Reuters says the Supreme Court justices “appear divided” as they hear arguments about whether Title VII protects gay and transgender employees from sex discrimination:
Kavanaugh said little to indicate how he might vote. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who missed the opening day of the court’s term on Monday with an illness, was at the arguments but asked no questions, as is his custom.
The four liberal justices on the nine-member court signaled sympathy toward arguments that LGBT workers are covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex as well as race, color, national origin and religion.
Some of the five conservative justices expressed reservations toward extending protection to gay employees. However, one of them, Justice Neil Gorsuch, asked questions of both sides indicating potential sympathy for the workers. When analyzing whether a person was fired on the basis of sexual orientation, Gorsuch said sex seemed to be a “contributing cause.”
But Gorsuch later in the arguments voiced concern that the court would be overstepping its role if it ruled in favor of gay and transgender workers instead of letting Congress legislate on the subject. Gorsuch warned of “massive social upheaval” that could result from such a ruling.
“It’s a question of judicial modesty,” Gorsuch said.
Weird how “judicial modesty” doesn’t forbid “conservative” judges from asserting control over women’s uteri, barging into LGBTQ folks’ bedrooms or rifling through their underwear drawers. There’s not a molecule of modesty in the whole bunch.
Open thread.
Jerzy Russian
I am glad I am no longer being blackmailed over the Supreme Court.
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: Let me make a call. What’s a good time to have the guys come over to have a chat with you about this and your vote next year?
UncleEbeneezer
How can this even be a question? This is a case where Employer looks at Employee, assumes their Sex, looks at the Sex of the people their Employee screws/dates/marries (or wants to) and decides whether or not they can keep their job. Sex is not a “contributing cause” it’s the ONLY cause.
But hey, there’s NO DIFFERENCE between the GOP and the Democratic Party so I guess we can all just keep voting Green Party or not vote out of protest etc….
Adam L Silverman
@UncleEbeneezer:
1) Evangelical Christianity
2) Traditional Catholicism
3) Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism
4) It makes all of them feel icky.
LuciaMia
But Im sure they all have gay friends.
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman: I am free most days between noon Eastern time and 9:01 a.m. Pacific time. Also noon Pacific time until 3:01 Eastern time works on most days.
Adam L Silverman
@LuciaMia: Or are gay and just deeply in the closet as has long been whispered about one of the conservative justices.
Adam L Silverman
@Jerzy Russian: We’re just going to surprise you to keep you on your toes.
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: 5) Another way to mess with people just let living their lives but who aren’t like us.
robmassing
LOL “massive social upheaval.” Citations needed.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Has Gorsuck ever thought ruling that Title Vll of the 1964 CRA does not protect LGBTQ could result in “massive social upheaval”?
Another Scott
Neil Gorsuch: Friend or Foe?
I’ll let you guess. Just guess…
Grr….
Cheers,
Scott.
Cathie from Canada
LGBTQ rights are gone in the United States, until a Democratic Senate can restore them. (And even then, the Supreme Court will be asked to overturn again on something something grounds.)
It is very sad to see a great country moving backwards but this is what is happening now.
Major Major Major Major
It seems pretty clear to me that Title VII should be interpreted to protect gender identity and expression (two of the cases).
From what I understand, VII has already been found to say that women can’t be fired for e.g. not wearing makeup. The court is being asked to find the same for non-stereotypical gender expression by cis men, as well as for trans people who wish to use gender expressions that don’t match their chromosomes’ stereotypes.
Nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (the third case) seems to be a different question entirely.
Obviously I’m not a constitutional scholar, though.
Patricia Kayden
Who would be harmed if federal civil rights protections were extended to LGBTs? No one except bigots. This is no different than extending civil rights to African Americans in the 50s and 60s. Judicial modesty will just allow bigots to continue to discriminate.
UncleEbeneezer
@Adam L Silverman: Religion is definitely a key component. Though I will say that LGBTQ rights are not treated a whole lot better in organized atheist/skeptic spaces. There was a huge schism just a few years back when some atheist/skeptics dared suggest that maybe we should put some of our energy towards fighting the damage that major religions aim specifically at Transgender people. Some fairly prominent atheist bloggers suddenly started to sound as bigoted and intolerant as the Fundamentalist/Evangelicals they so often rail against.
Chyron HR
What if one of the liberal justices took Gorusch and Boof aside and said “Look, you were put on the court to make business-friendly rulings and protect Trump from legal harm. You don’t HAVE to abuse LGBT people, too.”
Adam L Silverman
@mrmoshpotato: That’s covered in the first three and the icky one.
JPL
@Patricia Kayden: So that’s what Gorsuch was hinting at when he said massive social upheaval.
Let Bigots Be Bigots.
NotMax
If, say (for the sake of argument), The Advocate fired someone for being straight, “judicial modesty” would evaporate faster than piss in the Sahara.
UncleEbeneezer
Former BJ Front-pager, Imani Gandy discussed these cases on Boom!Lawyered Podcast.
Adam L Silverman
@Chyron HR: Requiring businesses to recognize that LGBTQ people have rights, let alone just people in general, is not being business friendly for people like Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
Major Major Major Major
I’m guessing nobody took the chance to remind him about the twenty something states and many countries where this is already the law.
Patricia Kayden
People of color hate his guts.
https://twitter.com/Bakari_Sellers/status/1181612128257630209
Wonder when the White working class will get a clue.
Leto
@Cathie from Canada: That’s basically the irritating part with Gorsuck’s statement: Oh, we can’t do anything until Congress makes a law, but then we’ll turn around and accept Talibangical arguments that the law was un-Constitooshunal, that Congress never should have made it. It’s bad faith statements made from the highest court in the land.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
Unfortunately, the bigot lobby, AKA The Republican Party, is very powerful.
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, but it also deserves to be said explicitly.
laura
So, I cannot have a right to privacy in my family planning decisions because as a female I lack agency as its recognized by the courts, but abner dimfuck can retain the right not to feel icky because someone doesn’t present in public as abner feels they should and his holy book may or may not contain a relevant passage?
Fine. Time to organize another massive social upheaval for justice not-Garland.
Roger Moore
@UncleEbeneezer:
This is my shocked face. A lot of prominent atheists are just as bigoted as their religious counterparts; they just rationalize their bigotry differently.
smintheus
Congress passed legislation modifying Medicaid. The Supreme Court said they didn’t have the power to do so. Quite the judicial modesty those Republicans have.
