Octopus Overlords

gbasden wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:01 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:55 pm Ken Paxton can go fuck himself.

Half the goddamned country can go fuck itself. I cannot believe how enraged this all is making me feel.

Drazzil wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:34 pm If anyone gets the chance; listen to mike duncans revolutions. Pay particular attention to the French and Russian revolutions. Hell if you wanna be shocked even more... Listen to the five episodes of the history of Rome leading up to Caesar. It's downright errie how things never change.

Default wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:18 pm Time to pack the court.

Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:05 pm I mean this week alone has to go down in history for the ridiculous decisions they just unleashed. Its like they are fully embracing their illegitimacy at this point just to get more evil things done. Is it because the GOP is in its death throes? Do they really fear they're losing their grasp and this is all part of their final push to retain control? I guess we'll see.

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:18 pm Would be nice if any of our elected representatives would step up to do as much to protect women's rights as, say, Dick's Sporting Goods.

Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:55 pm Ken Paxton can go fuck himself.

Alefroth wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:58 pm Well, this will certainly take the focus off of Jan 6.

Holman wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:38 pm

Drazzil wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:34 pm If anyone gets the chance; listen to mike duncans revolutions. Pay particular attention to the French and Russian revolutions. Hell if you wanna be shocked even more... Listen to the five episodes of the history of Rome leading up to Caesar. It's downright errie how things never change.

What's downright eerie is how political violence works to the advantage of the worst people and makes the most vulnerable suffer even more.

Which, by the way, is something you'd know if you actually understood Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast.

Drazzil wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:33 pm I just want to live long enough to watch the most public faces get hauled outta their hideyholes and brought to justice on national TV. Then I can die happy.

Holman wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:12 pm

Drazzil wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:33 pm I just want to live long enough to watch the most public faces get hauled outta their hideyholes and brought to justice on national TV. Then I can die happy.

What if there's--and hear me out here--an outcome that's perhaps less brutally satisfying but at least somewhat plausible and more real-world possible than that?

Would that be enough not to burn everything down and make *everyone* (including you) suffer?

Holman wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:12 pm

Drazzil wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:33 pm I just want to live long enough to watch the most public faces get hauled outta their hideyholes and brought to justice on national TV. Then I can die happy.

What if there's--and hear me out here--an outcome that's perhaps less brutally satisfying but at least somewhat plausible and more real-world possible than that?

Would that be enough not to burn everything down and make *everyone* (including you) suffer?

Kraken wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:38 pm Wondering idly what would happen if a couple of SC justices were to meet unfortunate untimely ends. Would their seats just remain vacant until one party has both a firm Senate majority and the presidency?

Unagi wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:03 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:55 pm Ken Paxton can go fuck himself.

Let’s attack the ideas. Not the person.


I’m kidding.

Kraken wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:38 pm Wondering idly what would happen if a couple of SC justices were to meet unfortunate untimely ends. Would their seats just remain vacant until one party has both a firm Senate majority and the presidency?

The dissent, signed jointly by the three justices appointed by Democrats, took apart the majority’s attempts to justify its rejection of established precedent and even questioned the Republican-appointed justices’ claims to neutrality. The right to abortion, the dissenters noted, was established by one ruling a half century ago, reaffirmed by another 30 years ago, and “no recent developments, in either law or fact, have eroded or cast doubt on those precedents. Nothing, in short, has changed.”

Nothing, that is, other than the makeup of the court. This is the sole reason for Friday’s ruling. As the dissenters rightly put it, “Today, the proclivities of individuals rule.”

The presence of these individuals on the court is the culmination of a decades-long effort by anti-abortion and other right-wing forces to remake the court into a regressive bulwark. This has never been a secret; and with the help of the Senate under Mitch McConnell, former president Donald Trump and allies in the conservative legal movement, they have succeeded.

The central logic of the Dobbs ruling is superficially straightforward, and the opinion is substantially the same as the draft Justice Alito distributed to the other justices in February, which was leaked to the press last month. Roe and Casey must be overruled, the ruling says, because “the Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” including the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of due process. While that provision has been held to guarantee certain rights that are not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution, any such right must be “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition.”

