SCOTUS covers itself with, well, something that is closer to excrement than to glory.
NEW: During Justice Alito’s confirmation hearing, he said he’d abide by higher ethics standards than the law required, presented himself as an impartial judge with no ideological agenda and said the president is NOT above the law.
We have the receipts: https://t.co/4qBkfF8jmY
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) June 17, 2024
Laura posted this about the Supreme Court in a comment last week – it’s quite the indictment! (Not literally, unfortunately!)
The breathtaking speed that:
- they are repealing the protections Reconstruction Amendments,
- encouraging cases that claim racial bias against white people,
- the desire to return to Lochner,
- the steady accommodation of a certain type of religion into the government sphere- and for profit as they divert our tax dollars,
- the made up theorie,s
- and limited protections from the law,
- the velvet roped off area reserved for the very wealthy and their desires,
- the shadow docket,
- the disdain for precedent,
- acting as a finder of fact and ignoring their role as an appellate court,
- the rejection of the Right to Privacy,
- refusing to acknowledge the barbarity of the death penalty as it currently operates,
- the stonewalling on presidential immunity and it’s active interference of the upcoming presidential election in favor of a convicted felon.
It’s really kind of shocking to see it all laid out like that. Nothing we don’t already know, but to see it spelled out like that is something else.
Open thread.
japa21
And that really is just a partial list.
gene108
Supreme Court Justices are above the law. Alito and Thomas know this, which is why they don’t give a damn about precedent or ethics.
We are ruled by six religious fanatics.
Rand Careaga
“disdain,” please.
Scout211
In other legal or quasi-legal news, Salon has an article up about the “peanut gallery” of outside legal opinions that Loose Cannon has invited in Trump’s attempt to fight the gag order that Jack Smith is asking for. The Republican Attorneys General submitted their amicus brief yesterday.
But Cannon welcomed the peanut gallery, nay invited the peanut gallery to submit their legal opinions. And lo and behold, their legal opinions are exactly the same as Trump’s defense team’s legal opinions. Imagine that.
hrprogressive
Again, when people talk about how fruitless a lot of things seem, absent a big, massive, “black swan event” in this country, things are not going to improve, it’s stuff like this that we’re thinking about.
The Fascist SCOTUS is acting above the law and constitution, and the Democratic Party – even if they were to regain the trifecta of power – doesn’t seem all that interested in correcting it? Because “norms” and “bipartisanship” and “comity” and other bullshit we’ve been fed for 20+ years.
The GOP has stolen the SCOTUS from the people, and unless these people are forcibly removed, their power diluted by Expanding the Court, or again, some “black swan event” occurs, it will be generations before their damage can even begin to be undone, and by then, this country is likely to exist in the form it does now.
It needs to be fixed ASAFP, and the Democrats ought to be campaigning on it. Because if they don’t fix it, it ain’t getting fixed in ours, our children’s, or our children’s children’s lifetimes.
cain
Remember the whole ‘activist judges!’ accusation? Everything is a confession – that’s exactly what they are looking for.
There is going to be a decision that is going to cause a major problem I think.
Starfish
@hrprogressive:
The tone of the Democratic Party has changed, and Hakeem Jeffries has a much different tone than Nancy Pelosi did. Biden discussing the fact that he is running against a felon and that felon could potentially leave us with an 8 to 1 Supreme Court if re-elected is not the discussion of “norms,” “bipartisanship,” and “comity” that we are used to. The people fetishizing “norms” and “bipartisanship” are people with fancy political reporting jobs, and no one is in the mood for their nonsense because a lot of real journalists lost their jobs.
Remember, Jon Stewart’s comedy was a lot of “both sides” stuff, and I was skeptical of his show coming back because “both sides” was his bread and butter.
hrprogressive
@Starfish:
Have Jeffries or Biden explicitly said they want to, and would, Expand the Court to better represent the people?
I suspect they have not, and will not, because at the end of the day I don’t think they want to do that.
Because “the institutions!!”.
Chris Johnson
@cain: There has already been one. I guess they’re not satisfied with one major problem.
