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Fritz the Horse posted:It was mentioned earlier that the Garland DOJ is especially cautious about bringing cases, they don't prosecute unless they have a 100% slamdunk case. I suspect they're worried about political blowback from failed prosecutions of Jan 6th rioters and especially of Trump himself. If they bring cases against the rioters or Trump and lose (or even just if those cases drag on for a long time), right-wingers get to triumphantly proclaim they were the victims of a totally phone made-up witch hunt and their innocence has been vindicated in court etc. They weren’t worried about going after Hillary’s emails. This feels like a poo poo reason from a worthless DOJ that is either ignorantly or maliciously allowing illegal actions by racists and rich folks to walk. Biden needs to fire Garland.
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Jun 17, 2022 00:33
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Epic High Five posted:Didn't the committee already say they aren't going to actually pursue any further prosecutions? Whatever info they have is obviously pretty worthless, seems like a pretty weak reason to delay doing anything until after the election no that is not remotely what they said
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Jun 17, 2022 00:43
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virtualboyCOLOR posted:They weren’t worried about going after Hillary’s emails. it is so goddamned funny that Biden decided to recapitulate the enormous own goal of Obama keeping Comey on-staff with Garland. surely, trusting to individual virtue of people selected for their ability to play nice with republicans won't bite a dem administration THIS time!
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Jun 17, 2022 00:59
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ILL Machina posted:Isn't it the opposite? They want to prosecute but the select committee is interrupting/influencing their schedule? That's the openly-stated rationale, anyway. They plan to prosecute the Proud Boys in August, and the Select Committee expects to release all their transcripts in September. The DoJ don't want a big dump of potentially-relevant stuff they to drop halfway through the Proud Boys trial.
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Jun 17, 2022 01:05
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https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/justice-sotomayor-pep-talk-progressives-praising-clarence-thomas/story?id=85446415 Justice Sotomayor gives pep talk to progressives while praising Clarence Thomas quote:Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a rare public appearance during the frenzied crush of Supreme Court opinion season, delivered public praise of her colleague Justice Clarence Thomas and gave a pep talk to progressives Thursday as the embattled institution prepares to issue major rulings driven by the court's conservative majority. This isn’t encouraging. And I continue to not understand why liberals praise people who want to oppress others. It’s maddening. It does not matter a lick to me that Thomas knows everyone’s name or that he loves the institution. He’s making terrible, horrible decisions
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Jun 17, 2022 01:06
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virtualboyCOLOR posted:They weren’t worried about going after Hillary’s emails. Why do you say this? Do you wish he charged everyone who did something illegal, regardless of how tight of a case it is? Where's the line for when the US AG should/should not charge?
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Jun 17, 2022 01:07
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theCalamity posted:This isn’t encouraging. And I continue to not understand why liberals praise people who want to oppress others. It’s maddening. It does not matter a lick to me that Thomas knows everyone’s name or that he loves the institution. He’s making terrible, horrible decisions It's extremely obvious why she and anyone else in her position does that. He's a coworker. Publically making GBS threads on a coworker is bad for any number of reasons. And she may need him on her side for a decision, even as unlikely as that is. Him being awful doesn't make him not be an incredibly powerful person in a position for life. Thinking she would behave any different is silly. I think Thomas and the other conservative justices should be booted and the court expanded. But that doesn't make me confused as to why a sitting justice behaves that way to a sitting justice
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Jun 17, 2022 01:10
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Political nicety does serve an important purpose and in the court especially. I think elected officials still doing that can't read the room but Justices aren't elected so
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Jun 17, 2022 01:19
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Yeah supreme court justices are literally decorum elementals, idk what else anyone would expect.