By the majority’s reasoning, the right to terminate a pregnancy is not “deeply rooted” in the history and tradition of the United States — a country whose Constitution was written by a small band of wealthy white men, many of whom owned slaves and most, if not all, of whom considered women to be second-class citizens without any say in politics.

The three dissenters in the Dobbs case — Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — called out the majority’s dishonesty, noting that its exceedingly narrow definition of “deeply rooted” rights poses a threat to far more than reproductive freedom. The majority’s denial of this is impossible to believe, the dissenters wrote, saying: “Either the majority does not really believe in its own reasoning. Or if it does, all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid-19th century are insecure.”

In other words, the court is not going to stop at abortion. If you think that’s hyperbole, consider Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs, in which he called for the court to reconsider other constitutional rights that Americans have enjoyed, in some cases, for decades — including the right to use birth control, the right to marry the person of their choosing and the right of consenting adults to do as they please in the privacy of their bedrooms without being arrested and charged with crimes. These rights share a similar constitutional grounding to the now-former right to abortion, and Justice Thomas rejects that grounding, calling on the court to “eliminate it … at the earliest opportunity.”

malchior wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:52 pm

Kraken wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:38 pm Wondering idly what would happen if a couple of SC justices were to meet unfortunate untimely ends. Would their seats just remain vacant until one party has both a firm Senate majority and the presidency?

It's very possible. After Garland/Gorsuch/Barrett and then all these extreme/radical decisions we are in unknown territory. The system was coming apart at the seams already. We were somewhat prepared but today was one of the first times that a majority who were reluctant to face reality really saw that we live in a country where we are to some level ruled by tyrants. All bets are off.

In a reckless fit of judicial activism that will redound for generations, the Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the half-century-old precedent that declared that Americans have a constitutional right to obtain abortions. It is hard to exaggerate how wrongheaded, radical and dangerous this ruling is, and not just for anyone who could ever become pregnant. A 5-to-4 majority has thrust the country and the court itself into a perilous new era, one in which the court is no longer a defender of key personal rights.

Throughout their ruling, Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas played down the existential significance of pregnancy for women’s lives. “Attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy,” wrote Justice Alito, “could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.” In fact, pregnancy is nothing like those things. It is an intimate decision with few, if any, parallels — one that a constitutional order that prizes personal dignity and autonomy requires individuals be able to make themselves.

In part because Americans rely on Supreme Court rulings to make decisions and plan for the future, overturning a precedent of Roe’s vintage and significance should be done only in exceptional circumstances — meaning, if the decision was egregiously wrong. This was obviously not the case with Roe, which the court had previously reviewed and upheld and which found its basis in the simple concept that a government committed to respecting fundamental liberties must place a high premium on individuals’ prerogative to make the most intimate and personal choices. Nor was Roe outside the mainstream of American values, with polls showing broad popular acceptance of the ruling before the justices eviscerated it.

Even if the justices did not find all of Roe’s reasoning compelling, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. emphasized that the court did not need to go as far as it did. The case before the court involved Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks. The chief justice would have upheld the ban because it still left women “a reasonable opportunity to choose” whether to proceed with their pregnancies. Such a holding would have modified, not obliterated, Roe’s longtime guarantee that pregnant people must be allowed to exercise some degree of free judgment on whether they will carry a child to term. “Surely we should adhere closely to principles of judicial restraint here, where the broader path the Court chooses entails repudiating a constitutional right we have not only previously recognized, but also expressly reaffirmed applying the doctrine of stare decisis,” Justice Roberts wrote. Five justices ignored his pleas, overturning Roe not because the case in front of them demanded it — but because they wanted to.

...

The last victim is the court itself. In a stroke, a heedless majority has done more to undermine the court’s credibility than in any other action it has taken in modern times. Fundamental to its place in American society is the notion that the justices are more than just politicians in robes — that they are committed to conscientiously interpreting the law, with regard to text, tradition, history, logic, judicial restraint and common practice, rather than imposing their political or ideological preferences as quickly and as far as they can. In much of the country, this image will now be shattered. So, too, will be Americans’ expectations that they can count on any court ruling to remain the durable law of the land. We are entering a new era of distrust and volatility in the legal system in a country that needs stability in its governmental institutions, rather than more venom and tumult.

