Josh Marshall points out that the Federalist Society-captured Supreme Court shares an origin story with Fox News. Read the whole thing here if you can, but to summarize: Conservatives were outraged by the so-called activism of the Warren Court, the majority of which they believed was a partisan bloc that pushed the Democratic Party’s agenda.
They were wrong about that; the Warren Court wasn’t reliably partisan, and in any case, its make up could hardly be the work of the Democratic Party since five of its nine members, including Earl Warren, were Eisenhower appointees. Regardless, in response to this fictional partisan outrage, conservatives launched a multi-decade project (eventually known as the Federalist Society) to make the court a tool of the Republican Party, a project that came to fruition in 2020.
Conservatives were outraged by a “liberal media” that never really existed either. As Marshall notes, the pre-Fox News networks and cable outlets might be accurately described as “cosmopolitan” in outlook, but they weren’t affiliated with nor actively solicitous of the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, conservatives responded by creating an overtly partisan network of their own, and here we are.
I’d never really thought of it that way, but it checks out. It’s also no coincidence that the work products of both the Fox News network and the Fox News Court are shoddy and corrupt. They weren’t created to produce real news or sound legal opinions; they exist to secure partisan ends.
Open thread.
Acts of Kindness: Our Ukrainian Friends
Tim C,
So we make the fuckers pay and fight them till we can’t.
Baud
@Tim C,:
Baud
The Warren court was liberal but not really partisan. This court is pretty partisan.
Martin
I’ll be referring to it as the Insurrectionist Court, because even though there’s no established connection with Jan 6 and the court (yet), they are both of the same agenda and motive – two sides of the same coin.
MisterDancer
And this is what matters. The past is the past. We gotta make a better future.
It’ll take work, real work. It will take grinding out support systems for at-harm people. Coalition-building and having to connect with people and groups who’ve been working this for decades. And, yes, losing until you think your soul has die, but still strapping on the Fuck You boots, the very next day.
But yeah, I think it’s do-able — all respect to those who think otherwise.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yes — Marshall makes that distinction more effectively than I did in my summary, but the point is the late 50s-60s court that issued decisions that upset conservatives came together organically rather than through the machinations of a party. Same with the news media of the time. But conservatives countered with wholly inorganic creations, and it shows!
MisterDancer
Who knew Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN was a political cautionary tale, too?
JML
Part of this comes back to the right wing belief that they can’t possibly be wrong, which marries up perfectly to the outlook of the evangelical sects and chunks of Catholicism as well. They’re certain that their views are “right” and morally superior, so anything that challenges that viewpoint must be “wrong”. The media and the courts didn’t fall in line, making them the enemy. The justification for their overt and all-out war on these institutions was to define them as being partisan, which gives them an out to keep them around, once they’ve succeeded in co-opting them to their design. The goal was never to destroy them, but to take them over and turn them to their own design.
Very very few people on the right can even conceive of being wrong at this point, which again is one of the reasons they keep sticking to The Big Orange Idiot: repudiating him would mean they were wrong in 2016, and they simply can’t allow that challenge to their world-view. Any admission of fault could lead to questioning of other areas of doctrine (this is why they won’t compromise on any legislation as well) and collapse of control. And that’s one thing the neo-fascist corporate bastards still at the core of control in the GOP can’t allow.
Suzanne
One thing to consider…. a friend who is a pediatrician with Cleveland Clinic noted that the AAP recommends IUDs for adolescents. I know Spawn’s transition doctor offered it to him and said that they can do the insertion under anesthesia. Some GYNs will offer pain relief. It is worth it to find out who those doctors are in your area and spread the word. Maybe get one before they’re banned.
kindness
The tears of Red Staters realizing that the Leopards Eat Your Face Party includes themselves will still be bitter and bring no redeeming relief. Screw them.
James E Powell
The political press before FOX worshipped Reagan like he was Abe Lincoln.
germy shoemangler
SaltWaterCleanse
Someone has probably pointed this out already (I have missed the last several days of balloon juice) but here I go… According to my back-of-the-napkin calcs, I am part of a unique “generation” of women. Women born between the years 1958-1980 (roughly a 22-year span) are the only group in the +200 years history of the U.S. to live our entire reproductive years (puberty thru menopause) under the protection of Roe. And the window in time is now closed. That’s it. Done. Shocking really.
germy shoemangler
The fox network is for the old shut-ins now.
Young fascists have all sorts of places online to meet and coordinate.
You could shut fox news down today and the youngsters would barely notice.
Betty Cracker
@James E Powell: That’s true. I was still a schoolkid back then, but I’m old enough to remember how the MSM of the era shit all over Carter and treated Reagan like a savior, and I’m hearing uncomfortable echoes in the treatment of Biden and DeSantis.
@SaltWaterCleanse: Same.
Almost Retired
The half-witted Governor of South Dakota was on Stephaflopaminagus this morning mumbling about her State’s no-exception abortion laws and some sort of state support for mothers that she never did quite manage to explain. Probably prayer books and booties, and then you’re on your own
Good Lord, she’s considered a rising star in their alternative universe? She’s stone-cold stupid with all the charisma of a used COVID nasal swab. Dumber than Palin. “None of them, Katie.”
Redshift
@James E Powell:
Accusations of “bias” and working the refs didn’t begin or end with Fox.
And yes, that proves the claims of “bias” were patently untrue, but those claims aren’t based on media outlets disagreeing with conservative doctrine, they’re based on media outlets ever disagreeing with conservative doctrine.