Just Chuck
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m a born-again Atheist myself, but I can’t stand any of the atheist/freethinker meetup type groups, since the bulk of them seems to be comprised of bitchy assholish axe-grinding glibertarian men.
NotMax
Hoping the phrase “shoving it down our throats” was not uttered during argument or questioning.
But wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Mnemosyne
This demonstrates once again why we need a clear federal anti-discrimination law protecting LGBTQ people that SPECIFICALLY outlaws discrimination against transgender and non-gender-conforming people. As has been demonstrated over and over again, the Supreme Court can and will fuck with any implied constitutional protections that they don’t like (see also Plessy v Ferguson and the like).
Leto
@NotMax: “OBJECTION, your honors; phrasing. Space phrasing, to be exact.”
Roger Moore
@Chyron HR:
They don’t HAVE to, but they WANT to.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jerzy Russian:
Later, when Congress votes broad protections and President Harris signs them into law, it will be deemed a sweeping abuse of Federal power at the expense of the deeply held religious beliefs of corporations. That opinion will be authored by Justice Gorsuch.
catclub
@Chyron HR:
But like Trump’s immigration policy/police. The cruelty is the point.
Avalune
@Just Chuck: I went to one of these. Bunch of douche men saying douche things, crapping on the arts, and just reciting shit they read in a magazine article to sound smart. Completely uninterested in anything I might have had to say. I guess I overlooked the part of the invitation that said RSVP with penis only.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Cathie from Canada:
As an episode of Handmaid’s Tale showed when one of the characters tried to leave the country with her wife in a flashback scene, the CBP officer in the security line told her “that document is no longer recognized” when he was presented with a marriage certificate.
Duane
@Leto: I’m old enough to remember when the SC was trusted to protect basic human rights. Instead we get voiced concerns, furrowed brows, weasel words and a broken system of law. Low quality republican hires with no regard for the destruction they cause.
Bostonian
I am happy that we have extended greater rights to lesbians and gays in this country. I am proud that my state extended the right to marriage to homosexual couples first.
That said, I don’t believe that Section VII covers homosexuality or transgenderism. It just talks about “sex,” e.g.:
Is gender the same as sex? Is sexuality the same as sex? I seem to recall being told, repeatedly and over a long period of time, that gender is not the same as sex, and that sexuality is not the same as sex. I try to keep up on things, and my understand is that current usage of these terms is well represented by, for example, Planned Parenthood here:
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/gender-gender-identity
The argument has been made that if you discriminate against a man because he is married to a man, that is discrimination on the basis of sex, because you would not discriminate against a woman because she is married to a man.
However, that’s a shaky argument at best, because the individual in question is not being discriminated against on the basis of his own sex, if other men continue to be hired. He’s being discriminated against on the basis of his partner’s sex, not his own. I know this will likely get me pilloried, but I believe that to be the letter of the law as written: ” because of such individual’s…”
Likewise for the transgender case. If other individuals who are of the male sex are still being hired, there is no discrimination on the basis of sex if a MTF transgender person has been terminated on that basis. The complainant remains of the male sex even though she wishes to be considered as belonging to the female gender, and we as polite people comply. The word “gender” appears nowhere in Title VII, and thus Title VII does not contemplate protection based on gender. That is, unless “gender” and “sex” mean the same thing. Is that something our courts should determine?
Legislation should be created in the legislative branch, not in the courts. I don’t want the right wing making new pro-right wing laws from the bench, so I must agree they shouldn’t make new laws from the bench that I might agree with either. Dangers of that approach include imprecision in the laws created by fiat, as opposed to laws that might be carefully crafted to protect colliding interests.
For those who think that nobody could get hurt by a conflation of gender and sex, and thus opposition comes only from meanness, I ask whether it was worth passing Title IX, or that was a mistake. A decision by the Court to make “sex” and “gender” identical could for all practical purposes end Title IX. We might no longer have women’s sports and men’s sports, just coed sports and men’s sports. Are the rights of the women hurt by this without value?
Omnes Omnibus
@Duane: The Warren Court was an exception to the Court’s general pattern.
Mnemosyne
So I had to do our annual anti-harassment training here at the Giant Evil Corporation, and the whole course was based on the wild idea that, rather than wasting your time trying to figure out who is and isn’t in a protected category, just treat everyone at work with equal respect and dignity. What a concept, right?
Major Major Major Major
Kent
I come from conservative Christian roots and I promise you this is all going to come down to religion and “religious freedom”
The right is going to get up a full head of steam about how if the court rules in favor of LGBT rights then your rural Baptist bible school will be forced to hire black transgender drag queens to teach their sunday school classes.
I will lay 10:1 Odds the Robert’s court will simply wash their hands and say “Sorry, you need to go back to Congress, the 1974 law wasn’t about this”
Major Major Major Major
@Bostonian: the court has already ruled that VII applies to gender expression: women can’t be fired for not doing stereotypically ‘female’ things like wearing lipstick. If you’re just going to repeat original/textualist arguments, go away. The republican justices have that covered, and even worse, it makes you sound dull.
Mnemosyne
@Bostonian:
I understand what you’re saying in a legal sense, which is why we need clear and specific federal laws that ban gender and sexual orientation discrimination as well as sex discrimination, but it’s a pretty dickish thing to say to the commenters here who are about to lose their civil rights. Would you have said the same thing to a woman before Title IX was passed?
Kent
@Bostonian: I call bullshit. This isn’t about Title IX and you know it. Different statutes can and do interpret different words differently. Protecting LGBT rights in the workplace isn’t suddenly going to let men walk into into the dressing rooms of HS girls swim teams and you know it.
Mary G
Frankly, Justice Gorsuch, I will participate in massive civil upheaval if you legalize discrimination and hatred against my LGBTQ friends and family.
Corporations know that it pays to keep as many people in the customer pool as possible and objected to exclusions in Indiana and other places. So it’s the big money interests vs. a minority of “religious” bigots. Unfortunately the Federalist Society seems to consist of hard-core Catholics, so I’m not that hopeful.
UncleEbeneezer
@Just Chuck: Yup. The past 5 years or so really opened my eyes to the fact that atheists can be just as __ist/__phobic as any other group. After FreethoughtBlogs split due to blatant transphobia by Ophelia Benson (and others) a bunch of the more Social Justice-oriented bloggers relocated to TheOrbit. I became FB friends with many of them and follow/interact with them regularly. There are definitely some great people out there but they are a small minority (and usually themselves, minorities: black, LGBTQ etc.) compared to the prominent, douchey, libertarian dudes.
