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Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#171676: Jan 31st 2017 at 6:50:30 PM

They also care about the Court's reputation, and don't like voting for blatantly politicized stuff too often. Hence, why Roberts saved the ACA.

I'm not really familiar with the judicial history of the United States but....how strong of a time machine are we going to need to prevent the upper levels of the federal courts from becoming the politicized circus they evolved into in this timeline?

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#171677: Jan 31st 2017 at 6:55:10 PM

What remained of democracies abroad probably wrote off the USA as soon as Trump won, regardless of what they said for the benefit of diplomacy.

As for:

How about those civil servants who refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, in spite of the Supreme Court ruling? Same difference: disobeying the law, because they disagree with it on principle.
It isn't for a few reasons. note 
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#171678: Jan 31st 2017 at 6:55:55 PM

[up][up]If anything, we'd probably end up using a time machine for a "Days of Citrus Past" plotline where we have to stop Trump's assassination so that an even worse Nazi doesn't come to power afterward.

edited 31st Jan '17 6:56:09 PM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
ViperMagnum357 Since: Mar, 2012
#171679: Jan 31st 2017 at 6:56:45 PM

[up][up][up]Depends on whether a circuit court expedites and elevates a case concerning one of Trump's executive orders: If the Supreme Court strikes one down and Trump instructs the Executive Branch to ignore it, all bets are off-start digging a bomb shelter.

RBluefish Since: Nov, 2013
#171680: Jan 31st 2017 at 6:57:02 PM

Here's what people still aren't worried enough about: what the SCOTUS pick means for voting rights. You know, the thing we need to preserve some semblance of democracy.

On February 27, 2013, the Supreme Court heard a challenge to the heart of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Antonin Scalia shocked the hushed courtroom by saying the law had led to a "perpetuation of racial entitlement." He went so far as to mock the name of it: "Even the name of it is wonderful: the Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future?"

The courtroom gasped audibly as Scalia spoke. The fact that he viewed the country's most important civil rights law as a "racial entitlement" was a textbook example of the radicalness of his views. Four months later, Scalia joined a 5-4 opinion gutting the law, ruling that states with a long history of voting discrimination no longer needed to approve their voting changes with the federal government.

The Roberts Court, with Scalia as a key influence, weakened voting rights protections, allowed corporations to spend unlimited secret money on US elections, overturned the District of Columbia's handgun ban and ruled that businesses didn't have to pay for contraception care.

Merrick Garland should have been the one to fill Scalia's vacant Supreme Court seat. It was unprecedented and outrageous that a judge as qualified and mainstream as him didn't even get a hearing. And it's more than a little ironic that a president who won 5 million more votes than his opponent in 2012 couldn't make the selection but one who got 2.9 million fewer votes than his can.

But after Republicans stole the seat by denying President Obama his constitutional mandate, Donald Trump said he wanted to appoint a justice "as close to Scalia as I could find." Neil Gorsuch is that person.

Gorsuch has praised Scalia as a judicial role model. "Mark me down, too, as a believer that the traditional account of the judicial role Justice Scalia defended will endure," he said in a lecture last year. Like Scalia, as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, Gorsuch has been hostile to abortion rights and environmental regulations, and sympathetic to large corporations and the religious right. He has criticized liberals for challenging bans on gay marriage before the courts. Though his paper trail on civil rights cases is slim, he'll presumably be in sync with Scalia on these issues too.

Gorsuch could be the deciding vote on critical voting rights cases very soon. The Supreme Court will likely hear challenges to voter-ID laws and related voting restrictions from states like North Carolina and Texas in the near future. There are already indications the Trump Justice Department is preparing to switch sides in these cases, backing restrictive voting laws instead of minority voters facing disenfranchisement. In addition, conservatives could take aim at what's left of the Voting Rights Act—Section 2 of the law—which Chief Justice John Roberts challenged when he was a young lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department.

