Thought for the Day

[Stavros]

-Regulation of abortion is okay as long as it is not an undue burden on the right to get an abortion. This has led to a whole bunch of cases defining what undue burden is, including term limits, consultations and waiting periods, notification of spouse or parents.
-I agree with you about voting rights. I hope there is some headway on gerrymandering. The Supreme Court has said that if districting in congressional elections has an obviously partisan purpose, they will step in to remedy it.
-The element you're talking about, voter suppression is also important, but there was a big setback in 2013, the Shelby County case. The voting rights act required jurisdictions with the worst history of discrimination to notify the federal government of any change to their voting qualifications. .

On abortion: term-limits have been the principal means whereby opponents of Abortion unable to make it illegal, have sought to impose such strict limits as to make it almost impossible or at least reduce the number of abortions carried out in the state; but there are also arguments about abortion which go beyond the basic argument about conception, to consider the medical arguments when dealing with a foetus that is in some way damaged and beyond hope of life, or when the mother's life is at risk with a continued pregnancy. There is also the issue of pregnancy caused by rape, and these moral rather than medical issues have also divided legislators.
A Conservative on the Supreme Court may take the extreme view that a woman must carry a pregnancy to full term even if she was raped, be it by her father, her brother or a stranger, but others on the Court would object and unable to reach a conclusion, and thus term limits -rather than the repeal of Roe-vs-Wade would be seen as a 'compromise solution' that States could then continue to impose. The point would be that having a new Conservative on the Court would not necessarily tilt the judgements in favour of the Christian Fundamentalists, but would result in a compromise that protects the status quo to nobody's satisfaction, unless in conservative States the voters opt for change.

I don't really understand how district boundaries in the US are drawn, and that would seem to me to be the problem for the Supreme Court as well. In the UK constituency boundaries (recently reviewed to reduce the number of seats in the Commons from 650 to 600) will come into effect at the next election, and are based on a mix of size (around 72,400 in England, 69,000 in Scotland 66,000 in Northern Ireland, 56,000 in Wales) and also demographics defined by income and social class, the intention being to produce constituencies which have a reasonable mix (but often not possible in mostly rural constituencies).

An attempt to manipulate electoral rolls has been unusual in the UK but, ironically in view of the horrific fire in North Kensington -where the council has tried to re-locate poorer residents not just out of the borough but London itself (Hasting, if you can believe that!)- it happened in Westminster in the 1980s when the leader of the council, Shirley Porter, attempted to manipulate elections by moving council tenants, assumed to be Labour voters, out of marginal wards to replace them with owner-occupiers, assumed to be Tories, giving the council permanent Conservative control. It is considered the worst case of gerrymandering in recent British history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Porter

As for voter suppression, I can understand the point about the 1965 Act needing to be updated, but I wonder on this, as well as the other two issues above, if the Supreme Court, Conservative or Liberal is always reluctant to impose a Federal judgement on a State if that would intrude on the right of the State to make its own laws. Although it would seem obvious that a balance can be found between the two, it is notable that the Supreme Court has not enforced a nationwide ban on capital punishment because each State can determine that for itself. I think voting is so crucial to an open democracy that decisions on how to register voters or remove them from the roll should probably not be the exclusive right of individual States, and that voting rights should be the same in every State, but that the procedure for voter registration should also be the same across the country.

Lastly, it is one of the peculiarities of the US that States Rights appears to produce such imbalances in justice that lead you to this astonishing statistic on capital punishment: the death penalty is on the statute of 32 States, but the death penalty itself is only performed in 2% of the counties in those States, 60% in just four states -Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma and Florida or if you prefer, 82% of executions are performed in the South, barely 1% in the Northeast-
(this link accessed through the Google cache)
https://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ient=firefox-b

If you are a bad boy then live in California, not Florida, definitely not Texas, or at least choose Austin, and pretend to be weird.

[bluesoul]

this morning:





https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...08582310776832
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...10114456465411

her reply:



https://twitter.com/morningmika/stat...15526371176448

my thoughts:

[blackchubby38]

I agree with Tim Ryan. He seems like a straight shooter. I was disappointed by the outcome in GA 6 and didn't see it as a moral victory only because we have a limited number of better districts if we actually want to take back the house. If the take away is that support for Republicans has eroded a little bit but not enough for us to control the house, the senate, the presidency, or the appointment of new justices then I can't really be optimistic. Our brand is bad in the sense that there is a generalized aversion to it that transcends specific policies we advocate.

