Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Sociotard]

2 hours ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

 

The real issue is why it is not treated like the House of Lords and the Canadian Senate, and ruthlessly packed whenever it obstructs a governing majority in the White House and Congress.

 

That would certainly have delayed the end of Jim Crow and the arrival of gay marriage. 

[Lord Liaden]

For those wanting Joe Biden to take drastic action:

 

 

[DShomshak]

Beau makes a good point about the difference between immunity and authority -- and thus, why reelected Trump will be able to run roughshod over the Constitution  even without SCOTUS cover. If people are sufficiently willing to follow orders, it doesn't matter what the law says or what courts say.

 

Consider the history of Jim Crow. Despite the Reconstruction Amendments, millions of Black Americans were kept in de facto slavery for decades. Sheriffs sworn to uphold the law led lynch mobs. The white ruling class in the South was determined to keep their Black population in profitable subjection, and no little thing like the Constitution was going to get in their way, and the Federal government was willing to let them. This changed only when enough people were willing to compel the Federal government to use force against segregationists. Those Black children in (IIRC) Little Rock were escorted to school by soldiers, not lawyers.

 

Or the Red Scares. The First Amendment gives the right to express unpopular political opinions, but Americans suffered for espousing Communism. No actions; just words. Because the opinion was sufficiently unpopular (or sufficiently threatening to the interests of the wealthy) that the First Amendment was brushed aside.

 

If Trump can find enough people willing to do whatever he says -- and the Heritage Foundation has published a guide to where to place them for greatest effect -- he has de facto immunity in any case.

 

Unfortunately, Beau's homily on the need for intensive citizenship cuts to the heart and source of the problem. Millions of American vote for ignorant and silly reasons like their grocery bill, which Presidents cannot control.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Clonus]

11 hours ago, tkdguy said:

Robert Reich shares a few thoughts.

 

Some folks have raised the question about the Electoral College. Is it possible for Biden to dissolve it given the SCOTUS decision about Presidential immunity on official acts? The popular vote has favored the Democrats for a while now.

 

No.  Being immune to prosecution doesn't mean that people will follow your orders when you exceed your authority.  

[Pattern Ghost]

2 hours ago, Clonus said:

No.  Being immune to prosecution doesn't mean that people will follow your orders when you exceed your authority.  

 

Not until you replace them with yes men.

[Armitage]

3 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Beau makes a good point about the difference between immunity and authority -- and thus, why reelected Trump will be able to run roughshod over the Constitution  even without SCOTUS cover. If people are sufficiently willing to follow orders, it doesn't matter what the law says or what courts say.

 

A significant portion of Trump's term was a string of

 

"You aren't allowed to do that."

"What are you going to do to stop me?"

 

e.g. blatantly profiting from the Presidency while insisting that nobody had ever heard of emoluments before.

[unclevlad]

To add to Dean's list of blatantly illegal and unconstitutional acts...the Japanese internment camps in the 40s.  The entire Bill of Rights was ignored.

 

And yeah, conflating the immunity decision, even if it's marginally restricted, with Project 2025 is incredibly terrifying.  Trump thrives on chaos and confusion.  His sycophantic appointees...and note how much he bypassed the nomination/confirmation process, if congressional Democrats try to balk...will likely do *so many* objectionable things that any attempt to rein anything in, may well just get lost in the madhouse.

 

AND he's already got a good head start on stacking the courts anyway.

[Cygnia]

 

[Armitage]

On 7/2/2024 at 7:13 PM, Old Man said:

So the testimony and evidence from the Epstein trial were unsealed today.  Guess who appears in the trial record?

 

 

 

This was apparently testimony from an old case, not something from what was just unsealed. Not that that makes it any more acceptable.

 

"Some X users appeared to believe that the document is a recent filing. The post was shared after about 150 pages of transcripts related to a 2006 grand jury investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's rape and sex trafficking of teenagers was released to the public on Monday.

However, the document included in the X post isn't connected to those papers, but actually comes from a lawsuit filed in the months leading up to the 2016 election by an anonymous plaintiff using the name "Katie Johnson.""

 

[death tribble]

The Conservatives have been thumped in the election. Labour are in with a majority. It needed 326 seats. They have 400.

The Scottish National Party were hammered in Scotland. They had close to 50 seats. They lost 36. It seems the Scots were fed up with the repeated calls for Independence and the SNP failing to deliver anything for them.

The Conservatives lost all 8 seats they had in Wales. ex-PM Liz Truss lost her seat. 12 cabinet ministers lost their seats.

The Liberal Democrats went from 8 seats to 71, the biggest number they have had since 1923

Edited July 5 by death tribble

[Lord Liaden]

So much for the talking point that all of Europe is going right-wing.

