All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[Tendrin]

Aja, are you familiar with David Neiwert?

[aja_christopher]

Aja, are you familiar with David Neiwert?

Only with his Wikipedia entry and what I've read in this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-the-far-right

Most of the things I've learned I've learned on my own -- starting with the Yahoo boards, observing 4chan, and then going directly to Stormfront to get the real deal from the source since the views tended to be the same (and still are if you read many of the comments on the shooting).

Watched it then expand to gaming sites -- Gamergate was a big catalyst -- and watched them post here occasionally on CBR but I can only imagine the things he's seen and heard after getting up close and personal with them.

That said, I wasn't at all surprised when the "meme president" became reality -- there a lot more of them out there than many people are willing to admit.

[zinderel]

The New Zealand Shooter's Rhetoric Sounds Like Something You Might Hear In Congress

We should talk about why that is.

This is how the shooter begins his manifesto:

If there is one thing I want you to remember from these writings, it’s that the birthrates must change, even if we we were to deport all non-Europeans from our lands tomorrow, the European people would still be spiraling into decay and eventual death.

And here’s something King said in August 2018 about fertility rates:

I’m watching emotion take over reason. When I made a statement on Twitter saying, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” it seemed to be more irritating to the left than anything I have ever said. First of all, the total fertility rate in Europe is below replacement rate. When that happens, you are a dying civilization.

Here’s the shooter on the unprecedented “invasion” of immigration:

We are experiencing an invasion on a level never seen before in history. Millions of people are pouring across our borders, legally, invited by the state and corporate entities to replace the white people who have failed to reproduce, failed to create cheap labor, new consumers and tax base that the corporations and states needs to thrive.

And here’s Gohmert in 2014, on the House floor, talking about how immigration is an “invasion” unseen since D-Day:

We know that the invasion into France by the Allied Forces consisted of about 150,000 troops. About 150,000 people was the biggest invasion in history. And since then, we come up to the year 2014 and the New York Times reported that just in the recent months we have had 240,000 adults and 52,000 children, now it’s being reported that it’s closer to 60,000 children, as I understand the article said, since April, just two months, we’ve had nearly 300,000 people invade the United States through Texas. And then it’s now being reported that there are 300,000 people making their way up from Central America to the United States.

[aja_christopher]

The New Zealand Shooter's Rhetoric Sounds Like Something You Might Hear In Congress

We should talk about why that is.

Birds of a feather.

-----
"Trump just called immigration an 'invasion.' So did the New Zealand shooter."

https://theweek.com/speedreads/82948...ealand-shooter

"Trump Just Echoed the New Zealand Shooter's Language About an 'Invasion' Hours After the Attack"

https://www.esquire.com/news-politic...and-manifesto/

"New Zealand suspect wrote in manifesto he supported Trump 'as a symbol of renewed white identity'"

https://thehill.com/policy/internati...as-a-symbol-of

[Tendrin]

Only with his Wikipedia entry and what I've read in this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-the-far-right

Most of the things I've learned I've learned on my own -- starting with the Yahoo boards, observing 4chan, and then going directly to Stormfront to get the real deal from the source since the views tended to be the same (and still are if you read many of the comments on the shooting).

Watched it then expand to gaming sites -- Gamergate was a big catalyst -- and watched them post here occasionally on CBR but I can only imagine the things he's seen and heard after getting up close and personal with them.

That said, I wasn't at all surprised when the "meme president" became reality -- there a lot more of them out there than many people are willing to admit.

Naw, I wasn't figuring you got anything from him. I just wanted to reccomend him if you weren't.

[zinderel]

Birds of a feather.

-----
"Trump just called immigration an 'invasion.' So did the New Zealand shooter."

https://theweek.com/speedreads/82948...ealand-shooter

"Trump Just Echoed the New Zealand Shooter's Language About an 'Invasion' Hours After the Attack"

https://www.esquire.com/news-politic...and-manifesto/

"New Zealand suspect wrote in manifesto he supported Trump 'as a symbol of renewed white identity'"

https://thehill.com/policy/internati...as-a-symbol-of

Yep. But, y'know...it wasn't racism that got Trump elected, it was economic blah-blah-blah poor working whites worrying about blah-blah-blah and jobs and Jesus and abortion and queers and Muslims, not racism!

Also, I just... I really want to point out the idiocy of a white guy complaining about invaders. That...that bears repeating until it sinks in...

[aja_christopher]

Yep. But, y'know...it wasn't racism that got Trump elected, it was economic blah-blah-blah poor working whites worrying about blah-blah-blah and jobs and Jesus and abortion and queers and Muslims, not racism!

And it's not just our Congress -- it's a global effort.



Also, let's not forget Trump and the Republican party's "birther" movement against the first African-American "Muslim" president.

