Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

This fight is for everything.

You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / The Atrocities Continue to Pile Up

Reader Interactions

165Comments

  1. 1.

    different-church-lady

    This will do nothing to curtail the “Oh don’t worry they wouldn’t dare do [thing X]” crowd.

  2. 2.

    Matt McIrvin

    This is a case where a lot hinges on the fact that Congress can barely pass legislation. It would be trivial to amend the Clean Air Act to get around this, but that would require actually passing a law. It’s much like all the “card says Moops” attacks on the ACA over some odd quirk of phrasing–they would have no power without a hobbled Congress.

  3. 3.

    different-church-lady

    @Matt McIrvin: I am not a constitutional scholar, but I sense that the problem we’re having here is the new “Any law passed by a congress controlled by Democrats is unconstitutional” doctrine.

  4. 4.

    MobiusKlein

    I’m sick of the SCOTUS making up new court standards, and calling it Originalism.

    Feels like it’s a Robert’s Court tradition.

  6. 6.

    Lapassionara

    Is there a German term for the dread I feel when the Supreme Court is in session? Schadenfear?

  7. 7.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: Correct.  If we had a functioning Congress (esp. Senate), the Supreme Court might actually be incentivized to be more honest in its statutory analysis.  The GOP justices know they can hide behind the filibuster.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    The SC has basically killed the entire world. Humanity bids you farewell, you assholes.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    @MobiusKlein:

    This isn’t an originalism case. This was a textualism case. And the GOP abandoned textualism because they didn’t like the result it produced.  The libs apply textualism in the dissent.

  17. 17.

    Urza

    While the EPA and other rulings are quite worrisome, those are theoretically reversible in the future.  The Court announcing it wants to look at whether states can have free reign over their elections, similar to the way Texas has setup that they can overturn any election they don’t like because “neener neener”.  This means in reality, any state with a Republican trifecta after 2022 is going stay that way forever and ever, because obviously them losing is not a legitimate election.  Then that also carries over to presidential and congressional elections.
    There is no democracy left in red states, or the nation as a whole once that case is decided.  I dare anyone to explain how i’m wrong.  Its quite depressing and I would love to be corrected.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @MobiusKlein: Justice Kagan is sick and damn tired of it too:

  19. 19.

    Mallard Filmore

    @MobiusKlein:

    I’m sick of the SCOTUS making up new court standards, and calling it Originalism.

    Any future decision of the SCOTUS  about “corporations are people too” should be an interesting read.

  22. 22.

    Matt McIrvin

    @debbie: Eh, there’s a lot of ways around this, and I think we’re actually at the technological point where carbon emissions in the US are going to drop no matter what the government does about it. The biggest problem now is that our participation in the global economy supports carbon-belching manufacturing elsewhere.

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @pat:

    Farah revealed that Trumpworld had assigned lawyers to many lower level staffers who could not cover legal fees on their own. Farah noted that Hutchinson was initially represented by Stefan Passantino, a former Trump White House lawyer with deep ties to the former president. In the weeks leading up to her testimony on Tuesday, Hutchinson switched her lawyer to Jody Hunt, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff when Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe.

    As Peter Strzok just said on the Nicolle Wallace program, this raises some ethical questions for Passantino. Who was paying him? and, if I understand it correctly, he’s bound to represent his client’s best interest, not those of the person who’s covering the bill. I don’t know how vulnerable he would be to oversight from the legal profession/bar associations. I hope ‘very’.

  24. 24.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    This is the worst junta ever. Most of the time juntas makes some fig leaf to some broader bit of societal populism and pretend to make life better for the broader mass of people.

    This supreme council of six has failed to give itself any degree of respectability.

    One other thing – the dysfunction resulting from Senate rules and the filibuster guarantees we live under a judicial junta.

  27. 27.

    catothedog

    Wherever you can, on social media, on this blog, state it clearly.

    Supreme Court Pro-life judges limits EPA’s authority to regulate power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions

    Supreme Court Pro-life judges  throws out gun regulations..

    and so on. Make them own it.

    Specifically associate everywhere all  the anti-life destruction and carnage with their great “campaign of virtue” for supporting “innocent life”

  28. 28.

    New Deal democrat

    @Urza: “ I dare anyone to explain how i’m wrong.”
     
    Ok, maybe a ‘qualified’ wrong. 
     
    Given the available choices, I would much rather the Court take up this issue in 2023, than in, say, December 2024 on an emergency basis.
     
    An intellectually honest Court (sigh) would tell the States that they are free to forego a popular vote and have the Legislature choose that State’s Presidential Electors (this by the way is 100% true, and what South Carolina did for a long time). But, what they *can’t* do is have a popular vote on Election Day and then step in afterward if they don’t like the result.
     
    The Constitution is very clear on this. The vote *MUST* take place on Election Day itself.

    Like I said, “an tellectually honest Court (sigh)”….

  29. 29.

    Tony G

    @Matt McIrvin: Right-wing senators control the Senate 52-48, and they will continue to support the anti-democratic filibuster.  (Manchin and Sinema are right-wing senators.  Calling them “centrists” or “moderates” is a mis-use of the English language.). The fact that some “progressives” continue to say that the Democratic Party controls Congress reveals that they are either delusional or they have some other agenda.

  30. 30.

    The Thin Black Duke

    I don’t have children, but I do have a niece and nephew. I mourn for their future.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @New Deal democrat:

    But, what they *can’t* do is have a popular vote on Election Day and then step in afterward if they don’t like the result.

    I agree, but I don’t think that’s what this case is about, at least not directly.  This case is about state court authority to tell the state legislature that it violated the state constitution and to order a remedy.  Not 100% sure I got the details right, so happy to be corrected.

