RIP RIP RBG

[Eric]

Yes, she's always pulling away the football from us, just like she did during the Kavanaugh hearings. But it's quotes like this...

...that make me think it's not so much because she's corrupt or misleading people, but more because she's a dithering idiot.

It's worth noting that she's currently on record opposing a nomination right now.

Susan Collins says she opposes holding a vote on a replacement for Ginsburg before the election. (Published 2020)

www.nytimes.com

 

[Thomas Veil]

"Right now" being the operative words.

"Oh, Charlie Bro-ooo-ownnn...!"

 

[SuperMatt]

Yes, she's always pulling away the football from us, just like she did during the Kavanaugh hearings. But it's quotes like this...

...that make me think it's not so much because she's corrupt or misleading people, but more because she's a dithering idiot.

I could not stand her from the first time I ever heard her speak. I cannot fathom how a single person who heard her speak could walk into a voting booth and cast a vote for her.

 

[SuperMatt]

Just saw Chuck Todd calling Sen. Barrasso (Wyoming) over the coals for his hypocrisy regarding this situation. He played clips of him saying it wasn’t right to hold a vote in an election year and this piece of trash just smiles and says “we’re having a vote on the floor.” Fthe Republicans.

 

[lizkat]

In my wildly optimistic moments, which are rapidly fading, I'm kinda still hoping up to half a dozen old school Republicans will teach Trump and McConnell both a lesson... keep their mouths shut at the moment, let a nomination be brought to the floor and then side with the Dems to defeat it.

Not all of the old school Senators are up for this hypocritical backflip on the precedent they took up to deny Obama a vote on Garland. "Too soon to set a new precedent yet again?" Well hell yeah, it was only four years ago they flocked to argue for upcoming voters' rights to choose a nominee. Now they say well the voters DID choose in 2016, and they chose Trump. Please. It's hard for the constituents of some of those endangered Senators up for re-election this year to buy into this flip even if they lean right.

And... not all of those GOP Senators would be thrilled with the idea of a zealous RC like Barrett landing on the court, even if they are unlikely to say so and are meanwhile pleased at the idea of another anti-choice conservative as a nominee.

Amy Comey Barrett in particular has come out and said she believes a judge may consciously put religious faith ahead of the Constitution in formulating a ruling. This despite the fact that the courts are a part of our government and the Constitution prohibits establishment of a state religion. She's been vetted before and got by with her answers to related questions, but it will be interesting to see how that flies if she turns out to be a high court nominee. McConnell may well try to skate past anything but a pro forma Judiciary Committee hearing and rush it to the floor. What the Senate lets pass to the federal bench in the way of quirky views may be one thing, but Barrett comes off like a theocrat's dream.

Even if she makes to the high bench (which would certainly be a deep insult to the memory of Ginsburg to begin with, leaving aside Barrett's quirky zealotry and focusing on RBG's staunch defense of women's rights), Barrett would likely find herself a minority of one on a bunch of Supreme Court cases.

It's not like the high court doesn't issue a majority of unanimous decisions every year, and a bunch more with only one or two dissenting. All those justices have read the document they're supposed to interpret, and even the fervent originalists can recognize Constitutional teeth in that paperwork. Not only that, they may have been appointed by conservative or liberal presidents but they do bring a more balanced sense that their opinions apply to everyone, not just "those damn liberals" or "those damn right wingers".

On the other hand I've read a few pieces this weekend suggesting that if a deeply conservative jurist now replaces Ginsburg, the Roberts court as such will have peaked and he'll not be the "median" on a political view of that bench any more, and that that position is actually most likely to fall to Kavanaugh. Of course Roberts as CJ would still get to assign cases, but the careful consideration of the court's legacy as still an unpoliticized entity, a view that appears to have contributed to some of Roberts' own case votes, would be gone.

Bottom line for me though is that I still can't get my head around all these folks who were screaming about the very idea of a moderate replacing Scalia now screaming for a nonpareil right winger like Barrett to go in for RBG. Yeah, it's true I don't understand so called Republican thinking any more.

 

[SuperMatt]

In my wildly optimistic moments, which are rapidly fading, I'm kinda still hoping up to half a dozen old school Republicans will teach Trump and McConnell both a lesson... keep their mouths shut at the moment, let a nomination be brought to the floor and then side with the Dems to defeat it.