Some of these people have Trump disease. You can’t just double down, especially when you’re pushing a rope (or trying to swing a pendulum so hard it never comes back ever EVER SRSLY NEVER COME DOWN DAMMIT)
It’s probably a blessing, really, in an awful way. People will go along with a lot, and when bullied they’ll put up with even more, but Americans are really not homogenous enough to be treated this way. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle when it was never in there in the first place and won’t fit.
All the SCOTUS can really do is make themselves irrelevant, or perhaps cause the legal system itself to de facto reject them as leaders. They’re not really kings of the law. The law’s meant to be kings of them: they’re meant to be its servants.
Lotta right wingers have a lotta trouble with this idea of ‘public service’.
topclimber
@hrprogressive: I think the idea is to win Congress first before executing a strategy.
laura
Jeebus Pete people, that partial list was all I could come to with off the top of my head in a scant few minutes, and I tried my darndest to keep my language in check in describing the shite-baggery and fuck-stickery of the Court’s majority. I’ll wear it as a badge of honor that Villago Delenda Est found “distain” inadequate- and I’m in full agreement on that point.
I keep mulling over a thought that’s needling me- that the Court’s decisions should not be considered precedent setting or settled law, but I am coming up short on how it could be done. They are running on vibes, nothing but vibes and how they can inflict harm on the citizenry. In the meantime, I’m calling for Thomas and Alito to resign, for all the good that’ll do. Le sigh.
laura
@laura: Doh! Sorry Rand Correaga- I mistook you for VDE.
hrprogressive
@topclimber:
I think “Give us Congress and the White House so we can fix a generational theft of the highest court in the land” would be a great campaign platform to run on, and maybe encourage more people to vote for them.
trollhattan
@Starfish:
He did have his own personal war with Fuckface Von Clownstick back in the day.
vulture.com/2016/11/jon-stewart-remembers-his-twitter-war-with-trump.html
Melancholy Jaques
@laura:
And you did a great thing. A full list may have caused mental damage.
It’s hard to put all those things into a message or three that can penetrate the narcotized brains of the normie voters. We don’t need them all, but we need enough to win the White House and both houses of congress. A daunting task, no doubt, but we have to do it.
Baud
@hrprogressive:
The problem is, for those of us of a certain age, we’ve been hearing the same thing our whole adult lives, during which we’ve seen opportunity after opportunity for progress pass us by. So our choice now is to concede the prescience of the old ones who told us all hope was lost, or to reject that attitude altogether and hope against hope that our efforts haven’t come too late.
Ten Bears
Remember Soviet sleeper-cells? Infiltrating the system and destroying it from within?
Sure you do, there was a popular mini-series …
Starfish
@hrprogressive: Sheldon Whitehouse introduced a bill to increase the number of justices from 9 to 13 in 2021. In 2023, he introduced a bill to put some 18-year term limits on the Supreme Court justices.
Some legislators are trying, and old bills can be revived.
dr. luba
Since this is an open thread……
Two Saturdays ago was the final performance of the DSO’s 2023-2024 classical season at Orchestra Hall in Detroit. Not only was Beethoven’s 5th symphony on the program, but two little known works by African American and Polish composers. It looked to be a wonderful evening.
My friend Carmen and I went to the pre-show concert talk, and then ran into friends who had access to the major donors lounge. They had just left there, having been informed that there was a major celebrity there that night……Rudy Giuliani. They didn’t want to deal with him, and actually wondered if they could get him kicked out…..we all expressed our mutual disgust.
We were in my usual Saturday seats: second row, on the center aisle. These are proper theater seats, the row in front of me being moveable wooden chairs, often used by people with disabilities, or moved so that wheelchairs can be placed there.
Tonight there was a bit of hubbub, as some rich looking couple took their sets there, while waiting for their guest to arrive….and he did. You guessed it. I was stuck sitting behind Rudy Colludy himself.
I can report that the no longer dyes his hair, and he is stockier than I expected (much like Trump himself). Gas issues were under control. He had some woman with him–girlfriend, I assume–and a toady. There was also some security guy (he had the requisite earpiece) sitting 10 rows back. Not much of an entourage……
Now, I have had these seats for years, and I can honestly say I have never had the chair in front of me creak throughout the entire performance like it did that night. I can’t even recall ANY creaking of not before. Rudy was as squirmy as a 5 year old in an uncomfortable suit. I mean, my nieces and nephews didn’t squirm half as much when they were kindergartners and I brought them.