    The Constitution is very clear on this. The vote *MUST* take place on Election Day itself.

    It’s a federal statute, and the vote can be done before election day, which is why you can have early voting.

  32. 32.

    E.

    What is so telling to me that this is about power politics, not legal reasoning, is how little effort the Court put into clarifying when a question becomes “major” enough that you get to demand levels of congressional precision that will never be satisfactory. Here the trade off is a possible ten percent increase in energy costs *for awhile* in exchange for meeting carbon goals designed to protect life on earth. Gorsuch even insinuates that here what makes this “major” is the fact that global warming is a “major” issue, not that the rule itself will have major negative consequences.

    These people, besides being awful, are going to get us all killed. If we cannot rely on the executive branch agencies to use existing powers to regulate carbon, we are so doomed. Congress will never meet the necessary new standards in any new legislation regarding global warming until it’s way too late to matter.

  33. 33.

    oldgold

    If packing adding pols judges to the Supreme Court is not politically palatable, what about limiting their jurisdiction?

    Article 3, Section 2

    1. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;  —between Citizens of different States, —between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
    2. In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
    3. The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

    If you read Article 3, it is clear the founders did not intend these unaccountable, mostly revanchist,  pols dressed in black robes to be a co-equal branch of government. They need to be reined in.

  34. 34.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Tony G: These alleged “progressives” are keyboard warriors who can afford to chase bright and shiny unicorns because of their privilege. The only thing they can do is get in the way of the people in the trenches that do the actual work.

  38. 38.

    New Deal democrat

    @Baud: I am imagining a scenario where a lowly local election worker is tallying the local vote, when – gasp! – they find a proverbial hanging chad.

    What do they do?!?

    Count the vote?

    Don’t count the vote?

    Under the Independent State Legislature doctrine, apparently the Legislature must be called into emergency session to tell them what to do, because the courts may not.

    P.S. I understand what you are saying about early voting, but the votes become effective on Election Day.

  39. 39.

    Ken

    @Baud: This case is about state court authority to tell the state legislature that it violated the state constitution and to order a remedy.

    “That whole ‘judicial review’ thing? Only for us.”

  40. 40.

    gene108

    This SCOTUS is making all the formerly fringe crackpot conservative legal theories into laws that govern this country.

    Wait until they go after finreg next term and the money boys get at the pension funds and 401k money. You thought the 2007-2008 debacle with the junk tranches was something, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

    John, I’m waiting for them to undo birthright citizenship, child labor laws, the minimum wage, and every positive liberal advance in American society for the past 150 years.

    Conservatives have a raging hard on to undo all the 14A cases that ended discrimination or unfair business practices, because of the amendment’s Equal Protection language. Thomas signaled he wants revisit due process cases, which I think are linked to 14A interpretation.

    Every crank crackpot legal idea from any conservative group will be rubber stamped by the six evil justices on the Supreme Court. These conservative motherfuckers aren’t going to stop until every bit of this country is ordered to their liking, because they know they have a rubber stamp at SCOTUS and total support by all Republicans.

  41. 41.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Matt McIrvin:

    “Congress didn’t explicitly include language specifying that coal fired plants constructed between 1987 and 2022 of X type according to Y specifications and generating Z kilowatts per hour were to be regulated, so the agency  is acting beyond the scope of permitted delegation….”

  42. 42.

    Urza

    @Steeplejack: While you are correct over the idiom, the defintion still works for my context.

    “Reign is royal authority, the influence and sway of a ruler, or one who resembles a ruler. Rein is the strap fastened to an animal (such as a horse or mule) by a bit, which allows a rider or driver to control the animal. If you rule over something you may be said to reign over it.”

  46. 46.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @different-church-lady: Yes, I caught that, too. It’s sport to them. And did you notice how that headline is a perfect example of normalizing what was previously egregious? A USSC ruling should not be so blatantly political. Hell, now they’re presenting is as though the court did largely to hobble the President’s agenda — which they did — but that should not be the norm!

  48. 48.

    oatler

    @Mallard Filmore:

    Let’s say “If a corporation commits actions that result in one death, all CEOs of said corporation will be tried for murder on days when Judge ILikeBeer has his Hanging Wig on”. Don’t doubt we’re going to see more federal executions because of the Court.

  51. 51.

    gene108

    @Tony G:

    The fact that some “progressives” continue to say that the Democratic Party controls Congress reveals that they are either delusional or they have some other agenda.

    The American Rescue Plan saved me hundreds of dollars per month in health insurance premiums, when I was out of work last year.

    No Republicans voted for it.

  52. 52.

    The Thin Black Duke

    The “Why Bother Voting?” narrative is being pushed hard on the media platforms I visit.

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Idiots keep saying, “But FDR was able to threaten to pack the courts and the Supreme Court backed down!” without adding the corollary that FDR had a supermajority in BOTH houses of Congress when he made that threat.

    When the Dems have a 2/3rd majority in the Senate to override any filibuster, that’s when the threat to pack the court would be credible, and not a minute more. And the only way to get there is to vote for the fucking Democrats.

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Of course it is. Republicans don’t want to lose power. The Russians want us to be hobbled. And the die-hard Berniebros and leftists don’t want to admit they were fucking wrong in 2016 when they said that the Supreme Court was no big deal and we shouldn’t “blackmail” them about it.

    Lots of people with a megaphone and a vested interest in seeing the Democrats fail out there.

  58. 58.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Mnemosyne: Mediocre white men cheat. It’s the only way for them to get ahead. A level playing field is the last thing they want. That’s why their vision of utopia is where women are pumping out Rugrats until they’re used up and POC are dispensible cogs in America’s penal system.

  59. 59.

