Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

No one could have predicted…

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The revolution will be supervised.

Infrastructure week. at last.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Monday Morning Open Thread: Journeys

Monday Morning Open Thread: Journeys

by | 179 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,



It’s the details that make it interesting:

… [O]ne of two Black men to have served on the Supreme Court, Thomas is the longest-serving of the current justices. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices appointed by President Joe Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump…

Separately on Monday, hearings will begin for federal appellate judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Biden’s nominee, to become the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Biden has tapped her to replace Stephen Breyer, 83, who is retiring and is the oldest justice on the current court.

Thomas spoke on March 11 in Utah and raised concerns about calls to add additional members to the court, and discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the court to conduct arguments remotely.

“I didn’t like the free-for-all in oral arguments where we interacted and interrupted each other. It’s more productive now. The arguments are contributing to the process of deciding the case as opposed to what was happening, which was almost like a catfight,” Thomas said, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

One possibility… those of us with even minor forms of auditory processing disorder often find it gets harder to compensate as we get older. (I was never good at absorbing information from a college lecture, but now I can barely sit through a YouTube video that doesn’t have subtitles.)

Should Justice Thomas choose to retire, in order to spend more time with his wife during this difficult period for her, one could only commend his familial instincts…

Reader Interactions

179Comments

  2. 2.

    lowtechcyclist

    This website is a cesspool. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the political left is rooting against Clarence Thomas, but some of these tweets are incredibly vile.

    Yeah, ordinary folks hoping that Clarence Thomas doesn’t recover from whatever bug he’s caught. How vile!

    Guess that person missed the T-shirts that said stuff like “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.”  Or had images of people getting thrown out of helicopters.  Or the death threats against local public health officials.  Or the folks calling for hanging Dr. Fauci.

    Speck, beam, conservative. Some eye-cleaning required.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    “I didn’t like the free-for-all in oral arguments where we interacted and interrupted each other. It’s more productive now. The arguments are contributing to the process of deciding the case as opposed to what was happening, which was almost like a catfight

    Interestingly, it was his good friend Scalia that contributed the most to that practice.

  4. 4.

    narya

    First post-surgery run this morning! Pretty slow, but that is at least as much because I was mostly walking before the surgery, too, due to weather. I was a little winded, and legs were complaining, but otherwise felt fine. Hard to believe–it’s three weeks today.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    I don’t like it, but when you have a lifetime appointment, death watches come with the territory.  Would be happy to see set terms or mandatory retirement instead.

  10. 10.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Speaking as an atheist, since flue is a leading cause of death among elderly men, Thomas  is in my prayers.  I have to say the way they are being so cryptic about it sounds like the illness is serious.

  12. 12.

    Kay

    @James E Powell:

    “I’ve been researching the record of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, reading her opinions, articles, interviews & speeches. I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children. Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker.”

    It’s really dumb and not at all true but I’m sure they’ll all parrot it. Doesn’t matter though- none of them were voting for her anyway.

  13. 13.

    narya

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The biggest challenge at this point is to remember to not lift more than 10 pounds. I’m sure I’ve already gone over that limit by a little, but I’m trying to obey the spirit of it.

  14. 14.

    Kay

    @James E Powell:

    I just hope she doesn’t explain because it’s sentencing guidelines and pre sentencing reports and I’m tired of our nominees conducting graduate level seminars on legal process while their nominees don’t answer questions at all.

    She should say every question is an attack on her religion. That seems to work.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Given that it’s all projection, someone needs to start investigating Josh Hawley for child sex crimes.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    As far as Judge Jackson is concerned, the world contains only one person – Joe Manchin.

    She should say something positive about coal in her opening statement.

  17. 17.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    Senator Haw Haw is scumbag-signaling to the base, but I’m wondering if Manchin or Sinema are his real targets.

    ETA: From what I understand, Manchin has been solid on Biden’s judicial appointments, but there’s always that uncertainty.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: The beady-eyed creep looks the part, but Hawley is just an early adopter of the QAnon-inspired GOP playbook that has been deployed full force here in Florida.

  23. 23.

    hueyplong

    @SFAW: 

    It’s embarrassing to read about PeePaw Blacklung and Cinema being “targets” and thinking, “That’d be cool,” when there are approximately 50 senators who are worse.

  24. 24.

    Patricia Kayden

    Have to be careful what I post about Clarence Thomas. It’s a great day is all I’ll say.

  26. 26.

    Another Scott

    The SCOTUS press release is annoying, bordering on disinformation. Why did it take 2 days for them to say that he was hospitalized? The flu is a virus – there are tests which can tell the actual strain. Antibiotics don’t work against viruses is what we’ve been told for years. How about some actual objective information like test results? What was the actual diagnosis? What is the actual specific treatment?

    Yeah, I know, we’re just the hoi polloi and have no need to worry our pretty little heads about such things…

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  28. 28.

    mrmoshpotato

    A federal judge has ruled that former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis violated the constitutional rights of two same-sex couples when she refused to issue marriage licenses for them. Her refusal briefly landed her in jail in 2015.

    Glad to hear she’s getting her bigoted ass sued too.  Hopefully she gets taken to the cleaners.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    @Another Scott:

    I thought the press info said “flu-like symptoms,” which is pretty fuzzy and covers a lot of ground re: how a malady presents, so I’m not getting too bothered by the antibiotic thing.

