All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[CaptainEurope]

President Biden announced a student loan plan Monday that would help millions of Americans have their debt forgiven i

This is so unfair to Lauren Boebert, who never went to college.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

President Biden announced a student loan plan Monday that would help millions of Americans have their debt forgiven i

This is so unfair to Lauren Boebert, who never went to college.

Lauren Beetlejuicer couldn't spell college, much less succeed in one.

[Tendrin]

I like it because it hurts you: On the association of everyday sadism, sadistic pleasure, and victim blaming.

bstract
Past research on determinants of victim blaming mainly concentrated on individuals’ just-world beliefs as motivational process underlying this harsh reaction to others’ suffering. The present work provides novel insights regarding underlying affective processes by showing how individuals prone to derive pleasure from others’ suffering—individuals high in everyday sadism—engage in victim blaming due to increased sadistic pleasure and reduced empathic concern they experience.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-64747-001

[Mister Mets]

There's an argument on whether those interested in the progressive cause should do more to pressure Sonia Sotomayor to resign, given the possibility that the Democratic party will not have control of both the presidency and the White House for some time.

Commentator Josh Barro has been the most prominent to push this.

Sonia Sotomayor will turn 70 this June. If she retires this year, Biden will nominate a young and reliably liberal judge to replace her. Republicans do not control the Senate floor and cannot force the seat to be held open like they did when Scalia died. Confirmation of the new justice will be a slam dunk, and liberals will have successfully shored up one of their seats on the court — playing the kind of defense that is smart and prudent when your only hope of controlling the court again relies on both the timing of the deaths or retirements of conservative judges, plus not losing your grip on the three seats you already hold.

But if Sotomayor does not retire this year, we don’t know when she will next be able to retire with a likely liberal replacement. It’s possible that Democrats will retain the presidency and the Senate at this year's elections, in which case the insurance created by a Sotomayor retirement won’t have been necessary. But if Democrats lose the presidency or the Senate this fall (or both) she’ll need to stay on the court until the party once again controls both. That could be just a few years, or it could be a while — for example, Democrats have previously had to wait 14 years from 1995 to 2009, and 12 years from 1981 to 1993.2 In other words, if Sotomayor doesn’t retire this year, she’ll be making a bet that she will remain fit to serve through age 82 or 84 — and she’ll be taking the whole Democratic Party coalition along with her in making that high-stakes bet.

Nate Silver calls it a political IQ test.

If you’re someone who even vaguely cares about progressive political outcomes — someone who would rather not see a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court even if you don’t agree with liberals on every issue— you should want Sotomayor to retire and be replaced by a younger liberal justice. And — here’s the mean part — if you don’t want that, you deserve what you get.

The nature of lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court — something I’d reform if for some strange reason I was tasked with rewriting the Constitution — is that we as citizens have not just the right but I’d argue the responsibility to think strategically about the justices’ age and health. Perhaps — perhaps — if the political class hadn’t seen such discussions as uncouth, Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have come under more peer pressure to retire when Barack Obama could have replaced her. Instead, of course, RBG died in the waning days of the 2020 presidential campaign, replaced on the bench by Donald Trump’s choice of Amy Coney Barrett.

The main counterargument is that it's a bad look to push a woman of color out of the court, and that Democrats should focus more on winning elections, than on preventing political defeats. Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez articulates it.

We can't change the past @SenBlumenthal. What's done is done.

Forcing the only Latina on the Court to retire isn't going to get us a liberal majority back.

I believe we can win this November, but based on your comments Senator it seems you've given up.

It does seem the better political strategy is clear. The people who like her voting record should encourage her to follow in the footsteps of Breyer and Kennedy.

[Tami]

There's an argument on whether those interested in the progressive cause should do more to pressure Sonia Sotomayor to resign, given the possibility that the Democratic party will not have control of both the presidency and the White House for some time.

Commentator Josh Barro has been the most prominent to push this.



Nate Silver calls it a political IQ test.



The main counterargument is that it's a bad look to push a woman of color out of the court, and that Democrats should focus more on winning elections, than on preventing political defeats. Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez articulates it.



It does seem the better political strategy is clear. The people who like her voting record should encourage her to follow in the footsteps of Breyer and Kennedy.

if she resigns now, we might see another Merrick Garland situation. It's too risky, besides, there is are two big difference between Sonia Sotomayor and RBG just before she passed away, 1. age, 2. health.