    PsiFighter37

    I hope that even if Democrats aren’t saying the quiet part out loud, if they manage to expand their Senate majority that is Sinema- and Manchin-proof and keep the House, they do a lightning strike and pass everything out of the gate in 2023 that needs to get done to ensure the country stabilizes. Not optimistic, of course, but there should be some serious battle planning going on. Harry Reid certainly would have done it, but I am not convinced Chuck Schumer has it in him – he has proven feckless on the legislative front for the most part.

  60. 60.

    catothedog

    @Steeplejack:

    Make it “anti-abortion” instead of “pro-life.”

    That is correct. They are really anti-abortion.

    But the goal here is to link the “virtue” with evil. It’s to address those who still respect them  even when they disagree with their anti-abortion views.

    Associate the positive spin they have put on their agenda with the negative results they have created.  So that at least part of them get depressed and stay home

    Remove the pretensions and plausible deniability  they get hiding behind a  virtuous cause.

    And make the rest of the folks see them and detest them for the real evil they are,  instead of principled opponents with whom you should respectfully disagree.

  64. 64.

    Bill Arnold

    @Matt McIrvin:
    I started putting together a list of policy-change laws (not counting tax cuts for the affluent/rich) an hour ago. Here’s what I have so far. In the last 20 years, I see very little:

    Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
    Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1990)
    Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994
    Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
    No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (January, > 20 years)
    Homeland Security Act of 2002
    Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
    Affordable Care Act (2010)
    Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (2015, replaced No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (January))

    What’s missing from that list?

    Basically, Congress has been too deadlocked to pass anything not bi-partisan, and the Republicans have been pro-gigacide / pro mass death since the global heating debate started.
    The lowest-human-impact fix would be the destruction of the Republican Party. Slightly worse immediate human impact, a large CME (Coronal Mass Ejection caused by a solar flare) that destroys one or more of the US power grids for a year would help for a short while. (Texas! Though US East is more vulnerable, TBH, depending on how ready the operators are.) I have a much much longer list.

  65. 65.

    livewyre

    @The Thin Black Duke: Anything that stops us from fighting back is part of the problem, no matter who it comes from. Part of our work, I think, is going to be keeping each other in it.

  68. 68.

    Reboot

    @Urza: Yes, but in a monarchy, no one grants a monarch “freedom to reign.” The monarch inherently reigns, so ‘free reign’ isn’t right. The idiom means the opposite of keeping (whatever) under a tight rein–you keep a horse under tight rein for control (not necessarily great horsemanship). You can also give the horse a loose rein, that is, a free rein.

    Pedant mode off.

  69. 69.

    livewyre

    @Bill Arnold: I hesitate to characterize any random event, let alone one with a body count, as a “fix”. For one thing, it takes the emphasis off the role of our actions in what is to come. For another, well…

  73. 73.

    West of the Rockies

    And the Supreme Court is definitely not political, and is very offended that you suggest so.

    Hey, SC 6, feel free to F off and die.  (Such a statement may get me pied again by someone. )

  74. 74.

    Tim in SF

    Meta-comment alert:

    I’m not understanding why some Baloon-Juice posts have twitter posts that are text and link back to the post, and other twitter posts that are screenshots and don’t link anywhere.

  76. 76.

    Tinare

    That’s it, screw trying to eat healthy to live longer, if the environment is going to kill me, I’m eating all the creamy, cheesy pasta and desserts I want!

  77. 77.

    Bill Arnold

    @Suzanne:
    Re Kagan, she says:

    And by the end of this century, climate change could be the cause of “4.6 mil- lion excess yearly deaths.” See R. Bressler, The Mortality Cost of Carbon, 12 Nature Communications 4467, p. 5 (2021).

    Great to see that (very interesting> paper cited[1]. FWIW, that paper does not cover death causes that have not yet been adequately modeled in the scholarly literature.

    Second, the mortality damage function only represents temperature-related mortality; it leaves out potentially important climate-mortality pathways such as the effect of climate change on infectious disease, civil and interstate war, food supply, and flooding due to the limited availability of projections for these pathways in the scholarly literature that sufficiently meet our idealized criteria.

    These potentially, and probably, cause huge death tolls, making the MCC more like 1 death per 1000 tons of carbon burned, and I personally estimate it’s more like one death (reduction in global population, properly) per 250 tons of carbon burned, on our current trajectory midway between RCP 4.5 and RCP 6.0.  (Coal is like 85 percent carbon, depending on grade)

    [1] The mortality cost of carbon (29 July 2021, R. Daniel Bressler)

  83. 83.

    Geminid

    @Ksmiami: Sinema’s going down. Unfortunately not until 2024. I doubt if she even runs again. She’ll lose the primary.

  84. 84.

    Ksmiami

    @Geminid: we don’t have that long. Time to nullify the Court. Biden should just say fuck it and become the dictator we need. Congress is useless

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:

    It’s not verbiage.

    It is 10000% Bull and Shit.

    Conservatives want every single law, ideal, scientific fact to be restored to 1770 standards and knowledge because that’s the life they think they want. They HATE anything to do with the country after that. OK if we adopted a copy of the current day Russian laws and they were left as the billionaires in a country where the average annual pay is $20K, that would be OK with them as well. They want everything and they are all willing to burn down everything but their own shit because they have zero ideas, ideals, or anything besides ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME……

  86. 86.

    TheTruffle

    @Geminid: She’ll probably quit to become a lobbyist. The Dems already have some perfect midterm slogans. Ignore the Machine Enema and move forward.