    Of course, I have no idea how a MRSA infection presents …

  30. 30.

    JAFD

    Good morning, fellow jackals !
    Today be birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach
    ‘Twould be interesting if someone into classical music and counterfactual history would write a story of knock-on effects had he taken up painting instead …

  31. 31.

    New Deal democrat

    Just a reminder that the papal deathwatch vibe about Clarence Thomas’s hospitalization is empirical example #24,836 why lifetime tenure for Justices, who have the right to completely remake US society at their virtually unstoppable whim, has been a monumental mistake.

  34. 34.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: It sure does play into the “Q” crap though, doesn’t it? They have become absolutely obsessed with the idea that all Democrats are pedophiles.

  40. 40.

    Gin & Tonic

    I’m sure many of you were waiting anxiously to learn the results of the weekend’s elections in Turkmenistan. Well, wait no longer – it seems that Serdar Berdymukhammedov, son of current leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, has won.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    @sab:

    Senator, I hope you’re not questioning my deeply held religious beliefs

    Don’t even specify the religion. Just launch the religious shield and sit back.The Barrett Rules. No explaining, no real answers.

    I’d love to see a Democrat use the Kavanaugh Rules- belligerently demand their next promotion- especially a female Democrat which would be hysterical, but ours would never do it.

    I’m sure she’ll patiently conduct the quickie graduate seminar in federal sentencing, which no one will listen to or understand.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Does his middle name start with a W.?

     

    I learned this weekend that Duerte is respecting term limits and will be stepping down.

    Although one of the new candidates  is a Marcos/daughter of Duerte ticket.

  47. 47.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sab:

    The Republicans sure do have an obsession with sex, especially pedophilia. 

    And consensual workplace cocksuckings.  Let’s not forget Consensual Cocksucking-gate.

  50. 50.

    JML

    I never actively root for anyone’s death, even for a retrograde slimeball creep like Clarence Thomas. But any potential shift in the court is significant and you’ll see that with Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing. She doesn’t change the current balance, but she likely moves the “three” a little further left. And if Thomas does go down, then it again, doesn’t change the fact that the neo-cons still control the court, but the balance still shifts.

    If the court goes back to 5-4 split between federalist society bobos and actual justices, then Roberts goes back to being much more of a fulcrum, which probably changes what the opinions are. While I don’t like Roberts and is jurisprudence is often as full of shirt as any of the rest of the GOP cabal…he’s also an incrementalist by nature. He doesn’t want to directly overrule precedent if he can help it. He’s not moderate in his legal philosophy, but he is moderate in his execution…which is better for the country than letting the Alito/Thomas wing drive the train.

    And when you get back to more of a 5-4 split you open it up for defections: Gorsuch has a couple of holes where he can be brought over, Roberts does as well. It’s even possible that Kavanaugh or Comey Barrett might develop one or two (unlikely but you never can tell: William Brennan brought Harry Blackmun over to the light when everyone expected him to continue to stay linked to Warren Burger. So you never know with these things)

    I still think we could use expansion of the court for several reasons, not the least of which is the packing moves the GOP executed over the last several years, but also because we actually need a broader group of opinions on the bench and more people to decide these things. There’s nothing holy about having 9, and we’ve been there before.

  51. 51.

    Ohio Mom

    Maybe Thomas’s illness is not particularly serious (sob), he just got to go to the hospital and get kid glove treatment because he’s a SCJ.

    That could be an explanation for the vagueness of the reports we are getting. At any rate, looks like we are stuck with him for a while longer.

  52. 52.

    Soprano2

    @JAFD: It wouldn’t just be “knock on effects”. Most of music theory is based on the works of Bach, which means most of our Western music is based on the system Bach employed. Others used it, but Bach made it canon.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    @JMG: It must be very tough to be a newspaper headline writer in Turkmenistan.

    They’re praying newly-elected president Serdar Berdymukhammedov announces the purchase of an ostrich farm: SERD BERD WORD: BIRD HERD TRANSFERRED.

  54. 54.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Can the cleaners refuse to take her business on religious grounds?

    Sure, but they must take all of her money first – for sincerely-held religious reasons.

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud:

    Does his middle name start with a W.?

    No, it starts with a G (Turkmen seem to follow the Slavic patronymic-as-middle-name convention.)

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @JML:

    Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but he has a cold. He probably gets elaborate and excessive medical care because he’s a VIP. You would get a box of tissues and some Theraflu.

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: The governor of Florida’s press secretary openly says that anyone who disagrees with the “don’t say gay” bill is in favor of pedophilia, and the governor publicly thanked the GOP statehouse for passing the bill using these words:

    “Thank you for letting me and my wife be able to send our kids to kindergarten without them being sexualized.”

    I mean, it’s just absolutely crazy, but it works on the MAGA cult. The question is will enough normie voters reject the QAnon fantasy world, or will they decide that whatever, a governor and statehouse totally focused on fantasy problems while ignoring real ones is okay as long as the economy is decent and there’s no state income tax.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @JAFD: It would not have been as consequential as Bach picking a different trade, but I sometimes wonder what music Mikhail Borodin might have written had he not devoted his professional life to chemistry.

    Borodin was also a feminist, at least for his time, who promoted medical education for women in 1870’s Russia.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s all across the far Right, the “Democrats are pedophiles” theme. Hawley just took it into the national mainstream. They’ve mainstreamed a lot of Q stuff.

