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BiggerBoat posted:I'm glad you brought this up because I often wonder how history and America's role in it might have gone differently had AL Gore been president prior to and on 9/11. I'm not saying he would have been a great president, prevented the WTC attack or that we all still wouldn't be turbo hosed right now but I think it's fair at a minimum to assume that the Iraq invasion doesn't happen and that some earlier and very critical work on climate change would have been initiated. Also, that (perhaps) certain terrorism intelligence might have been given more weight at least. I was young and dumb and politically unengaged so while I backed Gore in theory I figured either was going to be a boring one-termer with little long-term impact on the country. It was a real eye-opener over the next several years. A President Gore alternate history is just so impossible to imagine on almost every level. Even if you assume that the greater (at the time) Democratic attention to what Al Qaeda was up to wouldn't have prevented 9/11 or kept us out of Afghanistan, not having the personal hard-on for finishing Daddy's business in Iraq or a cabinet packed with insane neocons and fundies changes so much. And that's just foreign policy, never mind SCOTUS and the other domestic harm of the Bush presidency. It's really no wonder that modern "elections don't matter" takes tend to assume that even a Gore landslide would have been wiped away by SCOTUS exactly like a confusing photo finish was, since it's the only way to still say it with a straight face.
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May 31, 2023 03:13
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BiggerBoat posted:I think both parties are reluctant to pack the court because what will happen is that both sides will just keep doing that every time they hold power and then eventually we'll have like 75 justices, which is just an exponential acceleration of the problem. What problem is there an exponential acceleration of? Seventy-five justices instead of nine would make it harder for lawyers pleading cases to build arguments around the specific biases of individual justices, which would seem like an improvement. The court moving in the direction of whichever party manages to democratically win a trifecta rather than one party locking it in for a generation due to a fluke of when people die would also seem like an improvement.
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May 31, 2023 04:56
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75 isn't even an absurd number; apparently Spain has 79. Although maybe their government is absurd, I don't know. But more justices actually does seem better since it dilutes their individual importance, which can only be a good thing?
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May 31, 2023 05:01
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25 with a random lottery system of assigning judges to cases is fine with me. Also 25 year terms, gently caress lifetime appointments for anything.
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May 31, 2023 05:26
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I'm not saying just pack the courts. I am saying we should have one justice for each federal circuit court of appeals. With term limits.
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May 31, 2023 05:35
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Sir Kodiak posted:What problem is there an exponential acceleration of? For those currently in power, that right there is the problem they have with it.
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May 31, 2023 05:38
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V-Men posted:I'm not saying just pack the courts. I am saying we should have one justice for each federal circuit court of appeals. With term limits. Term limits require a constitutional amendment.
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May 31, 2023 06:08
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Oracle posted:Term limits require a constitutional amendment. America: Amend the holy words of the Founding Fathers!? Blasphemy! Constitution: *amended literally 27 times*
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May 31, 2023 06:12
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The Bible posted:America: Amend the holy words of the Founding Fathers!? Blasphemy!
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May 31, 2023 06:36
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Oracle posted:Might want to look up what it takes to pass one and consider the makeup of the Senate and House (by far the easiest route). 27 times in almost 300 years with ten of those passed shortly after the document was written is not exactly a breakneck pace. Yeah, I know. It's never going to happen, it's just odd how people are so opposed to it, as if it has never been done before.
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May 31, 2023 07:07
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Everyone: The Constitution is unchangeable. Jefferson:  Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.Trump, GOP, and Supreme Court: What constitution?
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May 31, 2023 11:40
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If the court gets see-saw'd back and forth getting packed by each side.....so what? What's it going to do, lose legitimacy in the eyes of the public? Good, it needs to until there's reform. At least there would be periods of time where it is not staffed by a majority hand picked agents of fascism antithetical to the very concept of representational democracy. That's better than what we have now and all it costs is legitimacy they shouldn't have right now anyway? Sign me up.
