In the 1960s most white people thought that MLK was a dangerous, unsettling radical and were relieved when he was silenced, even if they weren't comfortable with the method. Nowadays, when people on FB post about honoring their treasured southern heritage, they'll get a bunch of likes, but they'll also get several people quoting Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone speech back at them. The arc of justice is insufferably goddamn long, but some of us are hanging off one end, bending with all our might —
I do admit the same "information revolution" that eventually gave billionaires the keys to our amygdalas through social media also made it possible to lay the truth out to people who might otherwise never see it. But the truth is gonna need some help.
Oh, that’s cherce!! “that eventually gave billionaires the keys to our amygdalas” is as good as anything the above mentioned writers came up with. I bow.
Yesterday was a very bleak day for democracy and for all decent citizens of good faith. It's been obvious for a while that the long-game goal of conservatives, and certainly of the Trump administration/Project2025, is to reverse every piece of New Deal and Great Society legislation/policy they can get their fascist mitts on.
We can only hope the Dems don't decide that etiquette, fair play, and "norms" -which no longer exist by the way, we can barely see norms in the rearview mirror -- require them to bring a pair of dueling pistols to a fight where their opponents are firing off Uzis. Gerrymander blue states and expand the Supreme Court. Any Dem who won't support both initiatives isn't serious about trying to correct the course we are on.
One can only hope. Trump and his loathsome cohort are so awful that even Republicans are leaning back—it took a less classy Hitler to do it—but there’s an appalling chunk of white trash idiots, not necessarily poor, whose meanness exceeds their sense of self-interest when it comes to their loathing of “elites.” The people I remember hollering at us from the piney woods on the long walk from Selma to Montgomery now have nice homes in suburbia with huge boats in the front yard and vote Republican. Hunter Thompson has described them as vividly as did Mencken before they were fully accustomed to shoes.
And re the 'elites', wouldst we not forget that back when there WERE no 'elites' any backwoods bovine brain could get a job and claim 'merit'. Then when the swarthies started getting jobs the no-longer exclusive bunch were oblivious to the fact that real merit could be a thing, and maybejustmaybe not every pale-y was top o' the pile anymore...
"The people I remember hollering at us from the piney woods on the long walk from Selma to Montgomery now have nice homes in suburbia with huge boats in the front yard and vote Republican" -- the past's not dead...
"But if you want people to vote harder, you have to give them something to vote for."
You know what may or may not be funny there is that while the national party is repellant to voters in polls, that repulsion seems to be irrelevant in the face of repulsion by the Party of Trump. That's the apparent takeaway from last November and after.
Anyway, context from history:
Shelby County back ca 2013 tore out the heart of the VRA, and a few subsequent decisions put it on life support, its death inevitable.
Time passes and while in office Biden is asked whether maybe the lawless Roberts junta is any sort of problem needing some sort of addressing. Biden shot that right down, sort of like dealing with Trump was just a run of the mill political problem instead of any sort of existential crisis.
And here we are.
Another historic fun fact: The democracy that the Founding Fathers set up was essentially just a system for a non-democratic oligarchy to run things. And here we continue returning to our roots and heritage.
But a very small crumb of hope: That liberated, the GOP overreaches on gerrymandering such that benefits are diluted into creating more losses instead of wins.
first thing the Dem leaders have to do is stop grinning on the teevee. then they can think about laying it on the line. some have been at it a little, so i'm not giving up on them as a possible answer to what's coming. it's not *quite* obvious they have given up.
That’s the fallacy on which the DLC /Slick Willy push of the national party to be acceptable to Republican major donors is base Dem That you can’t win without a shit ton of financial backing. Bernie, AOC, Mamdani among others say you don’t need the money if you want to put in the work (that proves one has something to offer more than a line of bullshit). Then there’s also the ability to get coverage aka free publicity.
Regardless, yes, fuck Citizens United and the Roberts junta.
What Bernie showed is you can get a fuckton of money from small donors like you and me if you're willing to tell the corporate donors to fuck off. Didn't he out-raise Hillary in 2016? Did any Democrats take note of that?