  66. 66.

    Betty

    I doubt that Miss Ginni would allow Clarence to retire thereby losing his sure vote for her projects.

  68. 68.

    geg6

    @Ohio Mom:

    Oh, that’s too bad.  Unlike some of the more delicate jackals here, I have no problem with wishing death and suffering on my enemies.  I hope he suffers and dies, right there along with his cow of a wife.

  69. 69.

    wenchacha

    @Kay: But he got antibiotics! A good doc wouldn’t prescribe that for a cold, right?

    How about late-stage syphilis? Does that cause any flu- like stuff?

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    Morning folks!

    I went on a chilly backpacking trip up to Elliott Knob this weekend with Fro Jr’s Scouts troop, but we made it through ok.  There is an old fire tower up there, and the views were amazing.  The wind was unreal – it was like listening to surf crash, all night long.

    Also, my knees didn’t really appreciate the 25 extra pounds of gear (on top of the extra 25 they already support on a daily basis ?).  But I’ll up the Advil for a few days and it should be ok.

  71. 71.

    Another Scott

    @Soprano2: Supposedly they’ve all been vaccinated and boosted.

    It’s just malpractice.  It’s not any harder to give “just the facts, Mam” than to wait 2 days and give a bunch of misdirection.

    Something like:

    “Justice Thomas was admitted to the hospital Friday evening after developing a cough and a 101F fever.  He has been vaccinated for Covid and tested negative.  He also tested negative for flu and pneumonia.  His bacterial infection is being treated with a brief course of IV antibiotics (DruggyDrug Bacteria Smasher) and is resting comfortably. …”

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Jeffro

    @Soprano2: It’s just mental cover for them to go over the top with their irrational hatred of Democrats.  There’s nothing lower than a pedophile, therefore they can think and say (and do?) whatever they want about Dems if they make themselves believe Dems are all pedos.  Makes them feel super-duper-righteous, too.

    And their leadership does nothing to dispel them of this belief, either.

  74. 74.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay: Yeah, pretty much anything bubbling up in the far reaches of the right is potentially days or weeks from being mainstreamed by the GQP.  Which is pretty damned scary.

  75. 75.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Another Scott:

    It is none of our business what Thomas is sick with, even if he is a SCOTUS justice.  Yes, we badly want to know and don’t respect him, but everyone deserves medical privacy.  That level of medical privacy is normal.  Few people want all of America knowing their medical details.  ‘Flu-like symptoms’ does not mean the flu, and not necessarily a virus.  IV antibiotics are not even a little bit unusual or alarming.  Thomas could be at death’s door or have a bad cold and they’re making sure nothing else hits his lungs or they could be lying about the symptoms because it’s something embarrassing like a UTI.

    Hoo boy, do I badly want that twisted nutcase off the court like everyone else here, but there is nothing sinister about the press release.  Don’t draw any conclusions from it in any direction.

  77. 77.

    spotmarkedx

    As a longtime lurker, I just want to add to an open thread that I appreciate the efforts you are making with twitter links on the front page – I have seen an extremely marked improvement with loading times and being able to navigate around.

    Thank you all!

  80. 80.

    prostratedragon

    Although one of the new candidates is a Marcos/daughter of Duerte ticket.
    Oooo, subtle!

  82. 82.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:

    This doesn’t need Q.  Does no one here remember the 80s?  ‘Gays are pedophiles’ was mainstream American thought more recently than that.  Asshole homophobes only stopped using the argument in public because it’s no longer mainstream opinion.  They still used it in private.  They’re letting their freak flag fly, not coming up with a new conspiracy.

  83. 83.

    mali muso

    @Jeffro: This is just one more step along the same lines as their “pro-life” position.  They have to paint their rivals as (what talented blogger Slactivist so aptly coined) Satanic baby killers, the worst of the worst, and therefore they are righteous and justified in any outrageous response.

  88. 88.

    Betty Cracker

    @Frankensteinbeck: QAnon didn’t invent smearing enemies with pedophilia accusations, but we shouldn’t ignore the influence of that specific group of crackpots in the GOP nor refrain from pointing out at their influence at every opportunity.

  89. 89.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Betty Cracker:

    Okay, but that’s not what this is.  This is bigots trying to force American culture back to when gay men were not allowed as Boy Scout leaders.  Which was 2015.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    The challenge for us is to come up with a persuasive reason why voters who aren’t proud Democrats and who therefore aren’t the subject of the smear should care.  I think the default for most of those people is “that’s wrong but it’s not my problem.”

  93. 93.

    Another Scott

    @Frankensteinbeck: Yeahbut, as others have noted, he has a lifetime appointment.  People have an objective interest in his medical condition.

    Nina Totenberg (from 2019):

    Justices like their privacy, too

    Ginsburg has been more transparent than most, revealing the basic details of each of her three bouts with cancer — in 1999, 2009 and now — and disclosing other, less dire health issues from time to time.

    Other justices, however, have been less open about their health. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2005 heart stent was only disclosed after it had to be revised a year later.

    Justice Antonin Scalia had health issues that only became publicly known after his sudden death in 2016. And Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired at age 90, only recently disclosed that he made the decision to step down after a fumbled dissent from the bench prompted a visit to his doctor and news that he had suffered a mini-stroke.

