US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

it's going to be bullshit 5-4's for a very long time. and that means that even if something like medicare for all becomes the law of the land, it could very well be temporary. it's important to vote this november, duh, and it would be helpful to help check the power of literally the dumbest person in the entire world, donald trump, but if left-leaning voters knew how fucked we are, many of them wouldn't bother voting.

― Karl Malone, Sunday, October 7, 2018 2:12 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like if a major legislative achievement with majority support like this was passed and then shut down by the court, it would provoke some kind of insane crisis. not that this isn't an insane crisis right now.

i think some governors would ignore the ruling and roll out the program in their states anyway. stuff like that.

We're right back where we were in 1935-1937.

That's kinda optimistic, Alfred. Wouldn't that be a better place to be than the decades that came before?

Living through the Great Depression was a better place?

A bunch of us were talking last night, including a lawyer friend (whose law prof originally spoke/testified in favor of Bart, despite being diametrically opposed politically). The best case scenario we imagined was that Bart's ego was/is so fragile that he won't go full burn-it-down a la Thomas, at least not at first. The worst case scenario is a future 6-3 conservative SC, which is definitely more possible than it should be.

Still going back to something I asked rhetorically of my friends and probably you folks as well after Trump was elected: aside from prohibition, have Americans ever had a right taken away from them or reversed? We've been slow to progress often, and there have been roadblocks and restrictions put up, but have we ever had an actual right reversed or negated?

black men's franchise, post-reconstruction south

Josh, I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Inherently-Unequal-Betrayal-Supreme-1865-1903/dp/0802778852

xp...which is a frightening analog to the present. the whole neoliberal age starting with reagan (or carter, really) has been about erasing gains from the 60s/70s. dismantling new/great society programs, limiting the power of the federal government to redress inequality, making the legal space for abortion as narrow as possible, etc.

In essence, a Stephen Field dissent in the Slaughterhouse Cases gave former railroad lawyers on the Court a novel way to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting due process only in federal cases while enthusiastically protecting something called "liberty of contract" between labor and management

I guess I was thinking more of the modern/contemporary Civil Rights and beyond era, but fair enough.

And just requested that book from the library, thanks.

A quick read.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of the Access Hollywood tape dropping.

xxp prop 8 and marriage rights in california

I was thinking more on the federal level.

but on the state level, I wonder what the effects of increasingly draconian laws in various states will be, economically, politically, culturally. for example, if Mississippi outright banned abortion, and the Supreme Court backed the state up. would people boycott Mississippi? Would people leave Mississippi? Would it galvanize people to vote out the elected officials in Mississippi? Would abortion-rights flip back and forth based on who's in charge of the state at any given time?

none of the post-casey whittling-away of real abortion rights has provoked any of that, beyond contributing to a general sense among the culturati that these are backwards/backwoods states they don't travel to

The flip side of that is, what are statistics on abortions in those states? Have numbers gone significantly down? Have accidental deaths gone up?

Wasn't there a legal decision just a day or two ago that reduced the number of clinics that provide abortions in Missouri to one?

Josh you can use any search engine to find all of that

can I? I just assumed those numbers were as prone to obfuscation and manipulation as gun numbers.

okay, quick Google about Missouri and as far as I can tell numbers have been declining precipitously for decades, which I think reflects national trends. So the last few reported years, at least that I could find, said something like 4500 or 5,000 a year. Somewhere in that ballpark. But of course those numbers can't reflect how many people wanted or needed abortions but couldn't for whatever reason. they also I think include people who came from out of state. So I don't know how accurate or useful the numbers are. Except that the number seems to be going down.

anyway, in terms of changing minds or shoring up support, those numbers are super important, especially numbers reflecting how many people were prohibited from getting abortions that needed them. or hurt because they couldn't get them.

NARAL's website is the definitive resource for information about how things stand for clinic access etc on a state by state basis.

https://www.prochoiceamerica.org/state/missouri/

A wee thing, but it was good to watch McConnell get owned by John Dickerson on basic SCOTUS history:

Testy exchange on @FaceTheNation as John Dickerson presses Mitch McConnell on his decision to block Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination in 2016 https://t.co/JXaP0vniZk pic.twitter.com/aChYVkAuCr

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 7, 2018

FACED

good god what a monster

amazing. mcconnell looks like tony soprano's mam.