[Tendrin]

What's court-packing if not degrading their functions for years by holding seats open so if your candidate wins you can pack them full of conservatives? That was the strategy employed by the Senate under Mitch McConnell.

Beto is right -- we need to explore how to do undo the damage to the judiciary that has been done by conservative politics. They've /been/ packing the courts. How do you resolve that rather than just let them have their bad faith win?

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

What's court-packing if not degrading their functions for years by holding seats open so if your candidate wins you can pack them full of conservatives? That was the strategy employed by the Senate under Mitch McConnell.

Beto is right -- we need to explore how to do undo the damage to the judiciary that has been done by conservative politics. They've /been/ packing the courts. How do you resolve that rather than just let them have their bad faith win?

The biggest check on the Judicial Branch of government is the fact that we allow Presidents to appoint them and Congress to approve them. Their check is the lifetime appointments so that they can be seperated from the influence of politics.

The reality is that unfortunately that was a failure of the Democrats for enabling a loophole that the Republicans threatened to use one day and did and then not mounting the public pressure to shame them into giving Obama his appointment. That was the time if ever to go scorched Earth and make the case that their President was getting fucked and the Democracy was being subverted.

The fix is to repair that mechanism, but neither side trusts each other.

Beto isn't right. It's a new issue and quite frankly the fix is to go back to what came before. Beto's suggestion is something a child would create. It has no practical application, it hands too much power over to the parties, and it creates a shitshow of partisan. Packing the courts has failed. Unfortuantely they already let the Republicans have thei bad faith win.

[Tendrin]

The biggest check on the Judicial Branch of government is the fact that we allow Presidents to appoint them and Congress to approve them. Their check is the lifetime appointments so that they can be seperated from the influence of politics.

The reality is that unfortunately that was a failure of the Democrats for enabling a loophole that the Republicans threatened to use one day and did and then not mounting the public pressure to shame them into giving Obama his appointment. That was the time if ever to go scorched Earth and make the case that their President was getting fucked and the Democracy was being subverted.

The fix is to repair that mechanism, but neither side trusts each other.

Beto isn't right. It's a new issue and quite frankly the fix is to go back to what came before. Beto's suggestion is something a child would create. It has no practical application, it hands too much power over to the parties, and it creates a shitshow of partisan. Packing the courts has failed. Unfortuantely they already let the Republicans have thei bad faith win.

This is complete nonsense. IF you honestly think the Republicans were going to be convinced by 'public shaming', then you're really showing you do not understand this situation at /all/ or what the actual motivations of conservatives here are.

So long as the GOP believes it can get away with these things, because /their/ voters won't punish them (and they won't, haven't you been paying attention?) they will not give a crap about any 'public shaming' the Dems can bring to bear. It's irrelevant when the reward is a republican-packed court. They have already shown they will throw their majorities into the fire for doing so, as they did in the midterms and now cheerfully talk about the nuclear option to enable more court packing. There is no mechanism to repair. This is not a problem of process problem that can be fixed by 'building trust'. It is about naked power and shaping the judiciary to disarm, dismantle, and destroy the liberal agenda for decades to come, just as the tax-bill is a method through which they'll defund the legislative liberal agenda by crying 'we don't have the money!' yet again

Adding a couple justices to the Supreme Court, which has no fixed number of justices, is not 'childish'. It is commonly talked about that FDR's effort 'failed', when in reality, it was made unnecessary by the 'switch in time that saved 'nine'. So long as Republicans can hold Democrats hostage by their good faith while continuing to be allowed to operate in bad faith, we will gain nothing.

[numberthirty]

This is complete nonsense, of course, but what else do we expect from you at this point? IF you honestly think the Republicans were going to be convinced by 'public shaming', then you're really showing you do not understand this situation at /all/.

So long as the GOP believes it can get away with these things, because /their/ voters won't punish them (and they won't, haven't you been paying attention?) they will not give a crap about any 'public shaming' the Dems can bring to bear. It's irrelevant when the reward is a republican-packed court. They have already shown they will throw their majorities into the fire for doing so, as they did in the midterms and now cheerfully talk about the nuclear option to enable more court packing.

Adding a couple justices to the Supreme Court, which has no fixed number of justices, is not 'childish'. It is commonly talked about that FDR's effort 'failed', when in reality, it was made unnecessary by the 'switch in time that saved nine'.

Except for that not being what he actually suggested...

While I'm not going to say "Childish", his idea is naive because the reality is the Republicans you just mentioned.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

This is complete nonsense, of course, but what else do we expect from you at this point? IF you honestly think the Republicans were going to be convinced by 'public shaming', then you're really showing you do not understand this situation at /all/.

