the two streets! We didn't have electricity for a few days.
My father Ivan measured the snow on the picnic table!
There are many kinds of actions to take in response to this likely overturning of a fundamental right to bodily self-determination and privacy. (And it’s bitterly amusing that a court that wants to set policies reaching into the uteruses of women across the country apparently feels violated by having its own internal workings exposed with this leaked draft opinion.) Direct support for the poor and unfree women who will be the most affected is already under way – and by unfree I mean those who are under the domination of a hostile partner, family, church or community. People have organized to offer travel to clinics for those far from them, access to abortion pills, and other forms of support. But by backlash I mean and am hoping for the kind of backlash Trump’s election and subsequent outrages provoked, the 2018 election that swept the Squad and many other progressives into office and took back the House of Representatives. A Democratic majority in both houses could make abortion a right by law, and it’s worth remembering that Mexico, Ireland and Argentina are among the countries that recently did so.
Advertisement
Wearing shoes inside thehouse is gross – and there’s science to back that up | Tayo Bero
What is striking this time around in the US both about the rightwing agenda and the response is that it is broad enough to build powerful coalitions. The human rights activism of the 1990s was siloed: though the same voters and politicians might support LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights and racial justice, largely separate campaigns were built around each of them, and the common denominators were seldom articulated.
This time around – well, as I wrote when the news broke: “First they came for the reproductive rights (Roe v Wade, 1973) and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a uterus in its ovulatory years, because then they want to come for the marriage rights of same-sex couples (Obergefell v Hodges, 2015), and then the rights of consenting adults of the same gender to have sex with each other (Lawrence v Texas, 2003), and then for the right to birth control (Griswold v Connecticut, 1965). It doesn’t really matter if they’re coming for you, because they’re coming for us.”
“Us” these days means pretty much everyone who’s not a straight white Christian man with rightwing politics. They’re building a broad constituency of opposition, and it is up to us to make that their fatal mistake.
Advertisement
It’s all connected. If Texas wasn’t suppressing voting rights so effectively, rightwing politicians might not be running the state. If non-Republican turnout can overcome the restrictions, Texas itself – now leading the attacks on abortion rights and trans rights – could elect Beto O’Rourke governor in November and turn Texas Democratic. O’Rourke tweeted today: “If they want states to decide, then we must elect a governor who will protect a woman’s right to abortion.”
The right knows that it represents a minority and a shrinking minority as Americans as a whole become more progressive and as the country becomes increasingly non-white. They have made a desperate gamble – to rule via minority power, for the benefit of the few, which is why voter suppression is so crucial a part of their agenda. It cannot be a winning strategy in the long run. But in the short run it can perpetrate immense damage to too many lives and to the climate itself. The revelations should strengthen our resolve to resist by remembering our power and strengthening our alliances, winning elections, and keeping eyes on the prize.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
The right knows that it represents a minority and a shrinking minority as Americans as a whole become more progressive and as the country becomes increasingly non-white. They have made a desperate gamble – to rule via minority power, for the benefit of the few, which is why voter suppression is so crucial a part of their agenda.
She's full of shit peddling the same tired & boring old leftist tropes which indicate she never ventures too far from her insulated and isolated perch.
A reliable contributor to all of the fashionable smug elite outlets:
http://rebeccasolnit.net/reviews/
Drop her off on a street corner outside of Wichita and she's basically fucked.
12 comments:
Nothing About the Supreme Court Is Democratic
May 4, 2022 at 10:23 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 175 Comments
Mark Barabak:
“The Supreme Court may be arguably the country’s most important branch of government…
The Supreme Court is also inarguably the least democratic of the three branches, and not just because its members enjoy lifetime tenure and never have to face voters.
“By the narrowest of margins, five justices appear ready to overlook nearly 50 years of precedent and reverse the court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide — a ruling, polls have consistently shown, is favored by a majority of Americans.
“Three of those justices were nominated by President Trump, who failed to win the popular vote.
"Each was then approved by a Senate that Republicans controlled,
despite the fact the party has represented only a minority of the population for the past quarter-century.”
TIME FOR A RETURN TO DEMOCRACY, NOT
A DICTATORIAL
OLIGARCHY,
AUTOCRACY,
AND
KLEPTOCRACY
IN AMERICA.
Nothing About the Supreme Court Is Democratic
May 4, 2022 at 10:23 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 175 Comments
Mark Barabak:
“The Supreme Court may be arguably the country’s most important branch of government…
The Supreme Court is also inarguably the least democratic of the three branches, and not just because its members enjoy lifetime tenure and never have to face voters.
