In the time since 2016, Democrats almost managed to lose a majority in the House when they should have been able to pick up seats.
That is with Trump attempting to take a flamethrower to every single Republican's chances in the midst of a pandemic.
That's after they managed to lose to Trump and lose Congress in one fell swoop.
Looking at that and winding up on that a single person on a comic book message board is where the focus ought to be?
Misses the forest for the trees.
Went back a bit... If someone did mention this one, I missed it.
(Get the feeling that someone probably brought up his initial hospitalization...)
https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/g...df61a126c.html
Wife of Wisconsin lawmaker hospitalized with COVID-19 urges vaccinationHis wife, Renee Jacque, said in an email to WBAY-TV on Monday that five of their eight family members have tested positive for COVID-19. They have six children, including an infant. She said that of the three fully vaccinated family members, one person contracted the virus with mild symptoms.
“While vaccination is a personal choice, I ask that those individuals who are eligible and able to receive the COVID-19 vaccine please consider placing their trust in the medical professionals who recommend it,” Renee Jacque wrote. “These professionals, and their peers, are those whom we have also placed our trust in to care for my husband.”
She did not say which family members have COVID-19 or release their conditions or an update on her husband’s status.
Neither the staff for Jacque’s office, nor family members, have confirmed if the senator has received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Sen. Jacque’s brother, Pierre Jacque, has also encouraged vaccinations.
“While I appreciate the prayers for my brother and I understand that that’s how they feel they’re helping, I would ask them to, you know, use some of the help that God has already given them to stay out of that same situation,” said Pierre Jacque.
On top of the rest of it, someone actually might have been trying to extort Gaetz? This just keeps getting weirder.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/0...n-gaetz-508122
Man charged with $25M extortion scheme promising pardon for Rep. Matt Gaetz
It’s such a key issue on basic human rights (I’d assume people on both sides of the debate would agree that that) that it feels odd to leave it to individual states…I can not see any credible argument against view that it is fundamental to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
As more Republican states passed equivalent bills, the Supreme Court could not continue to refuse to act…they would eventually have to come down on one side of the debate or the other, and ensure all states accept a common national stance.
The Democrats don't control things by enough - one defection in the Senate changes the outcome, and on top of that there is the ability of the minority party to stop most things unless there is a 60% threshold on top of things. And there are two Democrats who aren't willing to change that latter rule.
Dark does not mean deep.
In the last House election, the Democrats lost more House seats than after 2016 elections but managed to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives. The Democrats also barely managed to gain half the seats in the senate even though there are a couple of DINOs like Joe Manchin in the senate. Plus two of the senators aligned with the Democrats including Bernie Sanders are independents
The next Congress election will come next year, so President Biden needs to do a better job at managing affairs both at home and overseas after the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco otherwise the Democrats will lose the majority in both the Senate and the House next year.
Everyone knows they are. This has nothing to do with protecting the newborn, it never did, it's all about control of a woman's body and her right to choose. In some, if not most ways, the GQP is no better than the Taliban when it comes to strident, hardcore fundamentailism. Why Qpublicans aren't publicly called out on their hypocrisy is a mystery to me.
Avatar: Here's to the late, great Steve Dillon. Best. Punisher. Artist. EVER!
It's important. Unfortunately, the Republican minority is committed to full obstruction and two Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema, are uninterested in abolishing the filibuster and are serving largely as sin-eaters for others too timid to pull the necessary trigger that would allow the radical change necessary to save this country from becoming another illiberal democracy as we're heading towards. These things can wind up enduring quite well. Just ask a historian how long Jim Crow endured.
Yeah, no kidding owning a home is preferable to renting an apartment. I don't think anyone is arguing the opposite. The poor folk who can only afford (or can't even do that without assistance) apartments would surely love some of these subsidized mortgages you're talking about.
