Octopus Overlords

Unions save lives:

The Local Average Treatment Effect of a 1% decline in unionisation attributable to RTW is about a 5% increase in the rate of occupational fatalities. In total, RTW laws have led to a 14.2% increase in occupational mortality through decreased unionisation.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 8:39 am

Yojimbo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 01, 2018 10:13 pm Once a ruling stands for decades they will never overturn it. The "organizational ego" of the SCOTUS will simply never allow this kind of admission.

Uhh...didn't they just do exactly this? With the Janus decision?

Maybe it IS a whole new world where stare decisis does not hold sway any longer.

I also wonder if the millions of new voters that are coming in (almost all of whom are devote Catholics) might be a factor too.

Who could have know this strange orange man would so profoundly change America for generations to come?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/02/politics ... index.html

Couldn't be more in agreement. It isn't by accident that she and Ryan are on the top of my list.

Uh...millions of new voters? What kind of time frame are you imagining?

Yojimbo wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 8:38 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 8:39 am

Yojimbo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 01, 2018 10:13 pm Once a ruling stands for decades they will never overturn it. The "organizational ego" of the SCOTUS will simply never allow this kind of admission.

Uhh...didn't they just do exactly this? With the Janus decision?

Maybe it IS a whole new world where stare decisis does not hold sway any longer.

I also wonder if the millions of new voters that are coming in (almost all of whom are devote Catholics) might be a factor too.

Who could have know this strange orange man would so profoundly change America for generations to come?

Move the goalposts much?

The scraping noise from dragging the goal post is intended to cover for the dog whistle.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Tue Jul 03, 2018 3:13 pm Move the goalposts much?

Maybe? No? Did I? Yes? You may over estimate my capacity for change or evolution.

I still think they will not directly re-try R v W despite the unions case. I think they will sneak up on it with a discovery that babies are really small humans.

I think this will cause every election at the state and federal level to require candidate declaration on abortions directly (in detail) - I suspect that no one will enjoy this process. If this is the new landscape - those millions of old-school Catholics will weigh in heavy on every ballot - that is what I was implying.

I still think that Susan Collins and that whole crowd is in danger of simply asking SCOTS picks "if you will reverse Roe V Wade" (She said this on TV). I still think this will always be replied to with "no, never" by judges who (a few months later) will discover that babies on-board are really tiny human beings with American civil rights.

I am happy to be wrong about all of this (I hope I am wrong about the empty confirmation hearings) - don't waste too much time projecting some "normal human's" need to be right about everything on to me. But I think we are about to witness the 'ol bread and cirrus whereby the Senators ask about R v W and the Judges cry "never!" and they preempt it with some new set of rights for unborn Americans that leaves it in place but it becomes as moot as the running shoes in my closet.

I'm at the point of cynicism where our "two party" system starts to look like 2 dancers moving to the same song - creating the appearance of options in government but not really giving us any choices. Trump would never have been my outsider of choice (I require gravitas in my leaders) but that guy is sure messing up the dance and breaking the illusion of free will the two parties were spinning for us.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 10:56 pm Uh...millions of new voters? What kind of time frame are you imagining?

My bad - I am being obtuse (but not by design)

So, I think we have millions of Latinos and Latinas who have joined the voter roles in the last 44 years (since Roe v Wade) was last a "hot issue" at the ballot box. Those who I have first hand experience with are very old-fashioned Catholics (like my grandmother was in her day). What I hear about the rest is (so far) similar - many have come from places where the Catholic church does not have a progressive tradition - but a traditional tradition.

The SCOTS voiding, preempting, or what-have-you abortion rights will not be the END of that issue. What I am assuming (yes, I know dangerous) will happen is that BOTH the federal legislature and the states will try and "solve" abortion. So I think every Catholic (or other religion) voter will suddenly be in the "drivers" seat. I know some of you are worried about Baptists, etc - I am not real knowledgeable about all that. What I see the Baptists doing is tearing themselves apart fast with this neo-Calvinist movement that has a strong male chauvinist streak to it. I think the new American Catholics are going to be the voting block (you know, like they were in 2016) that surprises people. And I think that block may come down very much anti-abortion. I have no hard facts about this and I am happy to suffer scorn and emoji abuse by you all if I am wrong over the next several years.

Having all of this wrapped up in Roe V Wave (obviously) let our legislators not have to address it for half a human lifespan. I think addressing it again at the ballot box will mix up the game - and a lot of the newer American voters have "no abortion" profiles at a superficial level.

I wouldn't expect any SCOTUS candidate to say explicitly whether they would vote for or against specific things. None on either side have historically be apt to do that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... 56d4b5db6b

I'm proactively shuddering at the potentially perfect storm of increased abortion restrictions, elimination of medical care options, and further gutting of any social safety net.

A recipe for disaster, to say the least.

Skinypupy wrote:I'm proactively shuddering at the potentially perfect storm of increased abortion restrictions, elimination of medical care options, and further gutting of any social safety net.