“By the narrowest of margins, five justices appear ready to overlook nearly 50 years of precedent and reverse the court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide — a ruling, polls have consistently shown, is favored by a majority of Americans.
“Three of those justices were nominated by President Trump, who failed to win the popular vote.
"Each was then approved by a Senate that Republicans controlled,
despite the fact the party has represented only a minority of the population for the past quarter-century.”
TIME FOR A RETURN TO DEMOCRACY, NOT
A DICTATORIAL
OLIGARCHY,
AUTOCRACY,
AND
KLEPTOCRACY
IN AMERICA.
Trump endorsed candidates went 22-0.
Hence the hysterical left's burning desire to disqualify him in 2024.
Heh.
Ot but
They are keenly watching Vladimir Putin’s public appearances for further signs of ill health, amid rumours attributed to a Kremlin insider that the Russian president is due to undergo surgery, possibly for cancer.
The rumours appear to have originated with the hugely popular Russian Telegram channel General SVR, which claimed that Mr Putin’s doctors have warned him the surgery might incapacitate him for “a short time”, and that during this period the president will briefly hand over the reins of power to an aide.
There has been no official confirmation regarding Mr Putin’s alleged ill health — the Kremlin has not commented on the reports, either to confirm or deny them — but recent videos and pictures showing him shaky, fidgeting and puffy-looking have fuelled speculation that the 69-year-old may be suffering from one of a number of conditions including dementia, Parkinson’s or cancer.
Parkinson would explain his irrational invasion
King Donald is back.
“Mr. Vance’s win will likely come as a disappointment to some Republicans who have been quietly hoping that Mr. Trump’s grip on the party is slipping. They see the midterms as an existential moment for the party. They are acutely aware that if the candidates he endorsed do well, the feeling of inevitability that he will be the party’s nominee in 2024 increases, annihilating any hope of reconstituting a political coalition around anything other than fealty to Mr. Trump…”
“Yet conservatives must be honest. At this time, there is no moving past Mr. Trump. He has remade the Republican Party in his image, and many Republican voters now crave his particular brand of combative politics.”
“In races across the country, Republicans who have won Mr. Trump’s endorsement mention it constantly. Even those who didn’t win his endorsement still mention him constantly. Mr. Trump might not have endorsed them, but they all endorse him.”
The slow motion coup is back 🙌
His grip on the party is even worse than before.
QAnon promoter who turned his lawn into a giant Trump sign wins Ohio primary
May 04, 2022
An Ohio man who turned his back yard into a tribute to former President Donald Trump has won a Republican congressional primary race.
J.R. Majewski, a Port Clinton Republican, will challenge Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a 40-year veteran lawmaker, in a congressional district redrawn by GOP legislators to lean slightly to the right after years of being staunchly Democratic, reported the Toledo Blade.
“What I have learned over the past year is that Ohioans are ready to start putting America First,” Majewski said in a statement. “Our grassroots movement across northwest Ohio intensified with every terrible mistake the Biden administration continued and still continues to make. I am more energized than ever to unite the Republican base.”
The 42-year-old Majewski, who defeated state Sen. Theresa Gavarone (R-Huron) and state Rep. Craig Riedel (R-Defiance), painted his lawn twice in 2020 to look like a huge Trump campaign sign and took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, "Stop the Steal" rally but says he did not go to the U.S. Capitol afterward, although he stops short now of saying the election was stolen.
Majewski wore a QAnon T-shirt during a Fox News interview and has used hashtags associated with the conspiracy theory, but he has later said he did not fully understand the right-wing movement and claims he has donated the shirt to the Salvation Army.
Kaptur's district had long been reliably Democratic, and the Ohio General Assembly had fused together Democratic strongholds in Toledo with the west side of Cleveland to form the so-called "Snake on the Lake," but the GOP legislature redrew her district to include more conservative counties to tip the district to the right.
Ms. Kaptur’s district until now had been staunchly Democratic. Following the 2010 census, the Ohio General Assembly redrew it to become even more so, connecting the bluest parts of metro Toledo with the west side of Cleveland as the so-called Snake on the Lake. In so doing, that district map combined the Democratic Party cores of Ms. Kaptur’s district with that of former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whom she then defeated in a primary in 2012.
Ms. Kaptur, now the longest-serving woman in Congress, faced no primary rival this time around, but she now is running for a district deemed by the political journal Politico to lean slightly to the right. More geographically compact than the Snake, it includes all of Williams, Fulton, Defiance, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Erie counties along with Lucas and northern Wood County.
