Essays like this help keep me sane. I’d save these two for prime time, but there’s so much news these days…
Here’s the great Charles P. Pierce, from his weekly Esquire subscription column — “The Waiting Is Killing Us”:
Nothing became the administration of President James Buchanan like his inaugural address did. Delivered on March 4, 1857, just after he’d been sworn in by Chief Justice Roger Taney, who had other things on his mind, it was a flat and lifeless attempt to hand-wave away the fact that the country was coming apart over slavery. Don’t worry, the new president said, the system was working; the issue of the expansion of slavery was before the Supreme Court. All was well. Or so President James Buchanan told the nation.
This is, happily, a matter of but little practical importance. Besides, it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be, though it has ever been my individual opinion that under the Nebraska-Kansas act the appropriate period will be when the number of actual residents in the Territory shall justify the formation of a constitution with a view to its admission as a State into the Union. But be this as it may, it is the imperative and indispensable duty of the Government of the United States to secure to every resident inhabitant the free and independent expression of his opinion by his vote. This sacred right of each individual must be preserved. That being accomplished, nothing can be fairer than to leave the people of a Territory free from all foreign interference to decide their own destiny for themselves, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.
… As he sat on the dais, Chief Justice Taney had a lot on his mind—specifically, the opinion he’d been writing in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, which was the case through which, Buchanan assured the nation, “the long agitation on this subject would end.” Historian Jill Lepore writes that the word on Taney’s decision already was beginning to leak out.
No one tweeted from Washington that week, but reporters knew a decision was coming, and they knew what decision to expect. This news they sent out by telegraph. On Wednesday, March 5th, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Taney was at home, writing his opinion. “The decision in the Dred Scott case will be delivered tomorrow,” reported a correspondent for the New York Herald, adding that the Court was expected to “decide that the Missouri compromise is unconstitutional and that Congress has no power over the question of slavery in Territories.”
Lepore emphasizes that the decision in Dred Scott was delayed because Buchanan wanted it delayed. Moreover, Buchanan leaned on one of the justices to join the eventual majority. But it’s hard to imagine either man was completely oblivious to the ongoing turmoil in the country…
The Scotts’ suit had taken 11 years to get to Taney’s desk. In that time, the moral volcano on which the Founders had built the Constitution repeatedly had erupted. Abolitionism intensified. The Compromise of 1850 made things infinitely worse. Its strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Act brought a slew of new converts to abolition’s cause. Then, two days after he’d sworn in President Buchanan, and two days after Buchanan had reassured the country that it would all work out, Chief Justice Taney delivered his infamous decision in which he ruled that a “Negro had no rights that a white man need respect.”
By the end of May, the city of Lawrence in Kansas had been sacked by pro-slavery mobs and, in retaliation, John Brown led a band of followers as they hacked five pro-slavery settlers to death. In the Senate, Charles Sumner delivered a jeremiad on Kansas that so enraged Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina that he walked onto the floor and nearly killed Sumner at his desk. President Buchanan’s inaugural address had proven less than clairvoyant.
So here we sit, waiting for another crucial decision unreasonably delayed by an arguably compromised Supreme Court. Trump v. U.S. has undeniable constitutional import. It is preposterous to argue that the president has absolute immunity to do any damn thing the president wants, but that’s where we are, waiting…
It looks as though the final decision will be of the ring-and-run persuasion. The Court will drop its decision at the last possible moment and then get the hell out of town. This would be the crowning act of cowardice of an era in which every institution of government and politics has shirked from their duty of self-defense against an onslaught of ignorance, rage, and accelerated authoritarianism. It has been a decade in which we all have lived through a re-enactment of James Buchanan’s inaugural placebo. Be at peace because the institutions of government will handle all this. Remain calm. All is well.
