I've just been on a short family holiday. Fair to say that the airports are extremely crowded. Security and Border control were working ok, but there were big queues at check in. I had to queue for half an hour to buy some food in the departures area at Gatwick and there was nowhere at all to sit, presumably people are arriving at the airport 3-4 hours before their flight. The baggage arrivals at Heathrow T2 was particularly mad, tens of thousands of suitcases just piled up all over the place on the floor. Same story pretty much at our destination. It's four hours of misery at the airport each side of the trip. No mask rules which was a bit of a relief, though.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
How many of those have switched from saying it wouldn't happen to defending it ?
Can we all at least agree that the key thing this SCOTUS shambles shows is that the US Constitution is a badly written disgrace that would be unfit to run a kleptocratic dictatorship?
Of its time, no. Except for the massive flaw in the difficulty of amending it.
As the number of States has increased, so has the difficulty of amending the Constitution.
It’s difficult to know if this is accidental or deliberate, as the framers were advocates of a smaller federal structure and more powers residing with the States themselves.
What has been noticable, until now, was the unwillingness of the politicians to even suggest amendments, or to pass legislation backing up SC judgements. Perhaps we will start to see this from Democrats, as the court is likely to disagree with their opinions of contentious issues.
Oh, and if you’re Stephen Breyer (aged 83), Sonia Sotomayor (68) or Elena Kagan (62), you’ve got six months to resign and see your successor appointed by Biden and a Democrat Senate. Don’t “Do an RBG”.
Weirdly, the 26th amendment (lowering the voting age to 18) was ratified by the states in four months back in 1971. Near the height of the Vietnam War turmoil, under the Nixon administration. So, it's possible, in theoty.
See my post above, on the almost contemporaneous Equal Rights Amendment. (Which Nixon supported.)
I also overhead a woman recall how, last year, she spend £20,000 on a cruise around Norway and spent almost the entire time in enforced isolation in a COVID quarantine hotel. No compensation or refund offered. What unbelievable times they were.
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
Yup. Morbidly obese.
He's not going to be on the front lines. He's not going to be on the second lines. Would need half a battalions water rations by himself. And the BO...
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Alluding back to my earlier post comparing Boris with Tony Blair and their transactional relationship with their parties, this also applies to President Trump (and here we can ignore his other similarities to our Prime Minister). Trump was never a Republican true believer. His value to Republicans, and their value to Trump, lay solely in offering a path to power. They did not share each other's values. Trump even complained that although he had delivered his half of the deal in appointing SCOTUS Justices and also VP Mike Pence, he was not getting the support in return that he felt was his due. Trump has also just called out overturning Roe vs Wade as a mistake.
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Further, since we've all lived through a period where unimaginable restrictions - on our seeing family and friends, on travel, on our leaving our own home - were imposed on us, we shouldn't expect that the world as it is will always sail on with only gradual change. Sometimes situations can develop quickly.
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Alluding back to my earlier post comparing Boris with Tony Blair and their transactional relationship with their parties, this also applies to President Trump (and here we can ignore his other similarities to our Prime Minister). Trump was never a Republican true believer. His value to Republicans, and their value to Trump, lay solely in offering a path to power. They did not share each other's values. Trump even complained that although he had delivered his half of the deal in appointing SCOTUS Justices and also VP Mike Pence, he was not getting the support in return that he felt was his due. Trump has also just called out overturning Roe vs Wade as a mistake.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
I also overhead a woman recall how, last year, she spend £20,000 on a cruise around Norway and spent almost the entire time in enforced isolation in a COVID quarantine hotel. No compensation or refund offered. What unbelievable times they were.
One feels sorry for her spoiled holiday but at the same time, did she book without reading a newspaper?
