Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, man.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

All hail the time of the bunny!

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / Today In Productive Counter-Political Action

Today In Productive Counter-Political Action

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The Oregon Democratic legislative majority is doing the most productive counter-political action that can be undertaken right now at the state level. They’re going to extreme gerrymander Oregon’s congressional delegation!

There’s a lot of legislative shenanigans that the Oregon Republican legislative minority can still take to try to stymie this, but this is the counter-political action that needs to happen in every state where the Democrats have a a trifecta and control of the redistricting process this year.

As it stands now, just through redistricting in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas, the Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives in January 2023 before a single vote is cast. The only way to neutralize this is that every place the Democrats have control over redistricting, like Oregon and New York, they have to redistrict an extreme gerrymander. If New York would do that, they take Florida’s redistricting plan to create five new safe Republican congressional seats right off the table making it a wash. These five planned safe Republican congressional seats in Florida is all it takes right now to flip the House! If the other states where Democrats control redistricting also do this it would negate the redistricting gains that are also planned for Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. Last year’s Supreme Court decision on gerrymandering, which effectively and essentially removed the issue from being within the purview of the Federal courts, means that there are only two ways to overcome the extreme malapportionment that will be created as a result of redistricting. The first is to fight it in state court, but in a lot of these Republican controlled states, the state judiciary has been captured by the same Leonard Leo financed conservative and Republican interests that are now causing problems in the Federal judiciary. The second is to negate the effects of these extreme gerrymanders by putting equally extreme gerrymanders in place where Democrats have control to negate this as a way of taking control of the House of Representatives by picking the voters for the Republican candidates rather than having the voters pick the candidate they want to represent them.

Since we’re on effective counter-political action, let me skip over to effective civic action. It’s great that we’re going to have another women’s march. You want to really make it effective as civic action, here’s how. The march route needs to begin and end in front of Leonard Leo’s house. It needs to go past his office. From there it needs to go past his church. Then past his country club. And then culminate back at his house. You want to put fear into the conservative majority he has created on the Supreme Court? You don’t do it by demonstrating in front of Brett Kavanaugh’s house, you do that by demonstrating in front of Leo’s. You do that by making him afraid that his ability to manipulate the Federal courts and elections and redistricting from the shadows will be taken away from him. And you do that by taking it away from him.

You do not threaten his well being or his life or that of his family. Rather you make it clear that his days in the shadows are over. That no matter where he goes he will be politely and civilly protested. He doesn’t believe women have a right to privacy that allows them to make their own reproductive health care decisions. Nor does he believe people have a right to privacy that allows them to choose to use artificial methods of birth control. And he does not believe there is a right to privacy that would allow LGBTQ people the same rights to live, love, marry, live with, and/or have sex with anyone they want who consents to it. He thinks these decisions should all be subject to public scrutiny. If that’s the case, then his life should be subject to public scrutiny too. If you want to make sure that a message is heard loud in clear in the Supreme Court’s chambers that what the conservative majority is planning on doing, what they were hand picked by Leo to do, is not going to be acceptable, then the way you do that is you take Leo’s privacy away from him. If he steps outside, he needs to be in the spotlight. He shouldn’t be doxxed! He shouldn’t be SWATTed! He shouldn’t be touched! He shouldn’t be screamed at! His family members shouldn’t be bothered in any way!  No one should trespass on his actual property! No one should be offensive or obscene! But he should not be able to go get a cup of coffee without demonstrators following him with signs, filming him and his response, and broadcasting it all over social media. He doesn’t believe you have any rights that are not subject to his theocratic fascist delusions of grandeur. He needs to learn that he doesn’t have the right to make that determination and that his attempts to do so have consequences.

Again: protesting Leo should be, needs to be, and must be peaceful, civil, polite, and in line with all applicable laws. The point is to make him uncomfortable by peaceably assembling and demonstrating, not by violent intimidation or threats.

This is all contingent, of course, on us getting through the next two weeks or so without both breaching the debt ceiling, which will crash both the US and the global economy, and having the government shut down. McConnell has learned that his strategy of complete and total obstruction and opposition when a Democrat is president provides him with great rewards. He will not change that strategy now because if either, let alone both of these things happens, he knows that President Biden and the Democrats will be blamed, not him or his Republican majority in the Senate.

Time is running out…

Edited to Add at 11:15 PM:

Since people keep asking if this strategy of peacefully protesting Leo will make any difference, the simple answer is no.

That’s the point I keep trying to make to get people to understand whenever someone says we’re going to have a demonstration. Or Group X is going to do action Y.

It won’t achieve anything. Just like a Women’s March in October won’t achieve anything.

I keep explaining it and you refuse to accept it, but here goes one more time…

The only thing that matters is the exercise of raw political power. What Oregon Democrats are doing, what I advised the Democrats do in the states where they control redistricting, that will achieve something.

Marches, demonstrations, bringing stuff in the Senate up for a vote without a snowball’s chance in hell that it will pass, including a stand alone debt ceiling increase bill to make the Republicans “own voting no”when it will clearly fail and the US will still crash through the debt limit and default, none of it makes a damn bit of difference.

