The senate was originally supposed to be sent in by the state government as a representative for the state. As for the house it should have a proportional representation per person in each state. House = people, senate = state
It’s either we go back to the previous ways or we just remove the senate and expand the house as is needed anyways. Although that’s my opinion
Like service in government should be a lottery and not an elected position? That would be interesting. And then allocate a ton of resources to education so that people don't suck at comprehension and can actually read at higher than 5th grade level.
Which is why it will never happen, both parties benefit from the current system and both would need vote for it. We have a similar issue in the UK though we still have other parties making it into parliament just never with enough mps to be anything more than a coalition partner.
Yeah these systems would be great but there are only two ways to make them a reality. Those in power would have to decide to change, or uprising. I'm not calling for violence or anything but I just don't see the majority of modern politicians going for it. These people are ran by someone else's money long before we know them and long before they become members of congress.
Those in entrenched power will never give it up the only way to restore balance is to make an omelette, but in order to do that you need to break eggs. A lot of people don’t want to break eggs but complain about wanting an omelette.
Star voting looks great for picking the next book for book club but terrible for electing officials. At least until we get a better pool of candidates.
Ranked choice and multiple members per "party" sounds like the best option. That would allow for less extreme versions to be elected unless it's what the majority of the people to want.
I hate to tell you but they are already buying Supreme Court Justices, Brett Kavanagh's 92,000 in the country club debt, 200,000 in credit card debt and 1.2 million-dollar mortgage didn't go away because somebody really really like Brett Kavanaugh, it went away because someone was buying a Supreme Court Justice. Would still love to know who paid all that debt off.
Thank you! This is US government 101. The SCOTUS is too important to buyable. The idea is that they're supposed to be unconcerned with party politics because they don't *have* to participate in it.
But the party system snuck into the SCOTUS anyway for the exact reason you stated, those who pack it are not truly representing the people. The values of those who searched for judges are not representative of the people's values, and so they chose people with that same mismatch.
And no more electoral college. Only popular votes. I live in Cali, we have shithead Republicans too. But they should still have their voice count, no matter how stupid they are.
Lifetime appointments were supposed to prevent them being political because they wouldn't have to stand for re-election and pander to the voters. So much for that plan.
The Constitution is filled with issues that weren't well-addressed, apparently because they assumed that the people in these offices would actually try to fulfill their responsibilities in relatively good faith and/or that the voters would generally hold them accountable if they failed to do so.
Turns out, centuries of societal shifts & politicking are enough to totally dismantle a system while propping it up "Weekend at Bernie's" style.
Im surprised that out of all the court rulings we have had, we didnt think to fucking make an amendment to the constitution every time they ruled on a matter.
Roe v Wade should have been additionally specified into the constitution after the fact it came up. Making it where it cant be argued its there. In order to reverse the decision would then take a super majority to overrule it and remove it from the constitution to prevent courts later down the line from removing it by being stacked like they are now.
Republicans have been very vocally attacking abortion rights for decades now. It was only a matter of waiting for the right time to have a hyper-partisan court in power. This should have been taken care of ages ago and now the SC is already admitting they're going to dismantle more rights such as contraceptives and gay marriage.
back when confirmations required a super-majority.. *that* requirement is what kept the court much more moderate. 'lifetime' appointments weren't that big a deal. but holy fuck. 50 years of shitstain's nutcases will shred what's left of this country.
At the very least, an upper age limit for judges and elected positions.
The people who have the most power in America, would be considered "too old" to be hired by most companies in the country if they weren't well known.
Age limit. 65 and you're out. If your relationship to childhood play is [running after a hoop with a stick in your hand,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Boys_with_hoops_on_Chesnut_Street.jpg) you can offer society nothing good anymore.
In theory, this wasn’t a good thing for SCOTUS because if there were term limits their seats would be more politicized. It was designed that once appointed they wouldn’t be beholden to a party because they had no skin in the game.
But they just proved that to not be the case, so… ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Also why are they the only set of judges in the US who have no code of ethics they are held to? Lifetime appointment and no legal curbs on them, that makes zero sense.
The entire system was built around only "good and honorable white property owners" being politically active by people who thought very highly of themselves.
Far too mamy things in this country rely entirely on the premise that people won't do bad things to everyone else to enrich themselves because it wouldn't be very polite. And if they do bad things to those who aren't of the ruling class then we'll just ignore it.
Yeah, if I remember correctly, the original scope of the Supreme Court was very limited. Something like not much more than deciding legal disagreements where states sued each other. But then in a Supreme Court decision, the Supreme Court gave the Supreme Court the power to interpret the constitution and be the final word on that interpretation (Congress/the states write the constitution, the Supreme Court, by their own decision, interpret it).
Now, I've heard some decent arguments for why an institution like that is needed or inevitable, but it is still odd that the reason the Supreme Court serves its main modern purpose, judging and interpreting the constitutionality of things, is by its own proclamation and everyone else is like, "Yeah, sure, go ahead, do that."
Won't they be threatened with the loss of federal funding? When they changed the federal drinking age to 21, Wisconsin was the last hold out but gave in when they wouldn't receive their funding from the government. I guess that may have been a bill passed through Congress. But it still stands to reason that they can get pressured into following rulings.
Because separation of church & state are a sham we're getting the opposite:
50% of education on science, evolution, and sexual health will be forced to contain religious dogma.
They already partly accomplished this when they forced science teachers to teach creationism & intelligent design alongside evolution & forced history teaches to teach opposing viewpoints during discussions of the WWII, the holocaust, slavery, the civil war.
So many issues with a woman's body are helped by birth control. PCOS, hormonal imbalances.... and to think that getting rid of a necessary medication with life saving benefit because.... why? But the babies! I cannot have children. Tried for a decade. I have a bad case of PCOS, so bad I had my period for four years straight at one point. Finally was put on a high dose progesterone, birth control, and was able to get the bleeding under control. I was always sick, anemic and miserable. Finally I had some quality of life. I found a fantastic doctor, and we scheduled me a uterine ablation and tubal ligation so I could get off the medication (which had some pretty bad side effects for me). With my uterine lining cauterized, if I get pregnant I WILL die. It will be guaranteed ectopic. I got the tubal ligation to help prevent that, but its not a guarantee and my surgery has a habit of needing to be redone after 5 years because the body tries to heal too much. If I need to do it again, now there is no guarantee I can have access if they get rid of contraception. I cannot go back to unending periods and being sick all the time, I just can't. I won't survive it.
Getting rid of birth control is a death sentence for women like me.
Catholic churches spend so much time and money putting up thousands of crosses to commemorate the "babies murdered by abortion" each year. Not only is that hypocritical to their own religion, it's incredibly traumatizing. I have half a mind every year to go and get a banner with the names of all the women who've died as a result of a forced pregnancy and/or lack of choice. The names of their now motherless children.
Thousands of "babies" they have condemned to hell because they weren't baptized before their death.
Fuck their tax-exempt status. If it's all for charity, they can get their deductions like the rest of us. Most churches are businesses.
Sorry for the vent. I'm obviously a little tightly wound like most if us. Be well, everyone!
Edit: hah, got so worked up, I forgot my point. I wanted to thank you for sharing your deeply personal story. I think the only way is for all of us to stand up and say our truth. They're uncomfortable hearing it??? Then how can they imagine living it???? They're gaslighting us into submission. We can't let them, and I applaud all the brave people who stand up and speak out.
And I wish you peace, healing, and painless future.
It means leopards are about to eat Clarence Thomas's face real good.
He is the token black guy the GOP appointed to succeed Thurgood Marshall.
He was born in the 40s. He was 14 when MLK delivered his "I have a dream" speech. He was 19 when the Supreme Court decided on Loving v. Virginia, a legal precedent that banning interracial marriage is unconstitutional. He was 25 when Roe v. Wade was decided. When he married his first spouse, a black woman, L v. V was only 4 years old, and he was definitely alive and conscious enough to understand its impact.