Miss Bianca
@SaltWaterCleanse: I’m with you on this one. Profoundly thankful that my child-bearing years were also my *non*-child-bearing-years – by choice and legally. I grieve for the younger generations. And I’m furious as hell, as well.
rikyrah
Terry Watkins Jr.![]()
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(@TerryWatkinsJr1) tweeted at 0:02 AM on Sun, Jun 26, 2022:
Democrats have been warning you.
Preparing you, and doing everything possible to prevent this reality for years.
You chose to ignore them.
You chose to spread apathy.
You chose to treat this like a game.
Unless you voted blue for the last 10 years. Blame no one but yourself.
(https://twitter.com/TerryWatkinsJr1/status/1540923496179666944?t=5nZoE3aJ0MpKEjtNLWUUXQ&s=03)
Suzanne
@SaltWaterCleanse: I was born in 1980 and my “window” is not closed (though Mr. Suzanne got snipped). It’s really scary; if it failed and I got pregnant, it would be a high-risk pregnancy and a high risk of birth defects.
Villago Delenda Est
The sin of the Warren Court was that it actually embraced the spirit of the Constitution, and brought it into the Justice system. This of course is an outrage to the parasite overclass, who created both the Federalist Society and Faux Noise to advance their agenda of fighting against peaceful change. Because actual equality and justice scares the shit out of them, their entire existence is based on inequality and injustice.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Partisanship has changed drastically in the last thirty years. As late as Clinton’s second term there was still good-sized block of R Senators who were old school Yankee moderates– Chaffee, Jeffords, Roth, Cohen, Snowe, and to a lesser extent Specter (nominally pro-choice but they didn’t call him Snarlin’ Arlen for nothing), Alan Simpson (who talked a good libertarian game but voted with his party). John Warner was IIRC a conservative, but not a fire-breather (also IIRC he endorsed Obama in retirement). Maybe a few others I can’t recall. On our side we had John Breaux, Bobby Byrd and David Pryor. Hell, Zell Miller was still a Democrat.
I was thinking the other day that the turning point was the 1980 primary (Poppy Bush vs Reagan), but I think Gingrich even more than The Great Waver was the one who turned the party hard right. It crept up from the House. O’Connor would probably be un-confirmable (by Rs) in the first Bush Jr term. Not that Cheney and whoever played Leonard Leo’s role in that White House (was it Leo?) would have put her name forward.
Redshift
Another branch of this is conservative “think tanks,” which are (in part) the same kind of response to academia. Academia is accused of being a hotbed of liberalism (or worse), so they created “institutes” and such with “senior fellows” and other fake academic titles. And as with the court, such liberalism as exists in academia is arrived at organically (search for truth, exposure to a wide variety of views and people, etc.), but for the conservative “equivalent”, to be a success, you don’t need to produce convincing arguments or evidence, you just need to toe the party line, which is why their output is such hackery.
I’m told there used to be actual conservative intellectuals, but the hack shops succeeded in destroying that too.
“It is said that he also captured many Elves in Utumno, and corrupted them, creating Orcs in mockery of the Elves. This was said to be the most evil deed of Melkor.” — JRRT
Ruckus
They do, because they couldn’t get their desires any other way.
They want justification and support for their “ideals” because their ideals put many restrictions on them and they do not want to have those restrictions if there is anyone who doesn’t have to do as they think they are supposed to do. They can’t suffer alone. IOW they know what they want is humanistic bullshit so they can’t justify doing this crap alone. They need everyone else being as restrained as they want to be. I mean it isn’t fair that they want to restrict themselves without restricting everyone else. If their ideal bullshit was as good as they say it is then why else do they need everyone else to follow their demented concepts? If anyone didn’t do the bullshit they want they can’t justify doing it to themselves. They have no idea of the meaning of the word freedom. They have no idea of the concept of non restrictive religion or no religion whatsoever. They have no acceptance of people who can’t believe the same crap they do because they can’t justify their own lives if others live differently.
Villago Delenda Est
@kindness: They need to suffer for their errors. Fuck ’em.
m.j.
I haven’t read any of Josh Marshall’s stuff in over a decade now, after he decided his editorial response to calling lying bigots and racists, “pro-life,” was perfectly fine.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: What gets me about reporting on the old important SCOTUS decisions is that the vote numbers are rarely included. Brown was 9:0. Loving was 9:0. Roe was 7:2. These weren’t some tiny liberal faction hijacking the court.
But facts don’t matter to the white supremacists and their enablers.
Grr…,
Scott.
JoyceH
Couple thoughts tied to previous posts –
The Right Wing can’t conceive of being wrong – the other day the news showed the governor of one of these small southern states, Alabama or Arkansas, can’t remember which, announcing that abortion was now illegal in her state, and she was so choked up she could barely speak. Overwhelmed, not by sorrow, but by joy at the culmination of a lifelong dream. The horror that is about to be inflicted on countless women and girls, I can’t emphasize enough, little GIRLS – well, that’s just God’s plan apparently.
DeSantis as the new Trump. I so wish the news would go back and focus on that footage of DeSantis from that time he snapped at those kids to take their masks off. Go to after the announcement he made, when he just walked off and never exchanged a word with those kids, never even looked at them. They were just there to be arranged on the stage for set decoration, like potted plants. The guy has one thing in common with Trump – he’s mean as a snake.
And a thought I had watching the news the other day. The Justice Department is in some sort of negotiations with some group of Danish documentary makers for the raw footage they took when they were trailing around after Roger Stone on 1/6. So to recap, on January 6, Roger Stone was being tailed by a documentary film crew. And the Proud Boys had their own film crew, and so did the Trumps. So… geez, how did the QAnon Shaman not get a film crew?
Brachiator
In some corners, “cosmopolitan” is dog whistle for “Jewish conspiracy.” A somewhat odd word choice.