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May 31, 2023 11:54
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Sir Kodiak posted:What problem is there an exponential acceleration of? bird food bathtub posted:If the court gets see-saw'd back and forth getting packed by each side.....so what? What's it going to do, lose legitimacy in the eyes of the public? Good, it needs to until there's reform. At least there would be periods of time where it is not staffed by a majority hand picked agents of fascism antithetical to the very concept of representational democracy. That's better than what we have now and all it costs is legitimacy they shouldn't have right now anyway? Sign me up. It just seems to me that every presidential term will become a contest to see who can put the most judges on the court. Is there a limit we're talking about or a schedule where you can only do it twice a year or something? Then you've got the weird mess where, if the GOP model of simply refusing to hold a hearing becomes the norm for both parties, it gets even more ridiculous. I don't know what a decent number is for reaching a fair representation of societal norms and legal interpretations. Agree that it's certainly more than nine though.
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May 31, 2023 12:14
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BiggerBoat posted:It just seems to me that every presidential term will become a contest to see who can put the most judges on the court. Is there a limit we're talking about or a schedule where you can only do it twice a year or something? Then you've got the weird mess where, if the GOP model of simply refusing to hold a hearing becomes the norm for both parties, it gets even more ridiculous. I think we'll find the best number is 0
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May 31, 2023 12:58
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The Bible posted:Yeah, I know. It's never going to happen, it's just odd how people are so opposed to it, as if it has never been done before. Noones opposed to it per se, it’s just not the ‘one weird trick’ that’ll fix everything. If you go the ‘just one amendment’ route, you have to get two-thirds of both houses of Congress to approve one THEN send it to the states, where 3/4th of state legislatures have to approve it, sometimes within a certain amount of time but not always. It’s why the ERA is still floating around and why the 27th took 202 YEARS to ratify (it prevents congress from voting itself pay raises during the current session and passed in 1992). If you want to call a constitutional convention, 2/3rds of state legislatures have to vote to have congress call a constitutional convention. Congress has to agree to do so (nothing says they can’t just ignore it), THEN any amendments that come out of that process have to be passed by 3/4th of state legislatures (38 states). We have never had a constitutional (Article V) convention. Ever. Not even during the Civil War when half the states left. And not for lack of trying, state legislatures pass resolutions calling for one all the time, just not enough. It’s just easier and a lot more practical to change the makeup of Congress or change laws or even change the number of Supreme Court justices than to change the constitution.
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May 31, 2023 13:56
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BiggerBoat posted:It just seems to me that every presidential term will become a contest to see who can put the most judges on the court. Is there a limit we're talking about or a schedule where you can only do it twice a year or something? Then you've got the weird mess where, if the GOP model of simply refusing to hold a hearing becomes the norm for both parties, it gets even more ridiculous.
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May 31, 2023 15:42
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BiggerBoat posted:It just seems to me that every presidential term will become a contest to see who can put the most judges on the court. Increasing the number of justices requires passing a law, which requires both the House and Senate on top of the presidency, so it's hardly going to be every presidential term. And if one party is like, "we're making a thousand-person Supreme Court" and people still give them the trifecta, well, that's on us. Again, seems better than the status quo where a majority on the court is determined by the whims of the Grim Reaper. The Bible posted:For those currently in power, that right there is the problem they have with it. Why would the people who could actually make it happen—members of Congress and the president—be interested in maintaining the importance of the specific biases of individual justices? I don't see what they get out of it. The current justices don't get a say.
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May 31, 2023 17:18
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Oracle posted:and why the 27th took 202 YEARS to ratify (it prevents congress from voting itself pay raises during the current session and passed in 1992) this one's fun because it all began with an undergrad attempting to prove his professor wrong about a grade on a term paper: quote:This proposed amendment was largely forgotten until Gregory Watson, an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote a paper on the subject in 1982 for a political science course.[15][16][9] In the paper, Watson argued that the amendment was still "live" and could be ratified. Watson received a "C" grade for his paper from one of the course's teaching assistants. Watson appealed the grade to the course instructor, Sharon Waite, who declined to overrule the teaching assistant.[17][18][3] Waite has said, "I kind of glanced at it, but I didn't see anything that was particularly outstanding about it and I thought the C was probably fine".[16] Watson responded by starting a new push for ratification with a letter-writing campaign to state legislatures.[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Revival_of_interest it worked out; the grade was officially changed to an A+ in 2017 lol
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May 31, 2023 17:45
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Getting rid of the filibuster would go a long way toward reducing the problem.