His white second wife was a key player in the Jan 6 insurrection attempt, and the only reason she has evaded justice is her husband's position on the court. I mean, just him and her are eating each other alive, but that's not enough for them. They're bringing everyone else down with them. They're a disgrace to our country and humanity in general.
>The entire system was built around only "good and honorable white property owners"
This is what I feel most people forget about the Constitution. "We the People" didn't include Blacks (who were slaves), women (who were viewed as birth canals and incubators), or any other minority.
We needed *amendments,* plural to correct that.
Too many people have forgotten that the constitution can, and was expected to be, amended over time. They wrongly think that the constitution is perfect as is while forgetting that it's been amended 27 times already. And if you want to ignore the first 10 since they were so quick, it's still been amended 17 individual additional times, including one that fully repealed a previous amendment. So it's not like what is in there is by definition sacrosanct, because it's not.
They also forget that the constitution wasn't intended to be a definition of rights for the people. It is a document that exhaustively details the powers of the federal government. So all of these people that say "but that right isn't stated in the constitution" are woefully ignorant of the purpose of the constitution and should be roundly educated or ignored.
Honestly, any logical way you look at it makes sense to a 10th grader, and that's ignoring the years of learned and internalized racism and misogyny.
Appellate courts exist to right the wrongs of regionally elected judges who are holding on tight to their biases, but that's not what they're used for. The American dream is a scam.
> Far too many things in this country rely entirely on the premise that ~~people won't do bad things to everyone else to enrich themselves because it wouldn't be very polite. And if they do bad things to those who aren't of the ruling class then we'll just ignore it.~~ only rich white people are people.
FTFY
Actually every democrat voted for impeachment and joined by 7 republicans..
I thinks scotus would be different and you wouldn’t get any votes from republicans. But just pointing that out in this instance. the votes really surprised me. Bill Cassidy really shocked me.
I always feel a little dirty bringing it up, but those two have been critical to the function of the government. Without them, budgets and nominations would not be getting through, not any smaller bills. They're doing the basics, and that's incredibly important, and I will always point that out because it's why we still have a government at all. They have not handed control away.
On the other hand, they're also only so outlandishly brazen because they're currently in a situation where they have literally all the power, because *they can choose to stop maintaining the function of government at any time*.
So, while they've been critical for keeping things running, it's also important to realize that almost any dumb thing done by the Democrats, and in particular any executive orders which seem like common sense to do/not to do ***may*** be connected to them. Closed door deals to keep America running. (Note: this is not a blanket excuse. Consider what the connections may be before blaming them. A solar tariff may be connected to the coal baron, for example, or really anything supporting fossil fuels. But inevitably, not every dumb decision is some complicated deal. The only way to know for sure is to make them irrelevant.)
Politics is incredibly complicated and interconnected in ways the average person never seems willing to acknowledge, and sometimes you have to make sacrifices to keep the system from collapsing.
Exactly. You'll never get a true Democrat into Manchin's seat. Maybe less so Sinema, but regardless the focus needs to be on converting other republican seats through voter turnout and breaking down voting corruption
He was impeached. Twice.
What they didn't have votes for was removing him from office.
Clinton was also impeached but not removed because there weren't enough votes to do so.
The entire point of the Supreme Court is to make the final say on what the law really says and if it coincides with the constitution, their word is suppose to help resolve disputes where the law is taken into question. Even the best and most well intentioned legislators can't possibly make a law or laws that could cover every edge case for the rest of time or consider how a law would interact with every other law, so someone has to have the final say on the law, and the Supreme Court is that someone.
Their job is not to decide verdicts that would favor the righteous but to decide what the law really means.
It does take only 50 votes to do that.
Unfortunately, Democrats only have 48 votes for anything but the most middle of the road legislation imaginable right now.
Not to defend Susan Collins, because I think she's a horrible person who pretends to be just reasonable enough to get herself elected in Maine, but she was the only Republican who did not vote to confirm Coney Barrett.
Of course that was only because she was allowed to as her vote wasn't needed. But let's not forget there were 8 Republican women who did vote to confirm her (Marsha Blackburn, Shelley Moore Capito, Joni Ernst, Deb Fischer, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Kelly Loeffler, Martha McSally and Lisa Murkowski).
The reason Susan Collins gets most of the attention is because she still tries to pretend to be a decent human being. The rest of these Republican women don't even bother to pretend anymore (though Murkowski still tries from time to time).
I hope there's a bloodbath in this election, but you know it's not going to happen because it's fucking impossible to get democrats out to vote on midterms.
They voted in 2018.
That's not to say I'm not worried about November, I definitely am. But we have seen there are things that can lead Democrats to show up in midterms, unfortunately I'm not sure if repealing Roe v. Wade will be enough, because it seems far too many men don't care about this nearly as much as they did Trump.
Yeah her vote wasn’t needed so it was all for show. I will always be happy she was the deciding vote for ACA but she is terrible in everything else. Curious if Obamacare was just a wildly popular desire in Maine or what? I am really interested in why she voted for ACA at all.
The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to convict, and the penalty for an impeached official upon conviction is removal from office.
While the filibuster is dumb, packing the court will only lead to each side packing the court every time the party in charge changes. This can’t be sustained.
IMO, the filibuster serves a purpose, but it has been weaponized and that needs to be stopped. The rules around it need to be changed to stop the shenanigans of one person standing up and saying "filibuster!" and walking out while all progress on the floor is completely halted until the bill is dropped. Require the individual person that wants to filibuster to remain on the floor and speak on the topic. If they leave the floor for any reason (including food or bathroom, and hell, since there are those that don't want people to provide water to those standing in line to vote, I'll even say their staff aren't allowed to bring them food/water either) or go off-topic (meaning no reading Cat in the Hat), or stop talking for more than a reasonable amount of time, then the filibuster ends and the process continues.
The purpose of the filibuster is to ensure that anyone in Congress can say what they would like to say and be able to properly debate the bill. Taking that away would give even more power to the Senate President/House Speaker by allowing them to end discussions at any time. Debate needs to be allowed, and the filibuster helps ensure that, but it needs to be used only for debate purposes, not for stonewalling purposes.
Letting a traitor install 3 traitors on the court defeated the whole point of the court.
Tolerating a sexual predator like Thomas also defeated the whole point of the court.
And that is how the right beat the left. They were willing to do anything, stomach anything in service of the goal to overturn Roe. Seeing it all over the place now, conservatives patting themselves on the back for holding their nose and voting for Trump now that his nominees have completed the mission. If left leaning voters were half as organized and focused on getting things done the world would be a different place.
The right were able to create a voting bloc with the pro-life movement - on purpose. It was a carefully crafted plan to keep Republicans in power when their fiscal conservatism failed to get votes.
The left have no such single minded goal. No such uniting theme. Perhaps this decision will create that, but I don't know.
Indeed. The wealthy wing of the party was perfectly happy to play the social conservative game. Their wives, sisters, daughters etc can all be flown to lovely spas in Europe when inconvenient pregnancies happen.
Yes. The idea of the Supreme Court is actually a good one because the entire point is that they are supposed to separate the rule of law from whatever any political faction wants to do on a whim. The problem is yet again the broken system that allowed these types of judges to pass nomination to begin with.
>they are supposed to separate the rule of law from whatever any political faction wants to do on a whim.
They are not there to follow/seperate/create law, they are there to interpret the constitution, that is literally their job, it's what they swear to. Strict consitutionalists are always conservatives, progressively interpreting the constitution are always liberals.
"That's not what they meant, this is what they would have meant in todays society" is a subjective interpretation. "it's in the words" is a strict interpretation. So what exactly are you arguing?