But interesting article.
JanieM
@JoyceH: The woman being choked up reminds me of this bit from the Bangor Daily News the other day:
The dignity of women indeed. I won’t go into the history of the so-called “Christian” “Civic” League of Maine in relation to gay rights and same-sex marriage. You can no doubt imagine it without my help.
Kent
It wasn’t really even liberal except perhaps in the John Locke sense.
oatler
“If you find yourself in a court building with eight Supreme Court Justices, then you’re the ninth Justice.”
Betty Cracker
@JoyceH: The way DeSantis treated those kids was so typical of him. He almost always has kids as props at events, and like you said, they might as well be potted plants. I wish I could remember the event so I could look up a clip, but at one bill signing ceremony or announcement, a FL statehouse pol (Republican, of course — no Dem would have been invited) brought his son with him to stand next to the lectern.
IIRC, the kid looked about 4 years old, and he had a cast on his arm. He had a Sharpie in his good hand, and you could tell the dad had coached the kid to ask DeSantis to sign it in the moments before the event started. The kid asked, and DeSantis impatiently waved him off. The embarrassed dad quietly pocketed the Sharpie and shushed the kid. It was creepy, and I couldn’t help but think of that Stephen King novel where the evil politician uses a kid as a human shield during an assassination attempt. I could so see DeSantis doing that.
Kent
Even more so at the state level. Many northern states had famously liberal or at least centrist Republican governors. That was especially the case here in WA and OR.
Ric Perlstein actually places the turning point at Nixon with his ‘southern strategy’ and traces the fracturing of America back to Nixon in his book Nixonland. I tend to agree. The famous “white working class” is straight out of Nixon’s “Silent Majority” And most of today’s culture wars have their origin in the 1960s in some fashion.
rikyrah
@SaltWaterCleanse:
WOW
Sure Lurkalot
@Almost Retired:
I saw a clip and her idea of “support” for mothers is via non-profits and churches. Same solution as ever…support should come from charity, not government services. A true Bircher!
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Excellent points.
John Warner was conservative, but he knew fascism when he saw it and was strongly against Ollie North.
Fox News was blatantly and intentionally an organ of the GQP. It was clear from the start – Roger Ailes pitched it that way.
The thing about getting your audience all het up on lies and conspiracies is that they always need a yet more outrageous outrage. Eating children?! Old news!! Wait until you hear what they’re doing NOW!!1 There is no peak wingnut, unless they all rush over the cliff …
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@oatler:
I don’t know what that means.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: It’s a quote from Marshall, who is Jewish and liberal, so I’m confident he meant it in the dictionary definition sense rather than as an anti-Semitic dog whistle. At what point do words get so corrupted by ill-use that they’re no longer fit for polite company? I don’t know.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
There is a segment of any population that needs/requires life restrictions, at least in their minds, because they have zero concept of self. They are part of the old cosmic concept of life, it can’t come from an egg and a sperm, it is formed by a greater cosmic force – religion, or more pointed, a god. Something other world, bigger than them, smarter than them, all knowing, something beyond them. They need structure, control, rational, justification for life. Life is too complex for them, has too many questions, answers too complex for them to comprehend.
We are living a historic period of scientific answers to questions that life creates. And as those answers were not available to humans without science building answer upon answer, they made shit up over a long period of time. Those made up answers are starting to show cracks (OK they have been for some time) and people who can’t fathom those cracks in their beliefs are fighting back against the answers. They can’t fathom logic or reality.
MisterDancer
Honestly? I’m kind of tired of thinking about these assholes.
We spend day and night on the utter shite the GOP and the Conservative Movement crap out on our culture. We’re obsessed with the tea leaves of “how will the Democrats respond/should have responed?” We’re typing comment after comment on the “Federal-ness” of it all, and those State fuckers who take cues from National Conservatives., like DeSantis or Yourkin (may be mis-spelled, could give a fuck).
That’s energy we could spend actually developing ways to help people. To talk about how to protest and push for not just reversing Dobbs, but building a better tomorrow. To actually build up coalitions to force these wankers back into the shitholes they love.
I’m a Democrat — a Progressive, a Liberal — because I’ve seen what racism does to people, and I strive to apply that empathy across the board. And when I do, I see a world that’s brighter, more powerful, and that returns my Love of it a thousandfold. I see a world that, when free of bigotry and the horrors of a broken class system, is a world that I’d want my family to grow up in.
I mean, I had to think about this. I was raised Democrat, but I had a thousand influences and my own dislike of my family to push me away. It wasn’t an easy road to what I wrote above, yet it also was a road that means I hold the above very dear, indeed.
I want a better world. And that better world is about everyone being able to be their authentic self, so long as they aren’t harming others.
That’s all. The GOP, the Conservatives — they don’t define my Democratic-ness. And I feel that slipping away, though, every time I engage these kinds of dialogues.
I’m clearly a bit burnt. So please take the above with some grace, and I’m gonna go take what I suspect is a needed break, just for a bit.
Y’all be good. :)
Kent
@Betty Cracker: Exactly. Marshall was using the term in the bi-coastal elite sense.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: Even the Murdochs had to play catch up with trump in 2016, when he went after McCain and Meghan Kelly and they thought he had gone too far. Then again in 2020 when, I believe, they started losing viewers to OANN and some other network that I couldn’t find if I tried, First America News or something like that?
rikyrah
jokelley (@jokelley) tweeted at 6:15 PM on Sat, Jun 25, 2022:
Weird how states that elect Democrats have the best protections for abortion. Almost like Dems do care about this issue and aren’t just using it for fundraising, and that “vote for Dems” IS the top priority moving forward.
