2020 American Political Scene

[Albany Rifles]

What I am seeing is the death of RBG and the attempts by the GOP have enraged and energized a group who were going to sit out the election....young white women. They see this as a wholesale assault on women's health freedoms and issues. Seeing and hearing multiple reports (NPR, Reuters, BBC) on this topic.

[TopHatter]

if this type of thing continues, one day the GOP will find that they face a Democratic Party leadership just as willing and eager to play pure power politics as they do; given the existing demographic trends, I don't think they will like that very much.

They know their Neanderthal days are numbered and have been since the 1988 election. Imagine winning the popular vote only once since then. It's no wonder Republicans are lashing out in every possible way.

What I am seeing is the death of RBG and the attempts by the GOP have enraged and energized a group who were going to sit out the election....young white women. They see this as a wholesale assault on women's health freedoms and issues. Seeing and hearing multiple reports (NPR, Reuters, BBC) on this topic.

Early voting seems to be quite popular. I'll be voting on October 19th myself. I wonder if there'll be Trump followers/thugs out there trying their hand at voter intimidation as they're doing in Virginia.

[TopHatter]

No more dog whistles. He's got the industrial-grade air horns out.

Charles Benedict Davenport would be so fucking proud.

But at least he's the "anti-lefty", right surfgun?

[tbm3fan]

What I am seeing is the death of RBG and the attempts by the GOP have enraged and energized a group who were going to sit out the election....young white women. They see this as a wholesale assault on women's health freedoms and issues. Seeing and hearing multiple reports (NPR, Reuters, BBC) on this topic.

I hope you are right although it won't help the current situation in the next 5 weeks. A 6-3 or even 5-4 court will spell trouble for a lot of people who were excluded in the past but then include by RBG. They could see their hard earned rights tossed back out into the street. I always felt the term white supremacy was inaccurate. Much prefer the term WASP supremacy which is much closer. We are going to protect our WASP heritage which means all others are below us on the totem pole as always since Plymouth. Order will be restored to our society. Tough luck women, gays, lesbians, environmentalists and so forth.

Edit: should have noted arguments once again on ACA and religious liberty.

[TopHatter]

Romney supports holding a vote on next Supreme Court nominee

Sen. Mitt Romney said he would support a floor vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court, essentially clinching consideration of Trump’s nominee this year despite the impending election.

Just two Republican senators have asked for the party to put the brakes on the confirmation. And with a 53-seat majority, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) now has the votes he needs to move forward with a nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the president’s nominee. If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualifications,” the Utah Republican said in a statement.

Romney said he was merely following the law in making his decision rather than taking a position based on the recent blockade of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, during the 2016 election. Romney said the “historical precedent of election year nominations is that the Senate generally does not confirm an opposing party’s nominee but does confirm a nominee of its own.”

He added that his decision is "not the result of a subjective test of 'fairness' which, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It is based on the immutable fairness of following the law, which in this case is the Constitution and precedent."

Though Romney’s position doesn’t mean Trump’s yet-to-be-named nominee will definitely have the votes to be confirmed, it does mean that McConnell and Trump can move forward without delay.

Other potential swing votes like Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Chuck Grassley of Iowa said on Monday evening they do not oppose considering a nomination. Only Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have said the seat shouldn't be filled this close to the election.
___________

And there it is, Hypocrisy Incorporated.

[JRT]

Trump Says He'll Announce Supreme Court Pick at 5 P.M. Saturday

Published on Sep 22, 2020

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would announce his Supreme Court pick on Saturday at a 5 p.m. ET news conference. He made the remarks while taking questions from reporters on his way to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on September 22, 2020, in Washington, D.C, before traveling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a campaign event.

.

...

[DOR]

Democratic 'court packing' would prompt a gloves-off political fight

By Andrew Chung

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The vow by Republican President Donald Trump and the Republicans to quickly fill U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat despite a looming election has revived talk among some Democrats of expanding the number of justices on the court.

These Democrats, along with progressive activists, say all options must be considered to counter what would become an entrenched 6-3 conservative majority that could threaten access to healthcare, abortion, and civil rights.

A plan to expand the court would likely lead to a bare-knuckles political fight with unpredictable consequences for both parties. Here are a few things to consider about "court packing."

SIZE OF THE COURT

The number of justices on the high court has remained at nine since 1869, but Congress has the power to change the size of the bench and did so several times before that.

LAST PACKING PLAN FAILED

In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt, facing a court that repeatedly struck down his New Deal legislation, proposed adding up to six justices, one for each member of the court over the age of 70. The plan faced considerable opposition, including in Roosevelt's own Democratic party, and was never enacted.

ABOLISHING THE FILIBUSTER

It is not clear Democrats would pursue a court packing plan. Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer told fellow Democrats on Saturday that "nothing is off the table for next year" if Republicans move forward with Trump's nominee.

But expanding the court would require Democrats to control Congress and the White House. They would need to ditch a longstanding procedural rule in the Senate requiring 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, a tactic frequently used by the minority party to hold up legislation.