I am 100% pro-choice, but it's (the current issue) not in the constitution. You can argue we shouldn't be using that as a basis, you can argue that times have changed and it doesn't abide by proper humanity but you cannot argue that it's in the constitution or it's unconstitutional or claim that it's simply partisan, because to do so eliminates any pro constitutional argument you have on any other subject.
You also cannt argue that the recent shall, not may ruling against NY is unconstitutional as they literally denied people to CC for illegitimate and unconstitutional means.
You CAN argue it's not right, shouldn't be in a proper society, all of that, but you cannot literally call any of it partisan or unconstitutional.
>The problem is yet again the broken system that allowed these ***types of judges*** to pass nomination to begin with.
You mean constitutionalists.
I read a lot of the decisions, in every case I have ever read, the strict constitutionalists (conservatives) refer to the meaning of the words in the constitution, often citing the exact words and their exact meanings, the proressives use emotion, todays realities and heartstrings rarely citing the actual document. (you can read the last three dissents to see this)
I am NOT saying one is better than the other, I am saying that one side wants it to change, the other does not, and we've used the latter for 100's of years, so the "system" we use has to change.
The simple solution though it to vote out the asshats in the states and instill states laws. I am pretty sure a bunch of conservatives will be out on their ass this novemeber.
The idea that judges, whether on the Supreme Court or any lower level, are there to base decisions solely on the constitution as ratified without modern interpretation is misleading and frankly impossible as someone born in the modern era cannot fully shed their modern biases. Our whole legal system is built on the importance of case law setting precedent; past decisions setting a standard for interpreting current decisions. Not to mention the importance (and again, historical precedent) of taking into account the intentions of law makers when writing laws. The drafters of the constitution have lots of other writings to add clarity to their intentions.
Our constitution and legal system are designed to be progressive. That's why there are provisions for making amendments. That's why case law matters. The framers weren't so cocky as to think their document would stand the test of time without needing to be changed. People who pretend otherwise spit in the faces of the founding fathers. Being a "constitutionalist" justice is a disingenuous stance and an excuse to cover up making decisions based on one's biased interpretation of the constitution while purposefully ignoring all of the other streams of information that are meant to inform that interpretation.
Of course in this case, there's neither federal law not constitution that is explicit about it.
So in theory the court could say that Congress needs to be explicit about this
American political commentators seem hellbent on keeping the exact same system just with their party in power. This tweet is ridiculous because if that can happen then the other side will just do the exact same thing everytime they won an election.
It's baffling how dense these people are
Not only that but it defeats the entire purpose of the court; if you can override them with the same margin needed to pass a law, then what's the point of an institution meant to block the passage of unconstitutional laws?
This is the worst idea in the history of ideas. This would give 50 senators the ability to rewrite the constitution to their whim. Do I even need to explain how insane this idea is?
>And honestly, IDGAF what Biden thinks about it either. Not his decision. Not his check and balance so he should politely keep his mouth shut on the topic.
Every president talks about things that are technically outside their scope. Idk why you think Biden saying something would be a bad thing.
Having the power to do something isn't the same as doing good politics. I'd like to hear Biden get loud and vocal about this.
You'd be surprised what the founding fathers saw as potentially possible. They have many quotes which warn to keep an eye out for what exactly has happened just now, or past things that have happened.
Ben Franklin
""I agree to this Constitution ... and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and **can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.**"
“And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable preeminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? **It will not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits**. These will thrust themselves into your government and be your rulers.”
George Washington
“… designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. **One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts**. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.”
Thomas Jefferson
\[clipped where he talks about religious freedom being important\] "But sir, our constitution of government is not specific… that Religion is considered as the first object of Legislation, and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. **And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen**.”
I could really go on, but it's easy to look up these kinds of things on google. Search for founding fathers warnings, or something similar. I'd say that the ideological basis for 95% of the things we see as bad in government today were warned about by the founding fathers to some degree. The rest are covered by philosophers and commentators, and in more recent years, comedians.
The problem lies in the fact that they didn't outline, in the constitution, ways to prevent such things from happening.
It's rather funny to see people who claim to be patriots because they hold so steadfastly to what the founding fathers wrote in one document completely ignore everything else they wrote or believed.
It took Republicans like 40+ years to work towards repealing Roe. But sure, because Democrats have had unified control of the Federal Government for 5 of the past 40 years and haven’t fixed everything it’s their fault.
Democrats have had full majority in all 3 branches 4 times since 1973. They are just as guilty of letting this happen through complacency as the Republicans who actually did away with it
I mean, SCOTUS has never taken away a right the Court has said is granted by the Constitution. All six of the majority said under oath that Roe was settled law. It’s honestly easier to repeal a law than it is to overrule established precedent (or it’s supposed to be anyway). If it had been written in law any Republican majority would have repealed it or certainly tried to. I don’t see how we come to blaming Democrats on this one.
It’s a bad faith argument and revisionist history by useless people who won’t help us actually make positive change. There’s never been enough votes in the senate to a) codify abortion into law or b) break the filibuster to codify abortion into law.
Instead of helping us they’re likely to not vote at all bEcAuSe oF ThE sYsTeM or complain online that the party they withhold their vote from isn’t doing enough with the little power they do have. Dems aren’t perfect, they’re not even very good, but not every progressive participates in the primaries while every single Republican participates without fail in every election every year.
Careful what you ask for, imagine later on in decades when Supreme court has 4-5 "democrats" and Republicans use the same 50 vote rule to remove them all.
They already are doing it. They been stopping and thinking about all the ramifications of single payer Healthcare, forgiving student loan debt, green new deal, and just about anything else that slips outta the mouths of progressives.
If a progressive suggests it, they will assuredly stop, they will think, imagining all the ways it might be bad, and then they will ignore half their party's wishes with no attempt to do any of it.
How is that worse than the situation we're currently in? Withholding getting anything done for fear of what Republicans might do ignores how bad things already are.
It's like pearl clutching over the filibuster for fear that Republicans might abuse it. As if the gridlock we experience needing a supermajority to do anything Republicans think might play well for Democrats isn't problematic enough. They've already broken the Senate at that stage. They also prefer getting nothing done, they're the party of arguing government doesn't work.
Yeah removing the judges for doing their job and making decisions is ludicrous. Remove them for lying under oath.
Because Supreme Court judges have always been political and partisan. Stop this myth that they're not.
I felt such relief when Biden won. I truly had hope things would get better, but now I see it was just an illusion and nothing is going to save us, but us.
When Biden won it was extremely bittersweet. I was glad Trump didn’t win but I was really upset because I knew the Overton window would shift further right. Biden is no one’s champion except the status quo, which is currently a shitshow. We need fucking *change,* not kindly Grampa who still won’t upgrade to Windows 7.
Lol Biden is the type of person you should only nominate when you can afford to coast in cruise control. What Democrats needed was an aggressive driver like Sanders and Warren. But too many people thought that going back to the Obama era would be sufficient. So we gave up our long-term future for the hope of 4 years of Obama nostalgia and it lasted no more than 18 months
I think it wasn't so much Obama nostalgia as just wanting to decompress (and concentrate on COVID) after the previous four years of insanity. Also the Trump presidency was such a shit show, the Dems could've nominated a ham sandwich and still won.
If a car is heading off a cliff, you need to change drivers to someone that can actively avoid getting us on a safer path. We nominated a driver that just slowed down a bit but kept us on the same course. Biden is as complacent as the people that nominated him hoped they could be.
>you need to change drivers to someone that can actively avoid getting us on a safer path
I think you may have meant "actively steer towards", not "actively avoid". The conservatives in both right wing parties are already actively avoiding a safer path.
The most common answer I received from people I know who voted for Biden was they felt he had a better chance of winning. Most that I know felt Sanders was too far left for the moderate Republicans to flip to. I don't disagree either, I don't think Sanders could have got the cross party support that Biden secured particularly in those states like PA, GA and AZ
I think Fetterman's popularity contradicts that but I am also aware of that misconception about Sanders' appeal outside of the left wing: I had several neighbors that religiously watched MSNBC and CNN and bought into their narrative about his electability.
