Roberts Court uses shadow docket to do more neoconfederacies https://t.co/0xR1CV5A8O
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) February 8, 2022
U.S. Supreme Court lets Alabama use electoral map faulted for racial bias https://t.co/79xsaFd8jp pic.twitter.com/Zua2yMgCgo
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 8, 2022
BREAKING: The Supreme Court has put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections, boosting Republican chances to hold six of the state’s seven seats in the House of Representatives. https://t.co/nA0JJ5CEPu
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 7, 2022
"Things have changed in the South."
— Roberts, C.J., Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013) https://t.co/zHS0Uyiyet
— Jeffrey Vagle (@jvagle) February 7, 2022
Chief Just-Us Roberts is reportedly outraged, nay, heartbroken, over his Repub colleagues’ willingness to soil the threadbare ‘balls and strikes’ figleaf of the Roberts Court impartiality.
He wants to get some media attention to demonstrate his good faith, I say he should announce he’s leaving the court at the end of this session, along with Justice Breyer. But I’m not gonna bet as much as a store-bought cookie on him doing so, mind you…
The Supreme Court also granted cert in this case and will issue a decision later this term—teeing up the opportunity to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act's remaining protections for racial minorities against gerrymanders that dilute their voting strength.
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 7, 2022
I should note that while the Supreme Court may calendar the case for this term, it's possible that it will kick it to next term, so I am not completely certain when a decision will come down. (Whenever it does, today's order all but ensures it will be catastrophic.)
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 7, 2022
I still can't get over Kavanaugh's assertion that a January decision about a law passed in November is just too close to an election for the courts to intervene. There are elections every two years! Purcell is just being used to flat-out create rights with no remedies
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) February 8, 2022
Statement on U.S. Supreme Court Ruling in Alabama Redistricting Case https://t.co/IQW055cF8H
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) February 7, 2022
The #Alabama redistricting plan been called a textbook example of discrimination against Black voters. It isn’t the kind of explicit voting discrimination, like poll taxes & literacy tests, that was used during the Jim Crow era. Instead, it is more subtle. https://t.co/XN7yp6uwGN
— Gary Dunavant (@Garybham) February 5, 2022
Baud
Yeah, it’s worse.
germy
This is a good illustration of the Roberts court:
West of the Rockies
Anyone know what Clarence Thomas’s approval rating is among Black voters?
lowtechcyclist
Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ol’ Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don’t need him around anyhow
Yeah, can’t have people like him getting in the way.
If Skynyrd was saying (like John Roberts more recently) that the South is all better now, sorry but that’s a big negatory.
Betty Cracker
IIRC from an article I read on this…travesty, black voters make up 27% of the electorate but can only meaningfully exercise their preference in one of seven districts.
Wapiti
@lowtechcyclist: I always assumed they meant “a southern white man”. That’s just the default in too much of our society.
West of the Rockies
@lowtechcyclist:
I have never liked Skynard. Not a fan of self-congratulatory yee-haa rock.
lowtechcyclist
I understand that the VRA is not just being gutted, but filleted and grilled. But – legal question – I’m curious whether the direct language of the Fifteenth Amendment itself can be (or has already been) be appealed to here. Because while this bullshit redistricting map doesn’t deny the right to vote based on race and color, it sure as hell seems to abridge it, ensuring that Black voters won’t be represented in proportion to their numbers.
Seems that it could be argued that this map is just plain unconstitutional, regardless of whether the VRA had ever existed. Any thoughts, legal jackals?
lowtechcyclist
I’ve never been a big fan of theirs, more kinda neutral for the most part over the years, but “Sweet Home Alabama” definitely isn’t aging well.
laura
The Court is an abomination. Outright embracing racial gerrymandering, allowing unconstitutional restrictions on abortion to stand while it gets around to overturning Roe, gunning for the administrative state- just shite-baggery on a grand scale. And the recent additions- a women to end Roe, the dumbest frat boy available (Kavanaugh’s questions during oral argument are bad, but his written opinions are just so poor and Kagan hands him his ass routinely from the losing side) and Gorsuch well, what can one say about smug, performative, entitled shite-bags who make it their life’s work to finish off the environmental hatchet job their mother started under Reagan other than Christ, what an asshole. So when a river eventually catches on fire again, we’ll know who to thank.
I think the Court must be called out as illegitimate from every possible soapbox. I’m hoping that Governor Newsom follows through with his statement about gun control laws that contravene the 2nd Amendment as it’s currently interpreted – if for no other reason than to show the naked political partisanship of the federalist society majority.
The court’s pro-confederacy, pro-lochner opus dei squad makes me feel all stabby.
Citizen Alan
I genuinely think Brown v board of education is on the chopping block before the end of this decade.
Old School
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m pretty sure Skynyrd was saying to not write off the entire state due to the actions of some of its residents/leaders.