Major Major Major Major
@Mary G:
It is… not currently illegal.
Chyron HR
@Major Major Major Major:
NO NO NO BERNIE IS LORD THE DNC RIGGED THE POLLS
NotMax
@UncleEbeneezer
Yup. Atheist evangelism is no less corrosive than is theist evangelism.
Roger Moore
@Bostonian:
Your concern is duly noted.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: OT, how’s Sevilla?
jl
@Bostonian: @Mnemosyne: Sorry, I don’t see the legal sense of Bostonians argument. I think in context ‘sex’ means ‘gender’, and it is not a stretch to say that both words refer to the same context. As I understand Bostonian’s argument, ‘sex’ is more likely to be properly cover discrimination against employees for having sex at work. Which would make work much more enjoyable most the time, but much more stressful and full of too much drama as well.
sdhays
@smintheus: And it was hailed as “modest” because they didn’t just wholesale ditch the entire ACA because it was a liberal law.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: great! I leave tomorrow though, for one last night in Madrid since that’s where my flight is.
Truthfully I’m at the point in the trip where I tend to get sad, though, so I’m in my hotel room playing Dragon Quest and yelling at strangers on the internet.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major: Superficially you might say only gender identity/expression was covered, but if you can’t fire a man for being attracted to women, then gender protection means you can’t fire a woman for being attracted to women either.
Millard Filmore
@Kent:
I am not so sure the RWNJs see it your way. A few years ago the mother of my son’s friend was terrified that allowing high school pre-op gender changers into the bathroom of their choice meant that a boy can slap on some perfume, dress up as queen for a day, and perve on her daughter.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Now have a sudden craving for paella.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: After nearly two weeks in Andalusia, I was overwhelmed by the degree of human exploitation and suffering that led to the building of all those glorious cathedrals. I think by the time we reached Toledo I’d had enough.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: For which, the cognoscenti will say, you have to go to Valencia, not Sevilla.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
There’s inferior paella but there’s no such thing as bad paella.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Often voiced by folks driving through Ohio.
;)
Another Scott
@Bostonian: There was an excellent interview with a Yale law professor about this case on the BBC News on the radio this morning. I haven’t found a transcript. Maybe try to listen to it.
EEOC.gov:
The EEOC agrees that this is pretty well settled law. The SCOTUS has no business rolling back this interpretation.
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: that always seemed like a sketchy argument to me, since the law covers qualities of the person themselves, not qualities of their associates. ??♂️ Maybe I’m just aping my (liberal) con-lawyer dad’s answer from all the conversations we’ve had over the years.
@Gin & Tonic: hardly a historical landmark around that wasn’t built on the suffering of innocents. At a minimum, every religious monument diverted resources away from the needy. Around the world, many were built by slaves. I dunno, it never bothered me too much; ancient history.
When we get into 18th century and onwards I get squicked out.
Bostonian
@Mnemosyne: Mnemosyne, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that Title IX passed as legislation, rather than being invented on the bench.
I support legislation to define and expand civil rights on the basis of sexuality and of gender identification.
I also support the Equal Rights Amendment:
I don’t see that the Equal Rights Amendment says anything about sexuality or anything about gender identification, which is why we will need further legislation once that is passed.
Major, I find you pretty boring. You’d probably be more interesting if you made an argument instead of just yelling and cussing.
Kent, you should meet Jessica Yaniv. Maybe you’d get along.
Myself, I have a young girl who is very athletic. I hope she will get the chance to compete on a girls’ team when she gets to high school. I don’t really care about the locker room thing as much as some – I’m a fan of the universal locker room concept – but it’d be nice if girls were still able to compete with girls ten years hence.
robmassing
@smintheus:
And Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act by a huge margin. But Scalia said the Court had to step in and rescue Congress from political correctness. Also modest.
Another Scott
@jl: Maybe Scalia can be reanimated to give the originalist’s “clearly sex is a verb here” argument.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
@Bostonian:
As the official balloon-juice greeting has it: go fuck yourself. Find another blog if you don’t like the writers here. I’ll even give you a refund.
ETA also, for fuck’s sake, I both made an argument before your comment AND REPEATED IT DIRECTLY TO YOU
Sorry, am I yelling and cussing again? I never can tell, bless your heart for pointing out that I do it.
JaySinWA
@Patricia Kayden:
Unfortunately recent events have shown there to be a fairly significant number of bigots. Most likely a larger group than LGBTs.
Mary G
I know, I couldn’t think of a better word. In any case, if they do say bigotry is OK because the constitution is silent on sexuality , they may be shooting themselves in the foot. Even young evangelicals have grown up around out people and don’t see what the big deal is.
Someone was talking about a Rod Dreher column yesterday where he had his tighty-whities in a bunch over a high school in a red state that got rid of the Homecoming King and Queen and just had Homecoming Royalty, including a male-appearing student in a dress. I read the comments and one said Rod’s cause was over and gone. His kid goes to that school, the Royal is popular and beloved by all, and the kids are outraged at people like Rod.
These kids will be of voting age soon. Women already are switching to voting for Democratic candidates, because we don’t want to give up our reproductive rights. Young voters were way up in the midterms. Future candidates can run and win on this issue.
Gravenstone
O/T, but saw a report on CNN that Trump is reaching out to outside counsel about the impeachment inquiry. Including …. Trey Gowdy! That should be entertaining.
Major Major Major Major
Alright, I’m out before I do more gay non-argumentative cussing and yelling. Rubs some folks the wrong way.
Served
@Bostonian:
Ahhh there it is
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Gravenstone: What a terrible client Trump would be. He wouldn’t listen and then he wouldn’t pay his bills. Anyone who takes that job is as crazy as Trump
waspuppet
“Massive social upheaval,” huh?
Not letting people discriminate would cause “massive social upheaval.”
Letting people discriminate would, uh, not?
Shows who they think “society” is.
Gin & Tonic
@Gravenstone: I’m seeing on the Twitters that Gowdy declined the opportunity.