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
Given a sufficient popular opinion skew (say 60/40 anti-conservative) you could also pack the court. Just adding liberal justices probably wouldn't fix it, because the next GOP trifecta would add more conservatives and you'd end up with like 8 million judges. But what you could do would be to make a process to empower the Senate moderates - for instance, appoint judges in groups of 3, and each senator only gets to vote for 1. Done right that would probably stick, because a permanent blocking minority would want it to stick.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
'Over the top' would also describe the lengths gone to in some states to interfere with the autonomy of pregnant women. It's not inherently ridiculous to speculate on how far those efforts might now extend, given the change in the law just enacted by the Supreme Court.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
And don't forget the horrendous decisions in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (which basically eliminated spending limits on US elections) and the disgraceful Shelby County-v-Holder decision in respect of the Voting Rights Act. The Court has fundamentally failed in its role in sustaining US democracy and shown no regard to the adverse effects of big money, gerrymandering and voter suppression. It is a disgrace.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
Can we all at least agree that the key thing this SCOTUS shambles shows is that the US Constitution is a badly written disgrace that would be unfit to run a kleptocratic dictatorship?
Perhaps an unwritten constitution is better ... (*)
Okay, so I jest. But written constitutions that can only be altered with extreme difficulty (as in the US at the moment) are not fit for purpose, and probably become less fit for purpose over time.
(*) Sorry, Ishmael. I know you don't like smileys, but that's your issue. Deal with it.
Yes - that is the problem. The Framers believed in a Living Constitution. By this they meant continuously revised and amended, not continuously re-read to torture new meanings out of it.
As a side note, the French assembly is pushing to put through an amendment their their constitution protecting the right to abortion. This is not just virtue signalling - the Loony Right (which is generally anti-abortion, though Le Pen claimed that she no longer was anti…) could get to the level that they could block such a change, in the near future.
It’s that kind of behaviour that undermines constitutions.
My opponents are winning the argument. Therefore I will change the rule book to make sure that they have to do what I want anyway.
I kind of agree that specifically writing into a constitution the narrow right to an abortion is probably not a great idea. In the American context, it simply shifts the target from the court to the Constitution. Another grievance that fuels the GOP for generations and generations. The damage they could while trying to get at that particular devil is catastrophic.
However, a constitutional amendment guaranteeing bodily autonomy, encompassing the rights articulated in Roe, Obergefell, Griswald and Lawrence seems the better way to me. Although, the danger is, as we've seen, the Court might simply ignore the scope of the amendment and expand their existing argument into the 28th (?) amendment that bodily autonomy does not include things they personally do not like. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments had huge holes blasted through them by the Court in the decades following the Civil War.
Regardless, something broader is better, not only because a narrow amendment places a target on the constitution but a narrow right to an abortion plays right into the Conservative majority's hands. It affirms their jurisprudence that unenumerated rights are lessor and, unless they are expressly articulated, can be changed at the whim of the court. If there is written a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion, there needs to be one guaranteeing contraception, marriage equality etc. All rights would need to be enumerated, and a narrow amendment would place at risk any unenumerated right (I find it funny that the so-called originalists seem to regard the 9th Amendment as an accident).
That said, after much words and many pixels spent, the whole thing is academic. The Constitution will likely never be amended on this kind of scale ever again.
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
Most CLPs do not have much in the way of campaigning funds. It's beg for money time when a general election is on the horizon. Unions being the bulk of funds available.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
If it becomes illegal to travel out of state for an abortion then the state has extended its jurisdiction into states where abortion is in theory legal to make it illegal for some women to have an abortion there. It would be the exact parallel to Dred Scott, which meant that slaves who escaped to free states were still slaves, ie extending slavery to the free states. It doesn't matter what excuse a woman may find to travel, if prosecutors find evidence that she had an abortion that would stand up in court then she faces a murder charge.
Can we all at least agree that the key thing this SCOTUS shambles shows is that the US Constitution is a badly written disgrace that would be unfit to run a kleptocratic dictatorship?
One angle US democrats could go for to solve the court issue in the long run - codify a law to overturn Madison as.... the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly define the power of judicial review. (Obviously alongside passing a tonne of laws codifying gay marriage, abortion rights, banning guns and so on and so forth) Mind you they'd need the trifecta and then some* to achieve that - which looks to me to be tricky for the Dems any time soon.