New Deal democrat
LGM has it exactly right this morning:
“Scott Lemieux argued a few weeks ago that “Courts that willfully ignore the text and purpose of major statutes are an existential threat to democratic self-rule, because even if majorities can surmount the formidable obstacles to legislating, Republican-controlled courts can simply rewrite the law to suit their own preferences.”
….
“The Court is a good example. It really is lawless. It really is a threat to U.S. liberal democracy. There are two options.
“One is enacting major reforms that rebalance the Court. That’s clearly off the table. Between entrenched interests and the political realities of the Senate, reform is going nowhere.
“The other is to defy the Court, an action that would require – sooner or later – a sustained attack on its legitimacy. This raises all the usual concerns about the future of judicial independence and the rule of law.”
——
I agree with LGM. The Framers envisioned that the Court would be bound by precedent, and without the power to compel the Executive to carry out its rulings. Hence “the least dangerous Branch.” But a Court that willy-nilly throws out decades of settled precedent (or in the case of Shelby County, simply overrules a Constitutional Amendment itself) – that the public has accepted and is living its lives by – simply because it has the raw power to, is fundamentally lawless, exactly the same as a King or Emperor or Junta is. The Law becomes the whim of 5 Philosopher Kings and Queens.
As I have pointed out before, Madison saw this problem early on, but only after the Court had exercised its power. Anti-Federalist Brutus foresaw this exact issue when he wrote against the proposed Constitution in 1787.
While I am not sure actual defiance of the Court is necessary, a sustained and loud attack on its legitimacy, sufficient to cause retirements or judicial changes of mind, is necessary. This is what FDR did, and contra most superficial opinion, it worked – viz., “the switch in time that saved the Nine.”
Edmund Dantes
@lowtechcyclist: it’s worth noting there is a large contingent of right wing legal scholarship based on the idea that the reconstruction amendments really aren’t that valid.
Also, plenty of Roberts court rulings have ignored the plain text of the reconstruction amendments already on previous voting rights cases. So it’s already a non starter.
the only real remedy at this point is court reform or somehow a meteor hits at the right moment wiping out kavanaugh’s carpool to work with Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch in the back seat.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: Yes, because the Court membership will remain static. Thomas and Alito will live forever, and nothing will ever change.
Damien
The thing I’m curious about is whether SCOTUS has always just been outright political, or if there used to be some actual legal analysis and argument that went into the decisions, because I’d like to think that there was but these schmendrick needledicks are really out here just kinda making the law seem like Calvinball.
How stupidly, egregiously dangerous
Edmund Dantes
@Citizen Alan: Reynolds vs Sims also appears to be on the chopping block a lot more explicitly than I excepted. I expected some trimming but it looks like with the right case they’d go for even destroying it completely to really allow minority rule to be cemented.
Another Scott
@Old School: Yup.
In Birmingham they love the gov’nor – Boo, Boo, Boo.
Now we all did what we could do.
Google tells me that Neil Young played at their funeral.
Cheers,
Scott.
laura
@Citizen Alan: public funding of private schools makes overturning Brown somewhat irrelevant. Public schools are being hollowed out by for-profit charter schools and religious schools and home school organizations and online learning academies. And the coordinated attacks on public schools, public school teachers, and student safety from Covid are a national tire fire.
However, you are right to consider the desire to overturn Brown as part and parcel of a larger coordinated effort to make apartheid america “a thing.”
Josie
@New Deal democrat: Serious question: What form would the attack on the Court’s legitimacy take? At this point, Republicans seem impervious to any criticism.
danielx
@Damien:
That would be door #2.
Bill in Section 147
@Old School: The song explicitly says Alabamans supported the governor so Watergate does not bother them.
George Wallace.
Nixon destroying the Constitution is not our problem.
Today it would be, “Don’t blame me for Trump, our state voted for an avowed racist.”
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Old School: Sad to say, I’ve lived in Alabama almost 40 years and with each passing year it seems more reasonable for decent people to write off this whole state. The tendency toward and tolerance for, sometimes even the celebration of, cruelty and dishonesty run very deep in this culture.
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist: “I’m curious whether the direct language of the Fifteenth Amendment itself can be (or has already been) be appealed to here.”
Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment specifically empowers the Congress to act, and historically this section, along with similar sections of the 13th and 14th Amendments, were specific rebukes to the Supreme Court in reaction to Dred Scot.
In Shelby County, Roberts invented a doctrine of “equal State sovereignty” out of hole cloth, to effectively abrogate the Amendment itself. That’s the answer to your suggestion.
Johannes
@lowtechcyclist: You’re right, of course, but with this court?
Edmund Dantes
@Damien: There used to be a more involved kabuki to cover it up when it was being overtly political. Even then it was super political. “The switch in time to save nine” referenced above was literally a bunch of justices going “whoa hold up. We’ll let you have some so long as you don’t fully dilute our power@ . But since the federalist society has reached critical mass there is a lot less desire for even the fig leafs and more naked power grabs.