    While modern Supreme Court justices can and do sometimes hide their ailments, it is much harder to do now than in earlier eras — and when something is wrong, it shows.

    In 2005, it was painfully clear for most of the court term that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had been operated on for thyroid cancer, was mortally ill. Throughout the term, Rehnquist released almost no information about his health, however, and, at the end of the term, he decided against retiring, only to die during the court’s summer break.

    A crisis over a justice’s health

    Thirty years earlier, the justices were not so public. They did not write books or make many public appearances. Back then, it was the veteran Justice William O. Douglas whose health prompted an internal crisis at the court. Douglas, who had suffered a severe stroke, continued to attend oral arguments, conferences, and to vote, though he was in terrible pain and partially paralyzed.

    Finally, several weeks into the new term, seven of his colleagues — liberals and conservatives — agreed that Douglas would no longer be assigned to write opinions, nor would his vote be counted in any 5-to-4 decision if he was in the majority.

    An outraged Justice Bryon White vehemently objected. In a letter to Chief Justice Warren Burger, he wrote, “I do not discount the difficulties that [Douglas’s] condition presents for his colleagues. It would be better for everyone, including Mr. Justice Douglas, if he would now retire.”

    But, White added, the action that his colleagues were contemplating “perverts the constitutional design.” The Constitution, he observed, does not give the other justices the power to deprive a fellow justice of his vote.

    White further told his colleagues that if they were settled on this course of action, they should at least announce it publicly. With that unspoken threat on the table, it is not entirely clear what finally tipped the scales. But a month later Douglas retired.

    As long as 5 unelected people can throw out laws created and enforced by the other two branches, and as long as they have lifetime appointments, then their medical conditions and health should be explained clearly and accurately.

    The SCOTUS should not be allowed to behave like some Politburo.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  94. 94.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: It’s telling to me that Republicans honestly believe that the beginning and end of being homosexual is about how you have sex, and that the only way to talk about a gay person is to graphically describe how they have sex. They act like what they did was to prevent teachers from graphically describing gay sex to any child in their class. And yes, the “gay panic” thing is an old trope. Many of them honestly seem to believe that “gayness” is contagious, and that they could catch it at ahy time.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    @Frankensteinbeck: These aren’t mutually exclusive descriptions — the QAnon nonsense recycles a lot of long-standing bigotries, including anti-Semitic themes. The point is it’s a Q dogwhistle, and I don’t think we should ignore that.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    Many of them honestly seem to believe that “gayness” is contagious, and that they could catch it at ahy time if they dared to be honest about their own sexuality

    Fixed.

  100. 100.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Agreed, and I have thoughts about how that might work. I think GOP figures like DeSantis have gone so far out on a limb placating the Trump cult and signaling to the QAnon loonies that actual governing has fallen by the wayside as they pursue fantasy problems and ignore real ones.

  101. 101.

    NotMax

    Several items which caught the eye.

    FYI.

    The government of Australia has decided to ban the export of bauxite and alumina to Russia, dealing a blow to Russian aluminum giant Rusal.

    Russian aluminum producers get about 20 percent of their alumina supply from Australia. Morrison’s administration believes that by cutting off the flow of ore, it can crimp the production of a metal that plays a key role in the Russian military machine.

    “It’s a critical input into weaponry, including guns, ammunition and missiles. Our decision here should say very clearly that to all countries, all companies operating in Australia, we are watching these things very, very carefully,” said Prime Minister Scott Morrison at a press conference Sunday.

    New sanctions on Rusal have not yet been imposed, though there is bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate for renewing them. Listing Rusal would come with consequences for consumers: the company makes about six percent of the world’s aluminum supply, and removing its exports from the global market would raise the cost of many components and products.

    Separately, Australia will also donate 70,000 tonnes of thermal coal to help power the Ukrainian electrical grid.… Source

    Institutional-sized can of worms.

    Simmering public anger in Alaska over the legislature’s failure to settle the state’s most radioactive issue — how big a check residents should receive from the state’s oil wealth fund — is colliding with a once-a-decade opportunity for political activists: The chance for voters to call a convention to amend the state’s constitution.

    The frustration over the long-festering oil check question is providing a tail wind for groups seeking to change the constitution to address a range of hot button topics, such as restricting abortion and altering the process for selecting judges in a way that opponents say could make the process more partisan.
    [snip]Alaska is one of three states where voters will decide this fall whether to call a convention to consider amendments to their constitution. The question has gained little attention in Missouri and has generated only mild interest so far in New Hampshire, where a group opposed to COVID-19 mandates and restrictions has discussed starting a campaign to advocate for a convention. That group, Rebuild NH, hasn’t yet said what amendments it might favor. Source

    Itching to kill.

    South Carolina has given the green light to firing-squad executions, a method codified into state law last year after a decade-long pause in carrying out death sentences because of the state’s inability to procure lethal injection drugs.

    The state Corrections Department said Friday that renovations have been completed on the death chamber in Columbia and that the agency had notified Attorney General Alan Wilson that it was able to carry out a firing-squad execution.
    [snip]
    South Carolina, which is one of eight states to still use the electric chair, will join Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah as the only states to allow a firing squad, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
    [snip]
    According to officials, the death chamber now also includes a metal chair, with restraints, in the corner of the room in which inmates will sit if they choose execution by firing squad. That chair faces a wall with a rectangular opening, 15 feet away, through which the three shooters will fire their weapons.