  87. 87.

    livewyre

    @Bill Arnold: The problem with trolley problems is that they presuppose failure and then demand urgent action from a position of acute trauma. If we want an actual choice to be able to be made, the fight takes place before then. All else is grim fantasy.

    edit: I suppose from a more abstract philosophical standpoint, per request, it’s that no one is possibly capable of making such a decision alone. The key here is “alone”. Systemic problems require collective response. This can be extended to such things as, say, private wealth. And that’s its own can of worms – philosophically speaking.

  88. 88.

    livewyre

    @Ksmiami: I’m not big on failure. Good thing you don’t back up your words, because I’m not convinced we’d be on the same side.

  89. 89.

    marcopolo

    Haven’t read the thread (apologies but a lil busy) but realized this afternoon it is only a matter of time now before the Affordable Care Act goes away.  SCOTUS just needs the right case on their docket and the MAGA majority will cobble together some ad hoc legal reasoning to explain that because the Founders did not provide assistance for health care to the earliest Americans then there is no historical basis for it.

    If I really want to depress myself I think about the same thing happening to Medicare & Social Security.

    Yep.

  91. 91.

    marcopolo

    @Ksmiami: No, Biden should actually give a speech saying something like “When SCOUS went to 9 members there were 9 judicial districts in the US and the population was X. There are now 13 districts and ~200+ million more Americans.  It is time to expand the court to 13 members.  Here are my 4 nominees.”

    That is an argument that actually makes some kind of logical sense & which I think you could actually get a majority of folks to support.  Probably why it will never happen in my lifetime.

  92. 92.

    livewyre

    @marcopolo: At minimum we can reassure ourselves that the court has only so much legitimacy to draw on, and the 6 are burning through it at pace. There’s the problem of rebuilding it when it runs out while preserving all other legal measures that keep force from being the rule.

    We can look for the apocalypse in anything, but moving forward takes more method than that.

  93. 93.

    J R in WV

    @The Thin Black Duke: ​
     

    We have no children, and my two nephews are RWNJs from TX. I will give the younger some credit, he is a Lt in the USN, a nuke officer on a submarine, so has sworn an oath to defend the constitution.

    Of course, so did Trump.

  94. 94.

    Ksmiami

    @marcopolo: at this point I want the fucking Republicans to burn. I don’t want to share a country with these medieval meat bags…

  96. 96.

    Spanky

    @Bill Arnold:

    What would you do to prevent a gigadeath crime?

    As an attack on environmental regs is a world-wide problem, I wouldn’t be surprised to find Greens in other countries assembling hit squads to send here.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    @TheTruffle: I think Sinema will go for the big bucks and start her own line of women’s workout clothing. She may already own a shell company with the copyright to Maverick Sports. “Maverick Sports apparel: Tough enough for a triathalon. But stylish enough for Starbucks!”

  99. 99.

    Bill Arnold

    @livewyre:

    Systemic problems require collective response.

    I do not entirely agree, but the discussion is not one to be had in public, and for the most part collective responses are best.
    Anyway, just finished reading the opinions on the case, including the excellent Kagan dissent. Here’s how she ended it:

    The Court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening. Respectfully, I dissent.

  100. 100.

    livewyre

    @Ksmiami: The government is us. That’s the whole point. Until now it’s been convenient for those who can take representation for granted to act otherwise, act as if The Government is some outside entity that shuffles papers and grabs guns and demands taxes. Some of us have not had that luxury. Some of us have something left to fight for, instead of jawing Tom Clancy fanfiction.

  101. 101.

    livewyre

    @Bill Arnold: Lone wolves can’t make the difference we need. If anything, the whole problem is rooted in the assumption of individual will – separated from any social system of precedence and effect – as the origin of legitimate power. We have a limited time to learn better. Thankfully, I’ve seen glimmerings of it here.

  102. 102.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ksmiami: We aren’t on the same side.  Ultimately, the path you are suggesting leads where the GOP is now.  Remember, Mussolini and Mosley started as socialists.  It’s the disdain for democracy that leads where you are headed.  No, thank you.

  103. 103.

    Bill Arnold

    @livewyre:

    We have a limited time to learn better. Thankfully, I’ve seen glimmerings of it here.

    Oh, I am optimistic too. My optimism just got whacked with a sledgehammer today (as expected), but at least the blow was not as bad as it could have been, and the optimism did not shatter. (The Alito/Gorsuch concurrence was a bit uglier.)

  105. 105.

    MisterDancer

    And now they back to us Black folx, for the next round, before they find another way to harm Gay and Trans folx:

    Only in Texas: the Texas Education Agency is proposing to the State Board of Education (who decides state curriculum) to change the word “slavery” to “involuntary relocation”. The SBOE hearings on social studies curriculum are this summer.

    My first radicalization was over my Public School Teacher pushing Creationism in my AP English class. Texas and California’s public schools were the big fights over the bullshit that was Creationism back then. Why? Textbooks for those massive school systems meant whatever was in those books, went to the rest of the country.

    This isn’t “Only in Texas.” They get Texas, they’ll easily get the rest of the South, at least.

  106. 106.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s remarkably common for supposedly Marxist or socialist radicals to suddenly flip hard right, especially if they’re very into advocating violence or imagining apocalyptic makeovers of society. I think it’s the aesthetics, the love of power and virile action and the association of conventional politics with weakness, that does it.

  108. 108.

    Captain C

    @Matt McIrvin: All this, and many of them are closeted (or not-so-closeted) authoritarians, which translates well to Conservatism.

    David Horowitz was/is an extreme example; he went hard left to hard right and remained a buffoon throughout.

    (Also, I saw someone with your name comment on Prof. Chad Orzel’s Facebook page; is that you, and if so, how do you know him?  I went to college with him.)

  109. 109.

    Kropacetic

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s the disdain for democracy that leads where you are headed.  No, thank you.