Painful but true from me @BulwarkOnline:
The 6 conservative justices could be Biden’s ticket to a 2nd term. They’re a scandal-and-controversy machine, constantly renewing old furors and creating new ones. Ds couldn’t ask for better material, or more of it. https://t.co/b4iq7ooDoB— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) June 19, 2024
Jill Lawrence, at the Bulwark, (snarkily) looks for the pony in the pile of manure:
THE SUPREME COURT IS CAUSING great pain and upset to tens of millions of people, and it isn’t done yet. But in the end, by which I mean the day after the presidential election, America might owe the Court’s conservative supermajority a gracious thank-you note—“We couldn’t have done it without you!”—or even dinner.
The high court’s six conservative justices,half of them named by Donald Trump, could well be Joe Biden’s ticket to a second term. Like Trump himself, they are a scandal-and-controversy machine, constantly renewing old furors and creating new ones.
Democrats couldn’t ask for better material, or more of it. Whether the issue is abortion, guns, or the rule of law, and pondering if presidents are like kings and, if so, how much, there’s a ruling for that. Sometimes two or three. And if there isn’t yet, there will be soon.
The dramatic case that will first come to mind for most people is the Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision revoking the constitutional right to abortion access. But there is also its Bruen decision one day earlier gutting state regulation of firearms. There is the March 2024 decision neutering the Fourteenth Amendment that is supposed to bar insurrectionists and their enablers from running for or holding federal office. There is the opinion last month upholding racial gerrymandering. And there is the Court’s tortured reasoning in last week’s 6–3 decision to overturn a Trump-era ban on bump stocks…
That [EMTALA] decision will draw attention once again to the crises that can occur at any point in a pregnancy, regardless of what a state bans and when, and the judgment calls that doctors must make amid persistent legal threats and medical uncertainties. So will the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision on Monday. The Biden-Harris campaign is organizing over thirty-five events to mark the date, and planning what it calls “storyteller” training so people can share their personal experiences and “put a face to Donald Trump’s cruel policies.” They’ve already released two powerful ads doing just that…
All this in a diverse country, where nearly two-thirds of adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Where voters have chosen to protect abortion access in all six states that put it on the ballot in 2022 and 2023, and where measures to enshrine abortion rights could be on the ballot in up to ten more states this year.
Character matters, as the Biden campaign says in a new ad about Trump’s felony convictions. All of it matters—accountability, democracy, freedom, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty. All of it is at risk from Trump and the Court he made.
That’s got to help Joe Biden. So thanks in advance for the assist, and (fingers crossed) dinner’s on me.
War for Ukraine Day 851: Russia Follows Up On It’s Bombardment of Kharkiv by Bombarding Kharkiv
NotMax
As bad as Buchanan was, he’s no longer at the bottom of the list.
Rocks
“So here we sit, waiting for another crucial decision unreasonably delayed by an arguably compromised Supreme Court.” What’s the argument that it’s not compromised?
Dangerman
At about 4:59, the USSC will punt and run. Kick it back to a lower court to define official acts.
J. Arthur Crank
Mr. Pierce has put out a lot of good essays lately.
In preparation for the announcement of the remaining decisions, President should get a tattoo for his right knee that has the words “official act”. Then the next time he meets with any of the 6 justices that are in the majority in person he can carry out some of his presidential duties by using his knee.
Spanky
@Rocks:
You’ll have to ask Sammy or Uncle Clarence.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@NotMax:
https://presidentialgreatnessproject.com/
One of the latest and never-ending presidential ranking articles.
At least this one doesn’t rate WH Harrison in the bottom 5. I’ve always felt he should be factored into ratings…unless being stupid at the inauguration and dying in office before you could be good, bad or indifferent, is a reason to rank him so low.
Skippy -San
The Fed Six need to go for a ride in Clarence Thomas RV and not come back.
CaseyL
SCOTUS has already handed down a momentous, democracy-destroying decision. Back in 2000, when it stopped the vote count in Florida and handed the Presidency to W. They said at the time the decision was absolutely, totally, no-kidding not intended to be a precedent to anything – and Bush v. Gore has been cited in cases since then.