Not all of the old school Senators are up for this hypocritical backflip on the precedent they took up to deny Obama a vote on Garland. "Too soon to set a new precedent yet again?" Well hell yeah, it was only four years ago they flocked to argue for upcoming voters' rights to choose a nominee. Now they say well the voters DID choose in 2016, and they chose Trump. Please. It's hard for the constituents of some of those endangered Senators up for re-election this year to buy into this flip even if they lean right.

And... not all of those GOP Senators would be thrilled with the idea of a zealous RC like Barrett landing on the court, even if they are unlikely to say so and are meanwhile pleased at the idea of another anti-choice conservative as a nominee.

Amy Comey Barrett in particular has come out and said she believes a judge may consciously put religious faith ahead of the Constitution in formulating a ruling. This despite the fact that the courts are a part of our government and the Constitution prohibits establishment of a state religion. She's been vetted before and got by with her answers to related questions, but it will be interesting to see how that flies if she turns out to be a high court nominee. McConnell may well try to skate past anything but a pro forma Judiciary Committee hearing and rush it to the floor. What the Senate lets pass to the federal bench in the way of quirky views may be one thing, but Barrett comes off like a theocrat's dream.

Even if she makes to the high bench (which would certainly be a deep insult to the memory of Ginsburg to begin with, leaving aside Barrett's quirky zealotry and focusing on RBG's staunch defense of women's rights), Barrett would likely find herself a minority of one on a bunch of Supreme Court cases.

It's not like the high court doesn't issue a majority of unanimous decisions every year, and a bunch more with only one or two dissenting. All those justices have read the document they're supposed to interpret, and even the fervent originalists can recognize Constitutional teeth in that paperwork. Not only that, they may have been appointed by conservative or liberal presidents but they do bring a more balanced sense that their opinions apply to everyone, not just "those damn liberals" or "those damn right wingers".

On the other hand I've read a few pieces this weekend suggesting that if a deeply conservative jurist now replaces Ginsburg, the Roberts court as such will have peaked and he'll not be the "median" on a political view of that bench any more, and that that position is actually most likely to fall to Kavanaugh. Of course Roberts as CJ would still get to assign cases, but the careful consideration of the court's legacy as still an unpoliticized entity, a view that appears to have contributed to some of Roberts' own case votes, would be gone.

Bottom line for me though is that I still can't get my head around all these folks who were screaming about the very idea of a moderate replacing Scalia now screaming for a nonpareil right winger like Barrett to go in for RBG. Yeah, it's true I don't understand so called Republican thinking any more.

I understand it perfectly. They want the most extreme far-right people in place. Anything they say to the contrary is simply to mask that. Watching a GOP Senator smile as he flat-out lied on TV just now iced it.

 

[lizkat]

I understand it perfectly. They want the most extreme far-right people in place. Anything they say to the contrary is simply to mask that. Watching a GOP Senator smile as he flat-out lied on TV just now iced it.

Shit. I'm gonna take your word for it, I don't wanna watch....

Yeah, I have my head in the sand today. Can't deal with it.

 

[Eric]

Shit. I'm gonna take your word for it, I don't wanna watch....

Yeah, I have my head in the sand today. Can't deal with it.

Same here, just going to tune out for a bit until things settle.

 

[Alli]

I know I posted this in another thread, but it can’t be repeated enough. Text RBG to 50409, or to @resistbot on Messenger, Twitter, or Telegram. No confirmation until after inauguration.

 

[Eric]

I know I posted this in another thread, but it can’t be repeated enough. Text RBG to 50409, or to @resistbot on Messenger, Twitter, or Telegram. No confirmation until after inauguration.

Okay, done and done. Do you want to start a new thread with this in here so it can get some more visibility?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

But what about the female electorate in those states where Republic Senators run the risk of defeat in November?

I cannot seriously envisage how - given that the function of a wildly conservative SC would be all about the threat of repealing (female) reproductive rights, because over-turning Roe v Wade is only the start - women, or, many women at least, will not be energised and mobilised to vote against the GOP over this, seeing it as an existential threat, even if they may have leaned conservative prior to this.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Well said. I too don't think Trump will have a chance in hell of "refusing to leave" after the election of Biden if the electoral college margin is substantial. The Rs at the top are sycophants and Barr is a disgrace but the machinery of federal government still knows how transitions work.

It's if the election outcome(s) end up in court over any number of possible real or trumped-up reasons that there could be hell to pay while cases are deliberated or after some rulings, appeals and possible high court involvement ensue.

That's why I hope that Biden will come in with double digit margins in both popular and electoral college votes. The problem is that the passing of Justice Ginsburg just now has created an opportunity for "both sides" to try to juice up their voter turnout, and both sides will have expected that their respective efforts will have done just that, and so heighten their suspicion of an outcome that disappoints.