NotMax
@waspuppet
Massive social upheaval is a corollary to the “Our forebears had slaves, why can’t we?” school of ‘thought.’
jonas
Huh. No-one said Scalia was being judicially immodest by flagrantly overturning more than a century of jursiprudence and flooding the country with guns with his Heller decision.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
However it will be a minority opinion in the 17 member Court.
jl
@Mary G: Just because the Constitution is silent on certain specific rights, it is not silent on the existence of rights that are not mentioned explicitly, namely in the 9th Amendment. The list of non-enumerated rights that the Supreme Court has found itself adjudicating is long.
Amendment IX – Non-Enumerated Rights (1791)
https://system.uslegal.com/u-s-constitution/the-ninth-amendment/
I think the 9th Amendment all by itself is black and white and conclusive evidence that textualism and original meaning schools of constitutional interpretation are wrong, at least as practiced by the reactionaries today.
Mnemosyne
@Bostonian:
Yes, this has been the argument made since the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were passed — if you’re not a straight white man, the Constitution does not apply to you and Congress must pass specific legislation in order for non-white, non-male people to have any civil rights.
The fact that you’re right about how the Constitution has been interpreted historically does not mean that you’re not an asshole for smugly reminding all of us non-male and/or non-white people that the Constitution doesn’t apply to us unless Congress kindly decides to grant us civil rights out of the goodness of their hearts.m.
Jeffro
BREAKING: Senate Intel Committee just released bipartisan report affirming that the Russians interfered in 2016 and with the intent of helping trumpov.
Have at it, Mango Menace – fly off the handle all night denying reality.
Gravenstone
@Served: Yeah, the sentence does sort of leap out doesn’t it?
Bostonian
@Major Major Major Major: I’m sorry. I do try to fit in as best I can, and adopt the mores of the local. In that spirit, go fuck the horse you rode in on, which from its hideous appearance seems to be your mother. Me cago en tu leche, me cago en tus huesos, y que te folle un pez. There. Do I follow the traditions better now?
The expected failure of the cases before the Supreme Court should provide momentum to create legislation that expands civil rights.
Also, on a related note, I hope that my girl, who is now eight, will be able to be on a girls’ sports team when she is in high school, competing with girls. I think that if the Supreme Court decides that “sex” = “gender,” then that is unlikely.
Mnemosyne
@Bostonian:
Oh noes! The gay man must WATCH HIS TONE when addressing his betters!
Do you need a fainting couch so you can recover your bruised sensibilities at being addressed so by a lesser being?
NotMax
@Jeffro
“Totally exonerated. They never said COLLUSION!”
Bostonian
@Served: I’m sorry, Served. Did you have the opinion that girls should not have that right? I thought that was part of the idea of Title IX. If you think women are unimportant, and don’t deserve rights like that, go ahead and say so instead of beating around the bush.
Jeffro
@NotMax: Please, FSM, have the Ill Douche fly off the handle at Burr (Narrator: that would be Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, soon to be sitting in judgment at trumpov’s impeachment trial in the Senate) about this.
Call him a lying traitor, trumpov, DO IT.
Mnemosyne
@Bostonian:
Ask Mr. Plessy and Mr. Korematsu how that worked out for them.
Betty Cracker
@Just Chuck, @Avalune & @UncleEbeneezer: Another member of Atheists Anonymous here. Seems like very early on, before blogs as such were a thing, there were online atheist communities that weren’t populated almost exclusively by preening dickheads getting high by huffing their own farts. Do y’all remember those days? Was this another 9/11 casualty?
jl
@Bostonian: How can sex mean anything but gender in context? And gender identity is very closely aligned with gender. Does the constitution specify some criterion for ‘sex’, such as anatomy at birth? Would gender reassignment surgery, at any age, raise intractable constitutional issues?
What does the word ‘sex’ mean to you specifically. As I noted above, your analysis renders the meaning of ‘sex’ mysterious. I’ll repeat that your analysis leads to the word just as likely to refer to the right to have sex at work. Which is OK by me, even though that will lead to its own very substantial problems and very difficult court cases.
nyrobbin
@Mnemosyne:
It must be that time of year. That was the theme of our anti-harassment training. What a concept!
Bostonian
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think anyone here to be lesser than I am. I certainly haven’t been paying attention to M^4 enough to know that he or she is gay.
Do you have a chip on your shoulder too, or are you just flaunting a vicarious shoulder-chip?
Served
@Bostonian: Your biases jumped out. Based on that sentence, you do not believe that trans women are women, and that is transphobia. Beyond that, it also appears that you believe that children’s sports leagues transcend the importance of transgender and non-binary individuals having rights.
NotMax
@Jeffro
“Dimbulb Burr isn’t fit to wipe my ass. NO OFFENSE!”
//
jl
@Betty Cracker: “online atheist communities that weren’t populated almost exclusively by preening dickheads getting high by huffing their own farts.”
Illustration of what horrors atheism leads to. I think Paul wrote about that in on of his letters. I’m going back to church next Sunday.
Bostonian
@jl: Are you sure you don’t want to cuss at me or make snide remarks? I’m afraid for your sake that you might not fit in.
I tried to find a reasonably acceptable source above for a discussion of the difference between sex and gender. Here, I’ll quote that source:
Sister Golden Bear
Usually I try to be strong and feisty — as in a “not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you” kind of way — but today I’m having a moment.
It’s difficult to explain what it’s like to have people voting on whether you deserve to exist — which is what’s really underpinning everything being debated today.* It’s degrading, humiliating, anxiety-inducing, and otherwise completely shitty.
*In the second round of arguments there was a lot of discussion about trans people and bathrooms — something not even related to the cases before the court.
Chyron HR
@Jeffro:
They can’t prove any connection between Donald Trump and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. NO COLLUSION CONSTRUCTION!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Duane:
SCOTUS has long been our shittiest national institution, devoting itself to concepts of social paralysis, magnifying the pinnacle of economic power at the expense of consumers, ignoring injustice and using process as a slow and grinding cudgel against meaningful mitigating jurisprudence. As omnes said, the Warren Court was an aberration, probably due to the era in which most members of the court his their professional prime.
The Depression had a magnificent way of letting smart people know that power could be kicked.
blackcatsrule
@Major Major Major Major: Out of curiosity (no need to answer if it’s too personal) why do you get sad…because you can’t stay where you are or because you want to be back home?
Kay
At some point we’re all going to have to admit these people don’t follow laws and then it really gets scary. They simply don’t believe laws apply to them. Is there a Plan B?
waspuppet
@NotMax: It’s also a corollary to “Doing anything about sexual abuse in the military will destroy unit cohesion, whereas being sexually abused while you’re in the military is perfectly fine for unit cohesion.” Tells you who’s really in “the unit” and who isn’t.