(https://twitter.com/jokelley/status/1540836114709323777?t=4IgvFYjeMR8pa6d_LKXjXWPN_RngXaKv0ZRxLiX8mRQ&s=03)
zhena gogolia
@germy shoemangler: I agree with Edroso. And it’s all connected to Putin too.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: Yep.
zhena gogolia
@Villago Delenda Est: This.
oatler
@Baud:
I don’t either. Sorry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: Nixonland was a great if slightly depressing read. Harry Truman, Sam Ervin and a bunch of others I thought were good guys were more… complicated; and Truman was more good than bad but reading his comments about MLK was a gut punch for me– I don’t think McCullough included that in his bio/hagio. I’ve put off Perlstein’s book on Reagan, but maybe I’ll finally dive into it.
as to moderate GOP governors: I think we can be glad, in a perverse way, that people like Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan either couldn’t (Hogan) or wouldn’t want to (Baker) move forward in this GOP, cause they’d be as obedient to Mitch McConnell as Tuberville and Blackburn
James E Powell
@SaltWaterCleanse:
There are many reasons for this, but first among them in my view is that not all women favor abortion rights or perhaps they just don’t value them all that highly.
If all or even a large majority of women considered their rights under Roe & Casey to be important, women would vote D at similar percentages as African-American voters.
And I am mostly talking about white women here. Not to criticize or point the finger of blame, but to argue that it is that demographic that has to change their voting behavior if abortion rights are to be re-established at the state or national level.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and in re Warner, and this is really superficial, but I wasn’t as into politics or old movies in the 80s as I am now, but…. how weird was it that we had a sitting US Senator, a Reagan Republican, who was married to Elizabeth Taylor?
Almost Retired
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well…. a lot of people were married to Elizabeth Taylor, so it wasn’t that weird.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
No one ever talks about it, but the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan turned him into someone who the media would never criticize. It happened just two months into his administration and for the next four years, talking heads said his name with the same voice & smile as they used when they said Santa Claus. Democrats were reluctant to say anything bad about him or his administration.
For those who weren’t there, it was similar to how George W Bush became Our Own Churchill after 9/11.
Kay
@Sure Lurkalot:
It will be public money directed exclusively to Right wing churches and Right wing nonprofits to dole out to deserving women as they see fit.
That’s actually what she means.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As a sitting senator, he also came out against Oliver North when he was the GOP for Senate, and he supported Mark Warner to succeed him when he retired. I’d say he was a liberal Republican, though he might have been considered moderate in those days:
JanieM
@MisterDancer: Thank you. I’ve linked your recent comments to friends, because they’re among the few I can still stand to read right now. I hope your break is renewing, will be looking for you when you’re ready for more.
Villago Delenda Est
@Almost Retired: “Half-witted” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
JoyceH
@Almost Retired:
Yeah, but two of them were Richard Burton.
rikyrah
@MisterDancer:
Tell it.
Preach.
Ohio Mom
@m.j.: I don’t remember that though it’s true I wasn’t a steady Josh Marshall reader until fairly recently. Care to elaborate?
I appreciate his take on things and over the years I think he’s improved as a writer tremendously; that might be a result of the discipline imposed by Twitter’s word count. My god he was wordy when he first started.
germy shoemangler
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I’m not getting my hopes up and I know you won’t either, but evidently NBC news has reported that a “secret” poll taken in May by a “top GOP pollster” showed Charlie Crist leading Ron DeSantis 49% to 48%.
On a more somber note, a recent St. Pete’s Survey poll showed the grizzled Crist leading the brash Nikki Fried by 49% to 27%, with 24% undecided. I was surprised to see that Crist pulled in over 60% support from the under 30 cohort.
I know that this this news is reliable because I read it on villages-news.com.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Great point– I remember that of course, but never really considered the centrality of it to his mythos. What was it he was supposed to have said to Nancy from the gurney: I forgot to duck?
@Redshift:
Wow. I did not know that and wouldn’t have guessed it. That was huge at the time, and as your quoted text suggests, became even bigger later. In my memory Warner was more like Dick Lugar, a genteel Reaganite, but still a Reaganite. The Liz Taylor thing makes a little more sense now. Shame those kids couldn’t work it out.
Redshift
@Ruckus:
Thomas Frank researched a whole book on people’s conceptions of freedom, and found out that the common conservative concept of freedom is freedom to do the right thing. If you do the wrong thing, you’re “abusing your freedoms.” I guess it’s the only way to square “freedom” with the hierarchical/authoritarian mindset. It’s literally Orwellian, but Orwell knew of what he wrote.
But it’s sometimes useful to know, if only to know that arguing “how can you talk about freedom when you’re fine with…” is going to fall on deaf ears, not just because you’re arguing against something they want, but because the argument literally does not make sense in their worldview.
germy shoemangler
And here we go
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
At least all those guys knew who they worked for.
zhena gogolia
@germy shoemangler: Well, he’s doing a good job of it.
debbie
@Brachiator:
Stephen Miller’s favorite slur!
Spanky
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Lemme add something on Larry Hogan. He’s no centrist, he’s just been reined in by the DEM supermajority in the MD lege. From a WaPo article:
I’m going to beat this drum until Hogan’s political career has hit the iceberg and gone down.
germy shoemangler
I wonder what the hell liberals ever did to him?
Liberals made his marriage legal. Liberals made it legal for him to get an education.
Someone living with that much spite, I hate to say it, I hope it eventually eats him up.
Suzanne
@James E Powell:
White men could also change their voting habits. Just saying.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
He was also rude to his two daughters wearing matching pink sundresses. Jerking one of them around to where he wanted her to stand.