Roberts is the old school version and even then he wasn’t super great at the fig leaves as proved by how easily RBG eviscerated his Shelby County ruling with her it’s like saying I don’t need an umbrella anymore when it’s raining since I didn’t get wet before while I had it (paraphrasing).
Old School
@Bill in Section 147: I’ve interpreted that as “I didn’t vote for Wallace, so don’t blame me for him. Do you feel responsible for Watergate even though you didn’t vote for Nixon?”
laura
@Josie: Criticism from multiple sources that describes exactly the court’s actions, unsigned orders, the personal conduct and behavior of the justices, the shabbiness of the opinions, the fact free reasoning, the hypocrisy of respect for precedent, Leonard Leo and his role in selecting these numpties, Ginny Thomas and her husband Clarence and their particular political chicanery, and such like.
Legal scholars, practitioners, the hoi polloi – any and everyone could and should call out what is obviously happening- the court is trading the faith and trust in itself as an institution and one of three coequal branches of government and is rewriting the law to favor a political party as that party embraces fascism
Also, no one has a thinner skin than Sam Alito, so here’s hoping his feelings get hurt and his gaunchies are all in a wad.
Mike in NC
We have a rotten, shitty Supreme Court thanks to one of the rottennest, shittiest human beings that ever drew a breath. 30% of the assholes in this country wanted to install him as our fascist dictator, and they’re not done yet.
Chief Oshkosh
@Old School: That was always my interpretation, too.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Mike in NC:
Mitch McConnell, right?
Damien
@Edmund Dantes: What concerns me more is about eviscerating precedent when nothing has changed in the intervening years to warrant it; even if you wanted to argue that Brown striking down separate but equal was eviscerating precedent at least one could argue that in vivo examples showed that SBE was impossible (not the point of why it’s wrong, but as an example of arguing in precedent), but if it’s ALL political then is what’s the purpose of the law if it can be changed at a whim by the unelected?
To be clear I’m not arguing that there isn’t any politics involved in the court, but feeling like it’s entirely one big game is distressing my respect for the rule of law right now
New Deal democrat
@Josie: I think the short form of the answer is, all of the scholarly and other criticism that you read online, needs to start coming in the most acidic form from the highest echelons of the Democratic Party, including calling the Court’s opinions illegitimate, and including invoking the future judgment of history (e.g., JohnRoberts can expect his portrait to always be paired with Roger Taney’s), every single week, and in repeated with threats to eliminate Supreme Court jurisdiction. Knowing as they commute to work daily that their reputations will take a pounding on the front pages of the press every time they do this will concentrate their minds wonderfully in wanting to make the punishment end.
Even shorter version: that’s what FDR did, viz., “the horse and buggy Court.”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@laura:
I fear that would be spun as an attack on the rule of law by the media villagers and the right-wing, just like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act was spun as a “federal power grab” and the filibuster spun as “democratic”. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried, however
Plus, a lot of Americans seem to care more about higher gas prices and higher prices in general more than civil rights it seems
MisterDancer
Yes.One thousand times, yes.
The law is political — that’s what Critical Race Theory was pointing out to legal students. (That it became a general purpose boogeyman is A THING.)
In the past: the decisions that showed their ass as most political, didn’t used to impact the people who had the vast majority of voices in our shared media. Plessy may have been a black eye on the ideals of America, but since it was all about people who already were losing the vote, it wasn’t seen as a huge deal.
In my opinion, the one-two punch of WWII and the media’s coverage of the Civil Rights Movement radically changed how those voices saw the centuries of oppression. We couldn’t keep ignoring Jim Crow when we just saw how Nazi Germany treated a lot of groups, including Black folx. The media (mostly Northern-based, keep in mind) found credibility and ratings covering the struggles for Black rights in the South.
The legal, yet immoral, ways oppression was baked into law (and not just in the South) is how people like Thurgood Marshall came to be known. Those fights in the courtrooms built on top of so much else, while also laying the groundwork for changing those laws (and much of the culture). SCOTUS was in a position to support some of those changes, with more coming as the courts were reshaped in that era.
That helped build up a desire to change systems that peeked thru SCOTUS, and not just for Black folx — women and LBGTQIA+ folx among many others, started to rebuild systems of defiance against oppressive laws and cultures. And again, they petitioned the court system to address their issues, when Congress would not move fast enough.
And all their hard work, across multiple lines of oppression, meant that people who previously could ignore these oppressions, now could not. Media made sure to run reports on all of this, for good and for ill. We still hear it, in the “I’m not political” mode to challenge, but that was, and always will be bullshit.
Laws are tools to define culture. They cannot help but reflect, to one degree or another, the desires and norms of said culture, as well as shape them. And so, too, do courts in interpreting said law; there’s no such thing as an “objective” law, and the fact that we bought, as a culture, the “Originalism” approach was more a sign of how good the Right is, as abusing narratives and pushing propaganda.