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Jun 17, 2022 01:29
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Being extra-nice to the people who are howling for your blood 24/7 is still stupid even when a supreme court justice does it. She basically just told progressives to trust a system that is directly failing them in the vague hope that it will be fixed someday while making sure everyone knows how necessary the people enforcing that failure is. That's not decorus, that's being a loving idiot. At the very least don't openly admit you're friends with the ideological enemy of the people you're speaking to. Yinlock fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jun 17, 2022 |
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Jun 17, 2022 01:36
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Kalit posted:Why do you say this? Do you wish he charged everyone who did something illegal, regardless of how tight of a case it is? Where's the line for when the US AG should/should not charge? it did not require a genius to predict a rhetorical shift from "January 6 was the most horrifying assault on our democracy" to "prosecuting the organizers of January 6 would be a WORSE assault on our democracy", but it is still interesting to watch it start. this is the paradox of January 6: it was a horrifying assault on the political process Democrats have where an ideology should be, and that process is incapable of treating 1/6's perpetrators as wrongdoers. there are only two ways available to reconcile these truths: either the process is wrong, or it would be worse to punish 1/6 than it would be to let its perpetrators off scot-free. and if admitting the process is wrong is ideologically verboten, your options shrink to either '1/6 wasn't -that- bad actually' or just pretending the whole thing isn't happening. a sadder, weaker echo of the embarrassing "trump is self-impeaching, actually" era in democratic leadership rhetoric.
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Jun 17, 2022 01:47
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ILL Machina posted:Isn't it the opposite? They want to prosecute but the select committee is interrupting/influencing their schedule? If the DOJ isn't investigating crimes because Congress is also investigating, then Congress should probably investigate the DOJ for being poo poo at their jobs DOJ: "Hey, what did Kushner say to Congress? We need transcripts!" Congress: "Well what did say in front of the Grand Jury?" DOJ: *looks down, scuffs shoe in the dirt* Congress: *hands on hips* DOJaaaaaaaay! You didn't bring him in front of a Grand Jury, did you? This is a weird situation because normally DOJ goes out of its way to not bother rich white politically connected people. But if someone at DOJ is hearing about something for the first time right now, it's absolutely the DOJ's fault for not caring enough to find out.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:01
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I think this is why the magas do so well with people, They're not constrained by decorum and will happily call for the pain, death, and eugenics of anyone and everyone that they hate. And it's kind of refreshing, all things considered. Real people, living people, don't enjoy being told "oh this person is doing their best" when they transparently are fighting only for things you despise, and I think it's very freeing to be able to vote for people who are willing to say, "no, gently caress that person, he sucks and should die." Just, y'know, only magas do that, I guess. I think fundamentally the reason for that is that the democrat establishment understands that if both groups were to act that way, the government would fall. At this rate it will anyway, but with a solid core of people spending all of their time legitimizing it and its agents in the face of its unabashed corruption and uselessness, it allows them to keep the gravy train rolling for longer. A leftist maga, were it to exist, would probably look like Stalinism in practice. Authoritarian leftism is a solution to the intractability of our current oligarchical hellscape, but it isn't a terribly popular one. But I think ultimately it's what the end result of a fight against fascism ends up being. If you can't change the minds of the fascists, and you can't coexists with the fascists, and you can't run away from the fascists... The other option is containment, I guess? But that's more of a "let the children deal with that" solution at best.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:03
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Ershalim posted:I think this is why the magas do so well with people, They're not constrained by decorum and will happily call for the pain, death, and eugenics of anyone and everyone that they hate. And it's kind of refreshing, all things considered. Real people, living people, don't enjoy being told "oh this person is doing their best" when they transparently are fighting only for things you despise, and I think it's very freeing to be able to vote for people who are willing to say, "no, gently caress that person, he sucks and should die." Just, y'know, only magas do that, I guess. That's a lot of words for "fascists do well because fascism works on a certain percentage of the population. Like, yeah, calling for the death of vulnerable minorities is satisfying to fascists.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:06
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Right, but I meant that calling for the deaths of fascists would probably be more effective for leftism than appealing to people's better natures, as is the current method of organization. I didn't want anyone to be confused by my saying so as "we should adopt that as a policy after the midterms." Not suffering intolerance to exist has a logical endpoint that people usually seem to politely ignore. I don't really understand how a society gets there from here without force.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:10
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Ershalim posted:I think this is why the magas do so well with people, They're not constrained by decorum and will happily call for the pain, death, and eugenics of anyone and everyone that they hate. And it's kind of refreshing, all things considered. Real people, living people, don't enjoy being told "oh this person is doing their best" when they transparently are fighting only for things you despise, and I think it's very freeing to be able to vote for people who are willing to say, "no, gently caress that person, he sucks and should die." Just, y'know, only magas do that, I guess. It's a "solution" to our oligarchical hellscape insofar it would replace capital-empowered oligarchs with party-empowered ones, and instead of only constraining your freedoms of expression and assembly on Twitter and Facebook, it would be everywhere.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:11
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Ershalim posted:Right, but I meant that calling for the deaths of fascists would probably be more effective for leftism than appealing to people's better natures, as is the current method of organization. I didn't want anyone to be confused by my saying so as "we should adopt that as a policy after the midterms." So why aren't the leftists who do call for people's deaths, such as yourself, in ideological control of any power structures? Or able to get candidates elected anywhere?