The possibility of unseating the currently longest-serving woman in Congress drew more than $1 million in outside spending to the GOP primary race.
He won't win but the Republican Party is slipping into a culture wars game cult instead of conservative movement.
You guys used to agree with George W Bush but not anymore. It's really dangerous 😳
Ot but fun
I remember on Mother's Day in about 1968?? when we got over two feet of snow overnight. We lived on 4104 Minnekahta drive . Four houses from Canyon Lake Drive. Our street got plowed clean because the Mayor of Rapid City at the time, lived at the corner of the two streets! We didn't have electricity for a few days.
My father Ivan measured the snow on the picnic table!
rrb said...
Trump endorsed candidates went 22-0.
Hence the hysterical left's burning desire to disqualify him in 2024.
Heh.
And his surging Hispanic support looks to serve him well.
Especially since other than the "Latinax" crowd they overwhelmingly oppose abortion.
Wonder what that will do...
Along with inflation and all the host of Biden crises
a fucking disaster for Americans but an existential threat to the entire democrat party
if America can survive the next few years
There are many kinds of actions to take in response to this likely overturning of a fundamental right to bodily self-determination and privacy. (And it’s bitterly amusing that a court that wants to set policies reaching into the uteruses of women across the country apparently feels violated by having its own internal workings exposed with this leaked draft opinion.) Direct support for the poor and unfree women who will be the most affected is already under way – and by unfree I mean those who are under the domination of a hostile partner, family, church or community. People have organized to offer travel to clinics for those far from them, access to abortion pills, and other forms of support. But by backlash I mean and am hoping for the kind of backlash Trump’s election and subsequent outrages provoked, the 2018 election that swept the Squad and many other progressives into office and took back the House of Representatives. A Democratic majority in both houses could make abortion a right by law, and it’s worth remembering that Mexico, Ireland and Argentina are among the countries that recently did so.
Advertisement
Wearing shoes inside thehouse is gross – and there’s science to back that up | Tayo Bero
What is striking this time around in the US both about the rightwing agenda and the response is that it is broad enough to build powerful coalitions. The human rights activism of the 1990s was siloed: though the same voters and politicians might support LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights and racial justice, largely separate campaigns were built around each of them, and the common denominators were seldom articulated.
This time around – well, as I wrote when the news broke: “First they came for the reproductive rights (Roe v Wade, 1973) and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a uterus in its ovulatory years, because then they want to come for the marriage rights of same-sex couples (Obergefell v Hodges, 2015), and then the rights of consenting adults of the same gender to have sex with each other (Lawrence v Texas, 2003), and then for the right to birth control (Griswold v Connecticut, 1965). It doesn’t really matter if they’re coming for you, because they’re coming for us.”
“Us” these days means pretty much everyone who’s not a straight white Christian man with rightwing politics. They’re building a broad constituency of opposition, and it is up to us to make that their fatal mistake.
Advertisement
It’s all connected. If Texas wasn’t suppressing voting rights so effectively, rightwing politicians might not be running the state. If non-Republican turnout can overcome the restrictions, Texas itself – now leading the attacks on abortion rights and trans rights – could elect Beto O’Rourke governor in November and turn Texas Democratic. O’Rourke tweeted today: “If they want states to decide, then we must elect a governor who will protect a woman’s right to abortion.”
The right knows that it represents a minority and a shrinking minority as Americans as a whole become more progressive and as the country becomes increasingly non-white. They have made a desperate gamble – to rule via minority power, for the benefit of the few, which is why voter suppression is so crucial a part of their agenda. It cannot be a winning strategy in the long run. But in the short run it can perpetrate immense damage to too many lives and to the climate itself. The revelations should strengthen our resolve to resist by remembering our power and strengthening our alliances, winning elections, and keeping eyes on the prize.
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
She is absolutely correct about this
The right knows that it represents a minority and a shrinking minority as Americans as a whole become more progressive and as the country becomes increasingly non-white. They have made a desperate gamble – to rule via minority power, for the benefit of the few, which is why voter suppression is so crucial a part of their agenda.
Hey Alky, we’re 20 years past when you last claimed the R’s would be wandering in the desert for 40 years
Blogger The Real Halfbaked Soars Pundit said...
She is absolutely correct about this
She's full of shit peddling the same tired & boring old leftist tropes which indicate she never ventures too far from her insulated and isolated perch.
A reliable contributor to all of the fashionable smug elite outlets:
http://rebeccasolnit.net/reviews/
Drop her off on a street corner outside of Wichita and she's basically fucked.
But she has all the "right" bona fides, eh alky?
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