Another Scott
Other news, from the G7 meeting – WH.gov:
I don’t immediately see how much of this is new money, but even if it’s not a large fraction, coordinating investments like these and letting the world know that Belt-and-Road is not the only game in town for new development is a good thing.
Some potentially important items mentioned:
I’m skeptical of nuclear power as it has been practiced to date, but there has always been important potential there and more R&D is good.
Elections have consequences.
Cheers,
Scott.
FelonyGovt
@MisterDancer:
I’m trying to collect up some general ideas of where we go from here.
1. Donate to Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights organizations
2. Boycott companies that support these fundamentalist assholes
3. Continue our GOTV efforts to elect Democrats at all levels
4. Provide information on resources available to women in red states, as well as privacy best practices
5. Make our voices heard, loudly- social media, letters to the editor
6. ???
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: Remember when they started using “globalist” on twitter (and presumably elsewhere) to refer to cosmopolitan bankers and George Soros? That was around the time Gary Cohn left the administration and in some press availability trump said something like, “He’s a bit of globalist, but that’s okay”. Everybody chuckled, including Cohn, who was supposed to be one of the grown-ups who would act as a guardrail to The Beast.
Hoodie
@Redshift: This might be viewed as an example of what Kundera called totalitarian kitsch, which he described as the denial of shit, I.e., the ugliness that life entails. The current Court is the embodiment of that. They ostensibly object to Roe because they don’t think it’s conceptually pure. Originalism is a kitschy concept, not far removed from. George Washington and the cherry tree infantilism. It’s a denial of reality, in particular, the denial f the messiness of life, the failings of our electoral process, etc. Roe is actually one of the most realistic decisions in the Court’s history, up there with Brown.
zhena gogolia
@FelonyGovt: Sounds like a good start!
Geminid
@Redshift: I think that John Warner was the most popular Virginia politician in my lifetime. Some argue that the middle of the road is untenable in politics, and that is more or less true now, I believe. But Warner hit the sweet spot in Virginia politics that existed in his time, and I think it was the ideological center of the electorate. After he retired, Warner endorsed Democratic politicians almost exclusively, but they are a pretty moderate bunch in this state. Obama and Clinton were fairly moderate too I think
Warner did not win a Reoublican primary to get into the Senate the first time. Richard Obenshain was the right-wing nominee, but he was killed in a plane crash and Warner was selected to take his place.
Baud
@rikyrah:
That’s hard evidence to refute, although I’m sure some will try.
germy shoemangler
https://donations4abortion.com/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy shoemangler:
Perhaps in that same article Beschloss is referring to, it was reported long ago that Thomas put a garage sale price tag with “10 cents” writing on it on his Yale diploma.
germy shoemangler
Suzanne
@FelonyGovt: Don’t forget to cut anti-choicers out of your life completely. Don’t be friends with them, attend church with them, don’t frequent their businesses, don’t give them web hits.
FelonyGovt
@Suzanne: Yes!
Baud
@Suzanne:
And update your Tinder profile.
lollipopguild
@Redshift: I always thought that Rush Limbaugh’s idea of “Freedom” was when all of the people who disagreed with him were either dead or in a concentration camp.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
Since Marshall is Jewish, I’m sure he’s aware of that. The problem is, most of the synonyms (e.g. “globalist”) get used as anti-Semitic dog whistles as well. So if you need to use the word as it actually means, you’ve just got to do it because there’s no good alternative choice.
germy shoemangler
Suzanne
@FelonyGovt: Also, I would encourage boycotting Catholic (or really any religiously-affiliated) healthcare systems. There’s a lot of institutions that still have “St. Whatever” in the name that are not religious, and some with innocuous names are.
germy shoemangler
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne: This is the problem with the Dems being too big a tent: you have pro-gun, anti-choice people like Rep. Henry Cuellar inside the tent instead of outside.
Yeah, I’m still pissed at Pelosi for going to the mats for him in his primary battle with Jessica Cisneros. Right now, it would be a lot better to have a candidate who’s on the right side of these issues, rather than muddling the party’s message.
debbie
@germy shoemangler:
A list of groups who arrange and finance flights to pro-abortion states might be more productive than PPA.
Suzanne
@Baud: I think social marginalization of these people is critical. Many socons are dug the fuck in, but their kids aren’t, and they need so see people oppose them.
Part of why I think women should move out of red states is to tank the property values.
FelonyGovt
@Suzanne: Agreed. In some places that’s hard to do, though.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Martin, your “insurrectionist court” is pretty damned accurate if you consider the jurists on it that were nominated and placed there by the lead insurrectionist and his henchman, Moscow Mitch McConnell.
I’m still working on a name; how about the Supreme Roman Catholic Court? We’ve got six little popes sitting on the court.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: As someone who had to vote for fuckin’ SINEMA, I agree. It sucks.
Baud
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
One of the popes is Sotomayor.
Kirk Spencer
@Suzanne:
Yes, we could.
Some of us do.
But the thing to remember is that it’s not seen as in our best immediate interest, and most of us aren’t good at sacrificing the now for a better tomorrow.
You want to convince white men to vote Democratic? Show them it matters to them now. And being as we’re generally suffering from short attention spans and you’re wanting us to overcome a history of habit, show it over and over and over. Accept we’re going to feel like you’re nagging us. Realize that some of us won’t care.
Because some of we white men will finally get it and do the right thing. I may have voted for Reagan’s re-election and for Perot (yes, I was that kind of idiot) but I’ve been a reliable Democratic voter since then.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Honestly, I think people complaining about Cuellar probably muddles our message more than Cuellar.