At the intermission, several people came up to him to get their photos taken (one while making devil’s horns on Rudy). And several musicians (first violins), for whom I have now lost all respect, stopped to shake his hand.
The toady was a hoot–he stood when Rudy stood, drank from his water bottle when Rudy did, and laughed at Rudy’s jokes and responded admiringly to all of Rudy’s comments. Carmen taught me a new and useful Spanish term–“chupamedias.” It translates to sock-sucker, and means the same as lickspittle or suck-up.
GF was inappropriate–she called out to the musicians on the stage, which one does not do at the symphony. The last concert-goer I know of who did this was a drunken Scotsman who did not return to his seat after intermission. The ushers took care of him….
This being the DSO, we behaved well, making snide comments among ourselves only. But we suspect the toady hay have been hispanic, as his ears perked up when Carmen repeated the term chupamedias to me as I was trying to learn it…….
smith
@Scout211: Amazingly, Cannon almost immediately denied the request from the GQP AGs to get involved. As you say, it was her own foolishness in letting several outside lawyers jump into the middle of the Felon’s attempt to disqualify the Special Counsel that invited more of the same for this issue.
rikyrah
@laura:
infuriating, but extensive list.
hrprogressive
@Starfish:
Cool, I’m glad he gets it.
Now find me 59 other Senators, 235+ House Members, and 1 POTUS who do, too.
hrprogressive
@Baud:
It’s one thing to hope that everything isn’t lost, but it must be done as clear-eyed as possible, and sadly, I think a lot of people (not this space in particular, but other left-leaning spaces) just aren’t honest about the reality of the situation and its ramifications.
Scout211
Oh, good. Thanks for the update!
Chet Murthy
@smith: I’m so old I remember when the RAGA (Republican AGs Association) paid for buses to bring Jan 6 coup participants to DC. Gosh, nothing got done about that. Shocked, I am.
Baud
@hrprogressive:
Most people aren’t clear-eyed most of the time, or we wouldn’t be facing as many difficulties as we do.
sab
@Scout211: And of course law and order Dave Yost, AG Ohio, is among the 24. Keep America safe by leaving classified documents lying around in a resort hotel for the guests’ entertainment.
trollhattan
@dr. luba: So random and weird. I’d pause at “famous person right in front of me” and move right on to “oh sweet god, it’s him.”
As to why Rudy’s in Detroit, he mistake it for Milwaukee?
Starfish
@hrprogressive: None of that is going to happen
a) before an election and
b) in an environment where there are near ties in the number of people willing to do stuff in the Senate
The thing about needing 60 votes to get a thing done in the Senate is garbage, and that needs to die. Some of the “traditions” that are not real rules need to go away. For example, anonymous holds, and other types of abusive holds like what Tuberville was doing with all the military promotions need to go away.
Chet Murthy
@Starfish: And as (IIRC) Adam noted, these changes in the Senate aren’t happenin’: there are too many Dem Sens who draft behind Cinemansion, and if those two are removed, they’ll emerge … with the same damn positions on these issues.
trollhattan
At what point does Boeing hit negative plane sales?
Dutch Roll can also refer to being mugged by a guy named Thijs.
Chet Murthy
@trollhattan:
“There always money in
the banana standair tanker sales”Harrison Wesley
@trollhattan: So a Dutch roll isn’t a breakfast food and a Dutch baby isn’t an infant.
sab
@hrprogressive: @Starfish:
I got in a big argument with my husband today about this.
I agree with Ian Millhiser at Vox ( sorry I am a luddite and cannot link) who thinks that open bitchinng about Durbin and comity before the election is very risky. Bitching about Democrats suggests that right now it is Democrats who are also holding up reforms. With the House under Republicans there is not a damn thing that Democrats can do, and we shouldn’t do or say otherwise.
Save the specifics until after the election. Right now we have to focus on how fucked up the Court is and how the Republicans are each and every one of them publicly okay with the current Court’s behavior
ETA: I am not saying that either of you were Durbin bashing. I was just looking for an opening to address the dangers of us criticizing our own side at this time. After the election is when we should start bitching about our old farts in the Senate.