I'd enjoy it more had mcconnell not already won.

Yeah. I mean...aw man, dude got totally pwned for not even knowing facts, so hilarious! Except...they can just present whatever skewed version of reality they want. They can just sit before the camera and literally just go 'ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba' and their support miiiiiiight take an infinitesimally tiny hit. It's important for us to maintain some rigor of truth, but I'm not sure that calling the GOP on obvious bullshit has any real-world effect whatsoever at this point. Kavanaugh's confirmation basically drove the last nail in the coffin Trump started fashioning a few years back.

But, knowing the true artisan craftsmanship that goes into everything Trump constructs...

mcconnell is completely, 100% wrong where Eisenhower was concerned. He's just....blowing past that? wtf. And his statement in defense is basically, 'well let's dig in and be partisan'? horseshit

He doesn’t care so ultimately it doesn’t matter. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to call these fucks on their lies, but when you sign off with “ok we’ll we disagree about history, thank you for your time” instead of “you’re absolutely wrong” then I don’t really see the point of it.

If Dickerson (or any Sunday morning show host) ever tells a liar to their face that they're lying, he'll be fired. Them's the rules.

we need to change the rules

It's only the rules in the middle and on the Left. We should mic cut liars 15 secs into the interview

It's important for us to maintain some rigor of truth, but I'm not sure that calling the GOP on obvious bullshit has any real-world effect whatsoever at this point.

Who's saying otherwise? I mixed a martini and watched him squirm. It was like watching my neighbor's car get towed for parking in a handicapped spot. She won't stop doing it.

welcome to the bright side, with your host, susan collins

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: "The one silver lining that I hope will come from this is that more women will press charges now, when they are assaulted," the Maine Republican tells @FaceTheNation https://t.co/R4zYPa9XoO

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) October 7, 2018

lol right.

nobody at this point should be giving her airtime

mitch mcconnell either

mitch mcconnell **ANNIHILATES** MSM liar Dickerson on history of Supreme Court nominations
42,202 shares, 95,230 likes

Cut. The. Mic. Stop demonstrating a level of decorum which these fucks openly disdain. It's like watching Charlie Brown with that football for the umpteenth time.

totally agree

Just an unceremonious quick cut back to the anchor with a 'and we welcome the senator back on our program once he's willing to discuss a position in lieu of rewriting reality'.

Or how about every time they start lying they switch the audio feed to somebody just going 'duh duh duh de duh doy duh duh de doy de duh'.

on Friday, Joel Kaplan spent the morning apologizing for a “thoughtless” appearance supporting kavanaugh in last weeks senate hearing.

by Saturday evening, the Kaplan’s were throwing the judge a victory party.https://t.co/lEtCCNZgtE

— rat king (@MikeIsaac) October 7, 2018

Does Collins believe what she's saying?
& do others believe her too still.
I'm just assuming that that is a transparent excuse which should mean her credibility is gone.
But is the right viewing her behaviour as just.
Would just think that the Kavanaugh vote was one of her most difficult decisions will say from now on that she made the wrong choice and will be viewed badly by history. But is that universal?

I can't see the alternative spin but I don't watch right wing news.

alternative spin is "histrionic media bullying, unsubstantiated last-minute accusations, Feinsteins opportunism, advantage taken of vulnerable mistaken woman (or democrat plant - depending on how far right you want to go), a circus cooked up to protect Roe Vs Wade).

Sure she believes what she's saying, why wouldn't she? and...credibility with who? She'll have done her maths, same as Murkowski and Manchin did

I mean I take it that what I would see as cognitive dissonance, cannot be seen as actually coherent from a different perspective that is itself coherent, can it? Particularly when coupled with the statement about a silver lining of more assault victims coming forward, which i think might be enough of a signal why not to go that way.

Hope The FBI are feeling a stigma connected to this so called investigation that itself questions their credibility.

yes i'm sure being asked to gin up a report to prop up the establishment has shaken the federal bureau of investigation to its very core