There are only two things that will make a bit of difference. The first, and the only one that should be under consideration, is the unilateral employment of raw political power. The second is the use of counter-revolutionary violence. The latter is off the table. So that just leaves employing raw political power.

Other than what the Democrats in Oregon’s legislature are doing regarding redistricting, do you see any Democrats in any elected or appointed office at any level of government employing raw political power? Do you see any outside groups supporting them calling for it, generating support for it, making sure that Democrats will be rewarded for it electorally and in terms of fundraising and punished for failing to employ raw political power? No, no you don’t.

Thus, at least for this night because I’m sure I’ll be back here having to provide it again and again and again, here endeth the lesson.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    Ksmiami

    No. They need to be running scared and fear us as much as they fear their fat, stupid over entitled base. Plus no more dinner reservations at the cool places

  2. 2.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    You do not threaten his well being or his life or that of his family.

    Pitchforks and baseball bats would be good, though, and much better than giant puppets and singing kumbaya…

  3. 3.

    oldster

    You can be in favor of good government without surrendering unilaterally to the people making government worse.
    In fact, if you favor good government, then you must not surrender to them. Reciprocity, tit for tat, is our only hope.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ksmiami: No. Stop, take a deep breath, and pay attention to what I’m actually saying in what I’m writing. You’re not going to win this by undertaking a campaign of proactive low intensity political warfare and violence. Doing that gives them what they want. It validates their delusions of victimhood and provides them with justification to crack down and restrict rights in the name of their poorly understood cry of “freedom”. Moreover, it provides them with the leverage to make the Department of Justice do it for them.

  11. 11.

    Another Scott

    McLean VA is kinda out of the way for a DC march…

    Leo looks like he’s 30 – I was picturing someone in their 60s at least.

    :-/

    There will always be monsters pushing this stuff. We need to mobilize people to change the laws so that the moneybags behind the monsters have less power.

    My $0.02. Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    Ksmiami

    I’m not a demonstrator in general- I say make sure whomever is backing these institutions gets dragged using modern technology media

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    Upcoming @FedSoc panel: “CAN YOU HAVE IT ALL? Can you advocate crushing children’s testicles, endorse an American policy of torture, attempt to overthrow the Republic, lobby to exclude children of immigrants from office, and still be warmly embraced by us? FUCK YES!”

    — OwMyPopehat (@Popehat) September 21, 2021

    Make joining or being associated with the FedSoc toxic, also too.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    Another Scott

    Relatedly, …

    As of a few months ago (and still?), John Eastman, the author of the White House six-point plan for overturning the election, was chair of the Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group of @FedSoc. Any statement by them about one of their leading lights plotting usurpation?

    — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 21, 2021

     
    Busy folks.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Will it ever be RICO, @Popehat??!”)

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ksmiami: You’re not a demonstrator, but you’re agitating for actual political violence here? Really?

    Take a step back, a deep breath, and think hard on this.

  25. 25.

    Kelly

    Oregonian here. If the legislature fails to pass redistricting the job passes to the Secretary of State, a Democrat. I don’t know any legislators of staff. My best guess is Dems will try to trade R’s some concessions on legislative redistricting for the House districts. I don’t know if the the Secretary of State’s redistricting is more vulnerable to court challenges. Last time the Leg agreed to a 4D+1R map after a lot of screaming.

  27. 27.

    RaflW

    Anyone tracking Colorado? The first ‘nonpartisan’ trial balloon was awful. The first official draft was better (4 D, 3 R, one ‘swing’ but slightly D) but IMO still doesn’t really reflect a state that has voted D for president 4X in a row and handed Biden 55.4% – 41.9%.

  28. 28.

    Ksmiami

    you can’t engineer a return to the Spanish Inquisition and stay anonymous- it doesn’t work that way…

  30. 30.

    Ksmiami

    @Betty: here’s the email for that University’s Dean of Students:

    CUA-Dean of [email protected]

     

    I already sent an email saying having a fascist that upended the Supreme Court is probably not good for retention and admissions long term….

  32. 32.

    Peale

    Since we are never going to undo the damage from Democratic voters losing their gumption to vote in 2010, the Party needs to do this. Find it hard to believe that Texas could get any worse than it is, but the choice is very clear that this has to happen.

  33. 33.

    Kelly

    Correction: In the event of a legislative impasse Dem Secretary of State Fagan will draw Legislative Districts. A judicial panel appointed by the Chief Justice of Oregon’s Supreme Court will draw Congressional lines. Judges are nonpartisan on the ballots.

  34. 34.

    piratedan

    I fully support Adam’s ideas… it’s nice to expose the puppetmasters… and shine the light on them.

    My biggest fear is what happens when they counter-punch, when peaceful demonstrations are met with Proud Boys and III%’s who show up to beat up the media and the protestors and out local LEO’s do NOTHING.

  35. 35.

    Ksmiami

    He has a summer mansion in Northeast Harbor near Bar Harbor Maine and helped raise a ton of money for Susan Collins’ re-election as well… I’d pay off tradesmen to stop working for him… make his life less comfortable

  37. 37.