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
'Over the top' would also describe the lengths gone to in some states to interfere with the autonomy of pregnant women. It's not inherently ridiculous to speculate on how far those efforts might now extend, given the change in the law just enacted by the Supreme Court.
As previously posted, as well as data recorded by partisans, there is also the danger of self-reported data uploaded to the cloud by health-tracking apps as well as search history and location data recorded and stored by Big Tech. For instance https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/24/big_tech_post_roe_wade/?td=rt-3a
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
How many of those have switched from saying it wouldn't happen to defending it ?
The stuff going on in America is just the product of extreme polarisation and best understood that way. Both sides (left and right) are extremely misguided and pursue insane policies and they goad each other in to more and more stupid policies. It is really a question of which dystopia is more benign, and for me at least it is a very difficult one to answer.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
Yes, and she had done the same thing against Obama. She and her campaign team made the same mistake twice; they might as well have been Republican plants.
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
Importantly, though as a yellow it pains me to say, I think the Lib Dems need to avoid trying to carve out too distinctive an identity or message at the next election. They need to be simply a sensible, friendly faced alternative to the Tories in places where Labour doesn’t have a chance of winning. For his part Starmer needs to avoid scaring potential LD voters in the South.
A Lib Dem vote next time won’t be a vote for “none of the above”, it will be a vote to eject Boris, so the campaigning needs to align with this.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Democracy, once in place, however rudimentary, can only be sorted by voters.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
Might find the Tories have to campaign in Hampshire next time; remember Romsey!
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
Yup. Morbidly obese.
He's not going to be on the front lines. He's not going to be on the second lines. Would need half a battalions water rations by himself. And the BO...
On the upside - standing behind the general would really be a place of safety.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
The real driver of tactical voting won't be the attitudes or organisational capability of Labour and LibDem HQ nor what their activists get up to on the ground - the real driver of tactical voting is the extent to which voters dislike the Tories so much that they are motivated to vote tactically. From the perspective of someone like our HY that's the strongest argument for removing the lying buffoon from Downing Street.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
Zion National park is pretty stunning. Can't say for the rest of the state though.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
It's got the Slickrock trail at Moab! The MTB equivalent of the Kaaba in Mecca. I did it just under 2h 40m when I was in my 30s despite crashing my fucking brains out twice.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
Easy to say as a man from afar. Can only imagine how women and minorities feel in these states.
I don't know what is more chilling, seeing people's rights being removed like this, or the people lining up to say it's no big deal. It really is a big deal, these fanatics are on a roll and they won't stop until they are stopped.
Can we all at least agree that the key thing this SCOTUS shambles shows is that the US Constitution is a badly written disgrace that would be unfit to run a kleptocratic dictatorship?
Perhaps an unwritten constitution is better ... (*)
Okay, so I jest. But written constitutions that can only be altered with extreme difficulty (as in the US at the moment) are not fit for purpose, and probably become less fit for purpose over time.
(*) Sorry, Ishmael. I know you don't like smileys, but that's your issue. Deal with it.
Feels like being hard to alter is necessary to prevent constant tinkering and losing the point of a core document in the first place, but when it is functionally impossible in modern times it's less constitutional document than holy writ, with high priests, aka Justices, responsible for re-interpreting it as convenient.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
I've always thought that. The idea that more Hilary meant more votes for Hilary was always problematic. She was in danger of reminding people why they really didn't like her, even when the alternative was Donald Trump.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
Arguably, Hillary should have sent Bill and perhaps even Chelsea to the Rust Belt if it was somehow vital she herself stayed in California.
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
Yup. Morbidly obese.
He's not going to be on the front lines. He's not going to be on the second lines. Would need half a battalions water rations by himself. And the BO...
On the upside - standing behind the general would really be a place of safety.