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
While it is true that Bob Byrd was quite conservative in his youth, as he studied law and the constitution while serving his state in DC he learned better. He spent the majority of his life making up for his youthful membership in the KKK — it was long enough ago that it was more a fraternal order than the stone cold racist outfit we know.
Wife got to know Byrd pretty well, and he was a solid Democrat in every way. They were on a small aircraft flying over WV in turbulence once and she got sick in their laps — he did his best to help her deal, was a real gentleman about it. My Republican father disliked him for being a Dem… of course back then all the WV elected politicians were Democratic.
HumboldtBlue
Thread:
Suzanne
@FelonyGovt: It is hard, especially in shithole towns. Now that we’re two days out, I have been thinking about this, and I want to see lists. I want to see lists of doctors who will perform sterilizations for people who haven’t had kids. Lists of local businesses whose owners support choice. Pediatricians who will do IUDs. Lists of states to fly over. Lists of churches that don’t suck.
One thing these people want is my money. Fuck those clowns.
Dangerman
@FelonyGovt: Not only boycott companies but boycott states. Sure, wasn’t planning on vacationing in one of those States anytime soon, but they all have travel bureaus that answer the phone and I intend to call and let them know that I won’t visit until hell freezes over. In those calls, I’ll try to eliminate (ok, minimize, I’m a realist) the use of the phrase “fuck you”.
germy shoemangler
@lowtechcyclist:
The argument against backing more progressive candidates is that they won’t play nice inside our tent.
Shalimar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t understand how O’Connor was ever confirmable. They couldn’t find a single qualified female lawyer other than Rehnquist’s college girlfriend?
Another Scott
@HumboldtBlue:
Relatedly, STATNews:
Fight for 15!! And fight for more Democrats in office this November.
Cheers,
Scott.
Feathers
Adam Serwer says it a bit better in this Atlantic article https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/1540713481904590858
lowtechcyclist
@Almost Retired:
Reminds me of the Firefly episode where a man says of Saffron/Yolanda/Bridget, “I’m her husband,” and Mal replies, “Well, who in the ‘verse ain’t?”
Worth noting that John Warner voted against Bork’s confirmation.
Jeffro
@FelonyGovt: it’s a great list and I LOVE that you’re talking about what to do . It feels great to turn all of these negative feelings into positive action, and that’s what I plan on doing.
For #2: be sure to tell the company that you’re boycotting them, and why, and tell/encourage others to do the same (esp on social media)
For #3: in addition to signing up for GOTV, it’s helpful to go donate directly to your Democratic state and federal candidates’ campaigns and volunteer your time if you can.
Jeffro
@Dangerman: this is an excellent idea right here
Betty Cracker
@MisterDancer: I find some topics we discuss here tedious too. (Don’t get me started on the endless re-litigation of the 2016 primary!) I’m really thankful for the scroll button!
But I’m not sure I buy this:
Plenty of people here engage in that work. I doubt shooting the shit here subtracts from those efforts; I suspect most of us are unwinding in between the other stuff we’re doing in our lives.
Also, unwinding isn’t always unproductive, especially if it helps us understand how we got here. History is relevant.
This week, I’ve heard people say that the party built a liberal court once and can do so again. A million times I’ve heard people suggest liberals should build their own Fox News network.
Isn’t it relevant to understand that liberals did no such thing? Isn’t it important to make the connection between the Frankenstein-quality results and the inorganic origin? I think so.
Suzanne
@Dangerman:
Yes, tank their Airbnb’s, VRBOs, etc.
pat
I was good friends for years with a fellow flutist who is a conservative evangelical.
We never discussed religion or politics. When trump was elected, I emailed her that I felt sick about it, and she emailed back that it would be “OK.” That was the beginning of the end of our friendship.
She was, not surprisingly, very anti-abortion, as became clear in a later email. We never discussed it and until the repukes took over the Inferior Court, it never occurred to me that her wishes might prevail.
I fantasize about sending her a snarky post, is she celebrating the fact that more women will die or that more unwanted children will be born. I wouldn’t send such an email, but just thinking about it makes me sick.
So I try not to think about her or that potential email.
geg6
Given his background as a historian, Josh’s historical analyses are often spot on and make a point that is thought provoking. I really admire him quite a bit for his accomplishments. He’s the real deal, David Kurtz notwithstanding.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I would love this but it would never fly. We aren’t unified enough.
debbie
@germy shoemangler:
She’s quite the journalist. //
J R in WV
@germy shoemangler:
I think it already has. After all, he has to live with Ginni all the time.
NotMax
Anyone seen anything about someone going line by line over the leaked draft and the final decision to note any additions, deletions or alterations?
lowtechcyclist
One thought that’s occurred to me over the past day or so:
1) The Bogus Scotus is apparently about to gut the Federal regulatory state.
2) Really the main reason I can see that the President can’t just tell the Bogus Scotus to jump off a cliff is that if people or corporations violate Federal regulations, the Administration has to take them to Federal court to impose consequences.
3) If the Bogus Scotus throws the bulk of Federal regulations into the wood chipper, that’s really bad, but OTOH it massively reduces the downside to the Administration telling them to shove it.
4) If that’s what the Bogus Scotus does, the Administration really could just tell the states that the moment they prevent or interfere with the operation of abortion clinics, or charge anyone with a crime for having or aiding an abortion, they can expect no more Federal money. For anything.
5) The states with abortion bans could take the Administration to court, but this is where the President can look at the Bogus Scotus and say, “you and what army?” The shoe’s on the other foot here: the Administration doesn’t need the courts, rather the courts need the Administration’s willingness to comply. Without that, they’re screwed.