    Kelly

    @Philbert:I’m all for it but a problem in Oregon has a high quorum threshold and the GOP will walk out.

    Yep. Oregon Dems need to submit an initiative to the voters to change the quorum to 50%+1

  38. 38.

    Ksmiami

    @piratedan: we have to be more creative and diligent- these guys are all impulse and muscle and they’ve gotten cocky. Remember though, the elite GOP doesn’t actually want to even get near their own voters- they live in blue cities and want the benefits of liberalism while they suffocate it. Make their names like the Damitae Memoria during the Roman Empire- they are small, petty and quite ugly people- get them on camera as the jerks they are. Trust me I know them.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Peale: Texas can and will because everyone seems to be missing the actual demographic reality. Which is excellently delineated in this excellent article:

    https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/democrats-losing-texas-latinos-trump/

    (emphasis mine)

    This shift has shattered years of political assumption—and perhaps arrogance. Democrats ranging from Barack Obama’s Latino outreach coordinator, Cuauhtémoc Figueroa, to former San Antonio mayor and presidential candidate Julián Castro had long maintained that Hispanic voters would be the party’s salvation in the Lone Star State. Their logic was syllogistic. In the early 2020s, according to the state demographer’s projections, Texas’s Hispanic population would achieve plurality status, constituting around 41 percent of the state’s total and surpassing non-Hispanic white Texans as its largest demographic group. And most Hispanic Texans—more than 60 percent in 2016—voted Democratic.

    Banking on an identity-based appeal, Democrats last year trotted out the sort of bilingual messaging in South Texas that has played well among Mexican Americans in Los Angeles and Puerto Ricans in New York, focused on a celebration of diversity and immigration. Republicans, by contrast, recognized that Hispanic South Texans share many of the same values as non-Hispanic white voters elsewhere in Texas and swept in with a pitch about defending gun rights, promoting the oil and gas industry, restricting abortion, and supporting law enforcement. Republicans proved more persuasive. 

    Indeed, for decades, the dominant ideologies in South Texas have been the same as in other rural areas and small towns across the state—that is, conservative. Many Democrats in South Texas are ardent supporters of gun rights who spend fall and winter weekends hunting white-tailed deer. On Sundays, churches—mostly Catholic but also evangelical—swell to the brim. In hotels, mud-caked boots line the hallways at night as oil workers travel from job to job. As nine-term U.S. congressman Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose district stretches from the banks of the Rio Grande all the way to San Antonio, told me, “Aside from our Mexican heritage, much of South Texas has . . . demographic similarities with some of the more conservative strongholds and white rural communities in the state.”

    But so much more than just ideology—whether one is conservative or moderate or liberal—determines how a person votes. Cultural factors matter too. While ideology has been strongly predictive of whether white voters opt for Republicans or Democrats since the late eighties, that had not been true of the state’s Hispanic voters. David Shor, an iconoclastic data scientist who has polled South Texas extensively, explains that about 40 percent of American voters are conservative, 40 percent are moderate, and 20 percent are liberal. Those numbers don’t vary much by race or ethnicity, whereas party loyalty does. And for decade after decade, part of being Hispanic in South Texas, just like wrapping tamales on Christmas Eve or listening to Selena at family reunions, meant voting Democratic, even as the party became less welcoming to those with conservative views. What changed in 2020 is that conservative Hispanic South Texans voted like their non-Hispanic white neighbors. Ideology suddenly became polarizing for the group in a way it never had been before.

    Many Hispanic South Texans shared something else with non-Hispanic white rural Texans: their racial identity. Hispanic residents of our state are much more likely to identify as white than Hispanic residents of cities elsewhere in the country. With roots many generations deep in lands that were annexed from Mexican control to that of the U.S., many also actively reject being cast as immigrants. In 2020 ignorance of these facts embarrassed state and national Democrats. While Hispanic South Texans are proud of their Mexican heritage, many do not consider themselves to be “people of color” at all. 

    All this means that, despite Democrats’ blithe assurances, demography is not destiny. Texas will indeed have a Hispanic plurality soon. However, “Hispanic” describes neither a race nor a political loyalty. When it comes to race, Texas will remain overwhelmingly white, with more than 75 percent of its residents identifying as such. And if Democrats continue to hemorrhage votes in places like McAllen and Laredo, Texas could turn even redder. 

    The GOP has looked at South Texas and seen voters who walk and talk like Republicans.The challenge facing the Democratic party is not just how to win back Hispanic voters. It’s how to win back voters with Hispanic names who may not even use that adjective to describe themselves.

    Much, much more important reporting at the link.

    The majority of the Border Patrol officers and personnel in the Texas border region are from this ethnic community. The guys on horseback in the reporting today whipping Haitian refugees with their reins today are all Hispanic whites from the towns along the Texas border. They consider themselves white and vote much more like the semi-rural to rural non-Hispanic white Texans than they do like Hispanic communities in other parts of the US outside of south Florida. And until or unless the Democratic Party, both in Texas and nationally can both recognize this reality and create effective strategies to address that reality, Texas is not going to be turned blue, let alone purple. And if you think Beto “Yes, I do mean we’re going to take away all the AR pattern rifles” O’Rourke can win a general election for governor in Texas you need to be put on a 72 hour evaluators hold because you’re delusion.