I just wonder what the answer is. Because Ossoff ran to the center by pursuing a pro-business attitude and avoiding less popular items like single payer health care. He was vulnerable as an outsider, both culturally and because he lived a handful of blocks outside the district and seems to fit this pajama boy stereotype the Republicans have of us. Re-branding is not easy, particularly when your offenses don't seem to be offenses at all but just differences that make you a target of mean-spirited ridicule.

Here is the answer:

https://nyti.ms/2tOWnU6

[broncofan]

If within six months we don't have impeachment hearings in progress, we don't really have a functioning system of checks and balances. Here's some of what we have. I'm sure by the end of the week we will have much more. In June 2016 Trump Jr. received an email from a man named Goldstone saying the Russian government as part of its efforts on behalf of Trump had incriminating information on Hillary. The email ends by saying the same information can be sent to Trump Sr. through a channel Goldstone has. This same email is forwarded to Manafort and Kushner and all three meet this source who wants to discuss sanctions relief for Russia (the Magnitsky Act).

Shortly thereafter the Russians release the DNC's emails to wikileaks and Trump engages in all sorts of denials about whether the Russians did this. He even denies it after he is elected and our intelligence agencies provide him proof as well as their unanimous conclusion that the Russians interfered with our election. Flynn, the NSA director is caught on tape talking to the Russian ambassador, telling him not to worry about sanctions Obama imposed on the Russians for interfering with our election. Flynn lies about it to federal investigators and Pence and later resigns. Comey investigates him for the lies and Trump repeatedly asks Comey to let Flynn go. He later fires Comey and admits it was because of the Russia thing which he insists is made up.

So we have what is basically proof that Trump knew the Russians were working on his behalf. We have evidence in public view that he repeatedly denied Russia's efforts even when he was privy to intelligence information proving what they did. Then he fires the FBI director for not dropping the probe. There is simply no way that his son, Kushner, and Manafort had direct information about Russia's efforts and he did not, especially given the fact that the source of it said he could give it directly to Trump Sr himself.

If we don't have impeachment hearings the rule of law is dead. No exaggeration.

[trish]

We heard Trump on the campaign trail publicly enlist the aid of the Russians. Who in the past could have escaped such a display unscathed? When your base is ignorant, uncaring and so thoroughly brainwashed as Donald’s you can do anything. Hell, you could shoot someone in cold blood on Times Square and still wouldn’t lose his supporters.

But yes, besides the outright invitation to meddle with our election, the evidence of interference, solicitation and collusion is beginning to mount. Seventeen security agencies (including the FBI, the NSA and the CIA) conclude Russia was without a doubt responsible for the hack the fed tons of Democratic campaign emails to Wikileaks. Just yesterday Trump Jr. implicated himself in an attempt to collude with a Russian Operative to undermine Hillary’s campaign.

If within six months we don't have impeachment hearings in progress, we don't really have a functioning system of checks and balances.

Whether or not we have impeachment proceeding, it’s evident that our system of checks and balances has serious holes in it. It would seem Congress is the only check on the President. If the Congress thinks they use the President to accomplish a partisan agenda, they can ignore any number of outlandish transgressions and keep him in power. It seems to me some laws need to be rewritten, or perhaps written for the first time. How can it be legal for the President not to divest himself of his financial interests when every other government official must do so?

Frankly, I’m not certain I want to see an impeachment. I certainly don’t want it to be initiated by the Democrats (and you will notice the Dems in power are being pretty quiet about impeachment). It has to start with the Republicans. Otherwise the backlash in 2018 will kill us. Secondly, I’m not sure I want to Pence in the Oval Office. He’s an idiot, a religious zealot and he fucked up the State of Indiana pretty good before accepting Donald’s offer the run for VP. A I especially don’t want to see Paul Ryan in the White House. I think the best bet for the Dems is to keep the resistance going and make a good showing in 2018.

[sukumvit boy]

Yes , this presidency will surely give future lawmakers a lot to think about in terms of checks and balances on presidents in the future . Hopefully including , my pet peeve , psychological fitness testing to weed out raging sociopaths from high office just as is required for many sensitive positions in government and industry today .
With regard to impeachment , the conventional wisdom is , of course , that after the 2018 elections the Democrats will gain control of the House and Senate and push for impeachment .So we may well end up with with the idiot Pence . Although , I`ll stick with my earlier prediction that Trump will finally fuck up so bad that his own party will push him from office within this first year.