    I agree that Biden shouldn’t be seizing unilateral power. Still, though, none of this Supreme Court BS was achieved truly Democratically.

    Eta: I’m left here thinking about Karl Rove’s unitary executive theory. If the “right (wing)” President were in power, there’s no doubt in my mind Republicans would be reaching for Ksimiami’s “solution.”

  111. 111.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Matt McIrvin: Seems like a common element is “my way or the highway”. They don’t want to have to compromise or give an inch. So Dictatorship seems preferable to them, as long as they get to be the Dictator (and these folks always seem to assume that they’ll be the anointed ones…).

    Democracy – better, more fair, less corrupt than today… this is the future we can achieve if we keep working for it. I hope.

  113. 113.

    MomSense

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I worked for two years (as a volunteer/intern) on the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act.  There are more constituencies than people realize and it was a fucking slog. There is no quick fix for this especially since the decision is a bunch of fucking bullshit.  The decisions this term are contradictory, nonsensical, ahistoric. We have fanatics on this court.  The only consistency is their bullshit Christianism.

    I also want to say that the 1989 Mobilize for Womens Lives (following the Webster decision) began in my dad’s church with my dad delivering a sermon and prayer in support of Choice.  The Today Show and the whole coterie of news and magazine outlets were there.  Being a public pro abortion small town minister in 1989 attracted the wrath of all the assholes. It was horrific.  I was at college but my dad and my sister were put through hell with threatening and vile phone calls and letters.  My sister also had to deal with so much grief at school.  She took the bus to visit me in college and when she got off the bus she broke down.
    I don’t think it is possible to approximate the rage I feel this week.
    I am also so incredibly proud of my dad for his contributions to the right side of history.

  114. 114.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Captain C: That was me. I don’t know Chad in person, but I know him and his wife Kate Nepveu on the Internet going back to Usenet days. I was one of the beta readers for “How to Teach Quantum Physics To Your Dog.”

  116. 116.

    livewyre

    @Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: This is the distinction between rule of law vs. rule of force I’m on about. It’s not who has the force, or where strength comes from, but for force to decide and strength to prevail that we’re fighting against. Every time democracy is dismissed as the “weak” option, anyone who counts as “weak” goes under the bus.

    At least lately it’s getting awfully clear what to push back on.

  117. 117.

    different-church-lady

    @MisterDancer:

    change the word “slavery” to “involuntary relocation”.

    What, they just dropped them in Georgia and then didn’t make them pick cotton or create any laws that turned them into property?

    We’re through the looking glass and straight into the Ministry of Truth at this point.

  118. 118.

    MisterDancer

    @MomSense: Wow — the Mobilize for Women’s Lives was my 1st major march! I was part of my college’s Reproductive Rights group, and went on a bus to DC for that march.

    Your Dad did amazing work — and I agree with and, well, honor your righteous rage.

  119. 119.

    MisterDancer

    @different-church-lady: We’re through the looking glass and straight into the Ministry of Truth at this point.

    And — frustratingly — you can see them replaying the same damned basic playbook America’s been seeing at least since the Lost Cause. These asshats can always find a way to twist the past to suit their desire to suppress populations and chivvy for control. I mean, that’s that shithole Alito’s Dobbs crap-out, in a nutshell — create a fake past to justify abusing people, today.
    It’s why it’s critical to see all this not as isolated incidents, but as pieces in a loosely-affiliated fight for the soul of not just America, but frankly, the World. “Intersectionality” isn’t just a good idea — it’s key to seeing these patterns and figuring out how to fight them, and block them.​

  120. 120.

    Kropacetic

    @different-church-lady:

    change the word “slavery” to “involuntary relocation”.

    What, they just dropped them in Georgia and then didn’t make them pick cotton or pass any laws that turned them into property?

    How do we distinguish this from the involuntary relocation of the native population?

    And in what context is “involuntary relocation” of an entire population acceptable? None? Thought so.

  121. 121.

    different-church-lady

    @Kropacetic:

    How do we distinguish this from the involuntary relocation of the native population?

    Well, we tried to kill all the native Americans, but we were interested in keeping the black slaves alive. So… uh… I suppose that doesn’t answer the question in any helpful way, but…

  122. 122.

    Kropacetic

    @different-church-lady: Well, we tried to kill all the native Americans

    We got 90 percent of the way there, tragically.

    Changes in terminology should help clarify distinctions, not obscure them. I know the right has been abusing language for decades (that I’m aware of), but this… Jeeeeeeezzzzzzuuuusss.

  123. 123.

    Ksmiami

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not sure we have a democracy anymore when one side can manipulate the levers the way the right has. Now, I just want the President to protect the vulnerable against this Court and it’s henchmen

  124. 124.

    MomSense

    @MisterDancer: ​
     
    The campaign began with a sunrise service at our church in Kennebunk and then we marched to the Bush compound. I’ll never forget sitting with Faye Wattleton in tears because the experience of being affirmed in worship was so healing for her.

    I think I have a copy of the prayer he delivered somewhere. I’ll see if I can find it.

  125. 125.

    livewyre

    @MisterDancer: This and this. I see what we face as fundamental; not just a string of isolated plays, but grim assumptions that have been following us the whole time. Whatever we do to fix it is going to be new.

    That’s what I think is our edge. The opposition can’t see it coming – not because it’s secret, but because it’s incomprehensible from there. Unbelievable, nonsensical. How can weakness win? How can vulnerability outlast toxicity? Easy – that’s how we got this far in the first place.

  127. 127.

    no comment

    @Mnemosyne:

    Two things:

    1) Not specific to you, but UNpack the court, not pack it. It was packed already by the GOP. (Hat tip to Driftglass & Blue Gal from the Professional Left Podcast who suggested this.)