    State officials also have created protocols for carrying out the executions. The three shooters, all volunteers who are employees of the Corrections Department, will have rifles loaded with live ammunition, with their weapons trained on the inmate’s heart. Source

  103. 103.

    Anyway

    @Baud:

    No, Alito. He even had his wife there and observers saying – don’t be mean to him  in front of his wife. Pathetic but effective.

    I hate Alito.

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    South Carolina has given the green light to firing-squad executions, a method codified into state law last year after a decade-long pause in carrying out death sentences because of the state’s inability to procure lethal injection drugs.

    I can’t get upset that SC has approved shooting people to death instead of poisoning them to death. I can and do get upset that SC can legally put anyone to death by whatever means.

    I never imagined that the 21st century would continue to be so barbaric.

  106. 106.

    Starfish

    @Baud: The whole discussion reminds me of a group that I was in.

    As we moved into the pandemic, one member had bad auditory processing disorder, and everyone else had not learned to mute themselves on Zoom.

    Turn taking was harder in this environment.

    What I am noticing about difficulty in auditory processing is that it is harder to deal with a more complex auditory scene as I get older.

    If we are in a place like a noisy restaurant, we have some ability to focus on the person at the table talking to us as opposed to all the voices in the background. The ability to pick up the voice that I want to listen to over the other ones has become harder than it used to be.

  107. 107.

    mrmoshpotato

    @geg6:

    Unlike some of the more delicate jackals here, I have no problem with wishing death and suffering on my enemies. I hope he suffers and dies, right there along with his cow of a wife. 

    I hold back on wishing suffering, even for the Kremlin’s orange fascist shitstain.

  108. 108.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Soprano2:

    Many of them honestly seem to believe that “gayness” is contagious, and that they could catch it at ahy time.

    They are not 100% wrong.  A whole lot of trans folk have said that they never figured out why they were miserable and hated themselves until they heard of and heard from other trans folk.  Gays stayed way deeper in the closet when they faced public shaming and violence for admitting it, often to the point of trying to convince themselves they were straight.  Evangelicals have a lot of personal experience with their children going to school and coming back and rejecting their parents’ bigotry, which usually means abandoning evangelicalism as well.  Conservatives want to be the definition of Normal.  They want anything they disapprove of to be so unacceptable that they never have to hear about it.  When they do hear about it, they want to be free to publicly abuse the Other and get praise rather than shame.  Controlling what their children are aware exists does push things in that direction.

    Conservatives want ‘queer’ to be an insult again, and DeSantis is promising to bring those days back.

  109. 109.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: That would really be something, if Florida could shake up the country for the better! Seems unlikely at this point, but I will definitely work my ass off to make it happen when the time comes!

  111. 111.

    hueyplong

    We don’t know anything, and speculation right now is idle at best, but Thomas’s health is a big enough deal that we’ll know a lot more in 24-36 hours.  When a RWNJ claims to have a cold or a generic flu during the pandemic, it’s not unreasonable to have your antennae up as you await actual disclosure of facts.

    I’d be tempted to ignore anything said or written today.

  112. 112.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Marsha Blackburn wants Judge Jackson grilled about Griswold, which she claims “confuses Tennesseans” and wants to know why Jackson thinks the court has a right to upset “our system of checks and balances” of having an unenforceable document full of pretty words that only mean something if drawling undereducated white people want that meaning to apply.

    “Don’t blackmail me with ‘but the Supreme Court’! My vote is MINE and must be earned!”

  115. 115.

    Gin & Tonic

    @NotMax:

    Listing Rusal would come with consequences for consumers: the company makes about six percent of the world’s aluminum supply, and removing its exports from the global market would raise the cost of many components and products.

    Might also come with consequences for the two distinguished Senators from Kentucky, who certainly benefited from the $60 mil or so that Rusal dumped in their state as down-payment on a plant that was never built.

  116. 116.

    Starfish

    @Frankensteinbeck: Why are you taking such time to explain the conservative psyche when we have done so very little on this blog to defend the group that needs defending here?

    @Soprano2:

    They act like what they did was to prevent teachers from graphically describing gay sex to any child in their class.

    Some people are falling back on saying this, but this is a weirdly defensive position. During sex education class, teachers should cover gay sex. Leaving some percent of the student body with zero sex education, for the type of sex they are going to be having, should be completely unacceptable on the level of Reagan abandoning gay men to let them die of AIDS.

    Adults bullying children for being trans is not a remotely reasonable position. In schools, children are being taught to not be bullies so for adults to come in and act like children, they are undoing the appropriate education of “Hey, there will be other people different from us out in the world, and we have to learn to try to get along with them” which seems very Romans 13:9 with the whole “thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.”

  119. 119.

    Kropacetic

    @Starfish: Adults bullying children for being trans is not a remotely reasonable position.

    The Republican Party has just devolved into a a pact among assholes to protect one another’s asshole tendencies as long as you protect theirs.  It’s how you make common cause between racists, homophobes, misogynists, and those undertaking abusive practices with their business.

    It all comes down to one core asshole value, I shouldn’t have to pay for any government.

  121. 121.