But that Originalism argument was part of how the Federalist Society, among many other players of ill-will, have focused millions of dollars and voters into re-reshaping the courts into a space where the old ways would be re-codified for a modern approach. Where they could claim they are just “reverting” back to the “real” intent of Americans law, and not just shoring up the modern-day versions of John C. Calhoun.
And that’s what we’re seeing today.
Sure Lurkalot
As Ms. Cracker suggested yesterday, muckraking to expose Clarence and Ginny’s ties to the insurrection and other sordid activities, Kav’s sugar daddy(ies), Bony’s adherence to a crackpot cult, the dark money behind the Federalist Society. I know the “stories” already out there but it seems to me we’ve only scratched the surface. Delegitimizing the court over a broader swath of public opinion might help, since it appears we are short on other remedies.
Betty Cracker
@White & Gold Purgatorian: I hear you. But we can’t forget that there are tens of millions of decent people in the reddest states who don’t deserve to be abandoned.
oatler
@West of the Rockiewarren zevon?
Grandpa pissed his pants again
He don’t give a damn
Brother Billy has both guns drawn
He ain’t been right since Vietnam
“Sweet home Alabama”
Play that dead band’s song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
Daddy’s doing Sister Sally
Grandma’s dying of cancer now
The cattle all have brucellosis
We’ll get through somehow
“Sweet home Alabama”
Play that dead band’s song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
I’m going down to the Dew Drop Inn
See if I can drink enough
There ain’t much to country living
Sweat, piss, jizz and blood
“Sweet home Alabama”
Play that dead band’s song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
Submit Corrections
oatler
@oatler: sorry I screwed up the nym.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Like, for example, the ¼ of Alabamans who are black and whose vote the court is working with the state to dilute.
In terms of how to respond, I might consider following their lead instead of brainstorming ideas on my own.
ETA: Not intended to be a criticism of your comment, which I agree with.
laura
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Fuck the villagers.
Damien
@MisterDancer: I agree that the experience of WWII and the horrors of the Nazis were seminal in shifting perceptions, both socially and legally. I mean hell, McMinn County that just decided to ban Maus had a legit shootout in 1946 between vets and cops to ensure votes were counted as cast and defy the local dictator sheriff, but 75 years on they’ve reverted to garbage fascists.
Is it going to take undeniable horrors on the scale of the Holocaust for things to progress again? He asked rhetorically…
Can you point to another time where the court regressed like we’re seeing now?
ian
@Omnes Omnibus:
I doubt they will, but I was also hoping McConnel would be taking a dirt nap by now, yet he seems to keep on walking around.
Ksmiami
@germy: eliminate this Court for good… it’s a joke
Anyway
All the “liberal” legal scholars who wrote glowing op-eds about Kavanaugh and Grosuch should be called out and made to defend the shabbiness of the opinions, the fact-free rulings, precedents that have been scattered to the wind … The legal community must start picking apart the rulings — point out how hollow this court is.
I am just writing this, I have no hope. Call me doomy, that’s my state.
Ksmiami
@Damien: we can stop or severely restrict the Court’s authority. How many military units does Barrett direct?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@laura:
Wholeheartedly agree
Ksmiami
@New Deal democrat: go to rhetorical war against this Court… and if that doesn’t work, cut their fucking funding
RaflW
I actually despise CJ Roberts more than the plain hacks he resides with. Spare us all his crocodile tears while his five horsemen of the apocalypse deliver what he wants.
His hands can retain an appearance of cleanliness by being the 6th vote and thus unneeded and switchable for posterity’s hagiography. Fuck ‘im.
Kay
@Anyway:
They do get called out. It doesn’t matter. They long ago declared allegiance to “the institutions” rather than what the institutions are supposed to stand for. Ignore them. They’re not important and they don’t matter. Even if you could shake them out of their entitled complacency what could they offer in this situation at this stage of the game? A scolding editorial that 3 million people will read? They made themselves irrelevant.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
As others suggested, maybe they by themselves couldn’t reach that many, but perhaps the Democratic Party and others, such as late show hosts, could amplify what they’re saying and relentlessly repeat it?
Betty Cracker
Republicans in disarray, via CNN:
LOL! I figured it was just the Republicans Trump openly hates, but Cornyn, Thune, etc. Hmm. Also, that last sentence from Mittens!
Kay
It’s bad faith. They denied AA voters in Alabama a remedy. They set this up so these people can petition and fund a lawsuit and win that lawsuit and still it doesn’t matter. They get no relief.
Fucking Potemkin court – it’s a joke. They permit the appearance of something approaching due process, but it’s a lie.
This was always how it was going to decline. They would leave the thing itself in place but so hollowed out it isn’t of any practical use to anyone.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Does anyone want to tell him?
RaflW
@White & Gold Purgatorian: “it seems more reasonable for decent people to write off this whole state”
While I can certainly understand this, and I am in a glass house of my own making (left Texas 27 years ago when Dubya was in office, the Ann Richards style Democrats were no longer able to win anything big), my deep concern is what happens to the 1.3 million Black Alabamans.
