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Randalor posted:Especially considering the lunatic fringe, going after Trump for the death penalty may have even worse repercussions than the BS they currently do (and tried to do, considering January 6th). We shouldn't hold back in doing the right thing out of fear of what evil bastards will do one way or another. Us going easy on Trump won't make the fascists nicer. We saw Trump attempt to end the peaceful exchange of power from one administration to another, via inciting a violent mob, with internal support to delay reaction forces, and a refusal to tell the crowd to stop and go home. I don't think the play is to give Trump a slap on the wrist, that will only embolden the lunatic fringe to try harder, and be more violent in the future (We've seen how they've gotten even more rabid in their hatred and policies affecting trans people). One cannot abide such an existential threat to continue to exist, and if taking the steps to remove that threat results in the lunatic fringe reaching for and using their guns.... That makes them obvious terrorists and their public standing will plummet. They would be a clear and present danger and we have laws in place to handle that. What we don't have is laws in place to handle bad-faith acting politicians who are destroying the country through the systems they have corrupted. (A discussion of if you have enough faith in our institutions to root out actively hostile terrorist groups is completely reasonable, I just didn't wanna wall of text too hard.)
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Jul 24, 2023 23:27
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Somehow I don't think executing Trump for treason is the "low chaos, everyone just shrugs and moves on" option.
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Jul 24, 2023 23:33
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He just needs to be disqualified from office, preferably by being in prison. This will still seriously piss off the extreme right and likely trigger violent events, but it's better for them to try that when their guy is not sitting in command of the most powerful office on Earth. That they already tried a violent coup on 1/6 means the US legal and political systems already waited too long to take direct action against this threat.
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Jul 24, 2023 23:44
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Orthanc6 posted:He just needs to be disqualified from office, preferably by being in prison. This will still seriously piss off the extreme right and likely trigger violent events, but it's better for them to try that when their guy is not sitting in command of the most powerful office on Earth. That they already tried a violent coup on 1/6 means the US legal and political systems already waited too long to take direct action against this threat. Being in prison wouldn’t disqualify him from office, would it?
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Jul 24, 2023 23:45
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burnishedfume posted:Somehow I don't think executing Trump for treason is the "low chaos, everyone just shrugs and moves on" option. Only because we can't give him the Crassus.
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Jul 24, 2023 23:52
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I know this is the pickiest of nits but treason has a very specific definition, mostly about working with hostile foreign powers. So anything Jan 6 related would not be treason.
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Jul 25, 2023 00:07
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:Being in prison wouldn’t disqualify him from office, would it? It would not, no. Eugene V. Debs was convicted of sedition, had his right to vote stripped, and was in a jail cell when he ran in 1920.
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Jul 25, 2023 00:15
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Orthanc6 posted:He just needs to be disqualified from office, preferably by being in prison. This will still seriously piss off the extreme right and likely trigger violent events, but it's better for them to try that when their guy is not sitting in command of the most powerful office on Earth. That they already tried a violent coup on 1/6 means the US legal and political systems already waited too long to take direct action against this threat. It is, by design, nearly impossible to disqualify someone from running for president in the US. He could whip out a gun during a campaign rally and start firing wildly into the crowd on live TV, get convicted for first-degree murder and sent to prison for life, and he'd still be eligible to be president.