So this will be a reprise: a decision tailor made for one person, one Party, and one Presidential candidate… with, I am sure, a proviso that it not be considered a precedent, oh my heavens no. (I do wonder if the US v. Trump decision will cite Bush v. Gore. Woudn’t that be a hoot,)
wjca
Trump’s greatest “accomplishment” is that he managed to replace Buchanan as the nation’s worst President ever, while simultaneously replacing Harding as the most corrupt. Gotta admit, we’re talking rate talent here.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@wjca:
Given the fact that his superpower his that everything he touches dies, yeah, that makes sense.
mvr
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: What did Wilson do to rank so well?
mvr
@mvr:
Or Ronald Reagan to rank ahead of Carter, Grant and JQA?
mvr
@mvr: Just say AIDS, Grenada, Union-busting or the war continued war on drugs and you know why he’s worse than all of them.
smith
@mvr: I’d simply say Iran-Contra.
Pittsburgh Mike
The six conservative Justices really screwed the pooch with Dobbs, but EMTALA is a true nightmare for them, because it illustrates to everyone how Dobbs is almost as bad as Dredd Scott.
They can either admit that they botched Dobbs by completely neglecting women’s health, and give Biden a win on EMTALA, overriding all these state abortion laws that they worked so hard to enable. This would make clear that there’s no real way to completely return abortion regulation to the states, and their whole project was a disaster. Preserving EMTALA *should* be a no-brainer, since Federal law should override state laws here. But the term “no brainer” really means “anyone with half a brain should be able to see this” and I’m not sure how many of the conservatives pass that test.
Alternatively, they can try to make up some reason why Federal law doesn’t override the state laws, and rule that women simply don’t have the right to be cared for in a medical emergency. With about 4 months before the election, in the hands of a competent campaign, this would destroy Trump and perhaps the entire Republican Party.
I think they’ll probably take the second alternative, although claiming that states can simply ignore Federal laws while simultaneously telling women they have no right to modern medical care if something goes wrong with a pregnancy sounds like a political disaster.
Urza
@mvr: WW1 and League of Nations. Not unmitigated success but certainly noteworthy.
patrick II
I have not been optimistic about this decision since I heard Sotomeyer say that she was probably going to cry even more in her office in the future.
smith
I’m really glad the Biden campaign is going to focus on stories to attack the GQP for Dobbs and the draconian laws it spawned. I suspect a lot of people still haven’t had the dots connected about the dire consequences for women’s health that follow from those laws. Seeing and hearing from women and their families about the real-life horrors that can befall anyone who might find herself pregnant in the wrong state should drive the point home more effectively than any slogans the GQP could throw at them.
Captain C
@NotMax: I’d say third from the bottom, behind Shrubya and TCFG, and just ahead of Warren G. Harding and drunken Franklin Pierce.
Captain C
@Rocks:
That it would be rude to point out how compromised it is? That’s all I got.
O. Felix Culpa
I hope that, if the Dems win the trifecta in November, they make Supreme Court reform a priority. The “balance of power” is totally out of whack.
wjca
Perhaps someone here can clarify a couple things for me:
First, why does JFK rank so high? I realize that he got instant deification for getting assassinated. But still, what did he actually accomplish while in office?
Second, why is Biden ranked so low? I get that the auhors are from Texas and South Carolina. But even so, it seems hard to justify.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Stunning to see LBJ ranked only 9th.
He should be ranked 4th behind FDR, Lincoln, Truman.
cain
@O. Felix Culpa:
Gonna assume you just mean the two branches of govt we can actually affect :)
If we get those two – then yes, we should pass some ethics laws around the SCOTUS.
But we got a serious amount of stuff that SCOTUS has gone off the rails on including treating corporation as people – OR if they are people, I’m sure we can craft some laws recognizing them as more than people and add some regulations since they maybe people, but they aren’t the voting public.
wjca
I think they got totally blindsided by the reaction to Dobbs. They’re deep enough in the RW information bubble that they really had no clue where public sentiment was on the subject of abortion.
This was compounded by horrible staff work. If they were considering reversing Roe, the absolute bare minimum due diligence they should have had in hand was a list of what the law would revert to in each state. That wouldn’t help with what new insanities might get passed. But how hard would it be to look at the stupid, often intended to be merely performative, “trigger laws” already on the books?