I don’t think there’s going to be a second great migration north (and seeing how my adopted home state of MN has done in terms of economic disparity, not to mention cop killings of Black men) a migration may not work that great.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Why would the Democratic Party need to amplify “what they’re saying”? The Democratic Party is perfectly capable of arguing for voting rights without the legal analysis of the people who assured us all of these justices would respect the laws. You don’t get to be wrong 50 times, seriously underestimate a threat, and still be an expert on how to go forward. They didn’t see the threat. They missed it. That’s a big error.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
interesting to me, not earth-shattering but interesting, that he doesn’t respond with a hard ‘no’. I doubt she’ll be driven out for being too pro-trump, The Beast would only demand someone more pro-trump; I think this whole thing started at the instigation of David Bossie, who is a true trump loyalist.
It would be funny that the guy previously best known for going melon-shopping during Dan Burton’s investigation of Vince Foster’s death had so much power in American politics had so much power in American politics if it weren’t true.
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
@White & Gold Purgatorian:
I was out of the state for almost that long. In many ways, it’s been a sobering homecoming.
Brachiator
@MisterDancer:
This goes back further, but I will also concentrate on WW2. It wasn’t just a reaction to how the Nazis were treating people. It became more of an obvious contradiction to have people of all colors fighting the Nazis and their racism and bigotry, and then insist that American racism and bigotry were acceptable.
Also, and this was big, it was absurd for European nations to fight the Nazis and then insist that they could still hold onto their colonial empire in places like Africa and Asia and the Americas.
African Americans came home from the war, and Asian Americans came home from the war and sometimes from the camps, tired of the bullshit and no longer willing to accept the status quo.
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: Apparently Mittens is worried about stupid. But not venal or corrupt. Those GOP attributes he can live with just fine.
Betty Cracker
@Kay:
Yep, and that applies at the macro level too. Only the crudest fascist leaders overthrow democracies and declare themselves rulers for life these days. The more sophisticated ones leave the trappings of democracy in place but hollow it out so it’s utterly meaningless. Same result.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: The War Department was putting out propaganda films that were telling people not to be suckers for race prejudice at the same time that they were putting out blatantly racist pamphlets hating on the Japanese. The contradictions just got to be too much after a while.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and since Ronna notRomney is on topic, I’ll relink to this memory of growing up in the leafy Detroit suburbs from Jonathan Chait
Whether the acronym was chosen deliberately to create an air of menace, I don’t know
I have a notion thereupon….
laura
@Anyway: The legal community must start picking apart the rulings — point out how hollow this court is.
I call dibs on Janus. Alito destroyed my career.
Damien
I feel comfortable calling Republicans as a whole a bunch of trash honkey crackers in polite company.
Brantl
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: Don’t be surprised if the actual decision in this case eliminates the requirement for majority minority districts and Alabama takes away that one out of seven before 2024.
Baud
@Shalimar:
Agree on the first part. However, effective gerrymandering often results in lumping democratic voters into a district, so may be hard to get rid of that one district. But if there’s a way, they’ll do it.
Ksmiami
I think we need to start harassing the so called justices every day of their miserable lives- going to a DC restaurant? No service, tough shit. Try to gut Roe, sitins in the Court. Make them fear the majority because they shouldn’t be protected from the fallout of their fascist decisions
Kelly
When I grew up enough to learn of the world Brown v Board of Education, Loving and Miranda were recent history. Roe v Wade happened while I was in high school. I thought of the Supreme Court as guardians of justice. I thought Bush v Gore was a kinda weird decision but it was a weird situation and the Supreme Court was the most neutral body to settle the matter.
Oh man has that comforting belief been blown all to hell in the last 20 years.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Most Republican Senators do not respect Trump, but they need his voters. They will try to hold their coalition together as best they can until the midterms. They desperately want to win back their Congressional majoritities, and they have win them with their 2020 voters.
A Ghost to Most
“Freedumb!” is just another word for nuthin’ left but fascism. Sorry, Kris and Janis.
Ksmiami
@Geminid: except for all their dead voters…
Soprano2
Ugh, this may give new oxygen to the movement among some Republicans in the MO legislature to try for a 7-1 split in the House delegation by dividing up Kansas City in a way that favors white people. If we’re lucky, it’s too late already. There was a faction pushing to make MO’s congressional delegation even more white than the 6-2 it already is, but other Republicans and Democrats pushed back saying they didn’t want that map to end up in court.
Leto
@MisterDancer: @Brachiator: I picked this up a few months ago, but decided to read it this month. Divisions: A New History of Racism and Resistance in America’s World War II Military I’m still only about 70 pages in, but even though you know a general overview of the subject, having someone go microscopic on the subject always reveals new information. Overview:
Brachiator
@Ksmiami:
The insane thing is that there are self-appointed militias claiming that they are ready to go.