SiubhanDuinne
@Starfish:
Also, Bill Maher. I cannot tell you how fucking sick I am of people sending me Bill Maher clips, thinking I must be a fan because he sometimes says something critical about a Republican.
TBone
Jamie Raskin and Dahlia Lithwick on this subject (Congressional power of oversight) in case anyone missed it.
msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jamie-raskin-explains-what-america-could-do-to-fix-the-supreme-court/ar-…
Ryan
It’s like we live in Iran or something!
Jay
Canada’s Minister for Justice, today announced that Canada had paid $276K USD for Ginni and Clarence’s travel to attend the Bakersfield Monster RV and Insurrection Festival last year.
He admitted that Canada didn’t get anything out of it, “but everyone was doing it for some reason and we didn’t want to be left out”.
Baud
@Jay:
You’re golden if Canada needs something from the Supreme Court.
Starfish
@SiubhanDuinne: Bill Maher is the worst! Why are there so many unfunny white men in comedy?
Baud
@sab:
I agree. And frankly, it’s real easy for bad faith acts to steer people of good faith into discussions that turn focus away from where it needs to be.
Citizen Alan
All these angry comments about the state of SCOTUS when everyone knows that what really matters is all the Buttery Males!
Baud
@Starfish:
iMHO, humor often depends on context, and a lot of these old white guys haven’t updated theirs.
Trivia Man
@dr. luba: Shout out to DSO at Meadowbrook, many a beautiful summer evening show there.
Starfish
@Ryan: Iran has better food.
Chet Murthy
@SiubhanDuinne: I get somewhat infuriated with Stewart from time-to-time. Like that “rally for sanity” bullshit he tried back during Dubya’s time [yes, he’s been at this bothsides shit for a long, long time]. But in his favor, he’s mentored/promoted a shit-ton of excellent progressive comedians (Colbert of course, but Sam Bee, Jessica Williams, Jordan Kleppner, Larry Willmore, Michelle Wolf, the list goes on and on) who do excellent work. So there’s that.
Maher …. bleargh. Just bleargh.
Chris Johnson
@smith: I both like and don’t like Cannon doing that. It means she’s aware she’s bending and twisting the law at the behest of the man she’s actively trying to get cleared of the charges he’s guilty of, and that there’s lines she won’t cross.
I DON’T like that she seems to be aware of the lines, and the thin ice she’s on. ‘cos if she fucks up, she’s just another conspirator, or even out of a job. And if she retains a sharp enough view of what she’s NOT allowed to do, she stays in that job, and I do not like such a treacherous person to be in that job.
Ah well, Trump is already 34 felons. I would like him also to be proved a traitor and spy, but it’s still mid-June.
SiubhanDuinne
@Starfish:
I find nearly all of them tiresome at best. And while I still think Colbert is funnier than most, I’m going to ignore him completely if he doesn’t drop the lame “Biden’s So Old” shtick.
sab
@SiubhanDuinne: I agree. My dad died of dementia at 99 this year, but he was still pretty sharp at 86. Biden’s mother was in good shape into her 90s.
Trump, on the other hand, has a family history of earlier onset dementia, in addition to having a personality disorder that can have catastrophic decompensating symptoms.
RSA
If this is an open thread, here’s a video from Jiskefet, a Dutch comedy show, titled “English Sports.” It is so Pythonesque that its age (2014) doesn’t show at all.
youtube.com/watch?v=E_6d3JBBo4s
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The defintion of being clear eyed on this blog means shitting on the efforts of people trying to make a difference. As @hrprogressive just did and he/they are not alone in doing this
One makes these efforts not because they are delusional as the doomers/self anointed realists proclaim but because not doing anything means the other side wins by default.
Manyakitty
@Baud: one of my former professors has clearly forgotten that he taught critical thinking as recently as last semester. He’s the first one I see to gnash his teeth and rend his garments over the latest batch of right-wing BS. Today’s trick was how Biden glitching out at G7 won’t play well in Peoria. I dropped several articles debunking that mess and at a loss about how so many educated, otherwise intelligent people are such credulous fools. DON’T BE A SUCKER.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chet Murthy:
We watched Colbert after his jump to CBS and were good until the Plague Times started. We’ve tried watching him again post-Plague but haven’t stuck with it. Something got lost with us.