Yeah I think the confusion is that accession negotiations were actually opened on about half the necessary points, although none or maybe a couple were completed.... and meanwhile they'd signed up for assorted other Eurocentric organizations... and so far Erdogan has not formally said "fuhgeddaboudit" even though it's pretty clear he's fine sitting internationally where his country sits geographically, i.e. in the middle of everything and nowhere at the same time.

The other thing to note, @lizkat is that it seems to be somewhat easier to undermine a democracy if the system in question is 'presidential', than if it is a parliamentary democracy (although the chaotic dysfunction of the UK seems to be giving the lie to that).

 

[lizkat]

But what about the female electorate in those states where Republic Senators run the risk of defeat in November?

I cannot seriously envisage how - given that the function of a wildly conservative SC would be all about the threat of repealing (female) reproductive rights, because over-turning Roe v Wade is only the start - women, or, many women at least, will not be energised and mobilised to vote against the GOP over this, seeing it as an existential threat, even if they may have leaned conservative prior to this.

Actually the focus of anti-choice activists (and there are a lot of anti-choice women in the USA) regarding the high court and Roe v Wade is this: that it will stick around, and so the idea is to get conservative justices on the high court who will quit throwing out state legislation that aims at merely making it much more difficult to access legal abortions and even birth control. Stuff like mandating that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, or bumping up the specs on requirements for physical accoutrements of clinics like how wide hallways must be and so forth. Stuff like upholding an asserted First Amendment (religious) right to deny sale of birth control at point of purchase in a pharmacy, or as an employer to refuse to pick up insurance that covers that cost.

Amy Coney Barrett even said in one of her prior confirmation hearings to the federal bench that she didn't expect Roe to be overturned. The right just figures to do end runs around it at state level... and they've been doing that effectively for a long time now. There are quite a few states with only one or two clinics that will perform abortions, which of course has the effect of also denying poor women other reproductive health care. Hence the rise in maternal and infant mortality in such states.

As for why women would be anti-choice: often it's still part of adhering to a religious doctrine. Or they haven't had their eyes opened in any one of a number of ways that can turn even some religious objectors to support for the politics of choice... events like rape or incest. Or they're just so far personally insulated from the fact that bringing another child into the world can present as an unendurable impossibility for a woman due to her circumstances; poverty, abandonment, widowhood. It's always too easy to judge someone else from better than arm's length...

 

[lizkat]

The other thing to note, @lizkat is that it seems to be somewhat easier to undermine a democracy if the system in question is 'presidential', than if it is a parliamentary democracy (although the chaotic dysfunction of the UK seems to be giving the lie to that).

I don't know. I'm still sort of speechless (in my mind's eye) over how simple it was for Putin to insert a whole layer of loyalists above regional governors to approve whatever he had in mind... despite objections from the parliament and carefully phrased cautionary remarks from some of those governors.

In more recent times I have thought about similarities in watching Trump do whatever the F he wants --tweeting a policy change for the military without having consulted them but claiming he had done so!-- and then seeing the Senate shrug it off as though it's not all that outré. But we can bet the ranch if it had been Obama making such a move, that same Senate would have been on the phone to the Speaker of the House clamoring for the impeachment articles so they could try him and boot him from the office before nightfall.

What makes America ready to shrug off the unexpected in governance by a former TV reality show host president... and yet go nuts over unexpected in governance by former US Senator? Is it all down to race in the case of how we look at Trump and how we looked at Obama? From the viewpoint of some Republicans and certainly including Mitch McConnell, it would seem so. But it's not just that, it's that the Rs have pitched anything left of center as socialist for decades now.​

In the end it comes down to the people, and what the people think they can really do about any of it. And looking at it that way, it's not clear to me that either Russians or US citizens judge it any differently. Tends to be protests and then head shaking and back to whatever else is at hand. I can't speak for how it is in the UK and whether it's different in the different countries there.

But.... I do have to say it's surprising how sustained the public response to Lukashenko in Belarus has been and how a lot of the elderly have gone out there saying they'll keep it up unless someone kills them.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I don't know. I'm still sort of speechless (in my mind's eye) over how simple it was for Putin to insert a whole layer of loyalists above regional governors to approve whatever he had in mind... despite objections from the parliament and carefully phrased cautionary remarks from some of those governors.

Russia is not a country that I would ever have regarded as an example, or model, to look to for systems of government, especially anything to do with democratic or accountable government, or a genuine separation of powers or a law based state.