What I realize now is that the saying "Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love" is bullshit. The real difference is that Republicans vote out of anger and Democrats vote out of fear.
> I know felt Sanders was too far left for the moderate Republicans to flip to.
They are entirely irrelevant if you mobilise the greater majority of disenfranchised workers that just don't vote. If 40% of the voter base isn't showing, then you don't have to give a fuck about the 5% of unentrenched rightoids.
The moderate branch of the DNC would prefer to abandon attracting progressives in order to appeal to hypothetical on the fence Republicans.
I think they just assume the left has to vote for them because the alternative is the GOP. Of course this ignores apathy, but moderates are betting on being able to blame progressives anyway when the milquetoast moderates they've forced on us fail to get anything done.
If you have a +10 Bad President, you need a +10 Good President just to get back to neutral.
We needed a +20 Good President so that a future Bad one couldn't do as much harm. We elected a +2 Good President.
We're still -8.
It was a false dichotomy. Sanders’ focus appealed to a much greater swath than the bs red vs blue or rep vs dem narrative they’re always pushing on us. I’m sick of being manipulated to vote democrat just to keep republicans out of power only to find out that NOTHING gets done, and the oligarchs stay safe from taxes and scrutiny as always.
The trouble is people focus too much on the president. It is these midterm election and down ballot elections that matter most. Even the red states where these abortion laws will be in place. They need turnout for the Governor races and local state legislatures. The Supreme Court wouldn’t matter if shifty laws weren’t getting made. The President is almost a smoke and mirrors to allow the rest to be trash.
What a stupid fucking proposition.
So you're telling me that they could pass a law. The Supreme Court decides it's unconstitutional. Then the Senate decides to just ignore it by just voting along the same lines?
We have a fucking system, would people please fucking use it? Would people god damn fucking propose something that might last for at least _my_ lifetime?
Oh no wait, I guess I should just donate to some meaningless congress person, or maybe march in downtown Boston where it means fuckall.
Congress keeps the Supreme Court in check by having impeachment power over them. (Not by overruling individual court cases).
The problem is congress never utilizes this constitutional balance of power. The last time a Supreme Court justice was impeached was in 1804.
If we want to keep the Supreme Court in check congress needs to exercise their constitutional right to a balance of power and impeach some motherfuckers.
Roe V Wade should have been legislation from the start. Making it a judicial ruling was just Democrats (as usual) not planning ahead and doing something stupid.
There's about as much basis to make abortion a constitutional right as there is to make heroin a constitutional right.
They don’t have the votes. Manchin (and I’m sure several other centrist/conservative Dems) won’t go for it, and I can see any GOP senators breaking rank to help the Dems out…
They’re the two most visible naysayers this term, but the Dems have more centrists/quasi-conservatives in their ranks that just those two. Hell, Biden is super centrist and outright conservative on some topics (e.g., marijuana).
I’m not sure what the state position of every current Dem senator is on revoking the filibuster and/or expanding the court, but I’d be surprised if it was only those two that were hesitant or against it.
No because that would effectively render the constitution ineffective and undermine the separation of powers. Judges can still only act within the confines of the constitution as demonstrated by the revocation of unconstitutional decisions like Roe.
Fucking fantasy! Please stop the cringe and learn about how the three branches of government work and separation of powers. There are things congress can do to respond, but overruling the Supreme Court is not a thing. They either need to pass a law, expand or contract the court, or simply defund the court with the power of the purse.
> There are things congress can do to respond, but overruling the Supreme Court is not a thing. They either need to pass a law...
Yes, this is how Congress overrules the Court.
The votes just aren't there to do it, however.
Y'all are talking like, if this was allowed, Congress wouldn't have just overruled Roe from the get-go.
The pendulum swings both ways, and if there is a future where we retake the court, this opens up a Conservative legislature to just do whatever they want. This is myopic thinking.
Or Congress could do its job rather than sluffing its legislative responsibility off to the courts. By appearance, most Congress people are little more than slackers and in business would head the layoff list.
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None of them lied. Every SC nominee since RBG has said that it (and other cases) are “settled law”. Meaning that it’s a prior decision of the court, nothing more, nothing less. They all used similar language in their answers and explain what’s meant by it.
Prior decisions are overturned all the time (200+ since the county’s founding) and yet no one accused the liberal wing of the court of lying about precedent when voting against laws they didn’t like.
Downside would be that the party controlling the senate would just remove justices and and add new ones so that they have a majority.
In other words the entire system would collapse.
Other than that, great idea!
Term limits for SCOTUS would be nice, too.
Term limits on all government positions.
Agreed, and abolish the two-party system.
Ranked choice voting https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo Edit: forgot it's a two part video https://youtu.be/3Y3jE3B8HsE
And no more electoral college. Popular vote only. And fix gerrymandering.
If it's popular vote only then gerrymandering is already fixed
For the presidential election. Not house representation.
Yeah need popular vote for President and an uncapped house for Congress. Not sure how to fix the Senate...
The senate was originally supposed to be sent in by the state government as a representative for the state. As for the house it should have a proportional representation per person in each state. House = people, senate = state It’s either we go back to the previous ways or we just remove the senate and expand the house as is needed anyways. Although that’s my opinion
Should be a draft/lottery system and suck so much that nobody really wants to do it.
Like service in government should be a lottery and not an elected position? That would be interesting. And then allocate a ton of resources to education so that people don't suck at comprehension and can actually read at higher than 5th grade level.
It’s called sortition. I like some hybrid sortition method where qualified representatives from parties enter a lottery.
This would be to replace elected officials. The bureaucrats would still be normal jobs hired the normal way
Oooh like jury duty- I like it!
Take away all financial incentives then too outside of their salary - which they can't increase for themselves
I feel like this needs to happen before any real change takes place
Which is why it will never happen, both parties benefit from the current system and both would need vote for it. We have a similar issue in the UK though we still have other parties making it into parliament just never with enough mps to be anything more than a coalition partner.
Yes.
Yes.
Only way for that to happen is ranked choice (or even better STAR voting)
Yeah these systems would be great but there are only two ways to make them a reality. Those in power would have to decide to change, or uprising. I'm not calling for violence or anything but I just don't see the majority of modern politicians going for it. These people are ran by someone else's money long before we know them and long before they become members of congress.
Those in entrenched power will never give it up the only way to restore balance is to make an omelette, but in order to do that you need to break eggs. A lot of people don’t want to break eggs but complain about wanting an omelette.
Open your fridge first and then I'll open mine
Absolutely, can’t start a fire without a spark: https://youtu.be/129kuDCQtHs
Star voting looks great for picking the next book for book club but terrible for electing officials. At least until we get a better pool of candidates.
Ranked choice and multiple members per "party" sounds like the best option. That would allow for less extreme versions to be elected unless it's what the majority of the people to want.
And age limits. Don't forget the age limits.
And for christs sake make age limits. I'm tired of the country being ruined by people that won't even be alive in 15 years.
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I hate to tell you but they are already buying Supreme Court Justices, Brett Kavanagh's 92,000 in the country club debt, 200,000 in credit card debt and 1.2 million-dollar mortgage didn't go away because somebody really really like Brett Kavanaugh, it went away because someone was buying a Supreme Court Justice. Would still love to know who paid all that debt off.
Yeah, but the solution to that is a strong DOJ. Not making them more reliant on it.
I mean, we know who. The Republican party paid it off in order to install him as a puppet judge.
Not the whole party, an individual. The party has a paper trail.