For everything short of a tactical nuke, I would have thought.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
Hampshire's a swing state now, though. Tories campaigning in Mansfield or Thurrock perhaps.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
Yes, and she had done the same thing against Obama. She and her campaign team made the same mistake twice; they might as well have been Republican plants.
Maybe she thought she couldn't win, so at least she should make sure of the popular vote so that useful idiots could use it to discredit Trump's presidency.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
Importantly, though as a yellow it pains me to say, I think the Lib Dems need to avoid trying to carve out too distinctive an identity or message at the next election. They need to be simply a sensible, friendly faced alternative to the Tories in places where Labour doesn’t have a chance of winning. For his part Starmer needs to avoid scaring potential LD voters in the South.
A Lib Dem vote next time won’t be a vote for “none of the above”, it will be a vote to eject Boris, so the campaigning needs to align with this.
I dont know why that pains you to say. Trying to avoid specifics or a clear identity in policy terms has historically been quite successful and helped several people become PM even, if various pocket bios of PMs are to be believed.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
I've always thought that. The idea that more Hilary meant more votes for Hilary was always problematic. She was in danger of reminding people why they really didn't like her, even when the alternative was Donald Trump.
You mean that describing a group of voters as “A basket of deplorables” half-way through the campaign, wasn’t the best way to attract them to vote for her, and definitely wouldn’t lead to the opposing campaign printing up t-shirts saying “Proud to be Deplorable” and “Deplorable Lives Matter”?
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
Hampshire's a swing state now, though. Tories campaigning in Mansfield or Thurrock perhaps.
I worked in Thurrock for quite a few years; I could never understand why it switched. Although there is a big new housing estate at the western end. Met a couple of the MPs too; preferred the Labour ones as people.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
Been to the Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah. Full of stars, a great leveller as nobody gets to pull rank. We kept Michael Stipe stood on the stairs 40 minutes at a restaurant until we had finished our meal, no hassle from staff to get out early.
We also had remarkable dumps of a couple of feet of champagne powder each night. (No, not specially imported from Colombia...) We also stayed at Robert Redford's resort there. Wife went skiing, I went birdwatching.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
Zion National park is pretty stunning. Can't say for the rest of the state though.
It's got almost all of the greatest hits of the Western deserts. Arches national park, Monument Valley, Zion, Bryce Canyon etc etc. Plus ski resorts and a huge salt lake.
I had an enjoyable few days pottering around Utah in a hire car a few years ago after spending a week on business in Provo.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
I've always thought that. The idea that more Hilary meant more votes for Hilary was always problematic. She was in danger of reminding people why they really didn't like her, even when the alternative was Donald Trump.
You mean that describing a group of voters as “A basket of deplorables” half-way through the campaign, wasn’t the best way to attract them to vote for her, and definitely wouldn’t lead to the opposing campaign printing up t-shirts saying “Proud to be Deplorable” and “Deplorable Lives Matter”?
Yes, that sort of thing. She had none of Bill's charm even if she was less sexually incontinent.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Democracy, once in place, however rudimentary, can only be sorted by voters.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
There are states rights they like and states rights they dont like.
You can hardly trust the people on a matter as important as your own personal shooty toy.
Just seen a photo of this new Russian general Putin has turned to and I agree with @malcolmg - there is no way somebody that obese weighs just 20 stone. 40 would be more like it.
Neither seem an exact match for the (faded?) example shown.
It might make sense that both armies have very similar headgear for a similar role, given their recent combined histories.
The story is obvious crap though. The guy in the image has no medals, there are civilians in the background, rather than other soldiers. They are clearly not a general. Someone has found a photo of a fat guy in fatigues, made a joke, and then too many people have wanted to believe. It reflects poorly on their relationship with reality and ability to detect bullshit.
A reverse image search finds the earliest reference for the photo as a thread on Reddit, and they're not a general at that stage. Reddit feels like a likely starting point.