Betsy
@wjca: If you go to the JFK presidential library, your heart as well as your mind will know. I can’t say it beyond that.
CaseyL
@wjca:
JFK didn’t have time to accomplish very much, and a lot of his high ratings is indeed because he was murdered.
He did, however, get a nuclear test ban treaty signed.
He managed to not blow up the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis (when the military was chafing at the bit to let the bombs fly.)
I think he signed the first Equal Pay Act for women, though it didn’t go anywhere.
His Administration started the Peace Corps program (it was actually his sister Eunice’s project, but he threw the weight of the Presidency behind it).
He also signed the bill giving a major upgrade to the FDA’s authority to investigate new drugs and keep them off the market. This was as a result of one person – Frances Oldman Kelsey, a scientist at the FDA – refusing to approve thalidomide for sale in the US. She came under tremendous pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, and the FDA backed her up. I don’t know whether or how much the Kennedy Administration was involved in that, though if the FDA supported and protected Kelsey, I assume Kennedy in turn supported them.
Chet Murthy
@wjca: It’s my theory which is mine and I could be very wrong about it, but I think the explanation for Dobbs is much simpler: they thought they were invincible (hey, it takes 2/3 of the Senate to convict yo’!) and so they did what they wanted. “The fuck you gonna do about it?” Simple as that.
Now, well, it’s up to us to show what we’ll do about it, but the obstacles are enormous, and most of the time I think we won’t surmount them. Specifically, I bet there are ten Senators easy hiding behind Cinemansion, and they’ll stymie any attempt to break the filibuster or pass SCOTUS reform.
They think they’re the Guardian Council that rules the country, plain and simple.
TBone
I’m not sure if I’m offended by this seemingly cavalier treatment. Snark is awesome, but the rights of women (more than half of our total population) to bodily autonomy seem to me to warrant something more, I dunno, persuasive?
Again, I say
Strange to think that an embryo can lose its rights…
…if it develops into a female.
Timill
@wjca: Yup. I think they thought all abortions were down to the choice of the mother, and didn’t know about/ignored all those that were down to medical necessity. So they were just imposing their morality on the sluts in the case, and nobody would die…
After all we saw in Bremerton how they would just invent the facts to suit their ruling…
karen marie
That would require two things: accurate reporting by the media and American voters being able to add 2+2 and come up with the correct answer.
I have little faith in the latter and given, the giant thumb the media keeps on the scale for Trump, no faith in the former.
wjca
You could be right. But the thing is, the last 3 appointed are essentially political hacks.
Sure, they’re conservative/reactionary. But far beyond their ideological motivations are the political ones. And, had they had a clue about the (entirely predictable) reaction, and its impact on their party’s electoral performance, they would have found a way to finesse to case. At least enough to dodge making it a cause célèbre. But, IMHO, no clue.
wjca
Think of it like Schrödinger’s cat: the embryo didn’t actually lose rights. It’s just that, until it was known to be female, it couldn’t be known whether it had rights or not.
gwangung
@wjca:
Too hard for conservatives. It’s a hallmark of conservatives these days—they’re too damn lazy to think it through and consider possible consequences. Sloppy work and sloppy thinking to think that the Law of Unintended Consequences doesn’t apply to what they do.
Chet Murthy
@wjca: I think they -did- imagine the reaction. But
they know that they won’t go below
4041 votes in the Senate, and that means they can block any legislationand they know that they can block anything they don’t like coming from the President
and hey, they’re a super-legislature, so all they need to pass some new “law” is to get somebody to bring a case about it.
What I mean is, I think they really do think that they’re invincible, that they rule the country. Sure, maybe they can’t do everything they want -today-, but they know that in the medium-term, they’ll get everything they want. And the truth is, they still might, even if TCFG loses. B/c unless we can actually shut them down, we have to wait until they start dying. And if they get a G(r)OPer President in the interim, well, even that won’t work.
I really do think they figured there’s nothing we can do, regardless of how angry we get. They figure we’re not gonna reach for the torches and tar, and absent that, what can we do?