[CaptainEurope]

if she resigns now, we might see another Merrick Garland situation. It's too risky, besides, there is are two big difference between Sonia Sotomayor and RBG just before she passed away, 1. age, 2. health.

And imagine she gets pressured to resign, they get a 40-something replacement on the court who then dies of breast cancer a couple of years later.

[lilyrose]

I feel bad about that- she's not that old.

[Jack Dracula]

if she resigns now, we might see another Merrick Garland situation. It's too risky, besides, there is are two big difference between Sonia Sotomayor and RBG just before she passed away, 1. age, 2. health.

Sotomayor has type 1 diabetes and takes insulin every day to manage it. That shouldn’t disqualify anyone from any job, but circumstances being what they are, it’s worth thinking about the possible consequences.
Those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them and RBG not retiring at an opportune moment was a significant one.

[CaptainEurope]

Senator Fetterman on Sotomayor: “I have no opinion on anyone else’s ability to retire unless it’s that sleazeball Menendez, he should resign.”

[kidfresh512]

Jennifer and James Crumbley, parents of Michigan school shooter, sentenced to 10 to 15 years for manslaughter

Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Oxford High School mass shooter Ethan Crumbley, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years Tuesday after each was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials earlier this year.

"I can and will offer my deepest and most sincere condolences for your unfathomable losses," Judge Cheryl Matthews said during sentencing.

Matthews said each action or inaction created a ripple effect and said she believes the sentences are "in the best interests of justice and are reasonable and proportionate."

"Parents are not expected to be psychic, but these convictions are not about poor parenting. These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train -- about repeatedly ignoring things that would make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of their neck," Matthews said.

Co worker going on a rant about "slippery slope" and being responsible for stuff your kids do.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Sotomayor has type 1 diabetes and takes insulin every day to manage it. That shouldn’t disqualify anyone from any job, but circumstances being what they are, it’s worth thinking about the possible consequences.
Those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them and RBG not retiring at an opportune moment was a significant one.

I didn't know Sotomayor has diabetes. While she's younger and in better health (relatively speaking) than RBG who had a litany of medical issues, I would hope she doesn't let history repeat itself. But yeah, forcing out a woman of color would make for horrible optics, and that's a headache Biden doesn't need at present. Still, some sort of exit strategy has to be worked on in one way or another.

[CaptainEurope]

Speaking of precedent setting court decisions:

European court rules human rights violated by climate inaction

A group of older Swiss women have won the first ever climate case victory in the European Court of Human Rights.

The women, mostly in their 70s, said that their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to the effects of heatwaves linked to climate change.

The court said Switzerland's efforts to meet its emission reduction targets had been woefully inadequate.

It is the first time the powerful court has ruled on global warming.

Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg joined activists celebrating at the court in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

"This is only the beginning of climate litigation," said Ms Thunberg. "This means that we have to fight even more, since this is only the beginning. Because in a climate emergency, everything is at stake."

The ruling is binding and can trickle down to influence the law in 46 countries in Europe including the UK.


The Court ruled that Switzerland had "failed to comply with its duties under the Convention concerning climate change" and that it had violated the right to respect for private and family life.




It also found that "there had been critical gaps" in the country's policies to tackle climate change including failing to quantify reductions in greenhouse gases - those gases that warm Earth's atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas.

The Swiss women, called KlimaSeniorinnen or Senior Women for Climate Protection, argued that they cannot leave their homes and suffer health attacks during heatwaves in Switzerland.

The German constitutional court had already passed a similar judgment about 3 years ago, but there young people had sued. The court saw standing because they had to live with the long term results.

[Username taken]

Wow.

[JackDaw]

I didn't know Sotomayor has diabetes. While she's younger and in better health (relatively speaking) than RBG who had a litany of medical issues, I would hope she doesn't let history repeat itself. But yeah, forcing out a woman of color would make for horrible optics, and that's a headache Biden doesn't need at present. Still, some sort of exit strategy has to be worked on in one way or another.

Forcing her out isn’t an option, given the rules of the game, even if Biden was daft enough to take that line (pretty sure he isn’t).

But is it possible for him to effectively offer her another role? She obviously has bags of experience, and a keen social conscience, there might well be something dear to heart that she might love to tackle while she still has the energy and zest to do different things.

[CaptainEurope]

Wow.

What a day for diverse court news. Only thing missing is Trump's bail getting revoked.