    2) I heard (read?) somewhere that Beer Guy’s debts were paid by his rich family. The point the person was trying to make was that there are plenty of other reasons to be upset at him. I don’t completely agree with that view. Sure there are plenty of other reasons Beer Guy is corrupt & evil, but I say make him prove his family paid the debt. Worst case scenario is that he pitches a fit like a toddler & eventually shows his finances. Best case, it wasn’t his family and we have grounds to impeach him.

  129. 129.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    some new reporting from Politico. Chris Hayes just teased this story for his next segment

    “[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow,” read a slide that the Jan. 6 committee broadcast at the end of Hutchinson’s hearing, which Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) characterized as pressure on a key witness. “He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”
    Meadows is the person whose name was redacted in that slide. Contents of that final deposition were described to POLITICO, which could not independently corroborate the identity of the intermediary or that Meadows directed any message be delivered to Hutchinson before her second deposition.

    Meadows has already denied any knowledge of any free-lancer acting on his behalf

  130. 130.

    livewyre

    @Ksmiami: This ain’t a comic book. The big hero doesn’t fight evil with superpowers. Bullets aren’t righteous. What we have to do involves a lot more work than that.

    I’d appreciate it if you could understand. But then, it’s not something that everyone can right away. For raw strength not to be the ultimate test is going to come as a surprise to many, and we have to deal with that as it comes.

  131. 131.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Ksmiami: You’re probably a dude, so lay off the anti-women slurs.

    Calling a woman that word is misogynistic punching down, even if she is a Senator.

  132. 132.

    sab

    My city had a police shooting of a 21 year old Black motorist after a 1 am traffic stop where the driver fled and they chased him from one corner of the city (nw) all the way to the se corner.

    They aren’t allowed to do such chases, but they claimed he shot at them. At the end of the chase they killed him. No gun was found. People are really upset. They have cancelled the 4th of July weekend plans downtown: ” It is inappropriate to have a city wide celebration at this town time.”

    No official word on what exactly happened but FB versions are horrific.

    Damn.

  133. 133.

    Lylymay

    @Daoud bin Daoud:

    Interesting that the people that are anti abortion are often the same who were fighting the vaccine developed for Covid.  I think the most common refrain was “my body – my choice”.  How soon they forget their own refrains.

  134. 134.

    Kropacetic

    @Lylymay: Interesting that the people that are anti abortion are often the same who were fighting the vaccine developed for Covid.  I think the most common refrain was “my body – my choice”.  How soon they forget their own refrains.

    There are exceptions for legitimate governing concerns.

    Intimate, individual medical decisions are a legitimate governing concern.

    Fighting a highly contagious disease that’s spreading through the population, less so…

  135. 135.

    MisterDancer

    @livewyre: How can weakness win? How can vulnerability outlast toxicity? Easy – that’s how we got this far in the first place.

    I get it. I mean, the reality of the Civil Rights Movement is…complex. The day my Dad mentioned taking up a rifle to defend the Black side of town, as a Teen…that goes against everything we get told about Black people at that time.

    But at the end of the day, that rifle didn’t dismantle Jim Crow. We’re just not gonna shoot our way out of this, and I’m not sure people get that, yet. I know for certain a lot of the people on Twitter of a certain style and type — people who’s understanding of political movements and history has some real gaps — think that posting on the hour about what they want pols to do, is somehow “change”.

    Twitter has real, and important, uses. That’s not really one of them. Moreover, it passes off all power and control over the situation to “them,” washing our collective hands of any responsibility to organize and push for the change we want.

    I just finished a powerful Webinar the National Network of Abortion Funds hosted. I’ve got out a few applications for volunteer efforts. I recognize I’ve been gifted with tools and talents, and that my own issues around helping need to be set aide in this crisis moment, that I need to really — even more than writing here — be part of the solution in a more hands-on way than I have, so far.

    But that’s one step towards how we win. And that step isn’t about what Biden sez, or any Senator spoke into a mic, or a Representative Tweeted, or an asshole Governor and their Legislature shat out.

    We change them by changing ourselves, and the people around us. By really being beacons of how change happens, and being brave enough to endure what that means.
    I mean, I’m scared. Yet I cannot, in any good conscious, continue to just type on here every day, and think I’m actually doing something to make things better.

    I think — I bet — that if I team up with people who’ve been doing this work for a while, learn how it works today, and pitch in to help? I can get us just a little closer to what you say, to allowing empathy and care to win the day.

    I reckon we’ll see. But I’d rather have my ancestor’s way as my light, to fight and protect when it’s needed, but otherwise support people thru the hell of these fights, than anything else — much less pining on every word from Washington, these days.

    Others may see it different.​

  137. 137.

    Salty Sam

    @Reboot:    You can also give the horse a loose rein, that is, a free rein.   Pedant mode off.

    Pedant mode back on!  There is another rein which can be held loosely (free) or tightly-  that is the long handles on a pair of blacksmiths tongs.  The idiom works with them as well.

    OK, pedant mode back off.

  138. 138.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MisterDancer: I believe that meaningful political change, and certainly self-defense, sometimes requires violence. I also believe that when people seem to be in it for the violence (or for the shock value of advocating violence), you’d better watch out.

  139. 139.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Lylymay: I’m pretty sure the antivaxxer use of “my body – my choice” was intentionally chosen as contemptuous mockery of abortion-rights advocates (giving the libs a taste of their own medicine). Ideological consistency was absolutely not on the menu.