Feels like being hard to alter is necessary to prevent constant tinkering and losing the point of a core document in the first place, but when it is functionally impossible in modern times it's less constitutional document than holy writ, with high priests, aka Justices, responsible for re-interpreting it as convenient.
I think "effectively unmodifiable" isn't great, but it's just one thing that ties into all the other problems with the US system. With a fair number of the recent controversial SC rulings they've effectively said not "must always be like this" but "Congress should pass a constitutional law to achieve the effect they want" -- if Congress was a functional institution rather than one that required 60 senate votes to pass anything and mostly just deadlocked, then SC rulings would often have less power. They're so massive partly because right now the judiciary is one of the few bits of their governmental system that can get things done...
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
I've always thought that. The idea that more Hilary meant more votes for Hilary was always problematic. She was in danger of reminding people why they really didn't like her, even when the alternative was Donald Trump.
You mean that describing a group of voters as “A basket of deplorables” half-way through the campaign, wasn’t the best way to attract them to vote for her, and definitely wouldn’t lead to the opposing campaign printing up t-shirts saying “Proud to be Deplorable” and “Deplorable Lives Matter”?
Yes, that sort of thing. She had none of Bill's charm even if she was less sexually incontinent.
He might not have played away if she had been more like him!
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
Even without a deep knowledge of the constitution it seems weird that is even being threatened and needs defending. One would think the whole point of having power to do what you want on an issue in your state is that other states cannot control your actions vis the backdoor.
But as rochdale suggests it will surely be tested. The fervour of the winners has to find a new challenge.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
Zion National park is pretty stunning. Can't say for the rest of the state though.
It's got almost all of the greatest hits of the Western deserts. Arches national park, Monument Valley, Zion, Bryce Canyon etc etc. Plus ski resorts and a huge salt lake.
I had an enjoyable few days pottering around Utah in a hire car a few years ago after spending a week on business in Provo.
I’ve been to Utah. Had a great time. I’ve been to New York. Also had a great time. I am unclear why people in Utah should get massively more representation in the Senate than people in New York. I am unclear why Utah Senators should get to be part of a scheme to invent rules so that they can stuff the Supreme Court.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
Can you not see that the 'generalisation' you are supporting is a lazy stereotype of the worst kind?
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
Yes, and she had done the same thing against Obama. She and her campaign team made the same mistake twice; they might as well have been Republican plants.
Maybe she thought she couldn't win, so at least she should make sure of the popular vote so that useful idiots could use it to discredit Trump's presidency.
There is no evidence for that, and there is evidence for the proposition it was a mistake.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
And Kavanaugh said he considered Roe to be settled law. In other words, you can't trust a word that comes out of his mouth.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
I've always thought that. The idea that more Hilary meant more votes for Hilary was always problematic. She was in danger of reminding people why they really didn't like her, even when the alternative was Donald Trump.
You mean that describing a group of voters as “A basket of deplorables” half-way through the campaign, wasn’t the best way to attract them to vote for her, and definitely wouldn’t lead to the opposing campaign printing up t-shirts saying “Proud to be Deplorable” and “Deplorable Lives Matter”?
Yes, that sort of thing. She had none of Bill's charm even if she was less sexually incontinent.
He might not have played away if she had been more like him!
Tut-tut. 'Man is unfaithful; it must be the woman's fault.'
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
And yet crossing State lines to commit an offence is a pretty fundamental concept in US Federal law, specifically in cases involving minors. I wouldn't be so confident.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights.