Serving major donors and then bullshitting voters apparently is easier and more lucrative than dealing with the little people. Chuck and Hakeem can explain. Of course, at the end of the day, that’s how Harris lost.
On this question of who can raise more money, the corporate Dems or populist Dems who count on small donors, this just in from Maine, where Chuck Schumer's choice can't raise enough to beat the oyster farmer:
Assuming maximum money is essential is a choice and a mistake.
Again, Bernie, AOC et al say it’s not the end all and be all that we’re told it is.
So no, Citizens United is a problem (and a disgusting holding) but it’s a problem for shitty candidates by and by. Not so big a problem for the kind of leaders we need.
In Kingsley Amis' the Green Man, God tells Maurice to get the local vicar to do a sort of Anglican exorcism. Maurice scoffs at first because he knows the vicar to be a happy-clappy buffoon who doesn't favor ritual. That's as may be, says God, but the vicar still holds (and in fact is himself) instruments of the Church and they work regardless.
If we're advising Dem leaders - America's second-favorite indoor sport - would it be too much to advise them to go beyond excoriating THIS decision and THIS court to laying out what they plan to DO about the court in general?
Yes, expand the court, yes to term limits set at n-1 where n is the number of years Clarence has been on the court, yes to all that, but I would also REALLY appreciate someone laying out what can be done through a thing Congress does all the time: legislation.
I still have, in the back of my mind, a nagging question about how Dobbs would have gone if Democrats had bestirred themselves to pass an actual law guaranteeing a right to abortion, during one of the many, many times when they held the trifecta.
If the court's argument is that racial district-rigging is OK because it's really only partisan district-rigging, which is OK, then could we maybe please try a law that bans partisan district-rigging?
Yeah, I know, forget it Jake, it's the Roberts Court, but mebbe let's not make this shit EASY for them.
Odd how when you give people only two choices, they'll opt for the one they dislike if they dislike the other option MORE.
I don't know. My brain is not braining right, it's too early, and it's going to be a long day as I fret about having a passport but not a ***REALID***™ and might therefore not be allowed to travel, because papers. I so hate this timeline.
The Founders set up a non-democratic (by modern standards) oligarchy assuming those oligarchs would have skin in the game and be motivated to run a stable, prosperous society they were inextricably bound to.
You see the problem. Our modern oligarchs are Citizens of the World who float through and above our society. Their skin in the game is their businesses and investments, none of which particularly require a stable or prosperous American society.
Well, put like that, not necessarily a problem unless Masters make it a problem… I mean, we have democracy and pro-labor national Democrats refuse to do shit for labor. Oh, I’m sorry Biden stood on a picket line and said some nice things — lip service as is big thing of the party of Slick Willy and Obama — and…
A fun fact that I forgot to post somewhere today: The Founding Fathers were sooo frightened of, or at least concerned with, a tyranny of the majority that they (themselves one) made a tyranny of a minority easy-peasy. With the exception of that anomaly, the New Deal-Great Society era, we never had majority rule by which the majority were actually served. One could call that a huge failure of democracy…
something started caving in for me yesterday. with this history happening, and my personal literary regime harnessing me somehow to confront Faulkner's *absalom, absolom!* in that old Quinton Compson funk, imagining Alito with that Southern grin i grew up watching white men display to Black people as a sure sign of their hate. Those moments when i, a boy, was in the practice of mimicry to be a 'man'. i'd like to cry. At least i know what's coming. And unless you can grin at this news, you do too. i apologize for the faulnerian prose, i was almost born with it.
It’s like both parties have given up entirely on trying to improve things for people who aren’t already wealthy. Their platforms consist exclusively of pointing at the other guys and screaming “You can’t let THEM win!”
Not Both Sides. One side is on a mission from God since the 60's to dismantle the federal regulatory state. The other side has been reacting by scrambling to keep it duct taped together. The Republicans have been very clear on this, and the Democratic party has bent backwards to avoid calling them out on this because they don't want to have that fight, because I think they believe they would lose. At this point they are losing anyway and have nothing else to try. Whether they understand and accept this remains to be seen.