    And by you I don’t mean you, Peale, it’s the general use of you.

  45. 45.

    Bill Arnold

    @piratedan:

    My biggest fear is what happens when they counter-punch, when peaceful demonstrations are met with Proud Boys and III%’s who show up to beat up the media and the protestors and out local LEO’s do NOTHING.

    Record everything, from multiple vantage points. Make the recordings publicly accessible if there is clear RW-instigated violence. (Soon we will need to properly crypto-timestamp videos to limit the credibility of accusations of deep fakery, but that’s future and to some extent solveable, for a while.)
    The USA RW is genuinely a bit freaked out at how all the video of 2021/01/06, some of which they helpfully uploaded to social media including Parler (which was 100 percent scraped), was used to find them and prosecute them, and sometimes to ostracize them.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: Counterpoint: Warning – Politico:

    Though not everyone in the Rio Grande Valley self-identifies as Tejano, the descriptor captures a distinct Latino community—culturally and politically—cultivated over centuries of both Mexican and Texan influences and geographic isolation. Nearly everyone speaks Spanish, but many regard themselves as red-blooded Americans above anything else. And exceedingly few identify as people of color. (Even while 94 percent of Zapata residents count their ethnicity as Hispanic/Latino on the census, 98 percent of the population marks their race as white.) Their Hispanicness is almost beside the point to their daily lives.

    In the end, Trump’s success in peeling off Latino votes in South Texas had everything to do with not talking to them as Latinos. His campaign spoke to them as Tejanos, who may be traditionally Democratic but have a set of specific concerns—among them, the oil and gas industry, gun rights and even abortion—amenable to the Republican Party’s positions, and it resonated. To be sure, it didn’t work with all of Texas’ Latinos; Trump still lost that vote by more than double digits statewide, and Joe Biden won more of the nationwide Latino vote than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. But Trump proved that seeing specific communities as persuadable voters and offering targeted messaging to match—fear of socialism in Miami-Dade’s Venezuelan and Cuban communities, for example—can be more effective than a blanket campaign that treats people as census categories. And in the end, it was enough to keep Florida and Texas in his column. If the Democratic Party’s 2020 postmortem for Texas—indeed, for the whole nation—goes only as far as to try to increase their appeal to “Latinos” as an undifferentiated bloc, they’re going to experience even harsher losses in the next election.

    (Emphasis added.)

    I don’t think anyone seriously thinks that Tejanos are the same as Puerto Ricans are the same as Cubans are the same as Castilians. And everyone serious knows that political messages have to be tailored to specific audiences (without being fake about it).

    tl;dr – People are complicated. There’s no One Weird Trick that will win them over.

    Texas Democrats are doing the work in the trenches to change the equation:

    Texas Democratic Party Chief Strategy Officer Luke Warford issued the following statement:

    “The contrast has never been clearer: Texas Republicans want to make it harder to vote while Texas Democrats are fighting to ensure that all Texans can make their voices heard.

    “Today, Texas Democrats launched our comprehensive plan to register Texas Democratic voters and build the future Texans deserve. Every day, Texas is getting younger and more diverse. With Project Texas, we are fighting to register the two million Texans who are eligible to vote and likely to vote for Democrats, but unregistered — the vast majority of whom are young people or people of color. Our takeaway from the 2020 election is clear: if we want to save our state from Texas Republicans and their extremist agenda, we need to register more voters. And we know that our path to victory is grounded in investing in the inclusion of all Texans, especially those in underrepresented communities across the state. Right now, Republicans are attacking Texans in almost every way possible — and it’s never been so urgent for us to fight back by working for the inclusion and representation of all Texans.

    “This spring, Republicans made their strategy clear: they are so afraid of being voted out of office that they are simply trying to stop Texans who don’t agree with them from voting. Voter registration is an immediate and concrete way we can fight back — by helping more Texans get to the ballot box. While Republicans are trying to silence Texans, with Project Texas, we are going to help as many Texas voters as possible make their voices heard.”

    I wish them Godspeed.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    Kent

    @Adam L Silverman: Exactly.  I lived and worked in Texas for 13 years.  The correct way to view most Texas Hispanic citizens is as working class whites except with more machismo    That is mostly how they see themselves.  They view themselves as white in contrast to Blacks who are the other large minority population in Texas.  It is only lefty college student types who view themselves all as “people of color” as opposed to Anglo whites.

  51. 51.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Again: protesting Leo should be, needs to be, and must be peaceful, civil, polite, and in line with all applicable laws. The point is to make him uncomfortable by peaceably assembling and demonstrating, not by violent intimidation or threats

    What makes you think Leo will give a damn? Or that this can be meaningfully kept up? What will this actually achieve?

  52. 52.

    James E Powell

    @Another Scott:

    A factor I think was in play, though no one wants to mention it, is that a swaggering asshole who says & does whatever he wants with no consequences appeals to men of every ethnicity.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @James E Powell:

    I do wish some high profile Republicans would die miserably. But I felt that way long before COVID.

    amen, and I’ll add: there’s more than a few lower profile Rs I’d not mourn, but I don’t want them to be Covid variant farms while I’m waiting for them to go to what I wish was there their reward (edited, dammit)

  57. 57.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    BREAKING: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party will win the most seats in Canada’s election, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and CTV project.

