TrickstaPriest

Nope.  Many of these are begging to be worse disasters.  Ditch the filibuster only works until the Reps have THEIR majority...then it backfires.  Same with expanding the Court.  The Reps have already shown they're far better at managing Court composition.  Regulating the media will run afoul of the First Amendment very, very quickly...and we've already got the precedent that the talking heads are not offering 'news'...it's opinion.  And even if that does work, it'll simply enable forces to hammer at progressive sites...which they will *gleefully* do.  Citizens United might get overturned if the Court is expanded enough...but as soon as the composition flips back?  It's gone again.
 
The Founding Fathers didn't...couldn't...envision how mass media could be used by those whose goal is to seize power, rather than govern.  This is, IMO, a core aspect of today's decision...the literal "if they didn't explicitly put it in, it ain't in there" works to prevent reforms by tying our hands.  Heck, even non-constitutional law has problems keeping up with the social changes enabled by modern communications.
 
As Tricksta also noted...climate change is another massive factor.  The political crisis will deepen, but...ok, perhaps it could get fixed.  That won't be any time soon, but it could happen.  BUT, with climate change complicating food production, increasing problems like fires and damaging storms, and the ongoing, SEVERE drought...we don't have the time.  

I agree that if this can't do it, nothing can.  However, I think it's too late.  The anti-abortion movement isn't close to new.  It's been the rallying cry of the religious conservative/Moral Majority wing since the 80s, at least.  Second, this Court will be very hard to reverse...Kavanaugh is the oldest of the 3 Trump selections, and he's only 57.  So there's 3 activist, literalist votes that'll be around for 20 years or more.  Heck, there may not be a seat opening for 10 years.  Third, even if there's backlash...is it plausible to think it can possibly be *enough*?  The Republicans have mastered ruling from the minority:  by being obstructionist.  They'll simply wait til 2024, and continue to suborn the election process.
 
Good GOSH I hope I'm wrong.  And I think it'll cost them some borderline seats, but not enough.  
 
And, yes, I can't see a path upward...just down.  And very violent.

So now what? Voting doesn't work (and they're actively ensuring to keep it that way), the court is now compromised for possibly another generation, protests don't work, and the disparity of power between the top and the rest of us is even worse than ever.  Not trying to be a doomer, but seriously...I'm tired of losing.

But sane Americans are outnumbered by simple folk who only care about their pocketbooks, exemplified by the woman interviewed on ATC who said Democrats were wasting time with the Jan. 6 commission hearings instead of doing something to lower food and gas prices.
 
So, the midterms will be a landslide for Republicans. At which point, expect a blizzard of highly publicized "investigations" of the Biden administration, and likely a few impeachments. And an interview with a co-founder of the Lincoln Project offered an even more horrific possibility: House Speaker Donald Trump. Because nothing in the Constitution says the Speaker must be a member of the House.
 
Dean Shomshak

Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers Are Collecting Troves of Data That Could Be Weaponized Against Women

...and still my husband won't consider moving...

I desperately want to believe this. But the cultists are disproportionately loud, and they are remarkably effective in spreading their message, so it sure doesn't feel like there are more of us that are sane.

here's hoping that the GOPs local moves to gain a stranglehold over local and state elections don't grant them the ability to decertify any election results that don't agree with them...

Yeah, it's being blamed on Biden by his political opponents, and spoon-fed to their cult followers by their media allies. But keep in mind, the highest rated Fox News program is Tucker Carlson's with a viewership of 3 million. I.e. one percent of the American population. The Jan. 6 committee hearings have been getting 20 million viewers across all platforms. The word is getting out. At the end of the day, there are more sane Americans than cultists.
 
That said, Democrats need to get more aggressive in countering Republican propaganda. This past year we've seen hopeful signs as some Dems have been publicly taking the gloves off, but they still have to go farther.

I low key mocked the British for that unbelievably stupid election, then November 2016 happened and now I'm just sad for everyone.

This isn’t the first time Texas has threatened to secede, and likely won’t be the last. But trying to apply logic isn’t the best way to discount the threat. 
 
There are still people who think Brexit was a good idea….

Trump is a symptom, not a cause. 
 
In other words, the problem is way, way worse than you realize. 

Is it okay to call this treason? It feels like treason to me.
 
Texas GOP's new platform says Biden didn't really win. It also calls for secession
 
From the article:
 
 
And this:
 
Are you [REDACTED] kidding me?!

Hell, the break room.  I've seen what non-dairy creamer can do...

Ran across this article on NPR: The creator of the FBI mass shooting protocol is 'shocked' by Uvalde police response
 
Fairly short read. The interviewee, Katherine Schweit, is frustrated, and with good reason: There are two very simple things that still aren't being done according to protocols that have been in place for quite some time.
 