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Jul 25, 2023 00:58
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Main Paineframe posted:It is, by design, nearly impossible to disqualify someone from running for president in the US. He could whip out a gun during a campaign rally and start firing wildly into the crowd on live TV, get convicted for first-degree murder and sent to prison for life, and he'd still be eligible to be president. If you're talking "by design", it would simply require an impeachment conviction and a senate resolution to bar him from office. If you're talking what's actually possible with the current freakshow, then lol
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Jul 25, 2023 01:02
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Failed Imagineer posted:If you're talking "by design", it would simply require an impeachment conviction and a senate resolution to bar him from office. If you're talking what's actually possible with the current freakshow, then lol He can’t be impeached/convicted/barred until he actually holds federal office Would make for one hell of an inauguration though
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Jul 25, 2023 01:04
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The easiest route to disqualifying Trump legally would be proving he was born in Australia to a pair of non-American emus
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Jul 25, 2023 01:13
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burnishedfume posted:The easiest route to disqualifying Trump legally would be proving he was born in Australia to a pair of non-American emus Yeah but then they'd celebrate him for having won a war
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Jul 25, 2023 01:28
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In a world where the political will existed, Congress could disqualify Trump from office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment with a simple majority of both houses (subject to beating the filibuster). That will did not exist for the two years of Democratic majority, and certainly does not now. e: individual states could also block Trump from appearing on their ballots, but the states with the gumption to do so are not states Trump was in serious danger of winning anyway. Farchanter fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 02:09
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Failed Imagineer posted:If you're talking "by design", it would simply require an impeachment conviction and a senate resolution to bar him from office. If you're talking what's actually possible with the current freakshow, then lol An impeachment conviction requires a 2/3rds vote of the Senate, and the last time one party held 2/3rds of the Senate was in the mid-1960s. It's fair to say it ain't happening. Farchanter posted:In a world where the political will existed, Congress could disqualify Trump from office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment with a simple majority of both houses (subject to beating the filibuster). The Insurrection Clause is vague and doesn't lay out an explicit means for enforcing it (which, by the way, makes it extremely vulnerable to the Supreme Court), but practically speaking, the only times it's been enforced without judicial action of some sort is when Congress itself simply refused to seat a member (which they could do for basically any reason. It's a legal and political landmine. Personally, I don't think there's any point in fantasizing about Trump being disqualified. Even if it were legally possible, Trump is the leader of a massive political movement which was large enough to win him the presidency once already. Someone who has a real shot at winning the presidency of the entire country and has roughly half of Congress under his sway is far too popular to simply disqualify. It's politically impossible. And even if it were to somehow happen and not immediately plunge the country into outright civil war, he'd just be replaced by one of countless equally-evil assholes congregating around the GOP in recent years. Trump himself is of little importance, the problem is the substantial percentage of the population who think his bigoted mumblings are the salvation of America.
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Jul 25, 2023 03:31
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Name Change posted:DeSantis 100% expects a Trump conviction to clear the way for President Milhouse We already had Richard Milhous Nixon.
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Jul 25, 2023 05:09
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Mitt Romney released an Op-Ed today in the Wall Street Journal asking all GOP candidates to pledge to drop out of the race by the February 26th if they aren't clearly in second place to prevent vote splitting and allow them to rally around an anti-Trump candidate. im constantly amazed that regressives are the worse mix of toeing THEPARTY line, but every 4 years also giant ego, backstabbing Iago Sith apprentice Starscreams.
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Jul 25, 2023 06:21
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It’s hilarious to me that he thinks any of them care about anything beyond themselves. Maybe they do have some kind of preference for conservative legislation over whatever a democratic legislature would pass, but they just want as much for themselves as they can grab, whether that’s by being king poo poo somewhere or just establishing a brand to ride for a few million. poo poo, Mitt’s that guy too! That article is part of his performance as that guy. Pretty clever, Mitt.
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Jul 25, 2023 06:33
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Romney sang this tune in 2016 too. No one listened to him then and no one will now.
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Jul 25, 2023 07:56
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The right never liked Romney in the first place and it always showed.
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Jul 25, 2023 08:50
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I think it has less to do with how they feel about Romney and more to do with him asking them to reflect on their own actions and do something for the better good. He doesn’t actually know who he’s talking to. But it wouldn’t matter how established or respected he was. Any Republican asks the rest of Republicans to grow up will be a liberal. Trump’s biggest appeal is his naked approval for being as selfish and broken an rear end in a top hat as you want without a shred of shame or responsibility.
STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 10:30
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Though you also absolutely have the root of it there, too.
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Jul 25, 2023 11:04
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Local politicians are finally telling the Supreme Court to piss off after their latest rulings. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/politics/alabama-congressional-map-what-matters/index.html quote:
Unfortunately it's Alabama about voting redistricting. I'd expect to see more of this (ideally Dems start doing poo poo with Dobbs etc.) as both sides get fed up with their "centrist" rulings (they aren't centrist at all of course). Bellmaker fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 12:10
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I don't think anyone would argue that what this nation needs, is to channel the hateful specter of Andrew Jackson. Just remember you've got to produce an odd rattle of bullets as you yell, "Let Him Enforce It!"