Another Scalia on the court is particularly concerning given that Trump's choice for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has a thirty-year history of opposition to civil rights. Trump's lie that millions voted illegally in 2016 is a near-certain prelude to massive voter suppression by the GOP, beginning with an executive order authorizing a broad DOJ investigation into non-existent voter fraud, which White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggested will focus on "urban areas" in blue states like California and New York. The Trump Administration will perpetuate the myth of voter fraud to "strengthen up voting procedures!" as Trump tweeted, meaning more laws designed to make it harder to vote. (In written answers to Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, Sessions refused to say whether he agreed with Trump's lie that three to five million people voted illegally, saying "at this point, I do not know how many people voted illegally.")

These restrictions, which could include mandating strict voter-ID for federal elections or documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, will almost certainly be challenged before the Supreme Court. It's already clear that many of Trump's policies will be constitutionally suspect, beginning with his disastrous Muslim ban.

The recklessness of Trump's policies and the threat he poses to the very foundation of American democracy underscores the importance of an independent and thoughtful judiciary. Another Scalia on the Supreme Court is the last thing we need right now.

It also doesn't bode well for the upcoming Supreme Court cases on gerrymandering—the importance of which cannot be understated. So yeah, the Senate Democrats need to just do everything in their power to block this asshole. The GOP started it, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It's high time for the Democrats to adopt the Combat Pragmatist attitude the GOP have had for years, at least until we have our country back.

Also, obligatory warning that President Bannon would be a fool to appoint a Supreme Court judge who he thought might rule against his interests. Don't ever count on Gorsuch standing up to the Trump regime.

edited 31st Jan '17 6:57:59 PM by RBluefish

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#171682: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:00:48 PM

RIP filibuster.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#171683: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:01:22 PM

I feel like this a good time to bring up that the Dems, taken as a group, have already showed an unprecedented level of resistance to Trump- cabinet nominees usually aren't seriously contested.

Which is something we should keep in mind if we don't want them to become as radicalized as the GOP.

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#171684: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:02:54 PM

They are a long way from that.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#171685: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:03:44 PM

That'll be the last time the Democrats can Filibuster until at least 2018, then.

Honestly, the fact that the Filibuster could be revoked at all, by either Democrats or Republicans, is so stupid. The Filibuster should be a permanent feature of the Senate, regardless of who wields it for whatever reason, and it should not be 'nuclear optioned' ever again.

edited 31st Jan '17 7:04:28 PM by DingoWalley1

RBluefish Since: Nov, 2013
#171686: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:05:13 PM

The Democrats need to learn to fight like Republicans while still holding on to their core principles. Difficult? Yes. Crucial? Also yes. If they keep backing down from every fight and trying to "negotiate" with every new horror, we're all screwed.note 

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."
Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#171687: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:07:58 PM

[up][up][up]At the moment, yes, but if there's a Tea Party-esque movement to Primary every Dems who goes 'well, this cabinet nominee might not be perfect, but he's preferable to leaving the office open' or 'this piece of legislation Trump proposed isn't actually all that bad' or even 'we should try to work together with the GOP'?

edited 31st Jan '17 7:08:15 PM by Gilphon

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#171688: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:08:19 PM

It's difficult to negotiate when your opposition are a bunch of retrograde assholes whose line in the sand involves preserving their ability to oppress people and turn the state into some masturbatory randian nightmare.

edited 31st Jan '17 7:08:51 PM by Draghinazzo

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#171689: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:08:53 PM

When I meant preventing the Supreme Court from becoming politicized, I wasn't talking about just Trump. The idea that the courts are divided into broadly liberal and conservative factions...makes my skin crawl. When did this start? Is it just inherit in the entire system?

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#171690: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:09:07 PM

People with disposable income: if you are looking for refugee-related causes, a few links I've picked up: Exodus (they work mostly in Indiana, their federal funding has been frozen]], Save the Children.

Also, if you shop regularly through Amazon, if you shop through smile.amazon.com you can have a portion of your purchases donated to the charity of your choice, including the various state-level ACLU chapters.

RBluefish Since: Nov, 2013
#171691: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:09:45 PM

Any Democrat who's trying to "work with the GOP" at this point should absolutely be primaried. The GOP are a fascist party flaunting both the Constitution, the laws of society, and basic human decency. You can't work with them any more than you can work with the locusts devouring your crop.