The first, is that the police need to immediately head toward the sound of gunfire and attempt to neutralize the threat.  It doesn't matter if there's only one officer. (My opinion: If schools are going to use resource officers, they need to find those with the intestinal fortitude to do so.)
 
The second, is that the protocol in schools should be to run, not shelter in place. Yet students are always taught and told to shelter in place first.
 
These really are very, very basic tactical considerations that become obvious when your objective becomes "protect the victim" rather than "my family needs me, I have to go home tonight."
 
I have no issue with the ethics of prioritizing one's own survival so they can go on to take care of their family or continue helping a greater number of people in the long run. That's fair. It's not an unethical position. But I'll say that soldiers, police, and other emergency personnel should not be in those positions if that's their ethos. They'll have to get used to their life insurance policy being their family's solace should they fall in duty. Or seek other work.
 
I'm not sure when "run, hide, fight" became "hide, hide, hide" in schools, or why. Running has issues. But it beats being fish in a barrel.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61708452
 
The Congo basin holds an enormous area of peatland that stores an enormous amount of carbon. Government ministers say that sure, they know developing the region would be disastrous for the planet but their people are so very poor and what else can they do? They don't quite say, "Give us lots of money, and stop complaining about corruption, or we destroy the world," but I suspect the implication.
 
I grant you, making poor people not be poor is a Good Thing, and in Africa is likely vital to preventing further environmental degradation.  But as Acemoglu and Robinson argue (convincingly, I think) in Why Nations Fail, the chief cause of extreme poverty is bad government. So I am not entirely convinced by African government ministers saying that rich countries should just fork over the money and trust them to spend it well.
 
Dean Shomshak

Exactly which politicians are you talking about?  Ones that never got elected?  Because I assure you in Big Coal country/Big Oil Country/Big Natural Gas country giving even a hint that you do not stand behind the local industry is a quick road to to an inglorious defeat.  I say this as someone who was born and raised in Big Oil country.  So unless the politician ran as a sleeper agent pretending love fossil fuels but secretly wishing to save the planet and there were enough of these sleeper agents to make a difference, then nothing is going to happen.  And even in my conspiracy theory for good, the change doesn't last.  All of the sleeper agent candidates get voted out to office the very next election, and as soon as president who is willing to sign them into law is in  office, a raft of legislation designed to to viciously gut environmental protections would be made into law.
 
So, no, it is not the job of politicians to stop mollycoddling their constituents.  It is the job of constituents to stop mollycoddling their elected officials.  Unfortunately, first the constituents must decide for themselves that the wellbeing of the planet is worth the risk of financial hardship.  See Cygnia's article on white parents rallying against a black educator in their own county and continuing to hound her even after she moved away, if you want to see what sort of people constituents are. 

How many people have their livelihoods tied to the planet? Politicians need to stop mollycoddling their constituents and give them a harsh dose of reality; they also need to stop forestalling the various efforts to transition over to electricity.

Off hand, I can't think of a single instance of conservatism where maintaining the status quo *didn't* involve different rules for different people... though the intent might be disguised Fiscal conservatism is a prime example. Fiscal conservatives present themselves as merely concerned with governments digging themselves into financial holes they can't get out of. But what expenditures must be avoided or cut for this prudence? Why, the welfare state. I don't remember ever hearing a self-described fiscal conservative ever saying, "We shall simply have to slash our military budget and hope for the best." Much less, "Corporations will simply have to pay more for the benefits they gain from government," or "We can still afford pensions and health care if we raise taxes on rich people." No, the pain of austerity must be borne by the less affluent. So in practice, different rules for rich and poor.
 
The current Republican obsession with "election security" similarly tries to present itself as a hard-headed, prudent concern for accuracy and reliability (against those wild-eyed liberals who'd hand a ballot to anyone willy-nilly), but is rather unsubtly code for "Keep Black people from voting."
 
I will grant that some conservatives have become fairly slick at presenting liberal innovations as creating new privileged groups or new oppressions -- opponents of affirmative action were quite brilliant at selling this -- but it's usually not hard to spot the defense of an old unfairness hiding behind the accusation of a new unfairness. So I think my formulation stands.
 
Dean Shomshak

It's difficult to summon the will when you're getting distracted from under the table.

I assumed this last spike was a last* money grab before renewables end the fossil fuel party forever.
 
 
* "Last"

The answer to gas prices is simple: the capitalist fallacy of unlimited growth. They won't accept one ounce of lost profit.

Cops are practically worshipped in my neighborhood.
 
Even after they repealed the law where cops working in Cleveland had to live in Cleveland.  Once that was gone, all the cops that could (like my former next door neighbor) fled to richer, whiter pastures.