Friday’s ruling was another reminder, for a country that needs no more, that Americans cannot take for granted the freedoms they enjoy. Their decisions, particularly how and whether they vote, can have direct, dramatic and negative consequences for their lives. A decades-long conservative crusade to nullify federal abortion rights has now succeeded, because Senate Republicans underhandedly stacked the court with justices who have proved to be disastrously intemperate. This tragic moment should wake Americans to reality: They must defend their rights, or they are liable to lose them.

malchior wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:11 am Washington Post - similar tone. It's interesting that WaPo trailed off at the end. It's almost like they are seeing the obvious next question. Are we going to have to go outside the system to defend our rights? We're in an incredibly dangerous era now.

In a reckless fit of judicial activism that will redound for generations, the Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the half-century-old precedent that declared that Americans have a constitutional right to obtain abortions. It is hard to exaggerate how wrongheaded, radical and dangerous this ruling is, and not just for anyone who could ever become pregnant. A 5-to-4 majority has thrust the country and the court itself into a perilous new era, one in which the court is no longer a defender of key personal rights.

Throughout their ruling, Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas played down the existential significance of pregnancy for women’s lives. “Attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy,” wrote Justice Alito, “could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.” In fact, pregnancy is nothing like those things. It is an intimate decision with few, if any, parallels — one that a constitutional order that prizes personal dignity and autonomy requires individuals be able to make themselves.

In part because Americans rely on Supreme Court rulings to make decisions and plan for the future, overturning a precedent of Roe’s vintage and significance should be done only in exceptional circumstances — meaning, if the decision was egregiously wrong. This was obviously not the case with Roe, which the court had previously reviewed and upheld and which found its basis in the simple concept that a government committed to respecting fundamental liberties must place a high premium on individuals’ prerogative to make the most intimate and personal choices. Nor was Roe outside the mainstream of American values, with polls showing broad popular acceptance of the ruling before the justices eviscerated it.

Even if the justices did not find all of Roe’s reasoning compelling, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. emphasized that the court did not need to go as far as it did. The case before the court involved Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks. The chief justice would have upheld the ban because it still left women “a reasonable opportunity to choose” whether to proceed with their pregnancies. Such a holding would have modified, not obliterated, Roe’s longtime guarantee that pregnant people must be allowed to exercise some degree of free judgment on whether they will carry a child to term. “Surely we should adhere closely to principles of judicial restraint here, where the broader path the Court chooses entails repudiating a constitutional right we have not only previously recognized, but also expressly reaffirmed applying the doctrine of stare decisis,” Justice Roberts wrote. Five justices ignored his pleas, overturning Roe not because the case in front of them demanded it — but because they wanted to.

...

The last victim is the court itself. In a stroke, a heedless majority has done more to undermine the court’s credibility than in any other action it has taken in modern times. Fundamental to its place in American society is the notion that the justices are more than just politicians in robes — that they are committed to conscientiously interpreting the law, with regard to text, tradition, history, logic, judicial restraint and common practice, rather than imposing their political or ideological preferences as quickly and as far as they can. In much of the country, this image will now be shattered. So, too, will be Americans’ expectations that they can count on any court ruling to remain the durable law of the land. We are entering a new era of distrust and volatility in the legal system in a country that needs stability in its governmental institutions, rather than more venom and tumult.

Friday’s ruling was another reminder, for a country that needs no more, that Americans cannot take for granted the freedoms they enjoy. Their decisions, particularly how and whether they vote, can have direct, dramatic and negative consequences for their lives. A decades-long conservative crusade to nullify federal abortion rights has now succeeded, because Senate Republicans underhandedly stacked the court with justices who have proved to be disastrously intemperate. This tragic moment should wake Americans to reality: They must defend their rights, or they are liable to lose them.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s new majority boldly signaled with twin rulings this week that public opinion would not interfere with conservative plans to shift the nation’s legal landscape.

The court rejected Roe v. Wade, a 49-year-old legal precedent that guaranteed the right to an abortion, after a string of national polls showed a clear majority of Americans wanted the opposite result. A similar court majority invalidated a 108-year-old New York state law restricting who can carry concealed guns that is supported by nearly 8 in 10 New Yorkers, according to a recent poll by Siena College.