At this point, the Democrats are like an abusive partner pleading for another chance:
“Oh, please baby - take me back! I promise it will all be different this time! I won’t take your paycheck and blow it catting around with that ho Israel anymore, honest! I’ll get the minimum wage raised, and pass legislation to help the unions! And . . . and . . . UBI! Universal healthcare! It can all be yours if you’ll just give me ONE MORE CHANCE!”
The poisoned fruit of the Shelby County vs. Holder tree.
Periodic reminder that Roberts' mentor on the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist, was an old-line segregationist and vote suppressor Nixon himself sneaked on there.
The only other words I have for this are swear ones.
Thank you, Anthony Kennedy. His strategic retirement led to Kavanaugh and the decisions in Trump's first term which made partisan gerrymandering not justiciable (what a word). Roberts greased his way out of that one, too, by writing to the effect of "Sure it's anti-democratic, but it's up to the states to regulate it. S'not our problem!" Had it been up to this SC, Brown would have been decided in favor of the Board of Education, and racism would be up to the states, as god intended, and they may get around to overturning what's left of that, too.
I'm always amazed (but shouldn't be) how even a non-lawyer like me can so easily see through this court's written opinions as the transparent bullshit it is, no matter how clouded by legal folderol.
John Roberts must have creamed his robes when Alito fulfilled the Chief Justice’s lifelong ambition of denying Black people political power through voting. I wonder if Roberts let Alito wield the sledgehammer because Sammy had already destroyed his reputation with his antiabortion ruling (and flags!) and Roberts holds on to the slim hope that 50 years from now legal historians will not rank him with Roger Taney as Most Racist Chief Justice Ever. (Some historians, of course, will view this as a good thing, during Trump’s great grandson’s administration.) To venture into sportsball analogies, Roberts et al probably view his dismantling of human rights like the Lions’ Dan Campbell throwing out trick plays on 4th down, while nonfascists understand it’s more like packing gelignite into the football and setting it off in the opposing quarterback’s hand. Years from now many cemeteries are going to stink of urine, the true legacy of the Republican Court and polity.
"You may recall the whole “DEI” panic, which some of us knew was bullshit from jump"
If Google AI says it's OK...........
AI Overview
"Bullshit from jump" (or "from the jump") is a colloquial phrase meaning something was dishonest, fraudulent, or poor quality right from the very beginning.
[ I only do this because I want Roy's posts to be perfect. Also, I can't help myself. ]
Vote as if your life depends upon it! Someone might dismiss that as hyperbole, or worse. Sure, we've all heard it before and we're still alive—obviously! That must mean that the threat isn't real or as dangerous, right? It's always been true, it's just that now we see that whites are being killed along with minorities. Maybe that means the message will stick!
I’ve heard some suggestion that the Texas gerrymander in particular may backfire because it was drawn assuming Trump gains among Latino voters were permanent; we’ll see how that shakes out, though Blue Texas has been the Zeno’s Paradox of American politics nearly as long as I’ve been alive.
I suspect that the racial cutout will end up being used as a Roberts Rule which will, in practice, find that blue state gerrymanders favoring Dems are racial and red-state ones favoring the GOP are partisan.
If whoever is the Democratic nominee for president does not promise to pack the SC (and lower courts) and follow through, then they are simply not worth voting for. Because whatever is accomplished in the legislatures the SC will overturn it and my Tankie friends will have been proven right.
Personally, I suspect that we are just a couple of years away from the SC declaring that the 22nd Amendment doesn't apply to Trump, or they just appoint Robert's horse as president.
Steve Vladick makes a case today that the proper response is for Congress to slap down the Supreme Court, hard. They have the power to do that if they choose. Now, there's a good case for restructuring the Court, just like there's a good case for restructuring the House to fulfill its role of representing citizens proportionally in a manageable way. But I think slapping is a better short-term response that goes to the court's corruption by the Federalist Society.
I would be filled with amazement if a Democratic Congress and Senate, combined with a Democratic President, could even go so far as to say to the court, "Partisan district-rigging, a thing you say is "not judiciable", is now against the law." That's not even attacking the institution of the court itself, it's just changing the laws that the court is SUPPOSED to work within, and still I doubt they'd be willing to do it.
"But if you want people to vote harder, you have to give them something to vote for." Yes. But we should hope to kiss a pig. Everyone's been backed into a corner of fighting like a trapped animal for survival thanks to the narcissism and malevolence of the GOP and these fucked up, self-interested fascist 'judges'. I can't even be clever or deeply observant anymore, because I'm too busy exclaiming obscenities whenever I try to catch up. All part of the plan.
Kirkpatrick's trajectory is a perfect example of the trick the John Birch Society taught the Republican party in the 60's, to use the rhetoric of their opponents against them. Appear idealistic while attacking any attempt to implement idealism as tyranny.
And the Obama vote harder thing is a perfect example of attempting to hold the center together to prevent "things falling apart". This is insufficient to the task at hand which is a fight aganst a reactionary movement that sees representative democracy as an obstacle to overcome. Things are going to fall apart, the only question is what replaces them. The Democratic party is being dragged kicking and screaming into a radical role they have no understanding of or expertise in. There is no other institution that can fight the Republican party but the Democratic party. It remains to be seen if they are aware, willing, and capable of that fight. Its coming, ready or not.
Obama saying "vote harder" is trying to bring hope, and not despair, to a whole people who will suddenly be disenfranchised, especially in the South. Being an Angry Black Man gets you *lynched* in this country.
Well, yeah. What's he supposed to say, Rise Up Motherfuckers? He is no radical, let alone a revolutionary. But if there is anyone in Democratic leadership who gets where the country is today, it should be him. And he's about the only one with the moral authority to make the case that The Democratic party has to take radical action to oppose the Republican plan to cripple representative democracy, way more radical than plebisite-approved temporary gerrymandering. Probably goes against everything he believes, but I guess we'll find out.
We've had this conversation before, I know, but I just can't imagine that anyone in the Dem leadership, licking their chops at a big win in November, thinks there's really anything systemic that needs changing. Look the system is gonna make Hakeem Jeffries speaker, let's not start messin' with it now! So short-sighted that I'm amazed they can see as far as November.
That's because, and I hate to say this, you and I live in two different countries.
The country I currently live in is trying to *erase* Black people from political power altogether. Louisiana is already trying to cancel primaries, because Black people might vote in them. Tennessee is trying to redraw its maps right this minute.
What do you tell people who are about to lose their voting rights? It's the Democrats' fault?
If Republicans had rigged the game to the extent that Democrats could NEVER win, then of course all Democrats would understand that we need to change the system itself and not just Vote Harder. But as long as the system dribbles out Dem victories every now and then...
In short, the only conditions that would cause Democrats to believe we need radical systemic change would be the conditions that would keep them so far from power that they could never make those changes. That's some catch, that Catch 22.
In the 1960s most white people thought that MLK was a dangerous, unsettling radical and were relieved when he was silenced, even if they weren't comfortable with the method. Nowadays, when people on FB post about honoring their treasured southern heritage, they'll get a bunch of likes, but they'll also get several people quoting Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone speech back at them. The arc of justice is insufferably goddamn long, but some of us are hanging off one end, bending with all our might —
I do admit the same "information revolution" that eventually gave billionaires the keys to our amygdalas through social media also made it possible to lay the truth out to people who might otherwise never see it. But the truth is gonna need some help.
Oh, that’s cherce!! “that eventually gave billionaires the keys to our amygdalas” is as good as anything the above mentioned writers came up with. I bow.
"But the truth is gonna need some help."
I'll help! Now, where did the truth put its boots...
Think about how far ahead we'd be if we could just talk the truth into wearing loafers.
And no socks!
Fuck it, the liars flip-flop all the time, FLIP FLOPS FOR THE TRUTH
We should stop worrying about a land invasion. No need for flip flops on the ground.
Yesterday was a very bleak day for democracy and for all decent citizens of good faith. It's been obvious for a while that the long-game goal of conservatives, and certainly of the Trump administration/Project2025, is to reverse every piece of New Deal and Great Society legislation/policy they can get their fascist mitts on.
We can only hope the Dems don't decide that etiquette, fair play, and "norms" -which no longer exist by the way, we can barely see norms in the rearview mirror -- require them to bring a pair of dueling pistols to a fight where their opponents are firing off Uzis. Gerrymander blue states and expand the Supreme Court. Any Dem who won't support both initiatives isn't serious about trying to correct the course we are on.
One can only hope. Trump and his loathsome cohort are so awful that even Republicans are leaning back—it took a less classy Hitler to do it—but there’s an appalling chunk of white trash idiots, not necessarily poor, whose meanness exceeds their sense of self-interest when it comes to their loathing of “elites.” The people I remember hollering at us from the piney woods on the long walk from Selma to Montgomery now have nice homes in suburbia with huge boats in the front yard and vote Republican. Hunter Thompson has described them as vividly as did Mencken before they were fully accustomed to shoes.
And re the 'elites', wouldst we not forget that back when there WERE no 'elites' any backwoods bovine brain could get a job and claim 'merit'. Then when the swarthies started getting jobs the no-longer exclusive bunch were oblivious to the fact that real merit could be a thing, and maybejustmaybe not every pale-y was top o' the pile anymore...
"The people I remember hollering at us from the piney woods on the long walk from Selma to Montgomery now have nice homes in suburbia with huge boats in the front yard and vote Republican" -- the past's not dead...
"But if you want people to vote harder, you have to give them something to vote for."
You know what may or may not be funny there is that while the national party is repellant to voters in polls, that repulsion seems to be irrelevant in the face of repulsion by the Party of Trump. That's the apparent takeaway from last November and after.
Anyway, context from history:
Shelby County back ca 2013 tore out the heart of the VRA, and a few subsequent decisions put it on life support, its death inevitable.
Time passes and while in office Biden is asked whether maybe the lawless Roberts junta is any sort of problem needing some sort of addressing. Biden shot that right down, sort of like dealing with Trump was just a run of the mill political problem instead of any sort of existential crisis.
And here we are.
Another historic fun fact: The democracy that the Founding Fathers set up was essentially just a system for a non-democratic oligarchy to run things. And here we continue returning to our roots and heritage.
But a very small crumb of hope: That liberated, the GOP overreaches on gerrymandering such that benefits are diluted into creating more losses instead of wins.
first thing the Dem leaders have to do is stop grinning on the teevee. then they can think about laying it on the line. some have been at it a little, so i'm not giving up on them as a possible answer to what's coming. it's not *quite* obvious they have given up.
First thing is to stop being corporate tools maybe.
Yep, that's "the layin' it on the line" part, i think.
No other way to get the bazillions you need these days. Fuck Citizens United.
That’s the fallacy on which the DLC /Slick Willy push of the national party to be acceptable to Republican major donors is base Dem That you can’t win without a shit ton of financial backing. Bernie, AOC, Mamdani among others say you don’t need the money if you want to put in the work (that proves one has something to offer more than a line of bullshit). Then there’s also the ability to get coverage aka free publicity.
Regardless, yes, fuck Citizens United and the Roberts junta.
What Bernie showed is you can get a fuckton of money from small donors like you and me if you're willing to tell the corporate donors to fuck off. Didn't he out-raise Hillary in 2016? Did any Democrats take note of that?
That too.
Serving major donors and then bullshitting voters apparently is easier and more lucrative than dealing with the little people. Chuck and Hakeem can explain. Of course, at the end of the day, that’s how Harris lost.
Not that we matter…
On this question of who can raise more money, the corporate Dems or populist Dems who count on small donors, this just in from Maine, where Chuck Schumer's choice can't raise enough to beat the oyster farmer:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/30/maine-governor-janet-mills-drops-senate-race
Just saw a headline that she’s dropping out.
"Stop being corporate tools" will require the reversal of Citizens United, at the very least.
Assuming maximum money is essential is a choice and a mistake.
Again, Bernie, AOC et al say it’s not the end all and be all that we’re told it is.
So no, Citizens United is a problem (and a disgusting holding) but it’s a problem for shitty candidates by and by. Not so big a problem for the kind of leaders we need.