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Jun 17, 2022 02:12
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Ershalim posted:Right, but I meant that calling for the deaths of fascists would probably be more effective for leftism than appealing to people's better natures, as is the current method of organization. I didn't want anyone to be confused by my saying so as "we should adopt that as a policy after the midterms." Leftists already fights fascists physically.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:17
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e: ^^^ this is true, yes. But the individuals in antifa doing the punching aren't typical the same people doing the demagogueing, and that disconnect in policy vs. action is less evident in the magas, which is what I'm saying is what makes them more popular. Like, violent leftist populism would likely be very popular -- I guess is the point I'm getting at.Dog King posted:So why aren't the leftists who do call for people's deaths, such as yourself, in ideological control of any power structures? Or able to get candidates elected anywhere? For the reasons I said in the first post, mostly. If both sides of our current government were to ignore decorum in favor of promising what people were looking for, the government wouldn't exist for very long. And I haven't called for the death of people, I'm pointing out that it's an endpoint for the current situation that people often allude to without, apparently, considering. When people say that nazis must be destroyed, there is an ideological angle to that where they mean that nazi-ism has to be eliminated, and not, per se the nazis themselves. But there doesn't seem to be any ability of the left to get together and change minds on that kind of scale in the way that there is to change minds to be for it. So I was suggesting what I think people might mean without knowing that's what they mean. Ershalim fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jun 17, 2022 |
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Jun 17, 2022 02:18
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Ershalim posted:For the reasons I said in the first post, mostly. If both sides of our current government were to ignore decorum in favor of promising what people were looking for, the government wouldn't exist for very long. And I haven't called for the death of people, I'm pointing out that it's an endpoint for the current situation that people often allude to without, apparently, considering. That makes sense. Sorry I misunderstood you there.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:19
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Why is the fed dramatically raising interest rates when consumer spending increases are almost entirely a result of increased costs from supply chain disarray and insatiable corporate profit taking? It feels like extra punishment for the people being victimized. Or am I misunderstanding some basic economic truths?
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Jun 17, 2022 02:31
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Tacier posted:Why is the fed dramatically raising interest rates when consumer spending increases are almost entirely due to increased costs from supply chain disarray and insatiable corporate profit taking? It feels like extra punishment for the people being victimized. Or am I misunderstanding some basic economic truths? No you've understood it. It's because it's the only tool they have and also they want to crush poor people so they stop asking for raises.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:32
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Fritz the Horse posted:It was mentioned earlier that the Garland DOJ is especially cautious about bringing cases, they don't prosecute unless they have a 100% slamdunk case. I suspect they're worried about political blowback from failed prosecutions of Jan 6th rioters and especially of Trump himself. If they bring cases against the rioters or Trump and lose (or even just if those cases drag on for a long time), right-wingers get to triumphantly proclaim they were the victims of a totally phone made-up witch hunt and their innocence has been vindicated in court etc. They're going to say this anyway no matter what happens. The DOJ can have sworn videotaped testimony from Trump himself that he wanted to steal the election and his followers will STILL say it was all a Democrat witch hunt.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:37
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Tacier posted:Why is the fed dramatically raising interest rates when consumer spending increases are almost entirely a result of increased costs from supply chain disarray and insatiable corporate profit taking? It feels like extra punishment for the people being victimized. Or am I misunderstanding some basic economic truths? What Jaxyon said, and also the fundamentals of the federal reserve are monetarist policy. A primer: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/economics/monetarist-theory/ The fed's primary method of doing anything is through demand destruction because our system is almost entirely devised to increase shareholder value year on year via supply side profits to the exclusion of almost everything else. The goal is, if I understand correctly, to drive wage growth down in order to allow corporate profits to maintain their margins despite inflationary pressure. The idea, as far as I understand it, is to sacrifice jobs on the low service and manufacturing end through demand destruction of the supply they produce (leading to layoffs, automation, and outsourcing) to ensure high interest rates internationally keeping the dollar itself strong and desirable to foreign investment. It's essentially what Volcker did in the 80's and has remained more or less the thing American economics in the modern era is known for.