Yes, it’s up to us to show them. Absolutely.
Villago Delenda Est
The Federalist Society must be annihilated.
Martin
@wjca: JFK was president when the Cold War hit it’s most volatile point – the construction of the Berlin war, the Cuban Missile Crisis. He provided a hopeful future and made bold plans – putting a man on the moon. He was both a war hero and a man who was yanking the US into the future harder than any president since TR.
Leadership is a thing.
frog
@Chet Murthy:
One action that can be taken is a National Strike. Yeah sure, that takes too much energy and activism for the USA. Instead of turning out for a strike, follow the lead of many Chinese and “lie flat”. On Strike Day, stay home.
Villago Delenda Est
@mvr: Indeed, Reagan put us on the path we’re on now. Despicable grade Z movie star hack.
Martin
@wjca: I think you misunderstand the project. The project by the right isn’t to get in front of the public on policy at the court. The project is to institutionalize policy that the left can’t get ahead of because USSC and the filibuster mean that the US is institutionally incapable of moving forward. Conservatives justices on the court are an anchor on progress. That’s their job. They’re doing a great job of it.
Republicans don’t have to win the Senate. They don’t expect to win the Senate. They just need to keep 41 seats, which they can’t not do this cycle. It doesn’t matter if they take electoral losses (though they’d prefer not to) because the court and the filibuster ensure that Democrats can do next to nothing. They’re hoping that down the road the political landscape is more favorable.
Geoduck
@wjca: And even Harding I guess wasn’t that corrupt personally, he was a (self-admitted) dimwit with terrible taste in friends.
Villago Delenda Est
@Geoduck: Contrast with TCFFG/PAB who self-identifies as a “stable genius.”
O. Felix Culpa
@cain: I meant the presidency, senate, and house: trifecta.
Frankensteinbeck
@wjca:
They were appointed specifically to overturn Roe vs Wade. This has been the blood price demanded by the evangelicals who are the base of the Republican Party. A price, I will add, that the rest of the Republican Party was delighted to pay.
Anotherlurker
@Villago Delenda Est: I vividly remember the first time I saw a homeless person. I got on the #1 train at Penn Station. At 42nd St. I remember looking up and out the window of the Subway car. I saw a very disheveled woman who had a wheeled basket that was filled with possessions. She also had plastic bags and brown paper bags. This was my first exposure to the phenomina known as the bag lady. This was 1983. Just after that scumbag Reagan managed to secure his vaunted tax cuts at the expense of mental health care and a tax on Social Security payments.
I am an atheist but there I times that I wish there was a just god and fucking ronnie reagan was being tortured by demons. He was the start of the abject rot that is the conservative gop.
rikyrah
@Pittsburgh Mike:
Yes…they hate women. Let them continue to show this😠
rikyrah
@Urza:
Still a complete racist piece of shyt. Single handedly destroyed the Black civil servant class in Federal government.
Don’t get me started on that racist muthaphucka😠
rikyrah
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
LBJ – Vietnam will forever tarnish him
Prometheus Shrugged
@Captain C: I don’t know. Buchanan, the pride of Lancaster, PA (heart of Amish and Mennonite country–I grew up close to his house) was way ahead of his time as the first closeted gay POTUS. That ought to count for something…
Glidwrith
@gwangung: The bastards used a 17th century witch-hunter, someone who burned women at the stake, as a justifiable reason that women have no right to health care.
Call them what they are: barbarous religious fanatics willing to kill to impose their moral views.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I can’t believe JFK is ranked so high when he single handedly killed the hat industry.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@CaseyL:
There’s something wrong about how it’s against the law to write a law that targets one person and yet the same courts that would decide that can tailor a decision that applies in only one situation.