AIUI in the 1860s the driver was absolutely slavery -- the various declarations of succession are crystal clear about why they were breaking from the Union. "state's rights" were just a handy tactic to use in defence of the fundamental issue they cared about.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
The other problem with using the popular vote in the US context is that the elections are administered by the states, so if you're using the popular vote, many of the votes that matter are being counted by states that are heavily controlled by one party. Governors/legislatures/courts in swing states also try to put their thumbs on the scale, but since by definition their voters are fairly evenly divided, they usually don't have totally partisan courts, and the governors and legislatures are often controlled by different parties which limits the scope of the shenanigans.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
That's wrong, Roberts did not join with the majority opinion to overturn Roe & Casey.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
For every Zuckerberg there are Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and numerous other right wing billionaires throwing millions of dollars into the GOP side. By all means fight for campaign finance reform but do not expect Republican support, and even if it were to pass, there would still be financial support of the many right-wing "independent" think tanks.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the alternative is them being completely ignored.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
But Clinton did "campaign in a different way" and that is why she lost. It was the second time she and her team made this mistake of concentrating on piling up votes in safe states, as it is also why she had previously lost the nomination to Barack Obama. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Didn’t she spend half of the last week in California shmoozing donors, rather than in swing states getting out the vote?
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
TBF schmoozing donors in California isn't campaigning in California, it's raising money for ads to run in swing states. She made (with hindsight) a serious mistake in believing most of the polling and not spending time in Wisconsin and Michigan, but she spent loads of time in PA and lost that anyway, so even if she hadn't made that mistake she'd still have lost.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
I've always thought that. The idea that more Hilary meant more votes for Hilary was always problematic. She was in danger of reminding people why they really didn't like her, even when the alternative was Donald Trump.
You mean that describing a group of voters as “A basket of deplorables” half-way through the campaign, wasn’t the best way to attract them to vote for her, and definitely wouldn’t lead to the opposing campaign printing up t-shirts saying “Proud to be Deplorable” and “Deplorable Lives Matter”?
Yes, that sort of thing. She had none of Bill's charm even if she was less sexually incontinent.
He might not have played away if she had been more like him!
Seems improbable. Someone inclined to betray their spouse by using their charm and power to sleep around is unlikely i think to decide not to do so because their spouse shares that inclination.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
Indeed. It's a pretence, nothing more, even if they believe otherwise. Actions are more revealing than words.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Democracy, once in place, however rudimentary, can only be sorted by voters.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
There are states rights they like and states rights they dont like.
You can hardly trust the people on a matter as important as your own personal shooty toy.
Not much left if you can't trust the people and can't trust the courts.
The UK seems to manage gun control reasonably well without the courts getting very involved.
But if in truth the USA wants a gun ridden culture and the demos wants it, that's the way it is. I hope for better things, but democracy is what it is.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Democracy, once in place, however rudimentary, can only be sorted by voters.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
There are states rights they like and states rights they dont like.
You can hardly trust the people on a matter as important as your own personal shooty toy.
Not much left if you can't trust the people and can't trust the courts.
The UK seems to manage gun control reasonably well without the courts getting very involved.
But if in truth the USA wants a gun ridden culture and the demos wants it, that's the way it is. I hope for better things, but democracy is what it is.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
The same argument existed in 1790 with a white male Virginian having 1/10th the power of a Delawarean white male senate elector.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
Dred Scott was also motivated by States' rights arguments. American Southern Conservatives have always been rather flexible in their interpretation of this concept.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
Zion National park is pretty stunning. Can't say for the rest of the state though.
It's got almost all of the greatest hits of the Western deserts. Arches national park, Monument Valley, Zion, Bryce Canyon etc etc. Plus ski resorts and a huge salt lake.
I had an enjoyable few days pottering around Utah in a hire car a few years ago after spending a week on business in Provo.
Utah has some absolutely stunning scenery. Lakes, parks, mountains.
One of the random Youtube channels I discovered during the pandemic, a guy who runs a tow truck business - in Hurricane, UT. He spends his days collecting mostly tourists who get stuck in sand dunes and on mountains, and ATVs that get crashed, and has more than a million subscribers! https://youtube.com/c/MattsOffRoadRecovery/videos
On topic: LD success at the next election depends on how tight a rein Starmer keeps his CLPs and his campaigning funds. There are plenty of constituencies where the LDs are in a plausible second and could in theory take the seat assuming Johnson is still leading the Conservatives. But Labour campaigning in that constituency as per usual will serve to muddy the tactical voting waters and the Conservatives will pull through.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
Importantly, though as a yellow it pains me to say, I think the Lib Dems need to avoid trying to carve out too distinctive an identity or message at the next election. They need to be simply a sensible, friendly faced alternative to the Tories in places where Labour doesn’t have a chance of winning. For his part Starmer needs to avoid scaring potential LD voters in the South.