Chyron HR
@Bostonian:
“I don’t know who any of you are or what this blog is, I just got told to post anti-trans arguments here.”
Well, you guys usually don’t admit that so I’ll give you a point for honesty.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s always a huge tell that they’re full of shit and have no arguments when they tone troll. This is BJ; who the hell gets all scoldy about swearing?
Mary G
Can we not feed the trolls?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Kay:
Yes. It involves throwing them in prison or fining them huge amounts until they comply
tomtofa
@Major Major Major Major: Did you get to the Plaza del Sol and wander down the Gran Via the first time you were there? If not, worth it on your last visit there.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Mary G:
It’s weird because I remember the nym Bostonian. They used to comment here a lot and now they’ve suddenly popped back making really dumb, trollish arguments. Like Cacti too, recently
Ksmiami
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: then we destroy the Supreme Court- it’s only as powerful as we let it be
Mary G
Olympic-level clapback.
Also, Trey Gowdy has refused Twitler’s request to represent him in the impeachment inquiry. [Insert Nelson Muntz ‘HaHa’ here.]
Bostonian
@Served: Ah, okay. I see. Yes, I do believe that women have rights. I also believe that transgender people have rights. It’s clear that you believe that the rights of transgender people are more important than the rights of women. I don’t. That’s okay. Our society is made of a lot of people with rights that sometimes conflict. As long as we can preserve a democracy (currently in doubt), we can probably extend the greatest rights to the greatest number.
Gravenstone
@Kay: I’d be totally cool if they wanted to use Devos as a signal example and toss her overpriveleged ass in jail for contempt. The start chucking her subordinates in the hoosegow next to her on a daily basis until the bullshit stops.
Rusty
@Mary G: My kids high school used to have the guys wear maroon gowns and the girls wear gold gowns at graduation. A couple of students as they neared graduation said they didn’t want to have to select their gender for graduation. The students themselves voted overwhelmingly to have everyone wear the same color. The kids are all right. Frankly, they are often better than their parents.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Ksmiami:
How about we try court packing first, ok? Because presumably if we can pass strong civil rights legislation we’ll have control of the Senate
jl
@Bostonian: Sorry if I seemed sarcastic. But I don’t agree with you. Planned Parenthood can define the words as they want for their purposes. Here is what I see on several online dictionaries for gender
“either the male or female division of a species”
Merriam-Webster is more explicit: “SEX”
Here is Merriam Webster on SEX:”the sum of the structural, functional, and sometimes behavioral characteristics of organisms that distinguish males and females”
I just don’t see any distinct line in meaning between the two words. And note the Planned Parenthood’s approach leaves a gaping hole in constitutional interpretation, for people who do not neatly fit into male or female, for whatever reason: “Some people’s sex doesn’t fit into male or female, called intersex.”
Ksmiami
@waspuppet: I think there should be a mass exodus of anyone non white, straight and male from red states myself- I want Red America to suffer catastrophic financial losses
Served
@Bostonian: Ah, a TERF. Not a friend or ally. Just another pied bigot who “supports women’s rights” to..uh….play in youth leagues with players who are only of the same gender as judged by themself.
Bostonian
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: It’s almost like people can have different views on different topics.
Nah, too much to parse.
I don’t comment here much (though I have done so on and off for a decade or so). I don’t like the comment threading, and I don’t like groupthink. I’m just killing time this afternoon and I wondered why anybody would expect the current Supreme Court to do anything but look at the letter of the law in this case.
Anyway, I’ve got to go take care of the kids. Bother you some other day. Ciao.
Gravenstone
@Bostonian: /hands you a mattock
Seems you’ve got plenty of shovels for the hole you’re digging yourself here, but I think you might have just hit bedrock.
Ksmiami
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I have little faith that we can get past GOP propaganda and maneuvering myself so this is plan b
Raven
@Bostonian: Fuck you pinhead.
Andrey
@Bostonian:
Making it pretty explicit, of course, that you don’t think transgender people can be women.
Yeah, people can have different views. And some of those views are wrong. Like the view that transgender people can’t be women. That view is wrong.
Leto
@Mary G: Here’s something else we can all laugh at: apparently Matt Gaetz thinks the term “kangaroo court” came from Capt Kangaroo… AND OF COURSE THERE’S VIDEO OF IT!
“Florida Man” strikes again!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Best way to unbreak Congress? Restore the earmark, as that gives everybody a tool whereby they can prioritize their principles in ways other than raw partisanship and tribalism.
It makes people that are in the chamber friendlier. It has the added effect of making it difficult for the executive branch to punish regions for not being supportive, and dilutes presidential power.
I blame the teatards for that. Had the earmark not been eliminated in 2010, the Obama years go a lot better – and you wind up with a more responsible conservative party.
Major Major Major Major
@blackcatsrule: honestly half of it is not looking forward to the physical schlep home. I get anxious preparing for the trip on the way out; this is the same, but with no future reward.
The Moar You Know
In my mind….
These people have no fucking shame.
Gravenstone
@Leto: Proving once again that being the outside muscle for a strip club was probably a stretch for his limited mental skills. He’s way overreaching as a Congresscritter.
rikyrah
Yeah, strange, isn’t it?
Jeffro
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I am, as my kids would say, ‘totes’ down with court-packing SCOTUS to balance out the antics of Moscow Mitch. And I think Dems should unapologetically say, “we’re adding two SCOTUS judges and the court will stay at 11 while we institute some serious reforms in the whole process (like, no refusing nomination hearings, up-or-down vote within 60 days, 18-year-terms for federal judges instead of lifetime appointments), etc.
And then say ‘once that package is law, then we’re happy to let the Court drift back to 9 members through attrition and retirements’. End of story.
Mary G
Wow, PG&E’s response to starting wildfires is to shut down everybody’s power while the winds are blowing:
That seems problematic, for instance for people with home oxygen or CPAPs.
Leto
@Kay: There is a plan B but the magistrate is unwilling to use it:
Why? Why aren’t you sending people to jail? They’re openly defying your order because they don’t give a shit about the rule of law, or what you decided. Want to send a message? Send them to jail until they comply and refund the money (plus interest). I’m rather tired of the rules applying just to the little people.