Bee and Willmore had great shows, different in their own way but equally great. We also really liked Wolf’s show but apparently were two of about 30 people who did.
And let’s not forget John Oliver in the “great people to come out of TDS”.
Maher’s always been at heart an asshole glibertarian. He’d describe himself with the odious “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” label on ‘Politically Incorrect’ back in the day and fundamentally, nothing’s changed with him.
He’s also a misogynistic asshole. Oh wait, that’s redundant.
lowtechcyclist
A coupla thoughts:
1) We can’t fight all the battles at once.
In fact, right now, the election is really the only battle we can fight. Anything requiring legislation requires holding the Presidency and Senate, and regaining the House.
Once the election is past, assuming success, we can move on to the battles that involve or are related to legislation, like the filibuster. If we fail to hold the White House or Senate, or fail to win the House, we’ll have a whole different set of battles on our hands afterwards. So while a bit of advance planning is good, it makes no sense to waste a whole lot of psychic energy and angst on the battles that we may or may not even get to a place where they can be fought.
2) Certain Senators were hiding behind Manchinema for a reason. If we get to that point, we’ll see how much they like the white-hot spotlight. Maybe they’ll be just as strongly opposed to filibuster reform when they’re out front blocking it, or maybe they will wilt in the heat. No point in debating which is more likely unless and until we get there.
Like I said, just a coupla thoughts. I’m done.
sab
@trollhattan: The FAA certainly is more active and effective with Buttigieg as their boss than it was under Elaine Chao.
New Deal democrat
Aside from expanding the Court, another other reform that can be accomplished without need for a Constitutional Amendment is for both Houses of Congress to pass internal rules of procedure establishing a “Code of Good Behavior” for all federal judges, the violation of which will trigger an Impeachment investigation in the House and grounds for conviction in the Senate (because judges actually serve “on good behavior”).
Since these would be internal rules governing procedures in the Houses of Congress, they would be protected under Article I and beyond the jurisdiction of the Court.
Yes it’s true it would be nearly impossible to get the 2/3’s majority needed to convict in the senate, but Justices are not immune to psychological pressure, and might get fed up enough to retire.
Similarly, a second reform is that the Houses could adopt internal rules dealing with cases where the Court has held that Congressional Statute X doesn’t allow bureaucratic rule Y, moving bills to the effect of “oh yes it now specifically does” to the front of the Legislative calendar. Imagine if, e.g., by operation of internal rules both Houses of Congress passed a bill by next week stating that bump stocks did indeed convert a semi automatic to a machine gun, or that within a week of Shelby County there was a bill on the President’s desk applying Section 5 of the VRA automatically to all States? Again, an internal rule and protected by Article I.z
Baud
@Manyakitty:
I used to feel that way. I’m falling more and more into the “CRT explains everything that seems delusional” camp. Doesn’t explain Cornel West, so it’s not perfect. But it’s a good rule of thumb.
zhena gogolia
@dr. luba: Wow. What was Giuliani doing in Detroit?
zhena gogolia
@sab: I agree.
Baud
Password protected posts!
I bet they’re talking about me.
Manyakitty
@Baud: makes as much sense as anything else.
Manyakitty
@Baud: yeah, that seems odd.
RaflW
@dr. luba: At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I once sat directly behind Ann Richards and her white, big hair hairdo at a play in Austin, TX. Pretty sure she was the Gov. then (or maybe just before?).
I was delighted to be so close. My theater partner and I left her alone (I think when we all stood for intermission, I or he might have said “good evening” with a smile and that woulda been it), and she was a perfectly well behaved patron. The play was a one man show about LBJ, probably “Lyndon”, starring Laurence Luckinbill c. 1991.
gene108
@Chet Murthy:
Being one of the first people to call out the bullshit of right-wing media, the Iraq War, and Bush administration, twenty years ago, was a great service. Stewart, along with Olbermann, and to lesser extent Maher really did do some good calling out of the Bush era bullshit.