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Jun 17, 2022 02:39
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What this is actually communicating is that the Jan 6 committee has information the DoJ hasn't, and has held onto it for these hearings out of the belief that it would be publicized out of order if they had communicated it to the DoJ. I don't know how obtainable the information would be in such a transfer.
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Jun 17, 2022 03:10
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Ershalim posted:e: ^^^ this is true, yes. But the individuals in antifa doing the punching aren't typical the same people doing the demagogueing, and that disconnect in policy vs. action is less evident in the magas, which is what I'm saying is what makes them more popular. Like, violent leftist populism would likely be very popular -- I guess is the point I'm getting at. Decades of propaganda has rendered any form of dissent other than nonviolent protest utterly taboo. Hell even minor political hardball is met with monocle-popping and aghast accusations of authoritarianism. The ruling class is also generally apathetic towards fascism out of a delusional belief that it won't affect them, but are always on the watch for leftists thinking they can act above their station. This has led to the situation you describe, where people at their breaking point just get funneled towards fascist recruitment while yet another leftist organizer is found to have tragically committed suicide via 20 gunshots to the back.
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Jun 17, 2022 03:12
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Jaxyon posted:It's extremely obvious why she and anyone else in her position does that. The only possible consequence for a supreme Court justice is a social one, as they are not elected and can't be removed. It's frustrating to see literally the only pressure that can be applied to them (being called out for being awful) to not be Blood gargling ghouls being entirely written off because it's not sufficiently polite.
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Jun 17, 2022 03:16
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Jaxyon posted:It's extremely obvious why she and anyone else in her position does that. I didn't say she should publicly poo poo on a coworker. I just think that she shouldn't praise him to people who are ideologically opposed to him and his decisions and to those who would be adversely affected by him. He's trying to take rights away from people and she calls him a friend. And yes, I totally get why and I'm not at all confused as to why. I just think it's bullshit and I don't like it.
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Jun 17, 2022 03:26
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Charliegrs posted:They're going to say this anyway no matter what happens. The DOJ can have sworn videotaped testimony from Trump himself that he wanted to steal the election and his followers will STILL say it was all a Democrat witch hunt. Those people exist. So do those who think the nation died when dawn of 1/7 came without Trump being executed on the White House lawn. But they only matter if they get on the jury or if one of the former is a judge.. And a lot of potental jurors, and judges, are in neither of those two categories. High profile cases make it harder to select juries. They make it harder to get evidence admitted. Likewise, when the case is over, the true believers on either side will claim they were vindicated or cheated no matter what happens. But a lot of people aren't in one of those categories. And a lot of those who are can easily be swayed between "actually motivated to activism/violence over it" and "sit back and grumble on the internet" depending on how clean the call was.
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Jun 17, 2022 03:27
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https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1537606738702225409quote:The US state department is aware of a photograph appearing to show two missing Americans volunteering to defend Ukraine from Russian invaders in the back of a military truck with their hands tied behind them, seeming to offer evidence that they have been captured, a relative of one of the men said Thursday. I'm shocked to hear this  Seriously, the heroism mentality that seems to be prevalent here is such a destructive thing
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Jun 17, 2022 04:03
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hooman posted:The only possible consequence for a supreme Court justice is a social one, as they are not elected and can't be removed. It's frustrating to see literally the only pressure that can be applied to them (being called out for being awful) to not be Blood gargling ghouls being entirely written off because it's not sufficiently polite. You cant socially pressure them via another justice commenting in public that is never going to happen.