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Jul 25, 2023 12:33
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Would be quite a pleasant surprise if Biden decides to send the men with guns in to enforce the rulings rather than shrug, mumble decorous nonsense and let apartheid policies remain in place.
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Jul 25, 2023 14:50
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I mean, ignoring the Supreme Court isn’t “one weird trick” as much as it’s a collision course with a constitutional crisis. I think rather than looking at this and saying “why aren’t the Dems doing this???” we should look at how potentially catastrophic this situation is and say “oh yeah, that’s why.” How would “men with guns” even enforce the boundaries of congressional districts? It’s not as straightforward as say, integrating a school. It’s invisible administrative rope around areas measuring hundreds of square miles. I think you would basically need a full military occupation of Alabama, at which point your civil war has basically officially started. Even if you manage to avoid that outcome you’ve basically invited the next fascist president to send his own men with guns into the states for his own purposes. In any case, all they did was draw a map, and it’s subject to judicial review, and it’s not hard to imagine how basically any judge would rule on something where the Supreme Court said “this is what the law is, rule this way.” We can see what the legislature does at that juncture. I wouldn’t be surprised if they back down. If they did somehow end up using the illegal maps in next year’s election, maybe a Democrat controlled house could refuse to seat members who were elected illegally? Seems like a legit judicial check on the legislature.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:09
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As an aside, I also feel like the GOP making one of their gerrymandered districts 40% black is pretty risky, isn’t it? If the GOP lost 1 in 4 voters because a candidate is too crazy, or there’s a third party candidate, or there’s a huge blue wave, that kind of supposedly safe district falls. (I dream of the day WI, PA and NC’s state level gerrymanders come crashing down on them. You can’t get a 2-1 R legislature in a 50/50 state without having iffy margins on a lot of those seats.)
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Jul 25, 2023 15:15
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It's infrastructure week baby. https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/1683651381742239745?t=P-LzGXlsTm2EUuFF1AoSbQ&s=19 This comes after the endless complaints about a shell cracker plant that is constantly chugging out black smoke in the Pittsburgh area.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:15
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Would be quite a pleasant surprise if Biden decides to send the men with guns in to enforce the rulings rather than shrug, mumble decorous nonsense and let apartheid policies remain in place. They are basically teetering as close as they think they can get away with. The ruling didn't explicitly call for two black majority districts with 55% of the black vote. It called for two districts where black voters could have representation since they are 30% of the population, but they had been cut in such a way that they would only be a majority in 1/7th of the districts. They are trying to be cute by removing some of the current majority-minority district to bring it down to a 50/50 district, then adding it to another district one to make the second district a 40/60 district (which would be somewhat competitive) and saying "One district with a majority black votes and one that is competitive and will probably have a representative chosen by black voters at least some of the time = two districts." Biden won't need to send troops in because they are either going to get the map approved or they are going to be forced to redo it again. And if they don't do it right the third time, then a court is going to draw the maps.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:18
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Bellmaker posted:Local politicians are finally telling the Supreme Court to piss off after their latest rulings. That's not really what's happening. They're not "telling the Supreme Court to piss off", they're testing the limits of what the courts will tolerate. The Supreme Court has affirmed the lower court ruling, but the lower court ruling didn't say they actually had to have two districts with a black majority, just that they had to have two districts with something close to a black majority. How close is close enough? That's what the legislature is trying to find out. If the court rejects this map too, they're not going to say "gently caress the courts, we're using this map anyway". They'll accept the court decision and draw another map with a slightly higher black percentage in those two districts, and keep trying until the court either accepts a map, gives them a clearly-defined minimum requirement that they can draw the map to barely meet, or decides they've run out of chances and will have to accept a court-drawn map.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:26
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Are there any courts that have drawn maps and had those maps upheld? I understand the desire when people are obstinate but also it's truly not the role of the Courts
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Jul 25, 2023 15:29
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Harold Fjord posted:Are there any courts that have drawn maps and had those maps upheld? I understand the desire when people are obstinate but also it's truly not the role of the Courts The one in New York for the most recent election. Pennsylvania did in 2018. Both of those cases were supposed to be temporary and required the states to submit new redistricting plans after the election was over.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:36
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Mellow Seas posted:Even if you manage to avoid that outcome you’ve basically invited the next fascist president to send his own men with guns into the states for his own purposes. People keep saying this and it's like they don't grasp that 1. the next fascist president will do that no matter what and 2. the entire point would be to make sure there never is a fascist president.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:38