In the real world though, we can barely get Congress to subsidize their living in packed-together apartment buildings that yes are more likely to be run-down and in disrepair than single-family homes. Probably because there are enough people even among those who claim to be Democrats that are quick to label poor folk as not being "family friendly" or "safe".
Again, you can't just funnel all of the poor and minority folk you don't want in your neighborhood into the cities and just call it a day, while people with greater resources are free to keep the suburban and rural areas to themselves so they can feel "safe". Honestly, you shouldn't want to.
In the United States, there is a lot of power for state governments to determine their own laws.
Before Roe VS Wade, abortion was a state matter. It was legal in California and New York.
To be fair, there is an argument by opponents of abortion that the Supreme Court should outlaw abortion nationwide under the rationale that the unborn have rights, and the law should protect the most vulnerable. There has also been legislation proposed that would have national implications, so there are a lot of legal arguments swinging around.
Legally, it is possible for Republicans to stall Democrats on this fundamentally important issue. Part of it is the Democratic control is very narrow. Republicans would likely filibuster any national legislation, which means Democrats would need ten Republicans to support it or to be willing to end the filibuster.
Previously there wasn't enough political will to expand the Supreme Court. If the court were to make a really expansive anti-abortion law, that could motivate the Democrats on the fence to undo the filibuster and to expand the Supreme Court.
The rationale for the Supreme Court's decision is that the way the Texas law was written no one has been affected yet, as no one has been sued for performing abortions.
There's an interview in the Atlantic with a legislative director of a pro-life group that supported passage of the law that gets into how this law is different.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...+-+Politics%29
Sometimes, the Supreme Court does the most when it does nothing. On Wednesday night, the justices denied an emergency petition by abortion providers in Texas seeking to block S.B. 8, a law banning pregnancy terminations after roughly six weeks’ gestation. A 5-4 majority of the justices argued that they had no power to stop the law from going into effect, since none of the citizens who are now empowered under the law to sue abortion clinics for providing the procedure have yet attempted to do so. Legal challenges likely lie ahead. But abortion opponents see this as a victory, however temporary. For now, at least, abortion clinics in Texas are largely suspending their work and abiding by the ban.
John Seago, the legislative director of Texas Right to Life, shepherded and supported the passage of this law. “This is a phenomenal victory and the most significant accomplishment for the Texas Pro-Life movement since Roe,” he told me. Just five years ago, his group and its allies faced a major legal defeat in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, when the Supreme Court overturned legislation restricting abortion procedures in Texas. Today, Seago and his allies feel much more optimistic that they can end legal abortion, and not just with S.B. 8. This fall, the justices are slated to consider Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and potentially reevaluate the constitutional right to abortion laid out in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade.
If Seago and his allies get their way, abortion would be completely illegal in the United States. But would they be ready, if that were to become reality? I spoke with Seago yesterday afternoon. Our conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Green: I’m curious why your legal approach here was not a full-frontal attack on Roe, but rather to create a private right of action for citizens so they can sue abortion providers. What was the motivation behind that approach?
Seago: There are two main motivations. The first one is lawless district attorneys that the pro-life movement has dealt with for years. In October, district attorneys from around the country publicly signed a letter saying they will not enforce pro-life laws. They said that even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, they are not going to use resources holding the abortion industry to account. That shows that the best way to get a pro-life policy into effect is not by imposing criminal penalties, but civil liability.
The second is that the pro-life movement is extremely frustrated with activist judges at the district level who are not doing their job to adjudicate conflicts between parties, but who in fact go out of their way to score ideological points—blocking pro-life laws because they think they violate the Constitution or pose undue burdens.
Green: How much of your strategy is about optics? Instead of passing legislation that would send doctors or women seeking abortions to jail, these questions get played out in civil court.
Seago: There’s a question of morality: Is it ethical to penalize women seeking abortions in Texas? We have categorically argued that women need to be treated differently than abortionists. Even with civil liability, we say that women cannot be the defendants. That’s not the goal.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets