All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Zauriel]

Decent piece on Mediaite about why it's not going to be Harris.

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/why...supreme-court/

The main problem in this hypothetical scenario would be the brief period before after Harris is nominated and before a new Vice President is approved by Congress.

Yeah, some presidents have governed without a vice-president if the vice-president has either died, resigned or succeeded his deceased predecessor.

There have been sixteen times when the office of vice-president was vacant until the Twenty-fifth Amendment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_P...ates#Vacancies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George...ice_president)

[Tami]

I know this. I didnt say I think what they are saying is true. Just ive heard a few of my aunts nutjob cult members say this and how a lot of people that are in the group know other people who are saying the same thing.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything. I was just reminded of a article I recently saw.

[babyblob]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything. I was just reminded of a article I recently saw.

I understand. I think I was a bit snippy with my response. Im sorry.

[Tami]

I understand. I think I was a bit snippy with my response. Im sorry.

No biggie.

[BeastieRunner]

I think Obama stands a better chance at getting in the SC than Harris IMHO.

And he has a snowball's chance in Hell ...

I am sure they will nominate a good one.

I would love to see it be Obama just to see the epic meltdown on Fox.

[worstblogever]

I think Obama stands a better chance at getting in the SC than Harris IMHO.

And he has a snowball's chance in Hell ...

I am sure they will nominate a good one.

I would love to see it be Obama just to see the epic meltdown on Fox.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson seems like the early favorite.

[worstblogever]

A nice short list of African American women who are more than qualified for this seat:

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”posted profiles of Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, who we noted actually was videotaped complaining to energy company executives about the price of gasoline dropping, because it would make it harder for them to keep fracking away if there was a lower demand for fossil fuels. Gov. Bryant also fought tooth and nail against gay marriage, trying to get a federal judge to override the lifting of Mississippi’s ban on it, and tried to pass a “religious freedom” law in his state to allow for the discrimination of LGBTQ citizens because of an individual’s “deeply held faith”. Bryant also has a terrible track record on women’s issues, supporting a statewide Personhood law (comparing its opponents to Nazis marching Jews to the ovens), pushing for abortion laws restrictive enough that he admitted he wanted to close all the clinics in the state that perform them (seething when it was overturned by a federal judge), frames the pro-choice argument as “Democrats have one mission in life, to abort children” and blaming Mississippi’s low test scores on public school students on “working moms making dumb kids”. Gov. He also lied to the public regarding Voter ID laws that had yet to go into effect already in the 2012 elections, claiming they were already the law, in a shocking attempt at voter intimidation. In June of 2015 Bryant to both the King vs. Burwell and the Obergefell vs. Hodges rulings by the Supreme Court that legalized same sex marriage, where he released a statement following each. After the former, he was whining about “the socialist takeover of healthcare being forced down our throats”, and in the latter ruling, he was bemoaning how the courts “usurped” his states’ right to decide if they could ban same sex marriage, showing that the governor could use a civics lesson. In late November of 2016, Gov. Bryant came out hard against the “liberal media” and the idea of Syrian refugees being relocated to Mississippi, countering critics who compared his attitude to that of the Americans who turned their backs on Jews fleeing Europe during World War II by arguing that it was an unfair comparison because “unless I missed my history lesson, the Jews coming out of Europe at that time were not blowing people up”. (Please note that the refugees being offered asylum in the United States are not carrying out attacks of any kind, and are almost exclusively women and children.) Phil Bryant has also formed a bizarre fellowship with Nigel Farage, the British anti-immigrant lunatic who orchestrated Brexit, hosting him in Mississippi, and then inviting him as his guest to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration, as well. Gov. Bryant signed HB 1523, an anti-gay “religious freedom” bill into law, releasing a statement on Twitter, unironically, that he signed the bill into law "to protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions ... from discriminatory action by state government." Phil Bryant later was interviewed by Tony Perkins, the leader of the anti-gay hate group the Family Research Council, where he insisted that Christians are still being “bullied”, and that’s why he signed HB 1523. When the law was predictably overturned by a federal judge, Bryant still decided to waste his state’s money, appealing the federal judge’s ruling against HB 1523, because y’know, he’d rather be “crucified” than allow that sort of thing to stand. Sadly, people didn’t start showing up with nails and boards to grant him his wish. In the wake of U.S. Senate candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith cracking jokes about public hangings in a state infamous for lynching (and photos emerged of Hyde-Smith wearing Confederate regalia). Well, Phil Bryant just couldn’t let facts impugn the honor of Hyde-Smith, giving a bizarre defense that opened with him referencing the conspiracy theory that “African American women are carrying out a genocide against their own race by utilizing their constitutional right to an abortion." When the local press in Mississippi called him out on it, Bryant tried claiming he read the statistic on Wikipedia… where no one can find such a claim. Then, only weeks later, he started railing about young African American men to high school boys, ranting, “I said they even changed the name to what you guys are now? Not dads or fathers anymore. What are they? Baby daddies. What a sad commentary for this nation.” The good news we have is that Phil Bryant was term-limited in 2019, and went off into the sunset to fantasize about denying LGBTQ citizens, minorities, and women their rights.