Gin & Tonic
@Bostonian:
Did I miss something? Did Cole die a sudden death and we didn’t hear about it? Where’s WaterGirl?
patrick II
Seeing the bigger picture is important, so in that context I would like to congratulate all of the Log Cabin Republicans on their lower taxes.
Cacti
@Jeffro:
Four.
Two isn’t enough.
I want Gorsuch and Boof to be rendered completely irrelevant for the 3+ decades the cult was planning for their reign of judicial terror.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Leto:
I concluded a long time ago that Gaetz consumed all the lead paint chips as a child.
Literally all of them.
blackcatsrule
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks, I understand, especially the “no future reward” part. I mellowed out quite a bit as I got older so that made things easier and it may happen with you as well. Plus I’m sure you’re anxious to see your beautiful Samwise! He needs a bow tie from Spain!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro: No way, put it at 17 and leave it there. Nine is too small a number for the size of the country.
The Moar You Know
@Served: TERFs aren’t bigots. They raise issues that are of serious concern to women who have suffered abuse at the hands of men.
I suspect they can be without anyone losing any rights, but to pretend that their arguments are utterly without merit is to do those women a grave disservice.
Leto
@Mary G: Conservatives are always afraid that government bureaucrats are going to make life and death decisions about everything: medical care, how much meat we can eat, insurance… but they’re A-OK when companies want to fuck everyone over: FREE MARKET!!! /headdesk
@Gravenstone: The Peter Principle must operate on a huge bell curve in Florida.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
truth
Sister Golden Bear
@Bostonian:
And there we have it.
Trans women are women, trans girls are women, asshole.
Go fuck yourself TERF. My identity is not up for debate. Enjoy your pie.
Sister Golden Bear
@Mary G: I’m in one of the potential shutdown area and highly reliant on my CPAP. I’m definitely concerned.
Yutsano
@Bostonian:
*sigh*
I really want to play poker with you. Your ability to give tells would make cleaning you out easy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bostonian: Cool, the sea lion here is another argument against threaded comments.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@The Moar You Know:
Is this a joke? Do you know what TERF stands for? It means trans-exclusionary radical feminist
Many TERFs tend to ally themselves with reactionaries like so-called MRAs, who are more concerned with hating on “feminazis” than doing any real activism for men. TERFs and MRAs make common cause because they have mutual enemies.
Ironically, TERFs and radfems tend to match MRAs’ stereotypes of feminists the most. Hitler made the Japanese “honorary aryans” because it was convenient to have the Empire of Japan as an ally. The same applies to MRAs and TERFs.
Served
@The Moar You Know: Based on all available reporting on their actions and beliefs, I don’t agree with your characterization of them.
Some highlights:
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/transexclusionary-radical-terf_b_5632332
https://jezebel.com/the-unholy-alliance-of-trans-exclusionary-radical-femin-1834120309
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Add 3 each congressional cycle for four cycles, with a limit of 12 years on the terms of each new justice. I figure that all the current justices will be out in 30 years’ time, with a nice, rotating crew of justices from then on out.
Jeffro
@?BillinGlendaleCA: 17! I dunno, that is a LOT of comped meals and robe dry-cleaning. There’s been an explosion in our national deficit, in case you hadn’t heard.
LOLOL
Also picturing 9-10 judges snoozing at the next SOTU instead of just 1-2. That’s just disrespectful…
Sister Golden Bear
@The Moar You Know:
They just act like bigots, harass and dox trans women (and their supporters) and ally themselves with fundamentalists to deny trans women rights.
Prior to last year’s Dyke March in SF they launched vicious and prolific Facebook attacks in the Dyke March’s inclusivity of trans women, including telling the folks who founded the march that they were doing feminism wrong.
Sorry, not buying it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Also, we need about 100 new members of the House, just to make ti a little more responsive to people as opposed to money.
Bostonian
@Raven: Eat shit and die, wretched vermin
Duane
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Most likely the Warren Court in general is what I think of regarding the Court’s supporting basic rights. The originalism we’re subject to now is lies and cover for the bigotry. Glad to have knowledgeable people here to comment.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jeffro:
Cap the service out at 65. Makes it more likely that they’ll be more thoughtful about the long term if they’re thinking about their children.
And no more paid judicial speeches.
Jeffro
@Cacti: Two’s enough to solidify the liberal wing at 6. Throw in a Thomas retirement and a Kavanaugh impeachment, and now we’re talking 8. 8-3 progressive decisions as far as the eye can see…sigh…it could be a beautiful thing…
Bostonian
@Sister Golden Bear: “TERF” is homophobic, mysogynistic hate speech. If I am keeping you from punching lesbians by responding, I should keep doing it.
Litlebritdifrnt
When I was hiring a receptionist at my law firm I would purposefully not hire any Blacks because my Boss was a dedicated Southern Racist. While I could rely on the Receptionist to be able and professional I could not rely on my boss not to walk into the office after a hearing before a black judge and start screaming about “n*ggers” being on the bench. By the same token I couldn’t hire any busty blondes because his first instinct would be to sleep with them. I made the mistake of hiring a mother who would let me know at least twice a week that her kid had been sent home from school and had to go home. We were a small firm and it caused a huge disruption if one of the two employees had to leave. I would never knowingly discriminate against people but I had no choice. It was a matter of survival.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
That requires Constitutional changes, increasing the number of justices to 17 is a statutory change.
@Jeffro: I can live with it.
sdhays
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: The idea of insulating justices from retaliation was a decent enough idea, but the lifetime appointment idea is insane. These people not only have immense power, but they also have the right to pick who replaces them. That’s fucked up.
The Founders didn’t really fully comprehend how powerful the Supreme Court was when they framed it (many were shocked when the first Supreme Court started asserting its authority), probably because the courts in the UK weren’t as powerful. If they had, I think they would have reconsidered lifetime appointments (and, possibly, put other limits on the Court).
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jeffro:
I like the way you think. However, none of the candidates, even in the primaries, have been talking about this massive problem, not even EW. She even laughed off the suggestion that Trump should be banned from Twitter
sdhays
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Kamala Harris has voiced support for packing the Court.
UncleEbeneezer
@Served: Yup. I trust Transgender people to tell me who/what is Transphobic, and the vast majority that I have ever known/read/listened-to think TERFs are problematic as fuck.
The Moar You Know
@Bostonian: That just landed your ass in pieland, imbecile.