6) And if the courts won’t hand down decisions making corporations comply with government regulations, that doesn’t change anything because the Bogus Scotus already said they wouldn’t.
There’s probably some reason why this wouldn’t work out that neatly, but I’m sure one of our legal eagles can fill me in on where it all breaks down.
germy shoemangler
@NotMax:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-the-leaked-abortion-draft-versus-the-opinion/2022/06/24/834a1a6c-f3f6-11ec-ac16-8fbf7194cd78_story.html
NotMax
‘@Baud
Well, once Dominion is awarded ownership of Fox….
//
germy shoemangler
@NotMax:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-the-leaked-abortion-draft-versus-the-opinion/2022/06/24/834a1a6c-f3f6-11ec-ac16-8fbf7194cd78_story.html
Not behind a paywall for me, and I’m not a subscriber
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Henry Cuellar is a dinosaur, and an outlier within the Democratic party today. And while he is labeled anti-abortion, Cuellar’s latest rating from the Susan B. Anthony Fund is 0%, and the National Right to Life Commitee gave him 7%. A more general political rating by Heritage Action Commitee gave Cuellar a zero.
Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood Action Fund gave Cuellar an 80% rating, while NARAL Pro-Choice America gave him a 100% rating. He probably was downgraded by these two organizations after he was the lone Democrat to vote against codifying Roe, but there are other votes that they rate where he was acceptable.
Henry Cuellar’s former “A” rating by the NRA is now a “C”. He voted for three Democratic gun safety measures including expanded background checks last year, and he voted for every measure in the most recent Democratic gun safety package with the exception of the assault weapons ban.
I find this information on ratings aggregator VoteSmart..
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne:
I wonder what percentage of white men who have unprotected sex learn and/or know that the woman got pregnant and/or got an abortion. Anecdotal, but none of the impregnators of the women I helped get an abortion knew a thing. I even hid my help from my own relationships. To the extent this is still happening, “immaculate conception” consequences also need to change.
The 18-24 year old group have the worst voting percentage of all age demographics. This makes me truly sad because I could not wait to vote when I was 18 (in the 70’s) and I don’t remember being promised anything. This group needs to evaluate its non-voting habits and I’m all ears as to how to engage them.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: It’s so fucking obvious.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
The youngest cohort has always had the lowest turnout percentage.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
Remember Air America? It’s okay, nobody does.
Though I gather podcasting has somewhat moved into that gap, not to the extent that Limbaugh, Hannity et al, but it must have some political impact. Jon Favreau (podcasting O’Bro) interviewed Jennifer Senior, author of a recent deep dive on Steve Bannon, and she said Bannon is obsessed with Pod Save America because they have more listeners than he does. I was pleasantly surprised by that, even if I’m not sure how it translates into a real political outcome.
NotMax
‘@germy shoemangler
Muito obrigado.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I find myself repeatedly explaining to younger people (as recently as yesterday) that conservatives and liberals used to exist in both parties (and still a couple in the Democratic side). That’s why votes from back then had members of both parties voting on both sides of an issue, giving the illusion of bipartisanship in governing. In reality, most voting was along ideological lines with Republican and Democratic liberal lawmakers joining in a vote. The same with the conservative side of each party. Bipartisanship was always an illusion the media toted as being of some kind of importance to the passing of something.
Democrats need to be just as partisan, if not more so than Republicans. Right now the right is using threats of violence, actual violence and outright attempts to overthrow the government to turn everything their way. I see conservative hatred of liberals in my town every time I go out. I know conservatives here who would be happy to see fellow citizens in town dead just because of their beliefs. They are happy every time they hear of someone in some group they despise being killed by cops or one of their many lone wolves. Their hatred is visceral. I saw that hatred in the eyes of one of my wife’s aunts who wanted every brown person in the country removed from it. Oh, and she was a life long practicing devout Catholic. Good thing she’s dead now.
Take the fucking gloves off, put on the brass knuckles and let them know that we’re ready to renegotiate some things here in America.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
I’m sure the GOP will go after child support laws next to protect those innocent lads who were seduced by wicked women.
germy shoemangler
@NotMax:
I thought it was OAN they’d own.
SteveinPHX
@JoyceH:
I’ve seen that clip of DeSantis a couple times. A truly ugly human!
Another Scott
@NotMax: Looks like CNN did a “track changes” thing.
My quick scan shows a bunch of style changes, and additions to rebut the dissent.
That’s it.
As we expected. Roberts was a lying liar who lies when he said that the was just a draft that “doesn’t represent the court’s final opinion”. We’ve known that, too.
Grr…,
Scott.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve never done talk radio or podcasts so I can’t comment.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Yes — I think WaPo? There weren’t very many changes.
zhena gogolia
@J R in WV: That’s what I think. He’s in hell. But that doesn’t do the rest of us much good.
germy shoemangler
I hope the trend continues upward. And I hope their votes get counted in the red states.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I just saw a tweet from somebody dragging out the “LBJ would have…” nonsense. It’s the only time they acknowledge that politics existed before 2009, to indulge the fantasy that LBJ was some kind of benign and all-powerful dictator because he figuratively and sometimes literally swung his dick around, because they’ve seen that picture of him leaning forward to talk to Abe Fortas, who they all think is a Senator LBJ was strong-arming into voting for Medicare For All.
debbie
@J R in WV:
Anita Hill, obviously.
debbie
@germy shoemangler:
That’s Alito all over. As spiteful as a bitch can get.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
(Fuck) LBJ was so awesome, he couldn’t even run for a second full term.