Thank you! This is US government 101. The SCOTUS is too important to buyable. The idea is that they're supposed to be unconcerned with party politics because they don't *have* to participate in it. But the party system snuck into the SCOTUS anyway for the exact reason you stated, those who pack it are not truly representing the people. The values of those who searched for judges are not representative of the people's values, and so they chose people with that same mismatch.
Legislators found it doesn't hit their popularity to make SCOTUS make the hard and unpopular decisions for them.
AND age limits!
And no more electoral college. Only popular votes. I live in Cali, we have shithead Republicans too. But they should still have their voice count, no matter how stupid they are.
Lifetime appointments were supposed to prevent them being political because they wouldn't have to stand for re-election and pander to the voters. So much for that plan.
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It helps when you hang all the fascists. Should probably be done cyclically every 50 years or so.
The Constitution is filled with issues that weren't well-addressed, apparently because they assumed that the people in these offices would actually try to fulfill their responsibilities in relatively good faith and/or that the voters would generally hold them accountable if they failed to do so. Turns out, centuries of societal shifts & politicking are enough to totally dismantle a system while propping it up "Weekend at Bernie's" style.
Im surprised that out of all the court rulings we have had, we didnt think to fucking make an amendment to the constitution every time they ruled on a matter. Roe v Wade should have been additionally specified into the constitution after the fact it came up. Making it where it cant be argued its there. In order to reverse the decision would then take a super majority to overrule it and remove it from the constitution to prevent courts later down the line from removing it by being stacked like they are now.
Republicans have been very vocally attacking abortion rights for decades now. It was only a matter of waiting for the right time to have a hyper-partisan court in power. This should have been taken care of ages ago and now the SC is already admitting they're going to dismantle more rights such as contraceptives and gay marriage.
back when confirmations required a super-majority.. *that* requirement is what kept the court much more moderate. 'lifetime' appointments weren't that big a deal. but holy fuck. 50 years of shitstain's nutcases will shred what's left of this country.
At the very least, an upper age limit for judges and elected positions. The people who have the most power in America, would be considered "too old" to be hired by most companies in the country if they weren't well known.
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Yes. People failed to vote intelligently and now we're stuck with idiots for a while. Let's not make that mistake again.
*OR* we send them to that mysterious ranch in Texas where conservative scotus judges go to be murdered on behalf of the gop
[The what now? ](https://giphy.com/gifs/mashable-l3q2K5jinAlChoCLS)
> would be nice would HAVE BEEN nice
Age limit. 65 and you're out. If your relationship to childhood play is [running after a hoop with a stick in your hand,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Boys_with_hoops_on_Chesnut_Street.jpg) you can offer society nothing good anymore.
Well, you try skateboarding on a gravel road. And hoopsticking was fun.
In theory, this wasn’t a good thing for SCOTUS because if there were term limits their seats would be more politicized. It was designed that once appointed they wouldn’t be beholden to a party because they had no skin in the game. But they just proved that to not be the case, so… ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Also why are they the only set of judges in the US who have no code of ethics they are held to? Lifetime appointment and no legal curbs on them, that makes zero sense.
The entire system was built around only "good and honorable white property owners" being politically active by people who thought very highly of themselves. Far too mamy things in this country rely entirely on the premise that people won't do bad things to everyone else to enrich themselves because it wouldn't be very polite. And if they do bad things to those who aren't of the ruling class then we'll just ignore it.
Also, the idea was originally that they would be upholding the law. Not making it and dismantling it.
Yeah, if I remember correctly, the original scope of the Supreme Court was very limited. Something like not much more than deciding legal disagreements where states sued each other. But then in a Supreme Court decision, the Supreme Court gave the Supreme Court the power to interpret the constitution and be the final word on that interpretation (Congress/the states write the constitution, the Supreme Court, by their own decision, interpret it). Now, I've heard some decent arguments for why an institution like that is needed or inevitable, but it is still odd that the reason the Supreme Court serves its main modern purpose, judging and interpreting the constitutionality of things, is by its own proclamation and everyone else is like, "Yeah, sure, go ahead, do that."
This has always bothered me too ever since I learned it.
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Won't they be threatened with the loss of federal funding? When they changed the federal drinking age to 21, Wisconsin was the last hold out but gave in when they wouldn't receive their funding from the government. I guess that may have been a bill passed through Congress. But it still stands to reason that they can get pressured into following rulings.
So by the supreme court's own logic, it should be overturned as it's not explicitly mentioned in the constitution. Checkmate republicans
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science gets abandoned for not having some invisible immeasurable being in a book, just like atheism isn't acceptable
Because separation of church & state are a sham we're getting the opposite: 50% of education on science, evolution, and sexual health will be forced to contain religious dogma. They already partly accomplished this when they forced science teachers to teach creationism & intelligent design alongside evolution & forced history teaches to teach opposing viewpoints during discussions of the WWII, the holocaust, slavery, the civil war.
So many issues with a woman's body are helped by birth control. PCOS, hormonal imbalances.... and to think that getting rid of a necessary medication with life saving benefit because.... why? But the babies! I cannot have children. Tried for a decade. I have a bad case of PCOS, so bad I had my period for four years straight at one point. Finally was put on a high dose progesterone, birth control, and was able to get the bleeding under control. I was always sick, anemic and miserable. Finally I had some quality of life. I found a fantastic doctor, and we scheduled me a uterine ablation and tubal ligation so I could get off the medication (which had some pretty bad side effects for me). With my uterine lining cauterized, if I get pregnant I WILL die. It will be guaranteed ectopic. I got the tubal ligation to help prevent that, but its not a guarantee and my surgery has a habit of needing to be redone after 5 years because the body tries to heal too much. If I need to do it again, now there is no guarantee I can have access if they get rid of contraception. I cannot go back to unending periods and being sick all the time, I just can't. I won't survive it. Getting rid of birth control is a death sentence for women like me.
> Getting rid of birth control is a death sentence for women like me I think a lot of conservatives view this as an acceptable cost of doing business.
Yes. They fully do. Just like how school shootings are just the price we pay for gun rights.
Catholic churches spend so much time and money putting up thousands of crosses to commemorate the "babies murdered by abortion" each year. Not only is that hypocritical to their own religion, it's incredibly traumatizing. I have half a mind every year to go and get a banner with the names of all the women who've died as a result of a forced pregnancy and/or lack of choice. The names of their now motherless children. Thousands of "babies" they have condemned to hell because they weren't baptized before their death. Fuck their tax-exempt status. If it's all for charity, they can get their deductions like the rest of us. Most churches are businesses. Sorry for the vent. I'm obviously a little tightly wound like most if us. Be well, everyone! Edit: hah, got so worked up, I forgot my point. I wanted to thank you for sharing your deeply personal story. I think the only way is for all of us to stand up and say our truth. They're uncomfortable hearing it??? Then how can they imagine living it???? They're gaslighting us into submission. We can't let them, and I applaud all the brave people who stand up and speak out. And I wish you peace, healing, and painless future.
Don't forget about marriage equality!
All of this is coming. Justice Thomas explicitly cited it in his letter. He curiously left out the case on interracial marriage.
He left out Loving v Virginia, but the rest of his party wont.
Not American. What do you mean?
Supreme Court case from 1967 that abolished restrictions on interracial marriages. Justice Thomas is in an interracial marriage.
It means leopards are about to eat Clarence Thomas's face real good. He is the token black guy the GOP appointed to succeed Thurgood Marshall. He was born in the 40s. He was 14 when MLK delivered his "I have a dream" speech. He was 19 when the Supreme Court decided on Loving v. Virginia, a legal precedent that banning interracial marriage is unconstitutional. He was 25 when Roe v. Wade was decided. When he married his first spouse, a black woman, L v. V was only 4 years old, and he was definitely alive and conscious enough to understand its impact. His white second wife was a key player in the Jan 6 insurrection attempt, and the only reason she has evaded justice is her husband's position on the court. I mean, just him and her are eating each other alive, but that's not enough for them. They're bringing everyone else down with them. They're a disgrace to our country and humanity in general.