    Gin & Tonic

    A 96-year-old prisoner of Nazi concentration camps died in Kharkiv. Boris Romanchenko survived Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dora-Mittelbau and Bergen-Belsen, but was killed by a Russian rocket in his apartment during a “denazification operation”. pic.twitter.com/DPoYru9ic5
    — Voices from Belarus (@VoicesBelarus) March 21, 2022

  122. 122.

    delk

    Fuck Kim Davis and her multiple marriages.
    BTW my hubby and I celebrated our tenth legal anniversary last week.

  123. 123.

    Skookum in Oly

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     
    I wonder, has any group ever published lists of registered sex offenders cross-indexed with voter rolls and party affiliation, state by state? It seems that is all available information and could produce some useful discussion material…

  125. 125.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @eclare:

    Remember when Tennessee lawmakers pretty well invited Volkswagen to shed the Chattanooga plant over a union vote the company found advantageous (turns out that VW found that having a union led to better labor relations and workplace performance and safety standards)?

    A union vote apparently went against the deeply cherished values of Tennessee movers and shakers in throttling down wages and marginal costs of doing business in a safe way.

  126. 126.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Anyway:

    I hate Alito.

    Did you see Republican hack Alito changing his “principle” in the Alabama and North Carolina redistricting cases?

    In the Alabama case, when Rs didn’t want the Court to consider their racist gerrymandering,

    Alito & the unprincipled hacks

    cited the “Purcell principle” to not change election laws “close to an election.” But later when Republicans wanted to change North Carolina maps to rig them more, Alito switched sides on his phony principle.

  127. 127.

    eclare

    Holy shit!  Just saw video of that plane crash in China.  Direct vertical descent, it looks like the wings came off.

  130. 130.

    Brachiator

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Have to be careful what I post about Clarence Thomas. It’s a great day is all I’ll say.

    I understand how you feel.

    I would be happy if Thomas recovers and decides to retire. I would be happy if Biden nominates another black woman to be a Supreme Court Justice.

  131. 131.

    Baud

    Just saw on Reddit

    Pro-Trump group sent armed members door-to-door in Colorado to “intimidate” voters: Lawsuit
    Lawsuit accuses Colorado group linked to Mike Lindell of violating the Ku Klux Klan Act and voting rights laws

    The KKK Act is the most aptly named act in Congress’s history.

  133. 133.

    BlueGuitarist

    @NotMax:

    icymi, expect you will enjoy Ken @ 53

    They’re praying newly-elected president Serdar Berdymukhammedov announces the purchase of an ostrich farm: SERD BERD WORD: BIRD HERD TRANSFERRED.

  135. 135.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @JAFD: One of the coolest trips we ever took was to the Bach Fest in Leipzig (where he lived and worked most of his life). A week of amazing music dawn to dusk, much of it in Bach’s church on the organ he designed.

    It was in July. Probably better than March for getting tourists.

  137. 137.

    Edmund Dantes

    @eclare: cause those voters put in power people that will bend over backwards to give Ford the sweet sweet tax breaks and lax environmental regs.

    It’s not really a secret.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    ‘Gays are pedophiles’ was mainstream American thought more recently than that.

    Much broader than that, so therefore not the 1980s. It’s “Democrats are pedophiles”. It includes but is not limited to gay people. “Pizzagate” was about a child sex trafficking ring with Hillary Clinton as the leader.
    Q itself centers on child sex trafficking by Democrats. The cultists believe they are saving children. Hawley just took it mainstream/national by accusing the SCOTUS nominee of supporting child porn.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Hawley could have picked anything in her record to distort and lie about- it’s exaggeration and untruth- nearly unlimited material available when it doesn’t have to be true.

    But he didn’t. He chose child porn.

  144. 144.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Baud:

    Thanks for drawing attention to this!

    From the salon article:

    “Sometimes armed and donning badges to present an appearance of government officiality, [the mypillowthugs] interrogate voters…and have, without any evidence, falsely accused the residents of casting fraudulent ballots.”

  145. 145.

    Kropacetic

    @BlueGuitarist: “Sometimes armed and donning badges to present an appearance of government officiality, [the mypillowthugs] interrogate voters…and have, without any evidence, falsely accused the residents of casting fraudulent ballots.”

    No brown shirt?

  146. 146.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Another Scott:

    As long as 5 unelected people can throw out laws created and enforced by the other two branches, and as long as they have lifetime appointments, then their medical conditions and health should be explained clearly and accurately.

    The SCOTUS should not be allowed to behave like some Politburo.

    Yeah, I’ve got to come down on this side of it too.  They’ve chosen to play an extremely consequential role in our lives.  With so much hanging on the composition of the Supreme Court, any major health issues of theirs should be a matter of public record.

    If they want their medical privacy back, they’re welcome to follow the examples of Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, and the late John Paul Stevens, and retire before (or when) serious medical issues overtake them.

  147. 147.

    Soprano2

    @Frankensteinbeck: I agree, but I think a lot of them honestly believe that just being exposed to a gay person can “turn” a straight person gay (they’re recruiting in our community!) I’ve thought for a long time that people who vote for conservatives are voting for people who think think will keep their sons from “turning gay” and their daughters from having abortions and “mixing” with”those people”.

    My husband had a friend who we believe was a closeted gay man; it was buried really deep, because I don’t think he ever would have admitted it. He had an inordinate hatred of gay people, and as far as we could tell he never had a good relationship with a woman in his whole life.