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
I have been following these issues through your posts and others. Early on it was clear what has been the intent of this Administration. And, though, I don’t know how you actually feel, I have been reading, and, for me, it seems a lot like post-Civil War Reconstruction. Which is why I stay mad just thinking about it.
Hold strong. It’s not everybody that feels this way. It’s not even a majority of people.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sdhays: I doubt that, the first Congresses could have taken action and most of the founders where also in the first Congresses.
ETA: Remember Constitutional Amendments require the approval of BOTH houses AND the approval of 3/4 of state legislatures. I’ll stick with statutory changes with a much lower bar of both houses and the President.
The Moar You Know
@Served: I don’t agree with you, but that’s fine. Christ, at least you’re not that asshole Bostonian, who is trying to use one legitimate area of concern as a wedge issue to split the commentariat and deny an entire group of people rights.
tarragon
@Bostonian:
You do realize you’re behind even the International Olympic Committee on this right?
And not behind as in supporting…
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@sdhays:
She has? That’s good to hear. I wish she was polling better though
NotMax
@Jeffro
The rules of the Senate (and alteration thereof) are the purview of the Senate. The rules of the House (and alteration thereof) are the purview of the House.
Ain’t no way any Supreme Court is gonna open that cask of worms by ruling on their merit. (Short of any specific rule being a clear violation of black letter law, and maybe not even then.)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Ksmiami:
Well, if the GOP gains complete control over the nation’s power structure, then your plan would likely not succeed especially. Let’s hope we can get past it
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@NotMax:
I think Jeffro was saying Dems would change these rules once we’re in power in these chambers (perhaps make them permanent, if that’s possible? Probably would require a constitutional amendment), unless I’m missing something?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@sdhays:
To be fair, life expectancies were different then, even for people of means. It was likely inconceivable that a 45 year old would have a tenure of 45-50 years on the court.
We’ve long made the mistake of deifying them. They were mostly a group of merchants that were prodded along by some philosophical dabblers with an interest in the Enlightenment.
Some of what they did was informed by relatively recent English history with regard to the failures and excesses of the misery that was the Commonwealth (only the English could have a revolution against the monarchy which went so bad that the people would clamor for reinstatement of the crown).
There was a great deal they got horribly wrong, as we find today. The Second Amendment is a mess. Impeachment too difficult, as the system relies on norms that have now proven to be easily overcome by the right people. The Electoral College has failed of its essential, protective purpose. The executive has too much unchecked power that relies on norms. The individual doesn’t really matter.
Roger Moore
@Mary G:
Gowdy was pretty clearly jumping off the SS Trump when he decided not to run for reelection in 2018; it would have been very odd for him to jump back on again now that it’s low in the water and listing to starboard.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Tend to agree, just bump the number up to 17.
Cameron
@Mary G: Damn. So we miss out on the Gowdy doody.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Constitutional changes require 3/4 of state leg’s to approve. There are no permanent rules in the Senate, they can be changed by a majority vote.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: John Adams lived to be 90.
Roger Moore
@Mary G:
Not quite. This isn’t about them starting wildfires, per se; it’s about them being held accountable for starting wildfires. Their basic argument is that if they’re going to be held accountable when their equipment starts a fire, they’re just going to shut off power any time there’s the tiniest risk. If you want your power turned back on, you should demand the California government indemnify them against their own awful maintenance practices.
Jeffro
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: That’s ‘cause they’re smart and don’t want to rile the GOP base. Their side gets worked up over judicial appointments; our doesn’t; subject to change in 2020 (and likely will).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Guess they took lessons in negotiation from Trump.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
17 strikes me as unwieldy. No objection to making the number of Supreme Court seats equal to the number of appellate circuits, though.
cain
@Chyron HR:
Besides, wingnuts can be LBGTQ too.
Roger Moore
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I would roughly triple it. The House should always be big enough that even the state with the lowest population has multiple representatives. Also note that increasing the size of the House would have the substantial side benefit of reducing the outsized influence of small states in the electoral college.
Sister Golden Bear
@Bostonian: Thanks for the confirmation that you’re a TERF. That’s pure TERF-speak.
I’m trans woman, a woman and a lesbian. I know from homophobic, misogynistic hate speech — and calling you what you are ain’t it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Not too unwieldy, the Supreme Court could hear cases like the appellate courts do with panels of justices. The parties would have the right to ask of an En Blanc hearing.
Jeffro
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: @?BillinGlendaleCA: Sorry for being confusing here – trying to keep my posts shorter for the most part, but perhaps longer would be better sometimes.
I’m for pushing back on all fronts. In cases where only a Senate rule/procedure change is needed, do that; where a constitutional amendment is needed, make the case and go all-out. Right the wrongs, bring in the sunlight, stand up and get these things into the front of voters’ heads (at a reasonable number, pace, and priority).
We are going to need to make some big changes, and quickly, if we are going to keep our democracy/republic/barely-functioning clown show. There’s already a ton of good ideas out there. Hopefully our leaders at all levels will be able to articulate those, be ready to fight for them, and then ‘rally the troops’ to get it done not just at the ballot box but ‘in the space between elections’ where the work of democracy occurs (or should)*
*not my phrase – read something about this recently and loved it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Increasing the number of House members is also a statutory change.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro: I’m just saying take the easiest, quickest route possible. When you try for a Constitutional change, there’s much too much leeway for GOP fuckery*.
* See ERA.
NotMax
@@Jeffro
What Mel’s agent requested at contract renewal time.
:)
En banc.
Tough to implement, as the Constitution refers only to the rulings of the court as the supreme law of the land, not to rulings of a portion of the court.
NotMax
Royally screwed that one up. Fix.
@Jeffro
What Mel’s agent requested at contract renewal time.
:)
En banc.
Tough to implement, as the Constitution refers only to the rulings of the court as the supreme law of the land, not to rulings of a portion of the court.
smintheus
@robmassing: Yep. Modesty for thee but not for me.
Yutsano
@BillinGlendaleCA: John Adams was also a huge anomaly for the era. This was before antibiotics, modern cleanliness standards, modern medicine, and modern food science. It’s remarkable he made it that far in life.
@NotMax: I don’t think it’s that unwieldly. Nothing says the bench can’t be expanded out or oral arguments only take one day.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: It’s up to the Court how they want to handle their increased number and workload since the Constitution doesn’t speak to it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: True, but the 3rd President passed away the same day* as Adams, Jefferson was 84.