This is nothing to do with Putin, or Stalin, or Lenin, or the Tsars; it is the country's history, political culture and default traditions. Twenty years of reform (especially economic and political reforms reforms which failed to deliver on utopia, and crashed the economy and destroyed living standards) was hardly going to undo the memories, habits, sense of security and political traditions of a thousand years of autocracy, and autocratic and authoritarian government.

So, Putin, in essence, was simply tapping into older - and very familiar - traditions, re-branding them as authentically Russian, and doing so successfully.

More to the point, the test for him - and why he is still successful, and something most western commentators miss - is that the west is not the point of comparison for Russia (not since the reforms of the 80s and 90s are thought - somewhat unfairly - to have crashed the economy and destabilised the state), not culturally, not socially, not economically, and certainly not politically. Rather, the comparative test is that of 1,000 years of Russian history.

If Putin can show - and he has shown - that he can deliver a degree of security and stability, half decent living standards, the right to travel (for study, work, leisure), live abroad, study abroad, and work abroad without penalty, and to earn money abroad (and return home with it), earn money at home, (and keep it) , a half decent health system, not murder his citizens by the million (a few handfuls hardly count in a country with such a history), not get involved in catastrophic wars, by the standards of one thousand years of Russian history, he would be classed as a pretty good leader, because that is a far better deal for Russians than what they had received from almost any of their other leaders over the course of the past thousand years of their history.

So, dismantling the limited powers of a parliament the was hardly out of its political short trousers, and stripping the governors of an independent power base hardly counts in the wider historical and political context.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

But.... I do have to say it's surprising how sustained the public response to Lukashenko in Belarus has been and how a lot of the elderly have gone out there saying they'll keep it up unless someone kills them.

I've written about Belarus in another thread on this forum.

I wrote of how an opposition presidential candidate - a decade ago - had said to me that there would be a day of reckoning, probably in three elections' time.

However, I think that the president misjudged the appetite of his electorate for humiliation and for being taken as fools.

And - for once - the opposition presented a united front, uniting behind one candidate, on this occasion, instead of their more usual, eternal - and endless - internal bickering, splitting their vote.

Nevertheless, I remain convinced that had Lukashenko not insulted their intelligence - and fed his own ego - a classic case of hubris - by insisting on awarding himself 80% plus of the vote and ensuring (he could not conceive of a serious challenge from a woman) that his opponent received a (frankly, wholly improbable) and risible, mere 9% of the total poll, things may not have panned out they way that they did.

For, if the opinion polls were accurate, (they gave her a lead), and nothing I have read casts doubt on their veracity, a credible result would have seen her with at least around 35-40% of the vote. However, hilariously, his bloated ego could not face the fact that even in an election he had rigged, that results might show that his popularity had fallen (and to a woman).

Anyway, had Lukashenko been able to face falling popularity in an election result rigged by himself, - in other words, had he allowed it to seem that she had garnered approximately 35-40% of the vote - which observers such as myself would have found hard to argue against - I have small doubt that he would probably still be in power, and not facing prolonged protests on the street.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

In more recent times I have thought about similarities in watching Trump do whatever the F he wants --tweeting a policy change for the military without having consulted them but claiming he had done so!-- and then seeing the Senate shrug it off as though it's not all that outré. But we can bet the ranch if it had been Obama making such a move, that same Senate would have been on the phone to the Speaker of the House clamoring for the impeachment articles so they could try him and boot him from the office before nightfall.

What makes America ready to shrug off the unexpected in governance by a former TV reality show host president... and yet go nuts over unexpected in governance by former US Senator? Is it all down to race in the case of how we look at Trump and how we looked at Obama? From the viewpoint of some Republicans and certainly including Mitch McConnell, it would seem so. But it's not just that, it's that the Rs have pitched anything left of center as socialist for decades now.​

In the end it comes down to the people, and what the people think they can really do about any of it. And looking at it that way, it's not clear to me that either Russians or US citizens judge it any differently. Tends to be protests and then head shaking and back to whatever else is at hand. I can't speak for how it is in the UK and whether it's different in the different countries there.

The thing about the US that bothers me is the fact that the country has had 250 years of some sort of representative government, one of the first in the world to set off on this path.

That this is now in the process of being dismantled in the US unsettles and disturbs me.

Whatever about Russia - and it would be a marvel, a miracle, a source of disbelieving delight if democracy were to take root there; something not impossible, but highly improbable, and the sort of thing where a window allowing of such potential, or possibility, only opens once or twice a century.