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Jun 17, 2022 04:38
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Jaxyon posted:It's extremely obvious why she and anyone else in her position does that. I think it's just as likely if not more that she earnestly is praising him. He's not Clarence Thomas, monster, to her. He's Clarence Thomas coworker. They're probably legitimately friends and she didn't really need to give a pep talk to progressives by talking about her friend Clarence. She has more in common with him than the people he hurts. Definitely either way it's not that surprising she's not poo poo taking him because it wouldn't go anywhere. But you really don't need to call him your friend considering what's supposedly coming.
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Jun 17, 2022 05:18
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Jaxyon posted:You cant socially pressure them via another justice commenting in public that is never going to happen. Whether it is going to happen is immaterial to it being the only lever there is.
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Jun 17, 2022 05:52
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Tacier posted:Why is the fed dramatically raising interest rates when consumer spending increases are almost entirely a result of increased costs from supply chain disarray and insatiable corporate profit taking? It feels like extra punishment for the people being victimized. Or am I misunderstanding some basic economic truths? The theory is that the supply chain got hosed up not just because of COVID, but also because people were buying more stuff in the midst of the pandemic (and its associated wage increases), and moreover that they were buying different stuff than usual because of the lifestyle changes. The supply chain wasn't able to shift to support those changed demand patterns and general higher-than-expected demand. The thinking goes that if people stop buying as much non-essential stuff, it'll reduce the pressure on supply chains, give industries some breathing room to fill in the various goods shortages, and allow things to get back to a more normal state. I think it's a rather shortsighted view, though. While there's certainly some numbers supporting my first paragraph, the second one ignores some very important external factors. For example, I've seen several economics articles popping their eyes at the fact that Americans aren't cutting back their driving in the face of these massive gas prices...but none of those articles made the connection that it's not really like they have much choice with so many CEOs beating the "return to office" drum.
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Jun 17, 2022 05:53
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Supreme Court justices broadly agree about most things, most seem to be friends or at least cordial, and there are no sworn enemies on the court that I know of. There's just not really a "radical" leftist on the court ready to throw bombs, either.
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Jun 17, 2022 05:54
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If she actually hated him or whatever, she could just opt to not say anything, or to deflect in a way that makes it clear she considers him an enemy The simplest explanation is just that she believes what she said, and at the very least is able to compartmentalize what Clarence Thomas does to his victims. Probably not that different from compartmentalizing when she joins in on rulings that hurt people herself. We're not really real to these people
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Jun 17, 2022 06:12
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virtualboyCOLOR posted:They weren’t worried about going after Hillary’s emails. The DoJ didn't file charges against Secretary Clinton.
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Jun 17, 2022 06:21
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Jaxyon posted:No you've understood it. It’s the only tool the Fed has. It’s not the only tool. We could use taxes. But that’s not politically viable.
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Jun 17, 2022 06:52
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theCalamity posted:https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/justice-sotomayor-pep-talk-progressives-praising-clarence-thomas/story?id=85446415 quote:Thomas has a "very different philosophy of life," Sotomayor continued, "but I think we share a common understanding about people and kindness towards them. That's why I can be friends with him and still continue our daily battle over our difference of opinions in cases." It's literally the same reasoning that every even half-way decent American who still has Republican friends makes. Nothing will ever change as long as it is entirely okay. When someone defends associating with your fascist friends despite their moral decreptitude, just remember that people on higher echelons of power make friends and have colleagues too, and they're going to do the same thing. So if this same person then complains about people with more influence doing the same thing, they're a hypocrite.
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Jun 17, 2022 10:44
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At least Sotomayor was honest and reminded everyone that we can change all these monstrous decisions, we just have to go to war again.
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