Chet Murthy
@Odie Hugh Manatee: They’re out-of-control, a Guardian Council, a super-legislature. This thread reminded me of this old LG&M post: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/12/liberal-constitutionalism-as-historical-whitewash
Liberal constitutionalism as historical whitewash
Worth reading, I think. Campos makes the argument that we make a mistake when we ask courts to do so much interpretation of the Constitution — that it sets us up for the G(r)OPers to do their own version of the same.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Villago Delenda Est:
That sounds reasonable and fair. Using a trebuchet to knock down a wall sounds like a great way to do it. I mean that we would be launching the Federalist members at a wall with a trebuchet.
I’m open to other ideas, also. Too.
Chet Murthy
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Societas Federalist delenda est.
Ksmiami
@Chet Murthy: yes. And burning the Court to the ground might become the most optimal choice.
Ksmiami
@Odie Hugh Manatee: armed drones can work too.
wjca
But their priority isn’t ideology. It’s “what will be to the electoral advantage of my party, in the next election and beyond.”
Overturning Roe may have been their mission, but it wasn’t their priority, if you see the distinction. I contend that, if they had realized the impact of the backlash on Republican electoral performance (see the 2022 red wave that wasn’t) they would have acted differently. What would the evangelicals do? After all, they’ve got life tenure.
Chet Murthy
@wjca: Mmm …. I would say instead that the priority was “control of the levers of government”. And they have those, thru SCOTUS and 41 seats in the Senate. That’s enough. They can destroy the administrative state, they can block any new taxes, they’ve already gutted Roe, can proceed to Griswold, etc. And there’s nothing we can do about it (so they think).
They control the levers of government. So they think.
wjca
Why?
Now if he had been out of the closet, that would be a different story entirely. Even if he only came out after leaving office. But as it was?
Ishiyama
If the Democrats hold the Senate, and if Joe Biden wins re-election, what are the odds that the Supreme Court will be measurably affected? I don’t think so – too many traditionalists in office, Democrats or not. LBJ would know what to do – arm twisting, with an implicit threat of prosecution for their myriad acts of bribery and corruption, plus charging their spouses with subversion, unless they resign. If we had an Attorney General like RFK, we could do it. “And if we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.”
Jay
@Ishiyama:
If wishes were fishes,………
WereBear
Not strange at all. Patriarchy overrides racism. I still think that’s why Obama won a contested primary.
I admire the Democratic Party giving it a continuous try, but this is why, when a friend asked me how 2008 was going to go, I replied that the man will win.
Sexism overrides racism, in my experience. Of course “white” matters. But at the time of the Civil War, even white women were in their own form of chattel slavery, known now as “traditional marriage.”
Without other people to kick around as much, the aftermath of the Civil War saw a “war on women.” They were good enough to routinely get half the pay for the same job. Once married, they had no legal protections.
Women could only come to the legislative chambers and shame representatives, such as the laws that let a wife be put away in an asylum for anything.
Baud
Via reddit, the Supreme Court and red states gave inspired other countries to be more progressive
WereBear
@Baud: We are the laboratory of the states for the world?
Our mistakes will count for something.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@WereBear: If it was sexism then how do you explain her winning the nomination in 2016?
raven
If they uphold presidential immunity does that open the door or Joe to take matters in his own hands?
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@raven: In the case of “Heads We Win vs Tails You Lose”, the court will find immunity only for republican office holders
Geminid
@raven: An interesting scenario. I think this Court will anticipate the possibilities though, and punt this case back to the lower courts. That way those lazy bums won’t have to decide the core issue until 2025.
raven
@Geminid: Call out da troops!
Baud
@Geminid:
Agree. Most likely outcome.
They did that with some other case, I think it was Dems trying to subpoena Trump’s tax returns.
NotMax
@raven
“You should never have come back, old man.”
:)
TBone
@wjca: please tell me you did not just try to mansplain that statement to me. It is snark.
Can you say fetal personhood? Maybe my snark detector needs more coffee.
ETA I see another person explained it to me too 🙄
p.a.
I can easily see a scenario where the Rethug vote suppression & gerrymanders aren’t enough this year, so things devolve with Rethug-majority state assemblies being the machine for an election steal. Joe would have to do something, and I don’t know where the statute/Constitution-legal line is drawn. May have to cross it. Will he?