A recipe for disaster, to say the least.

Disaster? I call it returning to the Golden age of America right after WWII when people still died of small pox, pregnancy, not washing your hands, and had large quantities of abortions with household items. A special black and white land (as long as they're separate!) where women can be groped at the office and fags are put in their place. Where American manufacturing can feed off the suddenly massive war economy and grow into a consumer based economy ready to send all that money back up to the top because these taxes are way the fuck too high.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Combustible Lemur wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 1:06 am

Skinypupy wrote:I'm proactively shuddering at the potentially perfect storm of increased abortion restrictions, elimination of medical care options, and further gutting of any social safety net.

A recipe for disaster, to say the least.

Disaster? I call it returning to the Golden age of America right after WWII when people still died of small pox, pregnancy, not washing your hands, and had large quantities of abortions with household items. A special black and white land (as long as they're separate!) where women can be groped at the office and fags are put in their place. Where American manufacturing can feed off the suddenly massive war economy and grow into a consumer based economy ready to send all that money back up to the top because these taxes are way the fuck too high.

So...MAGA, basically.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 03, 2018 11:58 pm I'm proactively shuddering at the potentially perfect storm of increased abortion restrictions, elimination of medical care options, and further gutting of any social safety net.

A recipe for disaster, to say the least.

Not to worry. Republicans' daughters and mistresses will be fine. They know people.

Holman wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:41 am

Default wrote: ↑Sun Jul 01, 2018 8:31 pm Baptisms (new members ) in the Southern Baptists, which are the largest denomination of evangelicals, are at their lowest since 1947. They better enjoy their domination now, because evangelicals are going to be irrelevant as a block in ten years.

Gotta be careful here though.

Evangelicals are in decline, but the big denominations are declining faster than overall numbers as there is a shift towards independent "nondenominational" mega-churches (many of them politically just as conservative) that don't identify as Southern Baptist or anything else.

Those numbers are dropping too. Megachurches get all the press, but the average congregation size is still 75, iirc. Apparently, dropping the word "Baptist" from the church name has become a thing, too.
here's an interesting read. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ar/563000/

Holman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:10 am

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 03, 2018 11:58 pm I'm proactively shuddering at the potentially perfect storm of increased abortion restrictions, elimination of medical care options, and further gutting of any social safety net.

A recipe for disaster, to say the least.

Not to worry. Republicans' daughters and mistresses will be fine. They know people.

We are already trending toward the pre-Roe days of my youth in MI, when girls would disappear to "visit an uncle" in NY for a week ("visiting an uncle in NY" held on as a euphemism for abortions for some time after Roe). There will still be oases where those with the means can go. The rest can choose between unwanted babies and risky, illegal procedures.

Mitch McConnell once again confirming he's a giant pile of whale excrement, stating that the President's nominee will face "unfair tactics" from the opposition, going so far as to complain about how Democrats won't consider any nomination. He does all this with a straight face, too. I have seriously never felt such hatred towards a human being. He's disgusting to his core.

I wonder if that since Russia seems to influence Trump if his picks for SCOTUS are also in Russias pocket? That could bode badly.

I mean that's kind of the big question around the possibility of Russia and its influence on Trump. If it turns out there is a credible and strong link there, how does that affect everything the admin has done? We're talking two SCOTUS seats and a lot of lower court judges, and that's the obvious stuff. There's also all the day to day administrative stuff and regulations rolled back. There's no mechanism to undo all this, so we'd be left with the aftermath.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sat Jun 30, 2018 9:33 am Looks like somebody is on the short list!

In the past, he’s argued that the president should not be distracted by civil lawsuits, criminal investigations or even questions from attorneys while in office.

But, despite that stance, Kavanaugh worked under Ken Starr as one of the attorneys investigating Bill Clinton.

Despite the fact that the Republican judge worked on the legal attack mounted against Clinton, he has more recently written a law review article offering an extremist view of presidential power.

A president should not have to face “time-consuming and distracting” investigations or lawsuits because they “ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis.”

This is all really amazing to watch unfold in slow motion, though I'd like to be reading about it as it was happening 100 years ago, not actually living and experiencing it in real time.

Sometimes the internet gets it right...

When they narrowed it down to the 4-person short list, I literally picked the guy I thought looked the skeeziest and hit the nail on the head.

(To be fair, it was 1 in 3 chance. No way in hell Trump was going to pick a woman.)

Well, we all knew that saving his own skin would be Trump's overriding consideration. It always is. He can safely shut down the investigation as soon as this fellow is sworn in.

Slap in the face to Kennedy.

1. Warn that the President is Not Above the Law.
2. Resign.
3. Replacement selected who believes that the President Cannot be Sued.

The timeline gets darker.

My go to politician says "no". Saves me the effort of having to do my own research because I'm lazy and would rather be playing computer games.

link

Brett Kavanaugh: "No president has ever consulted more widely or talked to more people from more backgrounds to seek input for a Supreme Court nomination."