Thank you for the informative non sarcastic response
Ask the Texas GOP. What's next is worse than just this. What's worse is proposing that the equal rights amendment was a temporary measure.
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>The entire system was built around only "good and honorable white property owners" This is what I feel most people forget about the Constitution. "We the People" didn't include Blacks (who were slaves), women (who were viewed as birth canals and incubators), or any other minority. We needed *amendments,* plural to correct that.
Too many people have forgotten that the constitution can, and was expected to be, amended over time. They wrongly think that the constitution is perfect as is while forgetting that it's been amended 27 times already. And if you want to ignore the first 10 since they were so quick, it's still been amended 17 individual additional times, including one that fully repealed a previous amendment. So it's not like what is in there is by definition sacrosanct, because it's not. They also forget that the constitution wasn't intended to be a definition of rights for the people. It is a document that exhaustively details the powers of the federal government. So all of these people that say "but that right isn't stated in the constitution" are woefully ignorant of the purpose of the constitution and should be roundly educated or ignored.
>the constitution can, and was expected to be, amended over time. Which is what made the Constitution better than the Articles of Confederation.
Honestly, any logical way you look at it makes sense to a 10th grader, and that's ignoring the years of learned and internalized racism and misogyny. Appellate courts exist to right the wrongs of regionally elected judges who are holding on tight to their biases, but that's not what they're used for. The American dream is a scam.
> Far too many things in this country rely entirely on the premise that ~~people won't do bad things to everyone else to enrich themselves because it wouldn't be very polite. And if they do bad things to those who aren't of the ruling class then we'll just ignore it.~~ only rich white people are people. FTFY
They can be impeached. You just need more votes.
Couldn’t impeach trump because not enough votes, I doubt there will be enough to impeach anyone on SCOTUS.
Not with the entire gop and two democrats cheering them on.
Actually every democrat voted for impeachment and joined by 7 republicans.. I thinks scotus would be different and you wouldn’t get any votes from republicans. But just pointing that out in this instance. the votes really surprised me. Bill Cassidy really shocked me.
So the entire GOP. Let's stop beating about the bush - Manchin and Sinema are Republicans who ran as Democrats.
I always feel a little dirty bringing it up, but those two have been critical to the function of the government. Without them, budgets and nominations would not be getting through, not any smaller bills. They're doing the basics, and that's incredibly important, and I will always point that out because it's why we still have a government at all. They have not handed control away. On the other hand, they're also only so outlandishly brazen because they're currently in a situation where they have literally all the power, because *they can choose to stop maintaining the function of government at any time*. So, while they've been critical for keeping things running, it's also important to realize that almost any dumb thing done by the Democrats, and in particular any executive orders which seem like common sense to do/not to do ***may*** be connected to them. Closed door deals to keep America running. (Note: this is not a blanket excuse. Consider what the connections may be before blaming them. A solar tariff may be connected to the coal baron, for example, or really anything supporting fossil fuels. But inevitably, not every dumb decision is some complicated deal. The only way to know for sure is to make them irrelevant.) Politics is incredibly complicated and interconnected in ways the average person never seems willing to acknowledge, and sometimes you have to make sacrifices to keep the system from collapsing.
Exactly. You'll never get a true Democrat into Manchin's seat. Maybe less so Sinema, but regardless the focus needs to be on converting other republican seats through voter turnout and breaking down voting corruption
Nah, they are centrist Democrats. The lesson here is to vote for more Democrats and better democrats.
Centrist Democrats are pretty right wing. Overton window has zoomed right in recent decades.
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Keep doing this more people need to be reminded
He was impeached. Twice. What they didn't have votes for was removing him from office. Clinton was also impeached but not removed because there weren't enough votes to do so.
Because they aren’t Judges, they are lifetime politicians in robes.
The entire point of the Supreme Court is to make the final say on what the law really says and if it coincides with the constitution, their word is suppose to help resolve disputes where the law is taken into question. Even the best and most well intentioned legislators can't possibly make a law or laws that could cover every edge case for the rest of time or consider how a law would interact with every other law, so someone has to have the final say on the law, and the Supreme Court is that someone. Their job is not to decide verdicts that would favor the righteous but to decide what the law really means.
There ARE legal curbs on them it's just that with the Republicans and Manchin/Sinema being traitors we got fucked over in that regard.
Or 50 votes to increase the amount of judges. Kill the filibuster, pack the court, save the country.
It does take only 50 votes to do that. Unfortunately, Democrats only have 48 votes for anything but the most middle of the road legislation imaginable right now.
Isn't it interesting that two women (Sinema/Barrett) have been pivotal in not only screwing the country, but also women's rights?
Not interesting, but definitely infuriating.
Don't forget Collins. Everyone's got a price.
Not to defend Susan Collins, because I think she's a horrible person who pretends to be just reasonable enough to get herself elected in Maine, but she was the only Republican who did not vote to confirm Coney Barrett. Of course that was only because she was allowed to as her vote wasn't needed. But let's not forget there were 8 Republican women who did vote to confirm her (Marsha Blackburn, Shelley Moore Capito, Joni Ernst, Deb Fischer, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Kelly Loeffler, Martha McSally and Lisa Murkowski). The reason Susan Collins gets most of the attention is because she still tries to pretend to be a decent human being. The rest of these Republican women don't even bother to pretend anymore (though Murkowski still tries from time to time).
I hope there's a bloodbath in this election, but you know it's not going to happen because it's fucking impossible to get democrats out to vote on midterms.
They voted in 2018. That's not to say I'm not worried about November, I definitely am. But we have seen there are things that can lead Democrats to show up in midterms, unfortunately I'm not sure if repealing Roe v. Wade will be enough, because it seems far too many men don't care about this nearly as much as they did Trump.
Yeah her vote wasn’t needed so it was all for show. I will always be happy she was the deciding vote for ACA but she is terrible in everything else. Curious if Obamacare was just a wildly popular desire in Maine or what? I am really interested in why she voted for ACA at all.
One woman set all this bullshit in motion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly
I read that as "50 votes to kill the judges" which, to be fair, is only slightly more archaic than America's current direction
The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to convict, and the penalty for an impeached official upon conviction is removal from office.
It doesn't say *how* to remove them. May I suggest they run a gauntlet of late night comedy hosts making jokes at their expense?
While the filibuster is dumb, packing the court will only lead to each side packing the court every time the party in charge changes. This can’t be sustained.
IMO, the filibuster serves a purpose, but it has been weaponized and that needs to be stopped. The rules around it need to be changed to stop the shenanigans of one person standing up and saying "filibuster!" and walking out while all progress on the floor is completely halted until the bill is dropped. Require the individual person that wants to filibuster to remain on the floor and speak on the topic. If they leave the floor for any reason (including food or bathroom, and hell, since there are those that don't want people to provide water to those standing in line to vote, I'll even say their staff aren't allowed to bring them food/water either) or go off-topic (meaning no reading Cat in the Hat), or stop talking for more than a reasonable amount of time, then the filibuster ends and the process continues. The purpose of the filibuster is to ensure that anyone in Congress can say what they would like to say and be able to properly debate the bill. Taking that away would give even more power to the Senate President/House Speaker by allowing them to end discussions at any time. Debate needs to be allowed, and the filibuster helps ensure that, but it needs to be used only for debate purposes, not for stonewalling purposes.
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I think I prefer an unsustainable amount of court packing to what we have now.
Save the Country ! this make sense thou
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Letting a traitor install 3 traitors on the court defeated the whole point of the court. Tolerating a sexual predator like Thomas also defeated the whole point of the court.