I can also see a scenario where the Orange Shitstain wins. I was in a Y gym about 11am on election day 2016 and remember a CNN exit poll with the biggest response being “we need a change” and thinking “fuckFuckFUCK”.
Don’t know enough history to know if other nominally-democratic world powers in history had citizens as stupid as us. Small club I guess: British Empire, Republican France before Napoleon… Roman Republic… ?
NotMax
@TBone
What is a phrase Mr. Rogers never asked his audience, Alex?
;)
NotMax
@p.a.
“Give us Barrabas.”
TBone
@Glidwrith: ❤️👍😡
TBone
@NotMax: 💙😆
TBone
@frog: 👍
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Icelandic_women's_strike
They only had to sit out ONE DAY for their effect to be felt across the nation.
Kay
I bolded ‘from 40 states’ because WI doesn’t collect those numbers and they couldn’t measure MA for some reason – IOW the list is incomplete. Still, 37% is high – I always assume it will be around 15%, which is (apparently) on the low end.
TBone
@Chet Murthy: agree except nobody asked them. They grant cert to a bunch of bullshit cases specifically designed for a specific outcome.
TBone
@Ishiyama: 💜
Baud
@Kay:
Seems like it follows the blue to red spectrum.
Kay
The research is out of Cornell and it’s titled “Growing rural- urban divide exists only among white Americans”, which is a very honest title :)
Kay
@Baud:
A lot of red states are in the low numbers, that’s true, but there is a LOT of room to grow in some very blue states on the coasts. We have a lot of underperforming blue states.
GA is the only southern state in the top ten.
Baud
@Kay:
IIRC youth turnout hit 50% during the peak of the Vietnam war, when they were being drafted. I’m not sure how much room there is to grow. Young people are just less interested.
Nukular Biskits
@Kay:
That’s probably largely due to the outstanding GOTV, registration and voter engagement efforts of Stacey Abrams, et al.
Kay
@Baud:
Well, but if some blue states are at 36 and othes are at 26 there’s room to grow. I pick on blue states because there’s no Right wing control to put up barriers to voting. I don’t think MI and MN have a lock on young, engaged voters. Underperforming blue states have to modernize their voting laws and systems and do voter drives. California, for example, should be top ten.
hueyplong
You could argue that the pattern in those stats is young voters showed up in greater numbers in swing states, where they perceived that their votes would matter.
Spanky
@Baud: I think it closely follows public school rankings, which just might be related, eh?
TBone
The projection with these fucks is just off the charts. Dr. Ronny “Johnson” should have been prosecuted, not merely demoted!
https://digbysblog.net/2024/06/23/dr-feelgood-has-a-demand/
Then the Wapoo uncovered even more systemic drug abuse. But but but President Biden is the one who needs a drug test 🙄
Kay
@hueyplong:
Good point. They DID find that young voter participation went up with hotly contested races.
Baud
@Kay: California has pretty good voting laws, no? The NE were awful for a long time, but I think they’re improved recently.
@hueyplong: I’m sure that’s a factor, but not all of the top states are swing states.
BellyCat
As for The Yoot, the Vietnam draft primarily affected men. The Dobbs decision primarily affects women. Will be interesting to see the voting rates this fall. Suspect highest youth vote since ‘Nam and highest female vote (all ages) ever.
TBone
I pirated this and you might like it too. Aaarrrrr, matey, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/06/meme-day
Kay
@TBone:
The loonies think Biden is on drugs? What, the magic anti- dementia drug that only they know about?
I love how none of these people connect anything they’re told by their leaders to their own lives or experience or common sense – I would bet every single one of them knows someone affected by dementia. If there were a magic drug wouldn’t we all hear about it?
One thing I think about a lot is how these people are on juries. Terrifying for defendants.
Geminid
@Kay: I’m interested in how younger voters participate in Arizona this year. Ruben Gallego is a dynamic, young (39 year old) Senate candidate whose campaign could bring in new Hispanic voters in particular. Arizona’s Hispanics used to lag behind their Anglo counterparts in political participation, but they’ve been closing the gap recently. This is the second cycle that Democrats had a Hispanic candidate on the statewide ballot, after Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in 2022.