[trish]

Donald made a pitch today for making the yet to be built border wall between Mexico and the USA transparent. He maintained,

"One of the things with the wall is, you need transparency. You have to be able to see through it. In other words, if you can't see through the wall—so it could be a steel wall with openings, but you have to have openings because you have to see what's on the other side of the wall...And I’ll give you an example. As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don't see them—they hit you in the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It's over. As crazy as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall."

Hey, I didn't know it would be transparent! Now I'm all for it. Think of the opportunities a transparent wall will offer to graffiti artists on both sides: the challenge of creating images and messages that speak to observers on either side. Also people could make faces at each other or either side or moon each and the guards wouldn't dare shoot at them for fear of shattering of marring the transparent wall. Others might work on scouring their side of the wall making it completely opaque. Of course you'd have to avoid the opaque sections 'cause of the 60 lb bags of drugs flying over. The artistic modes of expression a transparent wall offers are endless. Great idea from the man who's making America as great as it used to one time be, some time ago - we can't quite all agree when.

[broncofan]

Doesn't everything about the last 7 or so months seem almost surreal or unreal? I've talked to people who support Trump and it just seems that there is a bizarre unwillingness to address his wrongs. His flaws are his strengths. We've had some stupid people as president but never someone who is so reprehensible and completely absent of redeeming traits. I agree that Congress will have to step in and pass laws so that the emoluments clause is enforceable. But even if we can prevent the sort of financial conflicts Trump has done nothing to avoid we (or the electoral college) have still elected a man who is amazingly self-centered and dishonest.

One thing to consider Trish is that although Pence is a wingnut, I don't think Trump has been better on any of the issues. Although he may not possess the deep-seated homophobia and misogyny of a religious zealot he has for whatever reason surrounded himself with agents who are willing to promote these bigotries. I think at least Pence will not start a war, will not whip up all sorts of dangerous people by vilifying the media or interfering with the Justice Department. I mean Trump is supposed to be this malleable opportunist who is devoid of any strong convictions and yet somehow Sessions is his attorney general and Pruitt his EPA chief. Why do we always seem to get wingnut outcomes with him?

[trish]

The thing about Trump is that he's so disinterested in actual policies, legislation and governance that he never gets around to doing what a president needs to do to get legislation passed (thank God!). When push comes to shove he's not really much of a deal maker. Moreover his public pronouncements, tweets and comments are so distracting that his supporters in Congress (as well as in the White House) are always on damage control which makes it difficulty to get things done (thank God!). Moreover, he hasn't filled many of the essential positions required for running a competent White House (he arrived at the recent Summit without a hotel reservation because the person in charge of making the travel arrangements was 'fired' and never replaced). Trump's administration is in shambles (thank God!).

Pence is Mr. OCD (witness his compulsion to touch the NASA equipment labeled "DO NOT TOUCH"). Pence's style will be the exact opposite of Trump's. He'll be effective and alert to what Congress is doing...and this is bad because Pence is a religious zealot, a homophobe and an idiot to boot. He may or may not build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, but he will brake down the barrier that our founders smartly placed between Church and State.

[broncofan]

And if you are correct that Pence would be worse than Trump because he's a more effective leader, and you might be, do I then hope Trump doesn't get impeached? I still hope he is impeached. And maybe nobody will agree with me here, but I hope he is impeached and removed even if the long-term consequences for the Democrats are bad. This voting commission he has put together to support sham charges of voter fraud while collecting people's personal data is another insult to the democratic process. Were it not preceded by Trump conspiring with a foreign adversary to win the election and then firing the FBI director for duly investigating it, the discussion of it would be at a fever pitch. But whether we win or lose politically, there has to be consequences for undermining your own democracy and the rule of law.

What ends up happening doesn't depend upon what I wish or want anyway I guess. But you shouldn't be able to cheat to obtain power and then undermine all of our institutions and laws to hold onto it. People have to have some restraint and some limits to what they will do to serve their own interests. Trump isn't even playing the game correctly because at the base level he doesn't even consider what is good for the country or his constituents.