Starting off with an obvious lie to flatter Trump. This is already ridiculous.

Adding to what was posted above (lost source):

“Kavanaugh may have additional relevance to Trump. Once a key player in the investigation that led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment, Kavanaugh later wrote that the experience, coupled with his time working for President George W. Bush, had persuaded him that presidents should not have to face criminal investigations, including indictments, or civil lawsuits while they are in office.

In 2009, Kavanaugh said Congress should enact a law to defer legal action against a president until after he had left office. Some of these issues could be before the court in the event special counsel Robert Mueller tries to compel Trump's testimony or, perhaps less likely, persuades a grand jury to indict Trump in connection with the Russia investigation.”

We’re screwed.

I don't understand why people are so beholden to Trump. It really is cult-like.

This pretty much sums up left wing Twitter after the Kavanaugh nom:

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 8:04 am Adding to what was posted above (lost source):

“Kavanaugh may have additional relevance to Trump. Once a key player in the investigation that led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment, Kavanaugh later wrote that the experience, coupled with his time working for President George W. Bush, had persuaded him that presidents should not have to face criminal investigations, including indictments, or civil lawsuits while they are in office.

In 2009, Kavanaugh said Congress should enact a law to defer legal action against a president until after he had left office. Some of these issues could be before the court in the event special counsel Robert Mueller tries to compel Trump's testimony or, perhaps less likely, persuades a grand jury to indict Trump in connection with the Russia investigation.”

We’re screwed.

It was an obvious pick - it was what is best for Trump. That many Conservatives happen to be in alignment is a bonus. I will just have to do what I continue to do - hope for the death of a President (naturally would be best).

Edit: And just saw this - I don't believe this but if true it'd be hard to believe that we weren't in the midst of a 'anti-cultural revolution'

The dude said in his remarks: “No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a [SCOTUS] nomination."

Such ass-kissing doesn’t bode well for him being independent of Trump’s influence.

Captain Caveman wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:31 am The dude said in his remarks: “No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a [SCOTUS] nomination."

Such ass-kissing doesn’t bode well for him being independent of Trump’s influence.

Good!

Yojimbo wrote: ↑Tue Jul 03, 2018 8:26 pmI'm at the point of cynicism where our "two party" system starts to look like 2 dancers moving to the same song - creating the appearance of options in government but not really giving us any choices.

This is the stupidest fucking thing posted on the Internet in months. The two parties are RADICALLY different. Their policy goals and means of attaining them couldn't be less similar.

em2nought wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:27 am

Captain Caveman wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:31 am The dude said in his remarks: “No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a [SCOTUS] nomination."

Such ass-kissing doesn’t bode well for him being independent of Trump’s influence.

Good!

You are a horrifyingly terrible excuse for a human being.

Despite the fact that the Republican judge worked on the legal attack mounted against Clinton, he has more recently written a law review article offering an extremist view of presidential power.

A president should not have to face “time-consuming and distracting” investigations or lawsuits because they “ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis.”

Indeed, it might get in the way of holding campaign rallies, golfing, watching Fox News and tweeting tweets.

I had to draft a new provision yesterday that "any change in any law" regarding a same-sex marriage or its recognition will not invalidate bequests in a Will or Trust. Sad.

em2nought wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:27 am

Captain Caveman wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:31 am The dude said in his remarks: “No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a [SCOTUS] nomination."

Such ass-kissing doesn’t bode well for him being independent of Trump’s influence.

Good!

I'm sure you'd feel exactly the same when those protections are in place for a President not named Trump.

But hey, anything to protect Dear Leader, right?

Why, oh why, do you guys engage?

Fireball wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:35 am

Yojimbo wrote: ↑Tue Jul 03, 2018 8:26 pmI'm at the point of cynicism where our "two party" system starts to look like 2 dancers moving to the same song - creating the appearance of options in government but not really giving us any choices.

This is the stupidest fucking thing posted on the Internet in months. The two parties are RADICALLY different. Their policy goals and means of attaining them couldn't be less similar.

I was of the opinion that the two parties were about as radically different as Coke and Pepsi. Some people can tell the difference but it's miniscule. Not enough for me to notice.

Then it was more like the difference between a lager and and IPA. Noticable to me but both are still beer.

Now it's like the difference between a glass of apple juice and a dump truck full of gravel.

Fireball wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:37 am

em2nought wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 10:27 am

Captain Caveman wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:31 am The dude said in his remarks: “No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a [SCOTUS] nomination."

Such ass-kissing doesn’t bode well for him being independent of Trump’s influence.

Good!

Personal attack deleted

You really need to chill out when you come on this forum.

We can all rest easy. Kavanaugh confirmed that Trump consulted with many fine people before making this pick.

Kavanaugh made extremely odd claim: "No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a [SCOTUS] nomination."

There've been ~160 previous nominees -- and selection process isn't generally matter of public record.