So long as the GOP believes it can get away with these things, because /their/ voters won't punish them (and they won't, haven't you been paying attention?) they will not give a crap about any 'public shaming' the Dems can bring to bear. It's irrelevant when the reward is a republican-packed court. They have already shown they will throw their majorities into the fire for doing so, as they did in the midterms and now cheerfully talk about the nuclear option to enable more court packing. There is no mechanism to repair. This is not a problem of process problem that can be fixed by 'building trust'. It is about naked power and shaping the judiciary to disarm, dismantle, and destroy the liberal agenda for decades to come.

Adding a couple justices to the Supreme Court, which has no fixed number of justices, is not 'childish'. It is commonly talked about that FDR's effort 'failed', when in reality, it was made unnecessary by the 'switch in time that saved nine'.

Nonsense? Actually it was the intended mechanism and checks and balances put on the Supreme Court created by the founders of the country. The fact that the legislature implemented maneuvers that allowed a subversion of that is quite frankly on them. That's just reality. Tough pill to swallow.

The fact of the matter is, once that door was opened both parties were susceptible for that exact action being used to undercut Presidential appointments and the only way to prevent it was for the Party of the President to make an overhwelming public case against it so the other side would be shamed. I can tell you right now that if it was Bush or Trump who was losing out on a Supreme Court seat the Republicans would have went to war and stopped everything in the government over it and made the Democrats feel the heat. And they would have caved too. But once that mechanism was implemented, thatw was the only recourse you had against it.

Adding a couple of Justices isn't a fix. It just opens the door for the Republicans to come back and pack the courts further and then trying to force rulings while they control the government. Which will just completely break the consititution and **** the court into an even more partisan branch of government when the real goal should be to prevent that. It actually doesn't solve the problem. It aggravates it. And yes it is childish to suggest something as short sighted as that.

You want to fix the Supreme Court? Keep it at 9. Make the process so that the President gets to pick the Justice and only a 2/3rds majority in the Senate and a 2/3rds majority in the House can veto an appointment for a truly egregious case.

Unfortunately we fucked up what we had now, but going in the other direction and making it more of an absurd game is not the answer. It never was and it's a complete joke.

And that's not even going into how dumb Beto's actual suggesstion is of making it some game of both sides picking Partisan judges and then having them vote on additional judges. For one it incentives going as partisan as you can because you diluted the courts and are making it a one side vs the the other side dick measuring contest, also it has the additional facet of taking away the check the President has on appointments because the members of the judicial branch itself will be appointing the most crucial justices on the court. And that's before we even get into the realities of how little they will agree.

[Tendrin]

Except for that not being what he actually suggested...

While I'm not going to say "Childish", his idea is naive because the reality is the Republicans you just mentioned.

It's impossible to do right now, yes, but opening the discussion on whether we /should/, as a response to Republican intransigence and court packing, is an important step that recognizes the reality of what's actually going on and may actually give the GOP pause in their own court-packing scheme /if they credibly believe we would do it/.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

It's impossible to do right now, yes, but opening the discussion on whether we /should/, as a response to Republican intransigence and court packing, is an important step that recognizes the reality of what's actually going on and may actually give the GOP pause in their own court-packing scheme /if they credibly believe we would do it/.

The discussion should be "no we shouldn't do that and we should just go back to how it used to be and make it more difficult for a party to blockade appointments.

[Tendrin]

Nonsense? Actually it was the intended mechanism and checks and balances put on the Supreme Court created by the founders of the country. The fact that the legislature implemented maneuvers that allowed a subversion of that is quite frankly on them. That's just reality. Tough pill to swallow.

It's nonsense at the moment because one side is going 'but process' while the other doesn't give a crap about process except in so much as they can abuse it to their poltiical ends.

The fact of the matter is, once that door was opened both parties were susceptible for that exact action being used to undercut Presidential appointments and the only way to prevent it was for the Party of the President to make an overhwelming public case against it so the other side would be shamed. I can tell you right now that if it was Bush or Trump who was losing out on a Supreme Court seat the Republicans would have went to war and stopped everything in the government over it and made the Democrats feel the heat. And they would have caved too. But once that mechanism was implemented, thatw was the only recourse you had against it.

We're agreed to an extent here, but you're ignoring an important point about who's voters reward what behavior.

Adding a couple of Justices isn't a fix. It just opens the door for the Republicans to come back and pack the courts further and then trying to force rulings while they control the government. Which will just completely break the consititution and **** the court into an even more partisan branch of government when the real goal should be to prevent that. It actually doesn't solve the problem. It aggravates it. And yes it is childish to suggest something as short sighted as that.

If you don't think that the Republicans won't do exactly that if the situations are reversed, you haven't been paying attention. Just like we all predicted they'd nuke the filibuster, which they are already in the process of starting.

You want to fix the Supreme Court? Keep it at 9. Make the process so that the President gets to pick the Justice and only a 2/3rds majority in the Senate and a 2/3rds majority in the House can veto an appointment for a truly egregious case.

The GOP would love this given their advantages in the Senate.