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May 31, 2023 18:22
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Murgos posted:Getting rid of the filibuster would go a long way toward reducing the problem. We just need 2/3rds of Senators to give up their self-granted right to veto anything ever.
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May 31, 2023 19:55
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Murgos posted:Getting rid of the filibuster would go a long way toward reducing the problem. Which problem?
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May 31, 2023 20:16
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Ynglaur posted:We just need 2/3rds of Senators to give up their self-granted right to veto anything ever. no you don't
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May 31, 2023 20:26
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Hate to break up the multi-page long derail about the Supreme Court but here's some on-topic news regarding Trump and his crimes.mp3. https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1664002608615366659?s=46&t=iiCw8lzdvvJzhMaCXpw-_Q
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May 31, 2023 21:57
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Nitrousoxide posted:Hate to break up the multi-page long derail about the Supreme Court but here's some on-topic news regarding Trump and his crimes.mp3. oh yeah, that does seem like a bad one to have out in the wild. man, forget about national security, that'd be such a doozy to deal with leaking from a foreign policy standpoint
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May 31, 2023 22:00
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Oracle posted:Term limits require a constitutional amendment. I meant imposing a type of Senior status on SCOTUS justices after a shortish term. After their term, they'd still be SCOTUS justices, but relegated to voting on cases they want to hear and sharing the load overseeing their respective court of appeals, but wouldn't get to be part of oral arguments.
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May 31, 2023 22:02
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V-Men posted:I meant imposing a type of Senior status on SCOTUS justices after a shortish term. After their term, they'd still be SCOTUS justices, but relegated to voting on cases they want to hear and sharing the load overseeing their respective court of appeals, but wouldn't get to be part of oral arguments. Yeah that's one of the few tactics that's arguably constitutional .
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May 31, 2023 22:04
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Nitrousoxide posted:Hate to break up the multi-page long derail about the Supreme Court but here's some on-topic news regarding Trump and his crimes.mp3. At this point, he probably took a selfie next to a map of active missile siloes.
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May 31, 2023 22:12
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Nitrousoxide posted:Hate to break up the multi-page long derail about the Supreme Court but here's some on-topic news regarding Trump and his crimes.mp3. The way this article is written, it just easily sounds like Trump was making up a non-existent document in the same way that he constantly lies. "Oh yeah, I have a classified document that would undermine what Milley is saying. I could show it to you right now if I wanted to. (but I won't)" Which is pretty Trump.
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May 31, 2023 22:26
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/us/politics/trump-aides-subpoenaed-special-counsel.html sorry that's the only link I know right now.nyt posted:special counsel investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election has subpoenaed staff members from the Trump White House who may have been involved in firing the government cybersecurity official whose agency judged the election “the most secure in American history,” according to two people briefed on the matter. Some speculate that this is more than determining "state of mind", since this Krebs has already sat for Smith's team, and at this late(r) state of investigations.
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May 31, 2023 22:27
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V-Men posted:The way this article is written, it just easily sounds like Trump was making up a non-existent document in the same way that he constantly lies. "Oh yeah, I have a classified document that would undermine what Milley is saying. I could show it to you right now if I wanted to. (but I won't)" Which is pretty Trump. There probably is a classified document that he was baldly misrepresenting.
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May 31, 2023 22:42
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V-Men posted:The way this article is written, it just easily sounds like Trump was making up a non-existent document in the same way that he constantly lies. "Oh yeah, I have a classified document that would undermine what Milley is saying. I could show it to you right now if I wanted to. (but I won't)" Which is pretty Trump. that said, if we were to assume he had made up an imaginary document, it would also be very trump to continue lying about it and refuse to admit that he had made up an imaginary document. Best response his lawyers could hope for there is "i don't remember the document", you'd never get him to admit to making it up whole cloth
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May 31, 2023 23:08
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yronic heroism posted:There probably is a classified document that he was baldly misrepresenting. 10:35 Mogul attempted unscheduled exit; paged asst. 10:45 M impatient, request early lunch. 10:50 Asst returned, M drawing pentagons with new crayons. 11:00 Calls blocked, early lunch. 11:10 Janitorial rqst, ketchup. 11:19 Mogul labels trashcan "Iran", SS rqsted to hold can near door. 11:37 M frustrated, jant. ketchup 11:57 M basket success. Declares "the Pentagon invaded Iran!"