  149. 149.

    lowtechcyclist

    @NotMax:

    South Carolina, which is one of eight states to still use the electric chair, will join Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah as the only states to allow a firing squad, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center

    I still remember that classic headline, “All Utah Sentenced To Be Shot” from the late 1970s.

  150. 150.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    We really need to educate the public that they don’t have to respond to every demand made by far Right nutcases who imagine they have some kind of state authority. Tell them to get lost. If they come back report them for trespassing. They’re all armed and a lot of them are flat-out delusional. I don’t want them anywhere near me.

    Election officials don’t come to your residence.

  152. 152.

    Raven

    @lowtechcyclist:

    With so much hanging on the composition of the Supreme Court, you’d think there would be a thread for the hearings. It’s not like the time was a secret. WTF?

  153. 153.

    Mike in NC

    Time for Clarence Thomas “to be called home by Jesus”, as the obituaries in the Southern newspapers often read.

  154. 154.

    Brachiator

    @Starfish:

    Some people are falling back on saying this, but this is a weirdly defensive position. During sex education class, teachers should cover gay sex. Leaving some percent of the student body with zero sex education, for the type of sex they are going to be having, should be completely unacceptable on the level of Reagan abandoning gay men to let them die of AIDS.

    Gay sex should be covered in sex education class, but I am not sure that any graphic depiction of any sex should be involved. Or, better, and obviously, discussions should be age appropriate.

    I don’t have kids in any school system and it has been centuries since I thought about it at all, but the sex education I got was almost comically rudimentary.

    There was a discussion of “where babies come from” but not a lot of detail about intercourse. There was a jump from “something something sex” to discussions about venereal disease.

    In 9th grade biology our main teacher got seriously ill and her replacement spent an unhealthy amount of time talking about her relationship problems.

    But note that I am not saying that if crappy sex education was good enough for me (and it wasn’t), it should be good enough for students today.

  155. 155.

    laura

    @Kay: Kavanaugh Rules- belligerently demand their next promotion-

    Funny, my recollection was a red-faced emotionally out of control “Give ME MY Fucking Promotion!” followed by some vowing to take revenge against Hillary Clinton followed by some jumped up histrionics by Senator Graham who’s umbrage was all took up on behalf of the oh so entitled nominee.

  156. 156.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @mrmoshpotato:I hold back on wishing suffering, even for the Kremlin’s orange fascist shitstain.

    Trump is one of those assholes that no amount of beatings could equal the torment he does to himself.

    Just consider; this was Trump’s second chance and he fucked it up. If Trump just tsk tsk Putin and done all the normal ex-Presidential stuff he would have been welcomed back by the establishment and there would be opinion pieces in the NYT about how Trump was misunderstood.  Instead Trump couldn’t let his totally NOT gay Putin man crush go and babled about windmills.

  157. 157.

    Kropacetic

    @Brachiator: Gay sex should be covered in sex education class, but I am not sure that any graphic depiction of any sex should be involved. Or, better, and obviously, discussions should be age appropriate.

    Why not have the same standards for level of detail as we do with straight sex, i.e. not much, but enough to promote safe behavior?

  158. 158.

    Another Scott

    @Raven: AFAIK, all that’s happening today is every Senator (what, 22 of them?) on the committee gets to pontificate for some period of time (what 30 minutes?), then Jackson will give her opening statement.  Not a lot is actually happening yet.

    And we’re free to talk about it here.  ;-)

    [eta] Betty heard your cry!  Look upstairs.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  159. 159.

    Kay

    @laura:

    Ugh. Just terrible. He failed his interview but got promoted anyway because he has powerful friends which is probably the story of his life. Gross.

  160. 160.

    Soprano2

    @Starfish: Maybe I wasn’t clear. This law is aimed at kids in grades K-3. Even in any sex ed in those grades you wouldn’t graphically describe the sex act (for any couple!), but conservatives seem to think that when a kid asks a question like “Why does Johnny have two mommies instead of a mommy and a daddy?” the question is always and only answered by graphically describing the sex life of the two mommies, rather than by saying something like “Because they love each other like your mommy and daddy do”, which would probably satisfy most kids. Thus the comment from DeSantis about making his kids’ school free of “sexualizing” young children. It doesn’t have anything to do with any sex ed class, it’s about the idea that anyone who isn’t “straight” is always and only defined by how they perform the sex act.

  161. 161.

    Kropacetic

    @Soprano2: conservatives seem to think that when a kid asks a question like “Why does Johnny have two mommies instead of a mommy and a daddy?” the question is always and only answered by graphically describing the sex life of the two mommies, rather than by saying something like “Because they love each other like your mommy and daddy do”, which would probably satisfy most kids. Thus the comment from DeSantis about making his kids’ school free of “sexualizing” young children. It doesn’t have anything to do with any sex ed class, it’s about the idea that anyone who isn’t “straight” is always and only defined by how they perform the sex act.

    That’s the claim, but in truth they just want to kick down at a group they see as lesser and can’t tolerate the idea of straight relationships being treated as equally valuable to gay ones.

  162. 162.

    Betty Cracker

    @Raven: I don’t think anyone with the keys to this joint is a retiree, so we have to squeeze our postings in between paid work. That’s the fuck. :)

    I did put up a thread but want to note it was before I saw your comment because I don’t want to seem to act on complaints, which would only encourage them.