    — The Associated Press (@AP) September 21, 2021​

  58. 58.

    cmorenc

    If the current incarnation of SCOTUS was deciding Baker v Carr, they might have permitted state legislatures to continue with districts grossly disproportionate in population (i.e. with the consequence that legislators from small population rural districts numerically dominated the legislature) – the 1962 incarnation of SCOTUS held this violated 14th Amendment Equal Protection.  in Baker, the Tennessee Secretary of State had argued that apportionment was a nonjusticiable “political question”, which is precisely what the current (pre-Barratt) incarnation of SCOTUS held 5-4 was the case with egregious partisan gerrymandering.

  59. 59.

    Splitting Image

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:

    BREAKING: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party will win the most seats in Canada’s election, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and CTV project.

    Whew!

    By rights, O’Toole should be crushed like one of the more disgusting kinds of bug, but I’ll settle for the win. Another Liberal minority supported by the NDP and the Greens pushing for what they can get. I can live with that.

  61. 61.

    Shakti

    So my sincere  question  is  how do you do this:

    then the way you do that is you take Leo’s privacy away from him

    Without making public his addresses and his whereabouts and his habits. How will people follow him around and protest him on social media?  I’m sure he’s set up a bunch of LLCs and such to hide who owns what houses and to hide his comings and goings.

     

    Of course, none of those Adam mentioned actions are strictly peaceful. But it strikes me that Leo has advocated for exactly that over the last 40+ years for abortion providers. And what did he actually think will happen with that Texas law? It legalizes harassment of a woman’s friends, family and anyone else she comes in contact with. Women getting an abortion are ALREADY screamed at, touched, and made to listen to obscene stuff.  Has anyone actually been held accountable for swatting or doxxing under the law, which is the only thing SCOTUS hasn’t blessed in some court decision, AFAIK. Further, doesn’t Westboro Church harass family members at funerals as a business model, green lit by the Supreme Court?

    If he steps outside, he needs to be in the spotlight. He shouldn’t be doxxed! He shouldn’t be SWATTed! He shouldn’t be touched! He shouldn’t be screamed at! His family members shouldn’t be bothered in any way!  No one should trespass on his actual property! No one should be offensive or obscene! But he should not be able to go get a cup of coffee without demonstrators following him with signs, filming him and his response, and broadcasting it all over social media.

  62. 62.

    Yutsano

    @Another Scott: Nah. It was dumb. The electorate really didn’t want the snap election and Trudeau had some stumbles* right before the election that didn’t help him.

    *right or wrong, he got some Afghanistan blowback.

  63. 63.

    Ksmiami

    @Shakti: I totally disagree with Silverman here. What’s fair is fair and these people are causing enormous suffering. They should be paid back plus more

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He’ll be annoyed, but that’s it.

    And that’s the real point. It won’t achieve anything. Just like a Women’s March in October won’t achieve anything.

    I keep explaining it and you refuse to accept it, but here goes one more time…

    The only thing that matters is the exercise of raw political power. What Oregon Democrats are doing, what I advised the Democrats do in the states where they control redistricting, that will achieve something.

    Marches, demonstrations, bringing stuff in the Senate up for a vote without a snowball’s chance in hell that it will pass, including a stand alone debt ceiling increase bill to make the Republicans “own voting no”, none of it makes a damn bit of difference.

    There are only two things that will. The unilateral employment of raw political power and/or the use of counter-revolutionary violence. The latter is off the table. So that just leaves employing raw political power.

    Other than the Democrats in Oregon’s legislature do you see any Democrats in any elected or appointed office at any level of government doing so? Do you see any outside groups supporting them calling for it, generating support for it, making sure that Democrats will be rewarded for it electorally and in terms of fundraising and punished for failing to employ raw political power? No, no you don’t.

    Thus, at least for this night because I’m sure I’ll be back here having to provide it again and again and again, endeth the lesson.

  66. 66.

    Shakti

    @Shakti: Of course people should protest peacefully because it’s the right thing to do. But I’m wondering what tactical benefit will accrue given the ease with which the Wurlitzer lumps peaceful protesters with violence, lying easily and freely.

    I guess more people will know Leo’s name? That’s it.

  67. 67.

    Kent

    I live across the river in WA so I’m not totally up to speed on this.  But my understanding is the following happens if the legislature fails to reach a decision because they melt down or the GOP walks out.

    State legislative districts get drawn by the Democratic Secretary of State.  Who can if she wants, COMPLETLY FUCK with the districts of all the GOP incumbents by doing things like grouping them together and egregiously gerrymandering.

    Federal Congressional Districts get drawn by a panel appointed by the State Supreme Court, which is ostensibly non-partisan, but clearly Democratic-leaning from their voting record.

    Apparently the Dems in the legislature are being pretty generous to the GOP in terms of the state legislative districts and could have proposed MUCH worse districts.