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Rebel Blob posted:The Smithsonian is preparing to build two new museums at The Mall in DC, the National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women's History Museum. Legislation to establish and partially fund the museums was passed in 2020. Now a Republican amendment has passed the House Appropriations Committee to cancel funding the National Museum of the American Latino, for typically stupid reasons. You see, the National Museum of American History has a new exhibit on American Latinos that doesn't pay enough lip service to the rapid right-wing interpretation of Latin-American history. It doesn't denounce communism, dares to say the Texas Revolution was fought to preserve slavery, and that Puerto Rico is a colonial conquest of the United States. I dare say there isn't even a shrine to Pinochet.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:49
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I AM GRANDO posted:It’s hilarious to me that he thinks any of them care about anything beyond themselves. Maybe they do have some kind of preference for conservative legislation over whatever a democratic legislature would pass, but they just want as much for themselves as they can grab, whether that’s by being king poo poo somewhere or just establishing a brand to ride for a few million. poo poo, Mitt’s that guy too! That article is part of his performance as that guy. Pretty clever, Mitt. I don't think Mitt needs to establish a brand to ride for a few million dollars.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:11
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This is a pretty wild story out of Texas that seems to confirm some of the fears people had previously had about appointing politicians to run Texas A&M and other Texas schools. The current Lt. Governor of Texas is a former right-wing shock jock from AM radio. The professor is an opioid expert and answered a question about safe needle use areas and said the Lt. Governor was wrong that providing them would make people want to do opiates more because there would be no consequences. She essentially said that all the available data says he's wrong and he doesn't know what he is talking about. A student in the class, who is the daughter of a Republican legislator, snitched to her Dad - who then called the University - and the professor was censured and placed on leave within 2 hours of the speech. The "good" news is that the former politician who was in charge of the university has since resigned. The whole article is a deep dive and fairly long, but worth reading in its entirety. https://twitter.com/nickconfessore/status/1683854041044877315 quote:Joy Alonzo, a respected opioid expert, was in a panic.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:17
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Byzantine posted:People keep saying this and it's like they don't grasp that 1. the next fascist president will do that no matter what Even totalitarians have to care about public opinion, and there is a big difference between being the first guy to send in the guns and being the first guy to do it for “bad reasons”. Byzantine posted:2. the entire point would be to make sure there never is a fascist president.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:20
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I know we just talked about Obama feeling powerless around here somewhere. The power of persuasion as the power of the presidency. It applied to Trump, causing him to fail at a lot of his half assed declarations,and it'll apply to President West. A president still needs people to want to do what he says. Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 16:25
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But Trump objectively achieved even less than Obama… and less people liked him when he left office than when he came in… what exactly was he using these amazing powers of persuasion for? Starting a cult? Why do people just assume Republican strategies are so effective despite the party not having any particular electoral or policy success? They are only “more successful” than Democrats in that it’s much easier in our system to not change things than to change things.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:27
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I'm agreeing with you and tying it to things I've recently read about Obama. Because Trump would say "let's do a thing" but would never actually tell the right guy how he wanted it done or whatever official rules say he's supposed to do. And if it's a really bad idea you can be administratively slow walked. As opposed to the assassination. The assassination wasn't his idea it was one of the options they presented that they didn't think he would jump on and he did. That was brought to him by an entire administrative chain of people ready to achieve a purpose
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Jul 25, 2023 16:32
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:This is a pretty wild story out of Texas that seems to confirm some of the fears people had previously had about appointing politicians to run Texas A&M and other Texas schools. Unless I missed something, this is inaccurate. John Sharp is the Chancellor of the Texas A&M system, and the person referenced in the article. He has not resigned. Katherine Banks, the president of TAMU did resign over a wholly unrelated matter - the failed hiring of an esteemed journalist to restart TAMU's journalism program. That fiasco is because others within the Texas A&M believed hiring her would be a nod to DEI (the proposed hire was a Black woman, currently tenured at UT). More information here. The short version is that A&M has now found itself in the headlines twice in just a couple weeks because their interfered with their academic faculty for political reasons. It's A&M though, it's hard to predict what this will mean in the long run for the school.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:34
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