TBone
@Kay: yes, yes, and yes
The cult members think his week at Camp David is being used to “get the dosages right.” The cult masters are experts at gaslighting.
You are spot on that this is all terrifyingly stupid.
Dr. Feelgood has demanded a drug test.
Baud
@BellyCat:
🤞
Kay
@Geminid:
He’s polling well. A good pick for Democrats.
Our other favorite, Elissa Slotkin in MI, is also doing well.
She had a “tracker” following her and at one point she went up to said tracker and chatted with him and somehow she knew the names of his DOGS. He was rattled. Because she’s a former spook :)
TBone
@Kay: HAHAHAHAHAHA I LOVE IT
TBone
I’m with Morris Pearl on this one.
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/06/one-obscure-supreme-court-case-actually
sherparick1
@wjca: Trump is certainly the worse President ever, but Nixon still gives him a strong run for his money with Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, & George W. Bush all in a tie for “Show.”
I love Charlie Pierce, but he let his love of a narrative play a trick with his memory and did not check with Wikipedia, but Preston Brooks canning of Sumner, the Sack of Lawrence, & Pottawatomie Creek occurred in 1856, not 1857, as Bruce Catton’s marvelous prose describes it – https://www.google.com/books/edition/This_Hallowed_Ground/UvbL0ctV9h0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover- & were already the result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which repealed the Missouri Compromise before Taney voided it. The consequences of Dred Scott were mostly political, surprisingly driving a huge wedge in Buchanan’s, Taney’s, & Douglas’s Democratic between its Northern and Southern Wings which would come open conflict by the end of 1857, paving the way for the election of a Republican (who turned out to be Lincoln) and the Civil War because white supremacy could not tolerate the touch of democracy no more than Voldemort could tolerate the touch of Harry Potter.
RevRick
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Since there’s only one Harrison ranked, I must assume that they left WHH unranked, because he has no record to speak of.
Ella in New Mexico
Because Conservatives in general—and these six Justices in particular—are scared, selfish and deeply dependent on the psychological coping mechanism of rationalization I am hoping the delay on immunity is because they can see how Biden would still have time in his term to do whatever the fuck he wants to neuter their asses and install a Democratic Party dictatorship. And they’re planning a “ring and run” that will be against Trump’s interests.
Whatever power or refuge they hand Trump they hand Biden and the Dems, for however long he is in office. If they do go with him, they’ll have an additional Democratic wave take over the House and Senate to impeach them. They have to know this.
So unless they are willing to throw themselves on the funeral pyre with him, Trump is likely going to lose this one.
Jess
Wow. That “Willow’s Box” ad hit me right in the feels. That poor woman. And all the poor women that are facing situations like that.
stinger
@RevRick: There are Harrisons at 31 and 41, but no initials to help distinguish.
wjca
@TBone: No, it’s my snark detector that needs more caffine. Sorry.
Well, that any an inability to reference one of the sillier explanations physics has come up with in the last century or so.
rikyrah
@Kay:
BWA HA AH AH AH AH AH A
wjca
@Kay:
I take two things. Or maybe one thing with multiple implications.
First, there is a huge opportunity to flip some red states, if the Democrats can come up with a tactic which will goose theose states’ youth voter turnout up anywhere near the top levels shown. At least for state-wide offices — gerrymandering being an impediment for the legislature. It seems particularly important when the race is for the governor who will be in office when redistricting next happens.
Second, we get a glimmer of how even red states can pass pro-choice initiatives. Youth do turn out when there’s something on the ballot which will obviously impact them. Next step: get the message across that less obvious cases can impact them personally, too.
wjca
Not that strong. It’s inconceivable that Trump would sign something like the bill creating the EPA. Nixon actually cared, at least some, about the country. He may have had the wrong picture, and the wrong perscriptions, but he wasn’t utterly indifferent the way Trump is.
I haven’t looked into it, but I’ll grant you Nixon as second place. Not a close second, but second.