What a world.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
They’re both in their early 70s. Sure, they could die soon, but the odds are way against both of them kicking off before the end of the decade.
lowtechcyclist
@Edmund Dantes: Thanks for the explanation. So this notion that the Reconstruction Amendments are invalid – is that taken seriously outside far-right legal outposts, or is it more widespread than that?
Never mind, I guess: any crazy idea that takes hold in the fever swamps of the far right ultimately becomes standard belief for the entire GOP.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Damien:
Shitbirds. I’m trying to make that a thing. Short and exact.
Steeplejack (phone)
Also, damn it, I’ve got “Sweet Home Alabama” stuck in my head as an earworm. Thanks, morning thread.
Mike in NC
74 million people in this country voted for a guy who advocated white supremacy and police brutality.
Miss Bianca
@Kay:
Potemkin Court. That’s my go-to term from now on for this SCOTUS. The Potemkin Court, dedicated to enforcing the
lawlie of the land.Old Man Shadow
Why would Roberts leave? Killing the VRA has been his goal since the Reagan era. This is the outcome he wants and has always wanted, even if he lacks the spine and stomach to come right out and kill voting rights for minorities like his five colleagues do.
Brachiator
@Leto:
I might give this book a look. Some stories have been told before. Others have been lost. It would be fascinating to have an oral history of the people of color who served or tried to serve. Often the human dimension is lost.
One crazy thing was the initial refusal to employ black people in the military as anything other than labor and support, despite the plain fact that black people had valiantly fought for (and sometimes against) the US since the Revolutionary War era.
We know a bit about how the US military tried to import segregation policies into England and Northern Ireland, and how many times the Brits refused to go along.
One story that is not mentioned enough is how, despite a desperate shortage of medical volunteers, black nurses were rejected for military service.
For example:
Black women were the only women of color who were entirely rejected from the Women’s Air Corp.
lowtechcyclist
The problem is, with most things they don’t need any. Take voting rights: if Federal troops aren’t going to occupy Alabama, Georgia, or whatever state is passing absurd laws, the Supreme Court has the last word.
Or environmental regs: how do we enforce them? We take the offending polluter to, um, court. And the courts will follow the Supreme Court rulings.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
What if the Democratic Party had no “allies”? No outside group of people or entities who carry/shape liberal/Democratic explanations or messages?
What if the only entity who could sell voting rights protections were Democratic electeds and the organization, the Democratic Party? How would they do it?
That’s how I want them to act, always, when they win and when they lose, as if they have no allies. Everything is up to them. If they get help, great, but no one depends on it, outsources to it, or relies on it coming thru. No one is coming to the rescue.
Geminid
@Steeplejack (phone): Try a counterworm. The violin theme from Fiddler on the Roof works for me.
MisterDancer
@Leto: Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve added it to my to-read list.
Eggbert
Little schoolchildren will be studying and discussing RBG’s legacy for decades to come.
Leto
@Brachiator: The book has a section on all the service’s women’s corp. I’m still in the overall first chapter, but it’s going into detail on how the government tried to handle it (both good and bad), as well as how each service tried to stop it. Starting at the local induction office and then moving up each level.
I found this on Imgur just now and it’s worth sharing:
In 1943, American soldiers in England fought against each other
Edit- @MisterDancer: tagging you on this too.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: Like Russia under Putin.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wow. An early skirmish in the War Against Christmas.
Very interesting tale. Thanks for this.
Kay
Oddly I am more optimistic about the school situation lately, because I don’t think most of you follow it as closely as I do and the school board members the far Right elected are insane and frightening. These are fucking bottom of the barrel people. School board elections are famously low turnout but I suspect a lot of these people are not going to last past one cycle.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Betty Cracker: I know. You and I both live in very red states and know those people are here. But damn, this culture is basically crack for authoritarians and I despair of putting that genie back in the bottle. Have to keep trying, but so far no success and now the mess is infecting the whole country, not just the former confederacy.
Brachiator
@Leto:
Very good stuff and timely for Black History Month
catclub
when Doug Jones won the state for Senate, he lost all but one congressional district. so 6 districts that are ~55-45 GOP and one that is 85-15 Democratic. Pack and crack
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Right, but in some places, it’s probably not helpful to pander exclusively to Trump extremists who think it’s reasonable to describe the January 6th attack as “legitimate political discourse.” Another point of GOP disarray is Pence and Trump squaring off over whether Pence had the legal right to throw out electoral votes. A reporter asked DeSantis about that yesterday, and his mouth gaped even wider than its customary open position and he basically ran away.
dww44
@West of the Rockies:
I was just wondering that myself.., but, with more specifics. Do they ever come out and publicly criticize him. If there was ever an Uncle Tom figure, in my mind he is it.