[worstblogever]

On this date in both 2020, as well as 2021, ”Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day”first profiled Steve Palazzo, the sitting U.S. House Representative for Missouri’s 4th Congressional District, who after serving five years in the Mississippi state legislature, was first elected to Congress in… what else? The 2010 Tea Party Wave. And, we have concerns about Steve Palazzo because of his close ties with the anti-gay hate group, the Family Research Council, and its lunatic leader, Tony Perkins.

It was back around 2013 that Palazzo really kicked the homophobia into overdrive, when he reacted strongly to the Boy Scouts of America planning to lift its ban on gay scout leaders by comparing it to his career fighting in the Marines. He said at the time that President Obama and “his highly organized liberal machine”had “unfairly attacked” the organization. “These people who are out there protesting and petitioning, I don’t think they care one thing about the Boy Scouts of America and want the organization to fail,[/I]” he insisted.

Palazzo did not dial back his homophobic comments until January of 2014, when he started up a Facebook campaign against "Gay Hollywood's version of matrimony" in response to that year’s Grammy Awards, where on air, Queen Latifah officiated 33 same sex marriages on air. As commenters on the thread began to point out how bigoted Palazzo was being, his people responded by not just deleting their comments, but blocking them.

So brave, Steve. So brave.

Steve Palazzo’s intolerance against the LGBTQ community is so ingrained that in November of 2013, when as a part of his defense of another anti-gay hate group, the American Family Association, it made him come to the logical conclusion that President Obama’s support of LGBTQ rights and that he signed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was clearly a sign that he “doesn’t share the same Christian faith that we do”, as part of some backwards Birther logic. Because, y’know, if Obama is a secret Muslim, that would make him REALLY supportive of gay rights, y’know?

Mind you, that isn’t the only example we have of Steve Palazzo irrationally hating President Obama. Such much so that during the 2013 Government Shutdown he helped a bunch of right-wing nut-jobs and Neo-Confederates who staged a protest at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. to start grabbing barricades to drag over to the White House and throw down in impotent rage. Y’know, while Larry Klayman yelled at the president to “put down the Koran and come out with his hands up”. That would be the government shutdown that PALAZZO VOTED TO CREATE.

Speaking of stupid things Palazzo has voted for or against, there was also the time he voted against disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, when he seems to want disaster relief whenever a hurricane hits his district.

But then… his whole voting record is a series of damaging ideas for the country, from repeated attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, to twice voting to defund Planned Parenthood, to votes against disaster relief unless it’s for his district, to votes for the past two government shutdowns, he is, for lack of a better term, a legislative miscreant. Oh, and in the waning days of the GOP’s majority in the House, Palazzo sponsors legislation to create bonds for the American people to buy that would fund Donald Trump’s insane idea for a wall on the U.S./Mexico border.

Over the past few years, Palazzo has continued to make a name for himself, and not in a good way:

• March 7th, 2019: Palazzo votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance.
• December 3rd, 2019: Steve Palazzo is one of 71 Republicans who vote against House Resolution 546, which stated disapproval of any attempt to readmit the Russian federation back into the G7 and make it the G8.
• December 19th, 2019: Rep. Palazzo votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump, in spite of glaring evidence of abuse of power.
• May 15th, 2020: Palazzo votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• December 10th, 2020: Palazzo signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
• January 7th, 2021: Steve Palazzo votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• January 13th, 2021: Palazzo votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump. He commented before his vote that “impeachment is the most inappropriate course of action at this time.” Because accountability is anathema to this seditious ***hole.
• February 4th, 2021: Steve Palazzo votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Palazzo votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Palazzo votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Steve Palazzo votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Palazzo votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Palazzo votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
  *]May 19th, 2021: Rep. Palazzo votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Steve Palazzo is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• November 5th, 2021: Steve Palazzo votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Steve Palazzo has the advantage that the partisan lean of Mississippi’s 4th Congressional District is +21 Republican. This helped him easily win re-election in 2020, only having to survive a few primary challengers, which he did with 65% of the vote, and then he did not face an opponent in the general election. He has yet to abandon Trumpism, and it will be interesting to see if he or his party do as approval polls for their despot begin to fade, or how he might try and reinvent himself. His entire decade in Congress has shown he only seems to understand operating from an insurrectionist’s stance, so it will take a level of growth we’ve yet to see from him.

[Gray Lensman]

"These three politicians are too old to lead...

BUT LISTEN TO FRESH AS A DAISY, THE YOUTHFUL BERNIE SANDERS!"


What a joke, man.

If Pelosi announces her retirement she becomes a lame duck, and corraling the caucus becomes much harder.

[Tami]

If Pelosi announces her retirement she becomes a lame duck, and corraling the caucus becomes much harder.