In Kingsley Amis' the Green Man, God tells Maurice to get the local vicar to do a sort of Anglican exorcism. Maurice scoffs at first because he knows the vicar to be a happy-clappy buffoon who doesn't favor ritual. That's as may be, says God, but the vicar still holds (and in fact is himself) instruments of the Church and they work regardless.
this helped earlier, shortly after the cat throwing up, got me out of bed.
https://poets.org/poem/sleepless-nights
Excellent. Thanks for that.
Poetry does it!
What's the line -? "God I know and Jesus I know but who art thou?"
But do you have their TELEX numbers?
[ht A.Hoffman]
a telephone call to the beyond (h/t Nietzsche)
If we're advising Dem leaders - America's second-favorite indoor sport - would it be too much to advise them to go beyond excoriating THIS decision and THIS court to laying out what they plan to DO about the court in general?
Yes, expand the court, yes to term limits set at n-1 where n is the number of years Clarence has been on the court, yes to all that, but I would also REALLY appreciate someone laying out what can be done through a thing Congress does all the time: legislation.
I still have, in the back of my mind, a nagging question about how Dobbs would have gone if Democrats had bestirred themselves to pass an actual law guaranteeing a right to abortion, during one of the many, many times when they held the trifecta.
If the court's argument is that racial district-rigging is OK because it's really only partisan district-rigging, which is OK, then could we maybe please try a law that bans partisan district-rigging?
Yeah, I know, forget it Jake, it's the Roberts Court, but mebbe let's not make this shit EASY for them.
Odd how when you give people only two choices, they'll opt for the one they dislike if they dislike the other option MORE.
I don't know. My brain is not braining right, it's too early, and it's going to be a long day as I fret about having a passport but not a ***REALID***™ and might therefore not be allowed to travel, because papers. I so hate this timeline.
Republican voters accept voting for candidates they don’t like because party, we sit out an election and let Trump get restored.
There’s a place for standards, but a general election isn’t it.
And I feel your caffeine deprivation.
Good luck getting back in…
Yeah, I'd get that REALID thing taken care of before they start putting Donald Trump's scowling visage on our drivers licenses.
The Founders set up a non-democratic (by modern standards) oligarchy assuming those oligarchs would have skin in the game and be motivated to run a stable, prosperous society they were inextricably bound to.
You see the problem. Our modern oligarchs are Citizens of the World who float through and above our society. Their skin in the game is their businesses and investments, none of which particularly require a stable or prosperous American society.
Well, put like that, not necessarily a problem unless Masters make it a problem… I mean, we have democracy and pro-labor national Democrats refuse to do shit for labor. Oh, I’m sorry Biden stood on a picket line and said some nice things — lip service as is big thing of the party of Slick Willy and Obama — and…
A fun fact that I forgot to post somewhere today: The Founding Fathers were sooo frightened of, or at least concerned with, a tyranny of the majority that they (themselves one) made a tyranny of a minority easy-peasy. With the exception of that anomaly, the New Deal-Great Society era, we never had majority rule by which the majority were actually served. One could call that a huge failure of democracy…
David Allen Coe died. I guess he wasn't really a racist either.
Maybe I'm too quick to label people as racist, just because of the things they say and do.
Oh he was for sure a racist. But a very fine songwriter!
"But the country deejays, all think I'm an outlaw
And they'd never come to see me in this dive
Where bikers stare at cowboys who are laughing at the hippies
Who are praying they'll get out of here alive-"
That line is perfect and breathtaking.
The Ezra Pound of country music - a total worthless asshole who wrote like a dream
Oh, man. Fascism victorious sure brings out the poets in us.👏
I distinctly recall they said there would be no pogrom
In fact I remember saying that phrase to my mom
Then later that year
Their intentions came clear
So we'll all overload the cattle cars with aplomb
something started caving in for me yesterday. with this history happening, and my personal literary regime harnessing me somehow to confront Faulkner's *absalom, absolom!* in that old Quinton Compson funk, imagining Alito with that Southern grin i grew up watching white men display to Black people as a sure sign of their hate. Those moments when i, a boy, was in the practice of mimicry to be a 'man'. i'd like to cry. At least i know what's coming. And unless you can grin at this news, you do too. i apologize for the faulnerian prose, i was almost born with it.
You wear it well!
It’s like both parties have given up entirely on trying to improve things for people who aren’t already wealthy. Their platforms consist exclusively of pointing at the other guys and screaming “You can’t let THEM win!”