PST
@Brachiator:
MisterDancer mentioned critical race theory earlier, and it reminded me that Derrick Bell wrote a classic analysis of Brown v. Board that demonstrates how CRT looks behind legal doctrines to unearth the social and political realities that underlie courts’ pretense that they are just calling balls and strikes. It deserves reading in full, and there is a lot of nuance, but a central claim is that Brown met the needs of white policymakers. Those include the ones mentioned above, but number one was competing with the Commies for the allegiance of nonaligned countries:
patroclus
@Steeplejack (phone): I’m as free as a bird now. And this bird, will not change! Lord knows, I can’t change!
(I agree with OldSchool’s interpretation of the original Skynard’s lyrics).
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I would like to see reporters do a reverse Doocy:
Governor DeSantis, how can you remain in a political party where the leadership still back the Jan 6 insurrection?
Or
Governor DeSantis, do you plan on helping the GOP suppress votes in the midterm election?
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Baud: Also, don’t leave out the roughly 20% of white Alabama voters who reliably vote for Democrats. The folks who draw lines have a darned good idea where we live too, and are careful to keep the numbers low in any given district. Divide and conquer is the name of the game in redistricting and current methods are much more sophisticated than just the old black vs. white.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Republican politicians are learning to stay mum. The clever ones are learning to talk out of both sides of their mouth when they can.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan: Hmm. It does seem worse lately than when we first moved here, but I figured back then folks were more likely to keep the ugliness hidden, especially from “outsiders.” Of course, after Obama was elected, some of that civil veneer burned away and the Trump stripped off whatever was left.
patroclus
@Leto: There was a really good episode of Foyle’s War that delved into the Brits’ continual refusal to go along with racial discrimination practiced by our military during WWII. They’ve been ahead of us on this issue since John Newton and Wilberforce.
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
@West of the Rockies: I’m surmising you can guess what his approval rating is with me.
Also, the entirety of my family circle, my social circle, and a good chunk (I’m in IT, but supporting banking, so…) of my professional one as well.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Geminid:
Went with “Saturday Night Special” by the offending group.
Brachiator
@patroclus:
Yep. I love “Foyle’s War.” Great series. Michael Kitchen’s soft-spoken, often under-estimated Foyle, is one of my favorite fictional detectives.
Brachiator
@PST:
I can see this, but it was, of course a mixed message. The US had a post-war policy of undermining emerging nations that were not anti-communist.
citizen dave
Neil Young pedant here. Googled to confirm: NY didn’t play any funeral but played his Alabama (very rarely played) and part of Sweet Home Alabama at a Skynrd benefit show shortly after the plane crash. Ronnie van Zant was not buried in a NY t shirt, but did wear one at LS concerts just to fuck with their fans. NY and LS admired each other, and Neil was going to give Powderfinger to Skynyrd. Lots more at a ThrashersWheat page.
Skynyrd’s Gimme Three Steps and Simple Man are anti-braggidocio tunes.
Geminid
@Leto: There is a museum for the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots just west of Sweetwater, Texas. The museum is at Avenger Air Field, just off of 1-20 on the highway to Lubbock. It’s a nice little museum, and they put out a good calendar.
The story of the WASPs is inspiring. Funny also; Army Air Corp head Hap Arnold once had a group of pilots who resisted training on the new B-29s. They said the bomber was not safe to fly. Arnold had the base’s next B-29s delivered by WASPs, and the reluctant men came around.
Barry Goldwater flew with WASPs during WWII and helped get them veterans benefits through a law signed by Jimmy Carter.
The WASP story is sad also. Some were killed, one by a male pilot who thought he was just hazing her. He survived the collision. And when a surplus of male pilots were trained at the end of 1944, the WASP were disbanded. A Washington newspaper columnist by the name of Drew Pearson had agitated for it. I think this was an expression of the larger social and political reaction that was to strengthen in post-war years.
RaflW
@Baud & @Soprano2: The GOP does have to be somewhat careful of the math. Trying for all the marbles can end up creating several ‘swing’ districts. 7-1 is already a blatant ‘mander. Reaching for the brass ring, besides maybe attracting too much DOJ attention, could backfire.
Philbert
@laura: I have a book on order at the library about how South Africa made apartheid a national law. “I’ve heard” that gerrymandering and controlling who votes figured in, I’m curious if so and the details how. I’ll do a jackal book report if it covers the the book merits it.
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack (phone): My work here is done. ;-)
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus: Membership might not be static, but the Court’s overall ideological bent certainly can be, as evidenced by the fact that it’s been ultra-conservative for most of my life and I can’t imagine it changing soon. What does it matter that Alito and Thomas aren’t Highlander-style immortals if they have the power and the desire to interpret the Constitution in such a way that the people who will eventually be nominated to replace them agree with them on all issues?
Citizen Alan
@White & Gold Purgatorian: Mississippi has been unsalvageable my entire life.
RaflW
@Kay: I watched a Denver News segment last night about the Douglas County School Board takeover — and subsequent firing of the ‘too liberal’ Superintendent.