DIVIDED DEMOCRATS

Democratic Senator Ed Markey wrote on Twitter on Friday that if Republicans seat a new justice during an election year, after refusing to give former President Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland a hearing in 2016, "when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court."

The party's presidential nominee Joe Biden has opposed the idea in the past. "I'm not prepared to go on and try to pack the court, because we'll live to rue that day," he told the Iowa Starting Line in 2019. His running mate, Kamala Harris, however, told Politico last year that she was open to court packing.

THE COURT'S LEGITIMACY

In an era of hyper partisanship, the high court's legitimacy has been increasingly called into question, particularly since the fight over Garland's nomination. Packing the court could prompt future Republicans to further expand the institution and could strengthen the view that the court is purely partisan and renders decisions based on politics rather than the law.

OTHER OPTIONS

Besides packing the court, activist groups and Democrats have broached the idea of imposing term limits for justices. This would likely require a constitutional amendment, though some scholars have proposed ways to accomplish term limits by statute.
___________

Personally I don't think court packing is a good idea, at all. The legitimacy of the court would suffer badly. As Biden said: "We'll live to rue that day"

Also, the Democrats simply don't have the balls or the unity that such a bare-knuckle brawl would require.

As I've often said, the Dems could f--k up a wet dream.

Let's all be very clear: the idea of packing the SCOTUS is not part of the Democratic Party platform.
My guess is Moscow ...
Or QAnon (same thing).

[TopHatter]

There's those racist air horns again.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday night launched into a racist diatribe against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), saying this isn’t her country and mocking her birthplace.

“She’s telling us how to run our country!” he said at a rally in Pennsylvania. “How did you do where you came from? How is your country doing?”

Omar was born in Somalia and immigrated to the United States as a child when her family fled the violence there. She’s been a U.S. citizen for 20 years.

[DOR]

Huffington Post, Sept 23, 2020
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dems-reform-bill-target-trumps-abuses-of-power_n_5f6b4d04c5b6718910f3d0c9


Dems Target Trump’s Abuses Of Power With Sweeping Reform Bill

House Democrats are proposing a sweeping bill to curb presidential abuses, a pitch to voters weeks ahead of Election Day as they try to defeat President Donald Trump, capture the Senate from Republicans and keep their House majority.

The legislation, a wide-ranging package of new and revised bills, will be announced Wednesday morning by the heads of seven House committees. It would, among other measures, limit the president’s pardon power, strengthen laws to ban presidents from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments, better protect independent agency watchdogs and whistleblowers from firing or retribution and require better reporting by campaigns of foreign election interference.

[TopHatter]

It would, among other measures, limit the president’s pardon power, strengthen laws to ban presidents from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments, better protect independent agency watchdogs and whistleblowers from firing or retribution and require better reporting by campaigns of foreign election interference.

So, in a nutshell: Accountability, Checks & Balances....and something about enforcing that phony Emoluments Clause in the United States Constitution.

What a concept.

It'll be DOA in a GOP-controlled Senate and White House.

[DOR]

Exactly which parts of the Constitution of the United States of America don't work?


This part, designed to prevent corruption by foreign powers?

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

–Article I, Section 9, Clause 8


According to the DOJ, “[t]he language of the Emoluments Clause is both sweeping and unqualified. See 49 Comp. Gen. 819, 821 (1970) (the "drafters [of the Clause] intended the prohibition to have the broadest possible scope and applicability"). It prohibits those holding offices of profit or trust under the United States from accepting "any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever" from "any . . . foreign State" unless Congress consents. U.S. Const, art. I, § 9, cl. 8 (emphasis added). . . . The decision whether to permit exceptions that qualify the Clause's absolute prohibition or that temper any harshness it may cause is textually committed to Congress, which may give consent to the acceptance of offices or emoluments otherwise barred by the Clause.”


a “present, … of any kind whatever, from any … foreign State.”
Say, 38 Chinese trademarks? Or, Saudis paying through the nose for Trumpet hotel rooms?


Question: If the orange baboon wasn't personally involved, who here would still have no objection to foreign governments bribing the POTUS?

[TopHatter]

Question: If the orange baboon wasn't personally involved, who here would still have no objection to foreign governments bribing the POTUS?

Well, Donald Trump feels that US companies should be able to bribe foreign governments/companies in order to secure contracts....and we all know how he loves being bribed himself, so......

[Double Edge]

Things going on over at my side means i don't have the mental bandwidth to play here. First i heard Bannon got arrested

[tbm3fan]

Well, Donald Trump feels that US companies should be able to bribe foreign governments/companies in order to secure contracts....and we all know how he loves being bribed himself, so......

He's got the experience having dealt with the Mafia in New York construction in the 70s.

[DOR]

Well, Donald Trump feels that US companies should be able to bribe foreign governments/companies in order to secure contracts....and we all know how he loves being bribed himself, so......

Hold on.
One minute.
Just a second.

... someone actually tried to bribe The Trumpet, before he was president?

Why? What could he possibly do that would be worth a bribe?