Another Scott
@germy shoemangler: +1
The RWNJs are afraid of voters. That’s why they work so very hard to drive down turnout and make it hard for people to vote. They know that they cannot win fair elections.
If people are fed up and want to stick it to the man, the best way to do so is to show up and vote – every time.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and now for something completely different: Have a laugh at Boris Johnson. As someone say in the replies, he looks more like Yeltsin every day.
Geminid
@Baud: I wonder if LBJ figured he would die unless he got away from his stressful job. He’d survived a major heart attack already. He did not live very many years after.
Baud
@Geminid:
Maybe. But didn’t he first try to run and then backed out?
debbie
@Geminid:
Lady Bird was standing in the doorway, wielding a large baseball bat…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: a few people posted this on twitter yesterday: His death got the lead over the initial Roe ruling.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2wGtlfD19w
James E Powell
@Suzanne:
No doubt, but convincing women that abortion rights matter for all women has a better chance of success, no?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: My recollection is that it was political problems (Vietnam), not health.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott:
Hear, hear. Yes it’s exhausting, but every election for the rest of your life is the most important election of your lifetime.
Until, hopefully, one isn’t.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: LBJ had a weak showing, though he still won, in New Hampshire against McCarthy. In a couple of weeks, Johnson was out and Kennedy was in.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: If we could rekindle the idea the voting itself, that universal sufferage, is a revolutionary act, that could make a difference. For most of human history, the majority of people have no voice at all in the way they have been governed. We grabbed that right. That is revolutionary stuff.
Geminid
@Baud: Johnson had a reelection campaign in place when he made his announcement that April. It came at the end of a televised address where he announced steps he would take to deescalate the war, including starting peace talks with the North Vietnamese. Johnson’s announcement that he would not seek reelection was a shocker. I remember watching it with my family.
Besides health concerns, LBJ probably did not want to go head to head with Bobby Kennedy. Kennedy was a formidible politician, and he had really hit his stride before he was assassinated two months after Johnson dropped out. An obituary of Mark Shields said that Shields always believed that had he lived, Bobby Kennedy would have been the greatest President of his century, and I think Shields was right.
Even after a tumultuous convention and starting out broke, Hubert Humphrey almost won in November. He was closing fast on Nixon, and Theodore White wrote in The Making of a President 1968 that Humphrey likely would have won had the election been held three days later than it was.
Baud
@Geminid:
68, 00, and 16 are close elections that will go down in infamy.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
They don’t have a world view, they have a minimal view of the immediate 2 feet around them. The bigger picture to them is when they realize the circle could be 3 feet instead of 2. Not that they would widen the circle to 3 feet, that 2 feet mark is tough enough for them but at least they might realize that it’s possible.
brantl
@James E Powell: Reagan’s press was misunderstood, what the press said was “He looked presidential”, and what they were saying really was: “He’s an actor and he’s good at looking the part.” What people took that to mean was he seemed to be a competent president. And that wasn’t at all what was meant. Especially when you check out historical records that his own White House was concerned that he wasn’t mentally competent.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
Not everyone is going to fall on the far left or far right. It’s called the squishy middle for a reason.
It’s politics, you take the support you’ve got, sometimes it’s a better deal than it looks like and others it’s worse.
The left (correct) side of the aisle is a larger, more diverse, sometimes more confused side of that aisle, but you take what you can get. At the end of the day, in an actual democracy you won’t always get what you want, and sometimes you won’t even get what you need. But it will be a reasonable compromise, as opposed to the either burn it at the stake or all the way to the ground side.
Ohio Mom
@germy shoemangler: What did liberals do to Clarence Thomas? Made fun of his clumsy attempts to “woo” Anita Hill — his frequent references to Long Dong Silver and other pornography, his insistence that someone put a pubic hair on his can of coke.
Really, what kind of move is it on someone to claim there’s a public hair on your soda can? The man is deeply weird. But not so out of touch with reality to not understand he was humiliated big time when his abhorrent behavior was described on national television.
geg6
@James E Powell:
Dude. How about some of those white men start acting and voting like sentient human beings? Jesus, so tired of women being blamed for every fucking thing.
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom: he got that line from the Exorcist
Ruckus
@Redshift:
Literally what does make sense in their worldview?
I believe this is a valid question.
James E Powell
@geg6:
Dude. How about reading what I wrote? Jesus, so tired of people who go out of their way to misunderstand.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist:
FWIW, Cuellar currently has a 100% rating from NARAL and the NRA has him at only 42%. He voted FOR the LGBTQI+ Inclusion Act, FOR the Protecting Our Kids Act, FOR the infant formula bills, and FOR supporting Ukraine.
He’s not my ideal politician by far, but perhaps the primary challenges caused him to shift his votes to the left–which is a GOOD thing. There’s a fair chance a Republican would get elected in his conservative district if Cuellar were not running. That would be a BAD thing.
More info on Cuellar’s ratings and votes can be found here: https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/5486/henry-cuellar
Ohio Mom
@zhena gogolia: I did not know that, never saw the Exorcist. Still leaves me wondering what he thought saying that would make happen.
He’s a creep but hardly the only one on the Supreme Court.
m.j.
@Ohio Mom: Don’t ask me, ask him.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/contact
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa:
Heh. Unsurprisingly, Geminid got there ahead of me. :)
Ohio Mom
@m.j.: I still don’t completely get your beef. Marshall referred to the group that calls themselves “prolife”, by the name, Prolife?
Whatever. I have enough slack not to care about this. Just wanted to acknowledge you replied.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: :-D
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ramona
@Ruckus: The fallacy of the agora is the only support they have for their beliefs hence they have to impose their beliefs o everybody.