[Lectryk]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

So much for the talking point that all of Europe is going right-wing.

I thought Brexit was them saying 'Hey!  We don't want to be in with Europe!' 

[death tribble]

We have a habit of being different.

 

Jacob Rees Mogg who was one of the Tory talking heads (and a cabinet minister) lost his seat which is something to gloat about. ex-PM Liz Truss also lost her seat which was one of the ones that were supposed to be safe.

Labour's share of the vote remained the same but people voted against the Tories.

The shame is that some of the Tories abandoned ship before the election. That includes Boris. They saw the writing on the wall.

[Lord Liaden]

Boris had a big hand in writing it.

[Ternaugh]

My YouTube feed has been filled with videos about Larry, with very little about his next housemate.

[Lord Liaden]

France's far-right lost ground before second round of parliamentary elections.

[DShomshak]

8 hours ago, Lectryk said:

I thought Brexit was them saying 'Hey!  We don't want to be in with Europe!' 

I forget whether it was on BBC or NPR (the talking-head analysys sort of blurs together) that one pundit suggested that with Brexit, the British voters did their hard-right turn. It was, after qall, the signature issue of Britain's far-right party and leader, Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party. And whaddaya know, it did not work out well. Mister Analyst speculated that the UK electorate has, to a degree, got it out of their system and maybe even learned better.

 

 

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Boris had a big hand in writing it.

From what I hear, Sir Keir Starmer is sort of the Anti-Boris Johnson. Earnest, diligent, and dull.

 

A nice change, IMO.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

All right, for those genuinely interested in Biden's fitness, this week, starting tonight, will be extremely telling.

 

 

[tkdguy]

 

[Cygnia]

Elsewhere...

 

Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian elected Iran's president

Quote

Dr Pezeshkian, a 71-year-old heart surgeon and member of the Iranian parliament, is critical of Iran’s notorious morality police and caused a stir after promising “unity and cohesion”, as well as an end to Iran's “isolation” from the world.

He has also called for “constructive negotiations” with Western powers over a renewal of the faltering 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for an easing of Western sanctions.

 

[Lord Liaden]

That's a hopeful sign, but remember that Iran's president is subservient to the country's supreme religious leader. There will be no progress from Iran's government unless it's sanctioned from the top, and heretofore that's been glacially slow in coming.

[Doc Democracy]

On 7/5/2024 at 8:01 AM, death tribble said:

The Scottish National Party were hammered in Scotland. They had close to 50 seats. They lost 36. It seems the Scots were fed up with the repeated calls for Independence and the SNP failing to deliver anything for them.

 

Not sure what you are saying here, is it that Scots are fed up with repeated calls for independence or fed up with repeatedly not actually getting anything delivered on independence?

 

I think the desire for independence is as high as it has ever been.  The problem for the SNP is that their coherence is solely about independence.  They are otherwise massively divergent in social and economic ideology.

 

I think the problem is that they got captured by governance which exposed these divergences.  That was exacerbated when there was no significant movement towards independence.

 

Personally (and completely impractically) I think Scots should vote SNP for Westminster and any other party for Holyrood (the Scottish Parliament).

 

Doc

Edited July 7 by Doc Democracy

[assault]

Apparently the French government won't be moving to Vichy this year.
 

 

[Lord Liaden]

And almost every political commentator and pundit said the Right in France was going to sweep to power. Inevitably. And now they're in a panic, trying to explain and justify being so wrong.

 

This is an object lesson for all of us. Don't let the chatter cloud your mind. Don't let them make you despair. Get out and vote your conscience, and count the chips afterward.

[Doc Democracy]

11 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

And almost every political commentator and pundit said the Right in France was going to sweep to power. Inevitably. And now they're in a panic, trying to explain and justify being so wrong.

 

This is an object lesson for all of us. Don't let the chatter cloud your mind. Don't let them make you despair. Get out and vote your conscience, and count the chips afterward.

 

We really have lost sight of the differences and distinctions between analysts, reporters and commentators (I have them in order of decresing real insight and authority).

 

The problem is that, for most people, they ihabit the same places and seem to speak the same language and no one seems to make any distinction on those channels to make distinctions, meaning that just because someone has been around for a while and giving their (possibly honest) judgement, it is treated with the same (and possibly more because they tend to be more presentable) authority as those who apply a bit of rigour to the things they say and have spent real time looking at real data and using recognisably academic tools to interpret that data.

 

The trick is often to read widely from folk who know things, then read those who reliably report things to check the observations and then have a scout round the chatter to see if it reflects the more solid stuff you have been reading.  Takes time though.

 

Doc

Edited July 8 by Doc Democracy