    So….do the GOP legislators stick with their self interest in getting decent state legislative districts and sacrifice the Federal Congressional Map?  Or do they risk getting severely fucked with in their own legislative districts in a walk-out around the Federal legislative districts that don’t actually apply to them.  And still risk Federal Congressional districts that are unfriendly anyway.

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Shakti: It won’t. That was the point of my writing it. Doing this will have no more effect than having a Women’s March. Or a petition signing campaign.

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    @Shakti: Speaking of the Texas SB8:

    Here’s the first page of one of the first lawsuits filed against Alan Braid, the Texas doctor who said he performed an abortion in defiance of S.B. 8: https://t.co/V8PmjHBvQF pic.twitter.com/Ja99AELCXd

    — Matt Ford (@fordm) September 20, 2021

    The plaintiff is a (paragraph 3) “disbarred and disgraced Arkansas lawyer” under (paragraph 4) home confinement for a 12-15 year sentence for tax evasion.

    tl;dr – People outside Texas are suing under SB8 to make a mockery of the law. Good news??

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Another Scott

    @Shakti: The 2017 Women’s March was huge, and it let people know that there were like-minded people out there.  And it gave birth to the Women’s March organization that is still going strong today.  And the Science March and lots of other things.  And those motivated people helped get motivated candidates to run, and motivated people to get other people motivated to vote.  And increased fundraising and lots of other good things.

    It’s a process, not a destination.

    In the days of AIDS in the 1980s, a common expression was SILENCE = DEATH.  It still works today – people need to speak up, to act, and to work to make change.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  74. 74.

    Splitting Image

    @Yutsano:

    Nah. It was dumb. The electorate really didn’t want the snap election and Trudeau had some stumbles* right before the election that didn’t help him.

    *right or wrong, he got some Afghanistan blowback

    The thing is, “the electorate” in that sentence is standing in for the phrase “people who get their news from TV”. The average minority government only lasts about two years anyway, because either the PM thinks he can get a majority or the other parties think he is weak enough to defeat and vote down the government.

    The Ancient and Hallowed Tradition of muddling through with a minority for the entire four years was made up for Trudeau the same as the Ancient and Hallowed Tradition of stepping aside and taking up sewing was made up for Hillary Clinton. The Canadian news orgs are pulling for O’Toole just as much as American ones were pulling for Trump, and for the same reasons.

  75. 75.

    Ksmiami

    @Adam L Silverman: I mean I told Sinema she wouldn’t receive a penny more from me etc but what’s so hard about saying the GOP means death and destruction so we will do everything we can to restrict the damages—- I just don’t see how this resolves itself – 30 percent of our electorate is fucking bonkers and in a totally unmoored alternative reality.

  79. 79.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Another Scott:

    The 2017 Women’s March was huge, and it let people know that there were like-minded people out there.  And it gave birth to the Women’s March organization that is still going strong today.  And the Science March and lots of other things.  And those motivated people helped get motivated candidates to run, and motivated people to get other people motivated to vote.  And increased fundraising and lots of other good things.

    It’s a process, not a destination.

    In the days of AIDS in the 1980s, a common expression was SILENCE = DEATH.  It still works today – people need to speak up, to act, and to work to make change.

    What do you think of Adam’s take that marches will achieve nothing?

  80. 80.

    Kent

    @Ksmiami: @Adam L Silverman: but most of our representatives live in fantasy bipartisanship land and they are not grasping the peril of the moment…

    Wrong. Very wrong. Well south of 10% live in bipartisan fantasy land. Maybe closer to 5%. Unfortunately they are the 5% who are necessary votes to get absolutely anything done.

  82. 82.

    Ksmiami

    @Kent: by not forcefully countering their bullshit though, it plays into a Democrats are weak paradigm… Again what has placating Manchin achieved except for wasted time?

  85. 85.

    Kent

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    @Kent:

    Could the GOPers who walk out simply be stopped from walking out/arrested? Like Texas tried to do?

    Yes, but Kate Brown is not Greg Abbott.  And honestly, who the hell knows how MAGA the state troopers are who would need to do the deed.

  88. 88.

    Kent

    @Ksmiami:@Kent: by not forcefully countering their bullshit though, it plays into a Democrats are weak paradigm… Again what has placating Manchin achieved except for wasted time?

    Honestly?  Are you for real?   It has kept him in the Democratic Party for one.  Fuck with Manchin and he is liable to walk across the Aisle and put McConnell back in charge of the Senate and bring the entire Dem agenda to a crashing halt.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ksmiami:

    a clearer message Rt now for more and better Dems.

    Well, on that we agree: The only way forward is to win more elections

    I’m not sure even Manchin knows what he wants. He’s a fuzzy brained self-serving hack

    we agree again, I swear at one point he said he would support a $4T infrastructure bill

    He did, it wasn’t even hard to find. Googling “Joe Manchin Infrastructure” shows just how all over the map he’s been

    Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia called for up to $4 trillion in infrastructure spending over the weekend as Democrats are on the verge of controlling Congress for at least the next two years.