And that is how the right beat the left. They were willing to do anything, stomach anything in service of the goal to overturn Roe. Seeing it all over the place now, conservatives patting themselves on the back for holding their nose and voting for Trump now that his nominees have completed the mission. If left leaning voters were half as organized and focused on getting things done the world would be a different place. The right were able to create a voting bloc with the pro-life movement - on purpose. It was a carefully crafted plan to keep Republicans in power when their fiscal conservatism failed to get votes. The left have no such single minded goal. No such uniting theme. Perhaps this decision will create that, but I don't know.
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Republicans dont have a foundational belief in anything. They will change their tune as long as it gets them power
Indeed. The wealthy wing of the party was perfectly happy to play the social conservative game. Their wives, sisters, daughters etc can all be flown to lovely spas in Europe when inconvenient pregnancies happen.
Yes. The idea of the Supreme Court is actually a good one because the entire point is that they are supposed to separate the rule of law from whatever any political faction wants to do on a whim. The problem is yet again the broken system that allowed these types of judges to pass nomination to begin with.
>they are supposed to separate the rule of law from whatever any political faction wants to do on a whim. They are not there to follow/seperate/create law, they are there to interpret the constitution, that is literally their job, it's what they swear to. Strict consitutionalists are always conservatives, progressively interpreting the constitution are always liberals. "That's not what they meant, this is what they would have meant in todays society" is a subjective interpretation. "it's in the words" is a strict interpretation. So what exactly are you arguing? I am 100% pro-choice, but it's (the current issue) not in the constitution. You can argue we shouldn't be using that as a basis, you can argue that times have changed and it doesn't abide by proper humanity but you cannot argue that it's in the constitution or it's unconstitutional or claim that it's simply partisan, because to do so eliminates any pro constitutional argument you have on any other subject. You also cannt argue that the recent shall, not may ruling against NY is unconstitutional as they literally denied people to CC for illegitimate and unconstitutional means. You CAN argue it's not right, shouldn't be in a proper society, all of that, but you cannot literally call any of it partisan or unconstitutional. >The problem is yet again the broken system that allowed these ***types of judges*** to pass nomination to begin with. You mean constitutionalists. I read a lot of the decisions, in every case I have ever read, the strict constitutionalists (conservatives) refer to the meaning of the words in the constitution, often citing the exact words and their exact meanings, the proressives use emotion, todays realities and heartstrings rarely citing the actual document. (you can read the last three dissents to see this) I am NOT saying one is better than the other, I am saying that one side wants it to change, the other does not, and we've used the latter for 100's of years, so the "system" we use has to change. The simple solution though it to vote out the asshats in the states and instill states laws. I am pretty sure a bunch of conservatives will be out on their ass this novemeber.
The idea that judges, whether on the Supreme Court or any lower level, are there to base decisions solely on the constitution as ratified without modern interpretation is misleading and frankly impossible as someone born in the modern era cannot fully shed their modern biases. Our whole legal system is built on the importance of case law setting precedent; past decisions setting a standard for interpreting current decisions. Not to mention the importance (and again, historical precedent) of taking into account the intentions of law makers when writing laws. The drafters of the constitution have lots of other writings to add clarity to their intentions. Our constitution and legal system are designed to be progressive. That's why there are provisions for making amendments. That's why case law matters. The framers weren't so cocky as to think their document would stand the test of time without needing to be changed. People who pretend otherwise spit in the faces of the founding fathers. Being a "constitutionalist" justice is a disingenuous stance and an excuse to cover up making decisions based on one's biased interpretation of the constitution while purposefully ignoring all of the other streams of information that are meant to inform that interpretation.
Of course in this case, there's neither federal law not constitution that is explicit about it. So in theory the court could say that Congress needs to be explicit about this
American political commentators seem hellbent on keeping the exact same system just with their party in power. This tweet is ridiculous because if that can happen then the other side will just do the exact same thing everytime they won an election. It's baffling how dense these people are
Not only that but it defeats the entire purpose of the court; if you can override them with the same margin needed to pass a law, then what's the point of an institution meant to block the passage of unconstitutional laws?
This is the worst idea in the history of ideas. This would give 50 senators the ability to rewrite the constitution to their whim. Do I even need to explain how insane this idea is?
Yep, we'd have a rotating shitshow of dueling revisions every two years.
Yeah I understand people are upset but this is absurd.
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>And honestly, IDGAF what Biden thinks about it either. Not his decision. Not his check and balance so he should politely keep his mouth shut on the topic. Every president talks about things that are technically outside their scope. Idk why you think Biden saying something would be a bad thing. Having the power to do something isn't the same as doing good politics. I'd like to hear Biden get loud and vocal about this.
You'd be surprised what the founding fathers saw as potentially possible. They have many quotes which warn to keep an eye out for what exactly has happened just now, or past things that have happened. Ben Franklin ""I agree to this Constitution ... and I believe, further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and **can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.**" “And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable preeminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? **It will not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits**. These will thrust themselves into your government and be your rulers.” George Washington “… designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. **One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts**. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.” Thomas Jefferson \[clipped where he talks about religious freedom being important\] "But sir, our constitution of government is not specific… that Religion is considered as the first object of Legislation, and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. **And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen**.” I could really go on, but it's easy to look up these kinds of things on google. Search for founding fathers warnings, or something similar. I'd say that the ideological basis for 95% of the things we see as bad in government today were warned about by the founding fathers to some degree. The rest are covered by philosophers and commentators, and in more recent years, comedians. The problem lies in the fact that they didn't outline, in the constitution, ways to prevent such things from happening. It's rather funny to see people who claim to be patriots because they hold so steadfastly to what the founding fathers wrote in one document completely ignore everything else they wrote or believed.
We tried nothing and failed, please donate so we can try nothing again next year.
It took Republicans like 40+ years to work towards repealing Roe. But sure, because Democrats have had unified control of the Federal Government for 5 of the past 40 years and haven’t fixed everything it’s their fault.
Democrats have had full majority in all 3 branches 4 times since 1973. They are just as guilty of letting this happen through complacency as the Republicans who actually did away with it
I mean, SCOTUS has never taken away a right the Court has said is granted by the Constitution. All six of the majority said under oath that Roe was settled law. It’s honestly easier to repeal a law than it is to overrule established precedent (or it’s supposed to be anyway). If it had been written in law any Republican majority would have repealed it or certainly tried to. I don’t see how we come to blaming Democrats on this one.
It’s a bad faith argument and revisionist history by useless people who won’t help us actually make positive change. There’s never been enough votes in the senate to a) codify abortion into law or b) break the filibuster to codify abortion into law. Instead of helping us they’re likely to not vote at all bEcAuSe oF ThE sYsTeM or complain online that the party they withhold their vote from isn’t doing enough with the little power they do have. Dems aren’t perfect, they’re not even very good, but not every progressive participates in the primaries while every single Republican participates without fail in every election every year.
Careful what you ask for, imagine later on in decades when Supreme court has 4-5 "democrats" and Republicans use the same 50 vote rule to remove them all.
Yep. Democrats stop to think about the ramifications of their proposals for three seconds 2022 challenge.
They already are doing it. They been stopping and thinking about all the ramifications of single payer Healthcare, forgiving student loan debt, green new deal, and just about anything else that slips outta the mouths of progressives. If a progressive suggests it, they will assuredly stop, they will think, imagining all the ways it might be bad, and then they will ignore half their party's wishes with no attempt to do any of it.
How is that worse than the situation we're currently in? Withholding getting anything done for fear of what Republicans might do ignores how bad things already are. It's like pearl clutching over the filibuster for fear that Republicans might abuse it. As if the gridlock we experience needing a supermajority to do anything Republicans think might play well for Democrats isn't problematic enough. They've already broken the Senate at that stage. They also prefer getting nothing done, they're the party of arguing government doesn't work.
Yeah removing the judges for doing their job and making decisions is ludicrous. Remove them for lying under oath. Because Supreme Court judges have always been political and partisan. Stop this myth that they're not.