The story reached back to Jefferson County, which had a similar takeover and a pressurized resignation. The three shitbirds got recalled and lost. I don’t know Douglas Co. well enough to know if similar can happen again (and CO law leaves the new shitbirds in place for six months, that’s the minimum term of damage before a recall can start).
Ksmiami
@Brachiator: they wouldn’t last 5 seconds against the us military- these people can barely even run
Baud
If Kay is still here….
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: send in the 101st again… shoot the Confederate shitheads. I don’t really care how we fight them…or offer democratic leaners the chance to move along w financial incentives and then remove any and all financial support to every scum sucking red state. And then build a wall
Old School
@citizen dave: To pedant your pedantry: Neil Young performed Alabama/Sweet Home Alabama at a charity show, but it wasn’t a Skynyrd-related show. I have a cassette tape of an audience recording of that show somewhere.
Brachiator
@Philbert:
Black people were declared to be non-citizens.
Kay
@RaflW:
During the tea party craze, the local city council elected a bare majority of tea party nuts. The city had purchased a empty building, a former supermarket, to use as a sheriff’s department/EMS headquarters. The tea party nuts objected to the purchase – completed before they took office- and refused to move forward on it. Taxed Enough Already, so they wouldn’t allocate the funds to renovate ir or even maintain it. The building sat empty and flooded in a heavy rain and there was water damage. The local newpaper went out to do a report on this “controversy” and birds were nesting in the building. Everyone you talked to then mentioned that – “there are birds nesting in the building”. The tea party people lost the next time they were up and all five were gone after one term.
billcinsd
@Kelly: Well, they soon will be after Griswold, Loving, Lawrence, and West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, too, so no contraceptives, interracial couples, gay sex and minimum wage. Quite the Quad of cases to overthrow.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Brachiator:
I think there was a bit of Britwashing in that episode, but it was a good one, and Foyle’s War is an excellent series, starting with Michael Kitchen’s performance as Foyle.
Citizen Alan
@billcinsd: I genuinely wonder what Clarence Thomas thinks about Loving now that he lives in an area that would never pass an anti-miscegenation law that might affect his marriage even if SCOTUS decides that it is constitutional to do so,
OGLiberal
Alabama is 27% black. Mississippi is 37% black. Louisiana is 32% black. Between them they have 19 House reps and 6 Senators. Out of those there are three Dem reps, all black, and no Dem senators. Louisiana has a Dem (white) governor.
Nothing to see here. Move along….all is well.
billcinsd
@Geminid: Expedition Unknown did an episode on Tommy Thompkins a lost WASP pilot
https://www.monstersandcritics.com/tv/expedition-unknown-exclusive-missing-wasp-pilot-gertrude-tommy-tompkins-mystery-explored/
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Citizen Alan: OTOH, he and Ginni might want to be careful on where they drive their RV.
Soprano2
@RaflW: That’s the other GOP argument against it, that it might backfire and actually give Democrats another seat. They’re trying to protect Ann Wagner around St. Louis, because she came close to losing last election.
Betty
@New Deal democrat: Sheldon Whitehouse has been very vocal about the bought and paid for Supremes. Not sure about the other Dems.
jackmac
@Brachiator: My late father served as a medical aide during World War II and was also an avid amateur photographer. I have two albums of his war photos — lots of candid images of buddies as well as war wreckage and some touristy photos. In ALL of his photos — and there are probably nearly 200 — there is not a single person of color.
Edmund Dantes
@lowtechcyclist: supposedly Amy Cony Barret had some thoughts on it at one point in her career. She’s definitely dipped her toes into it.
Amy Coney Barrett and the Fourteenth Amendment — Valley Dude (valleydude70.com)
Another Scott
@Old School: Made me look. AL.com:
Cheers,
Scott.
Ella in New Mexico
All we need is for just one of the staunch majority to suffer an untimely and very tragic yet bizzarly Karmic twist of fate. We could begin the shift back towards the middle and put the fear of God into the rest.
But no. Fate prefers letting drunk drivers run over 4 year olds just walking with their parents in the crosswalk on the way home from Christmas Lights shows instead.
J R in WV
@West of the Rockies:
I once had to stand through a Skynard show to get to the ZZ Top show I wanted to hear. OMG they suck so bad. Sound was terrible, had to use the hearing protection, which I didn’t need for the ZZ Top show. Distorted loud is really bad for your ears…
My last shot at seeing the whole band… a great show!!
J R in WV
@Ksmiami:
No money for clerks, no salary, see how long they stay on the court under those circumstances. Fuck those nazi bastards!!!
What pensions?
Ans if they take a nickle from any outside source, jail time for accepting a bribe. Really. A fuckin’ nickle!!
J R in WV
@patroclus:
“(I agree with OldSchool’s interpretation of the original Skynard’s lyrics).”
Yes, but when I saw them some 10 or 11 years ago, they were draped with the Dixie-Fascist flag for the whole terrible show. Was disgusting.
Only stood for it to see ZZ Top headline after their horrible opening act!