They’re all cranks deep down. Olbermann acknowledges he can be difficult. Stewart still can call our right-wing bullshit effectively, when he’s faced with it. Maher is a lost cause, in my opinion.
thruppence
The next post is password protected? Wut?
NutmegAgain
@trollhattan: At least it didn’t happen with the Dutch king flying the thing. Apparently he did fly the giant jet that brought him & wife to the US recently, and from city to city. (Guy was a former commercial jet pilot, which is the kind of commitment to a job–a real job–that I personally like in a king.)
Scout211
Likely a glitch occurred as WaterGirl was composing a post.
Maybe someone should send her an email to let her know?
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
This I like.
ETA: A big problem is that the Republican 6 on the court are saying Congress needs to be more active, while Republicans in Congress are preventing reforms that would make Congress more active.
sab
@Baud: Yes. A bunch of Republicans voted to ban bumpstocks.
Baud
@sab:
It was a Trump rule because people were mad about one of the maybe shootings, i think Las Vegas.
Mousebumples
@Scout211: looking at the details from my RSS reader, it looks likely to be a pre written thread for the NC fundraising that she mentioned earlier today – likely scheduled to post for tomorrow.
My vote? FYWP.
MomSense
The SCOTUS completely depresses me. It’s been 36 years of warning every presidential campaign that the courts are on the ballot, especially the Supreme Court.
George HW the so-called moderate is responsible for Thomas FFS. Republicans cannot be trusted with the courts or the economy.
Old School
The password protected post went poof.
Miss Bianca
Baud
@MomSense:
100%.
schrodingers_cat
Corrected for brevity and accuracy.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Also 100%.
TBone
What even IS a password protected post??? I do not fathom.
Steeplejack
@TBone:
Something is screwy with the blog. That post is dated June 1, and now there are out-of-date posts from Anne Laurie and Adam Silverman also dated June 1.
Steeplejack
@Scout211:
I texted WaterGirl and left her a voicemail message.
Chris
@gene108:
I think Jon Stewart’s heart’s in the right place, but his head’s been way too molded by decades of “both sides” crap going essentially unchallenged in the public forum, and it wrecks his judgment far more often than his should.
Bill Maher I think is the opposite. He’s got just enough of a head on his shoulders to realize how fucked up the wingnuts are, which is why he still rips into them periodically. But his core nature is to be a smug little troll whose purpose in life is to shit on anybody who doesn’t look at the world with his sense of ironic detachment, basically an upscale version of South Park‘s Stone and Parker, and his head just isn’t enough to restrain that nature most of the time. And the older he gets, the truer that is.
Olberman I never watched enough to get a sense of.
TBone
@Chris: Olbermann got me thru the Dubya years. I was so relieved to see I wasn’t the only one yelling! His style is aggressive and snarky and he doesn’t hesitate to raise his voice (decibels). It was a lifesaver at that time.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=iSyWPHXsijA
M31
@dr. luba:
fucking Rudy what a piece of shit, and it’s so hard to believe he’d be a guest of anyone at all, wtf
I’d be so tempted to just slap him on the back and say “how’s it going, scumbag!?” but that got the last guy arrested so
Jay
@TBone:
Front Pagers often “write” an upcoming post on the BJ Site, sometimes well in advance of posting*, but don’t publish it.
Because it’s sitting on a “communal” page in WP, it is password protected so only the author can modify it, edit it, add to it or post it, or *schedule it for autoposting it.
So, if there is a brain fart by either WP or the author, a tab will appear, but us plain jane Jackals can’t get there from here.
SW
What’s with the Nazi salute by the wing nuts in the first photo?
WaterGirl
The password protected post should no longer be showing up. If you have the password protected post open, please close it, and then all should be good as soon as your cache clears.
TBone
@Jay: aha! Lightbulb is now lit, thank you.
TBone
@SW: the bumpstocker 6 are all holding coathangers.
WaterGirl
@laura: I thought your list was great, which is why I promoted it on the front page.
Now you get to see what it’s like for a front-pager when you put up a post and lots of folks ignore the 95% they agree with, and jump right in with the one thing they don’t agree with.