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May 31, 2023 23:12
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Xiahou Dun posted:At this point, he probably took a selfie next to a map of active missile siloes. Or drew a Shaprie line and some circles on the prospective targets
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Jun 1, 2023 00:01
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Didn't dotard also tweet classified satellite photos of something Iran missile related?
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Jun 1, 2023 00:09
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Sir Kodiak posted:Why would the people who could actually make it happen—members of Congress and the president—be interested in maintaining the importance of the specific biases of individual justices? I don't see what they get out of it. The current justices don't get a say. Now I'm wondering if I'm just naive on this, but, because they share their religious and political beliefs and can generally count on them to rule the way they want them to, regardless of what the people actually want?
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Jun 1, 2023 00:17
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The Bible posted:Now I'm wondering if I'm just naive on this, but, because they share their religious and political beliefs and can generally count on them to rule the way they want them to, regardless of what the people actually want? They do, but there's more than half-a-dozen people who also do so. What I'm talking about is that various justices have particular quirks that go beyond those shared beliefs as seen in the somewhat rare cases where the justices don't rule along party lines. More justices would, presumably, reduce the impact of this variation and result in more consistent rulings along the religious and political beliefs that, as you say, is what the parties care about.
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Jun 1, 2023 00:30
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As someone who works in an appellate court, the idea of a court with 19 judges (or 27 or whatever) terrifies me. It's hard enough to discuss and work out complicated legal problems with 7 or 9 justices. Imagine a split decision with a plurality of 13 justices, 7 concurrences in which 16 justices agree in some form, 11 dissents, blah blah blah. And then the lower courts have to implement the things. This Supreme Court sucks, but I'm not sure straight packing is a good idea. And I know that once it starts, the GOP will be shameless about abusing it when they are in control. I do like the idea of shoving them into emeritus status however. predicto fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jun 1, 2023 |
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Jun 1, 2023 00:44
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Sir Kodiak posted:They do, but there's more than half-a-dozen people who also do so. What I'm talking about is that various justices have particular quirks that go beyond those shared beliefs as seen in the somewhat rare cases where the justices don't rule along party lines. More justices would, presumably, reduce the impact of this variation and result in more consistent rulings along the religious and political beliefs that, as you say, is what the parties care about. I hadn't considered that. predicto posted:This Supreme Court sucks, but I'm not sure straight packing is a good idea. And I know that once it starts, the GOP will be shameless about abusing it when they are in control. Yeah, that's the obvious problem. So... is there just no hope then? We're just at the mercy of a court in which the justices are at best unqualified and at worst publicly compromised? I know there are processes to remove justices, but that's as likely to happen now as the constitutional amendments being discussed earlier. The Bible fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Jun 1, 2023 |
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Jun 1, 2023 01:19
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cr0y posted:Didn't dotard also tweet classified satellite photos of something Iran missile related? Yes. The pictures provided a never-prior-disclosed view into the visual resolution of US spy satellites. It was--and probably still is--a major disclosure that actively harmed US defense interests.
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Jun 1, 2023 02:00
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The Bible posted:I hadn't considered that. The solution is to keep Republicans out of the White House for extended periods probably. Periods of one party dominance have happened before and in the right conditions could happen again. Right now Republicans can’t stop accelerating toward pandering more and more to a shrinking share of extremists and being more efficiently allocated in swing states can only get them so far. 2000 and 2016 were by the skin of their teeth. They can always try to course correct out of a doom spiral but only if the chuds let them, and as of the last midterms they weren’t letting them.
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Jun 1, 2023 02:17
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