I agree. If she is going to retire it won't be until after she has passed the gavel onto someone else first.

[numberthirty]

Gotta ask yourself what could be worse...

- Things going up for grabs?

- Pelosi potentially being at the helm for a second noteworthy loss of House seats before doing whatever she will wind up doing?

[Xheight]

The larger aggregates would get difficult to sort out.

If you go with states, there are at least existing borders, even if you may have very different communities within the same states (the difference between inner-city Philadelphia and the outer suburbs, or Austin compared to rural Texas.)

One of the major issues in the United States is that the differences in political preference are largely about population density, with cities and inner suburbs favoring Democrats while the outer suburbs and rural areas favor Republicans. As a result, splitting communities of interest can get really complicated really quickly. Who would get to determine the new borders

If you are worried about borders counties could vote to secede as there were motions in say Maryland or Oregon recently to join nearby states. Of Course this wouldn't be easy but one borders were declare people could vote with their feet and apply for membership/resident status, those already there would be grandfathered in. Parties would be dissolved or held on to during a rewrite of local constitutions if they even choose to have such. Complicated is fine but people should be free to disassociate as much as associate. Anthropologist Timothy Earle points to mobility as being one of the check on power structures becoming rigid and stratified.

[CSTowle]

Biden poised to nominate first Black woman to Supreme Court
"The retirement of Stephen Breyer sets the stage for the president to make good on a campaign promise."
https://19thnews.org/2022/01/biden-s...rt-nomination/



I'm seeing Harris' name being suggested in a few places already.

Charges haven't even been announced yet, so there's some time.

This theory seems stupid.

Harris obviously wants to be President, and it would be pretty awkward if she were shuffled off to the Supreme Court. It would invite conversations about whether she wasn't good enough to be VP, or whether she was the victim of major bias.

It would also necessitate the confirmation of a Vice President to replace her.

If Biden wanted to nominate Harris to the court, it would've been easier if she's a Senator.

If Democrats could get Harris to the Supreme Court, it would probably be a good move for all involved. Being on the court is a pretty sweet deal, and it allows Democrats to replace Harris with someone who is a better governing partner and/ or presidential nominee.

But it would be awkward. And it would look really bad for the party if it didn't work out.

While I'd like to see it as I think she's a hindrance rather than an asset to the Biden Administration and the Party in general and would likely do less harm as a center-left Justice, I agree with almost all of what you said except for her Presidential ambitions being a serious consideration. Short of the greatest 180 in political history and a rapid development of excitement and enthusiasm and perception of competence I don't see her gathering any kind of a following. If Biden were to die in office and Trump were to seriously run again I could see people voting against Trump and her benefiting by default, but short of that I think she has zero shot.

If you are worried about borders counties could vote to secede as there were motions in say Maryland or Oregon recently to join nearby states. Of Course this wouldn't be easy but one borders were declare people could vote with their feet and apply for membership/resident status, those already there would be grandfathered in. Parties would be dissolved or held on to during a rewrite of local constitutions if they even choose to have such. Complicated is fine but people should be free to disassociate as much as associate. Anthropologist Timothy Earle points to mobility as being one of the check on power structures becoming rigid and stratified.

Like I said before (never heard a response), if you want to disassociate with your feet trek on over to Afghanistan or Somalia. If you're here you're living by our laws. That means you don't get to separate urban centers from rural stretches of land that's sparsely populated. Both of those groups have to compromise on many issues, both are going to be continually disappointed with things the other group wants and gets, that's what living in a society means.

Aside from that, point out an example (probably not the two I suggested) of a country with a weak central government with near our standard of living. On a small scale, without the need for much in the way of military spending (though we hurt ourselves with the foolish spending we do on the military, and our standard of living suffers), without much in the way of diversity, and without much of an impact on the world around it that might work. Like communism. On a (very) small scale. Short of breaking up the most powerful nation on the planet and arguably in world history (for which you'd make the Christmas card list of countries like Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc.) into thousands of little enclaves of like-minded folk that's never going to happen here.

[Hypestyle]

A nice short list of African American women who are more than qualified for this seat:

Someone from this list needs to be nominated. and confirmed. There's no time for excuses. Chuck Schumer needs to fast track this, regardless of the "optics" to conservatives and even some "middle of the road" moderates and "let's be fair" liberals.
Everyone knows the manipulations that Mitch McConnell engaged in to block Pres. Obama's picks and to fast-track Trump's. He needs to get a firm commitment from every Democratic senator to vote yes. I simply don't care about any "objections" from the conservative culture, which will inevitably be about nonsense. the late, brilliant law professor Lani Guinere was torpedoed when nominated for a federal court by Bill Clinton in the early 1990s. That scenario can't happen again under Biden. Black voters are watching this.
Every single senator who votes against the nominee needs to be called out relentlessly, including in campaign attack ads in their home districts. All the Senate seats up for grabs in the mid terms, Democratic candidates need to pay attention to this and call it out.