Melancholy Jaques
@lowtechcyclist:
In fact, right now, the election is really the only battle we can fight.
I’ve been saying this for a year or more. Nothing matters more and everything is up to us.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Magdi Jacobs knows what that’s like:
Ed. Jacobs attributes this critical nitpicking to a thirst for “one-upmanship.” I think it might be a sign of insecurity.
Mapaghimagsik
Our silkie chicken, Sally, passed away after 7 years of chickendom after being rescued from a flock all but her eliminated by Hawks. For a chicken, it’s a good run, and we thought she’d outlive our current flock, too.
JaySinWA
You’re in Dutch now. //Dutch uncle
TBone
Mood music 🎶😆
youtu.be/jMkdvY2Z2Xk?feature=shared
Another Scott
@trollhattan: Maybe he’s hiding from another subpoena??
Cheers,
Scott.
Eric Paul Jacobsen
@hrprogressive: Well said!
zhena gogolia
@Mapaghimagsik: I’m sorry. That’s a great name for a chicken.
MagdaInBlack
@Mapaghimagsik: Awe, I love the little Silkies. I had a couple of them and I also had a little black Cochin banty rooster that would ride on my shoulder. Their fun, aren’t they? Glad she had a good long life with you.
Mapaghimagsik
@zhena gogolia: she was part of a jack, Sally, and oogie set, and she outlived them all. I was beginning to wonder if she survived by the rest of her small flock dying off.
smith
@trollhattan: The Felon was in Detroit over the weekend — that’s where he stuffed a Black church full of white people and then headlined a nazi convention. Sounds like Rudy’s kind of jam, too. I’m amazed he could fit in a concert with all that going on.
Steeplejack
@Mapaghimagsik:
Condolences on Sally. 🌈 🐔
JaySinWA
@dr. luba: Re Rudy siting.
Perhaps all the fluid finally leaked out.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I agree with you, but I have started my 2024 messaging and I specifically mention the economy because the Republican brand is good on the economy. It’s like the way people ask for a kleenex instead of facial tissue. The kleenex brand is so strong that it is what we think of first.
That every Republican president since Benjamin Harrison in 1889 has presided over a recession hasn’t taken hold in the public awareness. That is why I specifically mention the economy.
TBone
Video SHAZAM ⚡ at the link
digbysblog.net/2024/06/17/fight-fire-with-fire/
Baud
@MomSense:
Including Ike and Coolidge?
Another Scott
@New Deal democrat: Yes, this is another area where Congress has allowed its power to atrophy. Oversight of the courts is vital when the monsters are trying to roll back the clock to the middle ages.
Your comment reminds me of the recent Alito tape. He was asked about the investigation into the leaking of the Dobb’s decision. He said they couldn’t figure out who did it because they don’t have subpoena power and are not an investigative body, and the person who looked into it could only go so far because of those limitations. It’s all so awful that the evil leaker will never be found…
“Separation of Powers” doesn’t mean that the SCOTUS can do whatever it wants because nobody can investigate them or make them follow the rules or whatever. Congress needs to bring the hammer down on these monsters. They are not kings, they are not super-legislators, and they cannot play Calvinball with our laws, norms, and all the rest.
Fight for 15!!
(Starting in January.)
Cheers,
Scott.
smith
@TBone: The Felon has an interesting few weeks coming up — not only the debate on the 27th (if he dares), the immunity decision probably very soon, and the sentencing on July 11, but the likely release of Grand Jury transcripts in the Epstein case, which may well add to the record of the Felon-As-Sex-Predator.
Don Jr was trying to get ahead of it today by asserting that his dad never flew on Epstein’s plane, and the internet kindly obliged him with screenshots of manifests for the plane, which were released at the time of Maxwell’s trial, showing him flying 7 times. There’s probably a lot more to come.
MomSense
@Baud:
Ike 1958
Coolidge took responsibility for some of the policies that led to the Great Depression, notably agriculture policy and early bank failures
gene108
@Chris:
I think Jon Stewart is basically a very cynical person and/or very skeptical of what someone tells him.