A Lib Dem vote next time won’t be a vote for “none of the above”, it will be a vote to eject Boris, so the campaigning needs to align with this.
Yes, same applies to Labour. It also applies to the Greens, who are getting an awfully free ride in all this progressive alliance stuff. What the hell were they doing campaigning in those by-elections, and countless local elections where their active intervention handed the seats to the Tories? Someone needs to tell them that if they want tactical alliances to favour them in some places (and they very much do) then some restraint is needed elsewhere.
to be positive, though, Labour members are now up for putting up a token candidate and then diverting efforts elsewhere, and so are most Libdems. There will be problems in seats where the distribution in 2019 was something like Con 40 Lab 33 LD 25, and it'd be helpful if some quiet polling was done and local parties advised accordingly.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
Easy to say as a man from afar. Can only imagine how women and minorities feel in these states.
Justifiably upset and worried i’d imagine.
But that’s still a long way from the break down of the federal system and the formation of Gilead.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
No it doesn't. Any change (and I'm not holding my breath) would mean that a vote in rural Kansas is worth the same as a vote in downtown LA.
At present, there is very little point in either party campaigning in either state, as Kansas will vote Republican in a Presidential election, and California Democrat (or, in the extraordinary case where they don't, it's because it's a crazy landslide election where the winning party doesn't need them).
Kansas as a state can be said to punch above its weight compared with California, but only in the specific sense that there are many fewer voters per electoral vote. However, it doesn't mean Presidential candidates make a special effort to campaign or appeal to voters in Kansas, since the outcome there isn't in any doubt. They don't - their residents are every bit as sidelined as those in large, safe Democrat states.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
I seem to recall some conservatives were quite annoyed with Roberts for not being firm enough on some issues, even though that seemed a reflection of the balance of the court by and large. With a rock solid conservative court now I wonder if his tenure will in the end be acclaimed by those same critics. Theres surely many more tentpole decisions to make or repudiate.
Comments
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
(Which Nixon supported.)
Would need half a battalions water rations by himself. And the BO...
On topic, I wonder how much cut through the LDs will get in the air war, particularly the debates.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Further, since we've all lived through a period where unimaginable restrictions - on our seeing family and friends, on travel, on our leaving our own home - were imposed on us, we shouldn't expect that the world as it is will always sail on with only gradual change. Sometimes situations can develop quickly.
There are already significant concerns about data collected on pregnant women in some states, and the motivations behind that:
https://time.com/6189528/anti-abortion-pregnancy-centers-collect-data-investigation/
'Over the top' would also describe the lengths gone to in some states to interfere with the autonomy of pregnant women.
It's not inherently ridiculous to speculate on how far those efforts might now extend, given the change in the law just enacted by the Supreme Court.
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Off topic: floreat Cascadia.
However, a constitutional amendment guaranteeing bodily autonomy, encompassing the rights articulated in Roe, Obergefell, Griswald and Lawrence seems the better way to me. Although, the danger is, as we've seen, the Court might simply ignore the scope of the amendment and expand their existing argument into the 28th (?) amendment that bodily autonomy does not include things they personally do not like. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments had huge holes blasted through them by the Court in the decades following the Civil War.
Regardless, something broader is better, not only because a narrow amendment places a target on the constitution but a narrow right to an abortion plays right into the Conservative majority's hands. It affirms their jurisprudence that unenumerated rights are lessor and, unless they are expressly articulated, can be changed at the whim of the court. If there is written a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion, there needs to be one guaranteeing contraception, marriage equality etc. All rights would need to be enumerated, and a narrow amendment would place at risk any unenumerated right (I find it funny that the so-called originalists seem to regard the 9th Amendment as an accident).