    “The most important thing? Do infrastructure. Spend $2, $3, $4 trillion over a 10-year period on infrastructure,” he told Inside West Virginia Politics, a news program. “A lot of people have lost their jobs and those jobs aren’t coming back. They need a place to work.”

  90. 90.

    Ksmiami

    @Kent: But it is at a standstill- right fucking now and our coalition is fracturing as a result. Biden can’t even get his foreign service appointments confirmed in the Senate. You see a path, I think we need to abolish the Senate

  91. 91.

    piratedan

    I like Adam’s approach, these people hide in the shadows… out them. Make the press talk about them. What they do… expose how they use Citizens United to hide what they do. Expose their agenda. The press wants conspiracies, well here’s one ready made…

     

    I understand that there’s only so much we can do but doesn’t mean we give up.  Let them feel the pressure… they drag out George Soros all the time… quid pro quo this.   Then repeat and apply to the Murdochs and the rest of thier ilk.

  92. 92.

    Kattails

    @Adam L Silverman: Curious, do you follow Stonekettle at all? He got kicked off FacePalm for some infraction or another, at least temporarily, and has been posting daily long-form on his own website, and it’s a regular dope-slap of a similar order as yours.  Luckily I live in a state where alcoholic beverages are inexpensive via the state, as I drive past my MAGA neighbors’s Trump signs still up and then listen to my anti-vax woo-woo other neighbors who just told me that we are already a fascist country (clueless privileged white girl). My Biden/Harris sign is still up. Fuckem.

  93. 93.

    eddie blake

    @Ksmiami: wow. really?

    how are “we” gonna get an amendment to the fucking constitution to abolish the senate through when “we” can’t even get 51 votes for the reconciliation bill right now?

    they must have REALLY cool government rules on your home planet.

  96. 96.

    NineInchNacos

    Another Adam Silverman trap post. Would be nice if he pushed off to another blog. Worst “contributor” here.

  97. 97.

    Ksmiami

    @eddie blake: no amendment- I just think the most likely scenario is that our government ceases to function and either The experiment ends or we completely alter the structure. So much of our system of government is not equipped to handle a hyper technological world…

  98. 98.

    burnspbesq

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Bullshit, with a side order of “who’s ignoring reality.”

    Virtually all of the population growth in Texas between the 2010 and 2020 censuses was in the 20 largest counties. Counties which went >60 percent for Biden. The rest of the state barely grew at all. Over 100 counties lost population. The gerrymander you’re envisioning is going to be harder than ever, if not impossible. And it’s going to be so obviously racially motivated that not even the Fifth Circuit will be able to uphold it.

    Next time you’re planning to pontificate about Texas, consult some actual Texans. You’ll save yourself some embarrassment.

    P.S. The Texas Monthly article from which you quoted was reported and written before the census results were released. If you missed that, that’s really sloppy.

  99. 99.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ksmiami:

    there’s no difference anymore

    No, there really, really fucking is. Perhaps you’ve heard of this “Judicial Branch” thing…? just for starters

  101. 101.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    as to all the LBJ fantasies: The biggest threat from Manchin isn’t switching parties. He would’ve done that already. I read a report last week that McConnell doesn’t even bring it up anymore. The threat is he gets on the Almost Heaven and sails home up the Potomac (I have no idea if it’s navigable and don’t care, it’s poetic license and shit), and Governor Beaufort T Justice appoints his replacement (I’m guessing, in any case, it wouldn’t be good). He’s old, he’s rich and by all accounts doesn’t much like being in the Senate.

  102. 102.

    Ksmiami

    @burnspbesq: it really is a fight between the huge urban, close end suburbs vs the rural (dying) counties. Problem is there are a lot of rural counties in the state…

  103. 103.

    stinger

    Reading Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate, and talk about employing raw political power! LBJ (fuckem) spent a career finding or creating opportunities to exercise raw political power. Mostly to gain additional power for himself–but also in support of civil rights, voting rights, federally insured student loans, the War on Poverty, and more. Is there any prominent Dem who’s that ruthless today?

  106. 106.

    Another Scott

    @stinger: It’s easy to be ruthless as a party leader when the party leadership has all the political power.

    It looks like Democrats controlled the House every year but 2 between 1949 and 1995.  And the Senate every year but 2 between 1949 and 1981.  Those times were long ago.  Democrats are coming back, but we’re not there yet.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  107. 107.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @burnspbesq: Yes, I thought one of the thing that came out in the Census was everywhere the rural counties are all dying and the all urban counties are growing and that’s why the GOP is trying this frantic gerrymandering because their voters are basically hicks.

    Also I point out the San Joaquin valley is mostly Hispanic and all those counties when for the recall last week. Didn’t matter because of every urban county outside Redding voted no.

  108. 108.

    Kent

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:as to all the LBJ fantasies: The biggest threat from Manchin isn’t switching parties. He would’ve done that already. I read a report last week that McConnell doesn’t even bring it up anymore. The threat is he gets on the Almost Heaven and sails home up the Potomac (I have no idea if it’s navigable and don’t care, it’s poetic license and shit), and Governor Beaufort T Justice appoints his replacement (I’m guessing, in any case, it wouldn’t be good). He’s old, he’s rich and by all accounts doesn’t much like being in the Senate.