Not Both Sides. One side is on a mission from God since the 60's to dismantle the federal regulatory state. The other side has been reacting by scrambling to keep it duct taped together. The Republicans have been very clear on this, and the Democratic party has bent backwards to avoid calling them out on this because they don't want to have that fight, because I think they believe they would lose. At this point they are losing anyway and have nothing else to try. Whether they understand and accept this remains to be seen.
At this point, the Democrats are like an abusive partner pleading for another chance:
“Oh, please baby - take me back! I promise it will all be different this time! I won’t take your paycheck and blow it catting around with that ho Israel anymore, honest! I’ll get the minimum wage raised, and pass legislation to help the unions! And . . . and . . . UBI! Universal healthcare! It can all be yours if you’ll just give me ONE MORE CHANCE!”
The poisoned fruit of the Shelby County vs. Holder tree.
Periodic reminder that Roberts' mentor on the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist, was an old-line segregationist and vote suppressor Nixon himself sneaked on there.
The only other words I have for this are swear ones.
The malevolent ghost of Marbury v Madison cackles in delight.
Voting goes out the door
When Alito comes arguendo
[apologies to Marx]
Thank you, Anthony Kennedy. His strategic retirement led to Kavanaugh and the decisions in Trump's first term which made partisan gerrymandering not justiciable (what a word). Roberts greased his way out of that one, too, by writing to the effect of "Sure it's anti-democratic, but it's up to the states to regulate it. S'not our problem!" Had it been up to this SC, Brown would have been decided in favor of the Board of Education, and racism would be up to the states, as god intended, and they may get around to overturning what's left of that, too.
I'm always amazed (but shouldn't be) how even a non-lawyer like me can so easily see through this court's written opinions as the transparent bullshit it is, no matter how clouded by legal folderol.
You have to *want* to be deceived by the legal folderol.
"partisan gerrymandering not justiciable"
Just wondering, what if - under a new President and Congress - we passed a law banning partisan gerrymandering? Because I hear there's a bill...
John Roberts must have creamed his robes when Alito fulfilled the Chief Justice’s lifelong ambition of denying Black people political power through voting. I wonder if Roberts let Alito wield the sledgehammer because Sammy had already destroyed his reputation with his antiabortion ruling (and flags!) and Roberts holds on to the slim hope that 50 years from now legal historians will not rank him with Roger Taney as Most Racist Chief Justice Ever. (Some historians, of course, will view this as a good thing, during Trump’s great grandson’s administration.) To venture into sportsball analogies, Roberts et al probably view his dismantling of human rights like the Lions’ Dan Campbell throwing out trick plays on 4th down, while nonfascists understand it’s more like packing gelignite into the football and setting it off in the opposing quarterback’s hand. Years from now many cemeteries are going to stink of urine, the true legacy of the Republican Court and polity.
"You may recall the whole “DEI” panic, which some of us knew was bullshit from jump"
If Google AI says it's OK...........
AI Overview
"Bullshit from jump" (or "from the jump") is a colloquial phrase meaning something was dishonest, fraudulent, or poor quality right from the very beginning.
[ I only do this because I want Roy's posts to be perfect. Also, I can't help myself. ]
Vote as if your life depends upon it! Someone might dismiss that as hyperbole, or worse. Sure, we've all heard it before and we're still alive—obviously! That must mean that the threat isn't real or as dangerous, right? It's always been true, it's just that now we see that whites are being killed along with minorities. Maybe that means the message will stick!
I’ve heard some suggestion that the Texas gerrymander in particular may backfire because it was drawn assuming Trump gains among Latino voters were permanent; we’ll see how that shakes out, though Blue Texas has been the Zeno’s Paradox of American politics nearly as long as I’ve been alive.
I suspect that the racial cutout will end up being used as a Roberts Rule which will, in practice, find that blue state gerrymanders favoring Dems are racial and red-state ones favoring the GOP are partisan.
"Blue Texas has been the Zeno’s Paradox of American politics"
This time it's different! James Talarico is gonna do what Beto O'Rourke could NEVER do! I'm gonna kick that football TO THE MOON!