[nja]'d by Draghinazzo.

edited 31st Jan '17 7:10:17 PM by RBluefish

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."
LinkToTheFuture A real bad hombre from somewhere completely different Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
A real bad hombre
#171692: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:12:11 PM

What about pieces of legislation that aren't actually terrible?

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison
Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#171693: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:12:28 PM

[up][up][up][up]It's not inherent in the system. Up here, there was an incident fairly recently where something Harper wanted to do was shot down by Supreme Courts Justices he appointed.

My understanding is that it started when Andrew Jackson appointed five personal friends to the court.

[up][up]Yeah, but, see, they're not going anywhere. One's option are 'try to negotiate with them' and 'do your best to ignore them, no matter how damage they do'.

edited 31st Jan '17 7:14:50 PM by Gilphon

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#171694: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:12:32 PM

@Rational Insanity: It probably started the same time Politics in America got divided into 2 Camps: When Hamilton and Jefferson decided to form 2 different Camps to convince Washington that their idea for America was better then the other.

In short, it's been a problem since the Founding of America.

[up] Yeah, because the Dred Scott Case and Plessy v. Ferguson had nothing to do with Politics in Courts. (/sarcasm)

[down] I feel so bad for Mr. Hagar's Family. My hopes and prayers go out for them.

edited 31st Jan '17 7:17:50 PM by DingoWalley1

TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#171695: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:14:03 PM

Mother of U.S. military veteran dead, likely due to Muslim Ban.

A local business owner flies to Iraq to bring his mother back home to the US for medical treatment. But under President Trump's ban on immigration and travel from seven predominately Muslim nations, he was forced to leave his family behind.

His mother died just one day after being told she couldn't return to the United States.

Mike Hager fled Iraq with his family during the Gulf War, returned during the Iraq war and worked alongside United States Marines and Army forces. He now owns a business in Metro Detroit and said his mom would still be alive today if President Donald Trump had not instituted his travel ban on Muslim countries.

Mike Hager said he was returning home with his family that included his sick mom. They were returning home to the United States where his mother has lived since 1995. As they were waiting in line at the airport in Iraq on Friday, he was told that he could pass through because he was a U.S. citizen. But his family members - including his mom - weren't allowed, despite holding green cards.

Holy hell. I'd be fucking FURIOUS.

New Survey coming this weekend!
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#171696: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:16:17 PM

[up]That's how you create terrorists, right there.

[up][up][up]That's actually what I was getting at, judges in other democracies don't tend to be nearly as biased or polarized. Hell, a Canadian judge is probably getting fired for wearing a MAGA hat while court was in session.

edited 31st Jan '17 7:17:17 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#171697: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:17:46 PM

It's inherent. The Supreme Court may have once seemed like 9 benevolent autocrats dragging the USA into the future, but the Warren Court only happened once. 100 years before the voting rights act Congress passed civil rights acts and the Supreme Court struck them down.

Before "the right to privacy" that lead to Roe v. Wade, there was "freedom of contract" that tended to strike down workplace regulation. Even now, Thomas still wants to break essentially every federal program by reducing the commerce clause to its 19th century state.

It just depends on which way the wind blows.

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#171698: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:19:10 PM

The lines of dialog should at least be kept open, particularly with the Republicans that have been bullied onto the fence or at least have risked speaking out.

I can't shake the feeling that the Democratic lawmakers resorting to dig-your-heels-in resistance is a trap, yet one they can not now avoid. It is also likely to be fruitless, buying days at most.

edited 31st Jan '17 7:20:01 PM by Elle

LinkToTheFuture A real bad hombre from somewhere completely different Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
A real bad hombre
#171699: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:21:00 PM

Former acting Solicitor General under Obama on why liberals should be OK with Gorsuch

And why Democrats should want to oppose him

edited 31st Jan '17 7:22:41 PM by LinkToTheFuture

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison
Pseudopartition Screaming Into The Void from The Cretaeceous Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
Screaming Into The Void
#171700: Jan 31st 2017 at 7:32:31 PM

As impossible as it is, I kind of have this dream that the Democrats retake everything in 2020, and in the first week after the inauguration RBG steps down and they re-appoint Garland, just to be petty.

Whatever, it makes me smile.


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