However, for such things to happen in the US, an exemplar of representative democracy, one of the original political blueprints for this ideal in theory and in practice, is profoundly unsetting.

It is not supposed to happen in the US, not the country that showed the rest of us the way forward, in theory, practice, law and politics.

 

[Thomas Veil]

...But.... I do have to say it's surprising how sustained the public response to Lukashenko in Belarus has been and how a lot of the elderly have gone out there saying they'll keep it up unless someone kills them.

We need that kind of fervor here, and BLM protests show some of that, but I'm not convinced we have enough to hold ongoing, nationwide protests. This is a country where people can't be bothered to look out the window to see if it's raining.

 

[lizkat]

We need that kind of fervor here, and BLM protests show some of that, but I'm not convinced we have enough to hold ongoing, nationwide protests. This is a country where people can't be bothered to look out the window to see if it's raining.

Yep. We've never managed to put together a national one-day work stoppage either, even after all the anti-labor legislation and rule-making the Republicans have installed since the 70s. I don't mean just union busting, I mean small print that disadvantages workers on the job and at the bank and so forth.

 

[User.45]

I don't know. I'm still sort of speechless (in my mind's eye) over how simple it was for Putin to insert a whole layer of loyalists above regional governors to approve whatever he had in mind... despite objections from the parliament and carefully phrased cautionary remarks from some of those governors.

In more recent times I have thought about similarities in watching Trump do whatever the F he wants --tweeting a policy change for the military without having consulted them but claiming he had done so!-- and then seeing the Senate shrug it off as though it's not all that outré. But we can bet the ranch if it had been Obama making such a move, that same Senate would have been on the phone to the Speaker of the House clamoring for the impeachment articles so they could try him and boot him from the office before nightfall.

What makes America ready to shrug off the unexpected in governance by a former TV reality show host president... and yet go nuts over unexpected in governance by former US Senator? Is it all down to race in the case of how we look at Trump and how we looked at Obama? From the viewpoint of some Republicans and certainly including Mitch McConnell, it would seem so. But it's not just that, it's that the Rs have pitched anything left of center as socialist for decades now.​

In the end it comes down to the people, and what the people think they can really do about any of it. And looking at it that way, it's not clear to me that either Russians or US citizens judge it any differently. Tends to be protests and then head shaking and back to whatever else is at hand. I can't speak for how it is in the UK and whether it's different in the different countries there.

But.... I do have to say it's surprising how sustained the public response to Lukashenko in Belarus has been and how a lot of the elderly have gone out there saying they'll keep it up unless someone kills them.

These are absolutely excellent observations. I in fact have some experience with the USSR and then the Russian Federation and you are absolutely right. The bar is very low for the Russian folks. Putin is a very smart guy with a his KGB past giving him all the training and insight that most Western leaders don't have. Those who were around the unregulated folds of the internet in the late 1990s early 2000s know how most cool pirate sites and hacking tools were best downloaded from websites with Cyrillic letters. Putin realized that they can build a cyber army super cheaply as they didn't have to worry about copyright and intellectual property. It was kind of the opposite, the more copyright barrier on the West the better for them. So these guys developed a decade edge in cyberwar experience over us (apparently).

In my country of origin, he had tested out the exact same strategies they deployed in the USA. This nation was already increasingly polarized but there were some shared core values, like a very strong anti Russia sentiment, which was also paired up with a super strong anti communist sentiment on the right. Now in the early 2010s internet news portal forum comments started to become increasingly right wing and pro russia. I've been there for those forums to form and I have never seen any such thing for the 10-12 years before. It really blew my mind, especially that it only took about 2-3 years to flip the country internet forums to first a russia preferring to an almost blatantly pro russia stance, which was slowly followed through into the public discourse. Also, there was a lot of neo-nazi/fascist internet activity that was also traced back to russian servers, and the same sentiments were stoked in the neighboring countries, increasing tensions in the region.

Now when it comes to the USA, I've never ever thought that this could happen. Man, I was wrong. I saw the fake news atom bomb on facebook in 2016 but I thought only idiots believe shit like this. Again. I was wrong...or at least I underestimated the power of idiots in this country. The pro russia flip happened even faster in the USA. Amazing. Trump and the current admin in said country of origin totally share the strategies on everything. Even on initial COVID response (the difference in outcome was attributable to the huge mistrust in the local healthcare system and discipline...). One thing I don't know is whether these guys coordinate, or just copy each other, but it is statistically impossible to be accidental that in two substantially different countries the same rhetoric and strategies work. I have to say, this past 4 years had been a huge disappointment.