On one hand I’m not trying to be doomist; on the other hand I’ll believe it when I see it.
If whoever is the Democratic nominee for president does not promise to pack the SC (and lower courts) and follow through, then they are simply not worth voting for. Because whatever is accomplished in the legislatures the SC will overturn it and my Tankie friends will have been proven right.
Personally, I suspect that we are just a couple of years away from the SC declaring that the 22nd Amendment doesn't apply to Trump, or they just appoint Robert's horse as president.
Steve Vladick makes a case today that the proper response is for Congress to slap down the Supreme Court, hard. They have the power to do that if they choose. Now, there's a good case for restructuring the Court, just like there's a good case for restructuring the House to fulfill its role of representing citizens proportionally in a manageable way. But I think slapping is a better short-term response that goes to the court's corruption by the Federalist Society.
You can't reform ICE, you can't slap down this court without packing it and the lower courts. Anything less than that is useless.
I would be filled with amazement if a Democratic Congress and Senate, combined with a Democratic President, could even go so far as to say to the court, "Partisan district-rigging, a thing you say is "not judiciable", is now against the law." That's not even attacking the institution of the court itself, it's just changing the laws that the court is SUPPOSED to work within, and still I doubt they'd be willing to do it.
"But if you want people to vote harder, you have to give them something to vote for." Yes. But we should hope to kiss a pig. Everyone's been backed into a corner of fighting like a trapped animal for survival thanks to the narcissism and malevolence of the GOP and these fucked up, self-interested fascist 'judges'. I can't even be clever or deeply observant anymore, because I'm too busy exclaiming obscenities whenever I try to catch up. All part of the plan.
Kirkpatrick's trajectory is a perfect example of the trick the John Birch Society taught the Republican party in the 60's, to use the rhetoric of their opponents against them. Appear idealistic while attacking any attempt to implement idealism as tyranny.
And the Obama vote harder thing is a perfect example of attempting to hold the center together to prevent "things falling apart". This is insufficient to the task at hand which is a fight aganst a reactionary movement that sees representative democracy as an obstacle to overcome. Things are going to fall apart, the only question is what replaces them. The Democratic party is being dragged kicking and screaming into a radical role they have no understanding of or expertise in. There is no other institution that can fight the Republican party but the Democratic party. It remains to be seen if they are aware, willing, and capable of that fight. Its coming, ready or not.
(OK, I lied. I do have other things to say.)
Obama saying "vote harder" is trying to bring hope, and not despair, to a whole people who will suddenly be disenfranchised, especially in the South. Being an Angry Black Man gets you *lynched* in this country.
Well, yeah. What's he supposed to say, Rise Up Motherfuckers? He is no radical, let alone a revolutionary. But if there is anyone in Democratic leadership who gets where the country is today, it should be him. And he's about the only one with the moral authority to make the case that The Democratic party has to take radical action to oppose the Republican plan to cripple representative democracy, way more radical than plebisite-approved temporary gerrymandering. Probably goes against everything he believes, but I guess we'll find out.
We've had this conversation before, I know, but I just can't imagine that anyone in the Dem leadership, licking their chops at a big win in November, thinks there's really anything systemic that needs changing. Look the system is gonna make Hakeem Jeffries speaker, let's not start messin' with it now! So short-sighted that I'm amazed they can see as far as November.
That's because, and I hate to say this, you and I live in two different countries.
The country I currently live in is trying to *erase* Black people from political power altogether. Louisiana is already trying to cancel primaries, because Black people might vote in them. Tennessee is trying to redraw its maps right this minute.
What do you tell people who are about to lose their voting rights? It's the Democrats' fault?
If Republicans had rigged the game to the extent that Democrats could NEVER win, then of course all Democrats would understand that we need to change the system itself and not just Vote Harder. But as long as the system dribbles out Dem victories every now and then...
In short, the only conditions that would cause Democrats to believe we need radical systemic change would be the conditions that would keep them so far from power that they could never make those changes. That's some catch, that Catch 22.
I just watched “The Pianist” and read the book on which it is based. Warsaw in Ww2 was exemplary of that on the industrial scale.