  164. 164.

    Old Man Shadow

    Frankly, I hope all of the conservative justices end up taking the same private plane that crashes into the sea in the same way that I’m sure my grandad wished that all of the leadership of the Axis were gathered in the same room and hit by a bomb.

  165. 165.

    laura

    @Kay: I watched in disbelief. I’d spent years helping members prepare for career advancement and how the interview is like a date or a test drive- make an effort, show interest, engage in a two way conversation- this was not that. I think what most shocked me was (besides his sex-pestery and blackout drinking) was the lack of judicial temperment. I thought a lot about his wife and their marriage. Wouldn’t be me putting up with that

    Contrast with the current nominee who appears to have a joyful zest for the law. I listened to the Strict Scrutiny podcast because law nerd, and one of her closest friends described her as so diligent, so dogged in pursuits and so much fun to be around. She’ll bring many many gifts to the bench.

  166. 166.

    Brachiator

    @Kropacetic:

    RE:  Gay sex should be covered in sex education class, but I am not sure that any graphic depiction of any sex should be involved. Or, better, and obviously, discussions should be age appropriate.

    Why not have the same standards for level of detail as we do with straight sex, i.e. not much, but enough to promote safe behavior?

    That’s kinda what I was suggesting, but you said it more directly.

    Teacher: All right class. Today we are going to discuss “doggy style.”

  167. 167.

    Kropacetic

    @Brachiator: Teacher: All right class. Today we are going to discuss “doggy style.”

    That conversation tends to happen among classmates absent teacher input.

  169. 169.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud: Damn. My backyard.

    last paragraph:

    USEIP also appears to have had trouble vetting its volunteers. The group’s training manual says that the group intends to check volunteers’ social media and called on them for a “gut check,” saying leaders had “learned (roundaboutly) that there were a couple of people in our group, who were volunteering for our events, who had a criminal history of sexual misconduct,” and adding, “it’s unfortunate that we must check volunteers for pedophilic leanings.”

    It’s always, always ALWAYS projection with these assholes.

  170. 170.

    Miss Bianca

    @Soprano2:

    My husband had a friend who we believe was a closeted gay man; it was buried really deep, because I don’t think he ever would have admitted it. He had an inordinate hatred of gay people, and as far as we could tell he never had a good relationship with a woman in his whole life.

    I really wonder this about my younger brother. As far as I can tell, he’s never had a serious girlfriend, and he has a frothing hatred for teh Gey.. If I really wanted to make him blow his top, I could share with him my conviction that our father was actually a closet case himself.

  171. 171.

    Soprano2

    @Miss Bianca: I think people should be able to be who they are. So much misery in life is caused by people trying to be something they just can’t be. I’ve mentioned here before that I have a friend whose hubby finally came out to her at the age of 60 that she was a transgender woman. She had felt this way since the age of 17, but was told there wasn’t anything that could be done about it so decided to live as a man because that was the only choice. This caused my friend and her family and her hubby’s family untold misery; it would have been much better if hubby had been supported at the age of 17, and been able to live the life she wanted, instead of having to pretend.

    Edited because it’s so confusing to me when I talk about this subject how to do the pronouns.

  172. 172.

    Miss Bianca

    @Soprano2: I hear you. I’m pretty sure that if I’d been born a generation or two later, I would have seriously considered going trans myself. I never wanted to be female. I don’t think I’ve got your friend’s courage at the age of nearly 60, having long ago just decided to live with that feeling of being stuck in the wrong body.

    But I do dream about it sometimes…mostly because as a theater person, I keep thinking about how much easier it is to keep getting great roles as an actor as you age when you’re a man, but older women just tend to get disappeared.

  173. 173.

    JAFD

    Had flu myself a while back, turned into pneumonia, ended up in hospital.  Maybe that’s what the docs are giving him antibiotics to prevent.

  174. 174.

    Gin & Tonic

    Always good to take these things with a large grain of salt, but reports that the Ukrainians sank a Russian patrol boat in Mariupol.

    BREAKING: Azov reports it sunk a Russian Raptor-class Patrol boat in Mariupol pic.twitter.com/z06GOj6yxm
    — AlexandruC4 (@AlexandruC4) March 21, 2022

  175. 175.

    Ohio Mom

    I don’t remember of it was Ann Landers or Dear Abby the Long Island Press of my childhood ran, but I do remember the letters from more than one distraught wife who had found her husband wearing her best undies.

    The husband never had a good enough explanation for why he needed to do this, Ann/Abby would counsel to let it slide, and I was left even more firmly convinced that grown-ups were inexplicitedly weird.

    Now of course it is obvious to me — would also be to Ann/Abby — that the husband was trans. What a difference more knowledge makes. For those of us not afraid of it.

  177. 177.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: I always think “what do I tell my children???” is a hilarious question because my daughter always just knew her grandmother was gay, and attended her wedding to a woman shortly after it became legal in the state where they lived at the time, and the two of them have just been in her life all the time. There was never any explaining to do. The question she had was why some people object to it.

  179. 179.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Kay: Why would she need to do that. She would just say she was obliged to follow sentencing guidelines and say she supports reform. Done. She doesn’t need to be specific about which guidelines need reform or how they should be reformed.

Comments are closed.