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @Citizen Alan:

    I don’t know how old you currently are but I’m only 2 yrs away from 75 and I’d like to be here for quite a bit longer. I of course have no idea how long that will be, could be tomorrow, could be 25 yrs. But given the shortish time to 75, I want more. May you, when you get to 75, have a change of heart. Because unless your life is a lot shittier than mine, 75 isn’t enough. And that’s given the shitty SC majority, the vast majority of the rethuglican party, Vlad and quite a bit of the world in general. Being alive is better than a fucking dirt nap. I of course don’t have first hand knowledge of that, but even not being a betting man, I’d bet on that.

  141. 141.

    Ksmiami

    @Matt McIrvin: not in it for that. But the right is already there. Think of me as a Cassandra warning that we are in a new paradigm and the other side is all in on genocide so best to plan to fight it.

  142. 142.

    livewyre

    @Ksmiami: It’s a common enough thing to brand oneself as a truth-teller against the mob, when trying to dictate to them what to fight and how instead of listening and joining. But that’s the problem with trying to act alone – all there is to show for it is self-satisfaction, and that doesn’t show anywhere outside one’s own head. I’ll leave it to others to decide whose time that’s worth.

  144. 144.

    Ksmiami

    @livewyre: I’m very involved in planned parenthood et Al. But we have limited time and avenues to turn this around. We cannot allow the Republicans to take over the federal government and we need to defang the court. Like now.

  145. 145.

    MomSense

    @MisterDancer: ​
     
    Ok I found it – this was from the sunrise service to kick off the campaign

    MOBILIZE FOR WOMEN’S LIVES
    God of us all:
    At this sunrise of a new day
    we gather together to announce a great wave of freedom
    to awaken a continent.

    We announce the freedom of women equal with men:
    equal in their humanity,
    equal in their power as spiritual beings
    to enlist their faculties
    of mind and body, heart and soul
    as agents of free and moral choice.

    We are here, O God, to raise our voices in affirmation
    of the right of women, as free and responsible persons,
    to decide whether or not, and when
    the time is right,
    to enter the sacred duties of motherhood,
    to nurture the birth and growing of a new spiritual being,
    to welcome with a joyous and grateful heart
    the parental bond.

    We know, O God, that we are free spiritual beings,
    that there is no law in the heavens or on earth
    which can dictate that choice
    which we are created to make for ourselves.

    We witness here today to that dearest right
    of all individuals to make their private choices
    concerning their own bodies
    concerning those moral and religious beliefs
    that will guide their living.

    And we announce, this morning
    our sense of compassion for all women who suffer,
    whose lives have been taken from them
    and given to forces which enslave the human spirit.
    We speak to the condition of all
    who are burdened in poverty or despair,
    who are abandoned by the careless, the self-righteous,
    by those who do violence to the human spirit,
    and by those who do not know the social costs
    of spiritual hypocrisy and intolerance

    We pause for all who suffer
    because this day took so long to dawn
    upon our hearts.

    May this sunrise of a new day
    bring freedom closer for all our sisters and brothers,
    and may every child that is born into the world
    be a wanted child:
    welcomed, loved, given sustenance and opportunity
    to come into their full humanity.

    God of all:
    Strengthen us for this new day of freedom,
    for the centrality of our human right to choose.
    Bring us into our destiny as spiritual beings.

    Amen.

  146. 146.

    Ruckus

    @different-church-lady:

    “It’s a smash-and-grab gang at this point.”

    Yes it is.

    They know their views are not the majority. They don’t give a damn. Their constituents are the right wing money grubbers. They don’t give a rusty fuck about all those who vote for someone like SFB. They were supported by money grubbers and racist fucks. That’s how they got to where they are today. The general rethuglican party may be about hate but those at the top are money grubbers. They don’t give a fuck if they have to cheat to get anywhere, they care about money and making sure there isn’t a healthy democracy that builds equality into every part of life. They don’t want to be equal, they want to be wealthier. The pillow idiot doesn’t give a rats ass about the quality of his product, only the profits of selling cheap shit. His concepts are not at all different from his fellow rethuglican upper no class members.

  148. 148.

    livewyre

    @Ksmiami: Any involvement in supporting the community is laudable. Calling on the President to start violently purging the political opposition (implying what about him if he doesn’t?) is not.

    Either you keep in mind exactly what it is that we’re fighting against, as well as what “we” means, or you risk undermining your stated efforts. All we have to go by in this place is what you say. If you dedicate your words in opposition to democracy, then those of us who more closely rely on it are not likely to view that as a gesture of allegiance. If you get my meaning.

  149. 149.

    Ksmiami

     

    @livewyre: The National party needs to inspire and motivate along with our actions as well- they have the microphone and that is part of their job- and no I don’t want Biden to eliminate the gop- but I want us to recognize we r in a different fight.

  150. 150.

    Ruckus

    @MisterDancer:

    People have been trying to shoot or slice their way out of situations for centuries. It rarely works well, lots of people die and forward motion towards a better world is at best little more than a temporary illusion. The world has changed a lot in my almost 3/4 of a century and yet it is mostly superficial change. Often beneficial in the end but it often begets more violence. Wealth has almost always been somewhere in the mix of rational and BS thought that got humans to and thru conflict, but actual structural change has been relatively minimal. I believe we are at a turning point in humanity, that we can not continue to allow the past to continue along the same path.

    I have no real idea how to get there I think it needs smarter people to see a path that doesn’t give us unworkable solutions like communism but which can at least lessen the thrall of money as the key to every answer. We are a democracy, at least in name, we as a country have worked very hard to make things better through democracy, but we have many block points along the way that favors not the concepts of democracy and equality but the status quo, which is, wealth is the answer. Wealth is a means to an end, and should not be the end product of governing.

  151. 151.