That said, after much words and many pixels spent, the whole thing is academic. The Constitution will likely never be amended on this kind of scale ever again.
It doesn't matter what excuse a woman may find to travel, if prosecutors find evidence that she had an abortion that would stand up in court then she faces a murder charge.
Mind you they'd need the trifecta and then some* to achieve that - which looks to me to be tricky for the Dems any time soon.
* Looking at you, Sinema and Manchin.
But from a quick Google (yes, I know...) it seems that the Soviet Border Guards Hat was very similar.
https://www.therussianstore.com/soviet-border-service-officer-s-visor-cap.html
Or this (apparent) image of Russian border guards from 2004
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Guards_Day#/media/File:RIAN_archive_109560_Border_Guards_Day.jpg
Neither seem an exact match for the (faded?) example shown.
It might make sense that both armies have very similar headgear for a similar role, given their recent combined histories.
That’s like Labour campaigning in Liverpool, or the Tories in Hampshire.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/24/big_tech_post_roe_wade/?td=rt-3a
A Lib Dem vote next time won’t be a vote for “none of the above”, it will be a vote to eject Boris, so the campaigning needs to align with this.
Once it is not in any sense a working democracy it can only be sorted by armies.
This is true for the USA and everywhere else.
The misreading of the US constitution by the SC about guns is massively undemocratic. The ruling on abortion returns the matter to where it belongs. The same should of course happen with guns.
If there's a fatal mistake there it's that the *overall message* didn't target a winnable coalition of states. Just reassigning money and candidate time doesn't produce a win, even with the benefit of hindsight.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
Met a couple of the MPs too; preferred the Labour ones as people.
We also had remarkable dumps of a couple of feet of champagne powder each night. (No, not specially imported from Colombia...) We also stayed at Robert Redford's resort there. Wife went skiing, I went birdwatching.
I had an enjoyable few days pottering around Utah in a hire car a few years ago after spending a week on business in Provo.
You can hardly trust the people on a matter as important as your own personal shooty toy.
A reverse image search finds the earliest reference for the photo as a thread on Reddit, and they're not a general at that stage. Reddit feels like a likely starting point.
https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshopbattles/comments/v6tx96/psbattle_this_russiann_soldier/
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
But as rochdale suggests it will surely be tested. The fervour of the winners has to find a new challenge.
Slippery slope OKC - you're better than that.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
The UK seems to manage gun control reasonably well without the courts getting very involved.
But if in truth the USA wants a gun ridden culture and the demos wants it, that's the way it is. I hope for better things, but democracy is what it is.
The USA was... set up that way.
One of the random Youtube channels I discovered during the pandemic, a guy who runs a tow truck business - in Hurricane, UT. He spends his days collecting mostly tourists who get stuck in sand dunes and on mountains, and ATVs that get crashed, and has more than a million subscribers! https://youtube.com/c/MattsOffRoadRecovery/videos
to be positive, though, Labour members are now up for putting up a token candidate and then diverting efforts elsewhere, and so are most Libdems. There will be problems in seats where the distribution in 2019 was something like Con 40 Lab 33 LD 25, and it'd be helpful if some quiet polling was done and local parties advised accordingly.
But that’s still a long way from the break down of the federal system and the formation of Gilead.
You’re over-reacting
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
At present, there is very little point in either party campaigning in either state, as Kansas will vote Republican in a Presidential election, and California Democrat (or, in the extraordinary case where they don't, it's because it's a crazy landslide election where the winning party doesn't need them).
Kansas as a state can be said to punch above its weight compared with California, but only in the specific sense that there are many fewer voters per electoral vote. However, it doesn't mean Presidential candidates make a special effort to campaign or appeal to voters in Kansas, since the outcome there isn't in any doubt. They don't - their residents are every bit as sidelined as those in large, safe Democrat states.
"I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.