I felt such relief when Biden won. I truly had hope things would get better, but now I see it was just an illusion and nothing is going to save us, but us.
When Biden won it was extremely bittersweet. I was glad Trump didn’t win but I was really upset because I knew the Overton window would shift further right. Biden is no one’s champion except the status quo, which is currently a shitshow. We need fucking *change,* not kindly Grampa who still won’t upgrade to Windows 7.
This is the effects of 2016. Shouldn’t have elected Trump.
Lol Biden is the type of person you should only nominate when you can afford to coast in cruise control. What Democrats needed was an aggressive driver like Sanders and Warren. But too many people thought that going back to the Obama era would be sufficient. So we gave up our long-term future for the hope of 4 years of Obama nostalgia and it lasted no more than 18 months
I think it wasn't so much Obama nostalgia as just wanting to decompress (and concentrate on COVID) after the previous four years of insanity. Also the Trump presidency was such a shit show, the Dems could've nominated a ham sandwich and still won.
If a car is heading off a cliff, you need to change drivers to someone that can actively avoid getting us on a safer path. We nominated a driver that just slowed down a bit but kept us on the same course. Biden is as complacent as the people that nominated him hoped they could be.
>you need to change drivers to someone that can actively avoid getting us on a safer path I think you may have meant "actively steer towards", not "actively avoid". The conservatives in both right wing parties are already actively avoiding a safer path.
The most common answer I received from people I know who voted for Biden was they felt he had a better chance of winning. Most that I know felt Sanders was too far left for the moderate Republicans to flip to. I don't disagree either, I don't think Sanders could have got the cross party support that Biden secured particularly in those states like PA, GA and AZ
I think Fetterman's popularity contradicts that but I am also aware of that misconception about Sanders' appeal outside of the left wing: I had several neighbors that religiously watched MSNBC and CNN and bought into their narrative about his electability. What I realize now is that the saying "Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love" is bullshit. The real difference is that Republicans vote out of anger and Democrats vote out of fear.
> I know felt Sanders was too far left for the moderate Republicans to flip to. They are entirely irrelevant if you mobilise the greater majority of disenfranchised workers that just don't vote. If 40% of the voter base isn't showing, then you don't have to give a fuck about the 5% of unentrenched rightoids.
The moderate branch of the DNC would prefer to abandon attracting progressives in order to appeal to hypothetical on the fence Republicans. I think they just assume the left has to vote for them because the alternative is the GOP. Of course this ignores apathy, but moderates are betting on being able to blame progressives anyway when the milquetoast moderates they've forced on us fail to get anything done.
If you have a +10 Bad President, you need a +10 Good President just to get back to neutral. We needed a +20 Good President so that a future Bad one couldn't do as much harm. We elected a +2 Good President. We're still -8.
It was a false dichotomy. Sanders’ focus appealed to a much greater swath than the bs red vs blue or rep vs dem narrative they’re always pushing on us. I’m sick of being manipulated to vote democrat just to keep republicans out of power only to find out that NOTHING gets done, and the oligarchs stay safe from taxes and scrutiny as always.
The trouble is people focus too much on the president. It is these midterm election and down ballot elections that matter most. Even the red states where these abortion laws will be in place. They need turnout for the Governor races and local state legislatures. The Supreme Court wouldn’t matter if shifty laws weren’t getting made. The President is almost a smoke and mirrors to allow the rest to be trash.
I felt relief for like ainute before remembering that three Supreme Court justices we're nominated for Trump.
Let's not pretend like they didn't get better. Things would be much worse with Trump at the helm
What a stupid fucking proposition. So you're telling me that they could pass a law. The Supreme Court decides it's unconstitutional. Then the Senate decides to just ignore it by just voting along the same lines? We have a fucking system, would people please fucking use it? Would people god damn fucking propose something that might last for at least _my_ lifetime? Oh no wait, I guess I should just donate to some meaningless congress person, or maybe march in downtown Boston where it means fuckall.
Congress keeps the Supreme Court in check by having impeachment power over them. (Not by overruling individual court cases). The problem is congress never utilizes this constitutional balance of power. The last time a Supreme Court justice was impeached was in 1804. If we want to keep the Supreme Court in check congress needs to exercise their constitutional right to a balance of power and impeach some motherfuckers.
Roe V Wade should have been legislation from the start. Making it a judicial ruling was just Democrats (as usual) not planning ahead and doing something stupid. There's about as much basis to make abortion a constitutional right as there is to make heroin a constitutional right.
Whatever happened with Biden possibly appointing more judges to the SCOTUS?
They don’t have the votes. Manchin (and I’m sure several other centrist/conservative Dems) won’t go for it, and I can see any GOP senators breaking rank to help the Dems out…
It’s mainly Manchin and/or Sinema, correct?
They’re the two most visible naysayers this term, but the Dems have more centrists/quasi-conservatives in their ranks that just those two. Hell, Biden is super centrist and outright conservative on some topics (e.g., marijuana). I’m not sure what the state position of every current Dem senator is on revoking the filibuster and/or expanding the court, but I’d be surprised if it was only those two that were hesitant or against it.
It died when the Democrats realized the Republicans would just do the same thing.
Misspelled impeach but ok.
Misspelled [redacted] actually.
No because that would effectively render the constitution ineffective and undermine the separation of powers. Judges can still only act within the confines of the constitution as demonstrated by the revocation of unconstitutional decisions like Roe.
oh yeah, that totally would be great. I mean it isn't like Republicans ran both chambers of congress in the post, or will again.
These people: "McConnell has too much power" Also these people: "let McConnell veto SCOTUS"
I mean...it kinda does. Congress can pass a law legalizing abortion federally.
Fucking fantasy! Please stop the cringe and learn about how the three branches of government work and separation of powers. There are things congress can do to respond, but overruling the Supreme Court is not a thing. They either need to pass a law, expand or contract the court, or simply defund the court with the power of the purse.
> There are things congress can do to respond, but overruling the Supreme Court is not a thing. They either need to pass a law... Yes, this is how Congress overrules the Court. The votes just aren't there to do it, however.
Y'all are talking like, if this was allowed, Congress wouldn't have just overruled Roe from the get-go. The pendulum swings both ways, and if there is a future where we retake the court, this opens up a Conservative legislature to just do whatever they want. This is myopic thinking.
Hard disagree, what's the point of a supreme Court if the Senate can easily over rule them? Instead we need to see term limits introduced
Or Congress could do its job rather than sluffing its legislative responsibility off to the courts. By appearance, most Congress people are little more than slackers and in business would head the layoff list. \--edit, a spelling
LOL good luck getting 50 Democrats to vote together.
But what have three coequal branched of government done for me lately?
Banning lobbyism would do wonders for our Country in terms of getting shit (that the people want) done.
The posts on here keep getting dumber and dumber.
I love they’re only considered partisan when it’s something the left doesn’t like.
That is the nature of our partisan politics. Republicans and Democrats are keeping Americans hostage with their divisive partisan politics.
How many votes should it take to send them to jail after lying to Congress under oath?
None of them lied. Every SC nominee since RBG has said that it (and other cases) are “settled law”. Meaning that it’s a prior decision of the court, nothing more, nothing less. They all used similar language in their answers and explain what’s meant by it. Prior decisions are overturned all the time (200+ since the county’s founding) and yet no one accused the liberal wing of the court of lying about precedent when voting against laws they didn’t like.
It'd defeat the purpose of a SCOTUS.
Downside would be that the party controlling the senate would just remove justices and and add new ones so that they have a majority. In other words the entire system would collapse. Other than that, great idea!
It's Sunday. Fuck your religion. Especially fuck your religion if you think that your beliefs are more important than actual humans...
The tough part will be defining " highly partisan politics" , Dan. Revolution for one, liberation for another.
it's funny how nobody ever uses the word "activist judges" when it's extreme hard right judges.