    Ksmiami

    @Ruckus: we need a new vision- a more livable, positive and humanist country to world. But Rt now we’re back-sliding into oblivion

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    @Ksmiami:

    I do know one thing. Your methodology doesn’t work. It looks like it gains but it really doesn’t. It may temporarily change things but it is like a band aid for a major stroke. It really doesn’t work. Grow up and find a better way because your way only creates more shit and moves the old and new shit down the road.

  154. 154.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Eh, there’s a lot of ways around this, and I think we’re actually at the technological point where carbon emissions in the US are going to drop no matter what the government does about it. The biggest problem now is that our participation in the global economy supports carbon-belching manufacturing elsewhere.

    The Biden Administration wants to take leadership position in the world on Climate Change, & maintain a position of superiority vis-a-vis China on this issue (leaving aside whether that is realistic). The new SCOTUS ruling just cut the knees from under the Administration. The US will not have any credibility left (not that it had that much to begin w/ post-Trump) to criticize other nations.

    I think the SCOTUS rulings of the past 2 weeks will do more long term damage to US foreign policy standing than even the Jan. 6 insurrection. Right now there is a lot of happy talk of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, & the longer term challenge from China, strengthening US alliances. However, I have to believe the Western European & East Asian capitals were just reminded that the US may not be a reliable or viable partner for the long term. This is happening when Ds still occupy the WH & control the House. What will happen the Rs control all 3 branches of government?

    The foreign policy establishment in the US (both Ds & Rs) like to talk about shared values underpinning the US’ alliances (leaving aside the hypocrisy in practice), but the recent developments are highlighting the rapid divergence in values, & not just between the US and the rest of the developed West, but between the US & most of the world, period.

  157. 157.

    Antonius

    I’ll add that all the discussion above about how force and violence don’t work is entirely disingenuous. I’m not an advocate for violence, but it would be foolish not to acknowledge that force and violence worked great to steal land from the native population and to enslave a population for a few hundred years to work it. Now, those movements didn’t lead to a society where I’d want to live, but to imply violence is ineffective is just ahistorical.

  158. 158.

    Chris T.

    @different-church-lady: apparently DougJBalloon is writing all the headlines now.

    “In blow to Biden’s agenda, Republicans assassinate Biden”

    “In blow to Biden’s agenda, Republicans set fire to most of California”

  159. 159.

    Matt McIrvin

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    but the recent developments are highlighting the rapid divergence in values, & not just between the US and the rest of the developed West, but between the US & most of the world, period.

    Between the US and the US, I would say.

  160. 160.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Antonius: I don’t think anyone is saying violence is always ineffective, they’re saying that shooting people a poor way to construct a better society. For aims that are essentially destructive or tyrannical, it works great.

    There have been times when violent revolutions actually worked, in the sense that the alternative was even worse. But the cost is always extremely high. The Bourbon monarchy was a cancer on France, it had to go and bloodshed was the only thing that would dislodge it, but it took 70 years of alternating reigns of terror, fragile republics, aggressive empire and intermittent monarchic restoration for them to get from the Revolution to a stable democratic system. It’s about as long as the entire lifetime of the USSR, longer than the apartheid regime in South Africa. That’s the kind of time scale we’re talking about.

    As I said, sometimes you have to do it. But I’m extremely suspicious of the people who seem to be itching to pull the trigger.

  162. 162.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Omnes Omnibus: Vicious screeds from “BSMiasma” are IMO best read as cautionary tales to remind us all that there’s a bit of Stalinist  (“aaaah, fuck it, just kill ’em all!“) lurking in everyone that floats toward the surface whenever frustration gets the better of us. It’s something we all have to stay aware of and fight back hard against.

    In BS’s case, its inner Stalinist has reached the skin & tattooed it with an ugly version of “The Illustrated Man” for all of us to be repulsed by.

  163. 163.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Uncle Cosmo: He’s echoing intrusive thoughts that I have ALL. THE. TIME. The reason I think and waffle about these issues a lot is that, under pressure from bad politics news, my inner edgelord has been screaming 24/7.

    But there’s a therapy concept called “cognitive defusion” that is worthwhile here. Just because you think it doesn’t mean you have to believe it. (The type of demagogue who “says the things we’re all afraid to say” is usually trying to short-circuit cognitive defusion.)

  164. 164.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @MisterDancer: Funny you should mention it, I’ve just now been reading about “involuntary relocation” – in eastern Europe during and after WW2. (Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin.​)

  165. 165.

    Chris Johnson

    @livewyre: I still often think Ksmiami is actually some guy in Moscow, or wherever the troll farms live. I realize I’m always seeing reds under the bed and all (who knew I would become the red dawn guy and the rightwingers would all be serving Russia?) but:

    If you assume that Russia’s sole purpose is to make America tear itself apart in civil war by internet propagandizing, including stuff like QAnon and infiltrating ALL political wings (such as ‘dirtbag left’, which I’m absolutely convinced is a front), and that the ONLY great effectiveness they’ve shown is in doing exactly that (they’re not beating Ukraine FFS), you learn to watch for people who seem to be community members but are invariably, ceaselessly pushing specific talking points that always come down to doomerism and civil war.

    THAT, not Republican victory, is the real goal here. Russia is setting the right wing up to be warred upon, and making sure they will war back. Republicans actually winning is not a given: if that was the goal they would not be making foolhardy desperation charges. The goal is to piss Americans off so much that we abandon democracy and governance and just fight everywhere, destroying everything we are.

    I don’t trust posters who are too dedicated to insisting that we must go to war on the Republicans, that nothing else will do or will ever happen. I think the zone is flooded with exactly this specifically because Russia is losing and this is the ONLY thing they’re good at and they did manage to put in a damn President, FFS. And then lost him.

    May they continue to lose. Electoralism and America forever. We can weather this, and the alternative looks truly shitty, because it is.

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