US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/wjxjbg7ea0euygict0g48a.png

He gets off on the Majesty of the Court. He wants no controversy. Why destroy when you can pull the string and watch it unravel? Let the Sanderses and McConnells of the world join in battle.

really want to hear more dem candidates scream "abortion on demand without apology" from the stump

She's right: he won't. The John Roberts Way is to gut precedent (e.g. Shelby).

Charles of Mic Dicta agrees.

The way this works is that Kavanaugh is going to do what Kennedy did: uphold the central premise of Roe while finding virtually every state statute short of an outright ban meets the standard in PP v Casey. The way the media talks about abortion jurisprudence is a failure. https://t.co/YB6yHhQEvs

— Charles, gHost of Mic Dicta (RIP) (@Ugarles) October 4, 2018

NB: Trump won by flipping MI, PA, and WI. All three have Dem senators up for re-election next month. All are "no" votes on Kav. All are leading by 10+ points.https://t.co/eak32MVySb

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) October 4, 2018

Hugh Hewitt is a moron

Dems should just start pushing for a federal law legalizing abortion instead of relying on this weakass Roe v. Wade precedent to hold shit together.

Seems to me the odds of that passing are better than a court-packing attempt (which has far more wide-ranging implications)

yeah I'm kinda surprised that I'm hearing serious-ppl talk about court-packing. if the dems also start abandoning political norms the end game isn't 'we win some battles' it's 'democracy actually collapses because we're playing a game w/ nihilists'

are we not also nihilists

I mean I am

on thursdays

xp to shakey

but couldn't the new conservative SC just strike down that law? along with any other progressive legislation they don't like?

They should try to pass a federal law legalizing abortion*.

*exclusions may apply for all pregnant women.

the Constitution doesn't say anything about abortion. If the feds passed a law legalizing it I'm sure there would be legal challenges, but it isn't clear at all to me what precedent or Constitutional statute it violates. Ruling against it would require the bench to actually legislate that life begins at conception, and good luck with that - that's not in the law anywhere.

the whole way abortion law works in this country is that the *states* passed a bunch of laws, and the SC upheld laws that legalized abortion using a pretty weak and odd reading of the right to privacy clause. We've been living under this framework ever since, and it's pretty weak. But if Congress passes a law, the SC would need to find some Constitutional rationale for why abortion *wasn't* legal and that is much tougher.

Bob Menendez knows a bullshit investigation when he sees one.

Just read the FBI report on Kavanaugh - if that’s an investigation, it’s a bullshit investigation. pic.twitter.com/9D8oeVMEoU

— Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) October 4, 2018

current anti-abortion jurisprudence doesn't argue at all about whether or not abortion itself is legal, it all has to do with whether restrictions (which are usually passed by states, and sometimes by Congress) don't violate the Roe v. Wade precedent. And the conservative legal tactic has been to say that pretty much all restrictions are fine, which de facto makes abortion illegal without explicitly saying that "abortion is illegal because life begins at conception". A Congressional law would force the issue. And probably in the pro-abortion camp's favor.

xp

Thank you, Justice Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor, for "strict scrutiny."

Don't get me wrong it would be a huuuuuuuge fight and incredibly costly politically, but with a Dem Congress and a woman in the White House... it's possible

otherwise what we're likely to be left with are a bunch of states where an abortion is basically impossible to obtain (all of the south, most of the midwest) and abortion on demand in the rest of the country. Which is crazy, since it clearly means the Constitutional right to abortion in those states is being unfairly curtailed, but that seems like the likeliest path for the Roberts court.

yeah I'm kinda surprised that I'm hearing serious-ppl talk about court-packing. if the dems also start abandoning political norms the end game isn't 'we win some battles' it's 'democracy actually collapses because we're playing a game w/ nihilists'

― iatee, Thursday, October 4, 2018 3:33 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree strongly

Norms haven’t saved anyone from the nihilists.

Holy shit! Y'all seen the protests?!

Manchin won't announce position until tomorrow, NBC reports.

protests?

xp

at Capitol Hill.

Is the american experiment over? The founding fathers dream of a democracy strong enough to protect all the money from being evenly distributed??

Theme for October: let's all get arrested.

Norms haven’t saved anyone from the nihilists.

they kinda have! donald trump is king nihilist and he's still somewhat constrained by what norms we still have.

in any case, we're never gonna beat these guys at cheating the rules, so regardless of what you think of the norms and their value in democracy, it's not a very good strategy. 'dems increase the size of the supreme court to 16' will lead to 'republicans increase the size of the supreme court to 10,000'

xp November thread title please

'dems increase the size of the supreme court to 16' will lead to 'republicans increase the size of the supreme court to 10,000'

I know you know isn't what court packing is

"they kinda have! donald trump is king nihilist "

No he isn't - he believes in himself

I know you know isn't what court packing is

is there some alternate definition?

court packing means increasing the size of the court so that a single President gets to nominate a whole bunch of justices, thereby altering the balance of the court in their favor (ie, "packing" it with their appointees)

I think it's kinda stupid to argue that this would easily pass Congress, it would precipitate a huge crisis

yeah I'm not sure where that breaks with my sentence

I don't think it does. Cuz obviously the strategy's benefits only accrue to the initial round of appointees, ie, a single administration. Unless subsequent Congress's pull the same stunt, in which case it could just spiral on and on as you suggested.

would like to see Supreme Court with more justices than the House has representatives

My favorite Beastie Boys line always was "Got more justices than Jamaica's got mangoes."

imagine how apoplectic conservatives would get if liberals actually did break norms. dear god. they already point the finger that direction. I think some of them actually believe it too!

Today, Mike Pence gave a speech basically declaring a new Cold War against China and accusing Beijing of seeking to prevent Trump's reelection. But there's so much going on that it's barely in the news. You can read the speech here: https://t.co/2XEtiohYe6

— Nicholas Miller (@Nick_L_Miller) October 4, 2018

Huh, John Paul Stevens has come out against Kavanaugh. If he's against him, I would wager most of the current court probably is as well.

and that means....

It means kavanaugh will have an awkward work environment every day til he dies

SCOTUS judges don't die, they evaporate

Who knows. But if McConnell wasn't a cruel and stubborn idiot he would realize Kavanaugh wasn't worth any risk of antagonizing John Roberts.

Stevens is still in good mental shape? I ask because he's well into his nineties.

sounds like it

why would Thomas or Roberts or Alito or any of those assholes care what Stevens thinks. Nobody cares what he thinks, he's old and retired and a liberal.

^^^

yeah, not shocking that a guy who was a liberal bastion on the court for decades doesn't like Kavanaugh

Rehnquist would've loved him

Stevens is also a Shakespeare authorship skeptic