*July 4, 1826.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Just saying there’s sufficient wiggle room in interpretation to make it not a slam dunk.
Mary G
Add another count of obstruction to the impeachment list:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: As I said, it’s up to the Court how they want to handle it.
Bostonian
@The Moar You Know: First you want me to swear, then you don’t want me to swear. Make up your mind, shit-for-brains.
NotMax
@Yutsano
Also nothing saying it must be an odd number in total. There have been times when it wasn’t, or when vacancies created an even number temporarily.
Yutsano
@NotMax: The main reason for the odd number is to avoid ties. Ties (from what I understand) leave ambiguities in the law since there wasn’t a firm decision one way or the other. IANAL so I could be totally off base here. But that’s my understanding anyway.
Bostonian
@jl: Jl, I wouldn’t see the intersex condition as a “gaping hole” in the definition, any more than the fact that some people don’t have two legs is a “gaping hole” in the definition of homo sapiens as bipedal. That’s a gross exaggeration on your part.
Steve in the ATL
Haven’t read the thread but surely some lawyer has already opined that the next modest judge I meet will be the first.
And at the level SCOTUS? Yeah, right. Conservative Supreme Court justices never legislate from the bench, do they? [sarcasm tags]
Another Scott
@Bostonian: Is the EEOC wrong in #66 above? If so, how?
You’re aware, no doubt that “sex” is not binary. How would you categorize people who are XXY or XYY or XXX or any of the other genetic variations?
“Sex” and “Gender” and “Gender Identity” have meanings that depend on the context.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL:
Of course not and you’re a teetotaler.
Bostonian
@Sister Golden Bear: It’s fine for you to believe you’re a lesbian. But it’s not fine for you not to allow lesbians to disbelieve you’re a lesbian, or to coerce them to have sex with you under false pretenses. That’s abusive in the first case, and rape in the second. I hope you’re not as abusive towards lesbians in real life as you are towards other people here.
NotMax
@ above
Bumping up to 17 directly from 9 cannot help but be perceived as a purely partisan, manipulative ploy. What happens, then, when the opposite party is in power and decides to bump it from 19 to 33?
Jeffro
Trumpov & co just dropped their “F U, I ain’t complying with Jack Shit” letter
He really will have to be pulled outta there with a cable and winch
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Speaking of which, can we separate California from the rest of the 9th Circuit? The 9th Circuit is just way too big compared to the rest of the Circuits. California by itself would still be the largest Circuit, so it combined with the rest of the 9th is just way too big.
NotMax
@Another Scott
Muties!
:)
/Marvel comics
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: A higher number than say 11 makes it harder to do that, 9 isn’t a magic number(unless you were John Lennon).
Gbbalto
@Bostonian: You are fucking insane. Pied.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jeffro:
I’m sure the Secret Service can arrange for that when his term has expired.
Bostonian
@Andrey: Of course I believe transgender people can be women. And transgender people can be men too. They can be either, depending on whether you’re talking about sex or gender, or both. If there is a difference between sex and gender, as Planned Parenthood, for example, says, then a person who is, say, a “transwoman” is a man by sex and a woman by gender.
Most of the most vocal transgender people are natal men, because men have grown up with an attitude of entitlement that they bring into their new gender as women. That’s why lesbians and feminists are having such a difficult time of it lately.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
If we’re going that route, California + Hawaii, please.
;)
Andrey Stroilov
@Bostonian: She is a lesbian, full stop. Other lesbians might not believe that, due to transphobia. That’s their problem. The “false pretenses rape” TERF talking point is idiotic, utterly false, and has no basis but transphobia.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Bostonian: You’ve already dug down 10 feet, you might want to stop digging.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Nope, you get stuck with Idaho.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Of course it isn’t, never implied otherwise. The number has varied several times since the country began.
Not necessarily endorsing it, but the number could as readily be reduced to 7. Just sayin’.
Jay
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: He’s apparently wanting a ban-hammer.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Sigh. It ain’t easy being
greenexotic.:)
Mary G
Warren rises:
I’m sad to see Kamala not breaking through.
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
Adams was an anomaly, but not a huge one. He wasn’t even the longest lived signer of the Declaration of Independence; Charles Carroll of Carrollton lived to be 95. Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin all lived well into their 80s. So did John Jay, who could have served a very long term as Chief Justice if he hadn’t retired to run for governor of New York. Life expectancy at birth was much lower back then, but that was largely because of the very high death rate due to childhood illnesses. People who grew to adulthood could live to a ripe old age.
NotMax
Yup, it’s happened. White House all but calls impeachment unconstitutional.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Reducing the number is a bit more difficult, you’d have rely on attrition.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Seems so.
chopper
@robmassing:
hey now, remember when scotus ruled in favor of gay marriage? what followed was pandemonium! the whole fabric of society literally tore in two. dogs and cats living together etc etc.
Leto
@Mary G: I’m sad too. She’s polling at the same % as Andrew fucking Yang and it doesn’t make sense. She will still be a powerful voice/force in the Senate, so I’m thankful for that.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: Did you expect any different that after being cornered T would change his colors?
gwangung
@Bostonian: you should at least drop the shovel.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I understand your answer and agree, but l’d still like to know what the fuck business is it of theirs? And why/what/how the fuck it affects them?
Ohio Mom
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: YES to restoring earmarks. This is one of my soapboxes, we need earmarks back!
My other big soapbox is overturning term limits for Concinnati’s City Council but that is a bit esoteric for a non-local forum like this one.
burnspbesq
@Adam L Silverman:
You forgot one.
5) ambiguous legislative history.
Gorsuch has a point. This urgently should be fixed, but in our system, it should be Congress that does the fixing.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: Good for Warren. Ouch for Harris. I’m curious to see what happens if Biden’s support starts to collapse and where it goes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bostonian: Christ, what an asshole.
Mnemosyne
@Bostonian:
Aww, I guess you don’t like women talking back to you either, especially after you revealed your (literally) paternalistic attitude.
But I’m sure that Elizabeth Cady Stanton would have totally appreciated your advice that all she had to do was get a law passed allowing women to vote since women are not actually equal citizens in the Constitution.
Mnemosyne
@Bostonian:
Telling a transgender woman to her face that you don’t think she’s a woman is definitely on brand for you today. No, not me — Sister Golden Bear.
Anyone else you feel like insulting? I bet you really want to get an N-word off your chest right about now.