Rather than ignore the dissonance, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority in the abortion decision, attacked the notion that the court should consider the public will. He quoted late chief justice William H. Rehnquist from a previous ruling: “The Judicial Branch derives its legitimacy, not from following public opinion, but from deciding by its best lights.”

“We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey,” Alito continued in the court’s opinion in the case that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. “And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision.”

The assertion punctuates a shift that has been evident on the high court since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020. The high court during the George W. Bush, Barack Obama and early Donald Trump administrations generally hewed closely to shifting public views on key social issues like same-sex marriage, private sexual conduct, workplace protections for transgender people and popular support for laws and executive orders on immigration and health care.

Maya Sen, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, is one of several academics who have noted the recent shift by studying public polling on issues decided by the high court over the course of more than a decade.

“Up until a couple years ago, it used to be the case that where the court fell was well within the lines of the average Americans’ positions,” Sen said. “Now we are estimating that the court falls more squarely in line with the average Republican, not the average American.”

...

The high court’s decision to divert from popular opinion has also fueled calls to change the structure of the court, either by adding more justices or imposing a rotational schedule to regularly change the court’s makeup. Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the past nine presidential contests — a stretch of more than three decades during which all the present Supreme Court justices were appointed. But Republicans have appointed six of nine current justices.

Former attorney general Eric Holder, an Obama appointee, released a statement Friday calling on reforms to the Supreme Court’s structure “to ensure that the Court serves the interests of the people instead of the interests of an extreme, minority faction.”

“A significant majority of Americans agree that gun safety measures protect the constitutional rights and lives of our people, and that women should have the right to choose,” he wrote. “Yet the Court’s majority — most of whom were nominated by Presidents who lost the popular vote — is forcing through its own particular and peculiar vision of America.”

“The conservatives on the Court are much more conservative than the majority of the American people,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. “These decisions will have a long-lasting effect on the Court’s legitimacy. It is unclear at this point what that will mean.”
...

Barry Friedman, a New York University law professor who wrote “The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution,” has argued that tracking the public mood is a well-worn tradition of the court. Even if individual cases have repeatedly bucked public opinion, he said, “over time in salient cases, the court tends to come into line with public opinion.”

“What has allowed the court to untether itself from public opinion is deep dysfunction in our political system,” he wrote Friday in an email, about the recent shift away from that pattern. “One of the strongest tethers to public opinion is that Congress and the president will discipline the court in some way if it gets too far out of line. There are tools such as jurisdiction stripping, and court packing, and ever since 1937 even the threat of these has had a profound impact on the justices. But these are not credible threats given the electoral makeup of Congress.”

Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:05 pmIs it because the GOP is in its death throes?

Blackhawk wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:21 pm The GOP has two states right now: In power, or able to deny power to anyone else. They can make their changes in waves, then make sure that nothing 'backslides' in between those waves. And it seems that their goal during the waves has been to minimize the 'in between' with the goal of eventually eliminating it.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:34 pm And while many of the actions were not techncally illegal, it was dirty AF pool, at minimum.

Zarathud wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:57 pm After Nixon, the conservatives adopted a strategy to gain political power back and undo the liberal changes. FOX News and a Conservative court all trace their roots to those decisions.

It’s time for Democrats to do the same. Nothing is inevitable. Fight back, and get smarter. It’s time to go on the offensive and plan a long term political counter strategy. Do that rather than burn the place down, or despair.

Women just lost some of their rights. It’s not like Jim Crow and segregation in the Civil Rights Marches. We can make progress again, and it won’t be easy.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:34 pm

Blackhawk wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:21 pm The GOP has two states right now: In power, or able to deny power to anyone else. They can make their changes in waves, then make sure that nothing 'backslides' in between those waves. And it seems that their goal during the waves has been to minimize the 'in between' with the goal of eventually eliminating it.

Nailed it. And while many of the actions were not techncally illegal, it was dirty AF pool, at minimum.

Anyone on the left needs to admit that we lost, and lost badly. We and our elected leaders were so badly outmanuevered that this will be studied as one of the longest running, most cunning political coups in history probably.

ALWAYS coming right up to, testing, and maybe even slightly touching that line of "norms" that had held us marginally together for so long, then only in the late game showing their real hand and crossing it, and crossing it boldly (because they could, and had already won). That's a lot of generalistic mumbo-jumbo, but that's my super macro view.