“So you say it’s true, now explain to me why”, and he gets going from there. Works great when interviewing
professional liarsRepublicans, but gets tedious when people are talking to him in good faith.It doesn’t matter who is telling him anything or however he gets information. His instinct is to question it.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: What turned me off Stewart was the tongue baths he used to give to Bush Administration personalities including torture architects like John Yoo and Rumsfeld.
Compare that to how he treated Obama and Pelosi when they were on his show.
geg6
@TBone:
Same.
lurker
@Geminid: in my experience, one-upmanship and insecurity tend to go hand in hand
dr. luba
@trollhattan: He’s a Trump surrogate, and there was some sort of event in Macomb county (aka Trumplandia).
dr. luba
@Miss Bianca: Yes, I was amazed, too. He was brought there by some rich GOP couple that I’ve never seen before,
VIPs usually sit in the private boxes, but he was down with the hoi polloi. Apparently his sponsors either weren’t rich, or weren’t regulars.
He pontificated about the program during the intermission to his entourage of 2. I didn’t listen closely, but heard him going on about russian music. The composer was Polish…..
dr. luba
@smith: My show was two Saturdays ago. Felon was not around then.
And yes, we in Detroit were highly impressed by 45’s outreach to Black people……about a dozen actually showed up at the church! The rest were redcaps.
New Deal democrat
@WaterGirl: FWIW, my impression of the comments in this thread is 95% agreement on the substance.
eclare
@dr. luba:
She called out to the musicians on stage??!!
Holy fuck. I guess she got into the box-o-wine early.
Villago Delenda Est
Annihilate the reactionary scum of the Federalist Society. The whole organization is highly ideological and ethics-free.
Villago Delenda Est
@laura: Yup, “disdain” is about a tenth of the way there. Here’s your badge, wear it to your next big night out!
New Deal democrat
@Another Scott: FWIW, according to Josh Chafetz, in colonial times legislatures had no problem hauling judges in front of them, and holding them in contempt if necessary.
Alito might change his tune if he spent the rest of a Congressional term locked up in their basement (and yes, I would support this assertion of Congressional power).
eclare
@trollhattan:
“One-off,” oh thank dog, that makes me feel better about Boeing.
/s
TBone
@smith: Trump Denouement Syndrome getting ready to go into overdrive 😎
eclare
@Chet Murthy:
Don’t forget John Oliver, who subbed when Jon took a summer off to make a movie.
Villago Delenda Est
@dr. luba: How can the supposedly “bankrupt” Oozy Ghouliani afford to travel from New York to Detroit for a concert? That’s the question I want answered.
eclare
@Chris:
Olbermann was at his best when he hosted SportsCenter on ESPN with Dan Patrick.
YMMV.
eclare
@Mapaghimagsik:
RIP Sally.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
Don’t forget Kathleen Sibelius, on the show to explain the ACA. All POC or female. He was absolutely brutal to her.
Ksmiami
@laura: the way this stops is blue states start ignoring the Court and then letting things shake out from there. This court has no enforcement mechanism and the quicker our allies start fighting this way, the better. And it will be done for the Rt reasons- to ultimately protect people from a tyrannical busy body government.
Dan B
The loss of the right to privacy is especially disturbing to me because it’s one of, if not the number one, reason that LGBTQ+ people can live their lives with some respect. The people who want to ban all books with one iota of positive content about LGBTQ+ people will demand to ferret around in the lives of anyone they don’t like whether it be because they believe they’re perverse groomers or because they have a vendetta. It would restore the terror of HUAC and the Mc Carthy era and grant the power to harass, legally, anyone suspected of any bad behavior or moral ambiguity. Alito and Thomas would love this
It also scares me because I’m a potential victim of such a witch hunt as are many of our friends.
Soprano2
@Chris: Bill Maher is obsessed with “woke” being bad. I think he’s mad that the kids don’t think he’s cool and don’t laugh at his jokes anymore. He doesn’t want to update his act, he thinks because he thinks something is funny everyone should think it’s funny. To him “woke” has ruined comedy, so he doesn’t like it.
like a metaphor
@hrprogressive:
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: I missed that. I probably had already stopped watching him by then. That stupid rally he did in DC got on my last nerve.
phdesmond
off topic, but i loved this headline from the Guardian:
Book about book bans banned by Florida school board