    He doesn’t have to switch parties.  He can pull and Angus King and become and independent and then let the Democrats and Republicans bid for which party he caucuses with.

  110. 110.

    lowtechcyclist

    Damn, Adam, you’ve gotten long-winded and shouty lately. I’d noticed it in your posts about Afghanistan and stuff, and even more so tonight. It’s been hard for me to get through an entire post of yours lately on account of this.

    Also, going on about Leonard Leo, this mysterious string-puller in the shadows who controls everything, without bothering to explain who he is and how he’s doing it, felt like a parody of some right-wing rant about George Soros.

    I’ll probably take a lot of shit here for saying this, but I think somebody needs to say it.

  111. 111.

    Gvg

    @lowtechcyclist:  yes. Who is he and why should we care? I have heard of him as having some corrupt influence on the navy. I don’t know how he is more influential than the Koch’s or the Federalists or other known organizations. I just don’t see it. And if it is complicated, I am not sure publicizing it will help.
    I sure would like to get laws that reveal where money is coming from on the books and enforced. There are so many reasons, not just political to do that. Tax reasons, capital reasons, foreign policy, business reasons and very much political corruption.

  112. 112.

    Low Key Swagger

    @lowtechcyclist:

    “Also, going on about Leonard Leo, this mysterious string-puller in the shadows who controls everything, without bothering to explain who he is and how he’s doing it, felt like a parody of some right-wing rant about George Soros.”

    Agreed.  Adam is very smart and well informed, but the piece felt condescending right off the bat.

  114. 114.

    AM in NC

    @Another Scott: Exactly.  A few months after the Women’s March I was talking to a male acquaintance who pooh poohed the March, saying “Marches change nothing.”  I said, you’re right – in a very narrow sense.  No, this march didn’t magically make Republican perfidy end or immediately install Democrats into positions of power.  But what it did do was energize millions, literally millions, of women all across the country to vote, volunteer, and donate to candidates and causes.  And  many of those people (myself and my friends included) are still activated, working on local, state, and national races.  And suburban women were the difference in a lot of Congressional races and in kicking Trump to the curb!

    Plus, it lets everyone know, allies and enemies alike, that there are more of us than there are them.  It also forces the media to talk to women in pussy hats instead of another MAGA Hatter in a diner, for once.

    Is this sufficient? No. Is this necessary?  I’d argue yes.  You need things to energize the troops, and there is amazing solidarity and  refilling of your mental/emotional cup, and connections made at demonstrations like the Women’s March and the George Floyd protests in much of the nation.  Our BLM march here in Chapel hill was beautiful – amazingly integrated racially, gender-wise, age-wise. And that is a valuable thing.

    It is a process, and anything that helps people stay energized and engaged to play the long game is a win.

  115. 115.

    cleek

    The GOP cannot wring another seat out of NC by redistricting. They already get 8/13 with barely 50% of the vote (and sometimes not even that).

  116. 116.

    sab

    @lowtechcyclist: If you don’t know who Leonard Leo is you haven’t been paying attention at all.  That’s on you, not on Adam.

    Leo runs the Federalist Society, membership in good standing which is mandatory for right wing judge wannabees. Republican Presidents pick their judicial appointments from that list. So if you are a right wimger and want to be a judge someday you keep in Leo’s good graces.

    Leo’s list under Trump included some members in good standing who did not come close to being qualified for judicial appointments. A number of the men chosen were barely qualified to be lawyers, with minimal legal experience and no courtroom experience. Ande the Senate approved some of these appointments. So litigants in those districts are paying a lot of money to hire lawyers to go to trials presided over by an idiot for judge. With a lifetime appointment.

    How did Leo get so powerful and then so sloppy in his arrogance?

    I think Adam’s point is that we need to politely but insistently call attention to the existence and outrageousl influence of Leonard Leo. It’s crazy that he has this much influence, but he does. People need to be aware of it outside of legal circles, because he is causing major damage to the whole legal system.

    Treat him like DeJoy at the Post Office. If he wants to break the system, he should at least have to do it in the public eye.

    That you don’t take it seriously shows how pernicious the problem is.

  117. 117.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @AM in NC: THIS!  If all we get from 10/2 is a chance to recharge, reconnect and make a big symbolic gesture that we aren’t stopping the fight and that abortion rights matter, that’s enough for me.  But it will be more than that.  I know alot of organizers and activists are exhausted, burned out and wondering if it’s all worthwhile.  Our local march is already getting us motivated again to gear up for 2022, regardless of whether it has any impact on SCOTUS cases or not.  It’s also about the long game of normalizing the practice of speaking up for abortion rights, centering women, and letting us men show that we care about this stuff too.  This is how we slowly change our culture and bend the moral arc etc.  Not every march has to have a concrete, short term objective.  Sometimes it’s important to get out and scream that Black or Trans Lives Matter, simply because it’s true and needs to be heard.

  118. 118.

    tam1MI

    @burnspbesq: Next time you’re planning to pontificate about Texas, consult some actual Texans. You’ll save yourself some embarrassment.

    Adam is too Savvy to design to know what it is he’s talking about.

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